Victoria nodded after her fellow agent's response. Additionally, there were more and more issues being mounted onto the team as they investigated further. They had no way of getting communications with everyone inside the castle. That was rather inconvenient, to say the least. They might as well have gone in guns blazing, because there was no way that things would've gone well with a severe lack of information as they were being posed with right now.
"There's gotta be a way to reestablish communications. Right now the both of us are sitting ducks... are we sure everything is fried?" Victoria grimaced momentarily, "Hopefully you can get us back online, McCormick. There's no telling what's happening over there."
Location: Castle Doomstadt Second Floor The Suite Skills: Infiltration, Mind Control (Power)
Tinley read the thoughts, the images projected in her mind and it confirmed what Novikova was telling her. They had been betrayed. Again. She had to admit, she was getting a little sick and tired of being betrayed time and time again. "Well fuck! We walked right into a trap. We need to get everyone out and back on the bus. And we need to do so without letting them know. For all we know, someone on that bus is a traitor." She glared at von Bardas. The woman was not innocent, not by any stretch. She was supplying weapons to someone.
"All right. Night night time." Tinley then sent a command to sleep, but von Bardas, seemingly aware, broke out of her hold. Tinley felt a slight sting. She glared at the woman "Oh no you don't!" Tinley held on to her mind again. Tinley walked over and punched the woman, but she still was awake. And worse, Tinely felt her nail break! She looekd down on her hand and clenched her fist. "Oh you bitch!" She punched her again, knocking her out cold.
She turned to Novikova and nodded towards the door, signaling for them to leave as she turned on the comms. "Change of plans. We were sold out. This is a trap. We are evacuating now! And do not communicate with anyone on the bus. Not until I give word."
Tempest Renroir
Location: Castle Doomstadt - Outside Great Room -> Inside Great Room Skills: Unarmed Combat
Meanwhile, Tempest looked around at all the computers she could not access as the Tinker man talked. He began to rattle a list of names that he supplied and it pissed Tempest more and more. The mere fact people profited off of war and destruction was enough to get her blood boiling and satisfy herself that she is doing the right thing.
Still, Tempest hadn't expected to hear the last name. Raynor too. She glanced up and stared at Raynor. HYDRA was being supplied?
Soon, Tinley's voice was heard over the comms and confirmed what Tempest was piecing together slowly. "Not only that, oh captain my captain, but we just found out from Tinky baby that von Bardas has been supplying HYDRA. Who wants to take bets that the betrayer is in their pocket?"
"Crap. All right, as I said, everyone meet up. And do not, under any circumstance, go on the roof!"
Tempest glanced back at Raynor and Tinker, "So what do we do with him?"
Hassenstadt, Latveria Region, Serbia: August 30th, 2020 - 3:45 P.M.
Please specify what level and what area your character is on
Here are the floor plans to use as reference during this mission. While the rooms are stated with residential names, that does not mean that is what you will find in there. In headers, I'll be referring to locations with the following format [Actual Location - i.e. laboratory] (what it's called on the map). If you're confused, just copy from Novikova or Ray's header.
Bonnie continued to work on Jim diligently. She had a personal connection to the agent - he had served with her late husband and had helped carry his casket at the funeral. "Come on, Kennedy, stay with me," she muttered, giving him a bit of adrenaline. Bonnie would have benefited from having a full medical team on hand, but she didn't have those luxuries. "Is the Healer on this op?" Bonnie asked, referring to Tempest.
Unfortunately, Cass and Harry won't be having much luck when it comes to getting communications back up. Even between the two of them, it'll be a while. Hawkeye nodded, looking at Agent Flynn for a moment. "We can scout a little closer, then use these," he said, pulling what looked like a pair of shades from his bag. "Gift from the playboy." He was referencing his friend Tony Stark, of course. Those shades were better than binoculars - and would let them get a glimpse of the action without having to enter the building itself. They just needed to stand outside of the Castle and look.
"Get back!" Agent Lee screamed. He threw up an arm and a wall of light seemingly blasted out, knocking Luminous backwards. The girl's body seemed to be unnatural - like someone took bits and pieces and put them together without much thought or consideration. On her arm, there was a tattoo of the number 7. "Nice shot," Luminous commented, blinking for a moment.
She must have had an accelerated metabolism, as she was up off the floor a moment later like nothing happened. Silver energy seemed to surround her as she sent a blast at the girls, only for Lee to block them again with a light shield. "She's some sort of mutant!" Lee called out.
"It is not part of the mission," Nikolai told Sparky without hesitation. The quantum tunnel may be dangerous, but he didn't care. He didn't even want to be a part of SHIELD really. He just did the missions asked of him and didn't go out of his way to play the part of a hero. And unless he was ordered to shut down the tunnel, it could remain open. No one has noticed the two of them yet. "Come on. Fall back." He heard Tinley's comm message after all - and that was an order.
Raynor Blake & Dominika Novikova
Location: Castle Doomstadt: Inside (Second Floor Suite) (Great Room) Skills: Security Analysis, Jack of All Trades (Guns), Dimensional Energy Perception (Passive)
Foes will appear on the map once they are 'discovered' and will be denoted by an X. Rooms will be noted once they have been cleared by the team as well.
Novikova nodded, before she got a quick flash of sensation using her abilities. Nikolai and Sparky weren't on the same floor as them anymore. Instantly, Novikova was filled with a sense of dread and she recalled one image she had seen when she looked at Von Bardas. "Sparks is on the roof!" Novikova told Abercrombie. Her best friend's life was in danger and she didn't trust Nikolai to protect Sparky.
