Just keep moving just keep moving!
Who: Kate and Jemma What: Fighting some Paradooms and losing When: Today Where: The Agency. Starting in one of the labs and ending at B level Underground Garage Status: complete Rating/Warnings: R for brutal deaths
Usually, the Agency building was a safe zone. Heavily reinforced and magically warded, with a shielding system literally from outer space, Kate never really worried when she was there. But the fighting outside had gotten more and more intense and she’d retreated inside, grateful the twins were not in town.
Except the demon things were starting to break through the defenses.
“Get to the bunkers.” She pointed at the remaining staff, “I’ll sweep the building, get to safety and hold the line, I don’t want to know what these things could do with what’s in the vault.”
Not even waiting, Kate jumped up and phased through the ceiling to the next level, repeating her orders. There were maybe thirty people left in the building and if she could get most of them to safety she would.
Assuming the vault and the lower levels could hold. They were designed to survive an asteroid impact, but Kate knew damn well how powerful the dreams could be.
She heard the sound of shattering glass as she reached the labs.
Jemma was not a fan of this at all. She’d been out in the field and it was chaos. The amount of death and destruction. She had seen a lot of horrible things in her Dreams. She had seen a lot of horrible things here but they had always managed to pull through. Every time things had seemed impossible, they ended up working out.
Not without a lot of pain in the process, but they worked out. And while Jemma wasn’t one to put much stock into ‘faith’ in that things would always work out, instead having faith in math and science, she knew the pattern. And the pattern was things would somehow work out.
Right now she wasn’t so sure about that.
She’d managed to get back to the Agency, needing to restock. Not just her medical bag, but the pulsors she used to try and keep the Paradooms at bay.
Except the lab had been breached and she quickly grabbed a fire extinguisher to use as a weapon. Not like it would do much good but Jemma wasn’t about to go down without a fight.
She could have gone looking for Nat first, but she liked Jemma. Not that she hated Nat, but there were degrees and she considered Jemma closer.
Besides, it was really good she'd come here first, considering.
"Oh no no no you don’t she still owes me a date," Kate said, bolting through a table and then leaping up and driving a katana into one of the Paradooms. They were tough, but she pushed it back and then phased it into the wall before dodging out of the way of one of its friends.
She was exhausted, and it was harder than it should have been, either from that or from the sneaking suspicion she had that they were figuring out her tricks.
"This is a death trap, we need to get out of here."
With Kate showing up, Jemma felt part of her relax while another part of her seemed to tense in worry. Given how intense these things were, it wasn’t like she wanted to see her in danger. But Kate was an X-Men, they both were unable to stay back when there were people in danger and Kate just had more fighting abilities than Jemma. Oh, she had her own experience. Between Natasha and the Dreams, she could hold her own but in the end, she was better suited for the lab and medical and not so much in fighting.
Because makeshift weapons were not viable against these things.
How had Raven survived all of this in her Dreams? That was what she wanted to know.
But right.
“You don’t have to tell me twice.” She had what she had come for, now it was getting them out of there.
"I'm so sorry about this." Kate whirled around kicking over some of the chemicals and other compounds that Jemma had stored in the lab. Then she grabbed Jemma's hand and tugged her beneath one of the Paradooms and out the door. turning around, she flung a lit lighter back into the lab.
At least some of those compounds had to be combustable, right? She didn't bother to look as she took off running again, but the rumble and sudden heat behind them told her she was right.
"Do you know where Romanoff is?" Kate asked. As they ran, she was tapping commands into her phone. Throughout the Agency heavy security doors started to slide into place.
There was an elevator shaft nearby; risky, but the quickest way down and deep enough into the building that the paradooms hadn't penetrated it.
Probably.
Part of Jemma was upset about the destruction of her lab, but honestly? Survival was better. Things could be replaced. People not so much. So she would just deal with it. Instead there was running and trying to avoid the paradooms.
What was it about elevators and fires? Oh right. Don’t. But also it was probably the fastest way. So they’d have to risk it.
“Weapons caches I think, but I’m not positive.”
Hence Kate's apology!
With how strong they were, safety in numbers. Kate was loathe to leave Nat on her own but there were several levels to go up; less than down but down equated to safety or at least some kind of safety.
"Elevators are down but we can use the ladder, or we can take the stairs." Think fast think fast. Ladder might be faster, but if they were caught it would be harder to fight. And if she phased them down she'd be useless in a fight; she'd already expended too much energy going up.
