Capitol Hill
Senator Stern's house
2200 hours
Capitol Hill, in addition to being a metonym for the United States Congress, was the largest historic residential neighborhood in Washington, D.C., stretching easterly in front of the United States Capitol along wide avenues. The Capitol Hill neighborhood today straddled two quadrants of the city, Southeast and Northeast. A large portion of the neighborhood was now designated as the Capitol Hill Historic District.
Their target, Reginald Stern, Senator for Pennsylvania lived here with his family. Maria and her teammate were on the facing building's roof, and had deactivated the CCTV in the entire block. The plan to get Stern was simple, the team would enter the house after checking that the senator was indeed home, then cut the power and phone line; take down the security, the senator's family would be sedated and they would leave with the man and proceed to the next target after unloading him in a cell at the black site.
Maria looked over the brick styled townhouse, she was on the roof of the house facing the target's, the Achilles armor cloaking system was put to the test and was so far showing how effective it was. On her HUD she engaged the counter cloaking app that shifted the visible light spectrum to a higher range so she could now see the cloaked Hydra guards around the house. "Just like we thought, they are turtling up."
"After what happened at Camp Lehigh? Why wouldn't they?" Regan Wyngarde snorted in derision.
Maria didn't bother watching the girl, she still didn't know why she was assigned to her team, she was brash and utterly annoying. She was still useful though… and an excellent infiltrator.
"What happened at camp Lehigh?" Maria asked idly as the helmet cam showed the disposition of the guards on her HUD, marking each of them.
Regan readied her tetryon sniper rifle, assembling it with dexterity. "My boss nuked it, literally."
Surprised, Maria turned her head to Regan. "On American soil?!" The visor of her helmet turning clear and letting her teammate see her face.
Regan finished assembling her energy rifle. It was matte black and didn't reflect any light. The blue line on its side glowed with energy though. Showing that it was active. "Yeah she did, she could do worse. Believe me, Hydra is fucked."
Regan put herself in position and synchronized her rifle with her armor's system to have access to the computer assisted targeting system.
"Suddenly, I understand why the director didn't want her involved…" Maria mumbled in her helmet.
If Jean Grey was the kind of girl able to nuke an area because somebody who wronged her was there, she would want to take care of her problems herself too. All those accusations about Peggy Carter being too prideful to ask for help evaporated. Instead Maria thanked her for having mitigated the heavy handed ways of the teenage nuclear power.
"Hey Hill, you ready to roll?" Regan interrupted the agent's musings.
Maria turned toward the house with their target, her visor turning opaque. "I will go in cloaked and take out the two guards at the right extreme edge. You take the two on the left?"
Regan looked at the house, then the guards. Her grip tightened on her weapon. "Okay, what about the EMP grenades? You have them right? I already plan to cut the phone lines."
Maria showed Regan her utility belt. "On the belt, I will use them when we are inside the house. It doesn't matter that we won't be in the breaker room."
Maria jumped on the metal railing bordering the roof, but before she could jump, Regan sighed and said, "I wish we had the cap with us, the guy is so sexy."
The agent rolled her eyes. "Yes, and taken. You are also jailbait, Regan."
"Hey!" Regan cried in complaint.
Maria simply activated her cloaking system and jumped, she held her arm high and fired her grapnel from her gauntlet to slow down her fall, not wanting for the FEMLF device in her boots to activate, it was highly visible. The clawed end of the grapnel went around a stone gargoyle's neck, allowing Maria to slow down her descent. Landing with barely a sound, she recalled the grapnel's cable, then quickly and silently crossed the street.
She waited a moment for one of the guards at the right side of the property to turn his back to his partner. She went for the isolated one first, pulled on the monomolecular cable of her grapnel-gauntlet and decapitated him; as quickly as she could, she took her pistol from her integrated thigh holster and fired at the other one who came to investigate the noise the guard's death produced.
Zap. Zap. Maria's shot caught the guard's center body punching two holes in his torso. The guard fell on his back, twitching, then stopped moving at all. Maria heard two other 'zap' sounds coming from the other side of the street.
"Guards neutralized."
"Targets neutralized, moving now."
Maria saw the ion trail left by Regan's jetpack, thanks to their tactnet, they could see each other. At least the outline of their armors. They quickly decided who would do what, Maria was in charge of taking out the electricity in the house and Regan simply fired her rifle at the telephone cables at each pillone bordering the house.
"Phone lines cut." Regan announced.
It was Maria's turn, for this she went cloaked to the back of the house, there were two guards posted there in the back garden. She took one of her tactical folding knives from her utility belt. Infiltrating the garden, she killed the one who was closest to the door by slipping behind him, taking hold by covering his mouth and stabbing him in the neck and pulling her hand to the right. With a smooth move she fired her energy pistol two times at the other guard who had heard his colleague thrash.
The guard fell on his knees and touched the hole created in the middle of his stomach and looked at Maria before being shot in the head. His body fell to the side headless. Maria looked around her, after seeing no one else, lifted her gauntlet and said into her communicator, "Guards at the House's back exit are neutralized."
"Check for guards inside the house, Hill." Regan advised her.
Maria did just that by selecting the X-ray vision app and she was happy to have done so when she looked at what was going on inside the house. "Two more inside, one in the living room and another upstairs guarding the corridor."
"Cut the electricity, I will kill them through the walls." Regan said.
Maria followed Regan's instructions and smashed a hole through the wooden door and took a grenade from her utility belt. A sphere of seemingly solid metal with lines of glowing blue energy running through the patterns engraved on its surface. Maria found them so beautiful, it was a waste to use them, but she tightened her grip on it and pushed a depression on the back with her middle finger and threw the ball through the hole in the door. Immediately, her armor hardened its system against the incoming electromagnetic pulse.
A pulse of energy produced by the device she just dropped inside the house spread and illuminated the entire house and to the neighboring ones. The lamppost outside and electrical power in the entire block died.
"Shit, the grenade is more powerful than we thought." Maria cursed, she passed her hand through the door and unlocked it.
Entering the house, she heard Regan answer her, "File it in the beta tester report, the boss will love to have feedback."
ZAP. ZAP. Maria then heard two bodies fall; then as she advanced further and penetrated the living room, on the wooden floor tiles the body of one of the guards was there at the feet of a richly decorated Christmas tree. This one wasn't cloaked, Maria looked at the spilled coffee on the furniture and understood why. He was taking a break and didn't notice that the guards outside had been taken care of.
Regan hummed and with a smug tone told Maria, "Targets neutralized. I will get the van to load the Stern family."
Maria took the hypodermic dart gun from her utility belt and mounted it on her left gauntlet. From the pouch at her hips, she took three darts filled with a green colored drug. It didn't have a name yet, but Jean Grey's assistant, Gwendolyn assured the agents that it was a powerful tranquilizer without side effects.
After loading the dart gun, Maria walked upstairs. The agent passed her hand over the luxurious vinyl wallpaper with white and grey patterns. As she walked, the passive scanner in Maria's suit detected movement in the master bedroom. It seemed that Stern, his wife and daughter were all gathered in a single place.
The armor's built-in noise cancellers activated automatically and the scanner let Maria avoid the traps and the wooden floor that was deliberately designed to make squeaky noise. The agent asked herself what the hell those mechanisms were? Maria didn't want to be slowed down and just took her rifle from the slot on her back, unfolded it and used the X-ray app to look for the mechanisms activating the traps. Maria switched her rifle into the sustained beam mode and cut through or melted the mechanisms in the walls and in the floor.
