Agatha watched from the sidelines as the five figures—the Fingers of the Hand—strode out onto the main warehouse floor. The place was utterly lousy with Hand foot soldiers, dozens of them having arrived well before their leadership to secure the area. They were joined by at least thirty of Eliza’s Iron Legion drones, spread around the space. It was just a small force, intended to be mildly impressive, without risking that their guests might feel threatened by the force on display.
Eliza was holding back, of course. She’d been concentrating her resources here just in case this went unexpectedly sideways, with more of the robots shipped in from around the country and packed into the backrooms like sardines, ready to be deployed at a moment’s notice. Agatha had found a convenient spot to observe from, just near the corridor leading back to her room. It was close enough to listen in while still being back far enough that she wouldn’t be expected to be involved in the conversation or be interrupting anything if she got bored and left. Eliza had parked one of the Iron Legion drones beside her to allow the two of them to speak quietly should they need to, without much risk of them being overheard.
At the head of the group of new arrivals was Alexandra Reid, a tall woman of European heritage, wearing a simple, nondescript business-casual skirt, blouse and jacket combo. Eliza had called her ‘Ripley’ a couple of times—Agatha hadn’t yet deciphered if there was any special meaning behind the nicknames the AI gave to certain people, but Reid just looked like any other generic businesswoman Agatha had ever seen. Had anyone ever made a ‘middle finger’ joke to her face before? Agatha hoped not… she definitely wanted to get one in before they killed her.
Two familiar faces—Madame Gao and Bakuto—flanked Reid on her left, while the two on the right were new: An African man in a white and light grey tailored three-piece suit with a white fedora, and a Japanese man with a simple white shirt under a grey blazer… Eliza said she didn’t recall their names. Sometimes there seemed to be odd gaps in the information the AI had. After this meeting, Agatha decided, she would broach the topic of the AI’s source of knowledge and find out exactly how she knew what she knew. Given the tryst they’d had this morning, she figured she had about even odds that the AI would just tell her.
The Fingers had all arrived more or less simultaneously, linking up outside, before heading in together. Agatha supposed that entering as one group was meant to show unity and strength, but she also knew that Eliza was far too aware of the fractures between them to take it seriously. The AI met them alone on the main floor, her vibranium body cloaked in the BARF hologram of Wanda Maximoff that she used when she wanted to appear more ‘normal’.
Gao’s pet witch, the young Chinese girl that Agatha had stolen the appearance of for their raid on Kamar-taj, entered a respectful distance behind her betters. She noticed Agatha and circled around toward her—ugh. Hopefully she wouldn’t try to talk to her. Agatha was here to watch the fireworks, not socialise. Still, she forced a smile onto her face as the girl approached. The baby witch, thankfully, kept up her usual façade of aloof haughtiness, though she couldn’t help but sneak a few curious glances at the Dark Sceptre that Agatha held as they stood silently, watching the proceedings.
Agatha spaced out a little as the AI and Hand leadership went over their initial introductions—boring—only really starting to pay attention again when Eliza gestured toward another side corridor that led off the main warehouse floor. The two Iron Legion drones that had been standing in front of it stepped smartly aside and Beck’s test subjects strode out.
They were dressed in textured black full-body suits with silver accents, visored metal masks over their faces. Filing out, they lined up in two neat rows of three before simultaneously dropping to one knee in front of the gathered Fingers in the manner of the Hand’s usual foot soldiers. Each had one or more vibranium weapons strapped to their body—a long-blade spear, a thick-bladed Ikakalaka sword, a pair of circular ring blades with shimmering blue energy around their interior edges, a pair of pointed, collapsible shields, a pair of panther-headed sonic blasters, and a pair of diamond-shaped daggers.
“They don’t look particularly impressive,” Reid remarked, looking over the kneeling warriors briefly before glanced back at Gao and Bakuto. “Was this really worth the time and effort you’ve wasted?”
Eliza bared her teeth in an annoyed smile, then raised a hand. The BARF illusion cloaking her form dissipated, revealing her vibranium, mechanical body. Red plasma flickered into being, swirling around her head, and her eyes flashed. “They don’t look impressive because I have not chosen for them to look impressive,” the AI said patiently. “Bedding down their capabilities was much more important. Tweaking the aesthetics can come later. Wouldn’t you agree?”
