Nikolai Krylenko/Vanguard Vanguard roared in rage as a punch from an orangutan hit him in the center of his shield, the strength of the six foot tall ape lifting and throwing him dozens of feet through the air. Vanguard ground his feet until he came to a stop, then lashed out with a punch to a chimp’s chin. Creel dropped down behind him to smack aside another ape. The former boxer/criminal was panting in his vibranium form. He looked exhausted. Vanguard felt the same way. They’d been fighting against the enemy non-stop now. Many Russian soldiers now lay dead on the ground, and Creel and Vanguard were next to the remains of a tank that had been destroyed. Men and primates were dying in droves. But the real issue was that Kragoff wasn’t running out of primates. He must have been developing the creatures for a long time to have so many to use as cannon fodder. High above, several aircraft were battling it out with the apes and monkeys, gunfire and plasma shots flying hundreds of feet above the battlefield. Vanguard didn’t have command over that particular part of the battle, but every once in a while a sudden explosion would mark a missile or bomb being dropped on the servitors. Mikhail rushed by with a mandrill in his mouth, shaking his head like a dog with a toy in his mouth. The bear man had been through the ringer. His fur had been singed across his pectorals and back, brown fur burned black, skin scorched. Long claw marks had been scratched on his face over one thankfully intact eye, as well as his chest, with one especially painful looking one right on top of a burn. And yet, Mikhail was still rampaging. He spat out the mandrill he’d been chewing on, rose up to his feet and grabbed a cannon turret that had been left on the ground. With a single pull, he lifted the large piece of steel into the air and turned to face a gorilla. “Come here!” With great enthusiasm, Mikhail spun his newly stolen weapon to swipe, sending several apes flying through the air. More plasma shots hit him, but he only roared and dived back in to fight harder than before. “How… is he… not tired!” Creel panted. “The Major has endless stamina for defending the Russian people,” Vanguard said. “It is inspiring. And also extremely annoying.” An orangutan dropped out of the sky to land in front of them. Vanguard didn’t have time to react before the six foot tall ape grabbed him by the neck and lifted him off the ground. Vanguard snarled, trying to breath through the pain. The orangutan slashed at his chest with the long steel claws on its other arm. Vanguard watched in near slow-motion as four blades sliced through his costume and skin, sending up a spray of blood. Up until they were stopped by an extremely tough material. Unknown to most, Vanguard’s enhancements included a subdermal body armor made of a combination of several lightweight materials, one of them being carbon. The four slash marks across his chest revealed that layer. The orangutan, being more near-machine-like, showed no reaction to this except to claw at him again. Vanguard snarled as his armor, despite preventing the blades from slashing any deeper, were unable to stop the bruising from the hit itself. Creel grabbed the orangutan before it could strike again, snapping it’s arms with brutal force. Vanguard dropped to the ground and spun around, thrusting the sharp tip of his shield deep into the beast’s chest. The worst part of fighting the apes was how emotionless they were. They roared at times, made small noises, but that seemed more a result of instinct. As the orangutan died, it simply stared at him emotionlessly. Another gorilla fired at Creel. Creel took the immense blast of plasma to his arm, the sheer heat of it burning off the remains of his clothes. Creel rushed the gorilla, grabbed it’s head and tore it off. Then he fell to his knees, coughing heavily. “Creel!” Vanguard grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him into cover, a soldier rushing past him to fire at their opponents. Vanguard held back a scream of pain when his hands met Creel’s form. Creel was hot. Almost insanely so. Only with the determination given to him by years of training was Vanguard able to ignore that to get Creel to cover behind a tree that had been destroyed. Vanguard eyed Creel, the superhuman still in Vibranium form, his shirt and pants scorched to almost nothing. “What is happening?” Creel coughed, leaning his head back against the log they were using for cover. “I… I haven’t really gotten this hot so fast before. Or for this long. I just need a sec.” Then Creel spun