Chapter 9 - Aa

The giant blond man flushed when Chimera put a hand on his biceps. "Don't say that, I am sure the boss will make a custom one for you, Hans."

"But she's the kind of person to say that it would be redundant on me." The man lamented, knowing exactly how focused Jean Grey could become and the weird logic she applied to things.

Phillipa really liked Hans, he was a dependable man, it did help that he looked simply scrumptious in that black skin-tight uniform of his, showing off his impressive musculature. However, it seemed that Chimera had dibs on him and Phillipa wasn't about to threaten the love life of the second in command of their team.

Chimera smiled at Hans. "Just ask her, I am sure she thought about your condition anyway."

And just at that moment something incredible happened. Phillipa noticed someone high up on the ceiling, it wasn't obvious at first, but with her acute senses she could discern a slight blurry shape. The blurry and transparent effect simply vanished and an armored silhouette was finally completely distinct. The armor was the same one Chimera had shown Phillipa on her tablet earlier.

Phillipa narrowed her eyes when the armored person detached themselves from the ceiling and was free falling down, with a roll they activated some kind of jetpack releasing a blue stream of highly charged particles that were forced through the engine's exhaust port. The person then landed in a crouching position as his or her fall was cushioned by a white colored fixed-focus electromagnetic lensing field, projected downward activated from the armor's boots.

As they righted themselves, Phillipa saw every spook raise their weapon and shoot. A device on the right gauntlet of the armor deployed and formed an emerald colored energy barrier around the armored figure. Phillipa and Hans covered Chimera with their bodies, as some of the ricocheting bullets ended up hitting them.

After emptying their ammunition, the spooks looked on at the black armored person. Some were loading their pistols, others stood in shock at the green forcefield.

"The test was a success." A familiar female voice sounded through some kind of loudspeakers system.

The armored woman took off her helmet and Phillipa wasn't surprised to see their redheaded leader was the assailant. Jean shook her head to free her hair, then looked tauntingly at the S.H.I.E.L.D agents.

Chimera made a shocked expression, then facepalmed. "Boss…"

Jean Grey turned toward Chimera, checking if she was hurt after a quick inspection. As she noticed Phillipa and Hans protecting her she smiled and gave a thumbs up to them and addressed Chimera. "Aww, good job guys! And don't worry Mera, I knew Hans and Arclight would protect you."

Hans stayed silent and hugged Chimera protectively. The blonde basically melted in his arms but the man didn't notice as he was busy setting fire to Jean with his mind.

Phillipa glared at the teenage girl and voiced what everyone was thinking. "You are evil…"

Jean grinned. "And don't you forget it."

A masculine and commanding voice rang like a whip. "What the hell is happening here Grey?!"

Phillipa turned toward the voice and saw the bald man who had taken over the communication room lately, acting as if it was his. Fortunately, his access was restrained to level three and he wasn't able to go through Jean's research or base system. The man was surrounded by a cadre of six agents, moving around him as if he was to be protected.

Their redheaded leader smiled at him and waved a gauntleted hand. "And Fury is here! Welcome, welcome! Oh my, you brought Cap and aunt Peggy, good."

Just as Jean said, here was a statuesque brunette and blonde man, they commanded attention as they walked, the woman, Peggy stopped before the platform and glared at the redhead. "Jean this wasn't safe… to do."

With a mysterious grin, Jean answered, "I knew exactly what would happen, anyway… we are all here because I have promised to support you guys to take back S.H.I.E.L.D and our country. But to give us an edge, I decided to come up with the armor I am currently wearing. But first, I want to ask you this question, is it better to be feared or respected?"

Fury was the first to answer and it wasn't even difficult that he chose the 'to be feared' option like some of the gung-ho agents at his side, while Peggy and Cap and some others chose the 'to be respected' one. Phillipa understood that this was a test from Jean and that those agents would be influenced to be in support positions rather than in teams later. Her leader was taking care of not being stabbed in the back by that Fury fellow.

Jean shook her head and stomped her right foot. "I say, is it too much to ask for both?"

"My solution to this problem was what I am currently wearing, the Achilles armor mark one." The black armor seemingly came to life as blue light spread on its surface, showing each piece such as the pauldron, segmented breastplate, gauntlets, greaves and boots. The pistols in each of Jean's thigh holsters activated in a bright blue hue as well.

Then suddenly, dozens of stone targets appeared from the depths of the testing room, firing at high speed. With a smooth and economical movement Jean took the pistol from her thigh holster and fired. A high dispersal effect was fired from the futuristic gun muzzle in three bursts and hit all the targets successfully. Another volley came this time one by one, Jean did something with the pistol in her hand, she shook it and the line glowing along the side of it changed pattern and too fast it fired a lance of blue light and destroyed the stone pigeon.

Jean holstered the pistol and a big cannon appeared in her hand in a flash of blue light; it seemed that it was heavy and cumbersome. A Hummer materialized at the end of the testing room a good fifteen meters away.

It fired a continuous particle beam of blue light that simply speared the vehicle and made it explode. Jean then pointed her gauntlet at the explosion and fired three puck sized devices that held in mid air and generated three force fields that linked together and contained the explosion. The viridescent walls of the forcefield retracted into the devices that came flying back to Jean who let them land on slots in her gauntlet.

The redhead turned to the people behind her and could only see people looking shocked, mesmerized or scared.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, for your consideration, the Achilles Mark-1." The redhead said with a triumphant grin.

It chilled Phillipa's spine down to the bone.

# # #

(Jemma Simmons & Leo Fitz)

Lab Complex

Testing room

20 minutes later

On the table placed on the platform, Leo was having the time of his life. Certainly, the situation with S.H.I.E.L.D was dire and problematic; but now they had access to a top of the line lab, with exotic resources and unknown technology to poke and prod at. Miss Jean was allowing him to check out the directed energy weapons she had come up with. He had the pleasure to study those from Hydra that the teenager had collected earlier and what comparaison he could make between those Hydra had and the newly constructed particle weapons built in this lab was night and day.

Hydra's weapons were crude and prone to either break down or explode without maintenance, the fault of that was the poorly built superconductors and battery pack inside that would also overheat and make it explode as a catastrophic failure melted the energy container; Miss Jean's design was elegant and less prone to overheating, and built into each of the weapons was a cooling system allowing it to vent excess heat.

He wasn't allowed to look at the parts and electronics inside and he could just guess what she had done to produce a particle weapon in a handheld format. Leo sat and took on a thoughtful expression. *Super conduction and some kind of wonder metal that permit energy manipulation… The battery pack used as ammunition clips plays a big role too.*

"Fitz."

The young man took one battery clip and connected it to the socket to charge it, the led at the bottom of the battery lit up brightly in red. *The energy is peculiar too, it's not plasma or electricity...*

He was suddenly jabbed with something in his arm, looked right and saw his girlfriend Jemma, poke him with her gauntleted hand. "Fitz!"

"Dammit Jemma! I was working!" he shouted but it was without heat.

Jemma noticed that Leo's S.H.I.E.L.D uniform was in disarray, he had taken off the top half of it and was only in his tank top and pants. Surely to be at ease as he used to do when he worked. The young man took a swig from a water bottle and stored it back in a pouch at his belt.

The tall brunette smiled at him and tauntingly said, "You mean you were trying to understand how it works. Don't bother, the tech is black boxed, you know it's useless to try to analyze it."

With an affronted huff the young man lifted his hand and gave her the finger. "But I can still uncover the basics!"

Leo tried but he couldn't even guess what type of energy those particle weapons used. Jemma snorted at her boyfriend. "Right, you know... she wants to hire us. This is her way of hooking you and getting you to resign from S.H.I.E.L.D to join her." She took a seat at his side and slapped a folder on the table in frustration, not at Leo but at the situation she found herself in.

She took off the top of her uniform and found herself in her tank top as well, Leo briefly leered at her, but understood it wasn't the time to think about her body or what he could do with it. Jemma looked to be in distress. Leo could only guess what was happening, Miss Jean had indeed offered her something.

Leo asked after some time, "What did she use to bait you then? As you are a xenobiologist the only way she could, would be with alien DNA samples, huh?"

There was a tense silence before Jemma stuttered. "Um… yeah."

Oh so slowly, Leo turned his head to the brunette, his blue eyes almost bloodshot. "Get out! Real alien DNA!?"

Jemma sighed. "There's a DNA bank here, three sections down and there's at least ten samples available." The young woman had wanted to say yes on the spot, but the fear of what Jean Grey did to Grant Ward was burning inside her. She didn't begrudge Jean for killing the guy, in fact she was glad that she did, the guy gave her the creeps. But it seemed Jean didn't think much about how she used her powers to kill him, as if he was inconsequential to her. Were her subordinates treated the same way? That was what made Jemma hesitate.

Leo put a hand on her shoulder. "Did she succeed?"

Jemma looked at Leo. "At what?"

"Hooking you."

Jemma couldn't just judge the redhead with the way she dealt with her problems. She had seen her with her friends and family and she treated them decently; this was a leap of faith, but she didn't want to work with S.H.I.E.L.D anymore if it was the type of bullshit that happened to them most of the time. "I was thinking about resigning anyway…" Jemma nodded.

Leo smiled at her. "Same… I am not a field guy, and I want to do research without being bothered by politics."

Jemma chuckled. "That's impossible, you know it."

Leo snorted, looking at the energy pistol before him. "A man can dream."