Battery at 79%. Maria's HUD informed her. So she stopped and walked toward the master bedroom. It seemed Hydra took the protection of their important members seriously. Maria stopped at the door at the end of the corridor, the white door was closed; she didn't open it. There was another trap deployed if she did, the explosive kind.
Maria guessed that there must be a panic room hidden inside Stern's bedroom and he put his family inside when he heard the noise of his guards being dispatched.
"Is there a problem?" The agent heard Regan ask, she must have noticed that Maria was immobile.
From the other side of the communication, Maria could hear the noise of a car passing in the street. Maria cursed out loud, then spoke, "Yes, the bedroom they are holed up in seems to have a panic room, and the door leading to said bedroom is also booby trapped."
There was five seconds of silence before Regan reacted. "Oh."
"No plan survives contact with the enemy." Maria added.
They had believed that this would be easy, that Stern was an easy mark. If they didn't have the power armor designed by Jean Grey this would be even more difficult.
"Call for backup?" Regan asked.
Maria harrumphed. "No, I will take them in, but it's going to be noisy. Be ready."
"The engine is already on." Regan quipped.
The agent set it up for her forcefield to activate at a moment's notice. She could have used her energy pistol to destroy the trap, but Maria simply didn't know how the explosive would interact with the energy generated by the weapon, she instead resolved to tank the damage. She put her hand on the doorknob, breathed in and out, then opened the door. Maria saw white as the foretold explosion slammed into her forcefield. The green barrier of energy stopped the kinetic energy and heat from even hitting Maria's Achilles armor. When the light and heat dissipated, Maria who was still ensconced in her forcefield saw that half the bedroom was in shambles.
The floor was blackened by the explosion and the furniture and curtains on the window had caught fire. Maria scrambled, there was no way no one heard the explosion. Thanks to the X-ray app she quickly looked through the walls and she found the panic room. Maria looked at the door of the walk-in closet and strode toward it. Her hand reached for her utility belt and she took a long cylinder from her pouch, then attached it to the muzzle brake of her rifle.
In the cylinder there were diamond focusing lenses to let the operator use the directed energy weapon as a tool to cut through armored walls or other materials. Maria used the X-ray app to look at where the targets were positioned and choose the side of the room that she would cut up. She fired and the drywall began to burn, she was cutting through the seamless door that didn't show on the wall. Tracing the entrance as the blue ray of tetryon energy cut through it like she was doing some soldering.
With her strength enhanced by her armor, Maria gave a kick and the door fell to the ground in a dimly lit room. Stern was before her, with two women at his side, he had a pistol in his hand that he unloaded at her. With no effect, of course.
Maria wasn't lost in useless posturing, simply pointed her arm at them and unleashed the dart gun on her left gauntlet with rapid fire. Each of the targets was hit and the dart delivered the tranquilizers into their bloodstream. The effect was instant and everyone from the Stern family fell to the floor.
"I got them." Maria said on the tacnet.
"Hurry, I think we are going to have company." Regan warned.
"Roger." Maria folded her rifle and put each of the women on her shoulders and pulled Stern by his feet.
She exited the first floor with speed, avoiding the leftover traps, and was careful not to wound the Senator as she went down the stairs. Regan waited for her at the back of the house. Maria heard the distinct noise of police vehicles on the way, so she legged it and loaded them through the opened back door of the black Toyota van. Maria quickly locked it from the inside and said into her communicator, "I got them, time to go."
The van lurched forward, and Maria felt it turn. Then at a sedate pace, it advanced through the roads of Capitol Hill.
"We have to take another vehicle and unload the Sterns at the temporary site." Regan said.
Meanwhile as the car swerved out of Capitol Hill, Maria smiled as they got their first target and she asked herself how Director Carter and the Captain fared.
# # #
(Peggy Carter & Steve Rogers)
Peggy's black site, Bethesda
December 27th, 1996
1715 hours
Peggy and Steve had had a bitch of a time, they hadn't expected the resistance to be this tough after they got their first five members of the House of Representatives and the Air Force. With the rest of their team they had gone through crazed experimental super soldiers, energy weapons and SHIELD-HYDRA agents going against them.
The Achilles Armor had been more than effective against everything Hydra had thrown at them. The teams had had time to steal evidence from each of their targets. The bodies of the dead soldiers were collected as well as samples of the weapons they had used. Computers and Hard drives were seized; the teams loyal to Peggy only left destruction behind them after raiding all the different bases.
Steve woke up with a start, looking around and finding Peggy at his side and still in armor. They were sitting on the leather sofa in the spartan barracks in the warehouse. Peggy had her head against his shoulder. He smiled as he looked at her sleeping face. He smoothed a strand of hair out of Peggy's face and stayed like that for a while at her side. Steve couldn't believe that she was there with him, he had dreamed of it for so long. Was he in another dream? Was he really awake? He missed his friends, he had seen them in his dreams too, reliving his memories in depth.
Peggy opened her eyes, yawned and the first thing she saw was Steve smiling at her. "Hello, you."
Steve chastely kissed her, smiled and asked, "Pegs, are you hungry?" He had heard her stomach growl.
Peggy nodded, she felt rested but she had expended a lot of energy since yesterday. "What time is it?"
Steve looked at the light coming from one of the windows. "Five p.m. or so, I don't have my helmet for the exact time."
Peggy was less experienced with the control of her body's senses than Steve, she was still impressed that he could guess at the time just by observing his environment. Nevertheless, she was somewhat different from him, even though her physiology had been augmented. Having a helmet felt restrictive to her, and impaired her senses of smell and hearing. "You went with a helmet, and I, with specialized goggles. I don't really need all the gadgets in that suit."
Steve chuckled, and lightly slapped her thigh. "Full protection seemed the way to go, by the way…"
"Yes?" Peggy stood up and stretched, she slapped her cheeks to fully wake up.
Steve stood in turn. "When do you think Miss Grey is going to arrive?"
Peggy flinched, another sign that she was worried and that she didn't anticipate the question. The brunette sighed then looked at Steve who returned her gaze. "Soon I hope but… she may have taken a detour."
Steve was aware of how dangerous Jean Grey was and how utterly merciless she could become when you were branded an enemy. Peggy gave herself a mission to keep the young woman in check that she shouldn't have taken on her shoulders. Steve felt that the girl needed help and a stern talking to. He was about to speak when they were interrupted by a shout.
"Hey listen to the news!" Someone cried from the other room in the warehouse they were bunking in.
Peggy and Steve moved fast and found themselves in the rec room with different agents who were in different states of undress. The tall form of Arclight was between them and the TV. The other agents were focused on the screen, one of them raised the TV's volume.
"A series of terrorist attacks have been perpetrated all across Europe beginning yesterday morning. It first started in Germany in the outskirts of Berlin with Castle Dietrich's bombing. The second target was in Oslo, Norway, an entire building disappeared by means unknown. The third was Italy, an underground base under a building in Rome was uncovered as a result, disturbing evidence of corruption, tax evasion, blackmail and human experimentation have been unveiled and distributed to the media in each country.
Famous politicians and rich billionaires have been assassinated as well, amongst them, former president of France and founder of the French Socialist Party, François Mitterrand, was killed. Guillermo Salvatore, a major stockholder of Roxxon energy was also killed. Following this avalanche of revelations and political upheaval, most of the countries struck will, without a doubt, be in turmoil."
Pictures of burning and wrecked buildings and prominent individuals were shown on screen one after the other. The agents began discussing those events, Arclight turned to Peggy and Steve and sighed, looking meaningfully at them.
Peggy pinched the bridge of her nose and moaned as if in pain. "Jean…"
Steve's head suddenly turned toward his lover, with narrowed eyes he asked, "Are you sure?"
