By Fire and Ice: Command Center

September 14, 2014:

The Strike team on the SHIELD operation makes for the Hydra Base Command Center

Camp Century, Greenland

A restored and expanded secret Army Base in the Greenland Ice Cap

Characters

NPCs: Hydra Security, Commander Primus, Stompy Robots

Mentions:

Plot:

Mood Music: This Means War - Nickelback


Fade In…

The flight over is long and while the Bus is well equipped, it's a mobile command center and strike team deployment craft, not a luxury airliner. Jericho wasn't on it, for reasons that some will know and others won't. Either way now isn't the time to explain it. He did, however, manage to have a briefing ready so that they could hit the ground running, as it were.

"Hydra is set up on the site of what used to be Camp Century. Back in the sixties the US Army dug this place up as a experimental base to see how viable it was to have nuclear launch facilities under the Greenland Ice Cap. The project - Project Iceworm - only lasted for six years before the Army shut it down but the base remained. Hydra found it at some point and expanded on it. There are miles of tunnels under the ice. This facility is very, very large and the cell we're taking on is going to be well equipped and on alert. They know SHIELD and others have been striking their satellite facilities world wide, so expect things to go hot real fast.

We have three primary objectives. Ours is the command center and we're going right in the north access control point. It's right over there." Jericho points over to a nearby ice ramp leading down to a hydraulic door that looks wide enough to accommodate three trucks at a time.

"Once inside this'll probably get hot real fast. The command center is a straight shot down the main tunnel, but I imagine we'll be taking side tunnels sice I don't like getting shot and I doubt the rest of you do either. Once we get there it's just a question of wrecking every last bit of computer hardware we can find and taking out the cell head. Cut of the head and this beast dies. We can deal with the two more later."

-

Where Illyana was dressed casually earlier, she's dressed for work now in the same outfit as in the glossy hi-res photos that Roberto's publicity team had done for the Red team with the exception of the short sleeves. They're long given the cold of Greenland. But that's it. No heavy coat, the Russian stands next to Jericho with arms crossed and hip cocked as she listens to the rundown. She's not packing any weapons, but the outfit looks like it's got some light armor to it.

Melinda May nods to Jericho's image on one of the screens, as satcom conferences are really honestly just easier sometimes. Gesturing to the maps displayed on the tactical table, she offers to the others, "I'm going to set the Bus down here after we've let off everyone else, though getting there by snowmobile is going to attract attention. We'll have to go in hot whatever we do." Well, unless Rasputina decides to 'fast track' them to that hydraulic door.

-

Damned teleporters… Teleporting is cheating. Why doesn't SHIELD have teleporters yet? SHIELD needs teleporters. Long flights make Hill cranky(ier.)

Up front, heavy assault. The direct approach. It's perhaps not the most logical starting point for the Deputy Director, she is a very talented spy after all, but the stealth team's already in good order. Besides that, she'd rather be sticking closer to other agents. Particularly the ones which are going to be under direct fire. Whether it be for moral support or as a means of keeping an eye on the Division's investments is somewhat unclear.

Either way, Hill's gearing up with fitted polycarbonate plate armor. Not too heavy, not too bulky, but with more substantial protection compared to the standard uniform she's usually running around in. It's already pushing it for her to be out in the field like this, she's not going to take unnecessary risks where her neck is concerned.

Smirking, she says to Jericho "Well look at you, bein' all tactical. Whose computer did you need to hack to pick that skill up?"

"I hope you remembered to bring some EMP arrows, Barton."

Oh, and while they're all here… She'll make her way over to where Illyana's got herself settled, taking advantage of the natural distraction around them. Pitching her voice lower, she says "About our last talk… Consider it a done deal." It's finished with another one of those Meaningful Glances, in that 'don't let this become a mistake on my part' sort of way.

-

For most of the trip, Hawk's been organizing his arrows, setting tips and resetting for the objective at hand. Intel changes on a moment by moment basis; it's something he's more than aware of, and this last briefing has given him, by far, the best picture of what waits for them inside.

