NRG

Phil Coulson/Currently Horrified

Coulson stared at the screen in front of him. On entering the facility with the others, Skye had immediately found the connection to the various cameras that Kragoff was using to keep an eye on his forces, putting the ones that would have seen Coulson's little group in a loop and giving them a look at their allies. She'd been projecting two holoscreens at regular intervals as they ran, making sure they could see their allies.

Allies. Tough to consider. Vanguard, Mikhail, and Creel had joined the Russian military in the offensive battle against the servitors, and were doing a good job of it. Meanwhile, Fantasma, Dial, and Chernobog had fought Kragoff's little pet projects…

Well, Dial and Fantasma had done a solid job, Dial quick-shifting between alien forms while Fantasma had worked well with him. But then, Chernobog had just… god.

Coulson looked away from the screen at the rest of the group with him. Skye was getting patted on the back by Simmons after she had ejected the remains of her lunch in the corner, the British girl looking horrified as well. Fitz was still trying to make a computer in the corner give up it's secrets, but he too looked pale. May and Kraven were both unmoved. But then, they had experienced worse.

Coulson breathed in, then walked up to Skye. She spat out at the ground, looked up at him, then hesitantly nodded to show she was ready to keep going, her faceplate coming down. Good girl. Helping her up, Coulson watched her walk over to the computer to assist Fitz and took another deep breath of air.

Whatever happened, this mission would have one hell of a report.

Skye seemed to calm down as she and Fitz worked. "Okay. We can upload the virus, maybe shut down some of the apes.

"You don't have to do it from a central computer or something?" Coulson asked.

"Maybe in the movies," Fitz said softly.

"Yeah. These computers are all networked to the same thing, since, ya know, they kind of have to be so that they're functional for Kragoff," Skye explained.

"We should still find him," Kraven said firmly. "I have orders to attempt to capture him."

"Capture?" Simmons asked.

Kraven gave her a respectful nod. "They want to use the filthy урод if they can. Something about hunting down his suppliers. Personally, I disapprove, but that's what I've been told to do," he said with a shrug.

Coulson thought on that. Made sense. Granted, there might have been an alternative motive. Kragoff had made a hell of an army. In terms of power, only the exceptional abilities and skills of Coulson's own people and the Winter Guard had saved them. Most armies would have been torn apart. And he could see some in the Russian government being interested in that. Hell, BRIDGE would be interested on at least some level.

He left aside that thought for now. "How long will it take for the virus to upload-"

The computer shut off. Along with the lights for a few feet around them.

"...A little longer, now?" Skye said with a wince. "I think he turned off the power."

"Then we need to go after him either way," May noted.

"Let's go then," Coulson said firmly. "Galina can't hold off an army forever."

They took off down the halls, making their way to the center of the base. They encountered no resistance along the way. Which unnerved Coulson more than he showed. This whole thing was unnerving. Honestly, when he'd met Tony, he thought that was as weird as things would get. A rich spoiled weapons developer suddenly developing power armor miles ahead of any weapon on Earth.

And now he was walking along with his three proteges, one in power armor of her own, his best friend, the world's greatest hunter while helping a bunch of superstrong beings fight an army of monkey robots.

Skye leading the way, they came to a pair of doors. Back when the trainyard had been active the doors would have led to the room that those in charge of keeping it running smoothly would have used as their command center. Now, in some ways, it had returned to its purpose in a sad way. A trainyard once again being used to send machines out across the world by a conductor.

They took positions alongside the doors. May and Coulson shared a look, then nodded at Skye and Kraven. The hacker and hunter nodded back. Skye moved in front of the door, took a deep breath, then kicked the doors open hard, sending them flying inwards. The group rushed in, Fitz-Simmons waiting outside while May, Skye, Kraven, and Coulson raised their guns.

The room had been ripped apart and rebuilt. A large computer took up the center of the room, on with a dozen different screens surrounding it in a circle and a single desk with another computer monitor resting on it. And all around it were… parts.

On the right, where there might have once been desks and chairs, there were instead a bunch of tanks. They were orbs being held in the air by metal struts embedded in the floor, the orbs of glass filled with blue fluid and pieces of flesh. Dozens of tanks, at random intervals, like a forest made of trees filled with flesh.

