A/N1: If Leader owns Chuck it would explain why we don't have a Chuck movie.
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Agent Marks wiped the counter of the Orange Orange frozen yogurt shop for the tenth time that morning. She didn't know why she bothered, as it was already spotless. A single customer so far that day. She silently grumbled to herself. This was not what she had imagined when she decided to become a spy. She and Agent Gordon spent their days in the tight white capri pants and orange top serving frozen yogurt to teenage boys who mostly came to ogle her boobs.
A tough looking bald muscular guy with a full mustache and wearing a black leather car coat came into the store. Not the usual customer, she thought.
Gordon said, "Good morning. What can I get you, Sir?"
The man looked at the listing of choices for a moment and said, "Chocolate, please. With rainbow sprinkle...ugh...ugh..." He clutched his chest and fell to the floor, gasping for breath. Gordon rushed around the counter to him and put a hand to his throat.
"Shit," she said. "Marks, get me the AED." The Automated External Defibrillator was kept in a clearly marked box in the corner. Marks ran to the machine and brought it to Gordon, kneeling next to the man on the floor. Gordon was the senior agent on the detail and Marks, for better or worse, was under her command.
As she put it down and reached for his shirt to unbutton it, his right hand came up and grabbed her by the throat. At the same time, Gordon took Marks' gun from its holster at her back.
Marks used her forearm to knock the man's hand off her throat and threw herself backwards against Gordon. However, the other woman had been expecting that and had moved aside, so Marks merely launched herself at the counter behind her, landing on her butt. In a moment, she found herself facing three weapons, the man's pistol, Gordon's pistol, and her own pistol in Gordon's other hand.
"Don't try it, Marks," growled Gordon. "We don't need you alive for this operation. I couldn't give a shit if we leave your body here to cool."
"Fuck you, Gordon," snarled Marks, but she didn't try anything.
The man on the floor got up and took a radio from his pocket. "Come in," he said into it. Within a moment four men came into the yogurt shop. The last one in locked the door and put the 'closed' sign out on display. Marks recognized that all four carried the FN P90 submachine gun, a Belgian bullpup design that looked like it came out of a sci-fi movie. One of the men had brought three of the weapons with him and handed the extras to Gordon and the man who had first entered the store.
Marks was roughly pulled up to her feet and accompanied the men and Gordon into the walk in freezer in the back of the store.
"Now we wait for Sandstorm," said the man.
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Jill Roberts pounded on the door of the cell. "Rizzo," she yelled. "Rizzo."
When Zondra appeared at the end of the corridor leading to the holding cells, Roberts said, "I have to go to the bathroom."
"Screw you, Roberts. Hold it," said Zondra with a scowl.
"Fine. I'll just pee here on the floor. I don't give a damn," threatened Roberts.
Zondra figured she'd be the one to have to mop it up. She sighed and said, "Alright." She took out her weapon and held it ready as she opened the cell door. She led Roberts to the restroom in a different part of Castle and motioned for the other woman to go inside. She waited for Roberts to do her business. Two minutes or so later, Roberts stepped out of the room.
In Robert's right hand was a tube, the size and shape of a cigar tube. Before Zondra could move her back to the cell, Roberts pointed it into Zondra's face and pressed a recessed button. A small cloud of gas jetted from the end. Zondra immediately moved her weapon toward Roberts, but the other woman's left hand was pushing it away. The gas acted quickly and it was only seconds later that Zondra collapsed to the floor, unconscious.
Roberts took the weapon from Zondra, stepped over the prostrate woman and began to run through Castle. She had memorized the map of the facility and knew exactly where to go. She picked up a pad of paper from a desk as she ran past, down a long corridor.
At the end of the corridor was a locked door. The security precautions would stop intruders from entering Castle, but were much less stringent in opening the door from the inside. It didn't take Jill too long to determine the right buttons to push on the keypad to open the locked door.
