“You know, Alien would have ended a lot faster if we'd been in it,” I said softly as we walked through a dark hallway with creepy crying sounds behind us as water dripped around us.
“Well, yeah,” Creel shrugged. “Wait, can you turn into one of those things?”
“What, Xenomorphs?” I asked.
“Is that what they're called?” Creel asked.
Before I could answer we came out into a large room filled with bookshelves, desks, and lab equipment. There was a massive cage in the center, one as big as a house and made of some strange metal that had tons of scratches on the surface. There were chains hanging from the top of the cage, blood on the floor within. The door hadn't been torn open but left open.
The place had been torn apart. Blood soaked the floor and walls, making me swallow a bit when I started salivating at the scent. Despite being human now, I was still feeling some of the primal pull being Wildmutt in a room full of prey and fellow Alpha predators. Why didn't Ben ever deal with that sort of thing? I pulled back and focused on where the blood was coming from. Namely, the bodies.
I walked up to a soldier that was lying across one of the broken tables, his torso opened up and emptied of organs. He was one of many that had been torn apart and devoured, soldiers and scientists alike.
“Looks like we missed the party,” Creel said easily. “Think that thing is still hungry?”
I shuddered, looking over at him. “How are you dealing with this?”
“I've seen worse,” Creel looked over to give me a dark smile. “Seriously, where did it go-”
A noise came from among the bookshelves. I spun around, aiming my rifle.
“Don't shoot!” A woman came out of the aisle, holding her hands up. Tears were pouring down her cheeks. “Please! We need to get out of here!”
I stared at her, trying to decide if I should shoot her with an ICER or not. “You're HYDRA.”
“I,” she stared between us, still crying. “Y-Yes. Please, I surrender, just please help me get out of here! T-They've gone crazy!”
“Can't blame them,” Creel said, striding forward. “What was in the cage?”
She hiccuped when she tried to respond. “I, um, I'm just a biologist-”
“I'm pretty sure eating people is a part of biology,” Creel picked up a random arm covered in desert camo gear and waved it at the woman, who stared at him in horror. “Talk. Where is it, what is it?”
“It, uh,” she hesitantly walked towards me, rather then Creel, who tossed aside the bloody arm he was holding. “It doesn't have an official name, but we call it the 'Wendigo', after a Native American legend with similarities to it.”
God fucking damn it, Marvel.
Unable to see my frustration through my helmet, she walked up to a computer and reached for the keyboard. I waved at it before she could do something, bringing up the files on Wendigo. She gave me a startled look, then returned to the files, still nervous. “We, um, we put a tracker in it. The others were going to unleash it to try to, um, to try and kill you. When we tried to stop them, they locked us in here, and I...” she rubbed at her face, choking back a sob. “I hid. Here, here its... oh god.”
“The monster is still in the room,” I said, looking around the room. Raising my rifle, I stared around, turning on one of my vision modes. Based on the Backscatter eyes Fitz-Simmons had studied, it gave me an X-Ray vision of the room. With everything in that weird blue light that the vision gave me, I spun around, looking everywhere. It was a little disorientating.
I looked at the back of the room, thinking. Okay, where does no one ever look? ...Oh right.
I craned my head up. Creel and the woman did the same.
The snarling figure hanging on the ceiling above stared back at me, looking eerie in my X-Ray vision.
“Clever girl,” Creel said softly.
The creature leaped towards me, and I reflexively fired my rifle.
Psheaw!
A repulsor blast erupted from my rifle, hitting the Wendigo in the chest as it dropped towards me and the woman. It was knocked off balance, slamming into the cage instead. It rolled to its feet and faced us, rising up to stand and face us. It was huge, even larger than I expected.
“I thought this thing was eleven feet tall?” Creel said, raising his hands up. "That's a lot bigger than eleven."
“It grows as it eats!” the woman screamed.
“Of course it does,” I looked at the Omnitrix, which was still red, then back at the monster.
The monster was dripping with blood from spikes stabbed across it's back and front, each one with a chain hanging from it that corresponded with the chains in the cage below it. It pulled one out of where its left nipple should have been, letting out a sound as its blood poured across its front. The spike was at least a foot long. The Wendigo tossed that spike aside as his wound quickly healed, and reached for a spike on its shoulder, tugging at it, but not pulling it out as he let out sounds. It took me a moment to realize he was laughing as he caused himself pain.
“Great, it's a freaky masochist,” I growled.
“I had an ex like that,” Creel replied.
“Oh god!” the woman shrieked, turning and running.