On the left were dozens of tables. Small monkey servitors were roaming around the tables, their arms replaced with metal tools of various types. As they stood there, one of the monkeys hopped on a table covered in flesh and robotic limbs. It pulled an arm to a shoulder and began putting them together with mechanical efficiency. More monkeys were doing the same, putting together servitors together like some sickening version of Santa's Workshop.

Kragoff stood in the center of the mess, carrying a small pistol loosely in one hand. He was scowling up at them from the center of the room, eyes hard. Otherwise, he did not move.

"So. You came, despite my warnings. Like all Americans, you prove hopelessly stupid."

Fitz, Simmons, and Kraven all raised eyebrows of varying types.

"Skye, ice him," Coulson said simply.

One of Skye's shoulder mechanisms popped to reveal her turret gun. It fired a single ICER, the ammunition Fitz-Simmons had created to carry a chemical designed to knock out any opponent with a specialized tranquilize, at Kragoff, the small bullet flying in the space between them in less than a second.

Kragoff flickered as the bullet passed through him, hitting a monitor behind him instead.

"Hologram?" Fitz asked behind them.

Kragoff lifted his gun and started firing very real bullets.

"Nope!" Simmons yelped, ducking along with the others.

Kraven leaped forward while ducking another shot and slashed out at Kragoff, only for Kragoff to 'flicker' again, letting the hunter pass through him, then firing at his back. Kraven took a bullet to his back, only to growl and duck behind a desk as the bullet fell, revealing his vest was apparently bulletproof to some degree.

"None of you will stop this," Kragoff flickered again and again when Skye, May, and Coulson shot at him, ICER's, plasma shots, and bullets passing through uselessly. "Russia will rise!"

Mahmoud Schahed/Dial

We ran down the hallway as a group, not saying a word. Except for Chernobog, who I think was still trying to freak us out, cause he kept licking the ape blood off of himself while giggling. Seriously, the dude was such an asshole troll.

We came upon the big room from the footage Kragoff had streamed. I stared at the bomb in the center, just as large as it had seemed in the footage. A small monkey with wings rested on top of it, a hologram emitter resting on its back. Apparently, that had been what Kragoff had used to project his image, explaining why my Grendel form had sensed four life forms in the area.

Fantasma immediately fired a magical bolt at it, turning it to ash.

We ran down the steps to surround the bomb. "Okay. Now we need to stop it. And I'm all out of time," I gestured to the Omnitrix, which was red. "Chernobog, can you eat this thing?"

"Maybe," he mumbled, looking over it. "But which part? I don't want to risk triggering it early. I mean, I don't really care if it explodes, but it would be embarrassing.

The sounds of hooting and running drew our attention to the entrance. Hundreds of monkey paws on asphalt filled the air.

"Looks like our friends upstairs have dug through the rubble," Fantasma said grimly.

I, meanwhile, got an alert from my suit. My helmet snapped into place around my head, and my HUD lit up. "Ah… shit," I said as the sight of my Geiger counter beginning to bounce came to my attention.

"Yeah, I felt it," Chernobog said. "This thing is leaky. Tastes kinda good, but it's probably not great for you."

"Radiation?" Fantasma said with worry.

...You ever have one of those moments where your mind catches up with reality? Cause one of those moments should never be when a leaky nuclear bomb is in front of you and you have an army of onrushing servitors at your back.

Fantasma walked up to stand at my right as we faced the door. "Are you going to be okay? I can shield you with magic, to protect you from the radiation?"

I was about to say yes when the army of servitors came in. I ripped my sword from my side and raised it to fight. The door was too small to really allow a huge number of servitors all coming in at once, but they still came at us five at a time. I cut one down with the thrusting technique May had taught me on the Bus all that time ago, Chernobog roared as he slapped another one aside to bite another, and Fantasma blasted the last.

But they didn't stop there. More and more came in several of the apes shooting at us. I winced in pain when a shot hit me in the chest, then got tackled onto the floor by another one, who clawed at me. I slashed at the guy with my sword, rolled to my feet to chop an arm off another, and took yet another plasma shot to my left side, the catoms of my armor melting together and casting themselves off to keep me from cooking in my own armor. We stood there as a trio, fighting as fiercely as we could against the army.

And that was when the bomb began to beep.

I'd have frozen if I hadn't gotten shot in the leg. "Fuck, really!?" I sliced another head off. "All at once!?"

"Of fucking course!" Chernobog roared in agreement.