Jemma looked at the weapons and at Jean who was talking with Peggy in front of them; the men looked on at the armor she had stepped out of, studying and asking questions. Leo had been like a little kid when she explained the collapsible plating of the armor, it allowed the user to step in and out of it at leisure. Jemma looked on at Fury who looked at Jean Grey with a calculating expression; for once he didn't rage at her or dismiss her; Jemme didn't think it was any good.

The brunette had a bad feeling about the circulation of the technology displayed before her. "The problem is that armor technology that Miss Jean came up with, it's going to change the way wars are waged. Did you see the calculating eye Fury had on his face? He will want to steal one."

Leo turned his head toward where he could see the bald man and indeed he looked like he was scheming something, it didn't bode well for their stay in the lab. "I don't want to get killed. Did you see what Miss Jean did to Ward?"

The laser beam and lightning that cooked you treatment didn't appeal to Jemma at all. "I think we need to make a decision… an important one."

Leo nodded. "Whatever you do, I'm following." He assured her.

Jemma wanted to kiss him for this, they always did things together after all.

A blue skinned and redheaded woman wearing some kind of white bodysuit coming from the side came to speak with them. She looked like the serious and no nonsense type. "Maybe I can help you?"

"Who are you?" Asked Leo.

He became wary, she looked exotic but she moved like a cat; as for Jemma she didn't like the way the woman had seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

"I am Mystique, an associate of Jean." The woman sounded proud of that fact, as if she had won the lottery or something.

Jemma was the first to ask, "What do you want?"

Mystique smiled and put a hand on her hips, "I couldn't help but hear you, I understand that you would be interested in employment."

Leo and Jemma looked at each other, and decided to take the proverbial leap of faith. Looked up in sync at Mystique and said, "Go on."

# # #

Back with Jean…

Hanger Bay 2

December 26th, 1996

04:06 AM

The demonstration of the Achilles armor the previous day had been a success. Peggy was surprised that I had made enough of them for every field agent; Steve was eager to try one after I showed him how he could make a forcefield act like a Proto-adamantium shield. Fury got scared by what I created and was scheming and thinking of stealing my work and having weapons to use against me, but he would see how wrong he was to even think about it. He still thought that I had to touch people to use my telepathy, what an idiot.

Anyway, we were preparing for take-off soon, this was it; we were finally going to take the fight to Hydra and make them pay, or should I say, I would. We were all about to go decapitate their leadership with fast attacks. I was doing some preflight checks while Chimera was acting as my copilot. For once I wouldn't be procrastinating in flight.

In the cabin, I was checking the battery indicator and the avionics; it was a lot of work, the instruments were kind of different from the Samson and took me another thirty minutes to understand what I was doing by accessing the knowledge I had drained from Sinister. I now appreciated how diligent Chimera was as she was used to doing it. We needed a dedicated pilot ASAP, but for now me in command would do.

The plane I was about to pilot was called the Raven, an experimental VTOL stealth gunship/dropship; I don't know where Sinister stole it but it looked good. Yeah, he stole it, the schematics didn't have the same touch that he had. This was made by a younger mind, someone who was a science or engineering geek from the 80's or later and read a lot about spaceships and planes.

With six ion engines, the Raven could go at a maximum of mach three; I pushed a big blue button on the dashboard and ventral panels unfolded to reveal a dual railgun turret to fire on ground targets. I watched as the computer tested the mechanisms. It took me a while but the plane was finally ready to lift off.

"Are you done boss? I can take care of it if you want." Chimera said worriedly.

I looked at her, she wasn't trusting me in my current endeavor, the piloting had always been left to her after all.

I waved her off. "I want to learn to do it myself." My eyes went back to the dashboard, and I performed checks on the right and left wings.

Chimera didn't know how to say no to me but decided to make a token attempt. "Boss I still think that I should be the one piloting."

"It shouldn't be as complicated as the Samsons, I got this." I said after completing the flight check.

I pushed the button for the two way intercom in the Raven, "Is everyone strapped in tight?" I asked.

"Aye." "We are." "Locked and loaded." where all the answers. For our first operation, I had taken Chimera, Jessica, Barton and Barbara. I wasn't worried about anyone but Jessica who hadn't killed before. She had insisted on coming and 'supporting me' but what I understood was that she wanted to curb my actions if I did go too far.

I shrugged and looked at the screen on the dashboard showing everything that I needed, flight controls free and correct, altimeter set, directional gyro set; then I tested the flaps and the engines. The Hangar's doors on the ceiling opened, the hangar lit up somewhat and I let the plane take off vertically. Slowly the valley revealed itself under us, it was still dark but I could see it with the moon's light. Once out of the hangar, I tried to orient the plane but I somewhat missed and turned the plane toward the mountain; Chimera took control at this point and we avoided colliding with the mountain.

I felt Chimera's eyes on me for a brief instant before she turned us to the north in the direction of Europe, the Raven gained in altitude, well over the one where civilian flights circulated.

I didn't look in Chimera direction at all. "Err… it's quite difficult to handle."

Indeed it was, piloting the Raven was completely different from piloting a Samson.

Chimera jabbed her fingers on the button that would orient the engine horizontally and then we took off. She stayed silent for two minutes, fuming with anger before she addressed me, "I'm not letting you pilot anything before teaching you!"

"Welp, let's think of this as a first lesson then?" I chirped, trying to assuage her anger.

Chimera put the Raven on autopilot and turned to me. "Jean, you won't get away with this. We could have crashed into the mountain, I'm not going to let you do as you please anymore I think. The plane isn't a toy."

She was right, but I didn't want to admit it. I believed in my capability to learn on the fly. "Huh, this was just a mistake, you-"

Chimera raised a hand, making me stop talking. "No, we will speak about all that when we are done with this Hydra shit." The blonde woman insisted.

My eyes turned to the windshield, the sky was lighting up slowly, it was almost Dawn. "Fine, at least let me see what you do when you pilot." I leaned in the pilot seat and crossed my arms under my breastplate.

Finally, Chimera smiled and nodded. "Alright."

# # #

Europe, Germany

Outskirt of Berlin

10 km away from Hydra Facility Gamma

07:21 AM

Chimera landed the Raven in a clearing. We were ten kilometers from the castle where Otto Vermis lived; the man was one of Hydra's Supreme and he commanded their operations in Europe. I chose to go after him because I wanted to bring Jessica Drew into my team. Was I too opportunistic? Yes, or maybe I just didn't want any of the spider-themed people I knew about in my dimension to be under the sway of some evil fucker.

I took off my seatbelt and helped Chimera with the landing checks; the Raven had taken us from Egypt to Europe in three hours. I couldn't let it pass through one of my portals because the ion engine would have destabilized it, something about how they worked did that, I will just have to check later.

"The plane is okay but there are problems with it." I said when we finished taking care of the plane.

The Raven was unwieldy at best, not as smooth as some ride I've taken in the Samson. There were instabilities in the engine, creating turbulence and causing some of the instruments pertaining to the fusion batteries to show errors when we went past 20 000 feet.

"We are not trained to handle G forces, boss. If you hadn't shielded us with your inertia dampening field we would have had problems." When we had gone past mach 1.5 and to mach 2, Chimera and the team in the passengers compartment had been suffering through the effect of the acceleration.

Chimera was one of the more squishy of us and was massaging part of her body. Fortunately, I had it in the bag and deployed my inertia dampening field around us. The flight had become smoother and we had gone past mach 3 without problem, but I couldn't be here all the time to make it smooth. The Raven was a pretty dropship and gunship hybrid, but I wanted something reliable as a troop transport.

There were hidden factories all around the world that had belonged to Sinister, now they were at my disposal. I would make my own plane, the Raven would serve as a template and by the time I came up with something superior to 3D printing, I should be able to build it fast. "I will work on something." I said with a nod.

I exited the pressurized cabin and ended up in the passenger compartment. Waiting for me was my current team. They were all sitting in their seats and checking their gear; Jessica had her Jewel costume on with a blue and white ornate domino mask, Barbara wore the Achilles armor with particle pistols at her thighs, rifle and two shock sticks on her back. As for Clint, I had chosen to give the prototype Lancelot armor designed to permit more speed and agility. The armor was different as it was black and silver in color.

It wasn't just the color that was different but the idea behind it, it was made for infiltration, it had the same holographic and cloaking technology I had used for my Batwoman costume. Clint's armor could become invisible for a longer time than the Achilles' model, use the same particle weapons and other gadgets I had crammed into the armor too.

Clint was assembling the composite bow I had the time to make for him. There were a number of trick arrows in his quiver that had taken all my skills in miniaturization to make possible; tracking arrows, explosive arrows, sonic arrows… the bow could be set up to fire said arrows with the force of an anti tank rifle. Why did I go that far? I liked Clint, he was an alright guy and I had plans for him to boost him to the level of a super soldier to keep up with his bride-to-be.

"Barton, how's the bow?" I asked.

He looked up at me, smiled and said, "I've barely tested it, but from what I've been able to do in the testing room yesterday… so far it works like a dream."

There was some boyish exhilaration coming from him as he finished assembling the powerful mechanical bow.

I nodded to him and gave him a thumb up. "Don't forget to conserve your arrows, use the particle rifle when you can."

He looked at the rifle at his side. "Sure."