With a deprecating laugh, Peggy massaged her temples. "That's her style alright…" Her hands fell along her side as she looked at Steve. "From what I can tell from what they are reporting on the news, Jean must have seized their assets as well as evidence. To avoid them simply rebuilding or dodging justice."
"That young Miss is somewhat… frightening." The cap leaned against the wall behind him.
Peggy snickered as she thought of her first meeting with the redhead. "You should have seen how we met, I think she was about to kill Phil and I if we hadn't technically surrounded her and taken her parents hostage."
Steve looked at Peggy as if she was crazy. "With the level of power at her disposal? How are you not dead or at least wounded?"
Peggy's face went from smiling to embarrassed, her eyes avoided looking at Steve. "Jean hasn't always been this strong, she has grown exponentially stronger after dealing with her nemesis, she told me how but I can scarcely believe her story."
The brunette had seen Jean's memories, the blood and terror that she had spread all over the base that she now possessed. How the man she treated like a butler had been completely reprogrammed by her and that Phoenix entity who had basically fused with her and was capable of so much destruction on a planetary scale if not more. She missed those times when Jean was less of a headache. But she owed the girl, she had come to save Peggy just like she had promised if she fucked up with Hydra; and she had delivered.
Now she was helping her even further than she should. Steve stared at Peggy who seemed to be thoughtful about something; she surely had more to say about Jean Grey and was collecting her thoughts. But he was hungry and somewhat tired after their successful operation. "I see that we have more stuff to discuss." Then his eyes fell again on the TV screen and the news. Steve pointed a finger at the device and said, "But what are you going to do when she comes here? These actions… she needs to stop."
"We are at war Cap, I thought you knew that there's no such thing as overkill." A cold and low feminine voice interrupted them. The two enhanced super soldiers turned to see a redhead in a black skin-tight under armor, her green eyes looking derisively at him. It was Jean Grey and she looked the worse for wear, at her side a girl with black hair and Asian features in the same state who held onto her hand and wore a costume with spider web patterns.
"Jean." Peggy walked toward the girl and embraced her.
After Peggy let go of her, Jean simply said, "I've come to deliver and help gather evidence."
# # #
Briefing room
10 minutes later
"On site we have a couple of Senators, ten members of the House of Representatives, two state governors, some highly placed military members and more people who work for them without knowing it's for HYDRA." Peggy told Jean.
They were seated on metal chairs in a thirty square meters room, with concrete walls painted white and everyone was assembled bar the guards keeping an eye on their prisoners. Steve stood on the side of the room near the entrance. Arclight and Lady Mastermind had placed themselves behind Jean and Cindy while the SHIELD agents surrounded them. Peggy watched as Jean used the portable computer in the gathered Achilles armors to create a hologram display showing everyone they had taken prisoner.
The SHIELD director showed the full body representation of a tall brown haired and mustachioed older man with big glasses and a trendy business suit. He looked like a diligent man who took himself seriously. "Here we have Arnold Brown, a rich stockholder of Imperial Industries that is a front for Hydra, they are mainly financed by them in the US."
This was an important member of Hydra, he bankrolled most of their operations. He mixed in with the likes of Hydra because of the death of his wife who had died in poverty and the desire to protect his daughter, Laura Brown. From what they had stolen from Brown's computer the man has used his position in Imperial Industries to divert money and resources to Hydra.
Jean looked at Peggy with surprised eyes. "How did you get that guy?"
Jean was surprised because she didn't think Hydra's central committee would leave one of their main bank rollers undefended. Jean heard some agents chuckle at her reaction, she looked at them, smirking at her. Peggy had a grin plastered on her face. "It wasn't easy, he was in a gathering with Gideon Malick and a woman called Colonel Hale."
"Ah, that bitch isn't a general yet?" Jean frowned.
That surprised Peggy, that Jean knew as much. "She is on track to become one."
Jean sighed in relief. "Thank god she isn't, the situation could be worse."
Peggy tilted her head, asking herself what Jean meant, she would ask the girl later where she got her knowledge. Meanwhile, the Director proceeded to tell Jean how she captured such a guy, it all started with the Colonel going to some secret club that they had entirely reserved for the day. Inside a completely blank room with a faraday cage system, chairs and a table with some refreshments they gathered, a lot of individuals on the list were there. Gideon Malick, Baron Von Strucker, Tony Masters, SHIELD Agent Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, Daniel Whitehall and others. Peggy and her team had attacked the club and taken it with superior fire power despite the defenses on site.
When Steve showed himself, most of the old members couldn't believe that he was back. Agent Allegra de Fontaine and Von Strucker had fled in a shower of light, and the other members of the Hydra council attempted either to fight or escape too. The Achilles armors and the performance of the weapons and support gadgets Jean had made helped turn the balance of the fight toward Peggy's troops; though she had to help Arclight take out Taskmaster aka Tony Masters in CQC.
That fight had been hard for Peggy who wasn't used to her new body and abilities, but thanks to Arclight's shockwave powers they had been able to control the terrain and take Masters down. The man was strong, fast and skilled. In the end he was still human as a shockwave caught him in the face and knocked him out.
"Arclight, I will give you a raise." Jean turned to the purple haired young woman.
Arclight laughed nervously and scratched behind her head. "I wasn't aware that we were paid."
Peggy and Steve looked at each other, then around to see that the agents were interested by the by-play and the information being exchanged.
Jean showed two fingers. "Oh you are, 100k a year."
There was silence in the room, and in the end, it was Maria Hill who expressed what everyone thought. "Shit."
It was easily upper-middle class income. It was enough for anyone to want to jump ship, Peggy glared at Jean as she tried to subvert her people. The redhead noticed her and simply shrugged. The director knew that sooner or later some of her people would approach her to speak about joining her for work, Maria Hill seemed somewhat interested and thoughtful.
Jean clapped, "So, we are going to finish this once and for all."
Steve didn't like the grin on Jean's face, it gave him chills. "What do you intend to do?" The super soldier asked with his electric blue eyes on the redhead.
Jean looked at Steve innocently, but what she said was simply terrifying for everyone assembled. "Me? I'm going to gather evidence from those people's brains, steal information from their minds; proof, things you can use to unravel the whole mess, assuming that you don't want me to just...persuade a few people in the right place to make the whole thing unravel?"
Everyone fell silent, only for Steve to shake his head. "I doubt the US Government would be happy with any of that," Steve said dryly. "Can we go with the first solution? I don't like the mind control and brainwashing options."
Jean leaned in her seat and passed an arm around her girlfriend seated at her side. Then with conviction in her eyes the redhead said looking directly at Peggy, "We are going to drag Hydra into the light, we send the evidence to the media and you take care of the rest with the White House, Peggy."
The redhead froze and snapped her fingers. "Huh, now that I think about it, I have something for you." Jean smiled at her.
"What is it?" Peggy said nervously, the young woman's smile filled her with trepidation.
Snickering, the redhead let go of her girlfriend and stood up. "You'll see."
# # #
(Cindy Moon & Peggy Carter)
Interrogation room
30 minutes later
Cindy didn't know what she was doing there. She had accompanied Jean all over Europe to give her some backup. They had killed, destroyed and stolen; Cindy couldn't help but like what she did, deny assets to the guys who had attacked her home and family and tried to take her friends hostages. They deserved retribution with all the shit they had pulled.
She had her fill of killing and wanted to go home. They should have left all the legwork to Director Carter, after all everything was her fault. She didn't like the woman, contrarily to Jean who seemed to treat her like her grandmother or something. Cindy followed Peggy Carter who didn't look like the brunette she was when they had first met. Jean had given her some kind of holographic disguise overlaid on her body to hide her restored youth and her abilities.
