13697/The Liberation of Pete Ross

The Liberation of Pete Ross
Date of Scene:	18 February 2023
Location:	HYDRA PRIME!
Synopsis:	A brave group of heroes goes in search of Pete Ross and finds in their way the biggest HYDRA military base any of them has ever seen.
Cast of Characters:	Pete Ross, Natasha Romanoff, Carol Danvers, Grant Ward, Diana Prince, Isalia, Cinque Evers, Alexander Pierce

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Pete Ross has posed:
The docks are relatively quiet, considering what's going on here tonight. Casually HYDRA operatives have been making their way to a warehouse one by one for hours now. There's a flash of light from inside and more quiet. This is what the heroes have been waiting for.

HYDRA operatives are using a pre-assigned time and place to be teleported back to their base. A secret base. The base where Pete Ross was likely taken and whoever is behind it all might even be. Time to unmask the villain before giant robots can attack the world.

Inside the warehouse a couple of casually dressed mercinaries are standing guard. Their weapons look like machine guns, but instead of bullets these have been modified to project energy much like HYDRA had in World War 2 - more clues that they're getting close to the belly of the beast. HYDRA prefers to be the one ahead of the curse. They really don't like it when their secrets are found out.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Intel has given them something to pursue. And Natasha Romanoff is definitely going for it. Hydra deserves all the suffering that it has given the world returned exponentially. And she will try and give at leas tpart of it back. She's on scouting duty for her part. They don't have much to go on so she can start with getting them more intel. She's in stealth mode in the warehouse, having tracked Hydra troopers going back to it. She's currently moving her quietest inside the warehouse, tracking the mercenaries with the bulkier energy weapons.

She pauses to speak along her comm <<Hydra troopers and mercenaries present. THe mercenaries appear to be eqiupped with modernized versions of Hydra's energy weapons from the second world war. Take care. They will be energy inefficient but heavily overpowered>>

Carol Danvers has posed:
"If I'm honest," Captain Marvel ventures, clad in uniform, sash and bracers (no interest in subtlety here), "I'm not sure I trust a HYDRA teleportation device. Who's to say they don't just teleport their used agents into a document shredder and build new ones out of leftover fascism and spare parts?"

She doesn't shout this for the world to hear, of course, hovering high enough above that she's not easily visible amongst the darkling cloud banks. She clicks her tongue against her teeth when she hears Black Widow's voice over the comm.

"Ready to clear the slate when you are. Tin soldiers and ray guns aren't too much of a problem, but I hope you're keeping the civvies out of harm's way, Widow."

Grant Ward has posed:
"Widow has got the civvies, I've got the target," replies SHIELD Agent Grant Ward. He looks towards Diana, the genesis of this intel. "We cannot thank you enough for your help," he says, before looking to the other heroes. "All of you. It is critical to get Secretary Ross back safe and secure."

He checks his pistol, loaded with ICERS, for the 20th time today. "You keep HYDRA and the baddies away, I'll make sure we get him out in one piece."

Diana Prince has posed:
There is no rest for the weary...

Diana arrived on-location shortly after leaving the situation with the Dark Elves at the Falkland Islands that sprung up at 1am NYC time this morning. She wasn't so much tired, as she was battle-scarred still though. Her armor, her visible skin, covered in flecks of blood, dirt and detritis from that intense conflict at a besieged airport... Her sword and shield rest upon her back, the shield caked in mud, and burn marks from the Svartle-weaponry fired upon it.

All in all, she's a right straight-up mess right now, but she's still here, and still ready to help.

"Never change, Captain." Diana had said over to comms to Captain Marvel upon hearing the other woman's words, fondly toning her own words to show the gentle amusement at what she'd heard.

For Agent Ward, Diana simply nods her head once. "We will do our best." She says before she takes to the skies again, and is soon standing on the Invisible nose of her Invisible Jet, the alien-tech-powered vehicle hovering in the air before their target site tonight... the Jet's engines propelling it forward as Diana simply stands upon it, appearing to float upright through the air toward the HYDRA stronghold, her hands at her sides, her messy, dark brown, hair flowing around her otherwise bare shoulders...

She is not hiding her presence, and likely encouraging the HYDRA personnel to 'come and get her'.

