They crash landed on the hall outside the observation room. Bucky gasped, trying to draw breath into his lungs as he pushed Aristelle off his chest. Pain shot through his arm as heat swelled in his elbow.
"You couldn't have aimed for somewhere a little farther away?" Bucky rasped, pushing himself up. The strobing emergency lights were disorienting, and he stumbled slightly before getting his bearings.
Aristelle panted, putting a hand up against the wall to steady herself as she cradled her ribs. "There are still too many people here. We need to get them out of here and keep her busy as long as possible."
Bucky glanced back towards the observation room door. The horrible keening whine of stressing metal filled the hall. The corners of the metal door pulled in, and it folded in on itself.
"Fuck telekinesis," Aristelle grunted, reaching out for Bucky.
"Hey!"
Bucky turned to see Sam appear at the end of the hallway, the silhouette of wings cut the strobe of the emergency lights, casting a grotesque shadow across the floor. With in the breath of a second, they went from dozens of yards away to stumbling onto the tile in front of him.
"We need to get out of here," Bucky said, pushing his friend back. "We need to get out of here and we need to evacuate this building fast."
"What's going on?" Rhodey asked, appearing in the stairwell behind them.
"Exactly what I told you would happen," Aristelle rasped.
They all looked back towards the observation room door. Shadows, black as ink, oozed out of through doorways, thick and opaque as magma. And like magma, everything it touched dissolved within it.
"That doesn't look good," Sam said, backing up.
"It's not," Aristelle sighed, stepping away from Bucky before straightening her shirt and squaring her shoulders. "You guys get as many people out of here as you can manage. I'll hold her off for as long as I can manage."
"I will come with you!" Bucky said, stepping forward.
"No." Aristelle set her hand against his chest. The finger nail on her ring finger was ripped and bleeding. "The ties on an immortal soul are much harder to sever, and she's not properly equipped for that right now."
"How much time do you think we have?" Rhodey asked.
"Well," Aristelle glanced back towards the creeping shadows. "As long as she doesn't start deploying demons we probably have about-" An inhuman screech split the air, raising the hair on Bucky's arms. "Yeah. We don't have a lot of time. Go. Now. Those things will be right behind you."
The men bolted for the stairs. Bucky glanced back as he reached out to grasp the side rail at the base of the stairs. Aristelle moved towards the writhing shadows, her step heavy and uneven. A massive, wretched form rocketed through the door frame and slammed into the opposite wall, sending an explosion of splinters across the small space. Aristelle flung a hand out to the side, and a length of sword materialized in her palm. The blade threw a savage glint in the flash of the emergency lights. She brought the weapon up in one long smooth arch as the creature leapt towards her, slicing it in two.
She looked back over her shoulder at Bucky. "Go."
His muscles seized and shifted, propelling him up the stairs behind Sam. He knew she had pressed her influence on him, but he dug into every extra ounce of motivation his body had been given, hurtling himself up the stairs, catching Sam easily.
"We evacuated all non-essential, non-militant employees after we left you earlier. When the cage fell we removed all but special forces. We are running on a bare bones crew."
"Get rid of them all," Bucky said, legs burning as they burst out into a hallway. He thought about Miranda, how she brought down Aristelle without a second thought. "We aren't prepared for this. It will be a slaughter."
Sam glanced back at Rhodey.
"I'm not appreciating everyone using that word," Rhodey growled.
"It's an accurate description," Bucky turned on him, forcing Rhodey to skid to a stop in order to keep from colliding with him. "You weren't there when she woke up. You didn't see what she did. That thing down there is not our Miranda. Aristelle is doing what she can to hold her off, but she is in no shape to take her on alone."
"So what?" Rhodey snapped back. "You just left her down there?"
"Right now she's the only one that is going to be able to slow her down. And that's all it's going to be. Slowing her down. We can't stop her. Not right now."
Something wretched screamed. It's voice echoed through the stairwell, dredging up an unrelenting instinct to run. The tang of fear soured his mouth. They all turned to look back as the sound of something sharp scraping metal grated over their skin. A long, black, clawed hand flung out through the threshold. The claws curled in, digging into the floor. A creature built of nightmares and darkness pulled itself from the bellows of the stairwell. Everything about it was just...wrong. The way it moved. The way it looked.