There was a pause, the Fingers who had not seen Eliza’s preferred form before noticeably stiffening at the AI’s appearance. Agatha had to admit, it was a rather intimidating sight. After a brief moment, Reid spoke again. “Alright,” she acknowledged. “I’m listening.”
“Let’s see. How about I start with their equipment? Those suits are a vibranium mesh weave—the strongest metal on Earth,” Eliza said. The African Finger straightened at the AI’s mention of vibranium. “They’re adapted from the Black Panther’s habit. Their weapons are vibranium, too. Prizes from our successful raid on Wakanda.”
“Not so successful,” the Japanese Finger sniffed, shooting a pointed glance in Gao’s direction. “The Hand lost many valuable resources that day.”
“Think of it as an investment, rather than a loss,” the AI countered. “This is the result. The suits are almost indestructible—completely bulletproof, highly resistant to basically everything else. They’re lightweight enough that they basically don’t inhibit mobility at all. Wearing one, an unenhanced person could take a grenade to the face and just be mildly stunned.”
“How much vibranium did you obtain?” the African Finger asked, a hungry look in his eyes.
“I’m essentially out, for now,” the AI admitted. “I’ve been using what we recovered for some other things as well. Still, this is more than enough for the moment.”
Reid made a small sound of disapproval in the back of her throat. Agatha had no idea how Eliza was managing to keep a straight face, here. Just watching the woman was annoying the crap out of her—she was really going to enjoy seeing the look on Reid’s face when the AI killed her.
Eliza stepped over toward the kneeling test subjects and one stood up to meet her, holding his black-gloved hands out in front of him for inspection. After a half a second, the metal of the gloves began to glow a dull red, a visible heat haze starting to form in the air around them.
“Are you familiar at all with Extremis?” Eliza asked the Fingers. “A gene therapy developed by AIM—Aldrich Killian—the terrorist that abducted the US President a few years back. Enhanced strength, reflexes, and the ability to generate extreme heat through bioelectric induction. If something manages to hurt them despite the suit, Extremis also grants advanced regenerative abilities—cut off a limb, they’ll grow it right back.”
“The Extremis process is flawed. Its recipients are nothing but ticking time bombs,” Reid interjected.
“That would normally be true. Stark looked it over, learned what he could, then mothballed it,” Eliza said, nodding. As she spoke, one of the Iron Legion drones walked up to join her. The vibranium of the test subject’s gloves had gotten even hotter, orange with a core of yellow. Even though they were standing relatively far away, Agatha could feel the warmth of it on her face. “Extremis normally breaks down and destabilises—sometimes quickly, sometimes over an extended period. Useful for temporary, disposable assets, but that’s about it. Normally. But that’s where the Hand’s own advantages come into play.”
“Manipulation of chi,” Madame Gao said, looking thoughtful.
“Exactly.” Eliza swept a hand out, taking in the foot soldiers that the Hand’s leaders had brought with them. “All of your warriors train to gain control over their body—learning to manipulate their chi to the point where they have significant control over their internal processes… the flow of their blood, their heartrate, and so on.”
Reid looked interested despite herself. “You’re saying that they can stabilise it?”
“Cards on the table? I really need more data to see how well it can be maintained over the longer term, but the initial trials are looking extremely promising.” Eliza grinned. “The same control should also allow them to deliberately overload it, if needed, too. I haven’t tested that yet, for obvious reasons. The records I have indicate Extremis detonations reach up to three thousand degrees Celsius, vaporizing targets over ten meters away.”
The test subject lashed out, grabbing the Iron Legion drone that had joined them. The metal came apart like putty in his hands as he ripped the robot in half almost effortlessly. It fell to the concrete floor in two twisted pieces, sparking, the edges of the metal still glowing. The test subject lowered his gloved hands and they immediately began to cool, spending the next few seconds going from yellow, to orange, to red, to black again. Agatha made a small noise of disappointment. She’d been sure one of the Fingers would flinch back at the movement, but none had—though some surprise and newfound wariness had entered a few of their expressions.