I swear, the Wendigo smiled at the sight of the woman sprinting for the exit. Its teeth flashing, it leaped off the cage, blood still dripping from its claws and around the spikes in its flesh. I shot it in the chest, diverting it in mid-air. When it landed, it rolled.
“WEN-DIGO!” It cried, rushing after the screaming woman with sadistic glee. It smashed through a desk, trying to run past me.
I snapped a hand up, catoms flowing, and ran forward while activating my jumpjets. The catoms formed into my tower shield in mid-flight, and I slammed into the Wendigo shield first, sending it to crash into some bookshelves.
“Run!” I told the woman as wood and papers flew everywhere, pieces of glass shattering along with them.
“WEN-DIGO!” the monster snarled, rising to glare at me.
“Looks like he wants an ass-whopping,” Creel said, standing next to me.
“Hell, I'm ready to oblige,” I growled, raising my rifle in one hand and my shield in the other. “Come on asshole, let's go!”
Wendigo rushed us with a cackling laugh as my rifle roared and Creel stepped forward with raised fists.
------
Isabelle Hartley/Warrior
“What's your name?” Isabelle asked one of the former prisoners, a young girl with red hair and brown eyes who hadn't been given clothes. She was kneeling next to her inside the girl's cage, trying to be gentle with her.
“K-Katie,” the girl said. “Katie Whitley.”
“Katie,” Isabelle smiled, putting a hand on the girl's shoulder. “Listen. You're safe. I'm not with HYDRA.”
“Y-You're SHIELD?” The girl asked. When Isabelle nodded, the girl retreated inwards. “They said they were SHIELD too. They said they'd give me money, that I wouldn't have to work as... as a hooker,” Katie began to cry. “I didn't... they did things to me. Said I could be like Captain America.”
Isabelle barely kept herself from cursing.
From the first moment she'd discovered her own crewmates were HYDRA, she had hated the organization. But this? Taking people off the streets, promising them a new life, then tearing them apart? The worst was some of the prisoners who had been... abused, in all connotations of the word, by soldiers and scientists. Needlessly torn into to see where the experiments went wrong. It was beyond cruel.
“Well, I'm not HYDRA, and really, SHIELD has become something new,” Isabelle gently squeezed the girl's shoulder. “That's why I'm here. We're taking the fight to HYDRA. And we're going to stop them all. Kill them when we can.”
Katie looked up at Isabelle, tears still running down her cheeks.
Isabelle nodded at the girl, rising to her feet and looking her over.
Katie was healthy. Extremely healthy, with the muscles of a person who'd worked out their entire life. If they'd been trying to make her into Captain America...
Isabelle turned around, whispering. “X, can you give me the files on Katie Whitley?”
“Of course,” X said. “Coming your way.”
Isabelle raised her hand, watching as catoms rose up from her gauntlet in the form of a computer screen, the screen glowing as soon as it was formed. Isabelle tapped on the new file, and stared at the screen, looking back at Katie.
The present Katie was striking, with red hair, a button nose, and a slightly large chin along with a powerful build.
The past Katie in the file was skinny, her hair a sickly brown color, with a face torn open from sores and portions of her skull and teeth exposed, a cleft lip, and limbs of different lengths.
Isabelle stepped out of Katie's cage and looked around. Among the prisoners, there were three types that she could see.
The first made her itch to stab a HYDRA soldier in the face for all the horrors those monsters did. Those were the people Dial hadn't been able to change. Some were still in their cages, unable to move because of various body parts removed or added. Some had limbs haphazardly replaced with animal limbs, while others now had robotic pieces of varying technological eras in their bodies. When Isabelle walked up to them, they shied away from her, staring with fear that made her heart clench.
The second group was normal in every way. They seemed to be the happiest, crying with joy as they hugged others. Isabelle flipped through the files and found the image of one, an older man with thinning gray hair. He'd once been covered in green skin, with muscles so grossly large he couldn't move. Now he was hugging one of the people in the first group, tears in his eyes as the person he was hugging, a young girl with a left arm made of some plastic substance, cried with him.
The third group was intermingled with the others but was also very obvious in the differences. They were people with powers. Some had incredible physiques like Katie did, looking like Olympic athletes. Others, on the other hand, were able to change their bodies into various materials. Not like Creel, only a single one each, but they could do it. And that was only the obvious examples.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Hartley sighed, looking around and rubbing her forehead. “Hill isn't going to like this.”
She looked over at where the animals were contained. A large rhino looked back at her with bleary looking eyes. A dog barked happily, fur the color of steel. In the back, she could see a monkey leaping around its cage at incredible speeds.