She looked old, seventy or so with white hair and wrinkled skin; she wore a white pantsuit, silver rimmed glasses and white gloves. Peggy entered the room while Cindy followed, cloaked; just like the briefing room it had white walls and metal furniture. On a chair with hands bound was a brown haired woman, clearly military as she looked straight before her, she wore a red dress with a pearl necklace at her neck. If Cindy remembered correctly, they had caught her in some country club in Washington DC.
Peggy walked to the seat in front of where the Colonel was, smiled and said, "Colonel Hale."
The Colonel's eyes widened. "You."
Peggy nodded. "Me, me, me." She straightened the lapels of her vest.
The woman's eyes narrowed and in an ice cold tone, the colonel said, "You are supposed to be dead."
Peggy put her hands on the table and linked her fingers together. "You know what they say, never assume. I presume Pierce told you I was dead." She said with a tight smile.
The other woman leaned in her seat, her manacled hands before her, she put on a defiant expression and growled. "I won't talk."
The Director chuckled, denying the woman even a shred of defense. Peggy didn't care about what she thought, it was with a malicious pleasure that she informed the colonel. "Actually, Colonel… we don't need you to. As of today HYDRA's operations worldwide have ceased. Your assets have been seized, your bases in Europe completely destroyed, your unknowing and willing pawns either assassinated or exposed. The South American branches simply don't exist anymore and the North American ones have been left to us to take care of."
Finally, the situation in which she found herself seemed to dawn on Colonel Hale. "If you did what you say… why am I here?"
"We just had to isolate you." Peggy said.
Hale frowned and mumbled. "I don't see the point…" Then her eyes widened. "No! You didn't!"
Peggy chuckled, while Cindy, who didn't understand what was happening, put herself on guard.
"Oh? Have you finally realized?" Peggy taunted with a knowing smile.
The colonel stood and shouted, "You have set your pet telepath against me!"
"I assure you that she's no pet or tamed in any ways." Peggy joked with a straight face.
Colonel Hale was about to lunge at Peggy. "I will kill you- Grrrzzk" But was stopped in time.
With a flash of blue sparks, Cindy appeared from the wall where she had been cloaked with her power, and touched Colonel Hale's right shoulder with her hand, letting her venom blast's bio-electricity run through the woman's body. The Colonel fell face first against the table, then on the chair. Cindy caught her and sat her on the metal furniture, the woman's head lolled and she finally fell unconscious.
Cindy looked up at Peggy who had a sadistic smile on her face. This was an expression that the spider-girl would have never expected to see on the woman. Something bothered Cindy though… "I am surprised that they know about Jeanie."
Peggy put on a wise yet mischievous expression on her face, then gave Cindy a dashing smile. "I am not, she's Hydra high-command. There's a reason they tried to kidnap all of you to make Jean compliant."
In a shower of blue light, Jean appeared, looked at Hale with interest and showed a predatory smile. "You can proceed to another interrogation, either Malick or Whitehall. Here take this." Jean handed out a folder full of papers. "Everything Hale has done is compiled here, I'll be right back." She kissed Cindy in passing.
Then Jean teleported out. Peggy and Cindy looked at each other, then shrugged in sync; and the two resumed their roles, Colonel Hale was returned to her cell. It was within five minutes that Jean returned through a golden portal with a pale blonde girl while Peggy was waiting for the next prisoner to be 'interrogated', the girl was barely twelve and wore some kind of jumpsuit with a Hydra patch on her left arm. Peggy and Cindy frowned at the spot with fresh blood over where her heart was.
Jean smiled at Peggy and waved at the new girl with a hand covered in said blood. "This is Ruby Hale, Colonel Hale's daughter."
The girl looked at Cindy and Peggy suspiciously. Cindy simply shook her head, she knew how Jean thought, she had already taken it upon herself to save the cute blonde. As for Peggy she was simply confused by what was happening. Ruby turned to Jean and poked her with a reproachful gaze. "You promised."
Jean sighed. "Fine, I won't let them kill your mother."
Peggy narrowed her eyes at that declaration. "Jean, what's happening here?" The older woman crossed her arms and cursed at the redhead who was making decisions for her that she had no right to make.
Jean laughed nervously. "Well... you see this is Ruby, she was destined to be one of Hydra's super soldiers. Her powers are gravity manipulation."
With a skeptical expression Peggy asked, "She gave herself up?"
Jean shook her head. "Oh no, we fought for one minute before she realized she was outmatched. Ruby here thought that I would kill her."
"You almost did." The girl said plaintively and showed the bloody soaked jumpsuit.
Jean guiltily avoided looking at the piece of clothing. "I healed you, alright?"
Cindy knew that Jean was being made, she didn't like killing kids. When they had attacked Hydra assets in Europe and South America, she went to extreme lengths to place every kid she found into an orphanage or deported them to another country where they would be taken care of.
"Did you recruit her or something?" Cindy asked her girlfriend.
With a hand she held onto Ruby and the blood on her jumpsuit simply disappeared, as well as the patch with the Hydra logo. The girl looked somewhat scared and had frozen. Jean patted her cheek, then turned to Cindy. "Yeah, at the same time, I took all the Hydra's kids prisoner and transferred them into your cells. Ruby gets to be a special snowflake because I like her and she deserves a chance to do good, know the world and she hasn't been indoctrinated yet, unlike Colonel Hale. By the way…"
Peggy closed her eyes and sighed. "You are going to take her too?"
Jean raised her hands and said, "No, I am going to undo the brainwashing she went through, then if you could, could she get house arrest as a sentence for her crime? I promised Ruby that if she joined me, I would not let them kill her mom. The woman may have been a traitor to this country, but it seems that she was a good mom."
Jean and Peggy looked each other in the eyes, never giving an inch. Then Peggy began to think that Jean was just giving her a heads up, after all she didn't have to ask permission. The redhead could still go behind her back and take Hale, whether Peggy wanted it or not. It was one of the downsides of working with someone as powerful as Jean was, for now they didn't know how to contain her or have any measures that could stop her.
Peggy breathed out, briefly letting out the stress she felt even though she always felt energized. "Very well, I will see what I can do."
"Thank you, ma'am!" Ruby jumped happily at the news.
Peggy facepalmed, asking herself if this was her life now? Being swept up in the wake of Jean's shenanigans. Fortunately for her, Steve arrived with their second prisoner of the day.
# # #
(Tony Masters aka Taskmaster)
Opening his eyes, and suddenly sitting upright on the bed, Tony noticed that he was in a cell made of reinforced concrete. There were no bars to see outside, just a solid armored black door. He looked down and realized that he had been stripped of his armor and weapons. He tried to judge the time by the thin ray of the sun getting through the three apertures forming the window of his cell.
For naught as he didn't know what time it was, but he guessed that it must have been some ten hours since he was captured. He didn't panic and forced himself into a state of calm; such was his control over his physiology. Tony had thought that he was on top of the world after fighting individuals from the Chaste, the Hand and the best assassins in the world like the Black Widow and the Winter Soldier… but this fight against a surviving Captain America had been the hardest one in his life to be honest. The man had been everything he had been lauded to be in the history books, strong, fast and skilled with his shield.
When the Captain had walked into the High-command meeting, Tony had seen the faces Allegra and the others who knew him made. Awe, and terror was there as well as disbelief. The fight between the captain and Tony had been short and brutal, made even shorter when the captain was joined by that other super soldier, she had been even faster and stronger, yet her skills hadn't been good enough, but they still won.
