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@Nallore: Today just is not Cass' day. As she begins the extensive repair process, she can hear the sound of fighting from the cargo ramp area, past the laboratory. There's then a large crash, as something - or rather, someone - was thrown through the glass of the laboratory walls and hit the ground. "DON'T LOOK HIM IN THE EYE!" a male voice screamed and there was the sound of gunfire, the shots lasting for a good few minutes, before there was another crash and then silence. Small particles of gravel seemed to be in the air and a perfectly sculptured head of a HYDRA agent rolled into view, followed by Kennedy in his rock form.

"Sorry for my absence, Reed," Kennedy said roughly. He spat up a bit of what looked like blood, a moving and talking stone statue still. There were bullets covering his body. "Mind pulling these out before I shift back? I'd rather not have the bullets on me when I become skin and bone again...They almost killed me." He then grabbed a bullet and pulled it out. He then clutched his side when the wound started to gush blood.

"Shit...They must be coated with vibranium..." he sort of limped, falling to the side.

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The grunt looked at Tinley, positively and absolutely terrified of this woman. He found it dishonorable to be bested by a woman - yet Tinley's pseudo-telepathic abilities were helping to terrify him into submission. Through accidental mind control and intentional intimidation, the grunt nodded. Tinley would manage to pick out his thoughts: holy fucking shit, I do not need this...Von Bardas is going to be pissed...She's in the suite₁, right? Tinkerer, the gremlin, he's downstairs still...Oh god and then that THING on the roof...And the specimen in the basement...I hope they don't wake her up before delivery...
_{1 = suite is marked on the map as the activity room.}

"...You have to teach me how to do that," Novikova said quietly, having run up the stairs with Nikolai covering them. She couldn't help but look at her field commander in awe. She then reached out, using a seismic sense once more. "The anomaly...It's up, on the roof. That's the source of it." It was fortunate that this castle was made out of stone. It allowed her to have a rough visual map in her head of everything within it that gave off a vibration.

"Mission is not the anomaly," Nikolai scolded.

Meanwhile...

Raynor observed the damage that Niah had taken. After Tempest's healing, the blood flow had stopped and the dizziness would be gone. However, Niah would need to receive a blood transfusion as soon as possible in order for her to not need further medical assistance. The wound was gone - that was the important thing. "No, nothing from command - they might have decided to go radio silent," Raynor said, not concerned. However, all of the girls there - Maria, Tempest, and Niah - would rightly have a bad feeling about this...That something must have happened to command.

He then sent his ball of light flying around the kitchen quickly, illuminating all of the corners and hiding spots. There was no one else there. However, they still had the Great Room to check out. And Agents Lee and Rhodes hadn't messaged back with their status. That concerned Raynor - and Agent Bautista would also have a bad feeling about that. It wouldn't concern Agents Renoir or Smith at all. "Agent Bautista is stabilized," Raynor said into his comm. "Proceeding to the Great Room now." He then looked at the agents. "Tempest and Reed - one of you stay with Bautista. The other, with me."

Raynor made his way forward carefully, keeping his ball of light in his hand. He had left one back with the girls. It'd be a warning system of sorts - if something happened to him, the light would go out. He didn't mind which girl ended up coming with him, as he pressed forward from their crouched position and peered around the corner of the partition that separated the Great Room from the kitchen.


"Um, sir, shouldn't we go investigate the gunfire?" a grunt asked, shifting nervously. "Like, it's been a few minutes since someone went to go check on it..."

"No, that's what we have guards for!" the Tinkerer scolded. He was too absorbed with his work to notice Agent Raynor. "Now hand me that arrow head - yes, the one from freaking Hawkeye's bow dumbass!" the Tinkerer shook his head as one of the grants started handing him the salvaged exploding arrowhead and the scientist started to fiddle with it. "We can't afford to be late on this freaking account...You don't mess with Hellfire!"

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It was a bit hard to see the various panels around her in the dark as she held the flash light in her mouth and worked on the very long and tiresome repairs. She wanted to at least get power on and comms working again as Maria was replace parts one at a time Cassandra paused when she instantly heard fighting break out again. Cassandra quickly drew out her gun as more chaos by the sounds of it happened around her. There were still more HYDRA agents that were on the Bus, that meant more trouble, but it seemed that they were fighting against Kennedy.