Looking at my gauntlet, multiple holographic windows surrounded it; I couldn't resist taking advantage of the Wakandan kimoyo tech, of course I had isolated my own network from the one in Wakanda, but I could still access it at will to see what they were up to. There were talks about installing little Shuri as the next Queen and the royalist and warhawk factions didn't like it one bit. Bast appearing had shaken the religious people in Wakanda and now there was another faction wanting to follow Bast's will.

I chuckled and locked access to Wakanda's network and switched to mine. The others were now connected to me, I sent a check sign to everyone. Jessica's gauntlet beeped green, she was the first to answer by poking the green window that popped up, then Barbara and Clint did the same. As Chimera exited the cockpit she touched her hologram.

"So, everyone. We are going to invade this… base." I said as everyone's gauntlets and local kimoyo network synchronized and combined to form a big green holographic map showing a fortified castle.

"So the mission is to take out that Otto Vermis guy, he is the Supreme Hydra of Europe. Secondary goals are to capture that girl." A hologram of Jessica Drew, the future Spiderwoman appeared.

She was sixteen years old and 1.70 meters tall, not bad... I was a bit jealous; brown hair and green eyes, she looked athletic. But the data was one year old, she should have completed her spy and assassin training. I hoped she wasn't brainwashed yet, if she was, deprogramming her would be a bitch.

Jessica was the first to speak as she noticed that the secondary target shared a name with her. "How dangerous is she?"

I pursed my lips as I watched each of them, Clint and Barbara in particular, they had more experience with spy and criminal underworld stuff. "Well… think of Cindy with all her powers but with the skills of the Black Widow."

Their eyes widened in remembrance of the name of the number one assassin in the world. "FUCK." They shouted in sync.

Yeah, Jessica Drew was awesome and compared to her, Cindy and Pete couldn't compete with her with the skills that they possessed. Vermis trained Drew in the use of her powers and taught her espionage, martial arts, and various killing techniques. Hydra wanted to mold Jessica into the perfect assassin. She had been trained in armed and unarmed combat under The Taskmaster… wait! "Oh yeah, guys. I don't know if he will be there, but… do any of you know who that guy Taskmaster is?"

*If I remember my lore, that guy… Tony Masters? Or something like that trains criminals in combat that could pay him to do so. He also has a really privileged relationship with that fucker Von Strucker.* I thought as a picture of the thirty year old Tony Masters appeared.

He was a tall man, with brown eyes and hair, 1.88 meters and wearing body armor. He looked handsome but you could see that he was a hyper focused man.

"Jean who is he?" My best friend asked.

I shrugged. "An asshole who thinks himself some kind of warrior. His skills are real though, he is a master martial artist. He has enhanced physiology, like Barbara here." I pointed an armored finger at the blonde. "He worked with S.H.I.E.L.D before and on a mission seemed to have found an experimental nazi version of the super-soldier serum."

Barbara looked furious and I felt annoyance exude from her, she crossed her arms and asked, "Why is the super soldier serum so widespread? I mean, shouldn't it have disappeared with Doctor Erskine?"

The Jewish scientist who came up with the supersoldier serum, a man ahead of his time. But it wasn't anything that the Xandarian hadn't come up with, their genetic engineering program purged bad genes from their citizens at birth. I decided to enlighten the biologist and said, "Well he worked unknowingly for Hydra at first you know that?"

Barbara nodded and frowned, not seeing where I was coming with that. "Yeah but he defected, right?"

Abraham Erskine was the reason we didn't speak German right now, to me he was more of a hero than Captain America. "He sure did, but he mustn't have grabbed everything and left notes or records of his experiments. That's why you can always find a fucking cache of the thing modified or not."

The holographic window refocused on the fortified castle. I had no satellite network so we couldn't watch it in real time, but I had access to drones and with portal manipulation I could do things like spying easily. What? Did you think I would do nothing while flying in this plane? I had mapped the surroundings of the place as silently as possible through little portals.

I sat on the nearest seat and crossed my legs as I said, "I'm not good at infiltration, so I will let Barbara and Barton lead the mission."

You wanted me to go guns blazing somewhere? I was your girl, but I wasn't patient enough to enter silently, I had two S.H.I.E.L.D trainees with me here, they should be able to lead the operation.

Clint was the first to answer, "Uh, why us?!" He stood up looking at me as if I was setting him up.

*I kind of was.* I chuckled. "You two have more experience, and it's a job interview at the same time…" I looked particularly at Clint, Barbara was definitely going to be my pet scientist. "At least for Barton."

Barbara seemed to understand where I stood, and nodded at me; making me smile, then my eyes settled on the blonde man. He had thought that he would follow Barbara and do simple bodyguard work for me or something.

"I thought that-" Clint tried to say.

But I interrupted him by standing up, walking toward him and poke his cheek. "Never assume you have it in the bag, Barton. I like you, but I want to know if you will either be dead weight or need retraining."

I was deliberately needling him, and hoped that it worked. I knew he would rise to the challenge and show me why he was called Hawkeye.

Clint glared at me. "Challenge accepted."

Barbara put a hand on his right arm and gave him a reassuring smile; she believed in him. Jessica and Chimera looked at me with wariness, sure that I would suggest something too much again. I didn't disappoint them. "Oh and I have a bomb to explode the castle at the end, I hope we can implement it in the plan."

Chimera facepalmed. "Boss, please tell me it's not another nuke."

Jessica, Barbara and Clint looked at me with alarm. *Wow, there's no trust here.*

Sigh. "Peggy made me promise to not use my brand of nukes anymore, this one isn't a nuke I promise."

Chimera looked visibly relieved. She shouldn't have, I was going to use what the Wakandan scientists called a Photon bomb. It was the size of a backpack and could level three city blocks easily. It wouldn't destroy Berlin, just everything in a two kilometers radius. I shrugged, not letting the haters get to me and asked my two favorite spies, "So what are we going to do Barb? Barton?"

# # #

Castle Dietrich was a new castle commissioned by Otto Vermis by a skilled architect whose name I couldn't even pronounce because it sounded German and Russian at the same time. There was a facility underground as big as the one under Camp Lehigh. The number of vehicles and guards around it was significant, as if they were all on guard for something.

They had good reasons to be after what I did with their experimentation facility in the USA. Through my HUD, I counted thirty guards covering the grounds and the woods around the castle. The goal was to take them all down silently. I put a finger on my gauntlet and opened the comm system. "Phoenix, in position."

"Jewel in position." Jessica replied.

Her position on the holographic map showed her to be at the south end of the castle.

"Mockingbird ready." Barbara used her call sign, she was the vanguard for this operation and was charged to infiltrate the castle.

"Hawkeye in position." Clint added, he would help Barbara by taking out the guards by sniping them with his particle rifle.

"Chimera ready." My second in command said cheerfully.

Everyone was ready. I was ready at a moment's notice to shoot with my kinetic blast and cover everyone.

# # #

(Barbara Morse aka Mockingbird)

*Back into the breach.* Barbara thought as she hid behind a tree and engaged the cloaking system and became invisible.

The woods were actively patrolled, and some of the guards had guard dogs with them. But it was nothing that Barbara couldn't handle; she took a tranquilizer-gun out of her utility belt. If she remembered correctly, it was enough to put a man or animal to sleep instantly for half a day.

With a shock baton in one hand and the tranq-gun in the other, Barbara attacked the guard passing and shocked him with a hit on his temple and then fired the fast acting tranq-gun at the dog who passed her. Like a bag of potatoes, the guard fell with a grunt, the German shepherd whined and tried to bark, only to fall like its master, unconscious.

*Those tranquilizers might be a bit too strong.*

Barbara then proceeded to hide the man and the dog behind some bushes, then continued seeking another target. Twenty meters away she met a pair of roaming guards. After climbing an overhanging oak tree, she dropped in and neutralized them.

She did this four more times before being caught by a group of guards with dogs, she wasn't ready for it and had to fight. Fortunately, Jean was there and put them all to sleep with a wave, then she threw them through a portal. Barbara was surprised to see a tropical beach with white sand on the other side.

Jean noticed her surprise and explained, "I've sent everyone and their dogs there. Those guys don't know who they are working for but they are still mercenaries."

Barbara answered by taking her rifle, the weapon unfolded, her HUD showed her the number of shots, how the capacitor was all green and that the battery was full. "No mercy?"

"No mercy, Barb." Jean nodded and teleported away.

Barbara left the cover of the woods and fired her particle rifle in three burst mode, disabling a group of guards exiting the castle through the gates in the back property. Barbara wasn't alone, Jessica had been covering her from the sky. When she landed, she took out another group with an explosive impact. The blast from her FEMLF boots as she came down carried enough force that it knocked down the enemy agents in a ten meter radius.

She then struck each of them with an electro laser shooting out of her blue gauntlet, knocking each of them out. Jessica wiped her brow and flew up into the sky, Barbara ignored the superhuman feat, twirled her shock batons in her hands and ran toward the main gates.

# # #

(Clinton Barton aka Hawkeye)

Clint looked at his fiancee go, covering her invasion of the castle; bow in hands he looked on as the camera in his helmet focused on a window with someone pointing a sniper rifle at Chimera who was taking down guards. He took a cluster bomb arrow from his quiver, loaded it in his bow, aimed and fired it in one smooth move. His HUD zoomed in and saw the man in a sniping position being hit by the arrow in the left shoulder, he staggered back inside the room he was in and a large explosion was the result of the trick arrow Clint had shot.

