CHAPTER 3
February 13th 2015. Location: Chicago Port, Calumet River, Chicago
Greer moved stealthily towards a nondescript 3 storey warehouse on the edge of one of the piers. She reminded herself that she had to leave at least one of them alive so she could find out if they knew of any other Hydra bases. Greer pulled the mask of her "supersuit" across her face, it wasn't sitting quite right. It was a bright yellow all in one catsuit with a black facemask and a black material belt tied around the waist.
The best way to get in undetected was through the door at the top of the fire escape. That way, she would have a vantage point down into the warehouse. Greer pounced up and grabbed the edge of the metal deck. She pulled herself up onto it and leapt up onto the railing above. She dashed up the last flight of stairs and she was at the top. She stopped and crouched down to listen intently up against the door. Hearing no signs of life, she slowly pried open the door and snuck onto the metal studded floor.
On this floor of the warehouse was a single office in which she could see a dark-haired man standing with his back to a desk. She could tell he had his arms crossed even with his back to them from the way that his red jacket was stretched across his back.
"Donalbain" Greer growled, her feral side coming to the fore.
A bald man in a black leather jacket and jeans came up the metal stairs, almost catching Greer staring at Donalbain. He strode across the matching metal landing and into the office as Greer hid around the nearest corner. Greer watched as he talked to Donalbain inside the office.
The bald man emerged from the office a mere few minutes later with Greer none-the-wiser about what was said inside. The hatred and anger towards Donalbain had clearly been building up inside Greer as she would no longer contain her animalistic urge to take him down. She bounded towards the bald man as her claws sprung from her paw. She stabbed the man in the middle of his back, swiping her other hand over his mouth to muffle his cry. Despite having been stabbed into his chest, the man managed to unholster his gun. Greer pulled her claws from his chest and knocked the gun from his hand with a swift kick. The gun went flying forwards onto the metal decking but not before a shot had been fired from it. She had been given away. Greer swiped at the man's feet and knocked him down to the metal deck with a thud. He lay with a hand across his chest and breathed his last breath. Greer looked into the office to her left to see Donalbain had vanished. She let out an involuntary angry yell, as if the gunshot hadn't been enough of an alert to any nearby guards.
Five guards ran up the stairs, firing a few bullets as they did. Greer jumped into action, vaulting across at the guard second from the back. She landed on the railing in front of him and kicked him square in the gut. He went careering back down the narrow metal stairs, knocking another guard over the railing as he did. The falling guard grabbed his colleague's sleeve and both went tumbling to the warehouse floor three storeys below. As they were stumbling back, Greer had swung round and stabbed the guard in front of her in the arm, pulling him towards her as another guard, with slow reactions, shot at her, instead hitting the guard Greer was using as a S.H.I.E.L.D.. Greer discarded him onto the stairs. She lunged at the other guard his all claws out, using them to pierce his stomach. Four down, one to go.
Greer slowly, smugly approached this guard. He was taking cover behind some large wooden crates. It seems like she'd scared him a little. He would break easily under torture, although it would be more what he deserved to just kill him outright, she thought. No, she had to get that information out of him. She was about to pounce when she heard a gunshot, Greer dropped to the floor just in time as a bullet to whizzed past her head. She had missed a guard, he must've been late to the party. Greer effortlessly backflipped over onto his shoulders and plunged her claws into his upper chest, piercing his left lung through his ribcage. The guard yelled and grabbed her left leg but he was breathless and dropped to his knees. The unexpected fight had given the other guard the opportunity to line up a shot and as she fell deftly to the floor, the last remaining guard fired a bullet that hit Greer just above her waist. It hurt like hell but the bullet had embedded in her and was keeping the blood at bay. The guard fired off a few panicked shots but Greer easily dodged them all despite her pain. Greer was quickly face to face with the guard and swiped his gun off of him. She brought him to his knees with a loud thud against the metal deck with a simple sweep of her leg.
"So you work for Donalbain?" Greer growled "How is he involved with Hydra?"
"Listen kitty, do you really think I'd give up so easily?" snarked the Hydra agent.
"Well I think you're a tiny little pawn in an organisation that won't care what I do to you. Loyalty should go two ways, don't you think?"
"You can say whatever you want, I'm not telling you anything" came the man's brave response.
Greer sighed "I really wanted to avoid doing this the hard way."
She leaned into his ear to whisper "or did I?"
Greer laughed as she retracted the claw of her index finger and ran it lightly under the man's chin. She then lifted his chin slightly with her claw before jamming the claws on her other hand into his upper left thigh. The man cried out in agony.
"Oh, don't worry, no one will hear you. And you won't bleed out until I'm done with you. That's plenty of time to tell me what I want to know."
"You bitch!" cried the man, his leg searing with pain.
"Wrong animal dear. I think you'll find I'm a queen" replied Greer "so do you have something you want to tell us?"