The sight of it caught Sam and Rhodey off guard, but Bucky was spurred into motion at its appearance. He reached to his thigh for his knife, cursing to find it empty. He had thrown it at Miranda. Fool.
Something whistled past his shoulder, burying itself into the monster. It reared back screaming.
"Cover your ears!" Clint yelled from behind them.
The arrow exploded. The cacophony pressed in around them. Despite clamping his hands over his ears, the sound was still dizzying. Clint came up beside them, another arrow drawn and notched, but the creature did not move.
"There will be more," Bucky said, reaching towards Clint's quiver and pulling free the sword tucked against its barrel. "Sam. Rhodey. Go get geared up and get the building clear. Clint and I will hold these things off as long as we can and seal off the exits. Once everyone is clear, we bring the building down."
"Bring it down?" Rhodey questioned.
"It results in the most destruction," Clint said, launching another explosive arrow into the threshold of the stairway, bringing it crumbling down. "These things aren't going down without a fight."
Rhodey let out a growl of frustration. "Fine. At least I will have a few moments of glory before I lose my job."
And then they were gone, disappearing down the hall and out of sight. Monsters howled, clawing from the otherside of the rubble, digging desperately for freedom. For a moment, Clint and Bucky simply stared at them.
"What about your little blonde friend?"
"She can teleport." Bucky said, turning away. "She'll be fine."
"Yeah," Clint said, following after him. "However, you did sort of ditch her down there with death itself."
"I left her with her sister," Bucky corrected. "And she told me to go."
"So you say."
Bucky turned on Clint, but he was smiling.
"I'm not really sure how you can joke at a time like this," Bucky snarled. "We could literally be looking at the end of the world."
"I've seen what the end of the world looks like. I'm not keen on going through that again." Clint said. "My humor is the only link to my sanity right now. Let me have this."
"I think our best bet is to seal off any unnecessary hallways and herd them in towards the center of the building. Then we run like hell out of here."
Sealing off hallways proved to be extraordinarily difficult. It took less than twenty minutes for them to realize that they were walking through halls that were little better than a labrinth, and neither of them held any clue of the map. What followed was a mad scramble of wrong turns and desperate escapes.
"This way," Bucky heaved himself up a flight of stairs. "This has to be it."
He was bruised and bleeding. His limbs carried the oozing cuts of far too many close encounters with the monsters. Clint groaned, tightening the hold of the arm over Bucky's shoulders. He had taken a direct hit from a set of dagger-like claws. While painful, it did not look to be extraordinarily deep.
Much to his relief, they broke out into the front lobby. Sunlight warmed their skin as they launched themselves towards the front doors.
"Clint!" Sam rushed forward, relieving Bucky of his weight. "I was just about to head back in there for you two."
"Go," Bucky heaved, bending over, hands on his knees as he fought to catch his breath. "Go. I will finish this."
Sam opened his mouth to protest just as Clint curled in, wracked with a wave of pain and nausea.
"Get him out of here," Bucky commanded. "I've got this."
"And how exactly are you planning to bring that building down?"
"It's a military hideout. There will be explosives in that building. I would bet my life on it."
"Well you kind of are."
Bucky leveled Sam with the most vehement glare that he could muster. But the Sam simply deployed his wings, the great metal structures casting out their massive span, and then he was launching into the air. Bucky watched them disappear into the glare of the afternoon sun, before slowly turning back towards the structure.
It had been built into the rock of the mountain side. Bringing down the mountain and the structure was as good as done. He drew in a breath, gathering himself. The air before the front doors shimmered slightly, before it stretched and pulled itself apart. Aristelle fell through the casym, hitting the ground hard and scrambling across the gravel in an attempt to pull herself to her feet.
Bruises smudged her skin like dirt. Blood ran from a split in her lips and her knuckles were a mess. Bucky rushed forwards toward her. Before the tear of her entrance could heal itself, another figure stepped free of the void.
Miranda.