As for his 'kit', it's pretty much the same; carrying light, except for his weapon of choice. He doesn't say anything during the briefing- no questions, though he's staring at those pictures as if to memorize them now. It's only after Hill's quip that he pulls his attention away and offers a tight smile,

"EMP is labeled, actually. So are ECM. Tazer…"

-

"Yours." Jericho says simply in answer to Hill's 'question.'

The door looms ahead, now that the Bus is all situated in a place where no one will mess with the radio presets or park too close and scratch her. Jeri'd rib her about it… but it's not the time.

"Up to Illyana if that's actually a good idea. If not, I'm sure either myself or Barton can handle it." Jericho's not worried about getting in the door, clearly. It's what comes after that has him worried. Intel on the shape of the base was pretty easy to come by. Intel on the occupants? That largely had to be inferred. He glances over to Illyana in question. Teleport through? Or blow the door? Either way it's gonna be interesting.

-

Illyana tilts her head towards Hill as the woman comes over to her and then gives a slight nod as she meets the other woman's eyes. It's one of those rare times when her manner is absolutely serious.

Her attention is called back as Jericho mentions her name and she glances over to the door. "I don't think we need to go boom quite yet." But they also don't need to walk through Hell (or her version of it) to get to the other side. She starts towards their objective, glancing to the others. "If everyone's ready?" She brings one hand up and opens a stepping disk before the door itself that fills the full height of the door. Then, she pushes it forward and where the disk passes, that portion of the door is just teleported away. Who needs lockpicks. Have a perfectly round door.

Melinda May wasn't sure what to expect, though as impressive as the blonde Russian's display just was the only visible reaction she offers is a brief uptick of her eyebrows before she settles the semiautomatic rifle more comfortably in her hands and starts forward. She can already feel that this is about to get really messy. "That's our element of surprise gone. Move. Now."

-

With the one word of response Hill gets such a casual smile about her, peering back at Jericho with a challenging glint in her eyes. "You keep telling yourself that."

Given their options, she takes a moment to consider the situation. "Teleporting, while probably very unnerving for some of us, would let us get the jump on them but it means we won't have a clear exit-"

(Well. How about -that.-)

"Gotta love option C," she says with a thin smirk while flicking a switch to charge the capacitors in her portable railgun. "Don't spread out too far, people. Let's make sure everyone comes home in one piece tonight." Wherever that home may happen to be.

With May already giving the order she doesn't feel the need to repeat it. Not when she could be more useful taking up position beside the newly formed door to cover their entry. "Move up!"

-

Barton's got his quiver, and the nasty looking bow complete with red-blinky-lights in hand. "I have a feeling that getting in isn't gonna be the problem." It's the 'getting out' bit. A glance is given to Jericho and he offers a nod in agreement to the other's words, spoken and un-. So far, everything in the City's been comparatively tame, but he's not going to bet that their luck is going to hold.

When they get to their destination, Barton does a quick visual of the bounds of the door itself. Wired? CCTV? He's going to pretend that, yes… cover is blown. Right now, the potential is there for them to take a re-evaluation of those coming in and potentially ramp things up. Though, he can't help but whistle, "That's a pretty cool trick, though."

It's here, however, that the Special Agent is all on. Pushing forward a couple of steps with a determined stride, the arrows do a quick *whrrr* in his quiver and he picks one seemingly at random. Without breaking a step, a shot is taken to the ceiling where most of the arrow is pulled up into the tiles. ECM. Nothing to see here. Nope.

-

Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap. Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap. Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap. For a moment it sounds like they've already tripped some kind of alarm but the sound is coming from deep in the base. Good lord that siren is loud. Unfortunately these things are called 'Access control points' for a reason. Inside the door there's a pair of crew served weapon's stations and a checkpoint. Bad Hydra guards, they look kind of bored and are actually caught out by a huge section of their door just vanishing. Okay, well, there aren't many people who wouldn't be caught out by that, credit where it's due.