Smiling, Clint stowed his bow on his back and activated the cloaking system of his custom armor and ran around toward the front of the castle pointing his gauntlet to one of its tower's crenelations and a monomolecular wire shot from it. It was a grappling device with retractable and detachable cable or wire with a mechanized end specifically meant to grab and pull a target.

While being pulled up, Clint unfolded his rifle until it made a small electronic squeak signalling its activation. He braced himself and landed against the walls of the towers and rappelled to enter the window to his left. After a moment, he pushed the com button on his right gauntlet. "I'm in."

The room he had ended up in was a bathroom, a well maintained one. He didn't have the time to look for anything inside as the low and appreciative voice of Jean Grey answered him. "Very good, Hawkeye. Why don't you try to reunite with Mockingbird and take down as many guards as you can from the top? I'll keep sending the unaffiliated away, busy, busy."

"Chimera is alone outside." Clint said, wanting to cover his team member.

The redhead chuckled. "She's a big girl."

Clint wasn't about to argue with the scary girl. "Understood."

Clint put his particle rifle in semiautomatic mode and exited the bathroom to be faced with two armed men who immediately pointed their FAMAS rifles at the door that had opened. Clint was still invisible but the men fired anyway. Without harming him, the bullets fell from his armor as their kinetic energy was absorbed. It was Clint's turn and he fired two shots of the energy weapon at them creating a baseball sized hole in each.

They fell forward, dead; Clint didn't see Jean appear to take them so they must be guilty of being Hydra. Clint double tapped them by firing at their heads, their skulls exploding into bloody chunks. This trend continued as Clint roamed the castle in quest of a certain Hydra Commander. He found little difference between the types of guards in the castle, they were all wearing the same black skin tight outfit with only an armband to identify their affiliation, the mercenaries' armbands were blue and the Hydra men wore red ones and shouted Hail Hydra before attacking him when he revealed himself.

Clint finally reunited with Barbara who was battling most of the Hydra guards that were defending an elevator in a ballroom. The archer folded his rifle and stored it on the slot for it behind him, took his bow and fired three arrows simultaneously at three of Barbara's foes, targeting their vitals. One ended up with an arrow in the throat, the next with one in the sternum and the last in the head.

Barbara's shock batons took on a purple glow, a sure sign that she had ramped up their voltage and struck the last guard who screamed as he was being electrocuted. He walked up to Barbara who looked winded and bothered by all the bodies around her.

"You okay, babe?" Clint asked as he put a hand on the pauldron of her armor.

Her helmet's visor passed from opaque to a transparent yellow showing half her face. "I am rusty, Clint."

Clint's helmet cleared as well and showed his comforting blue eyes. "Well I guess that you are going to be a regular in the gym. I will help you get back in fighting form."

"Yes, I became too soft. Thank you." Barbara thanked him.

Clint nodded. "You're welcome babe; let's wait for the rest of the team?"

"Yes let's…" Barbara stored her shock batons on the armor's slot behind her and took her rifle.

They stood overwatch at the elevator's doors. One pointing a rifle at it, the other at the door of the ballroom.

But they didn't take into account a teleporting teenage girl with a mischievous disposition. Teleporting in a shower of blue in front of Clint, Jean said, "Nice work guys, and Barb don't worry I will work you to the bone in the future training room."

Barbara fired at Jean who was struck by the energy bolts but her armor absorbed them. Jean dusted her breastplate and shrugged her shoulders. She was glowing with orange particles of light escaping the aura around her.

Barbara sighed, "Jean, don't startle me like that."

The ballroom was silent for a moment, Jean's visor went from opaque to transparent ruby; she looked remorseful. "Sorry, anyway I'm going to go down to the bunker, I'm taking Barton with me."

She became all business again. Clint looked at Barbara who shrugged. He looked back at his new boss and said, "Sure."

Jean turned to Barbara. "Barb, Chimera and Jessica are going to stay put to hold up any reinforcements they might have called. Even though I have jammed communications, I'm not taking any risks."

Looking her up and down, Barbara commented, "That's why you are glowing orange?"

Jean threw her a thumbs up. "Indeed. Nice that you noticed."

Jessica and Chimera arrived in the ballroom, the black armored psionic was surrounded by a literal army of green colored ectoplasmic constructs from armored females with swords and armor looking like valkyries, to dragons and winged griffins they used as mounts. It was surreal to Clint, he surmised that he didn't want to have to fight the woman ever. Jean hugged Jessica who seemed to not feel well about what she had been doing; Clint could see how green she was, and pitied her as he understood that Jean was using this operation to bloody her friend.

"Well Barton, let's go." His new boss said as she wrenched open the elevator's doors to the empty shaft.

Clint followed her and placed himself at her side. "Yes ma'am"

"Smartass." Jean turned to him and rolled her eyes.

A red bubble of psionic energy surrounded the two of them and slowly they levitated toward the gaping entrance of the elevator shaft, then once inside it, descended at high speed down the shaft. Clint screamed a bit, heard Jean chuckle at him and he shook his head at her. He took his bow in hand, ready for anything that would happen down there.

# # #

(Otto Vermis/Supreme Hydra)

Bunker

Level C

"Damn them!" The white haired man slammed his hands on his Rosewood desk.

He put his head between his hands, his grey hair in disarray because of his worries; he wore a Hydra skin-suit covering his wiry body. The Supreme Hydra had extended his lifespan through successful gene therapy treatment. It wasn't surprising that he looked strong and athletic for a man of his advanced age. He had thought that today would start well, his plan concerning the young Jessica Drew was finally bearing fruit, her training with Taskmaster was finally complete.

He was readupdates from the US Hydra branch, then the attack had come out of nowhere. They had appeared first like ghosts in the woods, then systematically and efficiently taken out the security before being detected. Otto had ordered the mercenaries to do something but none of them were responding, the agents' contingents on the surface didn't fare any better.

Otto was forced to call out the Berlin, Vienna and Paris bases to ask for reinforcements; but when he was about to call, communications and the phone landlines simply cut off. Then it was the cameras and security network that went out. The last thing he had seen on the cameras was one of the assailants in black armor glowing orange looking at the camera in the castle's lobby and everything went out.

"A mutant with power over radio waves or technology? How frightening." Otto mused.

He sighed, pushed a button from under his desk and took an energy pistol from one of his desk's drawers and put it on his belt. Otto stood up and exited the spartan safe room. Otto was sure that these people wanted him and maybe Jessica herself as her training was finally completed; this couldn't be a coincidence!

The armored door opened and let him out, opening on the bunker's command center where dozens of agents tried to do something about the communication being jammed and to give him eyes on the situation. The computers were new and cutting edge, connected to the global Hydra network through the internet, a fantastic resource that the organization used with impunity.

Each agent was a skilled operator with countless degrees in computer engineering, science and networking.

"Report!" Otto barked to the nearest agent.

The black haired and blue eyed man behind the console stood up and gave a 'Hail Hydra' salute and spoke, "Sir! We have switched to the hardened backup circuit for the security network, we have the cameras back but it's low resolution."

Otto smiled. "Better than nothing, and good job."

The man saluted, sat and went to work. Another agent interrupted the Supreme Hydra and said quite unsure of what he was seeing. "Sir… they are in the elevator shaft?"

Two people were floating down the elevator shaft, it scared Otto as he realized that those people meant business. "Damnation. Have a welcoming party take care of them!"

He had one hundred soldiers with different levels of augmentation on site. He was tempted to send Jessica, but she had barely started the brainwashing operation, it would be bad to botch this… Otto ordered everyone to be ready to fight. Even the agents on their computer took the time to check their service arms and to prepare themselves.

A woman entered the command center, she was in Hydra body armor, she had blonde hair framing her stern but beautiful heart shaped face and deep grey eyes. She walked toward Otto who recognized her as a recently hired field agent in charge.

She saluted Otto and put herself at attention and said, "Sir, permission to speak?"

Otto looked at her from head to toes, he had no idea of what to do, no idea of who attacked him or their number… He needed to bounce ideas off someone else. "Why the hell not? Proceed."

"Sir, we should use heavier weapons and-"

Otto turned to her with wide eyes. "In the bunker?"

He liked the fact that she had initiative, if they survived this he might promote her. Otto nodded at her to continue with a wave and to be at ease.

"Yes, sir. We have already barricaded ourselves and built choke points in the Bunker's corridors and bulkheads."

Otto couldn't help but smile at her. His gaze softened as he looked at her. "I like your initiative, agent…?"

She saluted again enthusiastically. "Schneider, Luise Schneider sir."

Otto found her to be a breath of fresh air even though their situation was dire. She was the reason why he did what he did; he wanted this world to be for the new generation, a generation that thought right. That people needed guidance and oversight to be truly happy, and Hydra was happy to take the reign and make this world a paradise. "Excellent, Agent Schneider. I shall remember you."

However, it was not to be; when Otto blinked he found the arm of Luise Schneider in his chest, and blood pouring down his mouth. "I hope so, after all it's your last day on Earth." Her tone was sweet and her eyes smiling.

He looked at the woman with an uncomprehending stare. The arm was covered in a rubbery golden substance. Then he noticed that the agents around him were firing their weapons at her but some kind of energy shield rendered her impervious to harm. The woman turned her head to the operators firing at her, narrowed her eyes and what Otto saw was a nightmarish and gory scene.

Each of the agents' heads exploded in a shower of gore, bones and cerebral matter and their body caught fire immediately. The Supreme Hydra was dying and about to close his eyes when he heard a different female voice.

