CHAPTER 86 - ONE DOWN, ONE TO GO
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[General Dreykov POV]
"General Dreykov, we have a deserter." That had been the call he received which had prompted him to send his most prized creation to eliminate the defect.
Even though he had worked the Red Room from the under up and elevated it to a position it has never reached before, he still couldn't stop the defective assets that creep up every once in a while.
He had sent a squad of Widows for a branch mission in Bucharest, Romania, to eliminate some key pieces that had finally lost their value in his chessboard of control.
Each Widow had a time and place assigned to them along with a target to take out during the four-day mission in Bucharest and today was supposed to be when the last target was taken out by… Yelena Belova, a prized asset.
'Unfortunately one that proved to be as defective as her sister, despite their talents.'
His inner monologues were cut short by an intermission from the command control.
"General Dreykov, the location we last received the signal of the deserter's tracker is empty."
He frowned at the update he was transmitted. "That shouldn't be right." Any forceful removal or tampering of his Widow's tech and trackers should have sent it a feedback and automatically registered a few protocols already put in place for such events.
His frown increased as he searched through Yelena Belova's data network and found that she had been marked but no protocols to facilitate her capture and/or elimination were activated.
He didn't know why but his heart rate skipped a beat faster at the memory that flashed through his mind, much to his consternation.
"Pass the command: All Widows are to return to the Red Room. The mission has concluded." He gave the other to the leading Widow of the Bucharest Mission.
He hated the fact that a single memory of a long past caused him to act like this but since he was yet to understand what had happened to Yelena Belova's receiver then there was nothing for them to do out there in the field.
"Return." He gave a simple order to his Taskmaster and was about to busy himself with the statue of his compromised Widow only for the proximity alarms to be triggered. The worst part was that it was the semi-automatic alarms that went off before it forced the other alarms to signal the intruder alert.
<Foreign datastream detected>
His systems warning too went off, notifying him of the attempt of a hacking attempt.
Sending an urgent message to return to all infield Widows and then rang a code red throughout the entire aerial-based Red Room.
"Kill an intruders on sight." Was the simple order he gave them before focusing back on the hacking attempt.
°°°°°°°
[Vision POV]
There were other easier ways to do this but that almost meant time consuming and all-round planning which was not needed. With that being said…
"Leave Dreykov to me. I have some unsettled scores with him." Natasha said by cutting me off.
"Wasn't even thinking about it." I said after phasing that entire Quinjet into the Red Room which involved a little quantum-shifting and molecular deconstruction. It did set off some proximity alarms but it didn't matter.
What matters is the pair of sisters having a little bonding time as they carry out their shared revenge, and what better way to do that and letting out the piled up tension from the ride than by running through a whole squadron of Widows.
"You're not planning on helping out?" Yelena asked me, wearing a genuinely shocked expression on her face.
"Oh, I'll be helping out." I clarified. "Just thought a warmup would be a good exercise while I take a tour around my base. I need to case it and factor it into my already running equation."
Her shocked face morphed into a dead serious one as if daring me or telling me to stop joking around. "You're joking right?"
"Just take it as one of all those missed bonding chances." With that my form faded away as I shrank and phased through the walls to complete my self-given mission.
Of course I wasn't about to allow them to fight the whole base of mind controlled Widows so I'll be knocking out a few as I go along.
°°°°°°°
[Yelena Belova POV]
"He's actually joking right?" I asked Natasha as the eccentric guy just disappeared before my eyes, which wasn't the only thing I've seen him do.
"Come on, let's go. We have no time to waste." Natasha called out as she walked away, not looking worried a bit about Vision's abrupt disappearance.
"Don't worry about Vision. He knows whether or not he has a part to play. Our focus should instead be on Dreykov."
'Is this what it means to be an Avenger?'
As far as my memory serves me right, they made no plans for infiltration or attack after they established that the base was the next thing they were attacking.
I looked at Natasha as she hurriedly made her way forward with confident yet experienced steps, mind 100% focused on the mission at hand.
'If we survive then maybe..'
{Eyes peeled. Multiple hostiles incoming in your direction.}
I flinched as I heard Vision's voice inside my head but Natasha signaled me to hush which made me relax after seeing her nod a little, meaning she could hear his voice too.
I couldn't show pity to these Widows despite the fact that I was like them mere hours ago because we stood on two different sides.
