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aa_natasha http://aa.mudmagic.com/w/index.php/2012-08-31_Restructuring
It is 7:00 PM in New York and SHIELD Headquarters is uncomfortably quiet for the hour. Layoffs of late have come swiftly and without mercy. In many cases, vacancies within integral departments have multiplied with such wild abandon that the positions have not yet been filled. Security in the lobby is sparse; there are only four armed men phsyically present to check the ID of the facility's latest arrival. Every scratch of pen to paper echoes wide across the empty hall. The telephones are silent.
Ding. The elevator arrives at ground level.
Within mission control, the quiet is more claustrophobic still. Thirty minutes ago, Director Fury was called into his office for a private meeting with the World Security Council. His door has not opened since. A few agents fear the worst, but the majority of the skeleton crew currently in place is impassive. They are all recent hires.
Most work stations here are unoccupied, computers idling on their home screens. Outside of sweeping glass windows, the sun filters orange through the surrounding cityscape, drawing long shadows. Phil Coulson stepped away not long after Fury did, inscrutable as ever.
Ding. The elevator arrives at control. The man that steps out is tall and broad and pressuring the look of black leather coat on tie into a reluctant comeback, with a briefcase to match set sharp at his side. His name is Johann Schmidt.
Hill is only just now arriving at SHIELD HQ. This was supposedly one of her evenings off, but Fury sent her word of the 'private meeting' before he went into it. So she figured it would be best to put in some over-time tonight. A train ride from Brooklyn later she's making her way off the street. Her first stop will be the lobby. Presuming it hasn't been occupied by hostile forces who will try and kill her. If it has, she may or may not see some sign of those as she heads lobby-wards.
If the lobby is occupied by hostile forces, then those forces have taken upon the appearance of there armed men and one woman in SHIELD regalia. They are all quite large and two of the men conversing on either side of the elevator are doing so in French. They are familiar, but not so familiar that she might have their names memorized already. One of them chuckles, only to cut off dry upon spying Hill on the approach. "Agent Hill," he greets with due respect once she is through the ID checkpoint.
She should have no problem accessing the elevator.
Far above, Schmidt nods to an Agent in BDUs who nods back. Business continues on as usual until he is seven or eight steps in and a man in a suit scrambles from his station, reaching for his gun. Another fellow dressed in much the same fashion subdues him via tackle; file folders cascade to the ground. In the back of the room two more move to revolt and are met with similar hostility from the foreign majority.
Somewhere in the mix, one of them manages to reach an alarm. Flourescent lights toggle into a more mechanical red. A klaxon echoes up the elevator shaft from the basement levels.
"Evening," Hill says politely to those in the lobby as she goes through the motions of getting her credentials checked. She eyes them a moment, trying to place them, but we she can't it seems to more annoy than alarm her. Too many newbs these days. "Any word from Director Fury...?" The klaxons interrupt her. Gun is drawn. "Who's on tonight?" she asks the collection of semi-strangers on-hand with her.
Sweaty, bruised, Clint's reactions are already sluggish when that alarm screeches along the hall of the training floor, his wrapped knuckles immediately tensing before he moves to push Natasha off of the pin she has on him, one fluid, cooperative motion as he rolls to his own feet. He moves for his own gear, not bothering to suit up out of the cheap grey sweatpants and the faded Alabama (the band) shirt. "Stairs?" he questions of his partner, even as he slings his quiver over his shoulder and snaps his bow into position with a sharp sound.
Natasha is as quick to roll sideways off Clint and rise to her feet as he is. "Stairs," she confirms in a short breath as a spring takes her into the locker room long enough to retrieve firearms and widows bite and belt. She's close behind Clint as he gears up, and she doesn't slow to wait. He'll be running too, by the time she gets there.
Pierre, Agent of Shield shakes his head 'no,' and glances to Francois for affirmation. He hitches his shoulders in a shrug. No word from Director Fury.
"Fury and Coulson," is a more concrete answer. Pierre of them glances to her gun and adjusts the grip he has on his own M-16, a touch impatient. Francois shifts his weight.
Schmidt sets his briefcase carefully down about the region where Fury has a tendency to loom -- at the head of things. "Cut the power," he directs in a quiet aside to a female Agent who has paced to meet him midway. She says, "Ja wohl," and then: "Heil HYDRA."
"Heil HYDRA," agrees Schmidt.
In seconds, red saturation gives way to pitch black save where there are windows to bleed sunlight into the building. The elevator grinds to a halt and the stairwells go dark. The klaxon is quiet.
Maybe that means everything is fine. :D
Running doesn't seem to be an option anymore as darkness floods along the stairwells that Clint steps into, only an instinctive ability to track Natasha's location keeping him from bumping into her. Only the gossamer thread of red light that marks the site of his bow cuts through the stairwell, and he takes the time to allow his eyes to adjust to the darkness before moving again, giving up that vital time for something even more important. Sight, or what passes for it in that lightlessness.
Hill nods short to the agents on hand and heads into the elevator, motioning for Pierre to join her. Francois can secure the lobby. Up they are going...and then the power goes out. She swears. Then fumbles for a flashlight - if the standard SHIELD op is equipped with such things - to maybe search for a way to force the doors. Or unsecured ceiling vent, and such.
Natasha takes a handful of seconds to gain her bearings before she starts up the stairs at a run, light or no. She's taken these particular stairs hundreds of times, and their length and span and turns are etched in the memory of her muscles. She mutters something low and Russian, then lapses into focused silence on her way up.
Pierre hesitates, but moves to follow after Francois hoods his brow at him all, dude, g.o He even follows proper elevator etiquette, stepping aside once he has turned to allow for them to share equal halves. The flash light that switches on once the power bleeds out is his. He directs it at the floor, distracted in a turn of his head to the scratch of radio static in his ear. Someone is speaking to him. He replies in French, and his side of the conversation goes something like this:
"I am stuck in the elevator with Agent Hill."
...
"Should I kill her?"
"Understood."
The answer to his question was apparently non, because his next move is to shrug his firearm over his shoulder by the strap so that he can hand her the flashlight and knit his hands together into a boost for the ceiling. "After you."
In mission control, there is more than enough sunlight to see by. Two agents are already in restraints with three more still struggling; one more is behind a desk taking pot shots at any of the opposition who try and get close. Natalie and Clint can hear the fire before they enter.
In the middle of everything, Schmidt is directing traffic in his long coat and his immaculate toilette. He has just finished having a radio conversation in French.
French is plainly not a language Hill has made much study of, as all she does is eye Pierre askance and look annoyed. Perhaps at simply the idea that SHIELD contracted someone so very French. But at least she has a flashlight which, after an examination of the elevator, she sticks between her teeth. "Thnks," she mutters around it, taking that boost up to the ceiling to start working the panel off. In hopes of escaping with the not-yet-homicidal Pierre.
Clint makes no moves to run ahead of Natasha, and really, who would? She can handle herself, and he needs his sight. He follows slower, but just as surely, and when he gets to the floor of mission control, he goes up another with a quiet call to Natasha, "See you in there." It doesn't take him long to slip into the nearest vent entrance, quiet as a sigh as he eases himself along the passage ways that are as familiar to him as the stairwell is to Natasha. Positioning is everything, even if it takes more time. Natasha gives Clint a short, silent nod. She pauses at the sound of fire, taking a moment to work out the lay of the land in her mind. With what she knows of the room and the acustics, fire comes from /there/, it's aimed /there/. And then she takes a deep breath and sweeps into the room with a pivot toward the second presumed /there/ and the electric shock of widow's bites primed, aimed, released.
Pierre is not homicidal but he does lift his brows in private appreciation of Hill's butt before it vanishes up through the ceiling of the elevator. Not bad. And now she too can hear gunfire, as well as the odd shout.
"Wir werden weiter marschieren," Schmidt is muttering to himself, jaunty beat conducted with paired fingers and a lazy swish at his wrist as his near and dear assistant logs him into the computer terminal at control's head. "Wenn alles in Scherben faaa... "
The crackle and high-pitched screech Natasha's arrival invokes is enough to break his concentration, finally. He turns to regard her plainly across the room, big and German and inevitably wearing an impressive pair of boots. Past the scuff and rustle and half-bitten curses involved in ongoing resistance around the area, it is quiet and still. There are six unfriendly agents with their hands free. Ten more are fighting or holding prisoners. Of the eight original friendly agents, four are in restraints, one is dead, two are fighting hand to hand and another is rapidly running out of ammunition.
Spak.
A bullet hisses and one of the unfriendly's heads explodes across the room. Schmidt turns his shoulders to squint as the rest of him falls. Coulson is evidently here also. Somewhere.
"Natasha Romonov, I presume. Are you here to surrender?"
