"Is everything alright in there?" the copper alien asked in concern, his knuckles tapping against the door to the tiny bathroom. "Nothing worth reporting?" There was an eagerness to his tone that caused Fitz's nose to wrinkle in disgust.
'Reporting?' he thought, grimacing. 'Gross, no.' These people were less squeamish about bodily functions than Jemma was. It was downright disconcerting.
"It's fine," Fitz answered impatiently. "I just… this'd be a lot easier if you weren't listening through the door."
"Hmm," he huffed, clearly offended. Fitz heard him take a few steps away, though he wished he'd have gone further.
Fiddling with alien technology was tricky, even trickier when he needed to ensure his nosy hosts didn't hear him fiddling with it. Tricky, but not impossible, especially for someone as experienced as he was… or… who remembered being experienced anyway.
The final segments of his device clicked smoothly into place, perfect pieces to a handcrafted puzzle, and a smug grin stretched between his ears. This would show them not to underestimate him, the bloody idiots wouldn't even see it coming.
It took him a few tries, but he finally managed to flush the strange toilet they'd provided him with. (How they had managed to make a toilet more complicated than building an advanced piece of technology from spare parts was beyond him.) Then he washed his hands, tucked his small creation beneath his clothes, took a deep, calming breath and opened the door.
/-/-/
The small rescue team had landed a few miles away from the target site, intent on taking the Olos by surprise.
Jemma was helping Lincoln activate her newest invention, unsuspectingly disguised as a pair of plain black gloves.
"You know, I don't think I'd have thought of this in a thousand years," he mused, flexing his fingers to test out the fit. He wiggled his eyebrows. "These things could be a lot of fun when we aren't using them for missions."
"The possibilities are intriguing, that's for sure," the woman beside him, Violet, added with a smile. She turned to him, reaching out her hand. "Ready Lincoln?"
He chuckled, glancing towards Skye. "Don't get jealous," he teased. "We can hold hands later if you want."
He winked at her and she rolled her eyes, grinning in amusement. "I'm just jealous that you two get to go first."
"We'll give you a turn after we find your friend," Violet told her, shooting her a quick grin.
She extended her hand and Lincoln took it, the fabric of their gloves glowing a soft blue as they touched, and the pair grew serious, concentrating.
"Should we count down?" Violet asked, turning to Jemma for direction.
"It shouldn't matter," she answered. "You should sync even if you don't begin at the same time. Now remember Lincoln, you'll need to keep me out of the field, so I'll be able to tell you if it worked or not."
He gave her a thumbs up. "I will. Here we go."
A half bubble of static formed itself around him and the others, followed quickly by the group disappearing entirely. One second, Jemma's entire team stood before her, the next they were gone.
Not really gone of course, just invisible, thanks to Lincoln and Violet's combined abilities.
Jemma nodded, her stomach too full of restless butterflies for a smile. "Good," she told them. "That should hopefully get us inside undetected. Once we've disabled the security system of course."
It was an unnervingly simple plan, especially when she considered that they had no idea what was awaiting them inside the remote facility once they were inside, but at least it was a chance.
'We're coming Fitz,' she thought, wishing they'd had more time, more information, more anything than what they'd been left to work with. Wishing she had a guarantee that everything was going to be OK. 'I'm not leaving here without you, I promise. I'll make this right again.'
/-/-/
Fitz's alien captor held onto his arm as he escorted him down the hall, but other than that he wasn't restraining him. He likely had a weapon, they weren't dumb enough to leave themselves defenseless, but he was sure that if he was quick enough he could activate his device before he had a chance to draw it.
Nearly certain.
The hall to his room was short though, and he didn't have to time to second guess himself so, gritting his teeth and tensing his muscles to spring away, he swiftly pulled his creation out from under his shirt and tossed it towards the ground, dropping to the floor just in time to avoid the plane of green light that stretched out from wall to wall down the hallway about four feet above the ground, hitting the unsuspecting alien who crumpled to the floor, rendered unconscious.