On the other side was a long staircase leading up to ground level. Jill jammed the pad between the door and the door jamb so that it wouldn't lock closed behind her. Running up the stairs, she found another keypad, which only slowed her down for a moment.
She pushed open the door and found Leader and the rest of the team waiting for her on the other side with one of the Orange Orange agents held at gunpoint.
"Leader," she said.
"Sandstorm," he replied, with a satisfied nod.
Together, the Fulcrum team headed down the stairs to Castle, bringing Marks with them.
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Chuck waited in front of the office building for Casey to arrive. They had captured Jill Roberts. The day was looking up already. Although, why she was here was going to be an interesting puzzle to solve. She was one of, if not the, most wanted fugitives in the nation. Why show up in the lion's den? And in front of someone who knew her well enough to see through her attempt at disguise immediately? Her planning seemed flawed, to say the least. All of which made Chuck nervous.
After a few minutes, Casey arrived and they headed down to Castle together. "Zee did a good job," he said to Chuck.
"Yeah. No shit," replied Chuck.
"You call it in yet? To have Roberts picked up?"
"Naw. I will, but I want to talk to her first. It's more than a little fucked-up that she showed up here. And we caught her too easily. I'd like to ask her why," said Chuck.
"She still has the hots for you maybe?" asked Casey with a smirk.
"Well, sex-god though I may be, I sort of doubt that, to be honest," replied Chuck, laughing a little. Casey just grunted in humor at his own joke.
The elevator doors opened to Castle and Chuck and Casey found themselves facing two men with futuristic looking submachine guns pointed at them.
"Oh, shit," said Chuck, raising his hands. 'Well,' he thought, 'guess I know why Jill showed up.' Casey didn't say anything, but also raised his hands. Above all, Chuck was, at that moment, worried for Zondra's safety.
The Fulcrum men motioned for them to leave the elevator. Once in Castle proper, Chuck was able to see the assembled team which had invaded their headquarters. Being careful not to block each other's shots, the two men frisked both Chuck and Casey and removed their weapons and spy gear. Including their watches and cell phones.
Jill came over to them. "Morning, Jill. How's Agent Rizzo?" said Chuck pleasantly.
She looked at Chuck seriously for a moment or two and suddenly kicked him in the balls. Chuck's self-defense training with Casey and Sarah had taught him to block a groin strike, but Jill had taken him completely by surprise and had scored a direct hit. With a groan of anguish, Chuck fell to the floor, clutching his privates.
"Not so smart now, huh, Chuck? And you can relax. Rizzo is sleeping on the job. At least for now," she sneered.
Casey didn't move.
The Fulcrum man in command came over and said to Casey, "What's the password for the computer, Colonel Casey?"
"Why don't you try 'GoFuckYourselfHashtagI'maDouchebag'? See if that works for you," he said calmly.
The man barked a quick laugh. "Yeah. That sounds about right. Tough guy. Ok. We'll just talk to Carmichael here. He's going to be the smarter one in the team." Leader squatted down next to Chuck, who was still moaning on the floor. "Hey, Carmichael, what's the password for the computer here?"
Chuck just moaned.
He turned to Jill and said, "Shit, Sandstorm. We're on the clock here and your little tantrum is going to delay us."
"Sorry, Leader. Impulse decision," she said.
Casey began to laugh. "Leader? Damn, dude. You must have a really tiny prick to have to call yourself Leader. Compensating much?"
Leader ignored Casey's jibe and said to him, "Pick up Carmichael and put him on a chair."
Casey bent to pick up Chuck, who was still groaning, and helped him into a chair. The Fulcrum men pushed back Casey and ziptied Chuck's hands to the arms of the chair.
Leader bent down to Chuck's level and said, "Ok. One more time. What's the password to the computer."
Chuck said, still struggling with the pain in his groin, "You know, you just asked Colonel Casey and he was really rude to you. But gotta be honest here, he was also accurate."
