Previously: Skye is with Skrulls that look like Ward, Coulson, May and Trip, tricking them while they think they're tricking her. But she's been in contact with Coulson, whose waiting for Skye to get the Skrulls there to detonate the weapon. Bobbi was injured badly, and the only one who can help her because he doesn't have a Skrull double to look out for is Hunter.

Chapter Forty Eight

Skye chewed her lip nervously. It might have been a tell, but if she was going off to face Graviton even without Skrulls trying to be her buddies, she'd be anxious. And it was all about believability.

Though really, she was trying to decide what to tell them. So, she looked at the facts: she knew Coulson's location, and she knew he was there distracting Graviton. The Skrulls knew Hall was there, but did not know Coulson and the rest of team were.

And once the Skrulls saw them… the jig would be up. No more charade, and anything that would happen to Skye was a great a big blank space.

She had put in the text to Coulson that she would try to give him a warning so they'd have a chance to hide, and with the woman giving Skye back her phone that indeed seemed plausible.

The most important detail was to get the Skrulls near Graviton without her. She didn't really fancy dying in the big weapon blast that was going to take them all out.

Time to up the stakes on her lying game.

"So I think I'm getting a pretty good handle on these powers," Skye stated, the car full of Skrulls suddenly having their interests piqued. (She could feel that.)

"You think?" said the Coulson. "What makes you say that?"

She shrugged. "I can sort of feel it. So, I've got a plan."

Triplett Skrull grinned. "Let's hear it, girl."

"You guys go distract him, somehow… and I'll find some high ground to use my powers."

"We have the weapon, Skye," said FakeMay. "No need for you to separate yourself. That's putting you in unnecessary danger."

Skye's smile was strained on her face. "My powers could just be like a backup."

"That's a good idea," said Ward. "I'll come with you though."

Skye donned an expression of disbelief. "C'mon, you know you can't be around me if I have to use my powers. They're insane!"

"But what if the Skrulls find you?" he asked.

Coulson nodded in agreement. "I don't like the thought of you being alone out there."

Skye waved them off, and she couldn't help but feel a little extra happiness as the aliens' anxiety level rose. "I'll be fine, the Skrulls won't be able to touch me if I use my gift."

Ward looked put out, as though he were going to argue. But with a huff, he made a gesture of agreement.

Skye wasn't even sure what kind of "powers" she was making up. Laser eye vision? Making ginormous earthquakes? The Skrulls had to be curious, but wouldn't dare ask if they wanted to keep up their rouse.

That's when Skye realized: maybe they weren't being so cautious with her just because they liked games. Maybe the whole point of them running around in circles was because they were afraid of her.

After all, Wolfe said that the process could have done anything to her. She could be a giant bomb for all they knew! And until they did know, they were being wary. They probably would need to figure it out before trying to contain her, in case it was one of those things.

Too bad it was just share time with feelings and weird aura stuff.

Weird aura stuff that is currently saving your life, she reminded herself.

She had to remember that. Without her powers, she would have no clue it was the Skrulls that had her.

"You sure you'll be alright, girl?"

Ok, maybe she would have suspected.

"I will be fine," she assured, and for now, there were no more questions. She was thankful for that. Thankful to try and repeat the mantra in her head without distraction so she could focus and believe it. It wasn't just the Skrulls who needed convincing at the moment.

I will be fine.

"Ok, stop!"

The Skrull hit the brakes of the car at Skye's request, the tires skidding to an abrupt halt. Skye had managed to get an end seat in the back of the vehicle this time, and flung open her door as soon as it stopped moving. The ruins, and where Graviton and the team were supposed to be, just feet in front of her.

"This is it," she sighed. She nudged her head at a particularly large building. "Just the high vantage I was looking for."

"You sure you'll be ok?" FakeWard asked, putting a friendly hand on her shoulder and pushing his frustration and anxiety into her head at full force. Oh, and that pesky desire to kill her.

"Definitely," she said. "I'm more worried about you guys. Be careful, ok?"

She inwardly begged them to go along with this. Let her separate, and give them the belief that they would be able to catch her again later. Her best bet was that they hoped she would use her power now. That way they'd be able to see it, make a threat assessment, and would know just where to pick her up for their trip back to the ship. Having learned how to contain her, there would make no more need for delay.