to his feet to stand behind Vanguard. Before Vanguard could say anything, the man was hit by more plasma shots. The temperature around Creel rose dramatically. Creel grabbed the log they’d been using as cover, lifting and tossing it at the shooters before falling to a knee. “...shit,” Creel whispered, staring down at himself. His metal carapace was unharmed. But anyone could see he was exhausted and in pain, panting heavily. His chest had noticeably taken on a slight red glow. Slowly, Creel rose up to his feet, still grimacing. Vanguard stared in silence as Creel, despite his pain, went into battle again. The metal man defended a male and female soldier from an ape, fought alongside Mikhail, battled against his pain to keep moving. Nikolai punched another opponent, ignoring the pain in his own chest from the claw marks that had torn through his skin. “Vanguard!” Fantasma’s voice came on over the radio as he continued to fight. “The nuke has been… diffused,” he took a moment to feel relief at the good news. “But we’re dealing with a lot of enemies. If this doesn’t stop soon-” Whatever she was about to say was cut off by another explosion as a plane from the sky crashed on the battlefield. Vanguard grit his teeth. Fantasma was right. If something didn’t end this soon, quantity would end up overrunning quality, no matter the strength of the Winter Guard, the russian military… or, he thought as he eyed Creel, the strength of the Avenger. ------ Mahmoud Schahed/Dial “There’s more coming in from the left!” Fantasma shouted. She was flying by while blasting out magic and slashing out with her violet sword. But I could tell she was flagging. Her face was red with exertion, and her magic was coming just a bit slowed. Each of her shields were faster to crack, forcing her to replace them faster. She was also casting illusions. I only knew that because, every once in a while, a group of monkeys were suddenly replaced by Russian soldiers and copies of my aliens. Then they would get jumped by their friends and get torn apart in seconds. It was unnerving, seeing Big Chill and Four Arms getting torn apart by mad robot apes. “Somebody cover the left, I need to focus!” Fantasma shouted desperately. “I got it,” Chernobog roared, ripping apart a mandrill to dive for a shaved chimp. He looked stranger than usual. His black form was slowly emitting black smoke like a leaky chimney, and his smile was less evil and angrier than I was used to. Apparently, he was feeling the pressure. I punched a gorilla in the gut, my huge fist crushing steel, then fired a nuclear blast to its face, melting its face off until I could see the skull. Fighting as NRG was weird. For one thing, I was struggling to move in the heavy armor I was wearing. My actual energy form was damn strong, but I still got slowed down by the heavy containment suit. Then, there was how I sent my blasts out while in the suit. I simply blasted my energy out from my actual body, and with no other way out thanks to my very tough suit, it would fire out through the face slits. It was weird like I was doing push ups and pull ups at the same time. Two very different muscles working in opposite directions. I raised a fist and slammed it on the head of another ape, crushing flesh and steel, then blasted another one. I was feeling great, to be honest. NRG may have been weird to move around as, but I was also powerful. It felt awesome, walking around in a badass suit of armor while firing blasts of pure energy. I punched another chimp, shattering it’s jaw, then scooped of a handful of lava off the cooling floor and tossing it at another, ignoring the punch that hit me from a gorilla. The big ape and I wrestled for a moment. His big belly and large arms were wrestling against my own bulky form. I eventually mimicked a sumo move Nat had taught me, pulling his hips in toward me while my upper half push. Taken off guard, he tumbled to the ground, where I blasted him in the chest, melting flesh and metal, finishing it with a footstomp. We were winning. But it wouldn’t last. There seemed to be no end to the servitors pouring in. Chernobog and Fantasma were both coming on the tail end of exhaustion, and while I was fresh thanks to the Omnitrix transforming me, I’d still time out sooner or later. Then, the lava heat around us would do the job. That or my newest frenemies would be dead. Something had to give, soon. ------ Phil Coulson “Guys, how is he doing this!? Is he like Ghost!?” Coulson yelled as he ducked yet more bullets from Kragoff. The Russian scientist had pulled out a AK-47 now, and