Leader pulled back a hand to punch Chuck, but Jill said, "Leader, can I do that? I've got a history with him and this might help me to sleep better at night."
Leader stepped back with a gesture to Jill to be his guest on beating Chuck. She stepped forward and punched him in the face.
Chuck smiled at her and said, "Wow, Jill, you hit like a girl."
"Second degree black belt in karate, Chuck. I can break boards. I can certainly break your stupid face," she said, hitting him again.
"You get attacked by a lot of lumber?" he asked, shaking his head from the strike.
She hit him again. He was bleeding from a split lip and one eye was beginning to close. He began to moan in pain from the beating.
Leader said, "One more time, Carmichael. What's the password for the computers?"
Chuck shook his head and said, "Yeah. I don't think so, Leader. Don't think I'm going to tell you and your buddies and my psycho ex-girlfriend here. But I gotta be honest, man, I didn't know she was crazy when we were together. Lesson learned, huh?"
Jill punched him again.
Leader said, "We don't have time for this shit. Carmichael's tougher than he looks." He stepped around Chuck and grabbed Marks from the men holding her. Pulling her in front of Chuck he put a pistol to the woman's head and said, "Simple choice, Carmichael. We don't need her. She knows nothing that will help us. So, I don't mind killing her." Marks looked terrified, but stayed silent, her eyes on Carmichael. "You have five seconds to tell me the password or Agent Marks dies. No bluff."
Chuck looked up at Leader and said, calmly, "KesselRuninLessthan12Parsecs. No spaces. Two s's. Capital K. Capital R. Small I. Capital L. Small t. Numbers 12, not letters. Capital P."
Leader sat at a nearby computer station and entered the password. After a moment he swiveled in the chair and said to Chuck, "I'm in. Very good. Should have started with the threat to the woman, I guess. But at least Sandstorm got to enjoy herself, so there's that." Turning to his men, Leader said, "Put them in one of the holding cells while I get to the Orion files."
Chuck was cut loose and roughly shoved with Casey and Marks towards the cells. When he saw Zondra on the ground he noticed her quickly close her eyes, and said, "Oh, thank God you're ok, Zee. They didn't knock you out too long."
Two of the Fulcrum team went to Zondra and one of them kicked her in the side. Reluctantly, she got up and was pushed with the others into the cell.
The door swished closed on Chuck, Casey, Marks and Zondra, with Jill standing just outside the glass door looking at Chuck with a smirk.
Zondra started to say, "Chuck, why did you...?"
Chuck, still looking at Jill said, "Computer, lock holding cell B and disable all manual overrides."
A disembodied female voice said, "Confirmed, holding cell B locked and manual overrides disengaged."
Chuck said, "Computer, disable all computer terminals and accept commands solely from Carmichael voice authorization."
"Confirmed, all computer terminals disabled and command solely by Carmichael voice authorization."
Jill looked confused and with her gun in her hand tried to open the holding cell door she had just closed. The keypad on the wall no longer functioned, however. Her confused look turned to alarm. "Computer," Chuck went on. "Lock down armory and all external entrances and exits to and from Castle. Disable manual overrides."
"Confirmed. Armory and all external entrance and exits locked and manual overrides disabled."
"What do you think you're doing, Chuck? You can't get out of here," Jill said confused. "You're stuck in here with us."
Chuck resisted the urge to laugh. "No, Jill. You don't understand at all. I just locked all the doors. You and your traitorous buddies are now stuck in here with us. Computer, open the door to holding cell A."
"Confirmed, opening door to holding cell A."
The door to the cell behind Jill opened. Chuck pointed at the open door and said to her, "Go into the holding cell, Jill."
"Go fuck yourself, Chuck. You're the one in a cell, not me. Computer, open holding cell B."
"Voice identification not recognized."
Chuck shook his head sadly and said, "Please, Jill. I don't want to see you hurt."
Jill looked at him with confusion and said, "Go fuck yourself."