She could feel their conflicts. They were debating whether to let her go or not.

Skye needed to sell this.

Her arms wrapped abruptly around the Skrull that was Coulson, tightly squeezing as she nuzzled her head into his shoulder in a hopefully intimate gesture.

She felt him awkwardly pat her head.

"There, there," he told her hesitantly. "We'll all be fine."

Skye actually expected to hate the hug, but the feelings of disgust it provoked from him? She was sort of reveling in it. It went on for longer than she'd planned.

Eventually he grabbed onto her shoulders and pried her off, holding her at arm's length.

"I think we need to go," he told her stiffly. The Skrull was trying to put affection into the sentence, and it came out with rather split emotions.

Skye smirked. "I think you're right."

Coulson was thinking of calling it. That they'd find a way to beat the Skrulls another way, because he honestly wasn't sure how much longer they could wait for Skye.

They'd separated: Coulson, May, Ward, Triplett, Morse, and Hunter. Well, not Morse and Hunter. Bobbi was too hurt, even though they'd miraculously gotten her down from the pillar by managing to get a rope up there, to which she was able to zipline down. That only irritated her shoulder injuries.

The rest of them were playing a game of "shoot at the crazy person and hide," spread out around the ruins. But he seemed to be able to almost sense their presence, able to find and flick them across the ground with very little effort.

This was almost a good thing, because Coulson felt that if this very unstable man felt any sliver of annoyance, he wouldn't hesitate in breaking their necks.

But, thankfully, Skye's message that she and the Skrulls were closing in came before he had to make that call.

Time to see how many bad guys this weapon can take down.

Skye reached the top floor of the building Coulson had sent her co-ordinates to, and was met with the perfect sight for sore eyes.

"They're all moving into position!" commented Simmons.

"Coulson just sent the message," said Mack. "The Skrulls will be there in moments."

"Oh, it is just lovely to have comms back," said Fitz.

"But Skye?" asked Wolfe. "She's not still with the Skrulls is she?"

"Actually, I'm right here."

Four heads turned.

"Skye!" said all of them. Well, not Mack. But he seemed to be quite focused on the weapon in front of him.

Fitzsimmons rushed to hug her as Wolfe crept closer as well, smiles on all of their faces. Skye would have just as eagerly hugged them back, when she spied out something rather interesting in the corner.

"What the hell?" she exclaimed.

The question was probably unnecessary. Because given the facts, or one major fact that she herself was Skye, she could have most likely figured out that the thing cuffed in the corner was a Skrull. It just happened to look like her.

"She tried to replace you!" shrieked Simmons. "It's honestly a terrible thing… So rude."

Skye watched her clone roll her eyes. She wondered if the alien would have had a snarky response as well, but she was gagged.

This was really weird.

But Skye was adjusting.

"Sorry, should probably be used to that by now. I did just hang out with doubles of Ward, May, Trip and Coulson all day. And let me tell you, I do not think they had the original memories because they were not really in character."

It was true, they probably hadn't had any chance to scan her friends. Only Fitz… and herself.

"How did you guys know it wasn't really me?" Skye asked.

"Well, to give credit where credit is due," said Simmons, "Ward actually figured it out."

"She seemed to only have memories of after you were scanned though," Fitz put in.

"So she didn't know about my powers," Skye finished the thought. "This Terrigenesis thing? Becoming more handy by the second."

Wolfe grinned at that, to which Skye sent a smirk.

Fitz unexpectedly wrapped his arms around her once again, giving Skye an extra squeeze. "I can't believe we let them get to you again," he said, releasing her. "We should have realized. You shouldn't have had to go through that all over…"

"Hey," she said, placing her hands on his shoulders. "It wasn't your fault. And besides, it's working out for the better, right?"

"Skrulls are moving in," Mack stated, and they all huddled around the window.

"Guess we're about to find out," said Fitz.

"Ready or not, here I come!" called Graviton. God, could he get much creepier?

"He's going to find us," sneered Bobbi. Hall was too close. "Everyone else left, you need to get out here."

"I'm not leaving you!" insisted Hunter.

Bobbi was basically a heap on the ground now. Shoulder messed up from the first time Graviton threw her, knee and ankle on each leg sprained from getting her down off the column.

