***Four Months Later***
«Is everyone ready and remembering what they're supposed to do? - Arclight asked, looking round at the team.
«Break into a secure base filled with heavily armed men and blow the brains out of the golden goose? - Gambit grinned back.
«But why are me and the kid going in? - Puma, who is always dissatisfied with everything, was indignant.
«Because I and Remy will distract the forces of the base on themselves. And nothing attracts attention like an earthquake with explosive special effects, - said Philippa smiling bloodthirstily.
«Let's get started! - Arclight commanded, rushing forward, knocking down a section of the concrete wall with a single blow.
Once inside, we split up - we each had our own goals. Puma and I would make our way to the target and eliminate it. Gambit and Arclight would divert the enemy forces. Shocker will take care of powering the bunker outside, then use his development to fire a super EMP at the generators underground, de-energising the bunker and removing the possibility of a quick lockdown. This base relies too much on technology! By the way, I haven't told you who our target is. It's the lovely, elderly Hydra head Daniel Whitehall. Our good friend is a true Nazi who served under Hitler's command.
You're probably wondering, why on earth would anyone want to kill an old man who's well into his 90s? It's quite simple: Grandpa got drunk on rejuvenated apples. Well, or squeezed all the organs from a non-human vampire - whichever option you think is more realistic. In general, our friend was rejuvenated and decided to start taking power from the younger heads of a kind and tolerant organisation. These young people, who are only over 40, surprisingly, did not show patience and understanding to his actions and ordered him to us, agreeing to give each of them a lam on the snout.
And so... As Thomas and I ran, exterminating members of an ancient dark cult, I thought about how bad it must have been for our target to spend all those 30-40 years in prison with such a surname. I even felt sorry for my grandfather and decided to kill him quickly.
You might wonder: why did they agree to pay us such a large sum of money? It's quite simple: during these months our team has been on the radar of the military, having fulfilled an order to protect their weapons shipments. We also did well in the eastern conflicts, destroying a couple of bases on orders. And the cherry on the cake was our mission in Texas, when we were able to stop Potok. Gad was very badass and strong. This weirdo got hit by the same radiation as Benner, but unlike his counterpart, he was able to retain his intelligence, though that's probably the reason he wasn't as strong as the Hulk. What the dude was unlucky about was the transformation, which he had permanently. And it would've been OK if he didn't look like a -3 on a scale of ten, with bloating all over his body and bones sticking out that miraculously didn't pierce his green skin. We had a lot of trouble, but we were able to exhaust and capture the bastard. That's why our green something is sitting in a secret prison somewhere under Ross' supervision.
Breaking through my future colleagues, I used Thomas as a human shield, which quickly took the guys out of the game with accurate shots to the head. They didn't even have time to notice me, though I wouldn't put their inattention down to my stealth skill. It was more the effect of a two-metre tall humanoid cougar that ignored bullets pretty well and regenerated maybe a little weaker than Wolverine. While my friend was ripping apart one agent, I was already managing to put holes in the heads of the other two.
After some time and a bunch of corpses, we met an old acquaintance of mine. It happened at a new turn, when Puma, who had run round the corner, flew out of there and left a fairly accurate mould of himself in the wall. I, on the other hand, prepared for the worst, saw Creel emerge from around the corner, having absorbed the properties of some metal. Realising the futility of my actions, I still fired a couple of bullets at his head and watched as they colourfully gave off a pillar of sparks as they collided with his forehead. Looks like there's no need to transform this time. Taking full form, I notice Carl slip his hand into the pouch on his belt and his skin changes to some sort of crystal-like appearance. Puma is just recovering at that moment and throws himself at my former bodyguard. I, on the other hand, watch as my colleague's claws and fangs can't even leave a scratch on Creel's new form. And I realise that I will have to repeat my trick a second time and make the bald man consider himself the victim of two terrible animals who somehow managed to cancel his ability and defeated the poor man in an unequal fight - two on one.
«Puma, keep going! I'll hold him off," I shouted, diverting Creel's attention with a light grenade from my belt.
Having managed to turn away unlike Carl, I was able to get close to him and start reciting a mantra. After a couple of minutes he was already in my grasp, and taking advantage of that, I made him memorise our battle in a new way, and then launched him backwards, managing to give the command to contain the enemy forces, killing all the Hydra agents in the process, and passing out on the way out of the building.