"Take them - I'll get Agent Sparks," Novikova said, handing the plans they had retrieved over to her field commander.
"Agent Novikova, that goes against a direct order from your field commander and will be remembered. Now get your ass out of this building and meet up with the others. Seems I will have to retrieve Sparks and Nikolai myself."
"...I know, ma'am," Novikova said. Her heart was pounding like a timer, telling her how many seconds they had. She had a gut feeling that she needed to run to her friend, then and there, or something would go horribly wrong - that she wouldn't have a friend left to retrieve. "But with all due respect...I saw it. This is the only way."
Tinley shook her head, but knew no amount of talking would get Novikova to stand down. Truth be told, Tinley couldn't blame her, knowing her friend was on the roof, but Tinley couldn't risk her getting hurt. Or worse. It was up to the Field Commander to make the hard decisions. So with all the respect, she latched on to Novikova's mind. "You will go outside and meet with the others and wait for my return. If I do not make it back, once Sparky and Nikolai are safe, escape."
Meanwhile...
"You could let me go!" the Tinkerer squeaked and Raynor rolled his eyes. However, as Raynor heard the news from Abercrombie over the radio, he held up his comm to his mouth for a moment. "I copy," he said, a bit darkly. He glanced at Tempest for a moment, hearing her ask that, and he wished that he had his sniper rifle on him. He then looked back at the pathetic man in front of him. They weren't supposed to use lethal force - they were SHIELD agents - but by the gods he wanted to.
Raynor emptied an I.C.E.R. into the Tinkerer. One shot was enough to knock an individual unconscious - this way enough to send the Tinkerer sprawling onto his back, his heart barely keeping up. But Raynor, in his years of experience, knew that the man would live - unfortunately. "Wipe the drives, after stashing copies of the information," Raynor told her, referring to the computers. "Agent Sparks, do you read me?" he then asked via comm.
Location: The Bus, (Level One) Skills: Engineering
"Glad you are on our side then." Cassandra said giving Flynn a slight smile as she started to try and get the communications up and running, alongside with Harry as they started to work together with replacing the parts. She rubbed her eyes for a moment. But that wasn't going to be up anytime soon at least for now. She ignored their fellow agents about getting the power to communications up, they would have to be going in blind for the time being. "There should be some drones maybe in some crates nearby." Cassandra said towards them, but she didn't look at them Cass was focused on her current task.
Cass took a moment to look at Agent Chase and Agent Kennedy as her friend tended to him, he hoped that he would be able to pull through as well. She didn't think she would be fully ready to be a fulltime leader for the group, as Cassandra felt a slight spark hit her hand and winced a bit. "He will pull through i'm sure of it. Tempest is with the field team currently." Cassandra said towards Bonnie and gave her a friendly smile before going back to working on getting the power online.
Harry McCormick
Location: The Bus, (Level One) Skills: Engineering
"Oh yeah I can totally sprinkle some magical fairy dust and say hocus pokus and get the communications back up." Harry said as he gestured towards the fried electronics and wires. "But no it's going to take longer, unless you want to take a crack at it." Harry said sarcastically and rolled his eyes and went back on focusing on working on the task at hand. Taking out some power tools and then started to work on replacing parts and wires. Harry would Thompson a slight nod as he continued to work with Agent Reed as he focused on some wires.
A few seconds later the lights started to flicker on, and power was restored to only the cargo hold of the Bus, which was a start, but it wasn't going to be enough at all yet. "Got power to the cargohold up and running is a start." Harry said looking back towards Hawkeye, Flynn and Thompson. "Still going to take a bit longer." Harry said, as he went back to his work tossing away the brunt or broken pieces of wire and circuit boards onto the floor.
Maria Smith
Location: Castle Doomstadt First Floor (Dining Room) -> (Master Suite) Skills: Athletics, Acrobatics, Life-Force Absorption & Power Absorption
Maria heard Tinley's order over the radio telling them to fall back which wasn't a good thing to hear either the mission had gone south or they found out something, the HYDRA slogan she heard being yelled over the radio wasn't a good thing to hear either. "Damnit Niah!" Maria yelled, and started to run after her friend to get caught up to her. When she entered the Master Suite she noticed Agent Rhodes was on the floor, and then heard Agent Lee yell to stand back. Maria took a step back as she watched Luminous send a wave of energy towards them, only for Agent Lee to block it.
Maria started to think about what to do, Niah wasn't doing well with the blood loss, and Lee had been fighting against the woman for who knows how long since they split up. "Lee get Niah out of here, we are being ordered to fallback." Maria said as she took off her gloves and stuffed them into her pockets. "I'll hold her off." Maria said, before running forward as quickly and as fast as she could, going over the furniture that was in the way and then latched her hands on Luminous's face, feeling the sudden surge of power going through her as she picked up the woman's powers up.
"You are an idiot if you think we should just ignore that opening! If we don't do something, who knows what could happen!" she responded to Nikolai, shaking her head slightly. Though she knew that them being up there was probably a REALLY bad idea, but still. This thing wasn't something that they could just ignore, or walk away from, despite what others think. This opening in the quantum realm, there had to be a reason why they'd have opened it in the first place, but she couldn't figure out why, at least at the moment.
Hearing Raynor's voice over the comms, she was slightly hesitant to respond to him, considering where exactly she was at the moment. It made her start to wonder how he'd react if she told him, but she figured that she should respond, otherwise people might think she was dead or something, which would be a bad thing. "...Yeah, I'm here, currently I'm up on the roof, by the big swirly quantum realm tunnel gateway thing... We can't leave this thing open..." she responded into the radio, glancing over at Nikolai, before she looked once more up at the gateway.