Hill probably doesn't notice Pierre checking her out, so it's unclear whether this would raise or lower her opinion of him. Once she's up she offers him a hand to assist him in his own short climb. The sound of gunfire makes her neck snap around in that direction. And, once she can release Pierre, she gets a firm grip on her own weapon again. "Director Fury was called into some sort of...high-level meeting before all this started," she says to Pierre as she creeps along toward the sound of shooting. Trying to use a modicum of stealth. "Do you know who he was meeting with? What the hell is going on?" The last question may be rhetorical.
Natasha's answering "/Nyet/," is short and sharp. Six? Well. Let's hope those friendlies keep their captors busy. She moves without pause, hurtling across the room toward the nearest target as her hands find a gun for each and she squeezes off several shots at unfriendlies more distant. Schmidt she ignores for the moment.
The first sign of another variable entering into the scene is light, a strange sliver of illumination that resembles a rip piercing through the air. It's only a moment, before something akin to a lightning bolt leaps out, snagging a row of monitors that immediately go black, sparks flying. Licks of electrical energy leap and scorch both ground and ceiling before vanishing again, and in place of light is a person, one who is no stranger to SHIELD, if no friend. Supposedly. Tall and dressed in dull greens, black leathers, and gold armour, Loki's posture straightens as he checks that he has, you know, arrived in the right place and everything, immediately seeking Johann Schmidt.
He has not come unarmed. In his hand is the sceptre that was stolen not so long ago, shaped into its full spear length, golden and silver metal. The gemstone and source of its power is not dead, however, but also different -- it radiates a poisonous seeming green.
He registers first the sound of gunfire before anything else, but a glance to the agents that seem to have turned is only fleeting -- when one of them goes down from Agent Romanoff's shooting. He turns sceptre in her direction, a sharp smile of recognition writing across his face.
In place, eyes sharp on the scene unfolding below, Clint catches that turn of Loki and his sceptor with a cool tension that only lends to the straight lines of his arm as he pulls an arrow back. It looses through the gaps of the ventilation grate that he sights through, flying unerringly for that glowing light of Loki's weapon as the god turns to his partner.
Russians.
A swear and grating order in German sends Schmidt's lovely assistant springing for the figurative hills while the rest of his number fall or return fire as they will. Ignoring him may be a mistake, for his next logical move is to draw his own sidearm to advance upon Natasha in a direct line, firing deliberately every second step. Like an irritable locomotive that can't be arsed to pick up full steam.
Two of his men are down. Three. There is a lot of lead in the air and more still in the walls.
"SHIELD HQ has been compromised," Coulson's voice cuts clear through radio static, gunfire muffled in the background. "Hostile forces disguised as agents have infiltrated the basement, labs and -- " static overwhelms, bristles, fades out again, " -- can hear this -- "
With Hill, Pierre is proceeding with more purpose and less stealth. Unconcerned. "I do not," he answers. "There have been rumors, of course, but -- " Coulson pipes in, and after a moment's insecurity, the Frenchman looks to Hill.
"Guten abend," Schmidt greets Loki through his teeth, already taking on an unholy blue aura of his own. He is busy with attempting to kill Natasha. "Perfect timing."
Hill gets a more to-the-point answer from the disembodied voice of Coulson, so she largely ignores whatever Pierre says to her. Except to motion him to stick with her. Because he'll be so useful in this upcoming fight. She might, just might, pause indulge in a relieved exhale to hear him up there. Amidst gunfire, in a compromised control room. She's not //that// relieved. She presses on, gun at the ready.
Natasha's direction doesn't stay very static. She swings around with a hard kick aimed at her targeted unfriendly's head, then flies toward the next with an acrobatic flip that ends in another directed blow. She busies herself with taking out the mobs and trusts Clint at her back to focus on the bosses. It's not until Schmidt's gun starts firing in her direction that she rethinks her tactics, and the same acrobatic speed that's been pinballing her across the room is now leveraged in search of /cover/. Hopefully there is some. Downed table, metal desk, bad guy she can spin around to absorb bullets for her?
Fwip. Irritation creases Loki's brow as an arrow knocks aside his weapon, pinwheeling off of it, but it doesn't seem to have laid a mark so much as distracted at least one of the forces that might have potentially killed the Black Widow.
"Mit Vergnuegen."
Rather than go after Clint himself, Loki suddenly vaults a row of desks to take down one of the SHEILD_ok agents in tangle with a traitor, ending the fight with jagged metal through soft human throat and hissing an order at the other. The agent nods, and Clint abruptly has to think fast as pistol fire is direct upwards for the ventilation grate, the sound of bullets piercing through and rattling metal making for a storm of noise.
Loki has other business to take care of. He makes for the four captured SHIELD agents, a flicker of electric-like magic veining up and down the length of the sceptre, playing off the gemstone and circling the jagged metal, emanating a glow that is both his customised green and Schmidt's unearthly blue. His free hand goes out-- burn marks white and shiny and painful across his fingers, but that's another story-- as if to centre himself.
The green goes brighter.
The agent gets off only two bullets into the ventilation, one burning a path across Clint's shoulder in the tight confine of metal without the ability to pull himself away, before an arrow sprouts like a bloody flower out of the man's eye. Deeming his spot already compromised, he kicks out the grating covering the vent, only firing off one more arrow in a quick attempt at Schmidt before he moves to swing himself into the room to find better cover.
Pierre is very useful! He's even swung his assault rifle down stable into both hands Just In Case. The gunfire is close, now. They are just outside.
Helpfully, Pierre waits to see if Hill will go in first.
A heart's beat after Natasha has wrenched an unfriendly agent around into a SHIELD shield both are blasted backwards a sound six feet by a surge of blue light. Natasha finds the ground intact. The agent on top of her is not so fortunate.
A large portion of him seems to be missing, with the portion that remains alternately steaming at the fringes and giving way to a greasy blue plasma that smells like electricity.
And still, Schmidt is bearing down upon her, given pause only when an arrow sinks to a stop against his scapula.
Jaw flexed hollow, he uses the break in his concentration to reload, magazine dropped so that another can be clapped into place. "Retreat or die," he offers, conversationally, an arrow shaft sizzling blue where it's imbedded in his back. "My men have taken hold at every level. Your flying boat answers to my command."
Hill will totally go first. She has little time to get a handle on the situation, what with the ominous magical glowing and hostile forces everywhere. She //is// just in time to see the steaming, blue plasma-emanating remains of an agent. She pays little attention to Pierre - probably less than is wise, and shoots at the first thing she can surely tell is an enemy target. Which is Schmidt and his "Retreat or die" chit-chat.
Natasha grunts with a visible wince as she hits the ground, and she's stunned for several seconds before she flips her way upward again. Thanks for those seconds, Clint, bb. And Hill, too, behind him. She doesn't pause to aim, but she does loose several bullets in Schmidt's direction as she sprints toward a desk to duck into cover. The talented Agent Romanoff keeps up an unsteady stream of fire with one hand while the other palms the thin ID card that was Tony Stark's gift and sets it to desperate alert.
It's a small detail, in the madness. The faces of captured SHIELD agents find some sort of inner peace, around the same time that eyes of blue or brown or really whatever colour adopts a vibrant emerald green.
What is more noticeable is the tipping balance of the chaos, and it becomes quickly apparent that the only people putting up an earnest fight on the side of the heroes are-- the heroes. On Loki's imperious nod, the captured agents are loosed, but they do not turn against their captors. With militant efficiency, they move to spread around the space and take position to enforce Schmidt's command, although some cover fire sends bullets after Natasha's path, driving her quicker to take cover.
Loki turns his attention back to the scene, tracking movement with glances only, sceptre held ready and still faintly green glowing.
As Hill enters, Clint looks to her, seeing as a retreat would be her call rather than his since she is the senior SHIELD agent on scene. Where she shoots, he takes his cue from that and loads a specialized arrow into his bow, a tip meant to explode upon impact that he levels on Loki as agents turn against them. The arrow is sighted and then released.
Many people are shooting at Johann Schmidt.
Not all of them are missing.
Bullet impacts are a surreal show of blood and light blasting back from his far side only to coalesc again in the time it takes for three more shots to land. And for all that he does not appear to be dying, it would be a stretch to say he is enjoying the experience: his teeth bare out wolfish white and his wounded shoulder snaps back, forcing him to reset his footing. If nothing else, he is going to need a new leather coat.
Behind Hill, it's Pierre with the assist; he waits until she is at empty or near it to loop a muscular arm around her neck from behind, wrist turned out to catch at any reprisal.
That accomplished, the only one left to fire is Natasha, but. She's already passed on surrendering. When he speaks, it is to address Hill directly.
"It is my understanding that you have served SHIELD well," he says, once he's taken a moment to catch his breath and subdue his temper re: being unloaded on TOTALLY WITHOUT PROVOCATION. "I would like to extend to you an opportunity to reaffirm your loyalty under my command."
Far above there is a rumble in the sky as clouds blot out the stars. Flashes of lightning are quick to follow, but in the distance. The distant rumbling of thunder echoes in the evening, and each rumble is a moment faster than the one before. And although distant, it is swift, and draws near with eerie precision. Unseen to most, still far away, is the red cape of the God of Thunder. It flaps wildly in the wind.