Chuck said, "Ok. Computer, initiate Active Denial System in Castle except holding cells A and B. Twenty-five percent power."
"Confirmed. Active Denial System initiated. Twenty-five percent power."
Jill screamed in pain and staggered backwards. Throughout Castle, other members of the Fulcrum team began to scream. Jill looked at Chuck with confusion. He pointed to the empty holding cell across the corridor. She almost lunged for it. Once inside, it seemed that the pain ceased instantly.
"What the fuck did you do?" Jill demanded of Chuck, pointing her weapon at him.
Marks said, "What the hell?"
Casey said, "Yeah. When he let them know Zee was awake, I knew what he was planning. Pretty hardcore of him, but I guess, fuck, that's what it's there for." Casey shrugged, not too worried about the Fulcrum guys.
Leader, staggering and grimacing, made it to the front of the holding cell. "Shut it down," he hissed through gritted teeth. He pointed his weapon at them through the glass and said, "Shut it down now."
Chuck pointed at Jill in the holding cell. "Go in there, Leader."
"Come here," Jill said to Leader.
Leader followed Jill into the cell and recovered immediately from whatever pain he had been experiencing.
"Tell your men to join you in the cell," said Chuck.
"Go to hell, Carmichael," said Leader. He fired at the glass in front of Chuck, to no effect.
Chuck looked at him without expression and said, "Computer, increase ADS power to thirty-three percent."
"Confirmed. ADS power to thirty-three percent." The screams from elsewhere in Castle increased in volume.
Leader fired again at the glass in front of Chuck, which barely showed a scratch. Chuck continued to look at them impassively.
Marks said to Casey, "What's the ADS?"
"Some people call it a heat ray. It uses short wavelength energy that only penetrates the top layer of skin. You feel like you are on fire, but there's zero damage and no lasting impact. When the energy beam is stopped, the pain disappears immediately. Going to be great for riot control if they ever deploy it."
Marks said, "So they feel like they are on fire?"
"Pretty much, yeah."
"Nice," she said nodding happily.
Zondra said, "That's why he wanted me in here with you and not out there with them?"
"Yeah," said Casey. "The system is designed to stop intruders. Chuck just re-imagined it to handle this situation. Sort of typical outside-the-box stuff from him. Typical."
The Fulcrum team couldn't escape the pain by leaving Castle, as Chuck had locked them all inside. One by one, they staggered to the holding cell opposite where Carmichael and his team were being held. Leader called to them and told them to come to the cell in which he and Roberts found themselves, refuge from the pain. More than one fired their weapons at the glass in anger, but that did nothing except to send a ricocheting bullet zipping around the corridor.
Once the entire Fulcrum team was in holding cell A, Chuck spoke to them. "Throw out all your weapons."
"Fuck you, Carmichael. We have a standoff here," said Leader.
Chuck shook his head at the other man's idiocy. "Dude, think about it for even a second. There's no standoff. I can turn on the heat ray in that cell just because you piss me off and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. There's no standoff. I didn't even crank it up to half power. I can lock the door on you and crank it up to full power. You will fucking lose your minds. You will go insane from the pain. Throw out your weapons or I will do exactly that. You are my prisoners. You lost. I won. You all comply, every one of you. I'm giving you five seconds."
The submachine guns were thrown out into the corridor.
"Oh, come on, guys. Don't take me for an idiot. We all know you've got more weapons than those. Pistols. Back up pistols. Knives. The whole shebang. Pretend you're getting on a plane. You know the drill."
Marks quietly said to Casey, "Think they'll really give up everything?"
"Naw. Probably not, but whatever they give up makes it easier for us when we have to take them out of there."
More weapons were tossed out the door of the cell. At one point a man's hand crossed the threshold of the doorway as he threw his pistol. With a quick hiss of pain, he pulled it back inside the cell.
Marks said to Casey, "Why did Carmichael take the beating?"