When she heard the sound of a head rolling into view and then silence again as Kennedy reappeared in front of her, in stone form of course. Cass instantly could see all of the bullets were lodged into his body, looking him over she was glad to see that he was alright but then Cassandra could see him bleeding a bit as well. "Hold on i'll be right back!" Cassandra said as she quickly left the power room and made a beeline to the lab. Grabbing the medical kit that was there and quickly came back gently rolling Kennedy over, getting a better look at his injuries.

Cassandra started to slowly remove one bullet after the other, at least the ones that would look like they would have hit vital areas if he turned back to normal human form. "I still think we have a mole around somewhere, I encountered a HYDRA agent on my way down. He would have killed me if he shot me in the eye. No one would have known it unless they either had our file on record, or there was another mole on the Bus itself." Cass said as she held the flash light over removing about half of the bullets that she could see anyway.

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Maria took a moment and looked up at Raynor, she still didn't like that they didn't hear anything from either Agents Reed or Kennedy back on the Bus. "I don't like it." She said softly they would have kept in constant contact by now, but not a single peep from them once they left the Bus behind. Maria looked at Tempest and shook her head, even if they didn't have contact with command back on the Bus they still had their mission to finish. If things did go back on the mission then they should retreat, but so far it didn't look like they would need it.

Maria looked down at Niah as she laid there on the floor, Tempest's healing did really well and seeing her friend was now better. "I'll stay with her, they will need you anyway." Maria said, figuring that Tempest would be better on getting the information that they needed from any computers that were there. "The dining room is secure so we will be there." Maria said, figuring that the room would be safer for them. "C'mon, lets move you out of the main room." Maria said as she helped Niah up to her feet and headed back into the dining room, Maria would make sure that the armed men stayed down and kicked their weapons across the room.

Pain which Niah hadn't even been certain she had been feeling subsided. She was still cold, but it wasn't that bone deep uncontroled cold that she knew was a sign of shock. "Thank you." She told Tempest. Before Ryanor could go far, Niah let her sense of Taste drop away.

"Agent Blake and Tempest," Niah started, her voice seemed to boom in her own ears, but she knew she was whispering. "There are at least two hostiles in there. They are talking about Hawkeye." She frowned. They had an arrow from Hawkeye. How had they gotten their hands on that? "They have one of his arrows. Who is Hellfire?" She turned to Maria. "We should stay and help." Not that Niah had any idea how she would help. She still felt woozy from the shock and loss of blood, but at least she seemed to be able to stand without issue.

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Sparky said nothing, before she took off after them. She knew that if she didn't keep up, there would be problems, hell, she probably was going to be in trouble for not doing much. Her powers hadn't exactly been very useful when she tried to use them, but that couldn't be helped now. Hopefully they'd work the next time around, if there was a next time and knowing the situation they were currently in there probably was going to be a next time no matter how much she kind of wish there wasn't going to be.

"...No offense there Nikolai, but I'm with Novikova on this one... That anomaly up there, it likely isn't a good thing, and we hadn't exactly expected it to be there, so at least to me, the mission might have changed on this one, at least slightly. We can do both things, the original mission, and trying to get rid of that thing. We can't exactly just leave it there," she said, speaking up and voicing her opinion to the man. It didn't make sense to just ignore the anomaly there, especially since in theory it probably could be a very dangerous thing if left there.

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Confident she had showcased her talents well, she heard the man's thoughts as he whimpered like a baby. She grinned wickedly, sensing her powers were more than useful. "Thanks. Heard your thoughts. You are no use to me anymore." With a quick hand jab to the back of the man's head, he slumped to the ground. She stood up and dusted herself off, glancing at Novikova. "We'll continue training after the mission, but a girl's got to keep some secrets."

The others were coming up with plans on what to do, but Nikolai had a point. "Nikolai is right. We have a mission and the mission comes first. Far be it from me to say whether or not this anomaly isn't part of the bigger picture though. von Bardas is in her suite and that is where I am going. Follow if you wish, otherwise I want this anomaly checked out. But carefully. If what we've seen and heard is true, it's dangerous." With that, Tinley crept along the hallway towards the suite, getting there easily.

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Satisfied she had healed almost everyone who needed it, Tempest checked her phone...oh wait that was destroyed! Any attempts to remotely hack anything would not work now. She would have to be up close and personal and she had a feeling the baddies here would not like her snooping in their files.

She followed Raynor, content with Niah and Maria handling things on their end. A quick scan of the room showed some nice computers for her to hack into, provided the Tinkerer and the guards inside would let her, which they wouldn't. "So, what's the plan. I'd really like to get into those computers. I've a feeling they hold some information we need, but the baddies in there won't like it."