was still going intangible in between shots. Hard to pin down too as he just ran through cover. “Doubtful!” Simmons yelled. “He doesn’t have the same sort of instability!” she yelped when another gunshot took out a vase nearby. “I don’t know, he seems pretty unstable right now,” Skye quipped, firing her plasma shots. They passed harmlessly through Kragoff, leaving him untouched. “None of you can stop this!” Kragoff shouted insanely. “The world will at last understand!” he fired his gun at Skye, then at Fitz, before aiming the assault rifle at May. “For Russia!” “Would you stop shouting that!?” Coulson returned. “No one is this stupid patriotic!” he stopped thoughtfully. “I mean, most people aren’t!” May had stopped shooting in the meantime. She clearly saw how useless the effort was and had instead focused on keeping Fitz-Simmons alive. “Coulson, we need to disable the servitors. Staying like this isn’t going to help the others.” Then Kragoff ran through her cover to stand in between them, forcing Coulson and May to dodge a hail of bullets. “Just die, damn you!” “Not happening, Kragoff!” Coulson returned. Underneath the bravado, his mind was racing. This was a waste of time. And that was the whole point for Kragoff, wasn’t it? This power of his was insanely useful, as Ghost had proven a dozen times. Ghost had already been on Coulson’s list of dangerous enemies he wouldn’t want to fight. Kragoff was only marginally less dangerous due to his old age slowing him down. And even then, he was pretty spry for an old man. But that was beside the point. The end point of all that was he was mostly just keeping them from doing the work that was important. Namely, uploading the virus that would shut down the servitors. Every time they got close to the computers, he would fire bullets like a mad man while coming close to punch and kick his old man best to keep them away. He was trying to kill them, sure. But he was also keeping them very specifically from the computers. Did he know about the virus? Or did he have something else in mind? Whatever the case, Coulson had a plan as he rolled alongside Kraven, who looked as frustrated as he felt. “Hey Kraven,” Coulson said idly. “Agent Coulson,” Kraven returned in a low growl. “Tell me you have a way to kill him.” “I don’t,” Coulson admitted freely. “But we’ve gotten, uh,” he tried to think of how to say it. “We’ve been distracted from our real ‘prey’. The servitors as a whole.” Kraven’s eyes widened in understanding. “...Agreed. We don’t need to kill Kragoff. Just stop him from stopping us.” “Can you distract him long enough for her to get here?” Coulson asked. “I think I can oblige,” Kraven smirked. He leapt over cover and ran for Kragoff. The old scientist raised his gun towards Kraven, firing away. Kraven dodged. Nevermind that it was technically impossible to dodge bullets. Kraven still dived out of the way, reminding Coulson of footage of Natasha Romanov pulling off similar maneuvers. Less dodging, more anticipating. The hunter dived in and sliced at Kragoff, who of course went intangible. Kraven kept slicing, forcing Kragoff to stay intangible while Coulson sent a message. Everyone watched as Kraven began to put on a master class in knife work. He sliced, dived, stabbed, and kicked. With insanely fast movements, he slashed down at the AK. His knife went through it, proving that Kragoff could at least make his weapons intangible as well. Kragoff, in response, began firing his gun wildly whenever he had a chance to, clearly trying to tag Kraven with anything he possibly could. Kraven kept being anywhere except in front of the gun, while also carefully guiding him to shoot away from the computers. Coulson watched carefully as he listened over the radio before finally shouting. “Kraven, now!” Kraven moved with incredible speed, clear away from Kragoff, taking a bullet to the leg for his trouble. Kragoff didn’t have time to enjoy that. The ceiling cracked open above him, then shattered apart into chunks of rubble, raining down on the intangible form of Kragoff. The ancient communist scientist barked out in anger. Suddenly hundreds of pounds of metal enveloped in electricity dropped down from the ceiling. The Crimson Dynamo landed in a crouch before rising to her full height. “Nice timing, Galina!” Coulson said with a grin. “Thank you!” she said in a cheery voice. Kragoff ran out of the rubble and started shooting at her. Bullets bounced off of her armor. She chuckled. “Really? Idiot.” Fitz-Simmons and Skye used her entrance to get to the computers. When Kragoff snarled and