"They had to think they'd won in order to put us all in the cell. In order to isolate us," said Casey.
"So that's why you didn't try to stop them?" she asked him.
"I knew he had a plan. Didn't know what it was, but I figured he'd let me know. I just backed his play until I saw what he had in mind," said Casey.
"You trust him," she said.
"Yeah. I trust him," said Casey, not taking his eyes from Chuck's back.
Chuck said, "Computer, close and lock the door to holding cell A."
"Confirmed. Closing and locking door to holding cell A."
The door closed on the Fulcrum team.
With his next few commands, Chuck undid his prior lockdown commands. The door to cell B opened and Chuck, Casey, Zondra and Marks stepped out into the corridor. Chuck stood looking at Leader and Jill for a couple of moments, then turned and walked to the main room of Castle.
Marks, Zondra and Casey took a couple of moments to collect the weapons on the corridor floor and then followed Chuck.
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It was a couple of hours later. The balance of Team B was back in Castle, preparing to transfer the Fulcrum team from the holding cell to the CIA facility elsewhere in Los Angeles. When she saw the damage to Chuck's face, Sarah had glared at Jill through the glass. Jill did her best to glare right back, but her defeat and actual capture had taken some of the fire out of her and her glare had no force of will behind it.
Casey and Bryce stepped up to the door to the holding cell and opened it. Casey held a pistol pointed at the captives. Bryce carried manacles he was going to attach to them.
Gordon, the woman agent from the Orange Orange came out first. Bryce frisked her and then attached handcuffs to her wrists, leg cuffs to her ankles and a belt to connect the rest of the restraints by chains. The woman would undergo a body cavity search at the next holding location, but Castle was not equipped for that procedure (to Zondra's dismay).
One of the men came out next and, while covered by Casey, Bryce went through the same procedure.
Jill stepped up. No one noticed the small gas gun in her hand. She sprayed the gas into Casey and Bryce's faces and dropped the now empty device to the floor. As the Team B men were falling to the floor, the remaining Fulcrum men piled out of the cell into the hallway.
Chuck was at the far end of the corridor and began to fire at the crowd of men with his trank gun. The shots were fast and accurate and the men began to tumble to the floor in a heap. Jill, though, ran in the opposite direction. Chuck couldn't get a shot at her past the milling men and by the time he tried, she had turned a corner.
Sarah, standing next to Chuck, yelled, "DIBS," and took off running down the corridor after the fleeing Roberts, hurtling over the unconscious men.
She crashed through the door and ran up the stairs after Jill taking them two at a time. Jill was about forty feet ahead of her. The two women ran through the team's garage and out into the Studio itself, both of them running full out.
Sarah was gradually catching up to Jill. The other woman glanced over her shoulder and saw Sarah behind her and redoubled her efforts.
They found themselves in an area of wide green grass, like a village square, surrounded by plain two story houses, a studio location to film a middle America suburban town.
On the grass Sarah was able to get to Jill and she threw her arms around Jill's waist and took her to the ground.
Jill rolled and came to her feet in a karate stance. Sarah moved straight in on her, easily blocking the snap kick that Jill launched at her middle and catching the other woman with a one-two combination of blows to the face.
Jill staggered back and lifted her hands a little higher, to more easily block Sarah's shots. She shuffled to her left, looking for a weakness in Sarah's defenses. Suddenly, she jumped forward and drove a kick into Sarah's middle. Sarah blocked that strike easily, but it was a feint and the real blow was a backfist strike that caught Sarah on the side of the jaw.
Neither combatant noticed Zondra and Chuck arrive at the side of the green. Zondra immediately took out her phone and began to record the fight. Chuck said, "What are you doing?"
"For Casey and Bryce. They're going to be furious that they slept through this," she replied with a grin.
"You're not going to help Sarah?" he asked.
"And spoil her fun? Oh, hell no," said Zondra with a smile and a laugh.