Tony looked at his wrists, he was manacled with heavy duty restraints. He had never seen their make before, they looked mechanical and there was red led light on each of the manacles, the chains linking them looked strong and dense. Tony frowned and then immediately tried to break them.
[Warning, cease and desist.]
Tony stopped as he heard the electronic voice warning him to stop. Frowning once more he considered it for a moment before trying again. Tony shrugged and tensed the chain, trying to break it with his enhanced strength. Sparks of blue electricity shocked him for ten seconds and the criminal seized on his bed. Despite himself, the electrocution caused him to soil his clothes and his bed.
The energy coursing through the manacles and chain stopped and an electronic voice informed him. [Second warning, next attempt will have terminal consequences.]
"These people don't mess around." Tony realized.
He sniffed the air and felt ashamed and disgusted by the state he found his lower half in. He stayed in this state for another hour before he finally heard noises coming from the other side of the door of his cell. A jangling of keys. Heavy footsteps. *Fully Armored, wearing weapons.* Tony felt from what his hearing could tell him.
The door slid into the wall with a mechanical sound, two black armored figures were visible. "Tony Masters, you'll follow us."
He looked at each of the men in armor and opened his hands and showed the state of his pants. "Gentlemen, you have me at a disadvantage."
One of the men entered and flinched. "Wow, it stinks."
The second put a hand on his colleague's pauldron. "We can't have him go before the director in that state."
The first man turned to look at him. "The showers?"
"The showers." the second nodded.
Tony smiled and nodded in thanks. Two minutes later he was brought to communals showers where he was given leave to proceed to his ablution. Once done he dried himself and then pondered his next move; he would escape of course, but he thought about how. He looked at his restraints, then had an idea. Tony was given a new pair of pants one size too small but it would make do for what he had in mind. His warders came in to fetch him. He followed them, but as they were turning to leave he jumped behind the second one, put the chain of his restraint to the armored man's neck and then twisted.
Sure they were protected from attacks, but they weren't protected from the kinetic effects of certain moves targeting joints and vitals areas such as the neck. As fast as his limited super speed allowed him, Tony took one of the pistols from its holster at the thighs of the man he killed and opened fire at the remaining warder. The weapon worked like a charm, as it only took three shots to pierce the defense of the man.
It seemed that the armor wasn't immune to the weapons paired with it; what a shame. The maker would be able to change that Tony hoped, but it was a defect he really liked right now. Tony tried at first to take the armor off of the first SHIELD agent he had downed. But strangely, it wouldn't come off, Tony guessed that it must be some kind of security lock for fallen operators. Shrugging, he pocketed the keys from the dead bodies, and took off his manacles, appropriated a pair of pistols and utility belt that he put at his waist.
He would have preferred to blend in with the armored agents and escape unnoticed by donning the one he had access to, but it seemed that fate didn't smile upon him and that he would have to create a distraction to flee.
This was how Tony found himself in the cell blocks, where he killed the guards and began liberating some of the prisoners. He armed some of them with the weapons of the fallen and pointed the escapees in the direction of the command center. They wanted to be led by him for maximum chances of survival, but he sent them away while telling them the excuse that he wanted to free more prisoners and that he needed a distraction.
Senator Stern was the first to accept and to leave, with a respectful salute he said, "Hail Hydra."
The others such as Whitehall and Malick took charge and followed his instructions with some doubt. Tony laughed at their backs. He took the opposite direction and power walked to an exit. He found it at the end of the cell block, it wasn't even guarded. He opened the metal door with the master key he had pilfered from the dead guard and with a jingle jangle he was finally free. Tony ended up outside a courtyard surrounded by a tall wall of concrete and steel fences with barbed wire.
Tony looked at the pistol in his hand then at the wall, smiled and simply fired at it repeatedly. The bolts of blue energy were simply too powerful for the wall to resist the heat and the kinetic charge and created holes in the wall that Tony took advantage of before he unfortunately completely discharged the weapon. However, the opening in the wall was large enough for him to pass. He walked nonchalantly through and was outside in a wooded area.
Smiling he holstered the pistol and walked toward the animal trail that he could see leading out of the copse of trees before him only to be stopped by an invisible wall. Tony jumped back, held onto his nose and by pinching it. "What in God's name-?"
Then Tony was hit by something on his back and was pulled brutally from behind and slammed into the wall behind him. He was momentarily seeing double when he saw a golden aperture at his side. Out of it came a young woman of asian descent in black and white skin-tight armor with a spider web like pattern.
"Taskmaster, where do you think you are going." She said coldly.
Tony's vision settled and he stood up, looking at his spider-themed foe. "You shouldn't have done that girl."
She automatically fell into a stance, Tony examined her and nodded, it was adequate. *She's clearly had some training, but there are still holes in her defenses.* The man took two shock batons from his stolen utility belt.
At the same instant the girl lunged at him, Tony slashed right to her temple with the shock baton emitting blue light showing that it was electrified. The girl simply lowered her head and tried to punch his face but he deflected it with the baton. The electricity did nothing to her; Tony noticed how it coursed through her but didn't harm her. Taking advantage of his surprise the young woman landed a kick to his solar plexus projecting him once more into the wall behind him. He didn't have the time to think and rolled to the right, just in time for the girl to create another hole in the wall.
Tony threw a baton at her that she again miraculously caught by the handle, he narrowed his eyes and decided to get serious. Her training may be less, but it seemed that she had strength, speed and instinct on her side. He charged her, with a vertical slash that was parried with the baton in her hand but Tony caught her with a jab in the stomach. He caught her hair, jumped with his right foot and slammed her face with his knee.
He let go of her, twirled his baton and attempted to drive it into her eye socket; unfortunately she dodged at the last moment and Tony received some slimy substance on his face, blinding him. At the same time Tony felt a hit to the side of his head, but caught the offending limb that slammed into him and with a mighty turn slammed his opponent into the wall.
Without letting up he tore the substance blinding him and saw that he had indeed slammed the girl into the wall, she looked at him as she wanted to kill him.
"You are not too bad, girl. Who trained you?" Tony bantered, making the girl frown.
He was recuperating, the girl was clearly on par with a super soldier in strength, speed and stamina. Tony felt that she was still holding back.
"Perfect Death." The girl said as she took a combat stance.
Tony flinched, that was just his luck, finding the pupil of Elektra Natchios siding with the SHIELD loyalists. He chuckled, put an arm behind him and with the other signalling her to come at him. "Oh, I like that, come at me little one. Let's dance."
The girl made a cocky smile. "I am not alone." She looked at the golden aperture where she had come from.
"Wha-" Tony looked as two people appeared one after the other.
A tall and powerfully blonde man with a familiar costume eliciting patriotism and freedom; a redheaded young woman that floated from the ground with golden glowing eyes. "Damnation."
The redhead landed, looked at the black haired girl and… Tony lost sight of her for an instant before his dynamic vision caught up. She was at the black haired girl's side. When she finished checking her friend, Tony felt the redhead's gaze on him and he felt as if he was stared at by a bigger predator. The black haired girl held onto the redhead's shoulder and said, "He is mine."
"Fine, but first." Her voice was low, an attractive contralto. "Taskmaster or should I call you Mister Masters?"
Tony looked at the shock baton at his feet, stomped at an angle on it and it flew into his hand. He looked up at the redhead. "Call me whatever you want, girl."
She didn't seem bothered at all by his condescension. "Hydra is done, finished." She said. "We caught the prisoners you used as a distraction too. Even though those idiots Allegra and Strucker escaped, I took all their assets, destroyed their bases and salted the earth. They won't be able to rebuild as Director Carter will follow them to the depths of the Earth if she must. Surrender and you won't lose what you care about the most."