Laying on his stomach, Fitz stole a moment to let out the breath he'd been holding, shoulders sagging in relief.
"Thank God that worked," he muttered before scrambling to his feet and searching the alien for his weapon.
Some sort of blaster gun by the looks of it. He held it up, wondering briefly what it did before deciding it would be best to move on. Whatever it was, he'd find out if he needed to.
Weapon in hand, he bolted away down the hallway, searching for an exit.
/-/-/
The team had made it inside after Skye had disabled the security system. On of her gifted friends had been able to cover the entrance camera with a handful of loose leaves, levitating them in a swirling pattern that mimicked a strong gust of wind and plastering them over the lens.
Now, within the protective bubble of invisibility provided by Lincoln and Violet, Jemma followed closely behind Mack, her heart in her throat and her muscles humming, prepared to burst into action.
The walls were strange, sloping upward in rounded hexagons that made her feel as if she'd stepped into a gigantic honeybee comb, painted a dull, greyish blue.
"This place is giving me the creeps," Mack muttered beside her, scanning the hallway uneasily.
"Honestly, it is a little unnerving," she agreed, as she peeked through the hexagonal window to her right to see a particularly alarming array of tools which lay scattered and bloody on a long steel table.
She caught a glimpse of a body on the opposite table, dead eyes staring up at nothing, and she had to stifle a whimper.
It wasn't Fitz but it could have been, could still be. He could have been killed already, to be taken apart- worse he could he could be left alive while they did it. They needed to find him. They needed to find him now.
The group had stopped to peer inside and Mack followed her gaze, flinching and brushing her shoulder with his hand when he spotted the butchered man.
She heard him suck in a sharp breath, and when he spoke his words were dulled with horror. "Does that mean they've started?"
Jemma nodded, doing her best to hold herself together, though a cold, rotting sense of dread had spread through her like a sickness. "Yes," she whispered. "I think it does."
"How many are there?" May asked quietly.
'Too many,' Jemma thought wretchedly. 'Too many lives torn to pieces. And it's too late to put this poor man's back together again.'
Had someone loved him? Grieved when he'd been snatched away? Had he found them again, before these monsters had done this to him? She could only hope they'd had the good sense to welcome him with open arms, to help him make sense of what was happening, to hold him close, to make sure he knew that he was important and that he mattered. That his life mattered, whatever it was that had allowed it to continue. She could only hope that they hadn't been as blind and foolish as she had been and that she was going to get a second chance to fix the damage she'd done.
"Twenty six," Coulson answered. "Well…" He frowned and for a moment his eyes clouded over, fogged with sorrow at the waste of life. "Twenty five now, including Fitz."
"We should split up," May suggested at his shoulder. "Speed is more important than stealth right now and we'll cover more ground that way. Mack, Jemma, Lincoln and Violet can stay together, the rest of us will go alone."
Jemma was the first to nod in agreement, quickly mirrored by the rest of the group.
"If you find someone and they can walk, keep them with you," Coulson instructed, sweeping his gaze over his team. "If they can't and you can't carry them, call for help."
"Stay in touch," May added firmly. She glanced at Jemma and her expression softened slightly. "We'll tell you if we find him."
There wasn't anything that could have stifled the rumbling storm thundering through her, but Jemma was grateful for the promise and when her eyes met May's she swallowed and mumbled a strained thank you.
Then her friends stepped out of the protective bubble and hurried on in opposite directions, searching for survivors, searching for Fitz.
/-/-/
Finding an exit was more difficult than he thought it would be. The building's unfamiliar architecture kept confounding him and every turn he made seemed to lead to a dead end, or more rooms filled with unfamiliar tools or ominous steel tables, glinting and sterile in wait of the next victim. Fitz knew that, if he wasn't careful, that might likely turn out to be him.