When he reopened his eyes it was to see an attractive young woman with red hair and emerald green eyes in a golden and red rubbery form fitting suit covering her from neck to toes before him.

"Hey, Otto. Don't die too fast, I have something to tell you." The mellifluous and enchanting voice told him. At least Otto would die by the hand of an angel.

"Here, it should tide you over for what I have to say." She said, and he felt a soothing heat coming from his chest. His blurry vision sharpened and Otto could finally look clearly at the woman that was killing him.

The girl who was crouching over him opened her mouth, and Otto hoped that she would say something meaningful, but what he got was pure poison. "I just wanted to tell you, that when Death comes to seize your soul, that I want you to remember this moment. I want you to remember my hand crushing your heart, I want you to remember that everything you did, everything you created was for naught. That your legacy shall be ashes after I am done with all your little bases and your ridiculous cabal of evil." Her voice gained a sinister echo.

Those words and convictions from such a young woman made Otto falter, all his life he had been manipulating others and created elaborated plots to further his own goals. But they were useless when some girl with strange powers could crush everything he had built.

Otto heard her dirge like laugh directed at him, at what he was thinking and then she was finally done with him. "Jetzt hast du meine Erlaubnis zum sterben, du Sheißkerl. (Now, you have my permission to die, you piece of shit.)"

She crushed his heart again and he felt himself being burned from the inside, screaming and dying slowly.

# # #

(Jessica Drew)

Land of dreams

Jess felt like an idiot. For being put in this position, to have believed that mister Otto wanted what's best for her. One moment she was eating ice cream in the castle's kitchen and the next Jess realized that he had knocked her out with drugs in her ice cream parfait. Then she woke up to find herself in a forest under the shade of trees.

She roamed the place, and found an animal trail leading to somewhere, out of the heart of the sea of trees. Jess was careful to spread her senses around her just like her teacher taught her, focusing on smells, her hearing and vision. It was weird, there were no birds singing, no deer, no squirrels foraging. It was perfectly silent around her. Jessica touched the bark of the nearest tree and felt that her sense of touch was rather muted.

"Where am I? What did Otto do to me?" Jess asked herself, she worked out, that she had been abandoned, again. First her dad left her in a pod for years to save her life, she would have preferred to be dead because of the hardships heaped upon her.

First her parents and now Otto? She kicked a rock and sent it flying hundreds of meters away. "Why? Why does everyone abandon me?"

A rasping laugh was her answer. "Hahaha, you ask why? Really, girl?"

Jess immediately entered into a fighting stance and looked around for the person who spoke. "Who?" She looked to her right where she heard someone move around in the trees.

"You know deep down who I am, girl." This time it came from behind her.

Jess slowly turned and saw a monster behind her, someone she was used to seeing in the mirror after she woke up each day. It was herself but at the same time it wasn't; this Jessica had spider limbs sticking out of her back, claws for fingers and mandibles at the side of her mouth. Her eyes… She had eight of them, all red with a completely black sclera.

"Say my name." The monster said in a scratching voice.

Jess turned tail and ran as fast as her muscles could make her go, faster than a car. She heard the monster pursue her. Jessica felt danger and jumped, with a somersault she landed on her feet and looked where she had been some seconds ago, a spike was there stabbed in the ground, she also looked around her and noticed the spider webs everywhere cutting her escape.

The monster wearing her skin lunged at her but Jessica stopped it by catching its fist, but she received a stabbing spike in the left shoulder, eliciting a cry of pain from her. The monster laughed.

"You cannot hide, you cannot run." The monster was upon her, approaching slowly.

Jess' anger blazed into her eyes and she blasted the monster with a bolt of green electricity coming from her hands. As it hissed in pain, Jess jumped back and sent some of her organic webs from her finger to catch the beast' limbs. She ran and jumped feet first, she kicked the head of the monster and sent it flying.

She didn't capitalize on her advantage and chose to flee instead.

# # #

Jess couldn't flee anymore, it had been days that she had been on the run from the monster who relentlessly hunted her. But at the same time Jess always seemed to escape her, it had started weirdly though, a rock coming loose and making the monster trip, or a tree suddenly catching fire; when Jess almost got caught, she felt herself becoming stronger and hitting the monster and sending it flying to flee once more.

From the side of her eyes Jess could see a silhouette observing her from time to time, when she looked directly all she caught in view was red hair and then nothing. Was that woman helping her an enemy or a tentative ally? Jess had the sinking suspicions that this place wasn't what it seemed. Anyway, the situation she found herself in was getting direr by the second, she had inadvertently entered into a stone quarry and was now trapped.

Jess was cornered between a wall and the monster, she jumped and tried to climb the steep stone cliff she was under to escape, however it wasn't to be as she felt a web thread wrap around her ankle and she was made to slam on the ground and the monster was upon her snapping its mandible at her.

"Where are you going?" It bit a chunk of her arm, drawing blood. The monster's mouth was dripping with Jess's blood. "I will kill you, you hear me? I WILL KILL YOU!" The manic gaze of the spider-like monster terrified her. It looked at her and said with a sweet voice. "Then I will eat you."

Once again, strength filled Jess as she narrowed her eyes at the monster; "I will fight!" Jess sent it bowling into the air with her two legs by kicking it away from her.

The monster caught itself and sent a stream of web-fluid to the wall of stone behind Jess and pulled to land against it, it shattered the rock with its claws and stuck to it, it looked down on the young woman. It laughed at her and at her attempt, it had been getting stronger since they first met, each time anticipating what she was going to use. "You will fight, then you'll lose. You are nothing, just a worthless pawn, a monster just like me."

Jess flinched. She had thought like this earlier, after she killed her first boyfriend and when she was run out by the enraged mob of villagers. But she knew better now, she was just a girl. "You are wrong." Jess said with a finality that cut through the bullshit induced by this monster who had been hounding her for so long.

The monster hissed at Jess who squared herself off and prepared for battle, she was tired of fleeing. Her hands sparked with green electricity and the monster jumped at her with all spidery limbs out and ready to snap her up. "DIE."

However, something else happened, as someone jumped from the cliff and kicked the monster from the air with a vertical spinning heel kick. The monster crashed into the ground with such force that it created a one meter deep crater, the rocky surface having cracked.

The person who attacked the beast practiced a perfect hero landing in front of Jess who stood there stunned.

"Am I interrupting?" The young red haired woman said as she stood.

She was shorter than Jessica, with scarlet red hair, green eyes; she also possessed the female ideal of an hourglass figure, she was fit and beautiful and wore a black tank-top with leather pants and boots with a belt. Everything was covered by a tight black leather trench coat.

"Who are you?" Jess asked, wary.

Her training, along with everything that had been happening recently, made her suspicious of someone coming to her rescue in such a way. The stranger smiled at her, an impish smile that could mean anything. "I am…" She was about to say, but was interrupted by the monster lunging at her. The redhead raised a hand and the monster froze in the air, two meters from the young woman. She tilted her head and looked at the beast as if she was seeing something that Jess couldn't. "Oh great, I came just in time."

The redhead mimed the gesture of throwing something and the monster was sent careening into the face of the cliff, crashing and causing a mini landslide to happen. It covered the monster, but it wasn't enough to hurt it. It's arms and spiderly limbs appeared out of the stone and earth covering it. It exited the mound and looked hatefully at the newcomer.

Its clothes, consisting of blue jeans and a white t-shirt were almost all gone and Jess could see more of the monster's body. It hissed "It doesn't matter, I will devour you too."

The redhead sighed, the monster tried to use its web-fluid to capture her, but they simply burned and caught fire mid-air. "You are really annoying,you know that? I can't be surprised by that fact though. After all you aren't real. Just a foreign mental construct forced into the head of a sweet girl." She turned to Jess and looked her into her eyes.

Jess was slowly coming to trust that the redhead wasn't her enemy, but she couldn't be sure that she wanted to help her kill the abomination. She then looked at the monster, it seemed upset by what the newcomer said.

The monster charged. "SHUT UP YOU!"

"Olé." The redhead sidestepped the assault and the spider monstrosity simply crashed into a big rock face first.

The redhead waved her hand and a red bubble appeared around the monster who was now floating in the air. It beat against the bubble's walls with its limbs.

"Now, stay put while I speak to the real girl here, Pinocchio." She said with swagger, then she took something from her jacket. Jess tensed expecting her to take a weapon or something, but it was a pair of sleek sunglasses that she put on with style.

Jess couldn't believe the other girl was serious. "You…" She could barely say anything as the ridiculous action made her giggle at the redhead.

The redhead nodded, "My name is Jean, and I am here to help you."

Then Jess realized, the red shade of Jean's hair was familiar. Her eyes widened. "It was you! You were the one who has been helping me escape each time it cornered me."

"Guilty as charged." The girl mock bowed.

Jess felt that the answers she was looking for could be obtained, but she still stayed vigilant as she pointed a hand at the forest beyond the quarry. "Where are we, do you know how to get out of this forest?"

The redhead just smiled, flipped her hair back and said, "Yes, I know where you are, Jessica. But first I want to ask you something."

Jess looked at the bound monster trying like a mad woman to free itself.

"Uhm, shoot? It better not be anything personal." Jess crossed her arms and looked at Jean and at the monster imprisoned in the transparent red bubble of energy that continued to try to destroy its prison.