Her skin was not as perfect and untouched as it had been when he had last stood before her. From the looks of it, the fight between the sisters had been brutal. And while Aristelle looked far worse for wear, she had landed her fair share of blows. Miranda swiped a clenched fist over her lower lip, smearing a streak of black blood.
"What are you doing?" Aristelle rasped, finally managing to her feet just as Bucky reached her. "Get out of here before she kills you."
"She had the opportunity to do it before and she didn't," Bucky said, steadying her. "I'll take my chances."
"You are doing yourself no favors by attaching yourself to her," Miranda snarled. "She knows nothing but betrayal."
"Betrayal," Bucky scoffed. "If anyone here should feel betrayed, it would be me."
"I cannot help that you are little more than a love sick puppy," Miranda laughed, pulling up the hem of her shirt to swipe the blood from her face.
Aristelle launched herself at her sister, shoving Bucky back as she propelled herself away from him. He staggered back a few steps before hurtling after her.
He understood now why Miranda had pushed him so hard when they had trained, pressuring him to allow his mind back into that "Winter Soldier" mindset. She had wanted him ruthless, acting without consequence. She had been preparing him for this.
Because she was extraordinary.
It did not matter that it was two against one. It did not matter that he was an enhanced assassin nor that his ally was the daughter of a god. She did not allow them a straight blow, only glancing hits. She was terribly quick, always ready to dodge or block the next blow no matter the direction it hailed from.
Miranda knocked Aristelle back, the blow heavy enough that Bucky heard the crunch of bone. Aristelle went down hard. Bucky pressed in, not giving Miranda the chance to turn on him. His metal arm pulled back and he threw every ounce of force he could into its momentum.
But she was faster.
She caught his hand, the force of the blow grated her soles across the surface of the gravel. She gritted fanged teeth and pushed against him. Bucky tried to pull his fist back, but her grip held fast. She reached towards him and pressed one hand over the seam where metal met flesh. His blood went cold when he realized what she was attempting to do.
"No!" He roared, striking at her shoulder, her ear, her temple, drawing blood. But it was all too little too late.
Panic flared and his body reacted by trying to savagely wrench his fist back from her. But each attempt did nothing but further her intentions. Pain flared as the connections were stretched and shorted. His lungs pulled tight and he gasped for breath. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. The horrible, gut-wrenching sound of metal tearing evacuated every thought from his mind. His left shoulder felt like it had been lit on fire, and his knees buckled. He barely even registered the pain in his knee caps as they struck the cement.
He could hear Aristelle screaming for him. Black smudged the edges of his vision. Miranda stood over him, his arm sparking in her grip. The wrongness of seeing the metal glinting between her fingers, the limb separated from his body, arose a horrible numbness across his body. Her face was devoid of any emotion. He was little more than a nuisance to her now. He could just make out Aristelle pulling herself to her feet. Blood was smeared over her mouth and across her cheek. The line of her nose was crooked, a bruise already darkening the skin there. She launched herself at Miranda, but Miranda was ready for her.
She whirled, swinging Bucky's dismembered arm like a bat, striking her hard again across the face. This time, when Aristelle went down, she stayed down.
Bucky tried to push himself up, but the world rushed around him and he vomited onto the pavement. Shouts rose, echoed by the sound of boots. Soldiers. Miranda turned towards them, slow and graceful, a predator shifting targets.
"No." But the word was barely a whisper. Bucky gasped as he reached out his hand, trying to pull himself toward her.
He could only watch as she lifted her hand toward the unit that had gathered in a semi circle around her, guns raised, trigger fingers readied. Smoke swirled around her blackened fingertips. The air shifted as her fingers curled into a fist, grating against Bucky's skin. Something inside him quaked, beating against its cage in an attempt to answer her call.
One by one the bodies of the soldiers drew tight.
She jerked her hand back. As if they were barely more than appliances with their plugs pulled, the men went limp and crumpled. The sound of their bodies hitting the cement was sickening and final.
He did not even attempt to move towards them. They would be dead.
Bucky gasped, pushing himself upright. Black consumed his vision. "Where will you go?"
She glanced back over her shoulder at him. Her smile was sharp. And then she rose up into the air and out of sight.