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@Nallore: Jim grimaced, letting out a small cry of pain each time she pulled a bullet. "Yeah, I think we got a - GODDAMN IT - a....a mole..." he agreed, gritting his teeth. He was considering her thought process - yes, S.H.I.E.L.D. did have files on all of them but they were highly classified. Not very many people would have had access to them. That was one fatal flaw a previous S.H.I.E.L.D. team had made - they assumed it was some sort of psychic threat, rather than realizing the obvious answer - they were fighting someone with security clearance. "...We're gonna have to test them all, kid..." Jim grunted again. "Even each other...Now...Where's the booze? I need a damn drink before I can do much of anything." He then laughed a bit, but it was painful. His wounds still needed to be cleaned - but how do you clean out the wound of a man literally made of rock?

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While Tinley and Nikolai had no problem getting to the suite without issue, Novikova and Sparky were a bit more clumsy as they followed. Fortunately, the squishy scientists didn't end up drawing undo attention to themselves. "Vait here," Nikolai said, gently infiltrating the room directly to the south of the suite. Once inside, he gave a smile to the two off duty guards he found. They were both chugging sodas, way too tired to be pulling another 18 hour shift.

"Fuck..." one of the guards said as Nikolai struck.

"...How can I help?" Novikova whispered to Tinley. Tinley would be able to get a headcount of how many foes were upstairs by her mind control abilities - they were approximately thirteen grunts and one Big Bag on this level, not including her own teammates. "Von Bardas...she isn't supposed to see us, right?" Novi then asked. No one knew about Rhodes' personal mission.

Meanwhile...

Raynor shook his head at Niah, glad that Agent Smith had the good sense to drag her out of there. He and Tempest would be more than enough to handle these guys. She had healing and he had the magic of a free light show - not to mention the combat experience both of them boasted. Niah had done enough and although no one realized it yet, she was needed urgently at the Bus. But that would be for another time. A thought would occur to both Niah and Maria however: where were Rhodes and Lee?

Raynor grimaced, whispering to Tempest. "Hellfire...You don't want to mess with those people. They profit off of the suffering of their own kind," he explained. At least the Tinkerer seemed to be pretty distracted yelling at his grunts and bossing them around. From what they could tell, the Big Bad of the first floor seemed to be busy working on something. "...I can flash bomb them all, blind them, if you'd be ready to come in and disarm them all - or at least, knock their asses to the ground," Raynor whispered to her.

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Cassandra went back to removing the bullets one by one out of Agent Kennedy's stony skin setting them down on the floor, it wasn't the best work but she eventually ended up removing the last of the bullets out of him. Seeing him groan in pain as each of the bullets were removed. "Oh relax you big baby." Cassandra said, trying to keep her fellow agent laughing she stared at the blood coming out of the wounds she wasn't even sure how to stop the bleeding.

"Agreed though we need to question just about everyone on the team." Cass said as she rubbed her hands off looking at him for a moment, she wanted to check something. Kennedy was on his phone just before the team had left, and then the whole thing with HYDRA happening again, it was a bit of a coincidence that they happened just about the same time. Cassandra took his phone without much of a problem and turned it on, grumbling a bit.

"Sorry, just have to check it was a bit of a coincidence you were on the phone when they came in just a few minutes later." Cassandra said as she handed him his phone. "I'll get some booze or something for you, just unlock the phone i'll get something to try and stop the bleeding." Cassandra said as she turned and headed into the lab to search for the supplies.

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Maria helped Niah down onto a chair and then looked at her friend she shook her head a bit. "You are in shock, and you lost a shit ton of blood. So just rest a bit i'll keep watch you are going to need a transfusion once we get back to the Bus." Maria said as she walked over to a nearby wall having her ICER out and at the ready. Maria wanted to keep alert and make sure that they wouldn't get jumped by any of the guards.

What was troubling though was that she still didn't hear anything from the Bus, as well as nothing from Lee or Rhodes which was equally disturbing. Maria spoke into the radio with the others of the team, her priority was to make sure Niah was completely safe, she ran a hand through her hair. "Hey anyone hear from Lee or Rhodes at all?" Maria asked looking over at Niah as well if she had heard anything from their two follow agents.