"Hurry up." Ignored Natasha's call as I held the twisted shoulder of a Widow and slammed her head against the edge of a wall.
I felt a kick to my back and winced before turning back and blocking her second kick and swiped off her two batons before hitting her on both sides of the head with it.
°°°°°°°
[Vision POV]
[Red Room network access granted]
Completely ignoring the General Dreykov who was kicking up a panicked tantrum, I proceeded unhindered and took complete control of the flying star-shaped fortress.
I was also rewiring the psyche of all the Widows I came across which resulted in a whole base full of confused as hell femme fatales. Well not all of them as I caught sight of some of them hightailing it the fuck out as soon as they composed themselves.
I didn't stop any of them because I had no need to.
"Excuse me, passing through." I laughed at my own insensitivity as I slowly made my way towards Natasha and Co, repeating my mental cleansing on every knocked out Widow I saw.
I'm actually glad that I didn't have to blast through the entire base, killing every Widow agent I found, because of the bailout ticket the brainwashing gave them.
'Fury is going to have a field day with this. Or Maria Hill.'
SHIELD will definitely try and recruit as many Widows as possible and so will any military organization that gets a whiff of this.
It's all up to the Widows if they want to go into special ops since I'm basically giving them a free slate by restricting and propagating their data to any third party.
Why not invite them to join the Avengers?
That's Natasha's job and besides what are we going to do with hundreds of Black Widows? It might've worked out if we had expanded but that's obviously not the case so they can enlist for future recruitment.
I walked into Natasha and Yelena fighting against Taskmaster and color me surprised when I found them getting their ass handed to them. Well mostly Yelena, but it was still an impressive combat feat.
Dreykov was typing frantically away at his keyboard but he wasn't getting any response which had the man tethering at the edge of losing his mind.
I had the room on lock down to prevent him from trying to escape.
°°°°°°°°
[Natasha Romanova POV ]
She easily identified the way the girl, Antonia Dreykov, who was now a brain dead killer named Taskmaster, fought. It felt as if she was fighting the version of her Avengers teammates bar a few.
She was a grown woman. She knew when to feel guilt for her actions and when to look at it with indifference.
Drawing out a pair of adamantium blades, extra add-ons courtesy of Vision, she twirled them around her fingers and welcomed the Taskmaster who had drawn out her own pair of daggers and attacked Natasha with them only to for her blade to suddenly feel light as Natasha effortlessly cut through them.
The sudden imbalance created more than enough room for all of them to react but the Taskmaster fell short as Yelena blindsided her with a pair of stunners, leaving her wide open for Natasha to deliver a killing blow with a slash to her throat.
"Antonia!‼" Dreykov screamed as he saw the geyser of blood that spurted out from his last living relic, signifying her permanent departure from life.
"You ungrateful vermin! I wi-" His crazed shouts were silenced with the shot of a gun and bullet in his skull.
"Don't call me ungrateful when I had the courtesy to send you alongside your daughter. It's more than you ever did for me." She said with an emotionless tone as she stared at his dead body.
"Your face still remained as disgusting even to your end." She remarked upon seeing the unsightly expression on his face as he died.
She stared at a corner of the room which suddenly shimmered as Vision undid his invincibility. "Got any smart-ass quip to add?"
"Not this time, I'm afraid. Though I'd like to ask how it feels to assert your revenge. It's not something I have any experience with. For educational purposes, so to speak." He said plainly, no undertone or hidden meaning, just genuine curiosity.
Natasha took a second to contemplate on how she felt before answering. "The satisfaction comes during the first few seconds of doing it. Right now I just feel… meh." She took one more look at the two bleeding bodies in the room. "Thinking about it now, only one good thing came out of all of this and its not this. Probably could've spent my day doing something else."
Vision nodded and then turned to the younger Widow. "You?"
"Honestly, I don't know how I'm supposed to feel. I just escaped years of brainwashing less than an hour ago and the person I want to kill is already dead, along with his cursed organization." She took a deep breath to compose herself but failed doing so. "How about asking me again after a day or two? I need a rest for all… well all this."
"Fair." He agreed, already in the middle of relocating the base back to Compound.
"You're kinda weird, man, you know that right? What kind of name is Vision anyway? Don't got a name or something?" Yelena complained with a fed up expression on her face, earning laughs from the other two people in the room.