Initiative 2030
Secret Avengers
In the aftermath of her election to President, Valeria Richards had outlawed unregistered suoerheroes like the Avengers. However, with the X-Men in control of California, Tony Stark was running the West Coast Avengers there. At the same time, Steve was running the Secret Avengers, trying to covertly find evidence to bring down Val.
"Wait," Steve Rogers asked, "we think Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four were thrown into the Negative Zone?"
Rikki Barnes, known as Bucky, nodded. The twenty-something continued, "That's the message Spider-Man got out."
"It makes sense," Steve conceded after a moment. "Richards has had that tech for years... so Val could have turned it against them."
The white clad Moon Knight asked, "Can we use the Negative Zone gates at the Initiative bases to get to them?"
"Breaking into the bases would be a bitch," Rikki pointed out reasonably. Each Initiative team was based in a modern, high tech base with very good security and a small arsenal.
"We could manage," Hawkeye II said calmly. Kate Bishop had taken the role after Clint, even though he had come back from the dead later. She had been his apprentice for awhile, then took over once he disappeared...
"We have our own missions, thought," Mickey Musashi pointed out, the woman in her Turbo armor. She could fly and use air blasts, and her suit was designed to be hard to detect. It was very good for covert ops.
"She's right," Steve conceded.
Red Ronin stayed near Mickey, the redheaded young woman seemingly shy. She was a combat cyborg called Namie, who had apparently been built to capture superhumans. "What's the mission, sir?" she asked.
"Prison break," Moon Knight said, having scouted the target earlier. "The Raft."
"You can't bust into the Raft," Hawkeye blinked.
"Well, you can," Steve corrected, "but it's not easy. It's why we need Red Ronin along."
"Oh?" Mickey asked flatly.
"We have a plan," Steve reassured her.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
The Raft, once, was the most high tech holding facility for supervillains. But sadly, if was vulnerable to electrical attack, and the villain Electro successfully popped the place open. He let over a hundred villains free, and destroyed the reputation of the facility.
In the years after the artificial island just off New York was used as a holding facility, given to the Superior Spider-man as a base, and so on. Now, Ironically, it was back as a prison... but for heroes. People opposed to the registration act, but considered 'c or d listers' were held there until a decision was made what to do with them.
Moon Knight dropped down onto the deck, his glider wings letting him land safely. His costume was replaced with a totally black outfit as he stalked across the deck. Behind him Red Ronin followed, also in black, moving nearly silently. He disabled a few guards he came across, then reached the main hatch.
"Ronin?" Knight asked softly.
Red Ronin extended a USB-like attachment from her wrist then plugged in. "Wow this system is dumb...," she murmured.
"It's a trap?" Moon Knight asked warily.
"I don't think so," Red Ronin shook her head. "I don't think they believed they needed to upgrade it."
"Hmm," Moon Knight grunted.
A few moments later Red Ronin announced, "Sensors down, air defense is down. However, we need to go deeper into the facility to open the cells."
"What we expected," Moon Knight agreed. He activated his communicator, "Coast is clear, move in when ready."
Above them the Quinjet appeared from stealth mode, then landed on the deck. At the same time Turbo flew down under her own power, her sleek armor allowing her to fly fast and quietly.
Captain America emerged first, then Hawkeye and Bucky. They were just going in with six members... if it WAS a trap, a small group could escape quickly. Also, less folks in the jet meant they could carry out injured better.
"Moonie took out the guards? Oh poo," Hawkeye quipped as she held an arrow at the bowstring, ready to draw and fire.
"Emergency exit hatch is over there," Moon Knight ignored her quip as he pointed it out.
"You take point," Cap ordered as they headed down into the base.
The group went down one floor, then another. Layers of armor plate made each level deeper, and cut off communication to the surface. They would be on their own, though that was something they were all ready for.
"So all the cells are way below the waterline?" Turbo asked. "Isn't that unsafe?"
"I think they consider that a bonus," Moon Knight said darkly, "if there was a breakout, they could just flood the place."
"That's horrible," Red Ronin muttered.
"I can't see Richards actually doing that," Cap answered calmly as they crossed another floor, then found the next set of stairs down. They didn't dare use the elevators, it would be too easy to be trapped in them.
"But would her underlings like Stane or Gyrich do it?" Moon Knight asked flatly.
Tellingly, Cap didn't answer.
"We're coming up to the guard's barracks. If they're going to hit us, it'll probably be here," Moon Knight observed.
"Be ready," Cap cautioned as they advanced.
They opened the door, then rushed in... just as flood lights activated, nearly blinding them. "About time, Captain," a calm voice noted.
An array of figures stood in battle armor, clearly waiting for them. There were a couple Iron Patriots, a few Maulers, some Scarlet Spiders and Beatles. In front was a huge, muscular man with a mask with a skull on it.
"Crossbones," Bucky muttered.
"We figured you'd hit here after you hit Dreamland," Crossbones continued cheerfully, "so we just waited."
"Moon Knight, Hawkeye, Bucky, go! I'll take Crossbones! Everyone else, drop them!" Captain America ordered.
On cue Moon Knight and Bucky tossed what looked like grenades, while Hawkeye fired off modified arrows.
"Grenades? Really?" one Mauler armor scoffed just bwfore they detonated, firing off a burst of energy. Without warning, most of the armors just collapsed.
"What the hell?" Crossbones yelped as he traded blows with Cap.
"Elecromagnetic Pulse," Cap explained calmly. "Once we realized Richards was using armored suits a great deal, Tony designed them."
As Cap drove Crossbones back, the other avengers rushed forward to disable the suits before they could recover. Thankfully Turbo and Red Ronin had hung back, and only were lightly affected.
"Ooof!" Crossbones grunted as a blunt 'stun' arrow took him in the head.
"Hey! I had him!" Cap complained.
"We have to get the prisoners out, sir. Fun later," Hawkeye pointed.
"Ah, right," Captain America looked slightly sheepish.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"So you opened all the cells, revived everyone then evacuated the island?" Tony Stark asked later as the team leaders met.
"Yes. We evacuated the injured via teleport and the Jet," Steve agreed. "The healthy heroes scattered, they'll be picked up by our Underground Railroad."
Captain Marvel, aka Carol Danvers, was basically running the Railroad, along with leading A-Force. "Anyone who wants to, at least," she corrected, "I suspect a bunch are going to be pissed and go after some of Richards' forces."
"Not much we can do to stop them," Tony sighed.
Steve, honestly, wanted to save them all, but even he knew it was impractical. "Did Red Ronin get any useful data from the Raft's computers?" he asked Tony, having handed the files over to him.
"Some, mostly confirmation of things we suspected," Tony admitted, "some missing heroes are actually de-powered, interestingly enough. And Stane was taking people out of prison to study and try to replicate their powers."
"Let's hope busting up the Raft heads that off," Steve frowned.
"We should release as much of the information as we can online," Carol noted. She added, "Yes, I know it'll be denounced as a conspiracy theory. But some folks will believe it."
"Already posted," Tony admitted.
"Bet you Stane sees it and blows a fuse," Carol teased a bit tiredly.
Steve chuckled, "No, not taking that bet..."
To be continued...
Notes: A-Force was a short lived series were various female Avengers teamed up for no well written reason. Despite that I did like the idea, and might fanfic it at some point.
I'm pretty much ignoring most 'event' comics and stuff that turned up after I first started this story. So no 'Nazi Captain America' from Secret Empire, and the recent 'Tony Stark actually died, and now he's a AI running a replica of his body' plotline.