The world around them broke, washed out as if an artist drawing on photoshop was erasing everything with the eraser tool. The world became white and two sofas appeared, Jean sat on the black leather one and invited with a movement of her hand Jessica to do the same with the other facing Jean's.

When Jess's bottom was barely seated on the soft red leather sofa, Jean spoke, "Have you ever had a dream, Jessica, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?"

Jess thought furiously and then remembered a dream she had about her mother serving her tea and biscuits, talking about their days. She wanted it to be real, to be back to those old days with her family and not having to train or be treated like a leper because she had powers. Looking at the redhead she said, "Yes, sometimes, I…"

The blonde frowned and replayed the scene of Jean erasing the forest and quarry around her. "Are you trying to say that I am dreaming? That the environment around me isn't real?"

Jean threw her a thumbs up. "Smart girl. You catch on fast."

Jess pinched her hand hard, eliciting a groan of pain. She looked up at the redhead and said with denial, "But I can feel… pain, touch, smells here. I can use my powers." Her hands sparked with green electricity.

The girl in the black coat looked at the other, she seemed lost. "Like a certain captain said: What is real? How do you define 'real'? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain."

"But… it's real." Jess insisted.

To highlight her point, Jean simply waved her hand and conjured a unicorn that put it's horned head near the girl's and a multicolored rabbit that jumped onto Jess' lap. As Jess petted them she felt their fur and stroked the horn of the fantastic equine. They felt real.

Jean smiled. "Your mind makes it real."

The blonde stayed silent for a long moment as she pondered at everything Jean had revealed. But the redhead wasn't done with her. "Jess, I'm trying to free your mind. But I can only show you the door. You're the one who has to walk through it. The world here around you blinds you from the truth."

Disturbingly raising an eyebrow, Jess asked, "What truth?"

Jean rose from her sofa and dismissed the animals, making the blonde sad at their departure. She lowered her glasses and stared in Jess's grey eyes. "That you are a prisoner, Jessica. That man, Otto, he trained you, fed you and educated you to turn you into a weapon. And he wanted to lock your real self into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind."

A sword appeared in the redheaded girl's hands and she presented it to Jessica and looked at the monster wearing her face. "Free your mind Jessica."

Jess didn't take the weapon, but asked a question that was relevant. "What did you do to him?"

"Otto?" Jean asked.

Jess nodded, she had trusted the man before; but now she knew better, he put that monstrosity in her mind. She didn't want to trust Jean but it seemed that she was on the up and up so far.

"I did that to him." Jean looked to the right, a TV screen appeared on a brown table. It lit up and showed Jess what Otto was all about, Hydra, what he did in the previous war and the unethical experiment and orders he had given throughout his life. Then Jean showed Jess his death, how she was personally responsible.

Jess threw a suspicious gaze at Jean. "How do you know all that?"

Jean shrugged. "I am a telepath, I attacked Otto's base and now I am trying to save you from the programming. He paid some fucker that called himself Mentallo to try to brainwash you. He was working on you when I appeared and killed him."

"You have powers? Like me?" Jessica looked at the girl with a certain awe.

Jean smiled ruefully, put a hand on her chin then nodded. "Not exactly like you, but I do have a lot of powers. But essentially, yes; you are a metahuman like me. My group is made of people with powers and normal humans, we help everyone we can." With an intense gaze targeted at people who didn't yet realize how fucked they were, Jean said, "And Hydra has attacked my family, now I am attacking them in retaliation. I won't settle for less than their total annihilation." The redhead finished her rant, her eyes slightly glowed, scaring Jess somewhat.

The little blonde looked at Jean for a long moment before expressing her opinion about Jean's explanations. "You are kind of… intense."

But something lit in Jess's heart, hope and the final realization that she was not alone, that she wasn't the only one with freakish powers. However, she didn't want to give the other girl any incline … *Wait! She said that she's a telepath…* Jess realized, what was it like to be able to read people like they were an open book? How could she trust human beings after peering in their psyches? This power seemed like a curse, Jess felt for the redhead.

Jean's gaze softened, and Jess now knew that she was right, that the redhead knew her more than anyone by now. Jean's smile blossomed, putting Jess at ease. "Sorry." Jean said with a wave. "You aren't the first person to tell me that, I can get too passionate sometimes."

The blonde smiled back, then looked at the glimmering sword. It looked like a one-handed Jian sword, made of a glittering silver metal. "What am I to do with this weapon?" Jess asked out loud. She knew how to wield it, Taskmaster had drilled her in swordsmanship after she mastered empty-handed combat one year ago.

Jean's warm-hearted smile disappeared to let appear a serious expression on her face. "I will free the monster, then you will fight it with that sword."

The spider-girl turned her head to the monster still beating on the red bubble's wall with freesia. "And I will be free from this place?" She asked Jean after returning her eyes to her.

"Fight and find out for yourself."

"I see." Jess said. She understood that there was nothing more to be said.

Jess rose up from the sofa and took the proffered sword, the redhead smiled and asked, "Are you ready?"

The blonde girl weighed the sword, it looked light but was heavy. But it was manageable; looking up and into the redhead's eyes, Jess said, "Unleash the beast will you?"

The bubble exploded into a spray of tiny shards and the monster screeched in triumph, thinking that it got free thanks to its strength. It looked around, then finally found the two girls; gazed at them with hatred and charged them, ready to strike them down.

"Done." Jean simply said as she then saw Jess kick the spider monster with a roundhouse kick as it was almost about to tackle her.

Jean smiled and whispered, "Woe to him or her who offends a patient person who has just reached her limits."

The monster caught itself and rolled then stood up, only to find one of its spider legs cut by a really sharp blade when it tried to dodge the sword strike. It hissed in pain and kicked Jess who caught herself too and lunged back, deflecting one of the monster's launched darts with her sword. The little blonde sent several of her venom blasts that caught the monster in the leg, torso and right spider leg causing it to hiss in pain; Jess served it a knuckle sandwich to the face, snapping its jaw with a loud crack and kicked the monster away from her.

It stood up, coughing blood and roared in defiance and hatred and jumped, firing a web at Jess who received it in the face. Thanks to her danger sense, the blonde avoided being skewered by jumping with a backflip and took off the sticky substance from her eyes. Jess then tightened her grip on the pommel of her sword and lunged at the creature.

After that, the fight had become an aerobatic dance of deflections and feints, for a good solid minute neither of the foes won an advantage, until the spider monster scored a hit that had came low, the sharp end of the limb caught Jess and pierced her left shoulder, but she gave back as much as she received and stabbed her monstrous opponent at the same time directly in her chin with a scream filled with anger.

Jess had noticed how the entire blade seemed to wreath with fire, the monster was suddenly burning from inside out and quickly turned to ash.

"That's it? She wasn't so tough." Jess said as she lamented having had to flee from this weakling. But she couldn't deny that seeing herself in the guise of a monster had traumatized her, she had thought deep down that she was one because of her freakishness.

Jean interrupted her, "No, it wasn't that simple."

Jess had heard her walk, the girl walked like a martial artist and seemed to be adept at stealth operations. The blonde turned to Jean and gave her back her sword, "How so."

Jean took back the weapon and made it disappear. "We are in your mind, Jessica." The redhead spread her arms grandly. "In this place you are Queen, you shouldn't have had any problem dispatching this monster, but by fleeing and not fighting at first, you gave it power over you." She reprimanded.

The blonde looked embarrassed and mortified, she knew that something was wrong, that her senses were muted and the forest had been deep and devoid of animals… What about her hunger and thirst? She hadn't felt them either, that should have tipped her off.

"I don't like fighting…" Jess defended weakly.

Jean laughed mockingly at her. "No, you do. Don't lie to yourself."

The spider-girl looked at Jean, self-conscious of her fault. She liked how Jean carried herself and felt mildly envious of not being the same, there was also the fact that she felt mildly attracted to her. Jess shook her head, this wasn't the time to think with her ovaries, she sighed and asked, "Okay, so… what's next?"

Jean smiled and the white void they were in suddenly changed to become the inside of a house. Jessica's house, the one before everything had fallen apart. She recognized the furniture, the familial tapestries of the Drew family, her father's favorite sofa and her mom's scent. Jean then showed her the door, a painted white mahogany door, it looked heavy.

"Just open the door." Jean said aloud.

Jess looked at the redhead and hugged her, tight. "Thank you, Jean. Thank you for saving me."

The blonde felt a hand on her back, patting it. Jean stepped away from her after letting her go and said with red cheeks, "We aren't out of the woods yet, please, wake up."

Jessica nodded and stepped to the door, put a hand on the doorknob and opened it. Warm and white light enveloped her and she smiled.

# # #

Back with Jean…

Through the noise of explosions and weapon fire, I became cognizant again, looking around me, there was a reinforced chair where Jessica Drew sat, she was strapped to it by leather straps reinforced with metal fiber. On the ground was a man wearing a helmet, the style certainly ripped off from Magneto's.

Killing him had been easy, he had been busy controlling the mental construct that had been supposed to subsume Jessica's psyche and make her more pliable to his brainwashing. Mentallo was killed with my hand going through his heart and then I had crushed it. Having a symbiote combat form was useful, I should use it more…

As I began unstrapping Jess from the chair, I received a good dose of motivation to speed up. "Jean are you done?! I am out of grenades!" Clint warned from the door of the lab we were in.

"Shit." I cursed and slapped Jessica's right cheek. "Jess? Please wake up girl."