Jericho unslings the grenade launcher and puts three of them into the closer of the two machin guns. The crew vanishes in a cloud of smoke and sharpnel and now the alarms really are blaring on their side. "I'm in their systems. We've got response teams moving for both ends." He doesn't bother telling anyone where to go. Everyone was fully briefed on likely routes to the objectives before hand. His traces are floode0d with blue light giving him a kind of 'tron' look as he moves into the door way and chucks another pair of explosive projectiles down the wide main hallway, warding off an approaching team. In no time, blue energy beams are lancing back at him. No surprise there.

-

Illyana follows Jericho in, still with no weapons in-hand. With this many folks packing ranged assault, she doesn't want to teleport in to attack someone only to get shot by someone not expecting her to be there. So she sticks close to the group.

As energy beams start firing their way, Magik opens another stepping disk with a raise of her hand, this one filling much of the hallway and serving as a shield. Energy fire goes in one side and doesn't come out the other. She nods over to the rest of the team. "I've got our backs covered."

-

Melinda May doesn't bother with opening fire right away as Trent's got that already well in hand. Instead, she nods her thanks to Illyana for the shield-of-some-sort then starts making her way toward the nearest side route that was indicated on the maps she reviewed during briefing. Now there's no chance of shooting any friendlies, so anyone she sees moving gets an at least passably well-placed bullet or two for their trouble. "Magik," May offers to Illyana because she also read the dossiers, "Any way you can muster up some distractions for some of these side passages?" She's mentally picturing about a dozen little K'Nert like critters skittering through air ducts and popping out over the heads of HYDRA agents to scare the cooties out of them.

-

Sometimes it's good to get back to one's roots. None of this stuff with rapidly regenerating mercenaries or gods that like to flip armored cars about like they were toys. Plain old ground pounder Marine stuff is where Hill's mind is at. A challenge of willpower, reflexes, and training.

-THWAM!-

Further down the hall one of the HYDRA goons gets knocked backward with enough force to flip him through the air, landing square on his front while sliding across the floor.

(Man, this takes me back.)

Hill dives in after the others, keeping herself low and quick to smack the opposition with hypervelocity slugs. (Huh, I wonder if this is what it feels like to be Loki…) The provided stepping disk makes this way too easy but she's not against having an unfair advantage. "I hope you're sending that fire somewhere safe!" Or, even better, right back at the enemy. Wouldn't that be a trip.

"Tempo, people! Hawkeye!" … "Nevermind!"

-

Barton nods at Jericho's words, whether the man can see him or not. He -can- see the men turning to spray and goo, however. Damn. Still, it's not something that makes him blink. Not anymore.

After the couple of paces, he flattens against the wall into a small doorway, door closed, and begins to pull one arrow after another, each shot landing exactly where he's mentally 'called it', dropping each badguy as they dare filter out into 'their' corridor. Out of the corner of his eye, the 'shield trick' that Illyana is doing is remarked upon, and not for the first time, he has to admit, "Okay. Very cool." And incredibly useful. "Mind if you bring it up here too?" Though with May's suggestion, the archer shrugs. "Or that."

Laying down a couple more arrows the moment a HYDRA goon actually comes into view, Barton's got May's advance locked down. The 'Hawkeye! .. Nevermind!' gains a smirk. Got it covered!

-

Jericho nods to Illyana once and pivots away, falling into a typical stack for moving indoors. It's a long process. Tedious. Move, cover, clear the corridor, sprint, cover, reload. The hacker didn't exactly pack light, but Hydra mooks are chewing through his grenades at a kind of admirable rate.

Well, admirable until you realize that chewing through his ammunition means being on the receiving end of it. Then it's just kind of sad.

Still, they're making progress. The control center is about a hundred fifty meters up ahead. That's the good news. The bad news is that between them and the wide, circular control room are about fifty meters worth of open dead ground designed, one must imagine, as a security precaution against just this. By now? It's an sure bet that crew served weapons are covering it and…

"Heads up. EM field spike ahead. Several large somethings just powered up."

