Disclaimer: Avengers, Hunger Games, and all other elements belong to their relevant owners; I merely borrow them to write this story

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Falling Hope, Rising Threat

As another needle was plunged into his arm, Bellamy fought down the urge to voice his agony; he still didn't understand what exactly Doctor Tsing was looking for, but if she was doing this out of some twisted sense of sadistic pleasure, he wasn't going to give her anything. Glancing around the lab, he supposed that he could at least appreciate that they'd cleared out whatever was left of the bodies of his past 'cellmates' before they started on him now, but when these pricks were literally cutting his arm with a scalpel…

"Subject does not show any signs of healing injury, unlike injuries noted before exposed to the gas from the shattered crystals," Tsing noted in a casually curious tone that made it impossible for Bellamy to feel any sense of gratitude for her. "Could be the process resets the body to a default setting, to be primed for some purpose…"

"We could break the spy's legs, see if he heals from that," one of the guards sneered, only to see her glare directed at him. "Sorry, ma'am."

"Why do you care?" Bellamy glared back at Tsing; if they'd left him the ability to talk, he was going to assume that she didn't mind if he responded to whatever they were saying about him. "You didn't care about my wellbeing earlier. What changed?"

"I have a vested interest in my own survival," the doctor said, coldly detached. "For reasons unknown, the Asgardian cares about you, and if she were to come upon you in my care in a significantly damaged condition, her emotional state could have her lash out at me before thinking."

"As Asgardian? Why would Thor care about-?" Bellamy stopped himself as he caught what Tsing had said. "Her? Who's her?"

"Loki's daughter. You must be her lover; why else would she state you are the only one she cares about?" Tsing responded, only to pause as she took in Bellamy's confused expression. "And yet you have no idea what I am talking about, do you?"

Bellamy suddenly had no idea how he should respond. The honest answer was obviously that he'd never even been to Asgard and certainly had no idea why anyone from Thor's homeworld (or whatever Asgard was) would be interested in him, but at the same time, he didn't exactly want to give away that he had no idea what these people were talking about…

"Open the door!" a voice called from outside the lab, saving Bellamy from having to answer a question he didn't understand.

"Jefferson?" one of the guards said, looking at the door in surprise. "What is it?"

"See for yourself," the voice on the other side said. One of the guards opened the door to reveal three new guards outside the room, one of them in the lead while the other two were holding a young woman between them.

"Is that all that managed to survive?" Tsing asked.

"Did you really expect more?" the man who was apparently Jefferson countered.

"I hoped for more test subjects to understand why so few actually survive the gas." Tsing stated, before she shook her head in resignation. "It is what it is. Place her on the opposite table. I'm actually looking forward to dissection with this one. A savage that doesn't matter."

The guards had only just moved forward to take hold of the prisoner when the restraints around her arms shattered, leaving her to grab the guns of the two nearest guards and freeze them solid. Before anyone else could react, two large shared of ice had formed in the prisoner's hands and she hurled them at the other two guards in the back, piercing their shoulders as the sheer cold forced them to their knees.

"Really?" the prisoner said, raising her head with a bitter edge to her voice. "You're a doctor? Whatever happened to that 'do no harm' thing Clarke's always trying to make a big thing about?"

"O?" Bellamy stared incredulously at the sight of his sister standing in the middle of the room, wearing the clothing of a grounder. He'd probably think about wondering what she was thinking pulling a stunt like this, even if it was to rescue him. There were two things about his sister he couldn't stop staring at: her normally green eyes were now a dark shade of red, and in her right hand, Octavia created a dagger made of ice. A quick glance around confirmed that Tsing was also shocked, but this seemed to be more because the remaining guards around Octavia were pointing their own guns at Tsing's group.

Unfortunately, whatever moment of shock Tsing had felt at this turn of events wasn't enough to stop her holding a scalpel to Bellamy's throat and glaring disdainfully at the new group of guards.

"May I ask what prompted this particular choice, Sergeant Jefferson?" the doctor asked coolly.

"Let's just say that we aren't comfortable being as morally bankrupt and unethical as you and Cage, Dr. Tsing," the guard who was apparently named Jefferson replied.

