Ward set off using his elbows and knees to move himself forward. Every so often he would pause and use the light on his watch to light the way. He got to a junction in the vent.
"Left or right?" He shouted back down to the group.
Half cried 'left' while the other half cried 'right'.
"Helpful!" was his retort. He looked down each tunnel, carefully evaluating each. The tunnel to the left was slightly smaller than the one to the right, so he took it, using the logic that if you were in a cramped space and panicking you would take the path of least resistance, in this case the larger tunnel. He heard them all follow and then he heard the sharp crackle and fizz of an electrically charged piece of metal discharging.
"Everyone alright?" he called.
"We're all fine. May just wanted to check your theory"
"What theory?"
"That you chose the right way. Apparently you did."
"You guys are crazy." He heard Hollie mutter a few people behind him.
They continued following the vent until Ward saw light coming from a grate and his head brushed a dead end. He put his ear to listen to the grate. There was the tell tale hum of electricity running through it.
"Simmons, back up a little, pass it on. When you have, tap my foot."
He heard the murmur of the message being passed along the line, as well as the tell tale shuffling. Before long he felt a tug on his right foot. He took out the knife that he had been carrying in his sleeve, feeling very thankful that it was insulated, and knocked the grate out. The spark that came from the grate made everyone scream.
"I'm fine!" Ward called back down the line, before slotting the knife back up his sleeve and sticking his head out of the grate to check the room. It looked clear so he slowly and silently dropped from the grate in the ceiling to the floor.
"Stay there Simmons. Let me look to see what we have in here." He told her.
Feeling better armed he removed the knife from his sleeve again. It was pitch black in the room and Ward could hear no sound, so he helped the others down one by one. Once May had made it into the room she lit the lighter once more while Ward pressed the light on his watch. There still saw very little, but a rustling sound had become present and was getting louder and louder.
Skye looked up to the ceiling and screamed, making the others look up just in time to see hundreds of bats swooping down to attack them. They all fell to the floor, covering their faces using anything they had access to: their hands, elbows, jackets, each other.
Ward, while keeping one hand covering his face, checked his pockets for anything that might help. He found a business card that he had got a few years before. It had a girls number on it.
"May, toss me your lighter!" He called above the din of the bats.
He heard the lighter clatter somewhere near his feet and he groped around for it. He found it and set the small flame against the corner of the business card. It caught fire at once and the bats seemed to back off a little, suddenly scared of the light and heat.
Ward quickly got to his feet and crawled over to Skye who had been backed into a corner and had a bat currently trying to pull her hair out. As he creeped closer he heard the floor creak, so he risked a glance down.
A trapdoor!
He pulled Skye off it.
"Over here!" Skye shouted as Ward opened the door to check what was underneath.
Everyone crawled over to Ward and Skye as the business card finally burned to a point he could no longer hold it. They heard the bats start their rustling again and decided whatever lie beneath the trapdoor was probably better than the swooping pincers of the bats.
So they jumped.
The corridor they landed in was just about big enough for Ward to stand up in, and wide enough so that they could walk side by side. Ward again went first with Skye next to him. She was holding his hand for dear life. They were followed by Simmons and Fitz, who were also holding hands for comfort. Coulson and Hollie were next, followed by Amber and Kain, who were accidentally brushing against each other and making themselves jump, much to the amusement of May, who was bringing up the rear to fend off surprises. Kain bumped into the wall and managed to hit a switch that turned on very minimal lighting. They couldn't complain, the lighter was almost dead. At least they could see where they were going now.
They made it maybe, 500 meters down the tunnel when Ward stopped dead, stepping in front of Skye to stop her taking another step.
Hisssss
"Snake" he said when Fitz and Simmons walked into them.
The hissing grew louder. They couldn't see where the hissing was coming from but they knew it was getting nearer. Then they heard May squeal from the back.
"I hate snakes." She admitted to them as the very large python was slowly and carefully wrapping itself around her leg.
"The second we touch that thing she could lose her leg" Hollie pointed out.
Before a plan could be formulated (they realised Ward's 'special skill' would be useless against a coiled snake) the snake had smelt a rat and had released May's leg, preferring the smaller prey. It was clearly hungry.
"Why is it my leg they crawl up?" She asked, feeling relieved.
"Let's get out of here." Amber suggested.
They quickened their pace down the tunnel. Again, they came to a junction.
As a group they looked down the two tunnels they could take.
"We went left last time, I vote we go right this time." Kain suggested
"Sounds good to me!" Amber agreed.
May looked down the right hand tunnel and then looked to Ward. She saw him nod his head to the left. Clearly the interns had missed the dead body that was lying, half hidden by a turning.
"We go left" May said as Ward pulled Skye down the left hand tunnel.
Fitz and Simmons glanced down the right hand tunnel and saw what had made the two agent's minds up. Coulson, expecting something like the body, shielded Hollie from the view and guided her after the others. After another thirty minutes of walking down the tunnel they came to an indoor river. They clearly had to cross it, because on the other side, stood a door.
"Any volunteers?" Coulson asked, pointing at the river.
May stepped forward and volunteered to try it first, before Fitz pointed out that it could contain flesh eating bacteria or some equally nasty bug like the false floor room did. May quickly removed her leg.
"We could build a bridge" Kain said, remembering the team building exercise he had to do the previous year at the academy.
"Yeah, cool. We could build it with all the wood and rope we don't have" May retorted sarcastically.
Fitz and Simmons were crouched down on the edge watching the water. They saw a ripple and it grew bigger and bigger. They jumped away from the side, startling everyone else in the process
"There is something in there!" Simmons told them.
"What is it?" Coulson asked.
"Don't know, but the water moved."
Ward, holding onto Skye so he wouldn't fall, leant over the water. He too saw the ripples. Skye pulled him back.
"Anyone got anything they don't mind losing?" He asked.
Coulson took his jacket off and removed his holster. He had spent a year breaking it in, but it was the only thing that could be easily replaced. He passed it to Ward who leant over the water again. He dropped the holster into the middle of the water and Skye pulled him back up. The holster floated there for a couple of seconds before a beast rose out of the water to bite it. The group took a step back in surprise.
"At least we now know that we are dealing with a Godzilla sized alligator" Skye quipped.
"So how do we get across the water?" Hollie asked
"Like this" May said as she took the gun off Fitz and Ward took the gun off Simmons.
"Nat's gonna kill me!" Ward muttered as he took off one of the gloves and threw it onto the water.
The second the alligator surfaced May and Ward shot at it, bullets penetrating its eyes. It floated on the top of the water, dead.
They waited for a minute to see if there were more lurking under the water, but there didn't appear to be, so using the alligator as a stepping stone they, one by one made it across the river. Ward was the last to cross and he was about to make the jump for the 'stepping stone' when he heard a noise behind him.
There was another alligator, just not in the water, and it was advancing, fast.
Ward flicked a switch on the remaining glove. It glowed with blue lines across the back.
Skye, who had seen the danger Ward was in tried to get back across the water to him, but she was restrained by Coulson and May.
The alligator dived for Ward.