Hill struggles against Pierre but she's taken by surprise, so he has the advantage. Not that that stops her from trying to dig an elbow into his neck and/or crotch, but her chances of success are low. "What have you done with Director Fury?" She doesn't sound particularly ready to surrender.
Cue explosions outside the closed door.
Cue the rattle of gunfire -- more, that is, than the ragged serenade that Natasha has gifted Schmidt with.
Cue the vocalists, shouting, screams, both muffled through the closed metal panel; then a basso roar that has all the melodious quality of a shotgun shoved up evil's rectum. Something slams hard into the wall beside the door, percussive and sharp. Then it cracks open. "--mother/fucking/ way," Fury's voice rages, black and murderous. Director Fury is in the house.
No, let us be strictly accurate for the record. /Ex/-Director Fury is in the house. The firing with extreme prejudice of the head of SHIELD is not, it seems, a de facto success, though the black clothes he wears as a kind of uniform glistens in patches over shoulder and hip, and a long, wet laceration cuts down across the gleaming scalp to trail blood into the eyepatch.
Brother be pissed. Brother be armed. Brother be ready to lay down some motherfucking /hurt/.
As Schmidt turns his attention, Natasha pauses for a handful of seconds to switch weapons. She leans clear of her cover just long enough to send an amped-up jolt of electricity at Schmidt and then darts back with a quick glance at Clint. She steadies her breath into something slow, and even allows herself the smallest of smiles at that familiar voice, that welcome gunfire. She resumes her own, picking her shots carefully now. Headshots, and when those presumably fail, knees.
There are no explosions to proceed Valkyrie's arrival to the scene and hardly any sound at all. She takes the pedestrian approach to joining the party: Doors. Doors which are likely to be no longer standing, taken down by boot or fancy Asgardian sword. It slices, it dices, it juliannes, and barbeques. She makes her way towards where the blood is thickest and the flow of death rings some fading figures. And towards where Fury is causing more explosions.
There's a(nother) small explosion happening over here, don't mind us.
Unfortunately, it doesn't hit Loki -- not quite in the presence of mind to do any fancy catching (and perhaps having learned his lesson, there), the Asgardian turns aside, teeth baring, and the arrow finds detonation on the expansive windows of mission control. A fiery blossom of explosion shatters glass outwards and has ears ring, and Loki is trailing just a little bit of smoke as he turns without affect of hesitation this time and raises his sceptre.
Brilliant green energy fires for Clint, wiping out furniture and computers and anyone in the way in the path between the assassin and the demigod.
"I hear thunder," is both in German and stated quietly, but Schmidt will be able to copy. Without looking to see if Clint is blown to pieces or managed to dodge, Loki moves for where Natasha is firing, either preparing to send another burst of energy her way or cleave her head from her shoulders as seems convenient.
Clint dodges, thankfully. The dodge is a quick roll, his arrow notched and released even as his previous cover is shredded by Loki's magics. This shot doesn't miss, the thunk of an arrow embedding itself into a skull covered by the sounds of louder gunshots, explosions, and thunder. Pierre finds an arrow in his temple as the sharpshooter finds more cover.
Hill indulges in a small, very small, exhale of relief when Fury starts blowing up shit. She seems to find it encouraging. With Schmidt maybe distracted she starts struggling with Pierre again. Which gets easier when Clint puts an arrow in his temple. If he's properly impaled, she'll scramble to get her hands on his gun.
And there is lightning. It flashes, cracking the night with a massive crash from the heavens. Seconds later, there is another. And then... it rains. Sheets of water pour onto the streets of New York City. Outside, it is much too loud to hear Thor crash through a window and into the headquarters of SHIELD. But perhaps a few people witness the lightning that rakes through the night, threatening to engulf the side of the building with arcs of blue and white. Once Thor has landed, he looks around at the scene. He drips water from his hair, beard, and cloak.
Ladies and gentlemen: Nicholas Fury.
The ex-Director bursts onto the scene and after having a look, Schmidt looks back to Hill, left hand raised empty in silent designation of his arrival. Nothing, obviously. He has done nothing to Director Fury.
Yet.
People bursting onto the scene aside, there is little in the way of violence to gravitate towards. Agents of SHIELD stand around silently at arms, many of them faces that Fury and the Avengers will recognize. Only Natasha fights on. Schmidt lights up like a lightning strike in stark evidence of her ongoing resistance, bones showing black through a brilliant overload of electricity that rides up his spine and out through his boots. He seizes, also -- and falls. Like a tree. One that smoulders and smokes and registers Loki's warning an instant after it registers the sound of Pierre folding limp to the ground after him.
There is an attitude to the way he picks himself up. A snap of leather and a jut at his jaw. He is glaring at Fury in light cast dim and blue by the rain. Glaring. "Would you like to kill yourself?" he grates, with none of his prior elegance, "Or shall I do it for you?"
Not a fan of lightening? Natasha charges her bites once more, cranking the voltage high and aiming them this time at Loki's approaching form before she springs free of her cover for a fast sprint toward the door, where regrouping with others still fond of fighting is more possible.
"I would slim think you capable," Valkryie says, stepping out into view with a sword in hand. A slight smile curves her mouth, fingers brushing across her cheek as she looks towards Scmidt. Your evil is showing, darling.
Pistols in both hands (well, of course) Fury stretches an arm to shoot Pierre's head from the other side, blowing out the arrow that Clint went to so much trouble to insert. Brain matter splatters pink and wet into the air, misting into a tongue- and nostril-coating spray. Fury's single eye jerks aside then to follow the line of the other arm, straight at ... oh, look. His mouth thins, flattening in a tight line of anger at familiar faces opposing him.
"The original skinhead and his one-balled sidekick. I don't remember getting invites to this party. I think my feelings are hurt." Gaze still fixed and hard on the German, he tosses a quick aside to the others in the room. Natasha. Clint. Hill. /Thor/. "ETA on the Avengers?"
Hill is splattered with some of Pierre's brain matter. Most of it gets on her black SHIELD uniform catsuit, fortunately. It doesn't //really// seem to bother her. She does offer Fury a somewhat wry, but still mostly genuine, "Thanks, sir." She hefts what was Pierre's gun, eyes sweeping the room in a perhaps not successful attempt to designate who's currently friend or foe.
No one likes lightning. Except Thor. Loki is not Thor and recoils as Natasha sends her electricity his way -- it is more irritation than injury, but gives Natasha room to move. He isn't about to pursue -- their stronghold is here, and Loki backs up again, turning finally for where he knows Thor to be. Trading sceptre from one hand to the other, the younger Asgardian is unreadable save for 'focused' as he observes the presence of the other.
A hand kind of goes out in gesture, as if to say, do you like what we've done with the place?
Green eyed men and women of new allegiance steady guns uselessly on the Thunder God, more or less putting themselves in the path of possible danger, but that's fine too. "You bid me to guide, and advise," Loki says. "I hope not to disappoint you."
"No thanks for me, Maria?" Clint calls to Agent Hill, even as he draws two arrows along the string of his bow and sights at Schmidt as his attention turns to the director. He waits for orders, however, and only adds in aside to Fury, "On their way. Widow sent the alarm out." He nods towards Thor and Valkyrie.
There is an air of Mexican standoff as Loki addresses Thor at his aft, but somewhere in this someone is daring Schmidt to shoot. He is certain of it.
So he does.
Head turned to fix focus on Valkyrie and her sword, Schmidt fires twice from the hip while he looks at her, both rounds destined for the region of Fury's breast.
At the motion of Scmidt's hand, Valkryie presses forward with her blade in hand -- movements quick and without wasted air. She draws Dragonfang up to swing, heat curling the air, and lashes out a Schmidt unless someone gets in her path.
Hill gasps when Fury is shot. Something close to shock registering on her face. She swallows, then looks to Clint. "Fire." Which she also does.
Thor frowns as bullets collide with his armor. The reflect randomly, flying into the floor, ceiling, and elsewhere without focus. Thor raises his hammer, and a bolt of lightning, from outside, arcs to empower his hammer with a great jolt of light and thunder. A second later, miniature arcs of electricity fire towards the men and women who have fired upon him. They are not to slay - they are to knock unconscious. "I know of no others who will attend this reunion," Thor replies, overtop his attack. He ignores his brother - he has more important duties, like the rehabilitation of humans!
Well, fuck.
Fury gets shot. It is not, all things considered, the best situation for a normal human being, having bullets impact your chest. Even if you are big, black, and badass.
Mostly, those three things just make you an easier target.
Fury jerks as the bullets impact, dropping back onto a knee for a split-second -- an instinctive attempt at recovery -- before collapsing onto his side and an outthrown arm. His breath catches, blown out by the percussive shock. Thus, when he manages to snap out orders, they are wheezing, uneven rasps of sound, a far cry from the normal authoritative boom that can fill stadiums. "Re-- retreat," he manages hoarsely, up to Hill. "Get our people out. /Now/."