Finished here, I set off to follow Puma. When I reached the fork, which was not on the plans we had managed to get, I decided to trust my luck and turned left. As I ran through the maze of corridors, I nearly lost my head when a clawed hand emerged from the room on the right. As I dodged, I felt someone behind me, and at the last moment I managed to jump up, catching my claws on the ceiling. I was quite startled, as my sense of smell and hearing had never failed me before! Looking round at the two attackers, I saw men in black uniforms and with strange masks on their faces. One of them had claws on his fingers, even longer than mine. The uniform of the other had open sleeves, and his arms were completely covered in wool and ended in the same claws.
«Are you sure this is what you want? - I asked them, even though I already knew the answer to my question.
I heard something resembling a growl, and they lunged at me. As they dodged, I noticed that their physical capabilities were extremely high, and if their actions had been less beastly rage and more tactical, and I, in turn, had not possessed acceleration, I would have at least had a number of serious injuries. But in such a state they were blindly throwing themselves at me, not even trying to take advantage of their numerical advantage. The one with the claws sometimes tried to take advantage of my divided attention, but the hairy one got in the way and acted as if the world would end if he didn't kill me.After destroying a couple of rooms and depriving the hairy one of his hands and the clawed one of his fingers, and damaging the muscles in both of their legs, I continued on my way. Not knowing what awaited me next.
Travelling for another seven minutes at top speed, I finally saw the squad that was leading Whitehall to the secret passage. These geniuses seemed to have realised that all power sources had been knocked out, and sitting below amounted to simply waiting to die. When he saw me, I noticed the fear that flashed in his eyes, but, overcoming his stupor, he managed to give some sort of order to two men in uniforms I already knew. They put on their masks, and then their transformation began. The two men were a boy and a girl. Their appearance underwent more drastic changes: legs and arms became similar to mine, only the girl had bald areas in some places, which were occupied by scales of dark green colour.
With a growl, they lunged at me, and this time I used acceleration not to shorten the fight, but to get a chance to get out of it alive. Unlike the previous couple, they worked well in tandem: the girl was very agile and cornered me, but the guy was like a hammer, tearing down walls and tearing off giant chunks. His arms had at least doubled in size after the transformation. Dodging and negating some of their attacks, I was extremely grateful to Philippa - without her training over the months, I wouldn't have lasted a couple of minutes against them. Waiting for the moment when the lizard made a slip, I was able to pierce its chest and, by feel, hit the heart. It was even in its last moments of life trying to inflict wounds on me.
Seeing what had happened to his girlfriend, the guy remained surprisingly cold-blooded and continued trying to tear me apart. I began to realise that I didn't have enough speed to be able to use his windows after the attacks without getting hit for it, and as I was about to put points into agility, I heard the door open behind me and the sound of a bolt being pulled. Realising that the room was about to get hot, I was about to try and break through and make my new friend stand between the lead and me. But my plans were cut short by an extremely unexpected kick to the leg from - what I thought was - a dead girl. Before I could dodge, I felt myself hit three times, and then, before I could get another shot of lead, I was sent flying in one blow. When I hit the wall, I was, to put it mildly, fucked: I had three bullet wounds, one of my legs was out of commission, and my ribs now resembled a broken jigsaw puzzle. Realising that I couldn't maintain the transformation in this state any longer, using all my remaining strength, I managed to pull the mask from the back of my head to my face.
Surprisingly, I didn't receive a new portion of lead, and I wasn't even sealed to the floor. Then I heard footsteps from behind that door and realised that the person approaching me was Whitehall.
«Well, well, well, well. And who ordered me, eh? - asked a man with a slight grey in his hair and silly glasses.
«Which one of these kids thought he was the smartest? You don't have to answer - I'll find out for myself, because unlike them, I realise that patience is the highest virtue. Ninety-six, finish the job.
After his order, the guy headed towards me and, realising that I was about to be finished, I began to think quickly about how to save my ass. Realising that my body was fucked up and even if I got out of here, the odds of me surviving would not be that high, I threw 125 points into my stamina and immediately felt how my injuries didn't hurt so much that I had to devote all my energy to staying conscious.
Perhaps it was the nearness of death, or maybe the lessening of the pain, that made my brain finally remember the teleport ticket. But when I realised that I wouldn't be able to use it, I felt shame mixed with an insanely strong desire to live, and maybe it was a gift from above, but it stopped for some reason.
«Why did you stop? I told you to kill him! - Whitehall said irritably.
But I had had enough of that hesitation. I realised that even now, if I didn't get help fast enough, I'd go to heaven. So, teleporting away, I decided that if I was going to go to the other side, I'd go with music! So I started up an auto-select track to suit the situation.
***
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