"Nice speech girl, you must have rehearsed it a lot. Unfortunately…" In one smooth movement, Tony took the second pistol at his belt and shot it at Jean. "I'm not scared of a presumptuous upstart like you."
Just before the bolt of energy hit the redhead, Captain America placed between himself and her, and shield-bashed the bolt to the side creating a crater in the ground. The spider themed girl and the captain moved as one. The man was fast and hit Tony's right arm, so he transferred his shock baton to his left and slashed horizontally, but the hit was caught by his shield that rang. Tony took the hook kick destined for his solar plexus with his forearm.
The shock was almost too much and broke some bones but Tony used the kinetic energy of the strike to perform a roundhouse kick; however he had forgotten the black haired girl who body slammed him and reversed their position mid-air and slammed him into the ground, jumping into the air. Tony rolled to the side to avoid taking a shield to the face, quickly got to his feet and threw the fully charged baton at the girl who was still in mid-air, but she avoided it by firing the weird white substance from her fingers and pulling herself aside.
However, it cost him as the captain hit him multiple times with several kicks that hit him in the stomach, his ribs that he heard break. Tony pushed through the pain and slammed his elbow into Steve Rogers' left arm. But his armor protected him. He was at a disadvantage and sought a way of egress as he avoided a flying kick from the black haired girl.
"You aren't that skilled, Mr. Masters. You should give up." The redhead said almost conversationally as she observed the fight.
"Shut up, girl."
Tony was distracted enough to not see the third person pass the portal in a blur of speed and join the fight. It was a tall brunette, wearing almost the same costume as the captain. This was becoming an unfair fight, the woman had a shock baton and a pistol in each hand. The captain put his shield before him and the brunette jumped on it feet first and used the shield like a trampoline using a thrust kick that Tony avoided at the last moment.
In vain.
The woman caught him by the scruff of his neck and slammed Tony onto the ground, at the same moment the black haired girl landed feet first on his stomach, cocked a fist radiating blue sparks of electricity and repeatedly punched Tony in the face until he felt his jaw crack, his body full of electricity coursing through it, stunning him.
He lost consciousness for a brief moment, but he woke up bound and gagged. He felt weak suddenly, as if he was in another body. He tried to free himself but to no avail. He couldn't feel the world slow down like usual, it was underwhelmingly slow. The world had lost colors and smells.
"It won't work, Mister Masters. Welcome back to being a vanilla basic human, I took your enhanced physiology away, what the super soldier serum gave can be taken." The same cold, feminine voice from earlier told him.
He closed his eyes strongly and almost sobbed. "No."
When Tony reopened his eyes, he looked into verdant green eyes and hair cascading around the young woman's head. "Yessss, you should have surrendered when I told you to. Goodbye, Mister Masters."
She was as beautiful as she was deadly, he watched with trepidation as she looked at him as if he was so much dirt to her. She lifted her head and spoke to the brunette who had come to the fight late. "Take him away. I've read his mind and something urgent has come up, Peggy. Some assholes from the Military are funding another black ops lab called the Facility."
*Peggy? Peggy Carter?* Tony looked as if she was a ghost, he didn't know how she became younger, but it must have been some kind of experiment. *Another super soldier program? Something that actually works like a fountain of youth?*
The redhead looked at him again, and chuckled at him in ridicule. Peggy looked at Tony who squirmed against her gaze. "Go, I will handle everything."
The redhead embraced the older woman. "Thanks!" She turned and left his field of vision, but he could still hear her speak. "Cindy, come with me, we need to go save a little girl and her mom."
Tony heard a sigh. "Okay, but I hope we can rest after that."
"Promise."
The ex-enhanced super soldier looked at Peggy and said with every fiber of his being. "She's a monster."
Peggy put a boot against Tony's torso. "She had given you an out, you didn't take it."
Someone coughed, it was the Captain. "Now, Taskmaster, you'll be interrogated and placed in your cell."
Tony turned his head, looking into the sky. He didn't feel anymore drive, he felt like death, slow, like a halfwit. "Do what you want, I won't talk, my life is over."
Steve Rogers crouched, and looked at him meaningfully and said, "There's worse things than death."
Then he took Tony and loaded him like he was a sack of potatoes, back to hell.
# # #
(The Watcher)
Moon
Blue Area/Luther Crater
Period through December 26th to 28th , 1996
For billions of years, Watcher Uatu had chosen to observe Earth, a planet born upon a universal nexus. He observed the blue and green jewel from the Blue Area of the planet's moon, Luna, in an abandoned settlement built by the alien Kree. He had been getting bored for a while after Gaea, the mother goddess had wiped out the demons from her surface, then the birth and death of the dinosaurs (some of those gigantic lizards still lived in the savage lands), since the Ancients had created man, Uatu was never quite the same. Those little apes had been developing quite fast in his books since they had been seeded on the planet.
Humans were warlike, greedy and power hungry, but they were an interesting species, capable of such wonders and selflessness when they worked together. They had chased out the false gods for a reason, since the Rings were buried they had been visited many times by conquering species, such as the Kree and the Skrulls who were hungry for the potential and the power of their flexible DNA.
Since the sinking of Atlantis though, everything had been stuck in a loop of creation and destruction. In Uatu's opinion, the planet was fine. The people were fucked, if you could say. Uatu was surprised by the events, Earth had always been a lively place, but now it was downright terrifying. It had all started when he felt temporal interference on the planet. In 1870 to be exact, time travelers tried to change the future once more. Uatu had sighed at that time, young races always made the same mistakes. They always made things worse.
This time it was the X-men, Summers and Grey, they changed the future, made it worse in a sense. They couldn't change Nathaniel Essex's path, his fate was set. What happened after made Uatu doubt his sanity, changes were made, yes. But the future was completely altered. Someone key to the fate of Gaea had been tampered with. His cosmic senses were that sharp, he followed the quantum signature of the trail the one who changed this universe had left and was surprised to find Jean Grey, the future Phoenix Avatar to be the one whose fate was altered.
The difference was that she was really mature for her age, Uatu then observed her more than intended until she awakened her powers. What was supposed to happen didn't. She didn't fall into a coma and had struggled to get control of her abilities. Nathaniel Essex, the linchpin of her change had no idea of what was happening.
The man was unsubtle, and a brute, he had no idea who he was messing with. Uatu could feel her fledgling power and each time the scientist tried to make her his puppet he honed her, like the finest blade, she was sharp and becoming hardier and deadlier as her morals and willingness to kill for her sake and those she loved was tempered.
He was reassured when he finally saw her make friends for the first time, she was supposed to go with Xavier, but she was unwilling as she had seen through the man, he was more than the affable and peaceful person he made himself appear to be. Uatu had been baffled by the change of fate of young Jean. She chose her own path and made her own connections, and changed the fates of many others.
Uatu then understood what the being who altered the fate of this universe wanted. He hadn't been surprised when Jean willingly accepted to take on the mantle of the Phoenix Force, what surprised him though was her splitting her consciousness and forming an avatar to stay on earth while the main consciousness had taken on its duty. The Watcher had never seen such a thing happen with one of the abstracts.
The newly minted avatar then appropriated the resources of her dead enemies and settled on a course that would pit her against the powers on the planet. Powered humans and Gods had no way to know what was going to hit them, Uatu laughed. He relished what was happening to Hydra, their bases in Europe and South America were burning, their personnel and assets were either taken or destroyed. The path of destruction the avatar was leaving was entertaining, nevertheless, Uatu focused on North America and looked for the other team.