-

"I have a whole lot of wasteland that won't be bothered by it one bit. Corridors are hard to redirect large areas." Illyana calls back to Hill. Because as Jericho knows, she can and has sent someone's bullets back at them. But she's got her portal filling the hall so she can't open another in front of it.

May's suggestion gets a glance, and then she looks over to the DepDir who as far as she can tell is the ranking legal authority here. "If you don't mind a body count, I can provide distraction." Yeah, they're dropping bodies but some people feel very differently about people being shot and being torn apart by demons. If she gets the nod, portals open along their side routes, spilling demons out into the base. Otherwise, she'll just keep those portals up as they move past to provide some cover until they're past them.

-

Melinda May keeps moving forward, honestly not caring whether or not Hill approves of her asking Illyana for distractions. She can deal with this either way. After all, this is FAR easier to deal with than Bahrain. "Can you ID the 'large somethings', Trent?" She scoops up a grenade-like thing from a Hydra agent as she steps over the body, glances at the object, then says over her comm unit as she throws it, "Flashbang!"

-

These guys are HYDRA. Terrorists, all of 'em. Not only do they not have enough cells back home for all of these goons but taking care of them would be an unsightly hit on the taxpayers. Nope, as far as Hill's concerned they're now at war. These guys took the first shot. Negotiation time has long since passed them by. Shutting this place down for good is priority one.

Illyana's suggestion is easy to answer, the DepDir blasting another foe clean through the corner of a wall before calling out "Do it." Unfair advantages!

Many..creepy as hell advantages…

She's not quite prepared for the scene which follows but she's still collected enough to be glad these creatures are on their side.

With May's flash out warning she ducks back and waits for the fireworks then smacks the ever-loving stuffing out of another gunman further out. "'Several large somethings' isn't filling me with confidence, someone find us a clear path through that meat grinder!"

-

Barton looks back at Jericho as he pulls back on his bow and looses yet one more arrow, catching the guy in the middle of his forehead. Down he goes, while at the same time, he's repeating, "Several large somethings…"

Okay. Remember the map. Where would those 'large somethings' fit? And at what point does this 'advance in corridors' stop being a 'good thing'?

"Can you pin point it, and maybe we can get a trip there?" A nod is given in Illy's direction in question even as the gates of Hell seem to open up, (okay, portals of Limbo. At this moment, the same thing as far as he's concerned!) spilling little demons into the corridors.

"Whoa.. not dinner.." is given to one that -might- have looked in his direction. Or even not. Still not dinner!

Oh crap.. the moment 'flashbang' is yelled, Clint physically spins around, his arm covering his eyes so the light and concussive blast doesn't affect him (as badly). The moment it's passed, another shot is taken.. and putting his hand back to pull another arrow, he calls out, "I wouldn't mind a way through myself!"

-

Jericho flattens himself against a wall. They've actually made good time, largely clearing the corridors. Now it's just that fifty meter dead run to the control center itself (which is fairly large as well, it must be said.) "The signatures are coming from beyond the this dead ground. Probably in the control center itself if I had to guess. They're big and I've never seen them before. If I had to guess, it's some kind of vehicle powering up. Maybe really large powered armor."

The hacker spins from the wall around the corner. The grenade launcher barks again as he blasts at the ambush he expected to be waiting. Explosions fill one side of the corridor. Then the launcher runs dry.

"I'm black!" He calls out, army slang for being out of ammo. "Going Close Quarters." He grabs the oversized knives on his belt and tosses them into the air. Moments later where there was a Jericho, there is now a seven and a half foot tall hulking werewolf made of blue light. Who catches the knives. Just perfect for those hands. Without waiting he steps out again, moving rapidly for the control center, drawing fire and accepting whatever strikes on his fields he must.