"My actions have been absolutely justified in the name of preserving civilized society to the horrors outside of the mountain," Tsing returned, a small tremble in her voice; clearly this wasn't a scenario she ever expected to find herself facing. "You know what we have endured; what countless generations-"

A frozen dagger flew right past Tsing's head, impeding itself into the wall.

"I'm sorry, but I'm not interested in your back story," Octavia replied, and Bellamy watched as his little sister formed another ice dagger in her hand. "Nor am I interested at the moment in debating who had the moral high ground. You have my brother. Release him or I will kill you. It's that simple."

"No."

"Excuse me?" Octavia raised an eyebrow at the doctor.

"No," Tsing repeated. "Actually, I think you're going to kill those guards on your side of the room."

"And why should I do that?"

"Because if you don't, I will slit your brother's throat."

"And then I'll stab you in the head-"

"And you'll have failed to save your brother, which I doubt you'll be able to live with causing yourself after your last little riot."

"You know what my father was capable of, and you're trying to blackmail me?"

"And I'm expected to believe that reports of your reaction to believing this man was dead was just an exaggeration?"

Bellamy didn't understand why his sister was going along with this whole Loki's daughter thing- when they had played Avengers in the past, she had always preferred Black Widow or Iron Man- but at the moment, after everything they'd been through since coming to Earth, he just wanted to be able to actually do something to stop what they'd been up against… he wanted to feel like he was able to do something rather than just scrambling to stay in one place…

He didn't even realise what was happening before fire erupted from inside his body, burning through his restraints before it practically leapt onto Doctor Tsing as she brandished the blade at his neck. The doctor screamed in pain as the fires reached her face and she let go of the scalpel, dropping to the ground and rolling in effort to smother it.

"What the-?" one of the guards said.

"Lower your weapons!" Octavia yelled urgently as she glanced around at the rest of her guards, who had all turned their weapons to point at Bellamy. As she watched, her previously-captured brother lowered his arms and the flames receded, his clothes with smouldering holes all over and faint burns visible under his sleeves. Bellamy rolled up his sleeves to reveal that the burns were fading even as the guards and Octavia watched, before he turned to look uncertainly at Octavia.

"O…?" he began, before Octavia walked up to him and wrapped her arms around him, a reassuring smile on her face.

"I'm glad you're OK," she said as she stepped back to look properly at her brother, before indicating the last fading few burns on his hands. "But that doesn't mean I don't have a few questions about when you became a living bonfire."

"I could ask you the same thing about when you turned into a walking freezer," Bellamy responded, looking at his sister with a curious half-smile. "You couldn't do that before. Was that something Thor taught you up in Asgard?"

"That's a long and complicated story, one I want to tell you but definitely shouldn't be in a mad scientist's lab."

"Yeah, it has to be better than the bullshit the doctor was saying about you being Loki's daughter," Bellamy said with a laugh, only for that laugh to quickly die down when he took in the expression on not only her face, but that of the guards that were on their side.

"You can't…?" he began tentatively. "I mean, that isn't... how does that even...?"

"Like I said, it's complicated and something I'd rather talk about out of here," Octavia stated.

Whatever else she would have said was cut off by the unstable laughter they heard from the back of the room. Turning to look at the source, the Blakes and their assembled guards realised that Tsing was now standing, one arm badly burned and the same side of her face horribly twisted to the extent that one eye seemed basically blind, but she was still standing.

"Murderers all over…" the woman glared at the Blakes. "Just like your father…"

"First of all, Loki's only my dad," Octavia glared as held up a hand, ready to generate ice a moment notice. "And secondly, start trying to insult us when you actually have the moral high ground, you bitch."

"Loki killed civilised people; I only ever killed those who are too primitive-"

"Doctor, you're in no shape for an ethical debate right now," Jefferson cut her off. "We can get you medical attention; you just have to surrender to the Avengers-"

"Surrender?" the doctor countered, a manic gleam in her eyes as she got back to her feet. "And why should I want help? To remain as primitive as you and your new 'allies'? Strength is required to evolve, and if we are going to survive and conquer the outside world, we need to evolve…"

"To hell with this," a guard muttered, raising his gun towards the woman, only to halt as he realised what the doctor had gathered into her hands during her brief period on the floor.