A few other onlookers gathered at the edge of the grass, seemingly attributing the action to a movie shoot of some kind.
Encouraged by her successful shot at Sarah, Jill moved in to try again. But this time, Sarah caught the punching wrist and twisted it, dropping to one knee. Jill sailed over Sarah's head to hit the ground hard. She rolled away from Sarah and climbed to her feet. She was a little too slow, however, and Sarah managed to punch her three times in the face before she got her hands up to block. Once Jill's hands rose, Sarah punched her in the stomach. As Jill staggered backwards from the blow, Sarah twisted and caught the other woman with a side kick to her middle, feeling one or more of Jill's ribs break under her foot. Jill fell backwards and converted the fall into a backroll, coming to her feet once again, wincing at the pain in her side.
Rising in a rage, Jill rushed at Sarah and grabbed her. She hissed at Sarah, "I had him first, you bitch."
"And I'll have him last, Roberts. You lose, again," snarled Sarah.
"He loved me," said Jill with almost a sob.
"Once, maybe. And in return you treated him like shit. Now you'll die alone in prison without even a cat to keep you company," said Sarah. "It's just what you deserve, you evil skank."
Jill tried for a head butt, but Sarah saw it coming and moved her head away taking the opportunity to drive an elbow into Jill's face. Jill caught Sarah in the stomach with a hard knee, causing her to stagger back.
Jill jumped forward and caught Sarah again with a blow that split her lip. Sarah went on the attack again, though, and drove the other woman back. Jill was visibly weakening and her hands were starting to sag lower, her breathing becoming labored.
Sarah ran towards her, but leaped at a nearby park bench on the way. Her left foot hit the bench, boosting her high into the air so her pile driver punch was coming straight down at Jill from above. In midair, Sarah shouted a loud kiai "HAAA." Sarah's right fist connected with Jill's nose, which ceased to be any kind of protruding feature on the once beautiful face and became merely a red smear on her cheek instead. Jill staggered back. Sarah landed lightly on her right foot and immediately launched herself into a spinning back kick. The heel of Sarah's left foot connected with Jill's jaw, which seemed to lose shape under the blow. Three gleaming white teeth flew through the air and onto the green grass at their feet.
Her eyes completely vacant, Jill Roberts stood for a heartbeat more and then toppled over face first into the grass.
Breathing heavily, but with a satisfied smile, Sarah looked down at the unconscious woman and said to herself, "Yeah. That was fun."
She looked up and grinned at Chuck, wiping the blood off her face with the back of her hand.
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A/N2: Active denial system. Probably not going to surprise any of my longtime readers to learn that it's actually real, although the equipment is really big and wouldn't fit easily into the nooks and crannies of Castle. It was developed by Raytheon for use in riot control. The system works as Casey explained to Marks. The magazine article I read about it, many years ago, described how the article's author put his hand in the way of the beam out of curiosity and immediately pulled it back with a gasp of pain and a curse. The military officer showing him the device had laughed and said, "Yeah. We all did the same thing once." The system was deployed to Afghanistan for only a month in 2010 before someone pulled it out of operation. It hasn't been publicly explained why it was pulled. The assumption is that everyone seemed to have been so excited by the possibilities that it was deployed without the safety tests the Pentagon lawyers were demanding. It was considered for use in 2020 to disburse the civilians protesting in front of President Trump's White House, but the National Guard did not have the system available to them. Keep your eyes open, though, as I doubt this is the last you've heard of it. It's also referred to informally as the "heat ray' if you ever see that description.
A/N3: Thanks are due to my good friend Anceintgamer, who gave me some great last minute advice to make it past a sticky plot point in this chapter. Thanks, buddy.
A/N4: What do you guys think about this one? Leader's Fulcrum team defeated (no surprise there). Jill Roberts with less teeth than she started the arc with. Heh, heh. I've actually had that in mind since Chapter 1 in 2018. I'm a freak, I know. LOL.