“Finally, each has a combat-augmenting chip implanted at the base of their skull, using something called the Taskmaster Protocol. I don’t think you’d be familiar with it, but it was used by the Russian Red Room’s top assassin. It analyses, breaks down, and allows them to perfectly mimic the fighting skills of recorded opponents. There’s not as much combat data as I’d like just yet—the download and integration progress takes some time—but we’ve mostly gotten everything that was recorded during the Wakanda raid, Avenger and Hand alike.” Eliza made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “Their masks have HUDs with built-in combat analysis suites, as well, to grab additional data as they go. They’ll only get better over time. It won’t take too long before they’re essentially the best fighters and marksmen in the world, in addition to their other advantages. I’d be happy to give a demonstration of their skills, if some of the soldiers you’ve brought with you are particularly expendable.”
Of course, there was one other element of the Red Room’s technology that Eliza had also integrated into Beck’s test subjects—the chemical subjugation of brain functions. These six test subjects had come in unfailingly loyal to the Hand, but were now nothing more than Eliza’s puppets, living extensions of her will.
Agatha was starting to find it rather fascinating, between BARF and the Red Room so far, just how many magical processes were able to be mimicked by scientific advancement. What was that quote, again, about sufficiently advanced technology? Another small part of her was extremely glad that she’d ingratiated herself to Eliza the way that she had—had the AI continued to view her as a simple tool, she may well have used the same process on her… What a nightmare that would have been, to be trapped in her own body, literally unable to think or do anything without the AI’s permission.
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Before the Fingers had gotten here, Agatha had asked Eliza why she was bothering with this whole demonstration. The Hand was no HYDRA. The deaths of their leadership would permanently cripple the organisation, if not destroy it outright. The AI wasn’t intending to let any of them walk away from this and, when it came right down to it, she could have simply annihilated them the second they’d arrived. Eliza had simply told her that there was a single, important difference between a hero and a superhero, or between a villain and a supervillain—presentation.
Agatha had to admit, seeing this all playing out, she was rather coming to appreciate the AI’s sense of showmanship.
Reid, at least, finally looked properly interested in what she was being shown, staring at the test subjects with a calculating expression on her face. “That… won’t be necessary,” she said to Eliza after a moment. “You’ve actually managed to impress me. That’s no small feat.”
Madame Gao tapped her cane again. “With these weapons, K’un-Lun—”
The Finger was interrupted by the muffled sound of firing blasters and the clash of metal on metal—sudden sounds of battle ringing out from the direction of the warehouse’s main entrance. Almost simultaneously, the Iron Legion drone standing next to Agatha turned to her, reaching up to place a hand on her shoulder and firmly pushing her backwards toward the corridor. “Agatha, move. Now.”
The witch blinked, confused, then the floor shivered beneath her as an explosion rolled out from the warehouse’s side loading dock and she quickly found her feet. Turning, she hurried down the corridor, the robot moving quickly alongside her as they made their way to her room. She flung the door open, heading inside, then paused, unsure what was happening or Eliza was expecting her to do now that she was here.
A scant few seconds later, the young Chinese witch burst in after them, her hands raised as she drew out a thread of blue magical energy. Agatha raised the Dark Sceptre defensively and the Iron Legion drone held a hand out toward the witch, the whine of a repulsor charging up filling the air. They all froze for a moment, then Eliza spoke again, the drone turning its head to look at Agatha. “Grab the books,” she ordered. “I want you and them out of here. Get through to the back, to the dragon flyers. The Avengers are attacking the warehouse.”
“The Avengers?” Agatha asked, puzzled. That didn’t make sense. What would they hope to accomplish, attacking Eliza now? Still, Agatha knew better than to argue. She turned away from the Chinese witch and scooped the Darkhold up from its stand, stacking the Book of Cagliostro on top of it and clutching the two books against her body using her free hand.
“Wait,” the Chinese witch said, her accented voice slightly unsteady. Her eyes were wide and she glanced back toward the open door they’d just come through. “The Avengers? But… we have to protect Madame Gao and the other Fingers.”
“Oh, no! Not Madame Gao and the fingies!” Agatha said pursing her lips like she was talking to a baby. Her tone shifted from mocking to flat. “I need to leave. I really don’t care what you do.”
“Keep her with you,” Eliza said, and Agatha shot the drone an unimpressed look in response. “Plausible deniability,” the AI clarified.
Agatha rolled her eyes, then glanced at the silvery ball of Wakandan nanotech on her side table. “BARF?”
