The room the group appeared in was large and dark. All that most of them could see was a large white curtain spot-lit at the opposite end of the room...and the lone grey-haired gentleman standing still in front of it.
Beckett's eyes adjusted to the lack of light quickly. The rest of this room is empty, she told the group through the mind-link...
"I can assure you," the man called out from across the room, "there are no surprises waiting in the shadows to 'jump out and grab you'. After all, why should I waste my time on such a futile endeavor, considering this most talented company..."
Ryan and Beckett turned to each other in shock. Did he just hear us? asked Ryan.
The gentleman continued to talk, seemingly undeterred by the mental conversation going on at the other end of the room or by the continuing approach of his adversaries. "Allow me to bid a good evening to you and your friends, Agent Coulson. I must say, I am humbled that you thought so highly of me as to bring the beings that you have brought with you to 'take me down', as it were..."
Coulson had to force himself to play it cool and match his opponent's cavalier attitude. "Simon Quinn, I presume?"
Quinn bowed deeply. "I see my reputation has preceded me."
"It has," Coulson replied casually. "You've made quite a name for yourself."
Quinn mouthed a silent "oh". "That whole 'Clairvoyant' business? I must say, I do find it quite amusing," he said with a loud, contrived chuckle. "It does bring a certain...mystique. Much like the reputations of the group surrounding *you*. I am curious as to why you didn't bring your usual cadre of SHIELD agents to 'have your six', as the expression goes. Perhaps it is because even you realized that those fools were not up to the task..."
The curtain that Quinn was standing in front of dropped, and Coulson's face paled at the sight before him. Fallon noticed the change in Coulson's expression immediately. Your men?
Coulson nodded. The man and woman on the left. The other two were working with them, holding Quinn's son as a prisoner while Skye and I trained with you guys. Are they alive?
Beckett nodded. I can't tell how conscious they are, though.
"Do you like it?" Quinn asked, beaming with a almost fatherly pride. "It might not be my greatest creation, but it is one I am *particularly* proud of." He watched the eyes of his opponents dart around the room and forced himself to suppress a girlish giggle. "Allow me to walk you through the finer points of this prison, Agent Coulson," he explained, "since your friends seem to be having such trouble figuring it out for themselves. Obviously, you and your friends have worked out that the platform underneath my guests here is wired to enough explosives to blow this compound and bury all of us far more than six feet under."
"Obviously," Coulson agreed.
"But the trick..." Quinn countered, "ah, the beautiful trick to this device is in its trigger mechanisms."
Ryan's attention focused entirely on Quinn's last word. "There is more than one?"
"Redundancy, my boy," Quinn teased, "redundancy! First, we have my pièce de résistance. The hooks that are holding my guests above the platform are perfectly balanced and calibrated to the position in which they currently reside. If that position is changed in any way, the bomb will detonate."
"What's the second trigger?" asked Coulson.
Quinn smiled even wider as he held up a small remote control device. "A dead man's switch. If pressure is released from this trigger before I deactivate the device, the bomb will explode." When Steve took a step forward, Quinn added, "and just in case your eager friend here believes that he can somehow overpower me and take the remote without releasing the pressure on the trigger - even for a split second - you might also want to take note that the trigger has a fingerprint identification mechanism. If it's not *my* finger on the trigger, the bomb will detonate then, as well."
Which means we can't take the trigger mechanism from him, Ryan projected to the group. Not even using magic. Gotta hand it to him - he's definitely thorough.
"What do you want, Quinn?" Coulson demanded, letting his rapidly fraying patience start to show. "Your son?"
Quinn's smile faded. "That boy has outlived his usefulness to me. No, you can keep *him*. No...no, there are others I want far more than I want him. Others who are far more valuable in the grand scheme of things."
"And who would that be?" asked Esposito. "Kim Kardashian, maybe?"
"You," Quinn demanded, ignoring Esposito in favor of never taking his eyes off of Coulson. "You and the girl. In exchange, your friends will be able to walk away from here unharmed."
Coulson couldn't resist the opportunity. "So you *do* want Kim Kardashian, then? It's going to take a while to get her here from California..."
"Don't toy with me, Coulson," Quinn spat out angrily. "You know exactly which girl I am looking for."
Coulson's face became a grim-set mask of determination. "You can't have her. Take me if you want, but she's not here."
"Your friends can bring her here in the blink of an eye," Quinn drolled. "That is hardly a good excuse in this company." An idea seemed to spark in Quinn's mind, and he smiled arrogantly at his own thoughts. "I'll tell you what, Agent Coulson. Suppose...suppose we do this the old fashioned way? Two suitors fighting for the hand of the fair maiden. One on one, mano a mano. Winner gets the loser as their prisoner and the Lady Skye as their 'prize'." His expression darkened, though, as he made one last demand. "Your *friends* are not allowed to interfere in any way or I will detonate the bomb immediately. Well? Are we in agreement?"
The group rapidly evaluated their options. I can shock him, Alexis suggested. Try to fry the trigger mechanism...
We don't know if that will just cause the device to detonate outright, Coulson countered. Too risky.
Do we have any other options? asked Fallon.
Coulson nodded. Agree to his demands.
Ryan and Esposito eyed Coulson warily. There's no way that this guy would let us go that easily, Esposito insisted. He's got to have some other trick up his sleeve.
I'm inclined to believe that myself, Coulson declared.
What can we do to help? asked Fallon.
Disconnect me, Coulson replied. I can't concentrate with you in my head. And if you guys can come up with some other way to get all of you out of here, don't worry about me. Just do it.
The group reluctantly nodded as Coulson took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. "I agree to your terms, Quinn," he declared.
Quinn's smile grew. "In that case..." he teased, "I should probably tell you that your friends were right. I do have a few tricks up my...sleeve." His free arm rose with a downturned fist. A metal sleeve wrapped around his forearm, and the same type of rocket projectiles that Peterson had launched were flying at Coulson's head a second time.
Coulson dove behind a cement pillar, which caught the impact of the explosives and blew into a thousand pieces. "Nice trick," Coulson called out. "A little repetitive, though."
Quinn laughed loudly. "Did you actually think that I would give my lab rats all of the power and not take any for myself, Agent Coulson? I am hardly that generous..."
Coulson dove behind a second pillar as two more rockets flew at his head. The explosion caused the ceiling to creak loudly in Beckett's ears even as the concrete flew. Those are support pillars, she warned the rest of the group. He hits too many more and the building will collapse on us anyway.
Coulson never heard Beckett; he was too focused on fighting for his life. Okay, 'Raja', he thought, off-handedly remembering the nickname that Esposito had given the tiger spirit, I'm out of ideas and out of gas; if you can take over and win this for me...His mind stopped all rational and logical thought, switching to a beastly level of pure instinct like nothing he had ever experience before. Coulson dodged two more rockets, rolling forward and sprinting toward Quinn at super-human speed. The two men crashed violently into a third concrete support pillar...
#
The sound of the explosion was still ringing in Coulson's ears when he was dumped unceremoniously on the front lawn of Quinn's compound. He rolled through the impact and jumped up, his mind only briefly registering the impossible change in location as his spirit-fueled instincts checked for nearby enemies. Only once the tiger was satisfied that he was safe did Coulson's mind return to him. He immediately noted, gratefully, that May, Ward, Triplett and Garrett were surrounding him, still bound, gagged and lying on the ground...
But where were the Guardians?