"Donalbain is an alias. He was a Hydra agent first."
"Ooh, you're talkative now" Greer smirked.
"Who is he really?"
The man resisted saying any more.
"You know that saying an eye for an eye? Well Donalbain and your Hydra buddies took a lot more from me than an eye. Doesn't it make you wonder what I'd take from you?"
"You can threaten me all you like, I'm not saying anything else"
"Guess I'll just take your eye for fun then" Greer smirked.
Greer's claws slowly slid from inside her paw, glinting under the bright LED lights. Before Greer could threaten him further, she noticed a quiet whirring sound, like small fan. She glanced around, trying to determine the cause of the strange noise when she spotted the source of the source of the noise. Greer stared at a small dark navy drone that hovered in a corner above her. Thanks to her superhuman hearing, she heard the sound of shoes shuffling outside, S.H.I.E.L.D. had arrived. Agents Morse and May led a small team of agents clad in black clothes from head to toe.
"It's your lucky day – the cavalry has arrived" Greer groaned.
"Step away from him" May commanded "we'll take him back to HQ and interrogate him there."
"Do you have advanced interrogation equipment there?" asked Greer.
"No" May replied.
"Well we're fine interrogating him here then" Greer replied.
May's eyes rolled almost involuntarily. People never could make anything easy.
"Greer, if you can't get it out of him, maybe you should let us have a go" Bobbi suggested.
"Sure, why don't you try then" Greer smirked, knowing that if she couldn't get anything out of him, neither would S.H.I.E.L.D.
May turned and slapped the Hydra agent across his face so hard that she cut his lip.
"May!" exclaimed Bobbi with surprise.
"What, we need him to talk don't we?"
Bobbi realised May was right, after everything Hydra had done to them, this guy deserved it all.
"Phil, we're going dark" May advised her leader.
The small team with them, all deactivated their comms.
"Anyone who doesn't want to see this can patrol the perimeter" May advised.
No-one moved.
"Shock him with one of your batons" May asked Bobbi.
The Hydra operative tried to stifle a laugh, as if batons could hurt him. As Bobbi touched the stave to his body, he realised he was wrong as 50 milliamps of electricity coursed through his body.
Greer felt as if she had been zapped by the surge of electricity. She was suddenly back in the Ani-mator's lab.
2012. Location: Unknown location
Greer lay helplessly strapped on the operating table.
"Please, please, let me go!" she screamed.
Her black hair thrashed around in the air as she shook her head. She tried to wriggle out of the restraints but had no luck. She was well and truly stuck at the mercy of this strange old man. He stood next to her in a white lab coat, there were faded red patches on it, as if the coat had been washed but not quite well enough to hide its previous use.
A young man all in black stood holding a tablet on the other side of her. On the tablet was the face of a man. A man that she knew, he was sworn to protect people so surely he could help.
"Mr Secretary, help me please" she yelled at the tablet "get me out of here".
"Well Frederick, it seems you've got a feisty one there. Good luck."
The screen went black and the young man put the tablet down. Within seconds a fiery wave tore through Greer's body. She yelled out in pain.
"Maybe you'll learn to behave now" the old man tutted "you were very rude to Mr Pierce there."
Another surge burst through her body. The old man was torturing her with electric pulses.
"Better stop that now or you won't be able to go through surgery" he warned himself as he chuckled.
"Surgery?" Greer asked, panicked at what this man might do to her.
"Oh, of course, I'll show you my previous work so you know what you're in for. Steven!"
The young man jumped back over to the tablet and started showing Greer pictures of what looked like people, but with animal parts, or animals with people parts.
"What the hell is this?" Greer yelled at the tablet.
"This is my previous work Greer. You need to listen, we'll work on that after the surgery" came the old man's reply.
Greer couldn't help but look back at the tablet where she saw a man on the operating table with large brown wings and the paws of a lion, then Steven swiped across and she saw a muscly man with grey hide-like skin cowering in the corner of a cell, like the one she'd been in, he had a large horn in the middle of his forehead and two small tusks coming from his cheeks. Steven swiped one final time to a picture showing a woman growling, showing her primitive jagged teeth and swiping with her claws on the end of a fur covered hand.
"You're going to do that to me?" Greer burst into tears, "Why me?"
"Oh I'm just doing a favour for my benefactors. At least now I'll be able to say lions, tigers and bears oh my!" the old man laughed at her over his small round glasses.
He thrust a needle into Greer's neck despite her struggle and she slipped into a deep sleep.
February 13th 2015. Location: Chicago Port, Calumet River, Chicago
"Greer! Greer" May yelled.
"What?" Greer replied as she snapped back to reality.
"We got what we needed. Let's go."
Greer looked around to see the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents escorting the agent out of the warehouse.
"Then I can kill him" she growled.
Before she could move, Bobbi shot her with a Night-Night gun.