Just then, the doors to the room opened, Hartley spinning to point her gun. Sam held his hands up as he walked in, his helmet collapsing to reveal his face. Hartley lowered her gun, smiling.
“Hey,” Sam said, walking in and looking around with interest, the animals barking, the crying people, and the blood on the floor. “What the hell is this?”
“HYDRA,” Bucky said, striding in after Sam. Unlike Falcon, Bucky chose not to collapse his helmet, simply looking around with his gun held carefully.
Bobbi and Rhodey walked in next, the tall woman and imposing man in black and silver armor side by side. Bobbi moved over to Isabelle, smiling. “You look dissatisfied.”
“Haven't been able to actually fight HYDRA in a bit,” Isabelle admitted. She looked around. “Doesn't help I have a lot more reasons to do it now.”
Bobbi bit her lip, looking around as well. “Yeah. Yeah, you do.”
“Mockingbird, Warrior,” Sam said, waving them over. The pair went to join Sam, Rhodey, and Bucky.
“There were two other hallways,” Sam said, crossing his arms. “We need to check them. War Machine, Nomad, Mockingbird, you go do that. Warrior and I will stay here and watch these people, keep them calm until the Army can get here.”
“You got it, Falcon,” Rhodey said with a nod.
Bucky hefted his gun with a nod of his own.
Bobbi grinned at Isabelle, who gave her a disgruntled sigh before patting her on the shoulder.
The two groups split up, Sam walking towards the people who'd been imprisoned.
“Everyone, my name is Sam Wilson,” he said, Hartley at his shoulder. “I'm with an organization called BRIDGE. We're here to help you get home, or at the least to somewhere safe. Now what I need...”
------
Colonel James 'Rhodey' Rhodes/War Machine
Rhodey looked back at Sam as he and Hartley spoke to the prisoners. He turned to Bucky and Bobbi as the three of them went back into the hallways. “Every time I think, 'this is the worst a person can do...'”
“You've only scratched the surface,” Bucky said darkly. “This was... pretty bad though.”
“You think they'll be okay?” Bobbi asked, twirling her batons as she walked.
“No,” Rhodey sighed, his suit's speakers making it a bit loud. “I don't they'll be okay for a long time.”
“Even if they're cured,” Bucky added. “Trust me. HYDRA sticks with you.”
They came to a stop at the two hallways. “So,” Bobbi said. “Which way do we go?” The three soldiers looked left, then right.
Rhodey activated his suit's sensors, and stepped forward. “I'm going to say... this way.” He pointed at the one that was right from the elevator. “My suit can sense some power being distributed that way. Might have something interesting.”
“Got it,” Bucky walked into that hallway, Bobbi and Rhodey hurrying to catch up.
They walked in silence for a little while. “So, uh,” Bucky said nervously, sounding like he was trying to be friendly, but was out of practice at it. “Have you guys seen Frankenstein?”
“Uh,” Bobbi gave Rhodey a glance. He smiled under his helmet. “I have, during an old movie night with my ex-husband. I thought it was really good.”
Bucky's shoulders seem to relax slightly. “I watched it with Steve. It wasn't bad. I mean, I never had much time for movies back then. But it was still fun.”
“Yeah well, just wait until you see the new stuff they've done with movies,” Rhodey said. “We can play catch up.”
The former Winter Soldier nodded. “Yeah, I'd like that.”
They came to a vault door. Rhodey grabbed it. “You guys will want to step back.”
Once Bobbi and Bucky were out of the way, he pulled with the full of his suits strength. The door fought him for a moment. Then the steel crumbled. Rhodey ripped the door open, tossing it aside with careless ease.
“Huh,” Bobbi noted the door. “Guess you can add bank robbing as a possible profession, huh?”
“I'll update my resume,” Rhodey said, walking into the open door and looking around as Bucky and Bobbi joined him.
The room beyond was a warehouse, with boxes and shelves everywhere. The centerpiece of the room was a series of worktables with machines and robotic pieces on them. Several of which were extremely familiar to Rhodey.
“Oh, what the hell is this?” Rhodey mumbled, walking around the center table. “SHIELD said they destroyed these.”
“Yeah, we had a habit of saying that,” Bobbi noted with a sigh. “So these are-”
“-the drones that Ivan Vanko made,” Rhodey flipped up his faceplate, looking down at one of the half-built robots.
The robot was welded in random ways, with bits of other metal attached to it at haphazard angles where portions had been blown up. A series of pictures lay on the table showing drones at the Stark Expo, shooting at people and running around the park. Rhodey lifted up one of the pictures and compared it to the robot in question.