Niah sat down in the chair. Maria was right. Her whole body felt weird. It was ten times worse than donating blood. She felt like passing out or throwing up. It was weird cause she could have sworn she had heard Antonie speak, but that had been when she had been bleeding out. She shook her head and the memory of it from her mind as best she could. She couldn't focus on that right now. Instead, she focused on her hearing it was still up. Maybe she could pick out where everyone was. She wouldn't be able to identify exactly where Sami was, but she might be able to figure out where people in general were. That might help.

Niah started listing off locations to Maria. "Sorry I can't tell who is who, and I don't fully know the layout of the house, but this is basically where people are. I can't even guarntee it is everyone."

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Sparky knew that she wasn't being the most useful, or powerful, member of the group. Everyone else was finding a way to contribute, but she was failing as an agent at the moment. It made her feel bad that everyone else was doing all of the work, while she just sat there, not able to so much as create a spark. Deciding that maybe her powers weren't the best way to go, after all, she wasn't much of a fighter, so she decided to stick with her strengths if possible and went looking for a power control.

She spotted the closet nearby, and opened it up, finding a breaker box. Now this was something she could do as she opened it up and looked at everything inside of it. After a moment, she realized that maybe her powers could be useful in this instant, and hoped that they were willing to do something. Taking a deep breath, she rubbed her hands together and sent a jolt of electricity throughout the breaker system, shutting down the power to the entire building, having lucked out and found the main power switch.

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Tinley took the mental head count. Her powers were proving useful time and time again. Novikova followed her. She glanced at the girl. "I'm going to get the soldiers out of there, leaving von Bardas alone. Back me up if this goes south." Once she was ready, she closed her eyes and let her mind wander into the room. She found her target and latched on.

von Bardas looked around the room. "Ugh okay, enough of the crowding. Go, leave me alone for a while. I need to collect my thoughts and I cannot do so surrounded by you all." The soldiers glanced around, unsure, but they followed, only to start moving towards the door. "No you idiots! If I wanted more men to patrol inside I would have put you there. I want you to go to the roof and keep an eye on you know what. Go!" von Bardas shooed them away. Soon, all the guards left and she was alone.

Tinley opened her eyes, but still maintained control of von Bardas. "All right, I got the guards out and I am still controlling von Bardas. Let's go in and get information, but again, I may need you to secure the room so no one else gets back in and von Bardas doesn't call for help." With commands issued, Tinley stepped inside the room and faced von Bardas. "Lovely home you got here von Bardas. Now, we have some questions you are going to love to answer."

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Tempest was more than confident she could handle Hellfire or whatever. "Just let me at those techs and I can bring security down, maybe even find a goodie on there for the mission. I'll do what I can, but that's a lot of dudes." She wasn't confident about her fighting skills, but she could knock a fella out like the best of them.

She placed herself outside the room, waiting for the signal after the flash bomb. "Things go south, we'll need to make sure no one gets out to alert the rest of the people inside. I've got my backup ready, in case." She referred to her gun. She would incapacitate first, kill later if things came to that.

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@Nallore@Bee: "Wow, snoop much?" Jim said, unlocking his phone and showing it to Maria. The thing he had looked at right before all of this happened? It was a Donald Trump meme. One of his friends had sent it to him - a weird sort of good luck text perhaps? At any rate, it won't raise an alarm bells with Cassandra. Now here's the good news - they'll hear people board onto the ship. HYDRA was done and taken care of.

About five individuals march on board, led by the one and only Clint Barton. With him is Agent Thompson. "I heard you guys were having a party?" Clint said, taking off his shades. "Figured," he then nudged a fallen HYDRA soldier with his foot. "SHIELD's been compromised. We need you to suit up - again."

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Von Bardas, Prime Minister of Serbia, looked at Tinley. Stuck under her mind control, Von Bardas couldn't say a word. Her tricks and toys - mostly attended to by her guards and the Tinkerer - were out of reach. Although she didn't know it, it was fortunate that Agent Rhodes was not upstairs, as otherwise, her death would have swiftly followed. Another agent of the so called Free World, here to attack me without cause or jurisdiction. Hypocrisy. Lucia shook her head ever so slightly at Tinley. As much as she wanted to resist Tinley's mental attacks, she couldn't.

Novikova had followed Tinley into the room, her hands out and at the ready. Her fingers were splayed slightly - she had about as much training with her powers as she did with most weapons and figured it would do about as much good as anything else could at this point. "Abercrombie - the serum?" Novikova suggested, grabbing the vial from her pocket that had been distributed earlier to the agents. Von Bardas couldn't know that they were there - it would set back U.S.-Serbian relations for a decade. And even worse, the Cheeto would probably fire them all.