And Hunter didn't know what to do.

"Well it's useless for him to find both of us. The shapeshifters are coming and they're going to use the weapon. If you don't get out of here-"

"If we don't get out of here, it's going to be bad. But I know from previous experience I have a kind of rough time carrying you…"

"Calling me fat, Hunter?"

"No, of course not! I'm just not that tall, but you're tall, and given the fact that -" She was smiling. "Bobbi! This is no time for jokes."

"Well if you're not going to leave, we might as well at least joke ourselves to death," she hissed.

"Death!" exclaimed a gleeful voice. Morse and Hunter turned their heads.

He'd found them.

"I think I can help with that," Graviton jeered. His fingers curled under his hand.

"Aah!" Bobbi groaned as she was lifted into the air, her injuries irritated from the strain.

"Let her down, now!" Hunter shouted, raising his gun. "I'm warning you!"

Graviton flicked his wrist lazily and Hunter went flying.

"Lance!"

Bobbi didn't have much of a lull to watch her ex-husband fly into a pillar before there came a sound of cascading bullets.

Graviton looked towards Coulson, Ward, Triplett, and May with a bored expression.

"Really?" he said. "You know, this game of cat and mouse is getting rather old."

Bobbi thought that meant he'd just squish her or snap her neck right there, but he merely dropped her, focusing on the others. Others that she realized were most likely Skrulls.

She fell to her knees and had to suppress a shout, biting her lip at the pain. She'd never had so many not-weapon induced injuries before. Bruises and dislocations were piling up, instead of the knife or gunshot wounds that knocked you out of the game early. Then again, she'd never had a battle with such a gifted before.

Graviton had now given his full attention to the Skrulls, - which was a little ridiculous when you thought about it, given that they were supposed to be working together- while Bobbi attempted to get away. There was, to put it lightly, literally no way in hell she could use her legs.

She whipped out one of her battle staves, slamming it into the ground as she began to drag herself along the stone.

It was an extremely slow and frustrating process.

"Oh yeah, that's much better than my help," said Hunter, appearing near out of nowhere. Masking her relief at seeing he was ok, Morse rolled her eyes.

"You should have left," she told him. He grabbed underneath her arms, and began pulling her only slightly faster than she'd been dragging herself. That hurt like hell, but everything seemed to at the moment. "Oh yes, this is a great escape plan. So practical."

"We just need to get-" he grunted, "outside the blast radius. If those are really the Skrulls, then the weapon will be going off any moment."

"Exactly," she muttered. "So go!"

"I'm not going to let you break our only rule, Bob."

What the hell was he going on about. "What rule?"

He smirked. "Not to die out there."

Bobbi had to purse her lips to swallow her already-formed protests. And hide her smile.

Because that was a damn good argument.

"Morse and Hunter are clear," said Wolfe, looking out the window. Mack's attention was fully on the machine in front of him. Fitz was peeking over them.

"Confirmed Skrulls in the vicinity?" asked Mack.

"Yep, all the ones who were with me are now down there," Skye informed.

Skrulls that looked like Coulson, May, Triplett and Ward. She wondered who they really were. Was her team about to kill Lyja? Or Bartak? Skye couldn't say it was a completely unwelcome thought, though it would be odd that they'd not know-

"Weapon deployed," Mack stated.

Skye felt her head rattle.

"That's it?" she asked, hurrying over to the window to see the damage. Nothing had happened! No light, no sound… And to be honest, everyone down there looked fine.

"It breaks down the nervous system," Wolfe explained. "They'll start feeling the effects now…"

And oh boy, were they. Skye watched as the Skrulls fell to the ground. As Graviton began jerking in uncontrollable spasms through the air.

He even flew right passed their current window, and everyone flinched in unison as the man torpedoed by.

Skye stared down at the Skrulls, writhing in agony. Shaking trying to move with great strain. Well they had been, until they'd come to a dead stop.

"Dead" being the optimal word.

Apparently when Skrulls died, they'd change back to their original form. Skye had noted that the beings becoming unconscious did no such thing, but they were definitely morphing now. And she could only assume that meant the worst for them.