Halfway down the third hallway, the muffled sound of terrified sobbing stopped him in his tracks, diverting his attention away from his search for an escape. He followed it, turning his head to his left, and spotted a boy, no older than sixteen or seventeen, sitting on the floor of a small white room, his knees held tightly against his chest and his face shoved into them.
Fitz tapped the strangely shaped window to draw his attention and the boy's head came up, his puffy red eyes finding the source of the sound and growing round with excitement as he leapt to his feet. He was at the door within a couple of seconds, his hand clutching the glass in desperation to be let out.
"Please, please don't leave me here," he begged, face crumpling at the thought. His lip trembled and his eyes threatened another downpour. "I want to go home."
"I'm not leaving you in there," Fitz promised. "I'm going to open the door and then we're both getting out of this bloody mad house."
He sniffed, still terrified, but clearly reassured by that. "How?" he asked hoarsely.
"There's an electronic keypad," Fitz explained, already sizing the thing up, coming up with a plan of attack. "And I'm rather good with those, not to brag or anything."
"Is that how you got out of your cell?" he asked hopefully. His head tilted as he strained to see what Fitz was doing.
"Not exactly," he admitted, wiggling the cover loose. "But I've done this before."
"You should hurry," he warned, wide-eyed once more. "I think they said that they were coming back soon. They wanted to… ummm… what did they say? They wanted to process their results. What does that mean?"
The words sent a chill down his spine, even though Fitz wasn't completely certain of their meaning.
"Whatever it is, it isn't good," he told him. "But it doesn't matter, you won't be here when they get back."
"Because we're getting out of here," the boy added, and Fitz could hear that he was struggling to sound brave.
"Yeah." Fitz smiled as he continued his work. "And I don't think we'll be staying here again do you?" He chuckled. "I can't even figure out how to work the toilet, and I don't think they have pepperoni pizza where these guys are from."
"Maybe we can find whatever they used to teleport us here," he suggested, still straining to see. "Did you see what it was? Can you use it?"
"They used their last one on me," Fitz told him, because he'd thought of that too. "I overheard them talking about it when they thought I was asleep. They're running from something and they're running out of supplies."
"Oh," the boy answered and he could hear his disappointment, could almost feel it seeping through the door along with his fear.
"That's good though," he said quickly, not wanting him to be discouraged. "It means they have fewer resources to keep us in here." 'And it also means they might need to dispose of us in a hurry,' he added to himself grimly.
It was a couple minutes but, after a bit of creative rewiring, Fitz managed to get the door open, releasing him from the tiny prison.
"Those extraterrestrial morons didn't happen to let slip where the exit was did they?" he wondered, already hurrying away from the open door, the boy close beside him.
"No," the boy replied and Fitz's shoulders dropped in disappointment. "They aren't that are pretty gross though, did they ask for you to put your poop in a jar?"
"No, they only wanted me to supply them with all the gritty little details as I did it," he told him. "They have absolutely no sense of-"
"Hey!" A shout from their left had them spinning on their heels and Fitz's stomach sank down to his knees as he spotted an alien with her tranquilizer gun ready to fire.
He shifted so that he was between the alien and the boy, eyes on her as he reached for the blaster tucked under his shirt, knowing it wasn't going to be fast enough to stop her but hoping it would at least buy his new friend the precious seconds he needed to attempt an escape.
"Run," he hissed.
It seemed as if he felt the dart in his arm the same moment he pulled the trigger, poison rushing through him as the alien flew backwards, stunned, but quickly rising back to her feet as his legs gave way beneath him and the world slipped away.
/-/-/
Thank you to notapepper for editing this chapter and ensuring it was in tip top shape :D
Violet is named after a character from an earlier story I wrote called "I Believe You" and since she has the same power, she actually could be the same person. That character was named after Violet from the Incredibles (who also has the same power). Unfortunately, levitation guy doesn't have a name. Although a random name generator has named him Heike which is feminine even though I specified masculine. SO really he's Heiko (according to wiki).