"...Also, add to that, there's unusual tremors coming from the roof..." Novikova added, feeling stressed. She had a bad feeling about this. The power then went out EVERYWHERE in the facility a moment later. Sparky had done her job. She bit her lip, sensing the strange energy upstairs. There was something about it so familiar...It almost called to her...And almost without realizing what she was doing, Novikova took off her glasses and tucked them into a pocket.

What she saw when she looked at Von Bardas horrified her.

Meanwhile...

Raynor nodded, looking at Tempest. He was unaware of the conversation Maria and Niah were having - thankfully no one had gone and found them quite yet. Lee and Rhodes were still M.I.A. and the power went out as well. That was potentially a good sign - perhaps they had gone off to find the breaker box and took it out?

The light manipulator then took a breath and held out his hands, making a blinding ball of light and he threw it into the room - it blinded everyone in sight. The Tinkerer and his goons all squinted and screamed in terror. One of them went for the emergency alarm, but with the power done it was little more than a glorified button - one hell of a design flaw! "Hey boys, this is one hell of a step up from your mother's basement, isn't it?"

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"Hey like you said, we have to vet the whole team, so of course we are going to have to look at everyone's phones and computers and any other messages or electronics as well." Cassandra said as she looked at the screen and then over towards Kennedy. "So you liked or have a man crush on the Oompa Loompa or something?" Cassandra teased him a bit before handing Kennedy her phone, which was just a recent text from her sister just a few hours ago. And a few of her other friends back at MIT she has had contact with.

Then Cassandra quickly drew out her ICER and stood up the moment she heard the sound of boots boarding the Bus, thinking that they were more HYDRA agents. Seeing that it was just Hawkeye and his team she lowered her gun letting out a slight sigh as she holstered it back to her side. "Yeah, you missed us nearly get killed." She said while looking over at Kennedy and then the power circuits that she was going to repair. "The damn Snake Heads managed to overload the power, comms are down, and haven't been in contact with the team on mission currently." Cassandra said while looking at Kennedy, she didn't want to leave him, he was in need of medical attention once he changed back to normal. "I need to get this fixed and Kennedy doesn't look like he's in any good condition to be fighting for now." Cassandra said.

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Maria turned her attention back towards her friend Niah who was looking pale still from the amount of blood loss, she wasn't sure what she could do to help her right now she wasn't medical at all. "It's fine Niah, just try and listen in on whats going on, and keep at it for any sign of Rhodes or Lee." Maria suggested, figuring that it would be something that she could have her friend pay attention to and be somewhat useful.

Maria was tempted to go out and search for them herself, but she couldn't even leave Niah by herself she lost to much blood and it would most likely make things worse. "So, hows your family back home?" Maria asked as she turned her attention back towards Niah to also make some small talk and keep her friend talking and in high spirits and all that stuff.

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Sparky was glad that she had been able to do something useful, cutting off the power like she did. It would cause some problems for just about everyone else in the facility, which was a good thing. She just hoped that in the long run it didn't effect anyone on her side or something. Looking around, her eyes widened as an image appeared in front of her and burned itself into her mind. She had no idea what it meant, or why it had appeared randomly to her, but she knew it wasn't something that she was going to easily forget.

After a moment, she noticed the others heading in to deal with what was going on with Von Bardas, but she figured that they could handle that rather easily. Sparky was more curious as to what the hell was going on up on the roof, and she made her way that direction. Something was definitely going on up there, and she wasn't going to just sit around to wait to see what it was if it turned out to want to kill them or something. She made her way up towards the roof, looking around the area.

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Flynn wasn't too sure what to think about everything that had happened since he had joined SHIELD. It was starting to seem like OMEN or something all over again, at least somewhat, considering how things were going for them right then. With HYDRA trying to take SHIELD down in some way, it wasn't going to end well, he could see that much. One of the two organizations were going to go down before the end of this, and he certainly hoped that it was the snakes rather than SHIELD.

"Well we certainly picked a great time to show up," he said with a slight eye roll, before he looked over at Cassandra and gave her a slight smile. "Good to see you again Agent Reed, it's been a little while don't you think? Anyway, if you ask me, we should see about finding out what's going on with the group that went to the castle or whatever you want to call it, but that's just my suggestion..."