Triplett and May turned into aliens that she only vaguely recognized from her first moments of being a prisoner on the ship. One, the over-eager younger Skrull that had been insistent on grabbing hold of Skye when she'd first gotten there. He'd been Trip. The other, a woman who'd had quite the opposite reaction. She'd not wanted to lay a finger on Skye while they were on the spaceship.

But the other two she recognized well.

Coulson had actually been Bartak, a partner in crime that specialized in making Skye suffer when she'd been there. She'd had a front row seat while he'd hurt Fitz.

Satisfaction at seeing his crumpled body welled up more than she'd care to admit.

That left Ward. And she couldn't keep the relief that built up in her at the sight of his stilling body.

Spikey-coned haircut and all, Paibok now was the only one with a few remaining breaths in him. It was as though he was trying to crawl away, clutching his stomach. But soon enough he settled to the ground like everyone else.

And Skye could swear, up the stories of building and through the window, that she saw him look straight at her, with eyes willing her straight to hell, just before he did so.

He'd tricked her as Wolfe; he'd tricked her as Ward. He'd been the one to kidnap her, force her to her knees and to submit, to sick multiple gifted beings on her and command this whole excursion. An excursion with one goal in mind: kill Skye, and the multitude of people that got in his way.

Skye wasn't sure she'd ever been so relieved in her life.

"That was Paibok," said an awed tone, but surprisingly, it didn't come from herself.

She turned to see her father staring out the window, a bewildered expression on his face.

"We've been running from him for so long," said Wolfe. "He's always been the one after you. There have been others, followers, but he has been spearheading the mission since you've been a baby, Skye."

The sheer waves of relief ringing from his voice and echoing in her mind had tears glistening in her eyes.

Skye had never had someone care about her. Not unconditionally. Coulson was becoming something like a father to her, and the rest of the team a family. But she'd had to earn that. If she'd been shy, if she'd been untalented… anything could have made them not even want to give her a chance.

All this man wanted was chances. He wanted her well being, and he wanted it before she'd ever done a thing to deserve it.

And for the first time, she felt a love created by blood well up in her. The feelings originating from both Skye and her father.

It was a moment without realization, a sort of autopilot, in which Skye found herself suddenly gripping her father. So tight she might as well be seven years old, for maybe she was trying to will them back to that time, together.

"I'm so happy you're safe," he muttered in her ear. She smiled against him.

"Same with you."

She heard a sniffle, and opened her blissfully closed eyes to see Fitz tearing up over the scene.

"Oh Fitz…" mumbled Simmons.

"It's beautiful, Jemma!" he protested quietly.

She pecked him on the lips. "I know."

The move of affection nearly shocked Skye, but... seriously, could they get any cuter?

Apparently not, because Skye heard a few gagging noises come from her double in the background. Must be diabetes-inducing cuteness.

"We got some movement out there again," said Mack, redirecting everyone's attention back to the scene below.

Bobbi was out in the open again. Hunter and someone else were helping her to walk, in a way that was nearly carrying her. Meanwhile, a little over to the side, Coulson and the rest of the team were talking to other civilians.

Except those weren't civilians.

"Looks like someone's helping Morse-" started Wolfe.

"No," Skye said quickly, shaking her head. "It's the rest of them. The Skrulls. I don't know what they're doing but every single person down there except our team is a Skrull."

There was a muffled laugh by the other Skye.

Mack sighed. "I'd really like it if these aliens could give it a rest."

Skye whole-heartedly agreed, and was about to say so, when she heard the sound of a gun being armed.

"Then let's finish it," said Fitz, holding a weapon as determination flowed off of him in waves.

(Skye wished she could say she didn't feel Simmons getting turned on, but…)

That didn't matter though, because he was right. Time for weapons hot and all out. No more deception. No more undercover.

They'd just beaten the ringleader and his gravity-yielding weapon.

Now they just needed to defeat the army.

A/n: HE'S DEAD! THANK GOD HE'S DEAD! Talking about Graviton, here. He was just annoying. And evil... but mostly annoying.

Yeah I put in a Bobbi/Hunter POV when I was planning on keeping it to my original characters... ah well. You guys liked em. I gave you a tiny snippet. Sorry for, uh, beating her up so much by the way.

Four chapters leeeeeeft.