Simmons had pulled Jennifer behind a group of vehicles for their own protection. Behind her she could hear screams of terror and the sounds of gunfire. She carefully peaked over the hood of the car to see what was happening.
Her teammates were trying to circle the machine, but thanks to it's twin sensors it was able to take on both groups at once. Even Trip's weapon wasn't having that much of an effect.
"Oh my god, is this what you guys have to deal with?" Jennifer exclaimed. "How are you not dead yet?"
"Well we normally handle the situations a tad quicker than this time!" she replied. Her eyes didn't waver from Triplette. She was scared for all of them, of course, but there was something between her and Triplette. She didn't know what it was, and she certainly wasn't going to put a name on it (especially with what had happened with her and Fitz before he went into a coma), but there was an undeniable connection. And right now she was more concerned about Triplette getting hurt than anybody else there.
"Shouldn't you be helping them?" the lawyer asked. Jemma turned to look at her.
"What can I do? I'm just - just a scientist." She balled her fist. She was powerless, and she was angry, and she wished she could help them, but all she could do right now was wait. Wait and hope.
"What's that thing supposed to do anyway?" Skye asked Triplette as they dove for cover.
Triplette looked at the weapon. "Coulson said it was reverse engineered from some Stark tech they acquired."
"Oh, and you don't think HYDRA would try their best to make their robots resistant to Iron Man?!" she shouted with as much sarcasm as she could muster.
"Sorry my laser beam gun isn't up to your standards!" he snapped back.
An explosion sounded behind them, and May careened over them and landed with a crunch in front of them. She was covered in ash and bruises, but the woman was implacable. She didn't hesitate to stand up and look at her teammates. "Give me that," she said coldly, and Trip handed it over. She grabbed the gun and began to run towards the droid.
As soon as it saw her it began to fire, but before the bullets kid hit her she dove forward and rolled until she was beneath the machine's legs. She immediately began to fire upwards, into the space where it began to split in two. This part had significantly less armour than the rest of the body, and now the blasts began to do some damage. Once the machine began to stumble she fired two quick shots at one of it's legs before rolling again. The droid collapsed to the ground and would have crushed her if she was a second slower.
The droid couldn't walk, but it could still fire. It began to look around wildly with both heads before spotting May on the pavement. She lay there, still, immobile, helpless. Skye realized this and jumped up to pull her away, but the machine was already training every weapon it had on the agent. In just a few moments she would be a casualty...
The SUV couldn't have been going that fast, but it had a lot of weight to it and was enough to knock the droid over and dislodge a good portion of its armour. That's not to say the vehicle faired much better, since it's front end was a crumpled mess and every single airbag had burst out of the vehicle's interior. A few muffled cries came out before they were torn away, revealing Jennifer in the passenger seat and Simmons behind the wheel, both of them panting heavily.
"That...that was very illegal," Jennifer wheezed. After a few moments to refill her lungs, she spoke again. "Where did you learn to hotwire a car?" she asked the scientist.
"Would you believe that I used to be a punk kid in the mean streets of London?" Jemma asked with a partial grin.
Jennifer shook her head. "No, not really."
Jemma nodded. "Yeah, you're right, I learned it off tumblr."
Agent Bolewa walked over to the droid. It was struggling to upright itself and locate it's targets. One of it's heads was smashed in, and the other one was knocked off of it's socket. Bolewa reached down and ripped the wires out. Finally the body lay still. The agent picked up the head and looked at it. The eyepiece still frantically swung from side to side before looking at her.
"YOU ARE S.H.I.E.L.D. YOU ARE ENEMIES OF HYDRA. YOU SHALL BE ELIMINATED."
"Quiet you." She took the butt of her gun and smashed the eyepiece off.
"VISION IMPAIRED. VISION IMPAIRED. VISION IMPAIRED."
Bolewa rolled her eyes. "Hey Skye, this one's for you." She tossed the head to the girl, who was kneeling by May's body.
May herself had regained conciousness, but felt just as bad as she looked. "I think I broke my ribs," she said. She sounded annoyed more than anything else.
"Yeah, well, I think you broke your everything." Triplette replied. He had run back to the SHIELD vehicle once the droid was down and had come back with an automated gurney. "Can't believe we've only had this thing for a week and we already need to use it. Up we go."
Jennifer and Jemma stumbled out of the vehicle. "Well, now that thing is down, anybody feel like explaining what the hell is going on?" Jennifer said with exasperation.
Skye frowned. "That...is a really good question." She turned back to the head, already thinking about how best to hack into the AI running the thing.
"Is anybody going to answer it?" Jennifer asked. Skye turned back to her.
"Oh!...um, yeah, thing with SHIELD is that some questions don't necessarily get answered right away."
"You're not SHIELD anymore!" the lawyer cried. The gathered agents all shared an awkward glance with each other, and Jennifer took a step back. "Oh my god. You're still doing missions. That...this...this case was already mess, and now...I am so fired." She slowly sank down until she was sitting on the gurney looking just as bad as May, if not worse.
"Well...if you are, you know, SHIELD is always hiring," Jemma suggested. It was clear that Jennifer was too caught up in her own thoughts to respond.
"Hey guys?" Trip asked. "Where's Coulson?"
A white, featureless truck drove down the highway. It didn't speed, and it stopped at every red light and stop sign. Inside sat a terrorist fugitive and a robot.
"The first rule of running away is don't run," commented Zola, one arm resting on the steering wheel. Ward wondered if it really needed rest. Maybe resting it's battery. Conserving energy to keep projecting that eerie hologram. Ward felt ill looking at it for too long. If he tilted his head the wrong way it became translucent. And sometimes it glitched. The face would shift unnaturally, or vanish for a moment, or be replaced by somebody else's. He had seen a random older man appear, a small child, even the Red Skull was there for a moment. He turned his head to look out the window, where the view was much less disturbing.
"I know that. It's the first thing we're taught in SHIELD academy."
"Ah, but it is a HYDRA rule as well. So many of your SHIELD protocols were designed by us." He smiled that artificial smile of his. "Did you know that I was the one who came up with the designation 0-8-4?"
Ward rolled his eyes. "Are we even going anywhere, or is this just a road trip spiced up with HYDRA trivia?"
"Oh, do not worry Mr. Ward. I am taking you to see the new commander of HYDRA. She is quite a treat. I think you will like her!"
The man and the machine drove the rest of the way in silence. Neither of them noticed Agent Coulson clinging to he underside of the vehicle, listening to their every word.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I haven't stopped! I just took a really long break! I am definitely going to finish this. I'm debating whether to right he rest of this series, since the new season is so close, or if to just do a bunch of side stories instead.
Also, yes, the B-BST droid is the Bibeast. I gave it a makeover because oh my god have you seen that thing in the comics? It's ridiculous.
I just want to take this space to also comment on how AMAZING Guardians of the Galaxy is, and now I can't wait for Age of Ultron. Also I think we should have a moment of silence for the current New Warriors series being cancelled this November. Not that the New Warriors factor heavily into these stories...or do they?