Frederick Flynn
Location: The Bus Skills: N/A
He looked over at the two who were currently trying to piece together everything for communications. Things weren't going well clearly, and he partially wanted to smack McCormick over the head for that comment. Just because some people didn't know too much about electrical systems didn't mean that they were blind. Sure, they were fried, but still, didn't mean they couldn't find a much quicker solution to their problems involving it. Though he hoped one of them weren't going to even try to explain too much of the techno babble involved, that would just waste time.
Turning, he noticed what it was that Hawkeye had, and he couldn't help but be glad that they had something useful. He wondered if Stark had any other interesting bits of technology that would be interesting, or useful, for this current situation. Anything really would be helpful now that he thought about it. "We need to do something... And since communications are going to be down for a while, I say let's get going and meet up with the team."
Location: Castle Level 1 Master Suite Skills: Enhanced hearing, Pistols
"No!" Niah yelled. She wasn't certain at who or what she was yelling, but she was pissed. She had lost another friend. That was the third in as many weeks. Her heart hurt so much and her vision was a bit fuzzy, but that was probably the blood loss...or the tears. There was so much going on. She could hear guns going off all over and people yelling, but what mattered was this threat. She could at least address this.
Niah re-aimed letting out a slow breath of air and unloaded the rest of her clip at Luminous. Several shots hit her staggering her back from Maria's touch. Her vision went blurrier than before and she felt like she was about to tumble over. Niah knelt down, her hand on Sami's still warm, but still chest.
Location: Castle Doomstadt Second Floor The Suite -> The Roof Skills: N/A
Tinley hated that she did that, but there was no other choice. She knew Novikova's power, as well as her determination to Agent Sparks, would likely get her in trouble. So she sent her on her way. With von Bardas out Tinley opened the doors to the patio and stepped out to make it to the roof. Once there, she took in the full effect. The light was indeed powerful. Even Tinley could feel it. The guards she sent up there were terrified.
And then she saw Agent Sparks and Nikolai. She ran over to them. "Agent Sparks. Agent Nikolai. I believe I gave an order to get out of here and I don't see the two of you obeying. This thing is beyond what we are prepared for and we are in danger. Now, get off the roof and outside. We will tackle this at another time" She grabbed hold of Nikolai and all but threw him over to get down. Once he was away, she reached for Sparks.
Only to see the girl shrink before her eyes. Before she knew it, Sparks vanished in the light. Tinley could only look in horror. She didn't dare get closer and no amount of tinkering would bring her back. "Well shit. All right, everyone get out of the mansion now! This is now a direct order and there will be ramnifications if it is disobeyed." She relayed it over the comms before running to Nikolai. "She's gone, but she won't be for long, but we need to go or we are next."
Tempest Renroir
Location: Castle Doomstadt - Great Room Skills: Hacking, Computer Science
Tempest was only mildly concerned when Raynor unleashed fury into the Tinkerer. It was only enough to stun the man and make him feel really crappy once he woke up. A better fate than he deserved. She immediately rushed over to the computers and got to work. She highlighted relevant files and copied them before she did a system wipe. They would have a hard time recovering.
She ran back to Raynor. "Surprised you didn't kill him, but thankful. He'll get what's coming to him. For now, we need to jet. Abercrombie sounded pissed and I don't want to mess with whatever is going on with that light show on the roof."
The comment from Agent McCormick had solicited a rather peculiar response from Victoria. It was an innocent question, there really was no need to get so snippy, especially with a way bigger issue on their hands. They weren't EE nerds, but that just meant they were capable of kicking way more ass than he was. There was a whole lot of nothing going on, and it was starting to frustrate Victoria as she started to pace back and forth within the proximity of her fellow agents.
Hawkeye's mention of a playboy had roused Victoria's attention, snapping her trance as she looked at what the agent had in his hands. A special pair of shades, hm? It was worth trying at the very least. "I agree with Agent Flynn. It's better than sitting here and sitting on our hands."
Hassenstadt, Latveria Region, Serbia: August 30th, 2020 - 4:00 P.M.
Please specify what level and what area your character is on
Here are the floor plans to use as reference during this mission. While the rooms are stated with residential names, that does not mean that is what you will find in there. In headers, I'll be referring to locations with the following format [Actual Location - i.e. laboratory] (what it's called on the map). If you're confused, just copy from Novikova or Ray's header.
"Get Tempest back here pronto," Bonnie muttered. "I'm losing him," she then admitted. The bullets they had used on Jim had done a number on him and when he shifted from rock to human form, it hadn't helped the injuries. In fact, it had made them worse - but it was difficult to do surgery on a rock, if not completely impossible. There was only one other person Bonnie could think of that would be harder to help and that would be Luke Cage.
"Got it," Hawkeye said, however when he went and opened up the box the drones were gone. "Damn it," he swore, before he nodded at the operations agents and motioned for them to follow him. They had their own vehicle outside of the Bus and Hawkeye got into the driver's seat. Once everyone was inside, he drove in the direction of the horrifying looking light show. "Remember, this is critical - we cannot be seen if we can help it."
Agent Lee nodded, about to go and grab Niah when suddenly he stopped. His eyes widened and a trickle of blood came from his mouth, as he dropped to the ground like a puppet without strings. Behind him stood Luminous, hardly effected by all of the attacks so far. Her recovery time was terrific. And in her bloodstained hand, she clutched Agent Lee's heart. "Father was right...That is fun," Luminous mused, before she crushed the heart. The blood and matter sprayed everywhere, but since Agent Smith was closer, Maria's face ended up covered in Lee's blood.