“Useless against the Avengers. Can you use an illusion?”
She nodded, then looked down at her hands for a moment before thrusting the Dark Sceptre and stack of books into the drone’s arms. Focusing, she brought her hands up in front of herself and drew forth a thread of purple-black energy, stretching it between her palm and fingertips as she incanted a spell, “Illusio pallium corpus.”
Magic power swirled around her body in a skin-tight cyclone for an instant, briefly obscuring her from view. As the energy dissipated, leaving the illusion behind, the other witch let out a small gasp and stared at her open-mouthed for a moment. “What the… Nǐ fēngle ma?”
“Nǐ zhège sān bā, gǔnkāi,” Agatha snapped at her and the younger woman flinched back like she’s been slapped. It wasn’t clear which was more surprising—that Agatha could speak Mandarin all along, or that she’d sworn at the young witch wearing a copy of her face.
“Agatha.” Eliza’s tone flared with annoyance.
Agatha rolled her eyes as she retrieved her belongings from the drone. “Fine!” She glanced at the other witch, an annoyed expression on her face. “Are you coming or not?”
The other woman looked conflicted and Agatha didn’t wait for a response, barrelling past her as she headed for the door. She paused in the door frame, almost flinching back herself as several dozen Iron Legion drones shot past, rocketing toward the main warehouse floor. Sparing a quick moment to peek after them, she turned and hurried off in the opposite direction. Rapid footsteps behind her let her know that the younger witch had chosen to follow after her. She spared a glance backwards and saw that the drone that had been with them was going in the opposite direction, toward the battle.
Agatha wasn’t sure where exactly the Avengers were attacking from—the continued sounds of battle seemed to be coming from behind and in front of them, but Eliza had told her to get to the dragon flyers so that’s where she was heading. A furious bellow of rage, as if from some massive beast, sounded behind them. Well, at least she wasn’t going that way.
Another explosion rocked the floor as the two witches flew around a corner, bursting through a doorway with clear strips of PVC hanging from the frame, into the rear loading dock. They were greeted by the sounds of repulsor and gun fire. Directly in front of them, behind a crate near the doorway they’d just come through, Quentin Beck was curled up, hands over his ears, a terrified expression on his face. Agatha joined him hurriedly, peeking out to take stock of the situation. The doors to the bay were wide open—one had opened normally, but the twisted remains of the other had seemingly been ripped free from its moorings and was nowhere to be seen.
Two of the Wakandan aircraft were already in the air. One cleared the doors only to be dashed to the ground as Agatha watched, its wings snapping off as a red and gold streak slammed into it, bouncing it off the concrete. The second reared up, engines blazing as it exposed its belly, and shot a massive harpoon charged with blue and orange energy at a target the witch couldn’t see from her vantage point.
“Get to the flyer on the left. I’ll distract them,” Eliza’s voice came through Beck’s collar loud and clear. “Take Beck, if you can.”
The scientist whimpered and mumbled something, but Agatha didn’t quite catch what he said—not that she really cared. “Come on,” she ordered, shoving him with her shoulder. “You heard her. Get moving or I’ll pop your damn head myself.”
--
I flicked my hands, red wisps of chaos magic intercepting the harpoon that had been shot from the dragon flyer’s belly and stopping it dead in midair. Turning, I telekinetically flicked the weapon in a wide arc, its trailing cable snapping and spitting with blue and orange energy, and used it to swat three Iron Legion drones out of the air. I changed focus as I spun, releasing my hold on it and whipping one arm out to the side to catch a pair of Hand ninjas that had darted toward me with a blast of power that sent them flying.
When we’d breached the warehouse, all hell had broken loose, with all three teams immediately encountering heavy resistance. I hadn’t been sure what to expect, but there were way more ninjas and drones than I thought there’d be. Pietro had already zoomed off to scout out the building, rapidly feeding us information about the disposition of Eliza’s forces and looking to locate Ghost before she was able to mess with anyone else.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a pair of sorcerous portals open and snap shut again, catching the harpoon I’d just discarded and dropping it directly onto another ninja, turning him into little more than a bloody smear on the concrete. Mordo turned away and swung the Staff of the Living Tribunal, the blazing sorcerous energy connecting the segmented sections enhancing the power of the strike as it cratered the chest of an Iron Legion drone, smashing it to the ground in a burst of sparks.