Peggy Carter and her paramour, Steve Rogers have been reunited earlier than they should, Jean Grey interfered and gave them another chance to live their lives together. But first they had to slay the beast they previously failed to. Hydra was embedded in the fabric of their government, they had changed the laws and goals of the nations, slowly turned the land of freedom to an oligarchy that ground its population under its heels.
But in just one day, SHIELD and their loyalists struck their enemies and their assets with multiple operations whose goal was to decapitate each of Hydra's heads. Uatu had a good feeling, it was going to work, it would destabilize the country but they could rebuild it anew. Jean Grey was the nexus of change, to those events, the earth was no longer destined to tear itself apart. She had taken out the Sublime, Nathaniel Essex and Now Hydra that would have plunged the world into chaos.
Uatu couldn't wait to see what she would do next, he refocused on the Phoenix avatar and noticed that she was headed to the mountainous region of Vermont. Uatu stood with trepidation as she arrived quite late to what humans called the Facility, a place of suffering and where humans showed their ugly side without reservation.
As he watched, Uatu flinched. Jean Grey was looking back at him even though he was so far away.
We will meet soon, Watcher. The mental voice was clear and strong.
"Father always told me that I would get into trouble one day…" Uatu lamented.
# # #
(Sarah Kinney)
Location Classified
The Facility
01:04 AM
Raising a daughter wasn't simple for Sarah Kinney; she had tried to not care, she had tried to see what she was paid to do as nothing but a job that would bring dividends for other avenues in research. But she couldn't keep lying to herself anymore, all of this had started because of the decision to have a female clone of Subject Weapon X.
Sarah had felt so clever, so astute to have proposed to create a female clone of Subject X after the only available genetic sample they had had been damaged; she had been denied at first but she had gone behind doctor Sutter's back and produced a female embryo. But as revenge for her insubordination, Dr. Zander Rice, her erstwhile enemy, forced her to act as the surrogate mother for the specimen.
Giving birth had been a painful and heady feeling. There was a reason they call childbirth labor. Making a healthy baby took effort: It required foresight and self-denial and courage. It was expensive and demanding and tiring. You had to learn new things, change many habits, possibly deal with complicated medical situations, make difficult decisions, and undergo stressful ordeals. Pregnant women did such things, and much harder things, all the time.
For example, they give birth, which was somewhere on the scale between painful and excruciating. Or they had a cesarean, as she had, which was major surgery. None of this was without risk of death or damage or trauma, including psychological trauma. To force girls and women to undergo all this against their will was to annihilate their humanity. When they undertook it by choice, we should all be grateful.
This experience changed Sarah forever, the child, X-23 as she was called was always on her mind. For seven years, X-23 was being raised and trained to be a weapon; Sarah had tried to discreetly instill a semblance of normality in her life by reading her stories or being there for her. After the horrible experience of seeing the child who had half of her DNA suffer for the awakening of her X-gene, Sarah had decided to take her away from this place.
Seven years, seven long years to finally act like a mother! Did her piece of shit and child abusing father turn her into a psychopath too? She had plotted and schemed, even enlisted the skills of Tanaka sensei, X-23's kind and yet severe martial arts tutor for their eventual escape; however, Sarah had underestimated the moral bankruptcy of Dr. Zander Rice who used some special scent trigger to have X-23 kill him because he showed kindness to the girl believing she had gone 'soft'.
This had broken her daughter, yes she could say it now, she was her daughter. It had also broken Sarah's professional distance with X-23. Kimura, the girl's handler… that bitch should be fucked by magma tentacles... continued to abuse her and seek reasons to always bully her. Then everything changed December the fifteenth, Dr. Rice had died, in fact most of the staff in the facility had died, leaving only Kimura, Dr. Sutter, some scientists and a dozen genetically altered soldiers.
It was now or never, X-23 and Sarah destroyed the labs and key installations with the help of several well placed C-4 explosives throughout the facility. They were now out of the facility, ten meters from the entrance when Kimura appeared and stopped them.
X-23's claws popped out of her fists and feet as she saw her bully and abuser make herself an obstacle. Sarah cursed. "Shit."
The woman was a creation of the facility, an experiment, a direct counter to her daughter's powers; it had been done deliberately to control X-23. The ugly woman approached with a deliberate happy gait in her steps. Her boots crunching the snow under her; she was alone, but it didn't bode well to Sarah at all. The woman was as dangerous as she was ugly.
The too wide smile of Kimura stretched over her face, her tactical clothing as black as her hair. "Dr. Kinney, what a surprise. I can't say that I didn't expect you to resort to this. And here's the weapon, slipped her leash, didn't she?"
Red anger surged in Sarah, how dare that ugly thing treat her seven year old daughter like she wasn't even human? Was causing her pain so good to her that she had to unleash her sadistic tendencies on a young girl. "She's my daughter." Sarah said with a cold and dangerous tone.
Kimura snorted, losing the glint of amusement in her eyes. "She's nothing to you, Doctor. Just a thing, a weapon to be used until she breaks."
Sarah took a pistol from her lab coat's pocket, safety off and pointed the gun at Kimura who laughed at her.
Laughing some more as she looked at the pitiful Glock-19, Kimura said, "Really? You think that peashooter is going to do something to me?"
"It can slow you down." Sarah said as her finger on the trigger tightened.
Kimura lost her smile and thought for a moment and said, "Point."
BANG. BANG. Sarah emptied her gun into Kimura who stood there and let the bullets phase through her. She walked toward Sarah slowly. The geneticist threw the weapon at her but not before X-23 threw herself at her with a 'Arrrgh' cry and attempted to gut her with her claws. Kimura backhanded the child, then stomped on her arm, breaking it and barely eliciting a grunt from the girl. X-23 attempted to cut Kimura's achilles heels but was kicked away.
Sarah took a frozen wooden branch from the snow covered ground and attempted to stab the point into Kimura's ear, she almost succeeded but was slapped by the woman in black who had shifted her head slightly at the last moment. X-23 lunged at her again, Kimura caught her by the neck, but the little hellion kicked her face savagely with her foot claw. The black haired woman let go of her, cursing at X-23. The two fought for a long moment, Sarah wanted to help but was powerless to help her daughter.
Kimura won by tiring out the child, Sarah had a grenade in her banana bag but she was loath to use it in fear of wounding X-23. She knew that her daughter could heal but she hated the idea to inflict pain on her. Kimura crouched down, and lifted the young girl by the air; she struggled, still attempting to fight and looked down at Sarah Kinney.
"You've created a right mess here, Doctor." Kimura stopped thinking for a moment and tapped on the headset in her left ear, grunted and sighed wearily. "That was Doctor Sutter by the way, he is telling me that you are fired. You know what that means?"
Sarah feared for her own life at this point, but also for X-23, she couldn't die! They had a life to live together, she had so many things to teach her. Sarah attempted to stand back but Kimura did something unexpected and threw X-23 at her. The young girl automatically made her claw recede in her hands and feet to avoid wounding her mother. They fell on the ground together.
"Oh, how cute, she doesn't want to hurt you." Kimura said sweetly, delighting in the pain she was inflicting on a child.
X-23 quickly got back to her feet, this time she didn't attempt to charge Kimura, she stood there growling at the black haired woman. Sarah did the same, looking around for any way of egress. She finally noticed that they weren't alone, that some augmented soldiers were in place and pointing weapons at them.
Escape was no longer possible, Sarah didn't think she had jumped the gun per se, but maybe she moved too early. She was being protected by her daughter, she should have been doing the protecting, once again she felt like a failure.