"You can try to fight me, but you won't win," Luminous guaranteed. "But..." She then paused, seemingly noticing something for the first time as she stared at Niah. "Train hard. Face me again. Such wicked delights must have wicked ends...And I'm bored." The brief high she had gotten from ripping out Lee's heart was over. It was too easy. She wanted a challenge. "Creed Financial. That's where you'll find me and HYDRA - and his poor uncle...Make it a good fight." There was then a blur of silver and Luminous was gone.
Niah, meanwhile, would get a vision from touching Sami's chest. She would hear his conversation with Fury, where he had been more or less told to kill Von Bardas. She would hear his conversation with Rhodey on the phone, with the odd note to call his mother - and Fury's belief that Rhodey had been compromised.
Agent Novikova was outside of the Castle, looking up at the roof in horror. She knew that her friend needed her help desperately. Unlike the others in Sci-Tech, Dominika's specialty was nuclear physics. No one else on the team knew as much about the quantum realm as she did or how to handle a quantum tunnel. And if any of them were to become trapped within it, as her vision from Von Bardas had indicated was likely. The things that woman was capable of...Yet Novikova couldn't bring herself to walk inside. Tinley's mind control was too strong. The Russian-American agent could only look up at the roof with tears, knowing that she had failed her team.
Meanwhile, downstairs Raynor's blood ran cold as he heard Agent Sparks' message - she was by a freaking quantum tunnel? Those type of gateways were dangerous - his grandfather had called them Yggdrasil's Thorns. Only the gods were able to traverse them safely - his grandfather had been quite clear on that - and even then, they did not always return. "Agent Sparks du får helvete der ute akkurat nå med mindre du vil ha et ansikt til ansikt møte med en Valkyrie!" Raynor shouted into his comm, too angry to even realize he wasn't speaking English. "Jeg sværger til All-Faderen at hvis du ikke kommer her nede, RETT NÅ, jeg kommer til å miste det, for det er Lana!"
Raynor paused for a few seconds. Then he heard Tinley's panicked order to evacuate and then, even more chillingly, Nikolai's message. "It's too late, Agent Blake...She's gone."
"NEI NEI NEI!" He glanced at Tempest, his entire body giving off a soft yet maddened glow. He had had his powers longer than just about everyone on the team - anyone at S.H.I.E.L.D., even - but they were going out of control. Driven by pure emotion and rage, Raynor rushed out of the room. Each of his steps left a scorch mark on the floor. He raced up the stairs and shoved Nikolai out of the way, sending the Russian agent stumbling against the wall in confusion. Raynor then looked at Tinley, and she would be able to hear his mind filled with pure rage and agony - all of it in an ancient language she could not understand.
"You wanted to know who I am, Agent?!" he barked at Tinley. "Jeg er sønn av Balder, Odins barnebarn, barnebarn til den utødelige Phoenix, sønn av Nana og bror til Forseti!" he then raced up the staircase and rushed out onto the roof, his entire body surrounded with blinding light. When the light cleared, Raynor was gone as well. As were all of the guards.
It was just Nikolai and Abercrombie left on the stairs.
Location: The Bus, (Level One) Skills: (Cass) Engineering, (Harry) Engineering
Cassandra shook her head a bit at Harry's comment she continued to work on the task at hand as she removed more burnt wires, and broken panels as she dropped them on the ground, and started the long process of replacing the parts one by one with the tools that were on hand. She looked down at Bonnie hearing the grim comment that she had made which wasn't a good sign at all, Cass was determined to get the power and communications back on. "Good luck, bring the team back quickly." Cassandra said towards Hawkeye and the team that was now just leaving.
Cassandra whipped a little bit of sweat off of her forehead, so far the mission was a complete shit show right now, HYDRA knew how to exactly hit the team hard and knew the weaknesses to their powers. She would have almost died if it wasn't for a lucky flook on the HYDRA team's part. "Once I have power up i'll do what I can to help you Bonnie." Cass said to her friend as she started to replace the panel and fixing up a few more wires.
Harry was also pretty much focused on the task at hand helping Agent Reed with restoring power, though he was confident in his skills to get the power back up on his own. Harry would accidently get a few sparks that shocked his hand a bit and grumbled to himself as he started to fumble and drop some of the tools that were there on hand. He looked at Cassandra who seemed to have things under control as well and eventually the lights quickly started to come on throughout the Bus now. "Got it!" Harry yelled out taking the credit of course as Cassandra made sure that everything was still working and holding up. Harry stared at Cassandra and muttered something under her breath as he took a step back and then handed Cassandra the radio.
Cassandra gave him a slight nod before turning on the radio, so that both the field team and Hawkeye's would be able to hear. "Harry and I got the power and communications back. Field team, Hawkeye and his are on their way over to you we need Tempest back as soon as possible!" Cass said before turning around and quickly moved to Bonnie's side. "What do you need me to do?" Cass asked looking over at Agent Kennedy on the ground she wasn't sure how well the mission is going out there.
Maria Smith
Location: Castle Doomstadt First Floor (Master Suite) Skills: N/A
Maria stared back at Niah as soon as she yelled responding to Rhodes' death, it was really a bad situation as Lee was about to follow out her order, he stopped and noticed the blood coming out of his mouth. Her eyes wondered down seeing a fist holding Lee's heart in front of her, and his body fell dead quickly. Maria was about to use the new power that she snatched from the very woman in front of her. Then Maria flinched when she felt something wet hitting her face, she was expecting it to be her own, as she opened her eyes she stared down at herself. Covered in Agent Lee's blood, as much as Maria wanted to scream she needed to remain calm for Niah, she was about to lunge in for an attack only for Luminous to give a location and then disappear in front of them in a silver light.