Niah nodded and closed her eyes. Resting her head back. She felt sick to her stomach and the world spun for a moment. She took a deep breath and while listening as best she could, hoping to hear Sami's voice.

"Same as usual I guess. My brother is about to graduate high school. Poor kid has a lot of pressure since I have been so successful. Of course, mom and dad have no idea how dangerous my job is. And I haven't told them about Antoine yet. They liked him."

She sighed, then sat up, her head spun as she did. "I found him. Rhodes that is. He is just the other side of the grand room cater-cornered from here." She pointed toward the master bedroom. "I can't figure out what he is saying, but I recognize his voice."

Victoria's experience with SHIELD had been far beyond her dreams. Just a few years ago to this date, Victoria was in Afghanistan carrying out god knows what with her unit. She was wielding guns with actual bullets that were capable of killing. There was a helmet on her head to keep that brain of hers safe, and there ceramic plates covering every single inch of her torso to keep her organs safe as well. But there she was today, her head free of the extra weight a standard issue helmet came with. Gone was the standard issue camouflaged battle dress uniforms and in was the much tighter uniforms that SHIELD agents wore. Gun to her head, Victoria honestly preferred this over what she wore in her time in the military. Something about the conforming nature of the uniform made her feel more comfortable, despite wearing the older uniform for a much larger portion of her life.

Today Agent Victoria Thompson was accompanying Hawkeye in an effort to backup the previously deployed SHIELD agents who had been dealing with HYDRA agents for the time being. Now that the coast was clear, it was safe for backup to deploy. Honest to god, Victoria forgot from time to time that there were many SHIELD operatives that had powers and abilities far beyond the scope of a normal human. It made their jobs a lot easier than it would be with just the firearms that agents like she and Hawkeye had on their person. Victoria didn't know what kind of chance they stood if it was them in that room. Based on what had she had heard, it sounded like a sticky situation. She was glad to be assisting in some way -- even if she wasn't exactly on the frontlines like the rest of these agents were. She was currently a part of the backup squad; it was better that the mutants handle situations like this anyway, Victoria figured.

Boarding the ship with her superior, Victoria stepped in the middle of a rather grisly scene. There were bodies laying around everywhere. But as far as she could see, they didn't look like SHIELD agents which was a very good thing. She was thankful that there weren't any casualties on their side. Bodies of HYDRA agents lay strewn about the floor, and upon further inspection she could find that it was the doing of a certain Agent Reed among many others. Victoria was glad that people like her were on her side... she wouldn't know what she would do against someone as powerful as them.

As the agents got linked up, Victoria took the time to look around and inspect for anything fishy. It seemed like quite a lot of had gone in here. Now the question was... how did this happen? How did someone manage to get this far? There were a lot of questions posed about the events that had just went down. Some of which that couldn't be answered except for Agent Reed and the others. For now, she was just here to do her job and provide backup. It wasn't her place to investigate right now. Looking down at a body once more, she glanced at it briefly to examine it before turning her attention to the group congregating. Agent Flynn had brought up a fair point. There was another team in the castle that needed to be checked up on. There probably wasn't much time to do so after the engagement that had just occurred. "Agent Flynn brings up a good point. We need to find out what's going on over there. We wouldn't want another one of these to happen again, would we?"

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Tinley merely grinned as von Bardas complained after being bested. "Fun little side effect of my power is the ability to read thoughts. Comes in very handy. It's funny you mentioned no cause or jurisdiction because that's one of the questions I have that you are going to answer for us. What are you trying to accomplish here? Bonus question to answer as I am sure one has to do with the other, but what exactly is going on up there on the roof?"

Novikova made movement behind her and the serum, yes the serum. She would not use it yet, but it would be handy after her questions were answered. However, Novikova seemed distressed. She took off her glasses. The power was off (hopefully aiding the others). And she looked terrified. "Agent, I am going to need you to pull it together and tell me what's wrong. What do you see?" She knew Novikova's power and if she was scared, it wasn't good.

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[hr

Tempest waited for the light show. The power was turned off and she silently cursed. After all, she would need the power to use the computers. But for the first part, it would provide a better advantage for them. Raynor sent in his stun bomb and she entered. She quickly went after the other soldiers, disarming them and knocking them out. She left the Tinkerer alone though. He wasn't much of a threat now that the power was gone.

Once she was done, she glanced around at her handiwork. "Well, look at that. Now Tinks, let's talk. Whatchu got going on in here? I'm gonna find out anyway so you may as well just tell me and save yourself the embarrassment."