-

Illyana makes a sound of annoyance. "That boy. This is why I don't watch him work." She mutters mostly to herself. Giving the ringing sound in her own ears, probably no one else heard her anyhow.

At Barton's question, she shakes her head. "If I could get us in, I'd have skipped the fun and games in the halls." She calls out. "My name is 'Magik' not 'God'. But…" She opens a portal in front of them, about six feet in diameter and another opens on the other side of the empty grounds. "I can at least shorten the distance. Mind the gap, don't gawk."

-

Melinda May slings her own firearm back over her shoulder when Trent says he's going close quarters, as that's her preferred combat style anyway. From her own combat gear she pulls a matched pair of collapsible batons, which (taking a page from Romanoff) she had R&D trick out with taser prongs on their ends. She promptly tosses them toward Hill and brandishes her own favored chain whip, the weight on the end currently a VERY nicely sharpened and heavy blade. Again with a nod to Illyana, she goes through the just-made shortcut to end up on the other side with the chain whip whirring into action. If she saw anything on her 'hop' through Limbo, she's not about to comment on it.

-

(No, you're blue,) Hill thinks to herself as another slab of metal gets slung across the open and obliterates the chest armor one of the baddies had been wearing, flinging him further away.

Now, if HYDRA's powering up something big then they mean to use it. She doesn't want them getting hold of -anything- big. "Can you shut it down? Overload it?" Maybe not, but Magik can get them closer to the source.

It isn't the fighting which causes Hill to take a deep breath. It's coming face to face with one of the mutant's portals. Give her a few seconds to get psyched, and to catch the batons passed her way, then into the disk she goes in a quick dash.

"Through!" As in 'holy shit I'm not dead!' The word's barely left her voice before she's making use of whatever cover she can locate.

This has got to be one of the most bizarre ops she's ever been part of.

-

Barton doesn't react to the information that's passed back but for a low curse. The arrow picked by the hand back is an electrified arrow; one designed to fry electrical circuits. "On it!" Of course, the fact that Trent's now gone close quarters makes that whole bit a little more shakey.

Friendly fire isn't.

All Clint has is a sidearm as a hold-out, but the moment the man presto-changes, I'll never get used to that.., the offer goes quickly off the table. The knives, however… good call on those! Should they be needed by the Agent, he'll be pulling them from dead bodies to whip them into live ones to make them dead. But not yet. He's not going close quarters, thankyouverymuch.

Illy's retort actually brings a barked laugh from the archer, and he holds a hand, "Okay, fair enough. But I'll take what I can get. I'm easy." Mind the gap and no sightseeing. So not a problem.

-

The control room itself is circular and massive. A hundred feet in diameter, easy. The outer wall is lined with monitors and consoles all the way around except for the doors. There's a raised central platform with a holographic display and more workstations, displaying, currently, a globe.

When the team breaks in there's an older looking man standing on that platform. He's the only one in the room and he turns and fixes them with an angry gaze. "SHIELD is here I see. And Trent. Good of you to come." Behind him, four large robots stomp in, each with a pair of dual chainguns for limbs.

"You've been a thorn in our side long enough. I'd say I'd enjoy watching you die, but I'd prefer you get it over with quickly." And with that the robots charge, guns blazing.

That's not the worst part though. The worst part is when the man rears back, stretches his arm out and says a single word in what sounds like a foreign language, causing a volley of glowing green bolts to sprout from his hand and arc toward the team.

-

When Illyana steps through as the last of the group, the portal they exited from stays open while the one they entered closes. Just in case they need a quick exit. As those big ED-209 like robots step up she frowns to herself because man. She hates tech. And guns. And they're both. When the guy that seems to be in charge here starts to speak though, and she feels the threads of magic rise and coalease she shoves her way forward even as her Soulsword appears in her hand out of nowhere and she brings it to play like a Jedi bouncing blasterfire. Cold blue eyes narrow at the man and her lips skin back in a snarling sort of smile. "Oh. Are we gonna play?" Her tone is dark, the sort that makes most people shiver and check under their beds at night.