Maria quickly knelt down to Niah putting on her gloves again looking at her friend trying to comfort her as best she can. "We need to get out of here." Maria said, as she heard Agent Abercrombie's order over the radio which wasn't good as she offered her hand to pull Niah back up to her feet. "Lets head back outside." She said as Maria quickly turned and made a beeline to the front door seeing Novikova standing in front of the building as well. "We need to go now." Maria said while looking back over at the building again as she whipped away Agent Lee's blood off of her face.
What happened was just a swirl of actions and colors. She heard Tinley's words when she had come up to the roof, and what she had said when she pulled Nikolai away, and she heard Raynor yelling over the comms in a different language, but she knew he was talking to her, but that was it. The next thing she knew she was sucked into the tunnel, and everything around her started swirling. Nothing made sense where she was, or where she was going, but there wasn't much she could do.
Her mind couldn't focus, she couldn't see where she was, but all she knew was that she was alone. Or was she? It was hard to tell as she started hearing others, voices around her. It took her a few moments for her to recognize the voices as those of her older sisters. But that didn't make sense... Why would she hear them? They didn't exactly care much about her, especially when she proved how smart she was, and she hadn't talked to them since she left home. Nothing was making sense, her head spinning as she tried to focus on something, anything.
Frederick Flynn
Location: The Bus Skills: N/A
"Good luck with the power situation," Flynn nodded towards Cassandra. He decided that he was virtually going to ignore Harry, since the guy seemed like a know-it-all who thought he knew everything and that everyone else was stupid. He headed after Hawkeye, getting into the vehicle and heading towards the weird light show. It was crazy, seeing the building with some weird light looking thing on top of it, and it made him wonder what the hell was even going on there.
He heard Hawkeye's words about the situation being critical, and he nodded his head, "Understood sir... And I can see why we wouldn't want to be seen... Not to mention we need to be careful in general, otherwise who knows what can happen." After a few moments, he heard Cassandra's voice over the comms, and he let out a slight sigh of relief. Communications were back up it seemed, which was a good thing.
Location: Castle Level 1 Master Suite -> Outside Skills: N/A
Niah took her hand's friend to stand and nodded at her. "I can't leave him. Them." But Maria was already gone. She looked between the two corpses.
Niah was stunned, but she could put the pieces together. Sami had been upset the last couple of days, this explained that. She hadn't pushed because she couldn't handle his emotions on top of what she was dealing with. And now everything was worse. Luminous was gone now too so she couldn't even take it out on her. Not that she had any ICER bullets left so it didn't matter.
But Agent Abercrombie was yelling at them to evacuate. She wasn't going to leave them behind. There was no way she could get both Sami and Lee out. She felt bad, as little as she had known Lee he had seem nice. She owed Sami though. Niah grabbed him by the collar and dragged him out of the castle. Her head was spinning when she finally stopped.
Hassenstadt, Latveria Region, Serbia: August 30th, 2020 - 4:15 P.M.
Please specify what level and what area your character is on
Here are the floor plans to use as reference during this mission. While the rooms are stated with residential names, that does not mean that is what you will find in there. In headers, I'll be referring to locations with the following format [Actual Location - i.e. laboratory] (what it's called on the map). If you're confused, just copy from Novikova or Ray's header.
Bonnie looked at Cass and Harry, grimacing slightly. "How's your knowledge of enhanced physiology? From what I remember Jim telling me, he encountered Isotope E - real crazy stuff made by Herbert Wyndham I think, not anything you want to mess with...More than half of the creatures exposed to it ended up as talking animals." Bonnie let that sink in for a moment. She wasn't kidding, even if it felt like something out of a Mary Poppins sequel or a Narnia movie. "Honestly, the most you can really do for me right now would be to help me move him to medical - that way at least he isn't on the ground."
Dominika Novikova
Location: Outside of the Castle Skills: Russian
"Copy," Hawkeye said, as he heard that Agent Reed had managed to get communications back up way ahead of schedule. He pulled up the van outside of the Castle, using the high tech binoculars to get a good look at what was going on. He then recognized various S.H.I.E.L.D. agents fleeing the building and since the quantum tunnel seemed to be going critical, he hit the gas pedal and pulled up in front, alongside Agents Flynn and Thompson.
"They'll be in shock - these are rookies," Hawkeye told his team, before grabbing his bow and he hopped out of the van to greet the survivors. "And Agent Flynn - don't be scared, but some of them are mutants," Hawkeye quipped. He snickered slightly at the ex-O.M.E.N. agent, before he observed the scene.
Novikova had been forced outside by Tinley and she was looking up in shock. She had heard all of the messages and she knew it wasn't any good - her best friend was gone, trapped in the quantum realm if they were (un)lucky. "Я заставлю эту суку заплатить," Novikova muttered under her breath. She then gasped slightly, taking a step backwards as Maria and Niah emerged, with Maria covered in blood and Niah dragging the corpse of Agent Rhodes.
This had been their first mission. Two agents were confirmed dead. At least one seemed to have gone through a quantum tunnel. Novikova couldn't help but feel like they had failed, even though their objective had been completed. They were some sort of suicide squad.
"Agents, let's roll out - do you have anyone else that isn't accounted for?" Hawkeye asked, taking charge.