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@Nallore@Bee@BlueSky44:

Hawkeye was in command of a five person team: Agent Victoria Thompson (badass), Agent Freddie Flynn (ex-OMEN), Agent Bonnie Chase (biochemistry), and Agent Harry McCormick (communications). The team had been nicknamed the Secret Warriors. Some figured that those on it were on the shortlist for Avengers consideration, but that hadn't quite panned out yet - and most people forgot that Hawkeye was an Avenger at any rate. "Agent Reed," Bonnie said, giving her old friend a hug. "I've got Kennedy," Bonnie then said. She had the most medical knowledge of anyone present.

Jim wasn't able to hold on much longer and he slipped back into his human form, falling unconscious. Bonnie grabbed a medical kit from her bag and started to attend to him. Clint motioned for the others to stand back and give the team scientist some space to work with. "Reed - any chance you and McCormick can get communications with the other team up?" Hawkeye asked with a frown. He didn't like this. "If not...Thompson, Flynn, and myself can go retrieve them."

@Kirah@Nallore: Niah will hear everything that happened next. There was a new voice in the room where Rhodes and Lee were - feminine, young, perhaps just a teenage girl. "I'm bored of this." Niah would then hear what sounded like a gust of wind, as if it had all rushed at Sami or Griffin at once, and then the sound of a neck snapping. A body dropping to the ground. Moments of silence. And then....a panicked Griffin trying to defend himself against his foe. His foe? Luminous. And as luck will have it, a communication will come through on Maria's radio: "OUT OF THE SHADOWS AND INTO THE LIGHT!"

@BlueSky44: Before Sparky could step out into the open on the roof, Nikolai appeared and he grabbed her from behind, putting his hand around her mouth so she couldn't scream. "Quiet or we die," Nikolai warned. Once he knew that Sparky wouldn't rush forward and would stay in their relatively obscured position - the door to the roof kept just open enough for them to see what was happening - he'd let go of her. The guards were all waiting up on the roof as Von Bardas expected.

There was then some sort of machine that was vibrating at a painful frequency to hear - and it seemed to be screaming as if it were alive. It was producing a gigantic beam that was going upwards and hitting the clouds, without any apparent purpose behind it. Yet as an electrical engineer, Sparky would know what it was.

It was a gateway for a quantum tunnel.

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"It's a trap, ma'am," Novikova told Tinley, staying as calm as she could. She put her glasses back on a moment later, having gotten used to them and she had gotten a bit of a headache from the use of her powers. "They knew we were coming...We were sold out..." The silver haired agent then hesitated, looking around for Sparky and her eyes widened. Her best friend was nowhere to be seen. "We can't let anyone go up to the roof or...or...they'll be gone." She took another breath. The images were still present in her mind.

I'm trying to run a goddamn country without the western world deciding to come over here and decide how things should go! Von Bardas mentally snapped at Tinley. However, Tinley would get a glimpse into Von Bardas' thoughts - and they confirmed what Novikova had said. Earlier that day, Von Bardas had received an encrypted communication, warning her that SHIELD would be coming to the facility.

It had been HYDRA that tipped her off.

Meanwhile...

"Uh...what's it look like - saving the world!" the Tinkerer exclaimed, raising his hands up. Raynor rolled his eyes. He could tell that the Tinkerer was fibbing and he imagined that Tempest would be able to as well. "Well, if you can give me immunity I can...." Raynor then held up his hand, a ball of light becoming sharp and pointed, almost like a dagger, and the Tinkerer gulped. "Look, I just...I invent! I don't handle the business side of things. We just take scraps from Avengers fights and...put them to use again for whoever can pay."

"And who are your clients?" Raynor asked, crossing his arms. He already had found out the name of one of the clients - Hellfire - and he knew that wasn't good by any means. The Tinkerer then started to ramble, listing off the names of several major companies and then a dozen of villains - even the Brotherhood was mentioned in the little list of evil. It was the last name that the Tinkerer mentioned that made Raynor's blood run cold.

"You supply...HYDRA?"

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Cassandra looked up at Agent Flynn and gave him a slight smile, it was good to see a familiar face even though the last time that they had met she was on her assignment with the X-Men. And he was with OMEN at the time when the attack on that OMEN facility had happened, before speaking. "Good to see you, and we aren't on the opposite side this time." Cassandra said, giving him a smile as she looked at Agent Thompson, who she had not met before. And then she heard a familiar voice and saw Bonnie Chase and she quickly returned her friend's hug, which she was glad to see again. "Great to see you again Bonnie." Cassandra said as she stepped back so that her friend could tend to Agent Kennedy who had finally gone back to human form.