Jess opened her eyes, she looked completely groggy; she stretched and wiped her eyes with her hands. Looked around and saw my helmetless head and recognized me."J-Jean? You weren't a dream!" She put her arms around my neck and hugged me again.

I melted in her embrace. *What is it with Spider-girls and me? Damn, she smells nice. Damnit me! Remember she got those pheromones powers, calm down.*

I patted her back and then made her let go. "That's me, girl! Come on, we have to go. Clint can't hold on any longer."

Boom! "Jean are you ready? This is my last trick arrow!"

Jess peered at the door, watching as flashes of blue light illuminated the entrance of the lab and weird electronic sounds rang. "What's happening?"

I used aerokinesis to combat Jess's pheromones, I should have kept my helmet on, now look at me lusting after the girl. Shaking my head I said, "Remember, I killed Otto? "

Jess nodded. Feeling that she wasn't sad at his death, I continued speaking. "Well I still didn't kill everyone in the base, they have taken up arms and now want to kill us."

Her eyes widened and she let go of me, the pheromones she was producing suddenly stopped flowing from her. *I knew it, she can control them.*

"How are we going to get out of here?" Jess asked with a no nonsense tone.

Smiling, I said, "Easily." Wavin my hand, a golden portal opened, Jess's eyes widened in awe as she saw the spatial tear slowly expand.

"You are like me!" She hugged me again. At this rate she was going to choke me to death at some point with her superstrength. *If she reacts like this with me, she's going to love Cindy and Peter.* I told myself. Then I remembered that Goldie also had spider powers from the frequent DNA exchanges I had with Cindy.

"A bit, come on let's go! My friends are waiting for us." I told her and pushed her into the portal with a TK shove. She was made to fly in the portal with a squeak, I could already see Barbara helping her get up while Chimera showed me the time with a holographic window.

I turned to the entrance of the lab and hollered, "Oi! Hawkeye! We are leaving!"

"FINALLY! Ciao, losers." The agent shouted with relief.

As I took Mentallo's helmet from his dead body and everything he had on him, I saw Clint running, look at the portal and jump into it. The man was quick, I could give him that. I snapped my fingers in remembrance. "Oh, I almost forgot, I shouldn't leave without giving them their gift."

I focused on an item I had left in the plane, in a flash of blue light it appeared in my hands, it was a silver sphere at least one meter in diameter, lines of light crisscrossed its surface in a fractal pattern. Pressing three places at once on the surface that were buttons that sank into the sphere, it signaled with a low electronic sound that the device was armed. I put it in the chair and leisurely entered the portal just as a dozen of Hydra agents arrived, I waved at them once I was in the ballroom where I had left my friends to guard the hidden elevator, they raised their weapon to fire into the portal but it collapsed before they could shoot.

"OK let's go now, this place is about to blow." I said to everyone and opened a new portal to the clearing where the Raven was parked.

Jessica and… Jess (fuck it's going to be hard to address them) passed through it first; Chimera was next and then Clint and Barbara left. As it was my turn I whistled and put on my helmet and landed in the clearing. It clicked shut, and my HUD deployed and synchronized with the armor's systems. "Jess, don't look to the east and protect your ears, will you?"

The grey eyed blonde looked at me, not understanding. "Why?"

My best friend, Jessica looked between her and me. "Her name is the same as mine? Fuck, it's going to be difficult-"

KABLAM. BOOM! The successive explosions were deafening and powerful, I had to shield the spider-girl by enveloping her with an opaque forcefield. At the same time, I felt the earth shake and a shockwave incoming, I protected us from it with another layered forcefield created to dissipate the EM burst and impact. I looked to the east where the Castle was supposed to be, the red and yellow dome of the explosion was so beautiful, a mushroom of smoke rose into the air.

I nodded, satisfied by the extremely vigorous outward release of energy, the yield of the detonation was lower than the fusion bomb I used at Camp Lehigh, but it was less expensive than going to space to harvest Helium-3. I put my arm before me and started to take notes on the holographic computer in my gauntlet, there was a lot that could be done to make the photon bomb even more powerful, maybe a material denser than vibranium/adamantium alloy would do the trick to augment the detonation's yield-

I felt someone strike my arm, but I didn't feel it. It was Chimera and her expression looked angry through her visor. "Jean! What was that? I thought we said no nukes!?"

My visor became transparent and I said with a reasonable tone, "That was a photon bomb. Completely different from a nuke, though the yield isn't the same as an atomic bomb… more akin to one megaton of TNT, there will be no fallout, and-"

Chimera shook me by the shoulders. "Jean, that's not the point, you can't just nuke everything that bothers you!"

*Wow, she seemed rather passionate about arguing my methods lately.* I thought.

"Erm… that was a big boom." I heard Jess say. I turned to her and saw that the spider-girl looked terrified of us for a moment, but I didn't want her to feel like this, so I went to hug her.

She held onto me for a longtime before letting go. "You don't have to fear anything, I only nuke bad guys."

Jess looked at me, then nodded. "Kay." The spider girl proceeded to look for debris in her hair, there was only dust though.

Smiling, I couldn't stop thinking how awesome her brain worked. She had been wary of me at first, but helping her defeat the mental programming destined to make her a loyal pet assassin evaporated any concerns she might have about me before. *She's cute too.* No, Jean! Don't go there! *Stupid pheromones. Stupid cute blondes, they are my weakness beside asian girls.*

I looked around me as I felt my team judge me, in particular Jessica and Chimera. I decided that some introductions were in order. I coughed and put Jess at my side and held onto her waist with an arm. "So Jessica Drew, here is my best friend, Jessica Jones." I pointed to the white and blue armored Pinkett.

"Hey.Jessica waved and took off her mask to show her face.

As for Jess, she was less intimidated, now that she could see my best friend's face. "Hello."

Wow it felt awkward, it was Clint and Barbara's turn to take off their helmet after using their gauntlet computer to open the Raven's hatch and for the ramp to unfold. They waved at the spider-girl and went to work in the plane.

"Those two are Barton and Barb." I said to Jess who nodded.

My favorite blonde psionic walked to me and placed herself before us. "And this is my second in command, Chimera."

Chimera's smile was beautiful and engaging. "A new foundling boss? You keep collecting them."

Jess looked between the two of us, my arm tightened around Jess. "She was in the same boat as you, Mera. That asshole Otto Vermis wanted to brainwash her and turn her into a weapon."

The spider-girl seemed to pay even more to Chimera after that comment, now knowing that someone might know how she feels. Chimera snorted, but her eyes became stormy with scorn. "It's like bad guys all have the same fucking handbook… hey, I am Chimera and I will be taking care of you. Unless you want us to leave you alone? We are not in the business of keeping people who want to go their own way." Chimera looked at me in particular when she said that.

Hey, I am not like that! I sent her with telepathy.

Chimera gave me a deadpan look. Spider-girl clearly has the hots for you boss, keeping her will complicate your love life. Anna-Marie was already a bit too much.

I-it's not like that! I… we have a deal, me and Cin- I whined.

Just to prove me wrong, Jess cuddled more into me. "No please, take me with you Jean! Don't leave me."

Chimera snorted in amusement, then turned her back to us and went to enter the Raven. As she left I held on the taller blonde and reassured her. "Sure, Jess."

Jessica kept laughing at the scene and telling me I was in trouble in her thoughts; I promised vengeance later by glaring at her. All of a sudden I felt multiple vehicles coming toward us, the minds inside seemed panicked and organized like- "Let's get outta here," I said quickly, pulling my best friend and Jess to the plane with TK. "The army and the police are converging on that area."

The girls protested for the womanhandling, then once we were inside the Raven I sent the same instructions telepathically to Chimera who had been checking the engines. Chimera mock saluted me and said with a laugh, "Sure boss."

Five minutes later, we took off from Berlin with the Raven. We had not been detected by the German Air Force and decided to confuse any chase by branching off by Poland and Eastern Europe to go back to Egypt. It was a damn shame that the engines were not compatible with my portals. I helped Chimera in the cockpit, I could at least be considered a trainee pilot and my power was essential to go back to base in a timely fashion with the inertia dampening field I had spread over the Raven.

As we were travelling, I organized the knowledge and information taken from Otto Vermis before I killed him. I was now privy of the locations of every base Hydra had in Europe; I've also taken their main server farm and downloaded all the data to my prototype USB crystal stick, it could contain ten terabytes of data and I intended to use it.

It made me smile as I was now aware of pretty much who was in Hydra's pocket and who was an unknowing one; the corruption in Europe was disgusting and primed for their future takeover. I needed to do something, but this time there would be no nuking, it's going to be bloody and create mass hysteria. My decision was final and Hydra needed to go anyway. *I will ruin fifty one years of their scheming.*

"Chimera."

The blonde's eyes didn't leave the instruments nor the controls when she answered, "Boss?"

Frowning, my head turned to her. "When are you going to call me Jean? I thought we were friends?" I didn't want it to make it sound like a complaint but my rebuke ended up being plaintive.

Chimera sighed, locked the controls and placed the plane on autopilot before turning to me and looking at me with sad eyes. "I'm still not used to you Bo-I mean Jean. And I am still a bit…" The blonde hesitated to finish her sentence, she didn't want to disappoint me.

But I finished it for her, "Afraid of me?"

Chimera was good at shielding her mind and hiding her feelings, an aftereffect of having been raised by Sinister. I couldn't blame her, I'd seen firsthand in Sinister's memories what he did to what he considered defective clones who had an opinion.