"Vayustin, Blake, Sparks, Renoir, Lee, and Abercrombie, sir," Novikova said numbly. She didn't know that Lee was dead. She knew that Sparky had gone through that tunnel but that still made her unaccounted. As for the rest, she just didn't know - and that was the majority of their team.
How could they save the world if they couldn't even save each other?
Raynor Blake
Location: the Quantum Realm: Quantum Void - Region Ψ Skills: Norwegian
As Raynor opened his eyes, after falling into another portion of the multiverse, even his mind was no match for the mind boggling and sense defying qualities of the quantum realm. He tried to focus on his hand in front of him, but it looked like his hand was becoming a fractal pattern of its own that went on for all eternity. And then, as he continued to drift, he barely even realized that he was in the darkness. "Far?" Raynor whispered, hearing a voice that might have been echoing throughout the realm or just in his own head, he didn't know.
"Hvis du forlater bror, kan du aldri gå tilbake til vårt univers..."
It felt as if there was a slight wind rushing through his head, yet at the same time it was as if he had jammed his ears shut with cotton balls. "Bror?" he called out, hearing his own voice echoing. Or was it? He didn't even know properly where he was as he reached out, only to feel his body flip over - or did he? It was all so confusing he didn't know what to think.
"Du må fokusere, eller du vil dø blant tornene..."
"Kom hjem, min sønn..."
"...Mor?" he called out, his eyes watering. He missed his mother dearly.
As for Sparky, the dice gods appeared to have smiled upon her and she is within the same region of the quantum void as Raynor. She still will be unable to focus her mind within the quantum realm and she will begin to hear the voice of her biological father, calling out to her.
Hearing someone's voices over the communications system was a blessing. Never had she been so glad to hear someone's voice before. At least they knew what the hell what was going on inside -- or at least had a better idea as to what was happening. Victoria was so glad that they weren't in the dark anymore. Only God knew what would've happened if they continued to be left in the dark about what was happening to their teammates.
"Thank god." Victoria sighed a breath of relief. Sitting in the vehicle with Hawkeye and Agent Flynn, she was making sure that she was ready for stealth. They needed to be silent for sure. Making sure that her ICER was where it was supposed to be, she took a deep breath, and made sure that her breathing was as stable as it could be. "Hopefully things aren't too bad in there..."
Arriving in front of the castle, the SHIELD agent hopped out, pulling her ICER out of its holster and letting it rest in her hands. The subtle blue glow of the pistol radiated against her hands, as she held the pistol pointed to the ground. Seemed like things were dire in the Castle. At least they were there to help out. Hopefully things weren't too bad. If the other agents were having a hard time there definitely was something incredibly dangerous up there. However, Victoria knew that she could handle it, especially with Hawkeye and Agent Flynn by her side.
Cassandra looked over towards Agent Chase biting her bottom lip for a moment and shook her head slightly. "I'm afraid i'm really rusty enhanced physiology." She answered her friend as she looked down at Agent Kennedy who was still on the floor, she just hoped that Hawkeye and his team would pull through and get their own team back as soon as possible. "I got him, just get whatever medical supplies you need and ready." She told her friend as she stood up and started to very carefully lift up Jim, grunting and groaning as she did and moved him slowly over towards the medical lab that was set up.
As Cassandra made her way towards the door, she quickly stopped where she was adjusting her stance a bit knowing that she didn't want to hit his head or make his injuries any worse than they already were. Once inside Cassandra found the medical table as she laid him down on the table. Breathing heavily as she pulled out her radio again. "Just be aware of any other HYDRA agents in the area, and be careful." Cassandra wasn't sure if there were more HYDRA agents in the area or not, but she didn't want to take any chances.
Harry watched as the two girls went to take care of the injured agent leaving him alone to put his tools away letting out a slight sigh as he started to look over at the HYDRA agent's bodies that were in the cargo hold. He started to wonder what they would actually be holding on them. For any sort of useful information that is, as harry started to search around he eventually found a flash drive on one of the bodies of the HYDRA agents. Harry then started to plug it into his tablet and started to look through the information which was encrypted as he looked over at Agents Reed and Chase. "I found a flash drive on one of those bodies, could contain some useful information." Harry said as he looked over at the two ladies. "Once Agent Renoir and the others get back here i'll have her take a crack at it." Cassandra said as she walked over towards him, as Harry handed it over towards her.
Maria Smith
Location: Outside of Castle Doomstadt Skills: N/A
Maria stood there still shaking a bit as she closed her eyes for a few seconds seeing the look of Agent Lee's face when Luminous ripped out the agents heart literally. She shook her head trying to get the image out of her head, looking over at Niah as she dragged out Agent Rhode's body out of the castle. She felt bad for leaving Lee's body inside, but Maria right now couldn't handle going back in there right now. As she looked over at Novikova for a moment hearing her friend saying something in Russian which she did not understand at all one bit.
Then Maria heard a car starting to come up on them, she was about to get ready for a fight but once she saw who stepped out of the car was Hawkeye. Along with two other agents that Maria didn't even know who they were, looking back at her team and then Hawkeye and his, asking who was unaccounted for. As she heard Agent Reed's voice over the radio once more, Maria wanted to get out of here already, and get all of the blood off of her face, clothes and hair. "Agent Lee is dead." Maria said softly in a shaky voice as she looked back at the building, she wasn't sure where the other agents were right now and the freaky lightshow above them wasn't a good sight to see either.