"The power was completely fried, restoring power and comms are going to take awhile, I managed to find a box filled with replacements so it's better than having to splice and cannibalize other parts. My team is currently at Castle Doomstadt, if HYDRA came and hit the Bus they are probably either in there already, or they are on their way. Our mission was to stop arms sales that Von Bardas is attempting to sell to the black market. The armory should still be fully stocked with whatever weapons and gear you need McCormick and I can work on getting comms up first." Cassandra said, as she finished up briefing Hawkeye and waved Agent McCormick over to help her.

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Harry took a moment to look around the Bus's cargo bay, it was a nice plane filled with the latest SHIELD equipment, as he followed Hawkeye and the rest of his team onto the Bus. He stood behind a bit as he saw a few bodies strewn across the floor seeing that they were a bunch of HYDRA agents. Then he saw two of their fellow agents there, one was injured by the looks of it, and in some kind of stone form which was interesting. Then his eyes wondered over towards Cassandra as she spoke and briefed them on the situation, which wasn't really good news either.

"I'm on it boss." Harry said as he quickly followed behind Agent Reed and knelt down giving agents Flynn, Chase, Thompson and Hawkeye a nod as he knelt down and started to pick up various tools and then started to look at the fried wires and other things that powered The Bus. "They certainly did a number on you guys." Harry said, as long as Hawkeye didn't order him to go and join the rest of them on Agent Reed's mission he would be happy, he wasn't very keen on the idea of being shot at, at the moment

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Maria turned her attention back over towards Niah as she started to answer her question about her family and smiled a bit as she nodded, then she noticed right away that the lights suddenly went off. "Looks like the lights went out." Maria said, as she moved back over towards Niah when her friend mentioned Rhodes and where he was at. "That's great, and if you need help talking to them about Antione I can." Maria said, though he was talking but wasn't sure what it was he was talking about. "Lets go meet up with him." Maria said as she offered her hand to help up Niah, she hated to have her friend get up she was most likely sickly feeling still.

Then Maria stopped right in her tracks when she heard her radio go off all of a sudden, which was HYDRA's motto, which wasn't good at all she thought that they were dealt with already. "We have a problem. I think HYDRA is here." Maria said to Niah as she took out her ICER again expecting some kind of ambush.

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Sparky almost did scream when Nikolai grabbed her from behind and yanked her backwards. She was staring at the opening, a bit wide eyed at it. Why the hell would something like that be here of all places was beyond her, and she stared at it, before glancing over at Nikolai, wondering if he even knew what that thing was. It wouldn't surprise her if he didn't, since he didn't exactly seem like the type of person who would know that.

"D-D-Do you even know what that thing is?" she whispered, her words stammering, she wasn't able to take her eyes off of what was in front of her right now. "That's an entrance into the quantum realm! Or more of a tunnel to enter it. Why the hell would that be here? Don't people know that the quantum realm is not something you want to mess with?"

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"I'll say, definitely glad to be with SHIELD this time around and not with OMEN," Flynn said to her with a bit of a grin, before he got more serious with what was going on with the the other group. So communications were completely fried, or at least mostly from the sounds of things, which meant a bad thing for everything else. If they couldn't get communications back, that meant that they'd be going in practically blind with no way of knowing if the other group was even still alive.

"Any sort of chance we could speed getting things up a little more quickly? Or are we going to have to do the more fun way of basically heading in without any sort of idea what is going on in there? Since, that could be the more interesting course of action, but we just don't know what could happen. It would certainly be better if we knew what was happening."

Niah had taken Maria's hand to stand, but when she heard the crack of bone she knew. She could tell it wasn't Sami who was still standing. A cry escaped her lips. Her friend, she had needed to talk to him. To have reassurances from him, but there hadn't been time. "They are fighting." She gasped and started running for the grand hall blindly. At least her having her hearing advanced didn't make her blind on top of the lights being off. She bumped against something.

She made her way quickly as she dared into the Master Suite. Sami was on the ground and Griffin was fighting a woman Niah didn't know. "Sami!" She cried out, and pulled out her ICER trying to get a clear shot at the woman. As soon as she did Niah pulled the trigger twice in quick succession. The first shot grazing the woman. The second hitting her right in the stomach.