Giant gun-armed robots. Talk about cliche. And slow. May can use this to her advantage. The moment the things start stomping toward them she ducks to one side. Come on, tall, robotic, and stupid. Follow the little human. There are computer things over here that need to be shot up and smashed. She kicks her chain whip at the closest of the robots, hitting one of its knee joints with a resounding clang and moving further around to draw it away from Trent and toward the computers.

-

"Jeeeeezus," Hill breathes out upon seeing the massive room beyond. It's like some villain super-spy's lair taken right out of a movie. Probably one with 'James Bond' somewhere in the title.

Shortly after she could just sigh. Four giant robots, armed with chainguns..and May had decided that it was time for everyone to switch out to melee gear.

"Thanks, May. Appreciate it."

Is this sci-fi..? Is this magic? She doesn't know! All she knows is that something just hit her leg and it -hurts like freaking hell,- the DepDir actually flinging one of her taser batons at the old guy before she throws herself out of the line of fire. Hopefully -all- of the lines of fire. There's quite a few of them now!

God -damn- she wishes there had been time to organize getting a Helicarrier into position for a long range bombardment beforehand… Instead she's got tw-one stun baton and a railgun clocking in at twenty seven percent charge.

"Control system, they might be remotely activated! Hawkeye, get us a nest!" Because she is so not getting stepped on by a giant freaking robot, nuts to that. Sniper support will do her just fine.

-

Okay, this is a damned big room. And big rooms means that there has to be somewhere to go.

Up.

Barton's hand moves from the electrified arrow to a grapple-line, and in the next heartbeat, the arrow is loosed and grabs in the ceiling. "Going up!" is offered, including a hand out. "Room for one."

It's to a catwalk, and the moment the archer is landed, and makes sure that his passenger is as well, he's got a rather nasty-looking hunter-tipped arrow up and nocked. In the next step, Hawkeye brings the sight picture down and towards the magic-spouter. Though now, in that same picture, Illyana has stepped forward.

New target acquisition, and the arrow is returned, only to pull out an electrification arrow. Change of target. It's that which is finally nocked and subsequently shot in the direction of one of those giant robot things. Hopefully right in its powerpack. "I've always hated big robots."

-

Jericho takes one and then reaches out to knife another, occupying two of them on his own. He's fast with that field active. And he's strong. THose knives are biting into armor made to deflect cannon shot. And he clearly knows his business though anyone whose read his file shouldn't be surpised to know that. Still, he's getting as good as he's giving. For thirty seconds there's the crunch-thump of powerfield impact and abused metal. One goes down with a combat knife buried in it's processor center. The other gets a limb ripped off and then bodily slung into some computer banks.

Yes, May's robot actually is that dumb. In it's zeal to kill her it's wrecking far more of the room than she could have hoped to manage without a case of hand grenades… and it's still no closer to killing her than it was when it started.

Hawk… well Hawk (and anyone with him) aren't forgotten. There's a lot of lead slinging up in that direction. For about three seconds. Then the arrow warhead goes off and it collapses like a destrung puppet. It's nice up here and from up here the shot possibilities are a lot more.

"Finally." The mage says. "Someone worth while. Let's dance." The mage slings power at Illyana, trying to simply overwhelm what he presumes to be a mere (if accomplished) witch. He is quickly disabused of this notion. As Jericho slings his second robot away, a hand snaps out toward him. "Your mistake, witch, was offering me your Tass for my own use." There's a pulse of power and Jericho cries out in pain, hitting his knees as his power fields wink out. A surge of amber light flows from him into the mage as the hacker doubles over. Then that power gets thrown at Illyana in a single blast.

-

On Earth, Illyana's access to magic is paltry compared to what she can do in Limbo. But what she lacks in power, she makes up for with her Soulsword. Which does nothing against normal people but magic?