Hill's command is the one Clint hears, the mutliple arrows loosed on Schmidt without a look over to the fallen director. No distractions.
There is no one to intercede.
With an arrow shaft already jutting out of his back, Schmidt drops his weapon and loaded eye contact to whip into a dodge. He is very quick. For a man.
So -- not quick enough. Valkyrie's blade cleaves into the German's side, jerking him upright with a gloved hand braced reflectively against the sword's edge. To push it out or himself off is not immediately clear. He may not know himself, jaw jutted out of its clamp while he attempts to decide. That terrible blue aura is churning about him again --
Plonk.
An arrow sticks in his back. The charging stalls.
Plonk.
Another arrow.
This close to Valkyrie, Schmidt cannot help but look over his shoulder. Wtf.
The felling of human minions is annoying but not at a direct interference to their mission yet -- it's what comes after that. Schmidt will feel it as a gentle psychic tug of power, and more visible are the cracks and flickers of blue lightning that circle around the green glow of Loki's weapon. There's a joke to be had, though, in watching his brother casually electrocute the humans -- a petty moment of laughter can be heard from Loki as he circles, that green glow charging brighter.
"Those were mine," Loki says, delicate sarcasm laced in his voice, eyebrows up. Casual banter is belied by the fact his posture and manner is otherwise tense and ready.
There is an uncomfortable burning sension that is part of Valkyrie's penatration of Schmidt. Hot burning. Like ow, should have used more magic lube. Sorry bb, you aren't her first. She gives the blade a tug, attempting to loose it from his flesh.
Thor lowers his weapon and focuses on his brother. His eyes narrow. "Nay," Thor booms, voice carrying easily over the sound of battle. He strides forward, ignoring Fury's command. Mjolnir is raised again, and she cackles with energy. "Whatever you hoped to accomplish here, it was for naught. Flee now, and I will hound you until the ends of Midgard, and beyond!" Lightning licks the floor and ground around Thor before it discharges towards Loki in a brilliant display of pale blue.
Loki is ready, and Thor is predictable. When it comes to sheer brute strength both in power and battle prowess, then his brother has always outranked him, and it pays to be quicker or as quick on the draw. With his own hiss, Loki brings the sceptre around to send forth his own power, almost identical to what Thor throws save for the sickly green of the light it casts. Power for power meet at the speed of light, and cosmic lightning throws Loki off his feet to crash and slide on the floor of the room, and remains still.
But Thor is nowhere to be seen.
Wherever he has gone is silent. They never actually got to talk overmuch of Loki's experience when he'd fallen from the edge of the Bifrost, and maybe it's a little like this. Soul crushing amounts of empty space yawn on either side of Thor, and the galaxy is brilliant and bright and all the colours imaginable in the distance, offering him no heat, no true light. Midgard is not in immediate sight, but perhaps there are some maps in the sky by which Thor can navigate -- he can at least assure himself he is within Yggdrasil still. He feels the cold, and fresh, burn-like pain lancing from the knuckles of his fist and streaking up to his elbow, and dizziness.
Thor grits his teeth when his strike is matched by Loki, but the expression does not last. His eyes widen, and the attack ceases. For several moments, he stares in awe. And then in horror. Motionless, he stares into the oblivion. No one hears his cries of rage and terror. Maybe his brother can feel it from so very far away.
Reinforcements are arriving -- the same door Fury booted in through is filled with the bootfalls of men and women in body armor and some in suits. They all have guns. Those in the lead step abruptly back into the hallway out of sight at a curt order shouted from Schmidt, who is now holding onto Valkyrie's sword more than he is trying to part with it. Using it as a support to stay upright.
"Save your people," he growls at a more conversational distance. One about equal to sword length, the virulent blue of his accumulated energy spent with Thor's banishment. For the first time since she's seen him there's exhaustion in the shark black of his eyes, breaths gone ragged against that crawling burn. "You will not kill enough of us."
Hill gasps, and just takes in the carnage. Watching Fury shot, the god of thunder disappearing into nothingness, the control room overwhelmed. She finally echoes the, "Retreat." Though she will try to haul so-very-shot Nick Fury out with her. And those who follow.
"And you will be raised to the ground, nothing but smoke left, black as your heart," Valkyrie purrs, leaning foward with her blade in hand. She looks across the room towards where Clint and Hill stand, tugging the sword deeper into Schmidt's side. And the carnage. "Your death will be one I enjoy, a later day I think." Turning back to him, she lifts a large booted foot and attempts to punt the Red Skull off her sword. Retreat it is.
Orders are orders, and Clint and Natasha are well-trained to follow them. The former, first, notches one last arrow, explosive tip aimed towards Schmidt's hand gripping Dragonfang and attempting to provide some cover for the Asgardian as he retreats as well. Black Widow doesn't need his help in retreat.
Good luck with that, Hill. Because Fury is, like, a thousand pounds of kevlar, leather, guns, and see above re: big, black, and badassery.
But he does manage to make it (sort of) to his feet and stagger, with the agent's assistance. "Regroup at Site B," he manages, his voice gaining enough strength to pitch across to Clint. He still has one gun, the other fallen and skidded under a console. He uses it to good effect. This is not a good day at the office.
Loki is just. Recovering. Over here. The most indicative thing of life from him is his determined clutch of the sceptre and finally eyes opening, blinking rapidly, and a groan of complaint sounding thin from somewhere in the background.
He accidentally overtips a chair in using it to lever himself up, a loud clatter following (HE'S FINE, HE MEANT TO DO THAT), but he is on his feet -- someone particulatly green eyed offers a steadying hand, and he waves them a way as he surveys retreat, focusing on Valkyrie's back before seeking Johann. The butt of the sceptre settles against the ground, and he looks towards where Thor had stood, telltale scorch marks of black telling him of his success as if his continued consciousness did not.
"Cut off one head," Schmidt recites in ugly German, all hard edges and gathering momentum until the sword is dragged in deeper still and he hisses behind his teeth, nose rankled, grip -- irrelevent. Her boot finds his center of gravity and he's slung backward in an arc of bioluminescent blue plasma that dribbles from her sword and evaporates as it hits the ground.
Call me?
The explosive arrow intended for his hand enters the space where it was a hair after he has been punted out of it. There is a chance it might plant itself in Valkyrie instead.
Maybe.
The arrow just nicks of her blade, perfectly cutting through the space where Schmidt's hand had been moments prior. It explodes in a flare of light and pain, no doubt cutting off Valkyrie's witty response to that ugly hiss of German. Boom?
Hill is indeed not having much luck with Fury. He is very, very heavy for an old man. "Help me!" she yells. To Clint and Natasha, presumably, but anyone will do. The sound of the explosion makes her, instinctively, duck low against the floor. If not for cover than to make herself a smaller target.
Surely Natasha would help get Fury out of there. Clint covers his own retreat, a sharp curseword under his breath for his second miss of the night. Not a good record for him. Good thing they are retreating, and he makes no more shots on his fellow, mind-controlled SHIELD agents.
Laid out on the floor amidst rubble and spent casings with his side cleaved open and broken arrow shafts in his back, Schmidt chuckles at Valkyrie's expense.
Then he coughs.
An electric blue film coats the back of his teeth.
Boom, indeed. They're wrecking their new bachelor pad. >(
Loki's expression communicates this in an irritated wince, as the detonation goes off -- never mind some of the waste he himself has laid. Some quick orders see the unconscious men and women left behind to be bound once more for later conversion, if necessary, dead bodies dragged aside. He approaches Schmidt, then, looking worse for wear and moving with caution, but upright, weapon gleaming in preparation for someone to be stupid and come back for more. Humans (and higher beings, too) can be like that.
Out the edge of Schmidt's hearing comes the sound of unevening footsteps, the clink of light weight armour and swish of cloak and heavy leather, and Loki's shadow falls nearer.
"A most glorious welcome SHIELD has afforded you, Director Schmidt. It can only improve."
One of the agents that Thor unchained from Loki's service is up again, if woozy. Disorientation is not an excuse. Crouched low against stray lightning and -- goddammit -- /arrows/, no offense, Barton, he races to Hill's age and manages to get under Fury's other arm. Which throws off Fury's aim, "Motherfucking--" curses the ex-Director, but more critically, speeds up their retreat.
He's going to need some serious medical attention soon enough. The black sweater clings to Fury's chest, catching the light in an altogether too liquid a fashion to be indicative of health.
Asgardians are made for rough of and tumble wear, luckily. Blown back several feet and burnt along her right side -- HER FURS -- Valkryie sits up, ears ringing with the sound of the explosion. Her hearing is probably completely shit at the moment. Fierce eyed, she looks towards Schmidt's prone form and slides her sword to the opposite side. Then she quickly moves to follow the rest of the retreat.
