Inside

Mahmoud Schahed/Dial

We ran through the hall of the Hydra base as a group. The corridors of it were big enough for an Ubertank, giving us plenty of room to run. So of course, someone complained about it.

"This is too easy," Bucky said to all of us over the comms.

"You think they're funneling us?" Punisher asked.

"Iknowthey are," he snarled.

"Well, this was literally the only way in that we found, Manchurian Candidate," Tony said as he flew above us.

"And you think that's a coincidence?" Bucky pointed out.

"I can always dig a different way in?" I asked the group.

That was when the floor opened under me. I felt my stomach drop as I fell in. I heard someone above shout. The second I was down low enough, the floor closed above me. Thinking fast, I pulled a knife from my hip and tried to stab it into the walls as I fell, only for my knife to bounce off. I reached for the Omnitrix, only to land on a slide, wincing at the impact before I landed on the floor of a room with fluorescent lights.

I rolled to my feet and looked around. Just a big and empty room. I grabbed the Omnitrix, twisting the Dial as I walked forward. "Okay… So what exactly is about to attack me in here?"

"Dial, you okay?" Steve's voice came from my earpiece.

"Yeah. I got dropped into a room. Other than that though, I'm not sure what the plan was for Hydra."

"Just give me one second," Tony confidently said. "I'll break that door open and… wait, there's a lot more going on- fuck!"

"Tony!"

Steve shouted. "Bucky, duck!"

"What is happening?" I reached for my watch.

That was when a door to my left that I had thought was a wall slid open. I spun to face it.

And I froze.

She was standing there. Long brown hair. Golden eyes, eyes I'd seen before. A build similar to Ruby's or Natasha's, with a black tanktop and leather pants on. Just like in the video I'd seen.

"Laura," I whispered.

She stared at me. I stared back. She had a blank look on her face, but her eyes were...

I can't explain how I felt then. God, she was so small. Just a kid-

A voice that sounded like Ares and Nat in tandem roared in my head. "Snap out of it!"

I reached for the Omnitrix. Her eyes hardened. Twin blades left both her knuckles, diamonds glittering in the fluorescent light. She was moving in an instant, lunging for me with enhanced speed. I instinctively pressed down on the dial. Green light shone across her face, lighting across her golden eyes. Eyes that matched my own now. Her claws sliced outwards. I raised my arm, her diamond blades slicing into my outer skin by about an inch.

I punched her in the stomach, my diamond fist sending her flying back. She rolled on the ground, then snapped back to her feet, glaring at me. Then her eyes widened.

I was in Diamondhead form. It was my favorite form after all. The one best able to handle almost everything that would come my way.

But I wasn't ready to fight. Because I could feel her. In a fundamental way. Like a stream of warm water running down my chest. It wasn't just her bones, the crystals that were inside her, buther.I had no idea how or why, but there was a connection to her that went beyond the one I felt when I was controlling my crystals.

It had to be how she had been created. Some combination of her own genetics, the machine that had pushed the crystals into her, or the fact that it was my own DNA swimming inside her. I'd never heard of anything like that in the show, when Ben had met other Petrosapiens in Diamondhead form…

Before I could contemplate that, she jumped towards the wall, then at me, slashing out at me. I snapped my right hand out into a long blade, parrying one set of claws, then wincing when her other hand stabbed into my wrist.

As her crystal claws hit me, a loud humming sound filled the air, vibrations echoing in my body.

"Gah!" I reared back and smashed my head into hers, the clacking sound of crystals smashing together filling the air. She backed up, a cut on her forehead where I had hit her, revealing the blue-green bones underneath. A cut that began to heal at super-speed, leaving nothing but skin covered in blood.

"I don't suppose saying 'snap out of it'would do anything?" I asked her fruitlessly.

She snarled. She came at me, slicing her claws at me. I raised my arms, shifting both into swords. A cut towards my heart, neck, and stomach. I blocked, parried, then spun aside, a loud humming sound filling the air with each clash.

I swung at her chest with one blade. She front-flipped over the attack, landing on my chest and stabbing me. I reverted one sword into a hand and grabbed her by the neck, pulling her off of me. She grew a katana-like blade from her right foot as I held her up in the air, Laura kicking me in my armpit. The blade stabbed through. I roared, raising my other hand and stabbing her in the stomach. We glared at each other as I spun around and fired the blade I'd stabbed her with, her blade breaking off in my armpit. She was impaled into the wall behind her, while I staggered, grabbing the diamond katana in my armpit. With a savage pull I dragged it out of me, tossing it aside.