Isalia has posed:
    Isalia has gotten a dark cloak from somewhere for this stage of the operation. White and gold may look nice together, but they do tend to stand out when trying to sneak around. Her movement at least is completely silent, probably due to the fact that she's floating an inch or two above the ground. She's sneaking up to the warehouse with her bow in hand but still in it's shrunken state in case they have to maneuver through any tight spaces.

    She's not quite used to such things as comms yet, but does manage not to jump when the voices sound in her ear. For her part, she remains quiet for now, since this sneaking is much like hunting and you don't succeed at hunting while talking. Glancing upwards, she smiles at the sight of Diana filling the role of major distraction for any of these HYDRA types.

    Reaching the warehouse without being seen, she drifts upward to the roof, ready to either shoot anyone attacking Diana or to drop inside through one of the skylights these places always seem to have. Responding to a thought, the bow grows to it's full size, and when she puts hand to bowstring, the very air congeals into a shimmering arrow ready to be fired.

Cinque Evers has posed:
Normally Hydra is too big of a fish for Cinque to go after on his own, but he heard through one of his unique sources that volunteers at his shelter that heroes were gatherinf to take a crack at them. After doing a quick weapons check, Cinque puts on his Oletha Ukufa guise and heads to the location via motorcycle. Upon seeing the group that is gathered here, he is beginning to thinks again that maube this threat is still too big for him.

Cinque makes his a slight joke to himself, "Well, I don't have to worry about being the most powerful person here."

Pete Ross has posed:
Agent Abertine reclips the holster of his ICER and instead clicks the safety off on his P90. He smirks and pats Ward on the shoulder, "Stay cool Ward. We've got this." His gruff voice is overly confident and he starts to move from shipping container to shipping container.

Diana's entrance is the perfect distraction. Some of the guards immediately move out in to the open and aim their weapons up in the sky. The blasts of high energy weapons skipping past her, barely missing.

There's a voice yelling in the warehouse, "Tell them to shut it down! we're under attack!" A HYDRA agent inside the warehouse quickly grabs his encrypted satellite phone. Isalia stumbles across the redundant defenses as she sneaks about - they have guards casually keeping eyes on all angles of the warehouse. No one gets to approach without being clocked - at least, unless they're just that stealthy.

Agent Abertine smirks as Diana draws their interest. He steps out from behind a container and takes a shot at one of the HYDRA mercinaries. One of the hidden HYDRA soldiers takes a shot back and hits him square in the chest. He turns with a look of horror on his face toward Ward as his body rapidly dissolves in to nothing leaving only a pile of ash on the ground.

The defenders of the warehouse are not large in number but they are clearly trained. These are the HYDRA agents who operate in the real world violently, but blend in to the crowds. As they move, they move in two's and cover each other. "Don't let them get in to the warehouse!," is another call out across the sudden battlefield.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
And now the engagement starts as Diana's presence alerts the troopers that an attack is en route. She goes to move to quickly setup a jammer that would at least temporarily block radio communications. It wouldn't last forever and Hydra personnel would quickly realize that they had lost communications. Now the point was to secure and block off Hydra's retreat route so that they couldn't flee through the teleporter. The sweep team needed it secured after all. And if any of them could flee through the teleporter and warn those at the other end of the attack.. It would be scrambled and there would be no backtracking when the connection was broken and the data wiped.

As the instruction comes in about civilians, the Widow doesn't reply. This is a mission for SHIELD. Civilians are secondary in nature to the priority VIP and taking out the Hydra facility. So she's quickly going towards the teleporter, trying to sweep through the building and avoiding engageemnt as much as possible as she moves to bcaktrack. Hoping to use her stealth and the presence of Diana out front to draw all attention to quickly get in the base and move towards the priority target.

She is in the mode of a Widow now. There is her operational objective. There are assets aiding her. There are threats in the way. The objective is all that matters.

Grant Ward has posed:
With a blink, "We got this" is gone. Ward does not bother issuing any warnings to the heroes. They likely know what the stakes are here. And any sound drawing attention to him would be bad.

He darts to the side and starts making his way through the complex, listening carefully as he goes to try to avoid the firefight. There is way too much stray fire here to take any chances. He has to get to Ross, as quickly as possible, and make sure nothing happens to him. There is too much riding on that.