tried to hit them, Galina stepped in his way, blasting at the man with a single beam of electricity.. Kragoff went intangible, but was unable to shoot around Galina’s massive bulk to get to the others. For a moment, Coulson felt some relief that they had turned the tide. Then a loud wailing siren began to sound out. Kragoff smiled. “Finally!” He ran away from them, still shooting as he made his way to the other side of the room. May shot at him, Kraven tossed his blade, and Galina fired twin beams of lightning. All of it just passed through the man. “Too late!” He ran up to one of the many tanks in the room, one of the few that hadn’t been destroyed by random fire, and pulled a lever on it. As Skye and Fitz-Simmons hurriedly hacked his computers, the tank Kragoff had pulled the lever on shattered before the floor beneath it snapped open, revealing a hole. He dropped in as Kraven swiped at his neck. Kraven seemed ready to follow him into the hole before his eyes widened, the hunter diving aside the minute he saw what was in the hole. First, the nose cone rose out with slowly from the trapdoor. Sections of the floor around the hole began to fall inward. The sound of rocket engines filled the room with an insanely loud din, mixing with the alarms and Kragoff’s laughter. “A fucking escape rocket!?” someone yelled as the large gray rocket came out in full. It was shaped like a simple rocket one would find in any toy store, with the exception of the giant Soviet Union symbol of the sickle and hammer on the side and the green flames sending it shooting up into the air instead of the normal red flames. It was also shrunken down, being apparently made for one person. Galina fired her lightning bolts at it, scorching the side and making the engines flutter. But the rocket continued to climb. “Goodbye foul capitalists and national traitors!” Kragoff crowed. “Die in the fires of my retribution!” “He really is a Bond villain!” Coulson shouted, looking over at Skye and Fitz-Simmons. “Can you stop him?” ‘We have bigger problems!” Skye returned as she typed at her holoscreen, a frantic look on her face. “He’s activated a self-destruct! It’s going to destroy the entire complex!” “We’ve got seconds, and the computer is already working on the virus!” Simmons added. “Here!” Galina opened up her armor, hopping out of it with a section of keyboard attached to the thing. The young engineer rushed over to them. “I can help with the self-destruct!” “Then I’ve got the virus,” Skye agreed. All the while the rocket engine continued to roar as it ripped through the last section of roof. Kragoff laughing all the while. Coulson continued to watch. After a while, he walked over to a chair and sat down. “Coulson?” May in confusion. Kraven walked up to join them. He looked between them. “Hey. What else can I do at this point? Might as well enjoy the show.” Kraven gave Coulson a long look, then looked around. Galina, Skye, Fitz, and Simmons were working frantically at the computers. The rocket, flying on jets similar to the ones the monkeys had been using, was now exiting the ceiling. There was damage everywhere, a tiny worker monkey still blithely working on making more servitors. He sighed. “Yes. I suppose that is all we can do… A self-destruct and an escape rocket though?” “Right? I’m telling ya, he’s a Bond villain,” Coulson leaned back in his chair as he watched the rocket finally disappear into the sky. “Shouldn’t it be too hot for us to survive this close to a launch?” “Not with the thrusters he choose to use,” Fisk said idly nearby. Then he cursed, pressing frantically at a keyboard. “Damn it, damn it-!” “Here!” Skye shouted back. “Okay and… got it!” Galina crowed. Fisk collapsed backward in relief. Meanwhile Skye watched while biting her bottom lip as a bar on her screen uploaded. For a long while, the bar seemed to freeze. Then she sighed in relief, turning to look at the others. The alert sound that had been ringing out stopped. The monkey workers, still working so diligently, fall to the floor like puppets getting their strings cut. “...We’re saved,” Coulson said in awe. ------ Nikolai Krylenko/Vanguard Vanguard looked around the battle. A servitor fell out of the sky to slam into the ground with an explosion of green. A gorilla, once so formidable, fell to its knees, then to its face, losing the green glow about it. The red-clad hero walked along the field. In the forests beyond, soldiers who had been fighting slowly walked out. Mikhail came up to him, the large bear-man panting heavily. Together, they watched hundreds of apes