"Fuck! That hurt!" I looked up at Laura. She pulled herself forward off the blade that impaled her, landing on the floor. We glared at each other.

This wasn't what I wanted. It was a waste of time! I needed to knock her out. She was brainwashed, not evil. But the fact she could heal so fast was going to work against me. Her stomach wound was gone now. My own wounds healed, if slower.

Then the walls around us began to make loud grinding sounds. For a moment, I thought the ceiling was about collapse. Then the wall behind me opened up, sliding apart. The wall behind Laura began to push forward. The ceiling above me rose.

"Yo, what the hell!?" I said, startled.

Laura jumped towards the moving ceiling, springing off it to come at me from above. I snapped a sword arm out to parry the slice, that loud ringing hum filling the air as she passed me, bounced off a new wall behind me, and tried to impale me in the back. I grew a shield of crystal from my back, taking the stab. She front-flipped over that tried to dropkick me with another long sword from her foot. I sliced up at that blade, sending her flying back, and ran after her, firing crystal shards from one hand like a machine gun. She bounced off a wall, parrying my diamond fire on her claws before meeting me in the middle as the floor below us began to move.

We began to duel in that shifting space, the sounds of crystals clashing followed by echoing vibrating hums through the air.

What the hell was happening!?

Tony Stark/Iron Man

When Dial had fallen into the floor, Tony hadn't been too worried about him. After all, they'd all survived worse. He did a quick scan of the floor, trying to figure out the mechanism beneath.

Two things happened then. First, he registered air currents. From the floor, obviously from the opening Dial had fallen into. But more were all around him. Small currents, not noticeable unless you were looking for something odd. He was about to tell everyone that.

The second thing that happened was that a wall opened to his left, followed by a long gooey arm wrapping around his waist and pulling him in, cutting him off mid-speech.

"Fuck!" Tony was thrown into a concrete wall, the entrance he'd been pulled through shutting.

Another long arm smashed into his chest, then his head, sending him cartwheeling through the air. He stopped himself from crashing into another wall with a burst of his repulsors, spinning around in the air to dodge another punch. The arm that tried to punch him somehow twisted in mid-air, hand opening to reach for his foot. Tony twisted to face it, blasting it apart with a repulsor attack with both palms.

The arm exploded apart into piles of white-grey goop. Tony landed on the ground, staring as the goop splattered on the floor. Then it moved. Rolling along the floor, the goop headed towards…

"Pizza dough?" Tony said. His armor scanned it as he eyed the big pile of what looked like a giant chef's beginning to making a delicious lunch. It was around the size of a couch.

Then, a pair of round blank eyes opened in it. A large cavernous 'mouth' opened in the doughy pile, with big blocky pieces of itself in place of teeth. The eyes narrowed at Tony. "Gooooo…"

"Jarvis, save this under 'nightmares I never thought I'd have before this job.'" Tony said in a horrified fascination.

"Already done. Duck."

Tony dived under the long arm that snapped out at him, firing a blast at the main creature. It flexed its body and jumped upwards, the repulsor only slicing through a small portion of it, the creature snapping another arm at him.

"Okay, what the hell is this thing?" Tony asked himself, flying upwards and shooting at the creature as he spun around it, dodging various arms.

"Analyzing now!" Jarvis said through his suit.

That was when the walls began moving, one moving forward to smack into Tony in mid-flight. He bounced off the ground, only to get grabbed by an arm around his ankle and get pulled backwards. Tony stared in wide-eyed horror as the creature's mouth opened wide.

"Oh god, no, it's gonna vore me-!" he was swallowed by the gaping maw. The creature shut its mouth. For a moment, things were quiet, the room moving the glaring monster. Then it's belly began to glow a bright blue. It's eyes widened before an explosion of blue light tore it apart.

Tony coughed, covered in bits of goop as he staggered. "Ohhhhh, my god that was so gross. My new nightmare is going to have sequels."

Then he froze, staring at the piles of goop laid across the floor. They began to move. One big pile at his feet shifted, before a face appeared. It grinned up at him.

The Iron Man glared down. "Jarvis, prepare the Goop countermeasures-"

The walls of the room began to move. Tony immediately flew upwards to avoid the tentacle of goop that shot at him, then dived aside when the wall to his left pushed inwards. As the room began to shift around him and a swarm of tentacles reached for him, Tony put all of his mental power to what did best. Working the problem.