Carol Danvers has posed:
"Oh, hello stranger," Carol says in a noticably more pleasant tone when she hears Diana speak, "I don't think I've ever seen you covered in grime before. This could be a new look for you."

When the commotion begins, Captain Marvel is quick to join Wonder Woman in making a show of it. As she turns in the air to descend towards the warehouse, both hands come forward to release two blasts of photonic energy. Not so much aimed to vaporize the guards, they instead strike at the ground to create small-scale explosions.

Carol herself wheels about on the warehouse, not aiming at the door. No, she's going through the roof.

Diana Prince has posed:
A quick glance was given to Carol, along with her comment, before Diana's eyes are going toward the HYDRA soldiers that emerge with their ancient weaponry. When they open fire, she raises her hands up, her fists clenched tightly as she uses her Bracers of Submission to deflect any shots that get uncomfortably close to her...

And not a beat after Carol's beams of energy unleash toward the soldiers, so to does the rotary cannons on the Invisible Jet begin to open fire, sending shot after shot of burning bright-blue plasma energy back at their enemies.

So too does the Jet target non-lethal locations, to scatter their enemies...

Meanwhile, Diana has her shield out again, the scorched metal, and fresh coat of mud flaking from it as her lasso occupies her other hand, and the Princess of Paradise Island lunges in to the fray to begin to lash out with her golden glowing twine of power from the Divine! The rope starts to seize members of the HYDRA forces, one after the other, as Diana whips their legs out from under them, dropping them hard to the ground, or sending them tumbling across the pavement amidst the chaos that has broken out...

Isalia has posed:
    Isalia's bow is aimed at the first guard she encounters almost without thought. Drawn back and then released, the almost invisible arrow of hardened air flies true, striking the HYDRA guard directly in the head. It's his good luck that Isalia had been given instruction before this started, because the arrow is blunt, simply knocking him out and then returning quietly to it's normal gaseous form.

    In almost the same movement, another arrow flies to strike a guard on the other side of the roof with similar results. At this point, she sheds the dark cloak and flies a bit out from the warehouse to get an angle on the guards who are currently shooting at Diana.

    When the explosions go off, they pretty much remove the guards as a threat, so she spins and fires at the door instead, specifically the handle and lock, blowing a hole where they used to be and allowing easy access to the warehouse.

Pete Ross has posed:
When the signal goes dead on the encrypted satellite phone the agent calls out, "Evacuate! Get those crates out of here!"

What Grant and Emm finds inside is not what she expected to find. Instead of a big machine, a teleporter, it's just an empty space. "Faster!," yells the man in charge as two others are moving boxes in to an empty space in the middle of the area. The light in the area brightens and motes of dust jiggle about on the floor. Then in a woosh - everything in a circular space in the center of the warehouse is gone. The two men quickly start to move more crates in to the teleportation space. The machine doing this is -elsewhere-. It also seems to be on a timer.

As the HYDRA soldiers tasked with defending this place come under overwhelming fire with explosions and cannons from the air blast them from every angle - some try to retreat back in to the teleporter, while others bite down on a hidden tooth and release the cyanide. At least, the ones that are still conscience do. These are die hard, true believers. The remaining workers inside the warehouse know what's what and try to step in to the light to teleport away - they don't make, getting hit by Isalia's blunt arrows they slump to the floor.

It was a relatively small force defending the location. No one should have been able to find it after all. You can't account for a lasso that forces even a loyal HYDRA soldier to tell the truth. But it won't be long before the teleporter gets shut off and any chance of finding the secret HYDRA base lost forever. Along with their only chance of rescuing Pete Ross.

Grant Ward has posed:
Frowning as he watches the teleporter at work, Ward shakes his head. "I hate it when they do this," he says to himself. With a quick glance around to assess whether or not any HYDRA Agents are still standing, Ward makes a snap decision. "Keep me covered," he says over the comms, and then he goes charging towards the teleporter.

Just in case there are still some hostiles in the area, he takes a zig zag approach, going over and around crates like a champion at parkour, until he closes the distance in a dead run. He leaps through the teleporter, pistol in both hands, prepared for whatever awaits him on the other side.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha Romanoff goes to take a moment, watching as the boxes vanish. No real sight of controls or a power generator. Everything is on the other end. She moves to speka into the comm <<The Hydra personnel seem to be using an automatic teleporter to evacuate. I would assess that it runs on a timer mechanism and there are no immediate signs of any systems on this end for it. No controls, no power generator.>> This evidence on hand, she moves to take out her gun.

