Chapter 0097: The Red Room

Alexi groaned as he was the first to wake up. It made sense, his super soldier serum may not have increased his metabolism to the point of reaching Captain America, but it was still very high. His system was the first to get rid of the drugs.

"Request clearance for landing," Melina said into the intercom as she looked back and noticed Alexi having woken up.

"We're touching down in a minute." She told him.

"Then why are we still going up?" Just as he asked, the fortress in the sky became visible, hidden by an artificially generated cloud.

"And now you know how Dreykov stayed above the radar all these years," Melina said and the Trickster pushed a needle into Alexi's neck, drugging him to unconsciousness again.

…

A while later, Natasha, in disguise as Melina, was walking through the corridors with familiarity while getting directions from Alex who'd already read through Melina's memories.

[They haven't kept Yelena with Alexi and 'Natasha'] Alex told her.

[I guess they're going to start experimenting on her. She got through their mind control after all. They probably want to understand how the cure worked so that they can reverse-engineer it…] Natasha said. Not too worried. After she meets with Dreykov, Natasha was going to take over the entire ship and crew. Courtesy of Dreykov's mind control stuff, no one would have the power to disobey her.

She reached a door and waited as a camera detected her presence, there was a beep and the door opened to let her in.

"Melina… Look at you. It's been so long. How was the family reunion?" Dreykov was a large, chubby man with white hair and was wearing a suit and thick glasses. He got up from his couch and walked toward her.

"Annoying. They were clingy, needy, and overall annoying." She said to him as she looked around the room, noticing only one other person in the room apart from them. The Trickster.

"Yelena Belova. What's the deal with her? Are there more like her? Who got free." Dreykov got straight to business, not interested in hearing what she had to say.

"As far as I know, she's the only one who got free." She told him, [I'm waking Yelena. Her face is about to be skewered.] Alex told Natasha.

"This whole gasses and antidotes and more gasses thing… It's a pain in my ass. And you need to solve it." He ordered 'Melina'.

"All right, this has gone on long enough." Natasha wasn't interested in hearing anything more from the guy. She grabbed her face and pulled, [Alex…] She signaled and he understood that she did this so that it would seem as if she was taking off a standard Shield issue mask.

"Oh dear, what a surprise." Dreykov didn't seem surprised to see Natasha here.

"How are you, Natasha?" He asked as he smiled.

"You seem awfully confident." She smiled.

"Of course. Though I never expected that Melina would betray me like this." Dreykov said.

Natasha smiled, deciding not to clear up the misunderstanding, "So why are you here?" He asked her.

"To finish what I started I guess. I failed the last time, but not this time." Natasha said and put a finger in her ear, "Yelena? I hope you're up. Get yourself out of there and get the gas to the widows."

"About damn time," Yelena said from the other side.

"You should find a knife in your hand just about now," Nat told her and Yelena's reply was a series of grunts.

Nat knew that Yelena could take care of herself and looked at Dreykov again, "Can't let my baby sister get hurt, can I?" She smiled.

"What is this… overconfidence that I see in you? I never trained you to be like this." Dreykov looked disappointed.

"It's not really overconfidence." Nat shrugged her shoulders and fired a supercharged taser shot at the only other person in the room, immediately immobilizing the Trickster, "See?" She smiled as she walked to Dreykov who still seemed to be fearless as he looked at her. He had a specific stoic attitude that only old people with too much pride have.

"What do you think about her? Hm?" Dreykov pointed at the unconscious Trickster.

"Her?" Nat had an ominous premonition.

"Yes, her. She's my pride and joy, my greatest creation. To be honest I should thank you for giving me my greatest weapon."

"What are you talking about," Natasha asked as she frowned.

"When your bomb exploded. It nearly killed my daughter. My dear Antonia. I had to put a chip in the back of her neck. It seems that she needs some modifications though." He said with disappointment as if he was talking about some tool to be modified.

Nat couldn't even bother to hear any more from him and moved to punch him in the face but stopped mid-way. It was more like she was forced to stop mid-way, "What the fuck?" She exclaimed, [Alex?] She asked in her head.

