The air was a blade. Cold, thin and smelling sharply of pine needles and industrial ozone. Elara was one with the shadow. She pressed flat against the rough, freezing bark of a Black Forest spruce. The ceramic mask covering her lower face was cold comfort, an anonymous shield. Below, nestled deep in the hidden valley, the Hydra Research Division 4 (HRD-4) complex was a scar of reinforced steel and dull grey concrete. The forest silence was a lie Elara knew she would soon shatter.
"Confirming visual on the eastern perimeter, Krasavitsa." Elara murmured, her voice was a low, steady vibration against the mic.
"Confirmed Enchantress. Temperature and wind shear are stable. No abnormal electromagnetic signatures within Sector Delta-9. Path is optimal. Thirty second window to breach." A calm, slightly British female voice answered in her private internal comms.
"Thanks, Gaia." Elara replied, the slightest tension easing from her shoulders. The AI was her constant, her unblinking mirror of control.
"She just called the AI 'Beautiful'. I swear, outwo are getting serious. Is this why you haven't had a date in three years? Gaia is setting the standard too high?" The dry familiar voice of Clint Barton crackled in the shared channel.
"Relax, Barton. I was complimenting her Krasavitsa scan profile, which is exponentially more reliable than your current sightlines. And I am a very busy person. I do not have time to date those who can't manage a non lethal takedown without resorting to a bow and arrow." Elara said as her lips twitched, hidden beneath the mask.
"Ouch. Too soon, Enchantress. Too soon. The bow is an elegant solution to an uncivilized problem." Clint sighed dramatically from his perch two hundred meters away.
"Children. Focus. Elara, you have ninety seconds to breach the server core junction before the patrol cycle resets. I need to be inside the system four minutes after your breach. Clint, sedative darts only. No permanent damage. We need this intel clean." Natasha Romanoff's voice cut the banter short, a focused beam of professional precision.
Elara didn't respond with words, only motion. She checked the pair of custom-made carbon-fiber batons strapped to her lower back. They were heavy, reassuring proof of the skills that were her own, not her curse. She adjusted the twin Glock 19s at her hips.
"Gaia, initiate infiltration sequence Beta-7. I need a clean bypass on the perimeter fence's electric pulse frequency." Elara said as she activated the thermal overlay on her HUD.
"Executing. Adjusting sensor profile. Bypass device primed, Enchantress. Minimize the theatrics, please." Gaia replied.
Elara moved. It was a fluid, silent displacement of shadow across the frozen scrubland. She reached the razor wire fence in a rush, affixing the specialized device to the junction box. The resulting shower of sparks was brief, silent, and smothered instantly by the snow.
"Gate is down. Going in hot but quiet." Elara whispered.
"We know. Moving to my position now. Remember, Elara, footwork, not fire." Natasha reminded her, the emphasis a soft, vital warning.
Elara confirmed with a breath and dropped into the narrow, cold ventilation shaft leading into the sub-level maintenance tunnels.
The tunnel spat her out into a brightly lit corridor. Two agents rounded the corner, rifles slung low, distracted by their comm chatter.
Elara was a blur. The first agent never saw her coming. Clint's training hammered into action. A precise baton strike to the temple, stunning him, followed by a knee to the solar plexus. The second agent lifted his rifle, too slow. Natasha's moves took over. Elara dropped low, sweeping his legs out. As he fell, her elbow drove into the nerve cluster behind his jaw. Both hit the polished linoleum floor soundlessly.
"Takedown successful. Two targets neutralized. No noise." Elara reported, dragging the bodies into a closet. She swiped the keycard and slipped into the highly trafficked central junction.
"Junction secured. Romanoff, you're clear to move in. I'm heading to Sub-Level 3, detention block. Clint, watch my six. I'll draw the reinforcements." Elara ordered.
"In position." Natasha confirmed. Elara moved, firing two precise, suppressed shots into the ceiling light fixtures as she ran, plunging the junction into chaotic red emergency light and shadow.