Shen she goes to try and intercept the Hydra troopers that are on loading duty. She doesn't have ICER rounds. She goes for quick crippling shots. Upper torso, kneecaps. The injuries won't lead to bleedout or heavy inetrnal injuries. Presuming her shots are accurate and that she takes them by surprise, of course. Her intent is to get in behind the group in the interior and try to cut them off from the teleporter and quickly neutralize the ones in the room but leave them intact enough for interrogation.

This is interrupted before she can even finish by Grant Ward leaping through the entryway. <<Moving to secure room. Agent Ward has entered the teleporter>>

Carol Danvers has posed:
"Typical SHIELD agents," Captain Marvel says over the comm, nevermind that she's one herself, "Always throwing themselves face-first into situations for which they're over-enthusiastic and under-prepared." A pause. "Fun, isn't it?"

Carol bursts through the ceiling of the warehouse, bringing down a rain of glass and twisted metal as she does. Eyes set on the teleportation area, she glances back over her shoulder in Diana's general direction.

"Race ya."

Then she's flying through the portal. Thwoop.

Diana Prince has posed:
Diana is ebbing closer and closer to the main doors as Ward rushes past, as Isalia gets the doors open, and as Carol is bursting through the ceiling like a roof version of the Kool-Aid Man.

When Wonder Woman ends up at Isalia's side, she arrives with a rush, bashing her schield against a HYDRA Agent that was attempting to sneak up on Isalia and unleash a bit of weapon fire at the young Amazon!

He is slammed in to the wall of the building, and crumples at its base.

"Come, we must be swift." Diana tells her sister in Isalia before she rushes through the open building now, once inside she lunges in to the air to chase Carol through the teleportation system before it can time-out! With shield up, and lasso curled up around her arm, she moves at great speed to join the others who may be daring enough to mount this mad rescue.

All the while, outside the Invisible Jet continues to lay down plasma cannon fire at any HYDRA who are still standing, or thinking of following the heroes...

Isalia has posed:
    Taking the Princess' words literally, Isalia seems to simply vanish as she blurs into action and then reappear inside of said circle. The HYDRA guard she knocked out along the way would beg to differ however. She nods to Grant as she joins him in the teleportation area, but doesn't stop scanning for enemies headed their way. Arriving on the other end dead will not help this process at all.

    Since it looks like all the enemies are either unconscious or dead by their own hand, she prepares to be taken wherever this thing leads to. Thinking ahead, she kneels down to present a smaller target since there's a good chance they will be expected.

Cinque Evers has posed:
Cine quickly scans over the battlefied heading towards the warehouse. His gazes focus on where Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel shots are coming from, but only decides to make his move when Captain Marvel crashes intot he ceiling. Cinque throws some smoke bombs to cover his movements as he makes his way inside the warehouse house. $r$rOnce inside the warehouse, Cinque runs into the last true believer and quickly downs the Hydra agent with a round from his modified Navy Revolver. Cinque does one last scan of the warehouse, committing anything important to memory before stepping on the teleporation area.

Pete Ross has posed:
With a flash of light Grant lands with a thud on a cold cement floor, Isalia at his side with bow drawn. There are red lights dotting out a circle by which the radius of the teleporter is defined. A large emitter hangs over the space and two teleporter techs dark green clothing and yellow stripes down their arms are checking over the readings. One of them spies Grant and Isalia and yanks on the others arm. He looks out and then slams the big red button.

The space is far greater than this one little circle though. The ceiling is high and the construction wouldn't be out of place on a star wars set. There are carts driving around busily, personnel moving in formations jogging about, lines marked on the floor for vehicles to follow - large rows of very modern looking hover tanks parked. Flying vehicles parked on the other side. This is the biggest HYDRA base anyone in the world has ever seen and there are -thousands- of people here going about their day as if it were a perfectly normal military base. They are prepared for War.

The uniforms, though, are anything but a countries colours. Dark green on black armor, a modernised energy weapon strapped to their chest. Knife horizontal on their belt, grenades, a dark mask covering their head with digital optional vision assistance.