“I think this was one of the... Navy drones. Hammer wanted them to be themed.”
Bucky poked at one of the robot's arms with his gun, grunting. “These dangerous?”
“They shouldn't be,” Rhodey pointed at the chest of the robot, where a plug was connected to the machine, the cable leading down to the floor. “Looks like they couldn't power them up. Tony's arc reactors are pretty much essential to make these things work.”
“And he isn't exactly the sort to share that tech,” Bobbi noted, coming over with a file. “Looks like they were trying to put them together with Chitauri pieces. Seriously, how many Chitauri came through that portal?” She asked, flipping through the file in her hands.
“Hell if I know,” Rhodey said. “Tony didn't invite me to that me-”
The drone suddenly reached it's arm shakily to aim at Rhodey, the robot sparking across its form.
“Whoa!” Rhodey yelled backing away. He raised his gauntlets up. Bucky aimed at the drone while Bobbi spun her handgun into her hand.
The drone reached out.
All three soldiers started shooting. For about a minute, all that could be heard in the room was the sound of bullets slamming into steel, tearing it apart. The drone shook and danced beneath the impact, before letting out a final screech of noise at it finally turned into its component parts.
They stopped shooting, staring at it. “What the hell was that!?” Bucky asked angrily. “I thought you said it couldn't power up!”
“It couldn't!” Rhodey said in response, his faceplate still up so they could the see the confusion on his face. “Did you see that thing? It was slow as hell. I mean, they weren't exactly Fasttrack before, but they were a lot quicker.”
“X!” Bobbi said. “Can you tell us what is going on with these drones?”
“One moment... they are all beginning to activate on limited power. They are attempting to complete a secondary objective.”
All around the room, boxes began to shake as the three soldiers went back to back with each other.
“Kill the allies of Anthony Stark. I'll attempt to disable them.”
“Meantime?” Bucky raised his gun and aimed around the room.
“I suggest you go for a more manual route in doing the same.”
Bobbi, Bucky, and Rhodey shared a look. Bobbi's helmet rose to surround her face, Rhodey's faceplate slammed down, and all three raised their weapons up.
The boxes in the room exploded open, drones struggling to rise out of them like robotic zombies as the three started shooting.
“Izzy's going to be pissed she missed this!” Bobbi said gleefully, referring to Hartley.
“Take out their chests!” Rhodey shouted, focusing fire on a shaking box and leaving it torn to pieces. A drone without legs struggled to fly at him, its palms glowing with Chitauri energy. Rhodey grabbed it out of the air and threw it down, crushing it beneath his feet.
“Got it!” Bucky said, firing one bullet at a time, hitting drones in the center of their chest with ease. When one made a desperate attempt to get close, he snapped his robotic fist into the head of the offending robot, some combination of steampunk technology and Ivan Vanko's technology. Bucky's arm tore the head off the robot, followed by him kicking it aside for Rhodey's minigun to destroy it.
Bobbi waded into the drones, her batons lashing out as several of the drones came to their feet to fight. “Do these count as zombies?” she asked casually, slamming an electrified baton into one of the drones chests. The drone let out a whining sound, swinging a fist out at her. She ducked and flicked her other baton, a long blade coming out of the baton's end. She came and stabbed the drone in the chest. As it fell, one of the drones raised a hand and fired a beam of purple at the Mockingbird. She let it.
The purple energy slammed into blue energy shields, stopping short of actually hurting her. She stabbed that drone, spun away from another one and kicked it in the chest.
Suddenly, in the back of the room, something exploded through a wall, stepping forward. Rhodey sparred it a glance only to blink.
“Oh come on...”
The being that came out looked like a mismatch of three robots. And Rhodey knew them all.
The chest was made from one of Tony's suits, the pieces of one that Rhodey had seen propping up a crane during the fight against Killian and AIM, with some strange brown metal reinforcing, and a strange form of purple flesh beneath. The legs and right arm were from Ivan Vanko's personal suit, hastily welded together with other pieces. The left arm and head, however, were far older. The Iron Monger suit's helmet turned to look at them, pieces of purple flesh around a drone's head barely visible as it hesitantly struggled forward, staggering towards them with a slow and deliberate pace. The whip on the right arm was sparking, unable to turn on, but trying. The left arm's repulsor attempted to activate but failed. Despite that, the enormous being stepped forward, eyes glowing with a low light.
“Izzy is really, really going to be jealous,” Bobbi noted.