Natasha entered the junction thirty seconds later, moving with devastating economy. Her target was the main server farm, protected by a blast door. She attached a shaped charge.
"Gaia, receiving secondary?" Natasha asked into her earpiece.
"Affirmative, Agent Romanoff. Z-protocol encryption is initiating a lockdown. The explosion will grant you five seconds. Initiating brute-force entropy calculations now. Detonating in five, four, three…"
KABOOM!
The titanium door shrieked inward. Natasha was through the smoke instantly. Three armed agents were scrambling from their workstations. She dropped one with a shock from her Widow's Bites. She vaulted a server rack, pulling her collapsible staff, using the momentum to sweep a second agent's legs and striking him cleanly on the neck. The third agent fired wildly. Natasha launched a flash grenade and finished him with a tranquilizer dart.
"Gaia, I'm in. Initiating download. Project Chimera files. ETA?" Natasha plunged the data stick into the port.
"Download initiated. Transfer rate is optimal. Estimated time for complete extraction, thirty seconds. Agent Barton is currently engaging significant hostiles on the outer ring." Gaia reported.
Natasha watched the blinking light on the stick, her entire focus laser locked on the mission. Thirty seconds. Every tick felt like a punch.
Clint Barton, high up in the cold dark, sighted down his scope.
"Hydra's welcome wagon is pulling out, Enchantress. South entry road. Six armored vehicles, twenty-four confirmed targets. Running a pincer movement. They're predictable." Clint reported, his voice tight with controlled focus.
Twang. Clint's first arrow, a high-concussion tip, struck the lead Humvee's front axle, causing it to spin and block the muddy road completely.
"One down, twenty-four confused customers to go." Clint noted dryly. He loaded a gas arrow, targeting the air intake vent on the northern wing.
Twang.
"Gaia, fire solution for the remaining four hostiles. Two running, two pinned. Advise."
"Fire solution calculated, Agent Barton. Target the nearest exposed electrical conduit. A localized power surge will incapacitate without causing significant structural damage." Gaia responded.
"The accidental self incapacitation plan. Love the classics." Clint grinned, though his eyes were sharp and cold.
He fired the arrow, cutting the cable. Sparks flew, arcing into the wet ground. The two running agents stepped into the electrical field and dropped. Clint rapidly fired two sedative darts, silencing the last of the flanking team.
"Perimeter secure. All hostiles neutralized. Northern flank is sleepy. Extraction zone is clear." Clint reported.
"Your turn, Enchantress. Get out of there." Clint said.
"I am trying." Elara responded.
Elara was in Sub-Level 3. She had just freed the four scientists from cell Gamma when the air defense alarms blared. It was a low, deafening Klaxon, signaling a system wide, critical response.
"Gaia, report!" Elara demanded, shoving the lead scientist toward the stairwell.
"Directorate override, Enchantress. Counter containment executed. All exit routes are compromised." Gaia's voice was strained.
"Main stairwell and service lift are sealed by reinforced steel blast doors. Agent Romanoff is trapped in the server junction. Agent Barton is pinned on the surface by rapid fire laser grids. You are entirely isolated."
"Hydra has activated a dedicated counter ventilation system for this block. They are attempting to flush the entire floor with a high dose nerve agent to neutralize the assets." Maria Hill's voice cut in over the secure channel, frantic.
"Wait. What? What are you doing in this channel?"
"Director Fury wants me to keep watch on this mission."
"What? Why?" Elara asked as her eyes scanned everything around her and her mind was running at full speed processing the info she just received.
"No, wait. Don't answer that. I don't truly want to know nor do I care."
"Enchantress, you are running out of time, get out now! Abandon the assets! That's an order!"
"Negative, Hill. We don't leave people behind," Elara snarled, pulling the four scientists back behind a heavy console.
CRACK!