Location: Castle Doomstadt - Getting the F#&$ Out Of There Skills: N/A
Tempest watched as Raynor freaked out upon hearing Agent Sparks being sucked into the tunnel. What she had not considered was him flying off, speaking in a language she didn't know. Before she knew it, he was up and running. "Wait! What about me?" She sighed. She got what she needed from the computer. She eyed Tinker man's body, wondering if she should pull him away, but there was no way she'd be able to lug. So she got out and made her way outside.
Tinley stood by Nikolai, eyeing the man to make sure he didn't charge in there. Soon, Raynor was up the steps. She could feel his thoughts. The anger behind them. While she didn't understand the words, she could feel the meaning. Before she could react, he was out into the portal and gone. "Agent Raynor! Fuck! Stupid idiot! Agent Nikolai, we are leaving and we are leaving now!" She all but pulled on him to drag him down the stairs.
She was out of the bedroom quickly, hopping over the bannister below, where she ran into Tempest. "Agent Abercrombie, I tried to stop Raynor, but he moved too quickly. I got stuff from their computers though." Tinley nodded as she broke into a sprint, Tempest following. Soon, they were outside.
They took it all in. Hawkeye there, the corpse of Agent Rhodes, Agents Smith and Bautista looking exhausted. Tinley shook her head. She had done all she could. This was partially her fault and she would accept the blame for it, but it was not all her fault. Whoever betrayed them is the one at fault and she would soon find them and hurt them. Slowly. "Agent Sparks and Raynor are in the Quantum Realm. Agent Rhodes appears to be dead. We were betrayed and walked right into a trap. I, for one, am pissed and will do all I can to bring whoever did it to justice and get our team back." She looked up to Novikova. "On that, you have my word. But we need to get out of here now, before it gets worse. We have data from their computers, plus blueprints and schematics that I think will prove useful for tackling this Quantum Realm business."
She still was unable to focus on anything, it made things impossible. The reality was swirling around in her head, and she kept trying to figure out what to do. There was no way for her to know that she wasn't alone in the Quantum Realm, since she had been the first one pulled inside the tunnel. None of this made any sort of sense, with all of the colors. Soon, the voices of her sisters' disappeared, however, it was far from silent, as the voices were replaced by another one.
"E257...E257...E257..." the voice started saying, and kept repeating the numbers.
"W-W-Whose there?" she stammered out. There was something familiar about the voice, as if she had heard it somewhere before. It was weird... And she had no idea what to even think. The other voices had been ones that she recognized easily, but this one was different. And E257? What the hell did that mean? She decided to ask the voice, "I-I-I'm sorry, but I don't understand, what does that mean?"
Frederick Flynn
Location: The Bus Skills: N/A
Flynn just rolled his eyes at Hawkeye over that comment. He was not proud of what he had been doing with OMEN, and now one of his best friends, Demetria, was a mutant and worked with the underground, so why would he hate them now? He understood their situation now, better than a few months back. "...That whole thing with OMEN was definitely not my finest moment... And when can people stop bringing up that whole thing? I mean really," he said, though he let out a small laugh, knowing that it was mainly teasing.
When they reached the castle, he glanced up at the crazy light show on the roof, whatever the hell it was, it definitely was not a good thing. He noticed a few people outside, and headed over, hearing what Hawkeye had said, and Novikova's response. Damn, that was a lot of people unaccounted for, so things clearly had gone horribly wrong. He glanced at the entrance and saw Tinley and Tempest arrive and tell them what had happened. "...Then let's get the hell out of here before we end up in an even worse situation."
Niah had a lot to unpack mentally from what she had seen when she had brushed Sami with her bare skin, something she was going to have to be a bit more careful about. It was an intense experience and the first time it had happened without her intending to trigger it. She looked at Hawkeye and then at Agent Abercrombie. People were dead, or unaccounted for. And more terrifying some were in the Quantum Realm. She had heard of that, but it wasn't her area of expertise so she hadn't gone out of her way to learn more about it. She felt useless.
"I couldn't bring both of them. Agent Abercrombie, later I need to speak with you about something I saw." Niah looked at Sami's body and just couldn't summon any more energy to get him into the vehicle. "Can someone help please?" Once he was secured she got into the vehicle as well. She took in the faces around her knowing some, or at least the names attached with them, and others she had no clue. That was for later she decided and curled her legs up so she could rest her chin on them.
The Playground - Location Classified: August 30th, 2020 - 8:45 P.M.
It was a little over four hours later that the now combined S.H.I.E.L.D. team, rechristened the Secret Warriors, had settled in at their new base: the Playground. Its location? Classified and epic - but located somewhere in the United States. Hawkeye continued to serve as the leader of the team, with Tinley Abercrombie continuing as well in her role as field commander. Agent Cassandra Reed was made lead for communications, with Agent Bonnie Chase taking lead for science and engineering related operations.
There was good news and bad news. Thanks to the help of Agent Renoir, Bonnie had been able to stabilize Agent Kennedy. His wounds were healed, but he was currently resting in medical and being kept for observation for twenty four hours. If they were to undertake any further missions, Kennedy would have to stay back at the Playground and keep guard there. He wasn't in any shape to go off fighting the forces of HYDRA on his own.
Then came the bad news. Despite each and every effort they had made, there was no contact with the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D. Hawkeye had tried to reassure them that it was probably just protocol, the fact that everyone had gone dark, in an attempt to survive against the HYDRA slaughter. However, there was a certain darkness inherent to that. To the knowledge of our surviving SHIELD agents, they could very well be the very last of SHIELD... HYDRA may have wiped out the rest of the organization.