slowly shut down, dropping to land in the bloody dirt and remains of life that had covered the field. More fell from the skies. Solemnly, Vanguard looked around. Then he sighted one of the warriors lying on the ground nearby. “Creel!” Vanguard rushed over the taller man, turning him to face up. The bald superhuman was staring up with wide eyes as he stayed in vibranium form. “Creel!” “N-Need a minute,” Creel coughed. He looked down at his gauntlet. The device was mostly intact, but still had cracks all over the surface. “I-I-I can’t risk changing back until I cool down.” Vanguard noted that as a possible weakness. On a much more important note… “Here,” Vanguard began piling some snow next to Creel. There wasn’t much. A lot had been trampled or melted by the running feet and the plasma blasts. “For once, Russia’s cold will aid an outsider, rather than her people.” Creel chuckled weakly. “Poetic.” “I am ever the soul of poetry,” Vanguard said without a hint of humor. Mikhail watched the team leader of Winter Guard tend to an American criminal turned Avenger, noting the soldiers gathering around and cheering for the victory won. ------ Mahmoud Schahed/Dial I watched the servitors fall to the ground around us, some of the molten stone splashing with the bodies that fell into it. For a long moment, it was quiet. Then I heard Fantasma panting, obviously exhausted. When I looked up, she was still floating over the battlefield, staring down in disbelief. “...W-We’re done?” she said softly. Still in NRG form, I nodded. She looked like she was about to pass out, but was holding back. Realizing the problem, I mentally shifted my form. “Big Chill!” Back in giant mothman form, I released a cool mist. The molten stones around me quickly solidified, sometimes bubbling at random. After a few moments of this, the temp dropped enough that it was safe. Fantasma slowly floated down until she almost fell. I flew up to help her down, wrapping her arm around my shoulders to support her. As we came down to the floor covered in frosted over servitor corpses and formerly molten stone Chernobog flowed over to us as we landed. “So, we’re done?” he asked casually. I tapped the Omnitrix, returning to human form with a sigh. “Yeah. I think we’re done,” I shrugged to get Fantasma closer so I could take more of her weight. My armor was much thinner than before, the prolonged combat having destroyed large chunks of catoms, Fantasma had a magically healing wound on her leg that was surrounded in purple sparks, and Chernobog looked like he was fading away. We’d been hit hard. I’m pretty sure if the Omnitrix hadn’t been around, we’d have lost. Thank you, Azmuth. “Good,” Chernobog grunted. We turned and walked toward the exit. “I need a drink,” Fantasma mumbled. “And a spa treatment.” “Never had one of those,” I said as we exited to the hallway, passing the three super-apes we’d killed early. “I can tell. You have terrible skin,” she said idly. Chernobog chuckled. Then he sighed. “Well… this has been fun. But I’m done.” Fantasma stiffened against me. “Chernobog...” “Nope,” he said with a note of satisfaction. “I don’t give a fuck what those morons said about ‘secrets of the nation’, I’m done. I’m overdue for a nap, and the other guy can walk the rest of the way home.” “Wait,” I said, starting to get an inkling of what they were talking about. After all, not only was I a nerd, I was also a friend of Bruce Banners. Chernobog, the tall being that had been the bane of my existence for the past day, exuded smoke at a fast rate. The chilly black wisps blew past as he shrank down. I watched with eyebrows raised as the big inky black figure of nightmares disappeared, getting sucked into a pale form underneath. The man who stood there instead was almost disappointingly small in comparison. I mean, he wasn’t tiny or anything, but he gave the same feeling as Bruce in some ways. All that power, itty-bitty living space. He wore a simple black button up shirt and some slacks, a pair of glasses, his head was balding at the top, and he had a short and well-groomed beard. He looked like someone’s dad. The man adjusted his glasses. “H-Hello. My name is Aleksei Smirnov.” “...Nice to meet you?” I said questioningly. We stood there awkwardly for a moment. Aleksei coughed. “I’d, uh, I’d better let everyone else know we’re okay,” I said, reaching for my Omnitrix and tapping it to open the comm. ------ Phil Coulson “I’m glad you guys are safe, Dial,” Coulson said through his own comm unit. He looked up at the others in the room and raised a thumb up. Skye was already