"Stairs." She held out her sword, "Think you can use this?"
Clenching her right fist, she made a long, razor sharp claw slide out from between her knuckles. It hurt, since she hadn't done it in awhile, "I can use this."
Sacrifices sometimes had to be made and so while there was part of her that was upset, it didn’t last. This was the work they did after all, the risks they knew about. And of course the elevators were down because that would be easy. No matter.
Stairs made sense and took the sword.
“Yeah. I can use that.”
She wasn’t nearly as skilled at weapons as others but she could make do. She had some training after all. Wince in sympathy though as Kate made a claw come forward.
"Really sorry about the lab, we'll get you a new one. Always did like coming down to pester you."
The stairs were, well, larger than most buildings, on account of some of the dreamers that were known or suspected to exist. It made it less claustrophobic at least and Kate was grateful there was room to maneuver.
"So," she said, sliding down the railing and landing on the next floor. "I found this Mediterranean place that keeps kosher. It might be nice to try. I've been trying to do better that way this year."
The stairwell shuddered, and roaring could be heard above them, and Kate sang, in a panicked Finding Dory style, "Just keep moving just keep moving!"
“It’s fine. That wasn’t the lab with the more unique equipment.” It wasn’t like some of the things could be replaced since they came from the Dreams. And one of the reasons she was relieved there were a handful of labs for different purposes. “I know, it’s almost like you get paid for it.”
Less claustrophobic was always a good thing. Despite time to deal with Dream trauma, Jemma was still a bit claustrophobic. “Yeah? That sounds good. Though I’m sure between you, Raven and myself, we could easily keep the kitchen here kosher if we wanted.”
Before talking about keeping things kosher and the date or however it turned out could be had, there was roaring and what could be thought of as an earthquake if they didn’t know any better.
“Got it.” And kept moving, picking up her pace to get down the stairs.
Faster faster faster. Kate kept listening for the sounds of the Paradooms above them while keeping an eye below them for any unpleasant surprises.
Amazingly, they made it all the way to the garage, which meant just a quick sprint across to one of the entrances to the vast underground complex that snaked beneath the building and probably the closest thing to safety they could find. The Worst Escort Quest Ever was almost over.
A car was flung in their direction and Kate grabbed Jemma, phasing it through them.
Two Paradooms, they just needed to get past them before the mob caught up. "Suddenly wish I had a gun."
Oh sweet safety was near. It was so close. True she knew better than anyone to think they were safe until they got to where they needed to get to. But being able to see it was always a good thing. Or there could be a car flung at them.
Eyes widening, Jemma had no time to react before Kate grabbed her hand and the car phased through them.
Did she have a gun? God she couldn’t remember if she had grabbed one or not. But she did have a pulsar and threw it at the two only for the two to crush it before it could go off. So much for that.
“Not sure how much good it would do but...I agree.”
"I'll keep them focused on me, see if you can't take one out from behind," Kate decided. She knew Jemma wasn't a bad fighter, just inexperienced.
And while the X-Men did believe in throwing the inexperienced into the frying pan, this was more or less a fire.
A really bad one.
Darting forward, Kate leapt up, twisting in the air and slashing down with her claw at one of the Paradooms. The other ignored her, making a beeline right for Jemma.
Bouncing off her initial target, Kate course corrected and charged at the second. It turned and slashed, but she phased.
At least, she thought she did. Instead she stumbled forward, dropping to her knees and looking down at her stomach as she realized the Paradoom had phased her innards out of her body.
Oh. That's not good. The fuckers had always been super dense and hard to pass through, and this, well, this was kind of one of her nightmares.
"Jemma, run." Coughing blood, she tried to get to her feet, hoping that maybe they'd be too busy with her to go after the faster target.
Jemma was really not a fan of the whole ‘you go ahead of me’ thing but she also had enough experience to know that if she didn’t, it could lead to Kate trying to split her attention which was the last thing she needed so she did what she was told, doing her best to go after the Paradoom behind her.
Then she stared in horror at the state Kate was in. Running long gone from her mind. But right, running.
Or she could suddenly be surrounded by a handful of Paradooms. She didn’t even have time to wonder where the others had shown up from before she felt them tearing into her flesh, screaming in pain as she tried to reach for freedom only to be pulled into the middle of the group of Paradooms, her screams only going silent and replaced by the sound of limbs and flesh being torn off of her body, the Magen David necklace her grandmother had given her falling to the ground.