[Give me a moment.] Alex hadn't remembered this moment from the movie and only now recalled it. Dreykov had conditioned every single Widow from the start to be conditioned to his pheromones. They couldn't attack the person that was emitting those pheromones. Alex could notice a specific conditioning in Natasha's brain that was forcing her to react in that manner.

[Didn't you read Melina's memories? I'm sure she knew.] Nat asked.

[I just glanced at them. I haven't processed every moment of her life from her birth to now. I just got the stuff that was deemed important.] He defended.

Meanwhile, Dreykov said, "See? I told you. You should never be overconfident. You are always going to be my creation." He said.

[Try now.] It only took Alex a moment to remove that specific conditioning from her mentality. He could alter people's memories, something as simple as removing mental conditioning was child's play for him.

Natasha grunted as she kicked at Dreykov, and this time she didn't freeze. As the kick connected, Dreykov was thrown off to the side, reaching his desk.

"How?!" He screamed as he desperately held his desk for support and tried to get up.

"I told you, Dreykov. I'm here to finish my mission." Nat said to him as she walked over to the fainted girl in the armor. She had to see.

At the same time, Dreykov started discretely moving to the terminal that was built into his desk. He was going to call in the Widows that were within his Flying Fortress to deal with Natasha. He'd truly panicked after how easily Natasha was able to bypass his pheromone lock.

Natasha walked to the person who still had her feeling guilty for everything and kneeled beside her, [It wasn't all your fault.] Alex tried to console her, but he didn't know how.

[It was, Alex. And it was meaningless…] Natasha grabbed the helmet and pulled it off. She took a sharp breath as she looked at the burnt face of the woman who was just a little girl when Natasha blew her up.

"I'm sorry…" She whispered as she got up from there and looked at Dreykov who was pointing a gun at her head.

"Realized that you can't use your terminal?" Nat smirked, hiding the guilt that she was feeling.

"You called in help?" He asked, assuming that she had someone like Tony Stark helping her.

"What? No… Why does everyone think that I'm a weakling." Nat grumbled as she walked to Dreykov, uncaring about the gun that he was pointing at her.

"Go on, take a shot. You can't do shit to me, dude. You're a weak pathetic man who can do nothing but hide in the dark and from today, you'll be dead too. Though, I do have a question for you." Nat said.

Dreykov was getting more and more rattled as his hands were shaking while pointing the gun at Natasha.

"What was the name of my mother?" Natasha asked. She wanted to know.

"Really? That's what you ask me?" Dreykov said and finally got the courage to shoot at Natasha. Though the bullet was stopped by an invisible wall in front of her face. It couldn't even touch her skin.

"Told you. You can't do shit to me." Nat reached him and grabbed his head, [I presume you've got his memories, Alex?] Nat asked.

[Totally.] He said and that was all Natasha need to know before releasing an intense electric current at Dreykov's head, frying his brain to mush. It was a controlled strike that completely destroyed his brain and killed him.

[Well, that was anti-climactic.] Alex said in her head.

"Yeah, you're right…" Nat took a seat in Dreykov's seat, "What now?" She asked out loud.

[I still have my suggestion about giving the Widows a choice between either becoming your personal assassin task force or retiring. For now, though, assemble every single one of them in this fortress, quite a few of them are currently out on missions. Then we can collectively give them the choices that they've never been given.] He said.

"I like that…" Nat started operating the terminal and gave instructions to all of the Widows that were out on missions. She told them all to converge in a specific location where they would be extracted and brought to the fortress.

At the same time, Nat put her finger on the earpiece and said, "Come to the control room, you should be able to find your way here. I've already taken care of everything. We have a lot of stuff to talk about."

"I didn't get to do anything…" Nat heard Yelena's sad voice from the other side.

"You are going to have a whole lot to do, don't worry," Nat told her. Meanwhile, she made sure to keep everyone in the fortress keep their positions and instruct them as necessary. Dreykov had quite a few firewalls in place, but with his memories and dead body beside Natasha, Alex was easily able to get Natasha access to all of his systems without any issues. And Dreykov is no Tony Stark. It wasn't going to be too difficult for Alex to brute force his way through either.

While Natasha was giving instructions to the people within the fortress and the Widows outside, she heard a whistle. It was a very specific whistle which was clearly a signal.

***

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