Kimura laughed loudly. "You thought you could escape and steal the culmination of ten years of research into making the perfect assassin?" Then she stopped to think after looking Sarah in the eye, the defiance there appealed to her. Kimura wanted to break her, take away all her hopes and crush them underfoot.
Then an idea germinated into her mind. "I just thought of something great, why don't I let the thing you love kill you?" Kimura pulled a capsule from her belt pouch, opened it and threw it at Sarah, at the same moment X-23 popped her claw and cut the object in two but some of its gaseous content spilled on the geneticist.
Sarah coughed sightlessly and fanned the gas, only to see X-23 look at her with hatred, she lunged at her, claws out. Time slowed for Sarah, and understood that what was going to happen wasn't the fault of her daughter, she was conditioned for this, she closed her eyes and the woman waited for the inevitable. She could hear Kimura's eager roar of laughter and loathed her even more for what she was forcing her flesh and blood to do, it was sure to kill any shred of humanity left in the little girl. Sarah waited and waited, but death didn't come, that was when she noticed that she could hear nothing but the crackling of fire, not even Kimura's ugly laughter.
"Who are you?! Show yourself!" She heard Kimura shout.
Sarah opened her eyes, only to see X-23, claws about to reach her face, floating in the air, surrounded by a red halo effect. The geneticist looked toward the dense woods surrounding them, where Kimura seemed to be looking, the ugly woman looked tense. Red glowing eyes shone from the darkness between the trees and bushes that were surrounding the facility.
Slowly, the glowing red orbs crept closer, a silhouette was finally visible and distinct from the moon's illumination. It was obviously feminine, and attractive. The woman stepped into the outside lights spread around the grounds of the installations. She had short red hair in a bob cut and wore a skintight golden costume with distinctive metallic pauldrons, gauntlets with sharp claws and boots. Red tribal patterns and a stylized bird symbol on her chest, giving her an elegant but fierce appearance; the mask covering her face was featureless, only the eyes rimmed with dark red were visible.
Sarah found the newcomer to be radiating an aggressive aura that suddenly permeated the very air. She didn't speak, but her body language showed that she wasn't amused.
"Kill her!" Kimura commanded.
Like a well oiled machine, the augmented soldiers pointed their rifles in sync and fired at the newcomer. Sarah called out and warned the woman, but the staccato of weapons fire covered her voice. The bullets didn't even reach the golden woman who had tilted her head and the projectiles were simply held in the air, the soldiers emptied their ammunition to no avail. Suddenly, another woman in a similar black and white costume swung from some kind of white cord and kicked Kimura into a tree with enough force to break it in two. She landed on her feet and sprayed white fluid on the black haired facility agent, tying her to the broken trunk.
The red haired golden woman raised her right arm and all the bullets hanging in the air returned to the augmented soldiers, creating tiny sonic booms. The result was that nothing was left of their bodies, only parts of their body armor, blood and gory splatters. The scene was worthy of a slasher story, the golden costumed woman then approached the black and white one, putting a hand on her shoulders that she acknowledged with a nod.
Sarah was aware that mutants were dangerous, at least it was the propaganda circulating in the Facility since she started working there. X-23 and Kimura fit the bill and more, now Sarah understood that what they could do was just the tip of the iceberg. That golden costumed woman was basically untouchable, it seemed projectile weapons and even attacking her in close quarters would do nothing against her. Speaking of the devil, she turned her head toward Sarah who flinched when those solid glowing red eyes fixed on her.
As she walked up toward her, the woman stopped near X-23, put a clawed finger against her temple and Sarah saw her daughter close her eyes. Then she slowly floated to the ground. Sarah crouched and held onto her daughter. The woman then put her hand against Sarah's head as if she wanted to muss her hair. The air pressure around Sarah changed as if she was changing elevation.
"I neutralized the trigger scent that witch had thrown on you. You should be safe, now." A young sounding female voice told her.
As she held onto her daughter, Sarah looked more in depth at the young woman, she was clearly the same size as her. She moved like a predator, exactly like her daughter; but because she couldn't discern more of her physical characteristics, Sarah decided to ask, "Who are you?"
"Your ticket out of this place, Doctor Kinney." The young woman answered as she looked at the installations behind Sarah.
The geneticist recognized this situation, that girl, whoever she worked for or with wanted something from her or X-23. Sarah glared at the redhead. "There's a catch."
The golden costumed young woman's gaze refocused on Sarah. "There's always a catch. I've come here after realizing that the Facility was up and running, so it means that the weapon plus program isn't in this reality."
Sarah frowned, feeling X-23 stirring in her arms. "This reality? What do you mean?" She was more concerned by her daughter than the chatter of their savior, as a mother should be.
"Do you believe in the multiverse theory, Doctor?" The unnerving solid red eyed redhead asked her.
Sarah frowned. She wasn't that good at quantum physics, nor in pure math but she still tried to learn multiple fields of science or tried to understand what some of her colleagues spouted about. The multiverse was a hypothetical group of multiple universes. Together, these universes comprised everything that existed: the entirety of space, time, matter, energy, information, and the physical laws and constants that described them. At least that's what the man who had tried to pick her up in the cafeteria two months ago told her.
*Strange.* Sarah thought. Something about the young woman before her, nagged her.
Without Sarah having to answer, the young woman continued speaking as if she had. "I see that you are, we actually live in one of those. The grouping our universe is in is pretty messed up. In every one of them where X-23 exists, you always die, Doctor; and you leave her alone to be prey to those after her precious DNA or to induct her in their powered army."
Sarah couldn't believe what she was hearing, it was as if the woman had seen it happen, she refused to believe that fate could be this cruel toward a little girl, but yet again hadn't she been served the same at the hands of her own father? The same abuse that Kimura seemed to enjoy making her daughter go through… "No. It can't be true."
She chuckled. "Oh, but it is. Me coming here? I messed up your fates really bad, but that's an improvement I think, compared to what was supposed to happen."
The redhead raised a hand and wriggled her fingers, making the snow evaporate and the air around Sarah stopped being freezing. She didn't yet notice that fact, but her daughter did as she tensed. The geneticist held onto her daughter more tightly, aware that the girl was awake and that attacking someone even more powerful than her would be suicide.
Sarah looked into the redhead's solid eyes. "Please, stop talking and just tell me what you want!"
The air suddenly stilled and became heavier. Sarah felt that she made a mistake and expected to be hurt for it at this moment. But nothing untoward seemed to happen.
The redhead laughed, it was a pleasant bell-like laugh that she didn't expect from someone able to spread so much death with her powers. "What do I want? Okay, I will be frank with you Sarah. Can I call you Sarah?"
The geneticist glared and coldly said, "You may not."
X-23's head was moved on Sarah's lap, who idly caressed her daughter's hair. She was not even bothered by the current position she found herself in. The redhead snorted in amusement at Sarah's reaction. "Very well, Doctor Kinney. What I want is a future, a future where I can take the woman behind me as my wife and not be vilified for it, or because I have powers, to not be hunted down by the people you work for."
Sarah pursed her lips. "The government." She then looked at the other young woman behind the golden costumed one that kept guard over Kimura, she seemed taller and had a less curvaceous body frame. Just like that she was obtaining more information about her savior than she thought possible. Sarah now knew her sexual preferences, and why she seemed to be doing what she did. *Self-preservation.* The geneticist could understand after seeing how Doctor Sutter treated mutants, like things or animals.
Like the weapon plus program, the Facility was sponsored by unsavory agencies and a secret cabal of the US government. Sarah had to know who would try to stop her from taking her daughter and escaping, her plans had always been about moving out of the country and out of their reach.
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