A little smile spread on Chimera's face. "Yes, that. Don't get me wrong, you freed me and all, I am thankful... but everything you have been doing after that is... kind of terrifying."

No, I won't let her have that kind of opinion of me! I thought that I was treating her well… then I remembered what Jessica and Cindy had been telling me. I kept keeping secrets and not involving those I cared about, maybe I should trust Chimera more, after all, without her I would still be in Sinister's custody.

"I'm sorry Mera, I promise you that I would never intentionally hurt you."

She looked at me with hope, hope that she didn't exchange one master for another. "I like you Mera, and I will prove it to you with action rather than words… Though before that… I am trying to get our lives back to normal first."

On a more agreeable note I decided to switch the subject. "Didn't you tell me that you wanted to see New York and go shopping with us girls?" I said wistfully, I wanted to go back to simpler times and develop my new found passion for inventing and tinkering.

My mood instantly sank. "If I don't destroy Hydra we will never be free of them and I want to be able to stop having to look over my shoulder without worry."

Chimera, having never had a normal life, was curious about what I was thinking was normal for me. She was a clone, raised to defend Sinister's main base, everything she was taught was downloaded into her mind. "That would be rad, Bo-Jean. Please, give me some time. And I will help you to take those squiddies out."

"That's fair, I guess." I shrugged.

"Anyway, now, Mera. I wanted to tell you that you'll be in charge of the base when we get back." I said conversationally, looking at the windshield and the landscape, consisting of mountains and lakes slowly passing under us. We were higher than the usual passenger flights but not by much.

"Why?" Chimera asked after thirty seconds of silence.

I turned my head, she looked at me with worry etched on her face. But it wasn't for me she worried, but for the poor bastard that attracted my attention. I don't understand why she's not worried about me, did I make that much of a strong impression on her? I still made mistakes and I didn't have a lot of experience dealing with the kind of shit I was up to my neck in… fine. Maybe Chimera was right to be worried. I needed to do better and use my brain more.

"I'm going to take out all of Hydra's bases in Europe, steal their resources and take out their agents. I know about everything they have in that part of the world, it shouldn't take me more than a day." I answered Chimera.

"Boss, you can't go there alone, you need back up!" Chimera raised her voice. She didn't want me to die or do a mission all alone, it was strange, she had seen me take care of Sinister's bases by myself. She shouldn't worry like that, but she was right to want me to be careful, Marvel's big hitters always died from some random shit, and it wasn't today that I would die from anything like that.

"I'm going to take Cindy with me." I said to attempt to assuage Chimera's worry.

Cindy was a dependable girl, she didn't let me do anything that might be dangerous when we were together. Chimera sighed with relief and wiped her forehead. "Well... at least she should be able to keep you from going too far; please, please no nukes or high yield bombs, we aren't ready enough for that kind of scrutiny."

An eerie laugh escaped my mouth. "No, no bombs for this part of the mission. Only Power." My words reverberated with an eerie echo in the cockpit.

"Why doesn't that reassure me at all?" Chimera shook her head, a deprecating smile plastered on her face. Her hands and eyes went back on the controls and instruments.

I mimicked her, turning my attention back to my duty, but I added, "I'll be out for one day and meanwhile I want you to spy on those fucking SHIELD agents in the base, they have been taking liberties as of late. You know what to do if they go too far?"

Nick Fury had taken some technical data from the base's tablet, little things. But I wasn't about to let him have his way; he had already been given access to my intel network. He wouldn't be getting anything more from me.

"Yes." Chimera said in a frosty voice, she was aware of their transgressions and was eager to make one eye pay.

"Now why don't we speak about the house I plan to buy for us in Queens?" I was already planning for a big house, I didn't want to depend on SHIELD anymore.

Autopilot was now disengaged and she focused back on piloting and all the while Chimera and I were scheming the after action for this whole SHIELD debacle.

# # #

(Maria Hill)

Disembarking Raven 02

Washington DC's outskirts

Peggy's black site, Bethesda

0822 hours

Maria put the heavy suitcases on the ground and with the help of the other agents by forming a chain, stored them in the back of the transport they found in the garage of this off the books site. The Raven was parked in the hangar, the stealth system was engaged and the plane completely invisible to satellites and naked eyes even though it was covered by a roof, you never knew what one of the science monkeys from the army would come up with, so Maria took precautions.

Arclight, a tall yet strongly built young woman, one of their main ally's teammates, was their pilot and helped Maria unload the gear they would be needing for the operation tonight. They were all in their Achilles armor, except for Director Carter and Captain Rogers who wore custom ones. Speaking of Director Carter and Captain Rogers, they were preparing the warehouse on site to receive their future captives, which they had inside dozens of temporary prison cells and interrogation rooms. The setup was impressive, for the little bit of time everyone had to install all their gear.

Once she was done, Maria found a stray table with chairs around it in the warehouse, sat and passed the time reading the user manual for her new guns. It was strange for Maria to have a pair of pistols entirely dependent on a battery pack. The new armors were powered by the same batteries, and could sustain their systems for eight hours before running dry. Lady Mastermind, Arclight's teammate had told Maria how unreliable the system was but she was given one of the generators able to replenish the batteries. It had looked cumbersome and was the size of a commercially available generator.

Those were starter weapons, Jean Grey had told them; prototypes cobbled together in a hurry for the SHIELD loyalists' convenience. A sure way to have tactical superiority on the local and conventional forces arrayed against them. Maria shook her head as she read through the manual about how to recharge her batteries by slotting her pistol in the integrated holster in her power armor.

Maria then pondered over the fact that a sixteen year old girl came up with technology that seemed to be centuries ahead of what the military had. She had heard of Jean Grey at the HQ, more precisely about how the intelligence department of SHIELD loved her. Fury also seemed to dislike her even though she had saved his bacon more times than she could count.

"Agent Hill?"

Maria looked up and saw the rejuvenated Director Carter in her own custom Achilles armor walking toward her. She stopped before her subordinate. "Ma'am. Do you need anything?"

Peggy primly nodded her head and said, "As a matter of fact I do… but is everything okay?"

The brunette looked at Maria who closed the manual and put it on the case containing her pistols. Maria could easily say that she was okay, but resolved that she wasn't and she didn't want to be a liability later, so she sighed and stared into her superior's eyes. "No, ma'am."

Peggy sat at the table and meaningfully looked into Maria's eyes. "Is it something we can help with?"

Maria took one of her pistols in hand and unslotted the battery pack from the grip, putting it on the table. At the same time she spoke, "I've lost faith in things ever returning to normal, Director."

What they were about to do tonight, would be considered terrorism, and Maria didn't think that they would ever get out unscathed from the consequences. "Even if we succeed." Maria added.

Peggy's face showed a bit of frustration, then turned to resignation. "I see your point, the plan hinges on bringing to light everyone in leadership positions or working for Hydra. It's going to destabilize the government, but... we can't keep it in house."

Maria nodded, Hydra had the time to influence this country for fifty-one years, anything they did or might have done needed to be changed or needed to be gone. But the laws and procedures that helped run a country were delicate. "I agree with you, the country might need to revise laws and some of its practices, we will need an audit committee for… everything."

"That's not going to be easy." Peggy crossed her arms, her gaze lost into the monumental task set before her.

Maria pitied her, she didn't think that the woman would leave it alone, she would make sure that her country of adoption got through the bad situation it put itself in. Then the agent realized something, why were they bothering doing so much work when they had their own fix it all?

Maria asked, "Speaking of making things easy… why isn't Miss Grey snapping her fingers and taking care of this problem herself?"

"What do you mean Agent Hill?" Peggy feigned not knowing what Maria was speaking of.

Maria made an unladylike snort. "I am not stupid, the girl is clearly one of those powerful mutants and a powerful mentalist, like a certain individual in Westchester county."

The Director sighed heavily after Maria's little rant. "You want the truth?"

Nodding, Maria answered, "Yes Ma'am, I don't want to go in blind and commit treason."

Peggy put the flat of her hands on the table and looked into Maria's eyes. "Jean offered to do just that when she told me she was going to help me take back SHIELD, oust and reveal Hydra to the world."

"You didn't let her?" The agent looked at her superior with disbelieving eyes.

Peggy leaned into the metal chair, a far away look etched on her face. "I didn't let her, because she's a driven young woman with a good heart who has seen enough dead bodies. She doesn't need that on her conscience and with the kind of power she has, it would be so easy for her to just kill everyone concerned with her mind."

"That's scary." Maria said aloud as she thought idly, *She's already a killer, Director...*

Maria remembered how she had killed Grant Ward without mercy, there was no expression on her face when she did it. It was as if he had been an ant to her and she had crushed him with a finger like a curious little kid would.

Peggy continued. "But I don't want her to kill anymore people, such a thing would have far reaching consequences. The government would brand her a terrorist. We must do everything ourselves, those problems aren't hers, but ours. We allowed Hydra in, it's our job to burn the rot out."

*She's doing this out of pride, that's surprising...* Maria realized.

She should have known that something like that would happen, agents tended to be stubborn about some cases. And Hydra was Director Carter's white whale.

Peggy's gaze refocused on Maria. "Anyway, Agent Hill, it's time for the mission briefing."

"Oh, I'm coming." Maria took her pistols and slotted the batteries into the grips. She holstered them in her Achilles armor. Standing up she followed Peggy who had already left.