It is 7:00 PM in New York and SHIELD Headquarters is uncomfortably quiet for the hour. Layoffs of late have come swiftly and without mercy. In many cases, vacancies within integral departments have multiplied with such wild abandon that the positions have not yet been filled. Security in the lobby is sparse; there are only four armed men phsyically present to check the ID of the facility's latest arrival. Every scratch of pen to paper echoes wide across the empty hall. The telephones are silent.
Ding. The elevator arrives at ground level.
Within mission control, the quiet is more claustrophobic still. Thirty minutes ago, Director Fury was called into his office for a private meeting with the World Security Council. His door has not opened since. A few agents fear the worst, but the majority of the skeleton crew currently in place is impassive. They are all recent hires.
Most work stations here are unoccupied, computers idling on their home screens. Outside of sweeping glass windows, the sun filters orange through the surrounding cityscape, drawing long shadows. Phil Coulson stepped away not long after Fury did, inscrutable as ever.
Ding. The elevator arrives at control. The man that steps out is tall and broad and pressuring the look of black leather coat on tie into a reluctant comeback, with a briefcase to match set sharp at his side. His name is Johann Schmidt.
Hill is only just now arriving at SHIELD HQ. This was supposedly one of her evenings off, but Fury sent her word of the 'private meeting' before he went into it. So she figured it would be best to put in some over-time tonight. A train ride from Brooklyn later she's making her way off the street. Her first stop will be the lobby. Presuming it hasn't been occupied by hostile forces who will try and kill her. If it has, she may or may not see some sign of those as she heads lobby-wards.
If the lobby is occupied by hostile forces, then those forces have taken upon the appearance of there armed men and one woman in SHIELD regalia. They are all quite large and two of the men conversing on either side of the elevator are doing so in French. They are familiar, but not so familiar that she might have their names memorized already. One of them chuckles, only to cut off dry upon spying Hill on the approach. "Agent Hill," he greets with due respect once she is through the ID checkpoint.
She should have no problem accessing the elevator.
Far above, Schmidt nods to an Agent in BDUs who nods back. Business continues on as usual until he is seven or eight steps in and a man in a suit scrambles from his station, reaching for his gun. Another fellow dressed in much the same fashion subdues him via tackle; file folders cascade to the ground. In the back of the room two more move to revolt and are met with similar hostility from the foreign majority.
Somewhere in the mix, one of them manages to reach an alarm. Flourescent lights toggle into a more mechanical red. A klaxon echoes up the elevator shaft from the basement levels.
"Evening," Hill says politely to those in the lobby as she goes through the motions of getting her credentials checked. She eyes them a moment, trying to place them, but we she can't it seems to more annoy than alarm her. Too many newbs these days. "Any word from Director Fury...?" The klaxons interrupt her. Gun is drawn. "Who's on tonight?" she asks the collection of semi-strangers on-hand with her.
Sweaty, bruised, Clint's reactions are already sluggish when that alarm screeches along the hall of the training floor, his wrapped knuckles immediately tensing before he moves to push Natasha off of the pin she has on him, one fluid, cooperative motion as he rolls to his own feet. He moves for his own gear, not bothering to suit up out of the cheap grey sweatpants and the faded Alabama (the band) shirt. "Stairs?" he questions of his partner, even as he slings his quiver over his shoulder and snaps his bow into position with a sharp sound.
Natasha is as quick to roll sideways off Clint and rise to her feet as he is. "Stairs," she confirms in a short breath as a spring takes her into the locker room long enough to retrieve firearms and widows bite and belt. She's close behind Clint as he gears up, and she doesn't slow to wait. He'll be running too, by the time she gets there.
Pierre, Agent of Shield shakes his head 'no,' and glances to Francois for affirmation. He hitches his shoulders in a shrug. No word from Director Fury.
"Fury and Coulson," is a more concrete answer. Pierre of them glances to her gun and adjusts the grip he has on his own M-16, a touch impatient. Francois shifts his weight.
Schmidt sets his briefcase carefully down about the region where Fury has a tendency to loom -- at the head of things. "Cut the power," he directs in a quiet aside to a female Agent who has paced to meet him midway. She says, "Ja wohl," and then: "Heil HYDRA."
"Heil HYDRA," agrees Schmidt.
In seconds, red saturation gives way to pitch black save where there are windows to bleed sunlight into the building. The elevator grinds to a halt and the stairwells go dark. The klaxon is quiet.
Maybe that means everything is fine. :D
Running doesn't seem to be an option anymore as darkness floods along the stairwells that Clint steps into, only an instinctive ability to track Natasha's location keeping him from bumping into her. Only the gossamer thread of red light that marks the site of his bow cuts through the stairwell, and he takes the time to allow his eyes to adjust to the darkness before moving again, giving up that vital time for something even more important. Sight, or what passes for it in that lightlessness.
Hill nods short to the agents on hand and heads into the elevator, motioning for Pierre to join her. Francois can secure the lobby. Up they are going...and then the power goes out. She swears. Then fumbles for a flashlight - if the standard SHIELD op is equipped with such things - to maybe search for a way to force the doors. Or unsecured ceiling vent, and such.
Natasha takes a handful of seconds to gain her bearings before she starts up the stairs at a run, light or no. She's taken these particular stairs hundreds of times, and their length and span and turns are etched in the memory of her muscles. She mutters something low and Russian, then lapses into focused silence on her way up.
Pierre hesitates, but moves to follow after Francois hoods his brow at him all, dude, g.o He even follows proper elevator etiquette, stepping aside once he has turned to allow for them to share equal halves. The flash light that switches on once the power bleeds out is his. He directs it at the floor, distracted in a turn of his head to the scratch of radio static in his ear. Someone is speaking to him. He replies in French, and his side of the conversation goes something like this:
"I am stuck in the elevator with Agent Hill."
...
"Should I kill her?"
"Understood."
The answer to his question was apparently non, because his next move is to shrug his firearm over his shoulder by the strap so that he can hand her the flashlight and knit his hands together into a boost for the ceiling. "After you."
In mission control, there is more than enough sunlight to see by. Two agents are already in restraints with three more still struggling; one more is behind a desk taking pot shots at any of the opposition who try and get close. Natalie and Clint can hear the fire before they enter.
In the middle of everything, Schmidt is directing traffic in his long coat and his immaculate toilette. He has just finished having a radio conversation in French.
French is plainly not a language Hill has made much study of, as all she does is eye Pierre askance and look annoyed. Perhaps at simply the idea that SHIELD contracted someone so very French. But at least she has a flashlight which, after an examination of the elevator, she sticks between her teeth. "Thnks," she mutters around it, taking that boost up to the ceiling to start working the panel off. In hopes of escaping with the not-yet-homicidal Pierre.
Clint makes no moves to run ahead of Natasha, and really, who would? She can handle herself, and he needs his sight. He follows slower, but just as surely, and when he gets to the floor of mission control, he goes up another with a quiet call to Natasha, "See you in there." It doesn't take him long to slip into the nearest vent entrance, quiet as a sigh as he eases himself along the passage ways that are as familiar to him as the stairwell is to Natasha. Positioning is everything, even if it takes more time. Natasha gives Clint a short, silent nod. She pauses at the sound of fire, taking a moment to work out the lay of the land in her mind. With what she knows of the room and the acustics, fire comes from /there/, it's aimed /there/. And then she takes a deep breath and sweeps into the room with a pivot toward the second presumed /there/ and the electric shock of widow's bites primed, aimed, released.
Pierre is not homicidal but he does lift his brows in private appreciation of Hill's butt before it vanishes up through the ceiling of the elevator. Not bad. And now she too can hear gunfire, as well as the odd shout.
"Wir werden weiter marschieren," Schmidt is muttering to himself, jaunty beat conducted with paired fingers and a lazy swish at his wrist as his near and dear assistant logs him into the computer terminal at control's head. "Wenn alles in Scherben faaa... "
The crackle and high-pitched screech Natasha's arrival invokes is enough to break his concentration, finally. He turns to regard her plainly across the room, big and German and inevitably wearing an impressive pair of boots. Past the scuff and rustle and half-bitten curses involved in ongoing resistance around the area, it is quiet and still. There are six unfriendly agents with their hands free. Ten more are fighting or holding prisoners. Of the eight original friendly agents, four are in restraints, one is dead, two are fighting hand to hand and another is rapidly running out of ammunition.
Spak.
A bullet hisses and one of the unfriendly's heads explodes across the room. Schmidt turns his shoulders to squint as the rest of him falls. Coulson is evidently here also. Somewhere.
"Natasha Romonov, I presume. Are you here to surrender?"