Then the Omnitrix beeped green. I grabbed a servitor and pulled the snarling monkey close, wrapping my arms around it to use as a shield. I raised the Omnitrix high and started flipping through the menu as fast as I could. "Come on, come on Jury Rigg!"

Another plasma shot hit the servitor in my hands, killing it. I slapped down on the Omnitrix the second I saw Jury Rigg. As the servitors rushed through the door, I disappeared in a flash of green light.

Gray armor flowed across my body. As the hefty metal clasped over my form, I felt tingles across my body. My limbs and chest felt like I was disintegrating and coming together all at once. I roared as my form was fully covered by dark metal. The kind that could block all radiation.

"NRG!"

I stared down at myself. Okay… so this told me two things. First, slapping the Omnitrix never ended in the right alien, though in this case it had turned out awesomely. Secondly, Clint was right. I really did need to trust the Omnitrix more. Much like the Tardis, it may not have given me what I wanted, but it did give me what I needed since this form was much better given the situation.

As I thought about, another plasma bolt hit me. It didn't do a thing to my tough metal armor, a suit that was tough enough to survive a hell of a lot more than that. A servitor leaped onto my chest and scratched at my helmet. I grabbed and smashed the servitor to the ground with my right hand, caving in the thing's chest with pure strength. I let loose with a beam of Nuclear energy from the slits in my helmet, sweeping it across the wall of enemies before us. Flesh ignited and metal melted in moments. I then turned to the bomb.

I could feel the energy from it resonating with me. I looked at Fantasma. "Fantasma! There's about to be a hell of a lot more radiation! Raise a shield, now!"

Fantasma gave me an odd look for some reason when I spoke, but floated up and made her purple shields, surrounding herself in a orb. Chernobog was chuckling for some reason.

The second I was sure Fantasma was safe, I reached for my helmet, grabbed it by the grill and pulled it back.

If there was a Geiger counter still around, it would have gone nuts. I didn't want to leave my suit open for too long, so I reached out with just my arm. A hand and fingers made of orange energy reached for the bomb, melting through the metal casing to grab the section that was actually capable of making the nuclear bomb 'nuclear'. I pulled it out and dropped it into my mouth, chewing on the delicious nugget of energy with a sigh.

The bomb stopped beeping as it slowly melted to nothing from the sheer heat of my arm having been inside of it. I snapped back my helmet and spun to face the enemies around us."Fantasma, stay up there. The floor,"I raised two hands, then slammed my palms into the ground. The energy inside me, joined by that of the bomb, exploded from my gloves and went into the floor. For a moment, everything was still."Is lava."

Then the whole room shook as the ground blew up in a wave of melted stone. The room temperature blew upwards as the servitors around us melted in a series of screams, flesh and steel turned to ash and molten metal.

"Fuck me!" Chernobog roared as a geyser of lava rose next to him. "Damn it, warn me next time!"

The boiling lava filled the entire room for a moment, cooling quickly as I stood in the molten stone. More servitors tried to rush in, only to get lit on fire as well, weakly firing at us with plasma shots.

Fantasma, still floating high above the molten stone, winced, whispering something caustic. "Dial?"

"Hey," I said up to her, blasting more heat from the grill of my suit. I had surprisingly high accuracy with those blasts, sending more servitors to the lava floor. "Sorry, it was all pretty last minute. You aren't hurt, are you?"

"No," she scowled at me. "Why are you doing that voice?"

"What-?"I stopped when I realized what she was talking about. Oh. Well fuck, I guess the Omnitrix really did have a sense of humor."I swear,"I said in a Russian accent."This isn't on purpose, this form just tends to sound like this."

"I hope you don't find a way to stop then," Chernobog said with a grin as he scooped up a handful of molten stone in his right hand to toss it at a gorilla. "Because Vanguard is going to be pissed when he finds out."

And of course, that thought seemed to fill him with glee.

Author's Note: So this is a bit awkward. I've been writing this story for a little while and it's been a fun ride. But I'm in a bit of a financial situation, with hospital bills and other things piling. So I reopened my pat re on page and updated it quite a bit. I'm hoping that with enough I'll be able to take some time off work to focus more on this and other fanfics/stories while also taking care of the everything of life.

Anyways, the link to the page is at pat re on under the name DesertChocolate, and here are the tiers!