That blast comes at Illyana like something out of an anime to be blocked with her sword. It's like the Unstoppable Force meeting the Immovable Object and the lightshow it puts off is blidning. Illyana needs to lean into the force of that blast to keep from being knocked backwards, and it sends her boots skidding along the floor.

As the lightshow dims down enough to see again, what stands where Illyana did is something wholly different. Horns curve from her forehead and her blue eyes have gone white with power. Lips peel back to flash fangs but it's the cloven hooves, the legs that bend the wrong way and the tail that get far more attention.

"How. DARE you!" She snarls as she walks forward, heedless of everything around her but the other mage. One of the remaining guards tries to come up on her and she grabs them and throws them aside with one hand. She springs then, bringing her sword down in an aim to cleave the man in two with that firey sword of hers.

-

Melinda May is quite content to lead the (clearly male) robot around the room to let it do its best Hulk impersonation on the banks of computers. But when she sees Trent go down and narrows her eyes at her 'dance partner'. Play time is over. One deft kick of her chain whip and the thing's main control node is punched through with the weighted knife on the end of the chain. She doesn't even bother pulling the weapon free of the robot before she turns and RACES across the room while pulling a pair of seemingly too-small knives from their concealed places on her person. She turns the blades in her hands only to use them like Logan might his claws to leap and stab into the robot that Trent 'disarmed's back and climb up to its 'head'. "This looks important," she mutters darkly to herself before starting to use one knife to stab into and slice at a bundle of wires and conduits.

-

Three second spray-

"This is not good.." and Barton has to do more than a little fancy footwork before that arrow is loosed that has rolls, runs and a dodge involved. Still, it makes its mark and the robot is shut down with some really satisfying *ZZZZzzzZzzZtTTttt* noises. And as it's all in once piece, there is that chance that SHIELD can bring it home, break it down and see what (used to) make(s) it tick. Happy birthday, R&D. Don't say I never got you anything from TDY.

It's that… "Jesus Christ.." and Clint isn't even religious! At all! "Okay, more than a little glad she's on our side right now."

-

Ow..ow..ow… "Hello, my name is Hill, I'll be filling in for Black Widow today," she teases Hawkeye while dropping/falling behind another spot of cover. Three seconds may not be long for many things in life, but for a pair of guns that can spit lead at an insane rate three seconds are an eternity. The metal around them is already looking like a target stand after a week at the range. Holes..-everywhere.-

"Now if you say -one word- about karma and my being the only one here that took a hit…" she warns while taking aim with her rifle. Two robots down..three. May's on four. That leaves creepy old magic guy.

"The twenty-first century says hi, you sonuvabitch."

-THWAM!-

-

Hill's shot and Illyana's sword hit at precisely the same time. The soulsword simply unmakes the mage's arcane protections and cleaves into him, down his houlder through his chest, into his heard as a bullet exit wound appears neatly in the man's head. That mage is dead.

And then an alarm sounds. "Alert. Alert. Prime Commander deceased. Base self destruct in thirty seconds. Hail Hydra."

Jericho's eyes widen as he struggles to his feet. He can tell that remote bombs have been activated all over the complex. Dead man switch. Thirty second count down, meant to bury anyone that made it this far.

Not today. He pulls an odd looking device off his belt and flicks it on. "K'tten, Koriand'r, this is Aspect. Recall, Reacall, Recall." At that code phrase, teleporter beams home in on May, Hill and Hawkeye. Beam me up? It's an odd sensation to be sure. And very… purple. Moments later though, they're standing in the parking lot of the Triskelion. Jericho… and Illyana though. Don't register on the sensors of the Starfire. Their life force readings are, respectively, too disrupted and too different.

-

The Darkchilde puts a hooves against the new corpse's midsection and shoves it back off of her sword before stepping over to Jericho and offering him a hand up. "Looks like it's time to go." She's not worried about missing the beam-up. She prefers to take care of herself anyhow. A stepping disk appears beneath her and Jericho and a moment later they're gone as well.

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