A massive blast door slammed down, sealing the corridor behind her. She was now facing ten heavily armored agents advancing rapidly, their weapons locked on the assets.
"Enchantress! Stand down! Surrender the assets!" The leader roared.
"Natasha? Clint? Report." Elara asked, praying that both of them are doing fine.
"Blast doors sealed me in! They're initiating a forced shutdown! I'm taking heavy fire from the observation deck!" Natasha's voice was sharp with fear for Elara.
"I'm stuck! I can't get to the stairwell! You're on your own, Elara! Take the shot! Go!" Clint's voice was sheer, desperate panic.
The metallic scent of the nerve agent was already slipping through the vents. Elara knew the terrifying truth. A precise kinetic shot would breach the blast doors, but the delay would expose the scientists to the gas. Only one option remained. The one she had sworn to her family she would never use.
No. Not them. Not again.
The trauma of her captivity, the faces of the people she was forced to kill, flashed behind her eyes. If she failed here, she would lose the only family she had left.
She dropped her weapons. The cold, impenetrable shield she wore snapped, replaced by a devastating, raw resolve.
"Gaia. Prepare for a full-spectrum, coordinated elemental deployment. No holds barred. Calculate the minimum force necessary to breach a four-meter hole through reinforced concrete and steel, creating a vertical exit route while maintaining a localized clean air pocket for the assets. This is non-negotiable." Her voice was a low, terrifying growl, the air pressure in the room dropping visibly.
"Enchantress, the energy expenditure, it will register continent wide. The instability is calculated at sixty-five percent risk." Gaia warned, her smooth voice strained.
"Execute, Gaia! Now!"
Elara squeezed her eyes shut, drawing on the raw, terrifying chaos. The world dissolved into pure, screaming energy.
Her eyes snapped open. They were no longer blue. They pulsed with a devastating electric blue light. The temperature in the corridor fell to instantaneous freezing, then immediately surged to searing heat, creating a visible shimmer. The concrete walls wept moisture and steam.
She held out both hands. With her left, she focused cryokinetic power, instantly flash freezing ten feet of floor in front of the advancing agents. The ice was brittle, cracking with a sound like a rifle shot. With her right, she focused pure pyrokinetic energy, superheating a two-meter circle of the ceiling above the frozen floor.
Ice and Fire. Destruction and surgical precision.
She drove a concentrated burst of seismic energy (Earth) into the floor itself. The combined shockwave, hitting the fractured ice and the superheated ceiling, caused a controlled, vertical explosion.
The floor beneath the agents' feet shattered, dropping them screaming into the maintenance level below. Simultaneously, the ceiling above the reinforced console blew upward, creating a clean, four meter shaft of debris-free air. A perfect escape hatch.
Finally, Elara unleashed the last element. Air. She brought her hands together, creating an instantaneous, powerful vortex of purified, high pressure air. It pushed the incoming nerve agent back down the corridor and stabilized the atmosphere around the scientists and herself.
The raw energy recoiled, hitting her like a physical shockwave. Her legs buckled, and she fell to her knees, gasping, the electric blue light receding, leaving her eyes burning blue and strained.
"Exit secured. Come on guys, climb! Move!" Elara choked out, pushing herself back up. She dragged a rope from her pack and tossed it into the hole. She start helping all the assets to climb up the rope and through the hole.
"Agent Romanoff is clear and moving to the surface. Agent Barton has secured a rope descent into the ventilation shaft near the surface breach. You are clear to ascend, Enchantress!" Gaia commanded.
Elara shoved the last scientist up the rope and using the last of her strength, climbed after them. She tumbled onto the snow covered roof beside a white faced, trembling Clint.
"What was that?" Clint demanded, his voice thin, devoid of his usual snark.
"You took out three floors! You registered on the Helicarrier like a localized nuke, Elara!"
"It was necessary, Clint," she managed, pushing herself to her feet. The emotional shield snapped back into place.
"Get us out of here."