"Okay." Coulson said. If what Hela was hearing from this Mister Gold was right, they needed to figure a way to get into the HUB quickly and hopefully without getting anyone else injured or trapped in a lengthy nap. "Fitz, Jemma get to work, see if you can rig up some sort of device sturdier than the dwarf to try to get liquid nitrogen on that thing. Trying to freeze those things enough to clear a path in seems like the best option."
"Right." Fitz nodded. "It would help if we knew if those vines could be sentient, though. If they are, and might start trying to fight back more actively than what they did when we tried to take our sample we could have a problem."
"What about that tree?" Leah suggested. "What was his name?"
"The one who helped that funny raccoon cause all of the trouble in the marketplace?" Hildy said. "And then tried to take Lord Heimdell's sword? Isn't his name Groot? I think that's what Lord Heimdell called him when he said that between him and the raccoon they almost caused as much trouble as my brothers."
"That's him." Hela paused after speaking, thinking about Leah and Hildy's suggestion, debating danger verses benefits of bringing the tree in question into the situation.
"You know a tree that's alive?" Skye asked before Hela could consider the issue further. "I mean alive in a way that I hope trees on this planet aren't alive, or my ex boyfriend is going to be in way bigger trouble from the foliage than he is with Shield. And don't ask why, you don't want to know."
"Groot's an alien. Although I believe his physiology would be close enough to be considered a sentient tree on this planet, yes." Hela told her. She frowned, considering things. "It's possible he could be of assistance. I have never heard that he has the ability to communicate with planet life but then again I have never heard anything saying differently. Even if he couldn't communicate with the vines, though, he would likely be immune to any toxin they contain and might be able to approach the vines in a way that a human could not safely. The issue would be with finding him, and the the company he keeps."
"What sort of company?" Coulson asked. Had he heard the little girl say something about a raccoon?
"There's Peter Quill, although I believe your planet is responsible for him, so possibly he could be handled here. His friend Rocket is a bit of a different story, though."
"He's a raccoon." Hildy informed them.
"And shall we say he has a bit of a problem respecting the rights of others to keep custody of their own property." Hela continued.
"That doesn't sound very different from raccoons on this planet." Skye said. "Wait, are raccoons all aliens?"
"I believe it's just Rocket. I hope it's just Rocket." Hela said. "Groot might be a possible option, although I would prefer to try other options first since finding him might pose more than a bit of a problem, especially if we have a possible time constraint."
"Okay, so if we can't come up with anything else, we're going to have to hunt down a tree and a raccoon." Coulson said. And why was he feeling a bit of concern about that raccoon? And then there was the possible time constraint. With no idea how long that could possibly be…. "Wait. Can you see if you can go ahead and see about locating this Groot? If there's a chance we have some sort of limit on how long we have to get everyone out safely and reverse this, we should probably be trying multiple options for gaining access at once."
"My friend Anelle's wife might have a way to locate him." Hela told them after a moment's thought. "As soon as Ikol returns from delivering my message to Grandmother, I can send another message to Anelle to see if she can offer any assistance. Her people owe a great debt to Director Fury so any assistance they can render will be happily given, I'm sure."
"Okay, so we're going to get someone looking for the talking tree. Fitz, you and Jemma get to work on trying to come up with something more substantial than the dwarf that we can try to use to apply liquid nitrogen and freeze a path in to the building. Anyone else have any suggestions?" Coulson asked.
"What about digging?" Skye suggested. Would it be possible to dig down and uproot some of the vines to get a way in?"
"The issue would be the depth of the roots." Hela said. "I don't believe anyone has ever studied how deep roots on plants like these go." Fenrir would be more than willing to help with that, though."
"Okay, so three possible ways to get us in. Let's focus on that for now. Coulson said. Although if they got in, there was still the issue of what would need to be done to wake Victoria and the others up. But he had no clue how they were going to arrange True Love's Kiss so he firmly ordered himself to focus on the things that were slightly in his control. "Three possible ways. Surely one of them will work or will give us a better clue of what might work. Let's go, people!"