Hill probably doesn't notice Pierre checking her out, so it's unclear whether this would raise or lower her opinion of him. Once she's up she offers him a hand to assist him in his own short climb. The sound of gunfire makes her neck snap around in that direction. And, once she can release Pierre, she gets a firm grip on her own weapon again. "Director Fury was called into some sort of...high-level meeting before all this started," she says to Pierre as she creeps along toward the sound of shooting. Trying to use a modicum of stealth. "Do you know who he was meeting with? What the hell is going on?" The last question may be rhetorical.
Natasha's answering "/Nyet/," is short and sharp. Six? Well. Let's hope those friendlies keep their captors busy. She moves without pause, hurtling across the room toward the nearest target as her hands find a gun for each and she squeezes off several shots at unfriendlies more distant. Schmidt she ignores for the moment.
The first sign of another variable entering into the scene is light, a strange sliver of illumination that resembles a rip piercing through the air. It's only a moment, before something akin to a lightning bolt leaps out, snagging a row of monitors that immediately go black, sparks flying. Licks of electrical energy leap and scorch both ground and ceiling before vanishing again, and in place of light is a person, one who is no stranger to SHIELD, if no friend. Supposedly. Tall and dressed in dull greens, black leathers, and gold armour, Loki's posture straightens as he checks that he has, you know, arrived in the right place and everything, immediately seeking Johann Schmidt.
He has not come unarmed. In his hand is the sceptre that was stolen not so long ago, shaped into its full spear length, golden and silver metal. The gemstone and source of its power is not dead, however, but also different -- it radiates a poisonous seeming green.
He registers first the sound of gunfire before anything else, but a glance to the agents that seem to have turned is only fleeting -- when one of them goes down from Agent Romanoff's shooting. He turns sceptre in her direction, a sharp smile of recognition writing across his face.
In place, eyes sharp on the scene unfolding below, Clint catches that turn of Loki and his sceptor with a cool tension that only lends to the straight lines of his arm as he pulls an arrow back. It looses through the gaps of the ventilation grate that he sights through, flying unerringly for that glowing light of Loki's weapon as the god turns to his partner.
Russians.
A swear and grating order in German sends Schmidt's lovely assistant springing for the figurative hills while the rest of his number fall or return fire as they will. Ignoring him may be a mistake, for his next logical move is to draw his own sidearm to advance upon Natasha in a direct line, firing deliberately every second step. Like an irritable locomotive that can't be arsed to pick up full steam.
Two of his men are down. Three. There is a lot of lead in the air and more still in the walls.
"SHIELD HQ has been compromised," Coulson's voice cuts clear through radio static, gunfire muffled in the background. "Hostile forces disguised as agents have infiltrated the basement, labs and -- " static overwhelms, bristles, fades out again, " -- can hear this -- "
With Hill, Pierre is proceeding with more purpose and less stealth. Unconcerned. "I do not," he answers. "There have been rumors, of course, but -- " Coulson pipes in, and after a moment's insecurity, the Frenchman looks to Hill.
"Guten abend," Schmidt greets Loki through his teeth, already taking on an unholy blue aura of his own. He is busy with attempting to kill Natasha. "Perfect timing."
Hill gets a more to-the-point answer from the disembodied voice of Coulson, so she largely ignores whatever Pierre says to her. Except to motion him to stick with her. Because he'll be so useful in this upcoming fight. She might, just might, pause indulge in a relieved exhale to hear him up there. Amidst gunfire, in a compromised control room. She's not //that// relieved. She presses on, gun at the ready.
Natasha's direction doesn't stay very static. She swings around with a hard kick aimed at her targeted unfriendly's head, then flies toward the next with an acrobatic flip that ends in another directed blow. She busies herself with taking out the mobs and trusts Clint at her back to focus on the bosses. It's not until Schmidt's gun starts firing in her direction that she rethinks her tactics, and the same acrobatic speed that's been pinballing her across the room is now leveraged in search of /cover/. Hopefully there is some. Downed table, metal desk, bad guy she can spin around to absorb bullets for her?
Fwip. Irritation creases Loki's brow as an arrow knocks aside his weapon, pinwheeling off of it, but it doesn't seem to have laid a mark so much as distracted at least one of the forces that might have potentially killed the Black Widow.
"Mit Vergnuegen."
Rather than go after Clint himself, Loki suddenly vaults a row of desks to take down one of the SHEILD_ok agents in tangle with a traitor, ending the fight with jagged metal through soft human throat and hissing an order at the other. The agent nods, and Clint abruptly has to think fast as pistol fire is direct upwards for the ventilation grate, the sound of bullets piercing through and rattling metal making for a storm of noise.
Loki has other business to take care of. He makes for the four captured SHIELD agents, a flicker of electric-like magic veining up and down the length of the sceptre, playing off the gemstone and circling the jagged metal, emanating a glow that is both his customised green and Schmidt's unearthly blue. His free hand goes out-- burn marks white and shiny and painful across his fingers, but that's another story-- as if to centre himself.
The green goes brighter.
The agent gets off only two bullets into the ventilation, one burning a path across Clint's shoulder in the tight confine of metal without the ability to pull himself away, before an arrow sprouts like a bloody flower out of the man's eye. Deeming his spot already compromised, he kicks out the grating covering the vent, only firing off one more arrow in a quick attempt at Schmidt before he moves to swing himself into the room to find better cover.
Pierre is very useful! He's even swung his assault rifle down stable into both hands Just In Case. The gunfire is close, now. They are just outside.
Helpfully, Pierre waits to see if Hill will go in first.
A heart's beat after Natasha has wrenched an unfriendly agent around into a SHIELD shield both are blasted backwards a sound six feet by a surge of blue light. Natasha finds the ground intact. The agent on top of her is not so fortunate.
A large portion of him seems to be missing, with the portion that remains alternately steaming at the fringes and giving way to a greasy blue plasma that smells like electricity.
And still, Schmidt is bearing down upon her, given pause only when an arrow sinks to a stop against his scapula.
Jaw flexed hollow, he uses the break in his concentration to reload, magazine dropped so that another can be clapped into place. "Retreat or die," he offers, conversationally, an arrow shaft sizzling blue where it's imbedded in his back. "My men have taken hold at every level. Your flying boat answers to my command."
Hill will totally go first. She has little time to get a handle on the situation, what with the ominous magical glowing and hostile forces everywhere. She //is// just in time to see the steaming, blue plasma-emanating remains of an agent. She pays little attention to Pierre - probably less than is wise, and shoots at the first thing she can surely tell is an enemy target. Which is Schmidt and his "Retreat or die" chit-chat.
Natasha grunts with a visible wince as she hits the ground, and she's stunned for several seconds before she flips her way upward again. Thanks for those seconds, Clint, bb. And Hill, too, behind him. She doesn't pause to aim, but she does loose several bullets in Schmidt's direction as she sprints toward a desk to duck into cover. The talented Agent Romanoff keeps up an unsteady stream of fire with one hand while the other palms the thin ID card that was Tony Stark's gift and sets it to desperate alert.
It's a small detail, in the madness. The faces of captured SHIELD agents find some sort of inner peace, around the same time that eyes of blue or brown or really whatever colour adopts a vibrant emerald green.
What is more noticeable is the tipping balance of the chaos, and it becomes quickly apparent that the only people putting up an earnest fight on the side of the heroes are-- the heroes. On Loki's imperious nod, the captured agents are loosed, but they do not turn against their captors. With militant efficiency, they move to spread around the space and take position to enforce Schmidt's command, although some cover fire sends bullets after Natasha's path, driving her quicker to take cover.
Loki turns his attention back to the scene, tracking movement with glances only, sceptre held ready and still faintly green glowing.
As Hill enters, Clint looks to her, seeing as a retreat would be her call rather than his since she is the senior SHIELD agent on scene. Where she shoots, he takes his cue from that and loads a specialized arrow into his bow, a tip meant to explode upon impact that he levels on Loki as agents turn against them. The arrow is sighted and then released.
Many people are shooting at Johann Schmidt.
Not all of them are missing.
Bullet impacts are a surreal show of blood and light blasting back from his far side only to coalesc again in the time it takes for three more shots to land. And for all that he does not appear to be dying, it would be a stretch to say he is enjoying the experience: his teeth bare out wolfish white and his wounded shoulder snaps back, forcing him to reset his footing. If nothing else, he is going to need a new leather coat.
Behind Hill, it's Pierre with the assist; he waits until she is at empty or near it to loop a muscular arm around her neck from behind, wrist turned out to catch at any reprisal.
That accomplished, the only one left to fire is Natasha, but. She's already passed on surrendering. When he speaks, it is to address Hill directly.
"It is my understanding that you have served SHIELD well," he says, once he's taken a moment to catch his breath and subdue his temper re: being unloaded on TOTALLY WITHOUT PROVOCATION. "I would like to extend to you an opportunity to reaffirm your loyalty under my command."
Far above there is a rumble in the sky as clouds blot out the stars. Flashes of lightning are quick to follow, but in the distance. The distant rumbling of thunder echoes in the evening, and each rumble is a moment faster than the one before. And although distant, it is swift, and draws near with eerie precision. Unseen to most, still far away, is the red cape of the God of Thunder. It flaps wildly in the wind.