Steve Rogers/Captain America

"Tony!" Steve tossed his shield, trying to get it in between the gaps in the wall before they closed, but was just a hair too slow. The vibranium disc bounced off the walls, coming back to Steve.

"They just took our two heavy hitters," Punisher said, Frank's voice sounding nearly demonic through his helmet.

That was true. They were a formidable team. Isabelle Hartley, Bobbi Morse, Frank Castle, Buck, and Prince T'Challa. All trained warriors, all either super soldiers or wearing armor equivalent. But Tony and Dial were able to take down buildings with only a modicum of effort. Strucker knew that. He must have been trying to separate them for good reason. Which meant no time to waste.

"We got to get them out," Steve declared, looking from the floor to the wall. "Anyone got explosives?"

"I can get them out," Black Panther strode forward, lowering to a knee. He flared one hand. Long claws popped out his fingers. With a small grunt of exertion, he slammed those claws into the floor. He began twisting his wrist, ripping through the section Dial had fallen through.

"Huh, kitty really does have claws," Isabelle joked.

Steve stared at the walls around him. "...If the floor and wall open up like that. Then what are the chances more of this place can move?"

There was a moment where everyone froze. Then the ceiling above them opened. And three people fell amongst them. As they landed, Steve recognized them from the mission briefings.

Winter Soldiers. The ones created by Hydra, left frozen in a base until Strucker woke them up. They attacked the instant they landed.

One, a massive mountain of a man, kicked at Isabelle, sending her back into the wall as her helmet snapped around her head, the big soldier punched at her face. She pulled her head out of the way, his fist cracking the concrete, then pulled out a handle that formed a short blade, slashing out at him. The soldier slipped past it, pulling out a knife of his own to try to stab her, only for Bobbi to block it on one of her escrima sticks, Isabelle kicking him back before Warrior and Mockingbird moved forward to confront the super-soldier.

The second rushed for Black Panther, who pulled his claws out of the floor to block a kick, flipping over to try and smash the female super-soldier attacking him with a kick of his own. She took the kick on a raised arm, stumbling back, then dodged a punch from Bucky before he shot at her with his assault rifle. She ducked under the bullets and backflipped, shattering the gun with a single kick, before Black Panther grabbed her by her ponytail and pulled her back into a roundhouse.

The Punisher shot at the last one before he could make a move, shooting him in the kneecap. The soldier screamed, but still grabbed Frank by the arm. Steve tossed his shield, hitting the man in the head. Disorientated, the Winter Soldier couldn't block the vicious punch to the throat Frank gave him. He tried to grab him again despite that attack, only for Frank to pull a knife from his hip and stab it into the Winter Soldier's throat.

That was when the walls began to move. Steve stumbled just a bit. And someone came down from the ceiling, followed by two others. The first one rushed Steve. Steve caught his shield in time to block the tackle, only for the man to lift up and push, bringing them into a room that had opened up.

"Steve!" Bucky followed just before the room closed. He kicked the man atop Steve in the gut, sending him flying before a blonde woman came spinning forward to smash Bucky with a double kick in the chest, the Nomad landing and rolling. Steve and Bucky got to their feet, facing their attackers.

And Steve froze. "...Trip. Sharon."

The two brainwashed SHIELD agents only stared back blankly at him, though there was a twitch in their eyes that told him they heard him.

"Don't suppose you two are going to break out of the brainwashing and just come with us?" Bucky said dryly.

Trip raised a pistol and fired, the bullets bouncing off Steve's shield. He rushed for Steve as he fired, tossing the gun when it ran empty. Steve blocked each bullet, caught the gun when it was tossed, and threw his shield. Trip leaped over it, flipping forward in the air to land and punch at Steve. A lightning fast series of blows was traded, a dance of parrying, blocking, and punching, kicks to the lower body being dodged or blocked. A full MMA match in the span of seconds.

Sharon rushed for Bucky, pulling out a pair of twin escrima sticks.

Bucky and Steve shared a momentary look. Steve knew what Bucky was saying. That they might have no choice but to kill them.

Not happening. Steve had made a promise to a girl. And he'd keep it, just like he had the last one.

He caught his shield out of the air as Trip dodged it again, and stepped forward with his heartbeat roaring in his ears.