sighing in relief, Fitz-Simmons smiling while Kraven nodded firmly. Galina and May didn’t show much reaction that most would notice, but Coulson could tell May was satisfied, and guessed Galina was relieved. “We heard from Vanguard’s group a while ago,” Coulson continued. “They’re all right, but Creel was injured. Something about overheating? It’s not something we’ve encountered with his abilities before, so he’s being sent to the basecamp infirmary to make sure he’s all right.” A series of loud yells came from the comm. Coulson swaed in place calmly as Dial continued to ask frantic questions before interrupting. “We’ll be getting out soon Dial, and Simmons will take a look at him immediately. She’s pretty eager to figure out what is going on.” “Because I’m worried about Creel!” Simmons protested. Coulson gave her a look. She quivered silently. “...And yes, because I’m thinking about the science as well,” she admitted. “But it’s mostly to help Creel!” Coulson chuckled. “Well we will-” “Wait,” Galina interrupted. She was at the computer again. She frowned at it. “A timer just started on the computer.” Everyone snapped around to stare at the screen. 10 9 “Are you bloody kidding me!?” Fitz shouted in frustration. “We have to go,” Coulson told Dial calmly. ------ Outside, the trainyard was quiet. Dozens of servitors lay across tracks and rusted hulks, and portions of the walls and other sections were still smoking from the recent battle. The quiet was ruined when two beings carrying others flew out of a shattered rooftop. For exactly six seconds, everything was peaceful except for the sounds of the group rocketing upward as fast as they could go. Then a loud cracking sound filled the air. The explosion that followed started at the edges of the trainyard in a massive circle. Then they cascaded inward, over and over, the ground buckling, fire rising along with dirt and corpses. For a moment, the world was fire. Trees all around were blown back by the sheer force of it. Coulson, hanging tightly to Skye’s hand, grit his teeth as he was buffeted by the winds from the blast, May holding Skye’s other hand getting just as battered. Skye screamed as she climbed higher and higher to avoid the shockwave. When it hit, she’d managed to get far enough away. Once the world had stopped shaking, the group looked down at the destroyed remains of the former lab/nightmare factory. Fitz-Simmons had been carried in Crimson Dynamo’s arms, while Kraven had simply clutched to her back, the two scientists staring down in horror at the crater that had replaced the trainyard. Coulson looked up at Skye. “Were you able to get anything from the computers?” Skye gave him a stunned look, gulped, then nodded. “Y-Yeah! I’m not sure how much, but I still managed to download a lot!” “Good,” Coulson looked back down that crater. “Good. Because we aren’t done with Kragoff. None of us are.” With that ominous note, the sun began to rise in the distance, illuminating the smoke trail left by Kragoff’s ascent. ------ Mahmoud Schahed/Dial I helped Fantasma up the stairs with my new best friend Aleksei the dark god, the three of us slowly making our way up. When we got to the top, some rubble was blocking the way. New rubble, I mean, not the rubble from earlier. “Great,” Fantasma said sarcastically. “I got it,” I said with a grin. Flipping through the menu on the Omnitrix, I went through the options. “I just got NRG, so I kinda want an excuse anyway.” “Is, uh,” Aleksei adjusted his glasses. “Is he really the most appropriate for this?” “He’ll work,” I pressed down on the Omnitrix. Light surrounded me, followed by the massive grey suit of the nuclear alien. “NRG!” With great enthusiasm, I punched upward, then pushed. Stones as large as cars were pushed aside with ease. I laughed. “Yes! I am most impressive my friends!” “Now I know how you feel around Chernobog,” Aleksei the secret keeper of evil said to Fantasma. “No, he’s not nearly as bad,” Fantasma said, though not unkindly. Aleksei chuckled. All of a sudden, the massive weight I’d been lifting got a lot easier to pick up. With another shove, we were free. Mikhail and Vanguard were there to meet us. They helped me shift aside some of the stones to give room for the exhausted Aleksei and Fantasma. “It is good to see you, comrades!” I said cheerily. Vanguard and Mikhail stopped lifting stones. They turned to look at me. “What? Is something wrong?” “...You had better not be talking that way on purpose,” Vanguard snarled. Uh oh. Yeah. The rest of the day was a lot more fun after that, thankfully. And less scary.