Hill struggles against Pierre but she's taken by surprise, so he has the advantage. Not that that stops her from trying to dig an elbow into his neck and/or crotch, but her chances of success are low. "What have you done with Director Fury?" She doesn't sound particularly ready to surrender.
Cue explosions outside the closed door.
Cue the rattle of gunfire -- more, that is, than the ragged serenade that Natasha has gifted Schmidt with.
Cue the vocalists, shouting, screams, both muffled through the closed metal panel; then a basso roar that has all the melodious quality of a shotgun shoved up evil's rectum. Something slams hard into the wall beside the door, percussive and sharp. Then it cracks open. "--mother/fucking/ way," Fury's voice rages, black and murderous. Director Fury is in the house.
No, let us be strictly accurate for the record. /Ex/-Director Fury is in the house. The firing with extreme prejudice of the head of SHIELD is not, it seems, a de facto success, though the black clothes he wears as a kind of uniform glistens in patches over shoulder and hip, and a long, wet laceration cuts down across the gleaming scalp to trail blood into the eyepatch.
Brother be pissed. Brother be armed. Brother be ready to lay down some motherfucking /hurt/.
As Schmidt turns his attention, Natasha pauses for a handful of seconds to switch weapons. She leans clear of her cover just long enough to send an amped-up jolt of electricity at Schmidt and then darts back with a quick glance at Clint. She steadies her breath into something slow, and even allows herself the smallest of smiles at that familiar voice, that welcome gunfire. She resumes her own, picking her shots carefully now. Headshots, and when those presumably fail, knees.
There are no explosions to proceed Valkyrie's arrival to the scene and hardly any sound at all. She takes the pedestrian approach to joining the party: Doors. Doors which are likely to be no longer standing, taken down by boot or fancy Asgardian sword. It slices, it dices, it juliannes, and barbeques. She makes her way towards where the blood is thickest and the flow of death rings some fading figures. And towards where Fury is causing more explosions.
There's a(nother) small explosion happening over here, don't mind us.
Unfortunately, it doesn't hit Loki -- not quite in the presence of mind to do any fancy catching (and perhaps having learned his lesson, there), the Asgardian turns aside, teeth baring, and the arrow finds detonation on the expansive windows of mission control. A fiery blossom of explosion shatters glass outwards and has ears ring, and Loki is trailing just a little bit of smoke as he turns without affect of hesitation this time and raises his sceptre.
Brilliant green energy fires for Clint, wiping out furniture and computers and anyone in the way in the path between the assassin and the demigod.
"I hear thunder," is both in German and stated quietly, but Schmidt will be able to copy. Without looking to see if Clint is blown to pieces or managed to dodge, Loki moves for where Natasha is firing, either preparing to send another burst of energy her way or cleave her head from her shoulders as seems convenient.
Clint dodges, thankfully. The dodge is a quick roll, his arrow notched and released even as his previous cover is shredded by Loki's magics. This shot doesn't miss, the thunk of an arrow embedding itself into a skull covered by the sounds of louder gunshots, explosions, and thunder. Pierre finds an arrow in his temple as the sharpshooter finds more cover.
Hill indulges in a small, very small, exhale of relief when Fury starts blowing up shit. She seems to find it encouraging. With Schmidt maybe distracted she starts struggling with Pierre again. Which gets easier when Clint puts an arrow in his temple. If he's properly impaled, she'll scramble to get her hands on his gun.
And there is lightning. It flashes, cracking the night with a massive crash from the heavens. Seconds later, there is another. And then... it rains. Sheets of water pour onto the streets of New York City. Outside, it is much too loud to hear Thor crash through a window and into the headquarters of SHIELD. But perhaps a few people witness the lightning that rakes through the night, threatening to engulf the side of the building with arcs of blue and white. Once Thor has landed, he looks around at the scene. He drips water from his hair, beard, and cloak.
Ladies and gentlemen: Nicholas Fury.
The ex-Director bursts onto the scene and after having a look, Schmidt looks back to Hill, left hand raised empty in silent designation of his arrival. Nothing, obviously. He has done nothing to Director Fury.
Yet.
People bursting onto the scene aside, there is little in the way of violence to gravitate towards. Agents of SHIELD stand around silently at arms, many of them faces that Fury and the Avengers will recognize. Only Natasha fights on. Schmidt lights up like a lightning strike in stark evidence of her ongoing resistance, bones showing black through a brilliant overload of electricity that rides up his spine and out through his boots. He seizes, also -- and falls. Like a tree. One that smoulders and smokes and registers Loki's warning an instant after it registers the sound of Pierre folding limp to the ground after him.
There is an attitude to the way he picks himself up. A snap of leather and a jut at his jaw. He is glaring at Fury in light cast dim and blue by the rain. Glaring. "Would you like to kill yourself?" he grates, with none of his prior elegance, "Or shall I do it for you?"
Not a fan of lightening? Natasha charges her bites once more, cranking the voltage high and aiming them this time at Loki's approaching form before she springs free of her cover for a fast sprint toward the door, where regrouping with others still fond of fighting is more possible.
"I would slim think you capable," Valkryie says, stepping out into view with a sword in hand. A slight smile curves her mouth, fingers brushing across her cheek as she looks towards Scmidt. Your evil is showing, darling.
Pistols in both hands (well, of course) Fury stretches an arm to shoot Pierre's head from the other side, blowing out the arrow that Clint went to so much trouble to insert. Brain matter splatters pink and wet into the air, misting into a tongue- and nostril-coating spray. Fury's single eye jerks aside then to follow the line of the other arm, straight at ... oh, look. His mouth thins, flattening in a tight line of anger at familiar faces opposing him.
"The original skinhead and his one-balled sidekick. I don't remember getting invites to this party. I think my feelings are hurt." Gaze still fixed and hard on the German, he tosses a quick aside to the others in the room. Natasha. Clint. Hill. /Thor/. "ETA on the Avengers?"
Hill is splattered with some of Pierre's brain matter. Most of it gets on her black SHIELD uniform catsuit, fortunately. It doesn't //really// seem to bother her. She does offer Fury a somewhat wry, but still mostly genuine, "Thanks, sir." She hefts what was Pierre's gun, eyes sweeping the room in a perhaps not successful attempt to designate who's currently friend or foe.
No one likes lightning. Except Thor. Loki is not Thor and recoils as Natasha sends her electricity his way -- it is more irritation than injury, but gives Natasha room to move. He isn't about to pursue -- their stronghold is here, and Loki backs up again, turning finally for where he knows Thor to be. Trading sceptre from one hand to the other, the younger Asgardian is unreadable save for 'focused' as he observes the presence of the other.
A hand kind of goes out in gesture, as if to say, do you like what we've done with the place?
Green eyed men and women of new allegiance steady guns uselessly on the Thunder God, more or less putting themselves in the path of possible danger, but that's fine too. "You bid me to guide, and advise," Loki says. "I hope not to disappoint you."
"No thanks for me, Maria?" Clint calls to Agent Hill, even as he draws two arrows along the string of his bow and sights at Schmidt as his attention turns to the director. He waits for orders, however, and only adds in aside to Fury, "On their way. Widow sent the alarm out." He nods towards Thor and Valkyrie.
There is an air of Mexican standoff as Loki addresses Thor at his aft, but somewhere in this someone is daring Schmidt to shoot. He is certain of it.
So he does.
Head turned to fix focus on Valkyrie and her sword, Schmidt fires twice from the hip while he looks at her, both rounds destined for the region of Fury's breast.
At the motion of Scmidt's hand, Valkryie presses forward with her blade in hand -- movements quick and without wasted air. She draws Dragonfang up to swing, heat curling the air, and lashes out a Schmidt unless someone gets in her path.
Hill gasps when Fury is shot. Something close to shock registering on her face. She swallows, then looks to Clint. "Fire." Which she also does.
Thor frowns as bullets collide with his armor. The reflect randomly, flying into the floor, ceiling, and elsewhere without focus. Thor raises his hammer, and a bolt of lightning, from outside, arcs to empower his hammer with a great jolt of light and thunder. A second later, miniature arcs of electricity fire towards the men and women who have fired upon him. They are not to slay - they are to knock unconscious. "I know of no others who will attend this reunion," Thor replies, overtop his attack. He ignores his brother - he has more important duties, like the rehabilitation of humans!
Well, fuck.
Fury gets shot. It is not, all things considered, the best situation for a normal human being, having bullets impact your chest. Even if you are big, black, and badass.
Mostly, those three things just make you an easier target.
Fury jerks as the bullets impact, dropping back onto a knee for a split-second -- an instinctive attempt at recovery -- before collapsing onto his side and an outthrown arm. His breath catches, blown out by the percussive shock. Thus, when he manages to snap out orders, they are wheezing, uneven rasps of sound, a far cry from the normal authoritative boom that can fill stadiums. "Re-- retreat," he manages hoarsely, up to Hill. "Get our people out. /Now/."