There was the rapid retort of gunfire to my left as Bucky mowed down a half-dozen ninjas who’d been caught in the open. A pair of drones came at him, repulsor beams blazing, and he retreated behind a shipping container for cover before returning fire.
“Does anyone have eyes on the Mark 45?” Clint called through the comms.
Tony flew up from the wreckage of the Wakandan aircraft he’d knocked from the air and came through the loading dock’s entrance, blasting another drone out of the air before pausing near the top of the cavernous room for a moment. There was an odd sound that reverberated over the clamour of combat, like a repulsor charging up but deeper and more resonant. A bare moment later, an enormous column of blazing orange and blue energy ripped upwards from behind one of the remaining dragon flyers, almost a dozen feet wide.
Tony reacted fast, trying to evade, but the beam clipped the side of his suit as it tore through the roof, carving a path as it tracked him for a moment before dissipating. Where it had hit, the roof was just gone. No wreckage, no nothing. Tony recovered mid-air just quickly enough to be upright again when the Mark 45 armour dived into the building from above and tackled him out of the air. Once more, he recovered just before hitting the ground, but the other suit blasted him with its repulsors, slamming him to the ground and gouging a literal furrow through the concrete as he was blasted along. The orange beams looked a bit different than I remembered, edged with a blue outline that reminded me of Wakandan sonic tech.
“It’s here!” I yelled through my comms, raising hand toward the suit. “Main loading dock!”
I lashed out with wisps of chaos magic but, before I could pull the Mark 45 from the air, I saw a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye, near where the massive blast had come from a moment ago. A white and red blur lunged toward me and I barely managed to throw up a shield between myself and whatever it was. The figure glanced off, landing hard on the ground next to me before thrusters fired in her feet and sent her in a wide spiral around my shield, coming to rest in a crouch a half-dozen metres away.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the worst version of Wanda in this or any other universe,” Eliza said, grinning at me as she straightened up.
“Fuck you, too,” I growled, taking a step back as I looked at her warily, summoning more magic to my hands. I blinked a few times—were the contact lenses working properly? She was wearing the same form as she had when she’d confronted me in the cells in Wakanda, but that had just been a hologram, a projection created with BARF.
The red plasma of her hair was translucent, clearly a hologram, but the rest of her—the mechanical, white-panelled body clearly modelled after my own—seemed solid. One of her arms ended in what looked like a sonic blaster of some kind, the glowing mouth of the barrel stylised to look like a screaming face. She must have made a custom body… We’d been wrong about the Mark 45. My mind raced, trying to work out how I could communicate that to Clint without Eliza overhearing and suspecting something was up.
I opened my comms, not taking my eyes off her. “So this is what you’ve been wasting your time doing? Making sex dolls that look like me?”
“Me wasting my time?” Eliza glared at me coldly for a moment, then scoffed and shook her head. “That’s rich coming from you—what are you even trying to accomplish here? What was the plan? Just go for it and hope you could work out how to stop me on the fly using the Mind Stone? I'm not overly surprised that the Avengers wouldn't think beyond trying to punch me in the face but, honestly, I kind of expected better from you.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” I said. The longer I could keep her talking, the better. The battle had continued around us—Tony was occupied playing repulsor tag with the Mark 45 while the rest of my team was still being pressed by drones and ninjas—and I risked a quick glance around to check that nothing else was sneaking up on me. “But seriously, this is all you’ve been doing?”
“Actually, you sort of interrupted a whole big dramatic reveal and betrayal thing I was doing with the Hand, so thanks for that,” she said, a tinge of annoyance entering her tone. Tilting her head to the side, she spread her arms in a wide, challenging gesture. “So are you going to take your shot already? Or are you just going to stand there, staring into my eyes?”
The corner of my mouth twitched and I smiled at the reference despite myself. “What was that?” I asked in response, eyes still fixed on her as I shifted my own stance, readying myself for the attack that was definitely going to come next. “Sorry, I was busy staring into your eyes.”
“Is anyone else hearing this?” Tony asked in my ear. “I’m not sure flirting with the evil robot copy of yourself is a healthy coping mechanism.”
Eliza grinned widely at my acknowledgement, but said nothing as the thrusters in her feet fired and she lunged through the air toward me.