"Mr. Blake has shown that those who survive the crystal's test will emerge a new form of humanity, infinitely better than the rest," Tsing said, making her way to a console and rapidly typing with her uninured hand, holding the crystals with the other as a subtle threat against any potential attacks; most of those in the room knew that one shattered crystal would release the gas, and Octavia had seen enough to realise that doing more would be a bad move. "A shame I couldn't isolate what makes him so special, to make the survival rate higher... but those that survive will make up the difference in quantity with quality."

"What are you talking about?" Octavia asked, generating ice in her palms.

"Decades ago, a failsafe was installed throughout Mount Weather," Tsing explained as she finished typing. "If we were ever to be overtaken by hostile forces, we would insure that our conquerors wouldn't live to enjoy their victory."

The mood in the room had become very quiet and subdued. Jefferson was already motioning to his men to slowly pull back out of the room while he kept a gun on Tsing.

"Shut it down," the guard said bluntly.

"The commands have already been executed," Tsing replied, a mad smile on her lips. "Even if I wanted to, I can't stop the process. Within the hour the crystals inside the containers throughout the mountain will be destroyed. The released gas will then be pumped through the ventilation system. I'd estimate less ten percent of the people within the mountain will survive exposure but those that do will inherit this world."

"You're insane," Octavia breathed. Every action she had seen the doctor take since she walked into the room just proved that.

"I'm far from insane," Tsing said, standing up right, holding the crystals in both hands over head. "I am the future."

With those grim words, she threw the crystals to the ground, gas erupting from the shining rocks as soon as they hit the ground. Octavia thrust out one hand to erect a wall of ice between her allies and Tsing's side of the room, but even as the ice rose up to divide the room she could see how Tsing's skin was calcifying and turning to rock, along with the two of her guards still on Tsing's side of the ice wall. Octavia's face twisted uncomfortably at the notion of what she was doing, but she shook her head and forced that thought down; there was literally nothing else should do but protect her allies right now.

"Please tell me that gas is contained," one of the guards said.

"If you aren't turning to stone now, I think we're fine," Bellamy replied. "I have personal experience with this."

"Makes me wonder about that Grounder that survived. Is she going to have powers or are you the exception to the rule?" Jefferson mused.

"Someone else survived?" Bellamy asked.

"A girl named Echo. I'm actually wearing her clothes. Couldn't just walk in here with my armor and pull off our sneak attack," Octavia responded.

"You have armor?"

"Before you continue on with this reunion, may I remind you of our ticking time bomb, thanks to the late doctor," Jefferson began before turning his attention to the two guards Tsing had that weren't on the other side of the door. His men had their guns on them. "I hope you both understand how dire things are. So you can either help or we can restrain you and leave you here. Your choice."

The two men looked over each other before nodding, one of them taking a hard drive out of his pocket and holding it out to Octavia.

"The doctor was using this to store her data off the main system; she'd plug it in and update it when she had to work and leave it with someone else when she wasn't using it so somebody else couldn't get at her research," the man explained. "She said she'd found the solution to letting us all go outside…"

"We're exploring alternatives," Octavia cut in, looking coolly at the guards. "But if you think you can still use people as cattle… well, Mockingjay and the Falcon are going to have words with your people, and that's before you start worrying about what She-Hulk or Bloodaxe will do to you."

Octavia winced and shook her head. "That came out wrong; the Avengers are going to be angry at the people who took part in these experiments… but if you help us now, we will help you in return if we can."

"And we… well, I'm sure we'll be able to use this," Bellamy confirmed, taking the hard drive from the guard before passing it on to his sister. "You'd better take this; you're the official Avenger, after all."

"Thanks," Octavia smiled back at him, slipping the drive into a pocket on the inside of her coat as Tsing's former guards nodded at her in tentative acceptance.

"OK," Bellamy said, shooting a curious look at his sister, "not meaning to sound negative after we got that extra bit of data, but this still doesn't solve the problem of stopping those gas bombs she mentioned going off all over the mountain."

"Which is why we're going to need to call in our technical expert," Octavia said, raising her left hand to her ear. "Hey, Iron Man? You may want to update Raven that things just got complicated in here."