Hill's command is the one Clint hears, the mutliple arrows loosed on Schmidt without a look over to the fallen director. No distractions.
There is no one to intercede.
With an arrow shaft already jutting out of his back, Schmidt drops his weapon and loaded eye contact to whip into a dodge. He is very quick. For a man.
So -- not quick enough. Valkyrie's blade cleaves into the German's side, jerking him upright with a gloved hand braced reflectively against the sword's edge. To push it out or himself off is not immediately clear. He may not know himself, jaw jutted out of its clamp while he attempts to decide. That terrible blue aura is churning about him again --
Plonk.
An arrow sticks in his back. The charging stalls.
Plonk.
Another arrow.
This close to Valkyrie, Schmidt cannot help but look over his shoulder. Wtf.
The felling of human minions is annoying but not at a direct interference to their mission yet -- it's what comes after that. Schmidt will feel it as a gentle psychic tug of power, and more visible are the cracks and flickers of blue lightning that circle around the green glow of Loki's weapon. There's a joke to be had, though, in watching his brother casually electrocute the humans -- a petty moment of laughter can be heard from Loki as he circles, that green glow charging brighter.
"Those were mine," Loki says, delicate sarcasm laced in his voice, eyebrows up. Casual banter is belied by the fact his posture and manner is otherwise tense and ready.
There is an uncomfortable burning sension that is part of Valkyrie's penatration of Schmidt. Hot burning. Like ow, should have used more magic lube. Sorry bb, you aren't her first. She gives the blade a tug, attempting to loose it from his flesh.
Thor lowers his weapon and focuses on his brother. His eyes narrow. "Nay," Thor booms, voice carrying easily over the sound of battle. He strides forward, ignoring Fury's command. Mjolnir is raised again, and she cackles with energy. "Whatever you hoped to accomplish here, it was for naught. Flee now, and I will hound you until the ends of Midgard, and beyond!" Lightning licks the floor and ground around Thor before it discharges towards Loki in a brilliant display of pale blue.
Loki is ready, and Thor is predictable. When it comes to sheer brute strength both in power and battle prowess, then his brother has always outranked him, and it pays to be quicker or as quick on the draw. With his own hiss, Loki brings the sceptre around to send forth his own power, almost identical to what Thor throws save for the sickly green of the light it casts. Power for power meet at the speed of light, and cosmic lightning throws Loki off his feet to crash and slide on the floor of the room, and remains still.
But Thor is nowhere to be seen.
Wherever he has gone is silent. They never actually got to talk overmuch of Loki's experience when he'd fallen from the edge of the Bifrost, and maybe it's a little like this. Soul crushing amounts of empty space yawn on either side of Thor, and the galaxy is brilliant and bright and all the colours imaginable in the distance, offering him no heat, no true light. Midgard is not in immediate sight, but perhaps there are some maps in the sky by which Thor can navigate -- he can at least assure himself he is within Yggdrasil still. He feels the cold, and fresh, burn-like pain lancing from the knuckles of his fist and streaking up to his elbow, and dizziness.
Thor grits his teeth when his strike is matched by Loki, but the expression does not last. His eyes widen, and the attack ceases. For several moments, he stares in awe. And then in horror. Motionless, he stares into the oblivion. No one hears his cries of rage and terror. Maybe his brother can feel it from so very far away.
Reinforcements are arriving -- the same door Fury booted in through is filled with the bootfalls of men and women in body armor and some in suits. They all have guns. Those in the lead step abruptly back into the hallway out of sight at a curt order shouted from Schmidt, who is now holding onto Valkyrie's sword more than he is trying to part with it. Using it as a support to stay upright.
"Save your people," he growls at a more conversational distance. One about equal to sword length, the virulent blue of his accumulated energy spent with Thor's banishment. For the first time since she's seen him there's exhaustion in the shark black of his eyes, breaths gone ragged against that crawling burn. "You will not kill enough of us."
Hill gasps, and just takes in the carnage. Watching Fury shot, the god of thunder disappearing into nothingness, the control room overwhelmed. She finally echoes the, "Retreat." Though she will try to haul so-very-shot Nick Fury out with her. And those who follow.
"And you will be raised to the ground, nothing but smoke left, black as your heart," Valkyrie purrs, leaning foward with her blade in hand. She looks across the room towards where Clint and Hill stand, tugging the sword deeper into Schmidt's side. And the carnage. "Your death will be one I enjoy, a later day I think." Turning back to him, she lifts a large booted foot and attempts to punt the Red Skull off her sword. Retreat it is.
Orders are orders, and Clint and Natasha are well-trained to follow them. The former, first, notches one last arrow, explosive tip aimed towards Schmidt's hand gripping Dragonfang and attempting to provide some cover for the Asgardian as he retreats as well. Black Widow doesn't need his help in retreat.
Good luck with that, Hill. Because Fury is, like, a thousand pounds of kevlar, leather, guns, and see above re: big, black, and badassery.
But he does manage to make it (sort of) to his feet and stagger, with the agent's assistance. "Regroup at Site B," he manages, his voice gaining enough strength to pitch across to Clint. He still has one gun, the other fallen and skidded under a console. He uses it to good effect. This is not a good day at the office.
Loki is just. Recovering. Over here. The most indicative thing of life from him is his determined clutch of the sceptre and finally eyes opening, blinking rapidly, and a groan of complaint sounding thin from somewhere in the background.
He accidentally overtips a chair in using it to lever himself up, a loud clatter following (HE'S FINE, HE MEANT TO DO THAT), but he is on his feet -- someone particulatly green eyed offers a steadying hand, and he waves them a way as he surveys retreat, focusing on Valkyrie's back before seeking Johann. The butt of the sceptre settles against the ground, and he looks towards where Thor had stood, telltale scorch marks of black telling him of his success as if his continued consciousness did not.
"Cut off one head," Schmidt recites in ugly German, all hard edges and gathering momentum until the sword is dragged in deeper still and he hisses behind his teeth, nose rankled, grip -- irrelevent. Her boot finds his center of gravity and he's slung backward in an arc of bioluminescent blue plasma that dribbles from her sword and evaporates as it hits the ground.
Call me?
The explosive arrow intended for his hand enters the space where it was a hair after he has been punted out of it. There is a chance it might plant itself in Valkyrie instead.
Maybe.
The arrow just nicks of her blade, perfectly cutting through the space where Schmidt's hand had been moments prior. It explodes in a flare of light and pain, no doubt cutting off Valkyrie's witty response to that ugly hiss of German. Boom?
Hill is indeed not having much luck with Fury. He is very, very heavy for an old man. "Help me!" she yells. To Clint and Natasha, presumably, but anyone will do. The sound of the explosion makes her, instinctively, duck low against the floor. If not for cover than to make herself a smaller target.
Surely Natasha would help get Fury out of there. Clint covers his own retreat, a sharp curseword under his breath for his second miss of the night. Not a good record for him. Good thing they are retreating, and he makes no more shots on his fellow, mind-controlled SHIELD agents.
Laid out on the floor amidst rubble and spent casings with his side cleaved open and broken arrow shafts in his back, Schmidt chuckles at Valkyrie's expense.
Then he coughs.
An electric blue film coats the back of his teeth.
Boom, indeed. They're wrecking their new bachelor pad. >(
Loki's expression communicates this in an irritated wince, as the detonation goes off -- never mind some of the waste he himself has laid. Some quick orders see the unconscious men and women left behind to be bound once more for later conversion, if necessary, dead bodies dragged aside. He approaches Schmidt, then, looking worse for wear and moving with caution, but upright, weapon gleaming in preparation for someone to be stupid and come back for more. Humans (and higher beings, too) can be like that.
Out the edge of Schmidt's hearing comes the sound of unevening footsteps, the clink of light weight armour and swish of cloak and heavy leather, and Loki's shadow falls nearer.
"A most glorious welcome SHIELD has afforded you, Director Schmidt. It can only improve."
One of the agents that Thor unchained from Loki's service is up again, if woozy. Disorientation is not an excuse. Crouched low against stray lightning and -- goddammit -- /arrows/, no offense, Barton, he races to Hill's age and manages to get under Fury's other arm. Which throws off Fury's aim, "Motherfucking--" curses the ex-Director, but more critically, speeds up their retreat.
He's going to need some serious medical attention soon enough. The black sweater clings to Fury's chest, catching the light in an altogether too liquid a fashion to be indicative of health.
Asgardians are made for rough of and tumble wear, luckily. Blown back several feet and burnt along her right side -- HER FURS -- Valkryie sits up, ears ringing with the sound of the explosion. Her hearing is probably completely shit at the moment. Fierce eyed, she looks towards Schmidt's prone form and slides her sword to the opposite side. Then she quickly moves to follow the rest of the retreat.