The group had gathered in dining, eating hot wings that Hawkeye had managed to score for them. Novikova was writing down equations and theories on a napkin. Ever since they got back, she wanted to do nothing more than figure out a way to rescue Agents Blake and Sparks from the quantum realm. Her degree was in nuclear physics, making her uniquely qualified among the team to begin trying to save them.
"Tempest, Harry, Cass...Were you three able to get anything off of the flash drive we recovered?" Bonnie asked, breaking the silence. Novikova didn't look up from her sketches and Hawkeye had a mouth full of wings.
From the flash drive recovered from the HYDRA agent, those three would have been able to find out that a lot of this had been planned. This date was specifically chosen, as it was estimated SHIELD's force would be spread thin and allow an easy takeover. HYDRA was indeed doing business with Von Bardas, getting weapons from her. She had built them that quantum tunnel on the roof in an attempt to seize an infinity stone. As for where HYDRA got their funding?
It was from a bank called Creed Financial. Early research into it done by the communications agents had indicated that Creed Financial was owned by the Von Strucker family, famous for the Fenris Twins. They were some of the leaders of HYDRA and the bank seemed to be HYDRA's headquarters. If they were to stand a chance of taking out HYDRA, they'd need to take down Creed Financial.
"We need to also do something that won't be pretty," Hawkeye said, pulling a wing out of his mouth. He glanced at Tinley - they had spoken about this. Before they went on this mission to Creed Financial, they needed to find their mole.
Raynor Blake
Location: the Quantum Realm: Quantum Void - Region Ψ Skills: N/A
Sparky is still pretty much under the influence of the Quantum Realm. However, amidst all of the confusion, she'll start to get the idea to try fiddling with some of the devices she still has on her. As an added benefit, none of the guards from the castle have found her yet - if only Raynor was that lucky.
Raynor managed to snap out of his confusion, looking around with wide eyes. If his parents knew what had become of him, they would have been frightened for him - or perhaps they would have taken pity on him. Yet there was a reason Fury had taken him in as an agent and he wasn't about to prove him wrong. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes and centering his mind for a moment. "I pray to..." his voice faltered. The hair stood up on the back of his neck. He wasn't alone.
Opening his eyes, Raynor found himself surrounded. Eleven of the guards from the mission had appeared, circling him. Unfortunately, they seemed to have adjusted faster than he had to the Quantum Realm. And they were armed. And those weapons were aimed directly at him. Raising his hands slowly, Raynor couldn't help but laugh sadly.
"Would it help if I mentioned my grandfather is Odin?"
Cassandra leaned back in the chair she hadn't eaten to much of the food that Hawkeye had managed to find in the Playground, as she looked around the rest of the agents that were seated around the table. HYDRA knew very well that they would be able to easily hit them hard and fast wherever the rest of the SHIELD agents were Cass wasn't really sure at all. Cass was about to take another wing, when Bonnie asked, the three of them what they had managed to recover from the dead HYDRA agent's body that Harry had managed to find. It had some useful information that they could use once they were ready for their mission.
"From what the flash drive that Harry got it was in the works for a very long time. The date was chosen HYDRA knew that we would be stretched to thin from whoever gave the information." Cassandra said, as she looked over towards Harry and Tempest as well, seeing Harry eating away at the wings that were set up. She looked up at Hawkeye, biting her bottom lip for a moment and nodded, they would have to find out who their mole was in the team now. "I suggest we have the leadership go first have our resident mind reader question us first. And then work our way down." Cassandra suggested, as much as she hated to have to question the team they needed to find out who among them was with HYDRA.
Harry McCormick
Location: The Playground Skills: N/A
Harry was digging in on the wings, having gone through a few already a small pile of bones were on his plate, when Agent Chase spoke up looking over at her for a moment before Cassandra spoke up first. "Von Bardas was selling weapons to HYDRA as well, she made the quantum tunnel thingy to help HYDRA search for one of those Infinity Stone things." Harry stated as he looked back over towards Cassandra when Hawkeye spoke up about doing something that they all didn't like at all, which didn't sound like a good idea either. But he didn't say anything about it as he went back to eating.
He eyed Agent Novikova as she was doodling some math problems and some theories he wasn't sure what they all meant, he couldn't really get a good look at what she was writing. But he figured that she was doing something that would try and get their two unaccounted for agents who ended up getting themselves sucked up by the quantum realm tunnel that Von Bardas had been making. He didn't like that HYDRA had suddenly taken over so quickly, and they hadn't had any contact with other agents at all since the attack.
Maria Smith
Location: The Playground Skills: N/A
The moment the team had gotten to The Playground Maria had gone off to take a shower and get changed, she wanted to get as much blood off of her as possible. She was seated next to Dominika at the table, Maria tried her best to ignore the images she saw in her head when Luminous had killed Agent Lee right in front of her. Maria hadn't eaten anything at all since then, her plate was completely empty while some of the others were digging in and eating the food that Hawkeye managed to find. When Agent Chase spoke up, on what the communications agents had found she looked over towards them for a moment.
Maria listened in on Cassandra and Harry as they spoke from what they had found out, but looked over towards her friend who was hard at work on some equations that she was writing on a napkin. She knew that Sparks and her were really close friends, Maria gently reached out laying a gloved hand on Novikova's and gave her a slight smile. "We will get them out, if you need anything just ask." Maria said to her friend, her attention turned towards Hawkeye when he said what they needed to do next. She didn't like the idea of questioning everyone, she for one knew that she wasn't working for HYDRA ever, since she was Jewish and gay as well they would rather kill her right away.