The base comes along as guards race toward the teleporter. Some of the HYDRA agents who had just arrived turn back and pull out their weapons. Alarms echo through the gigantic space.

One of the HYDRA soldiers makes a sound of amusement at the lone invader. "Iz zat all you got.. SHIELD?" He motions to the teleporter techs, "Shut it off."

The teleporter sweeps again delivering next to Grant and Isalia - Captain Marvel, Wonder Woman, and Oletha Ukufa. The -army- of HYDRA agents rush to hover tanks, quinjet clones, draw rifles, and they start blasting at the teleporter area.

Natasha has the warehouse secured as more SHIELD agents rush in, putting kneels to backs and zip tying wrists. There aren't many HYDRA agents left alive - they took their own lives after all.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
This is a risk. IT also means that Natasha's just a teleporter cycle in arriving. And it means that Hydra has them in a -massive- crossfire and kill zone the second they do come out and has them under gun from every angle as she goes through with the others. THe very second Natasha is seeing this, her eyes take a rare moment of total surprise. This is a -very- well fortified base. And they're all going to die unless they move. Fast.

Natasha goes to fire off her grapple line to -launch- herself towards the ceiling, unleashing all her store of smoke grenades over the ground in front of the team. She goes to call out <<Dropping smoke>> That's about two or three seconds too late for the group arriving in the first wave. All she can really do is hope that Diana's bracelets and Carol's absorption powers can tank the first crossfire and quickly clear it out. Beause even just a few shots is going to take out anyone who can't take a shot or two instantaneously.

Carol Danvers has posed:
"Well, I was wrong about the teleporter," Carol quips, rising to her feet, "And look at these uniforms?"

Captain Marvel rises into the air, her body aglow with a halo of golden light. Her eyes no longer blue, but two searing orbs.

"I know Hugo Boss is dead, boys, but surely there's someone out there with terrible world-views and a flair of fashion!"

Then she's moving. A broad 'wall' of light forms before her, the blasts from the tanks exploding harmlessly against it as she moves forward. She pulls it down in time to lurch at one of those same tanks, grasping it by the front in an effort to lift it and hurl it at another of the armored vehicles.

Grant Ward has posed:
The first priority that Ward has is securing the return trip. As soon as he realizes just what is going on at this base and where the controls are, he wastes little time. He aims and fires a pair of ICER rounds at the two teleporter techs, dropping them both before they can disable anything.

He steps to the side as quickly as he can, knowing that there is plenty more coming after him, and then he darts away, disappearing into the chaos as he tries to find his way towards Secretary Ross.

Diana Prince has posed:
Diana lunges through the portal and in to the massive HYDRA base. She sees the enemy forces already preparing for their arrival, and she sees the soldiers raising their weaponry to fire upon them...

The Princess jumps forward again, but this time she drops down on to her armored boots, her force carrying her on metal-covered knees across the base floor until she's out ahead of her own people, and with Carol amping up the powers, Diana is right there to reinforce her...

Her bracers are slammed together, the power of the Aegis Blast evoked from Diana's Godly crafted ornaments, resulting in a blossoming wave of golden glowing energy that pulls the oxygen right along with it, creating a rush of wind, and powerful kinetic energy to rush across their foes! It spreads out away from the newly arrived heroes, and it seeks to cause uncalculable damage to both soldier and military vehicles that get caught within its wake!

Isalia has posed:
    Sweeping her gaze around the area after they arrive, Isalia lets a quiet curse slip out before moving. Kicking into high speed, she sees Grant handle the techs, so instead blurs down the space between some of the vehicles. The bow is currently back in it's sheathe so she has both hands free to punch the living daylights out of any soldiers she passes. It actually looks a bit like a video game as she twists and turns through the mass of vehicles, bad guys flying into the air as she hits them.

    Compared to her Amazon sisters she is unfortunately weak, but to normal people? If she knew what 'hang time' was, she might be setting a record here and there. As she stops to take a bearing on where everybody on her side of the fight is, one of the HYDRA goons takes a shot at her. Energy or not, she's still fast enough to block the bolt and even send it back in his direction, making him scramble for cover as the tank next to him takes the hit.

    With Carol and Diana clearing out huge swathes of the enemy, things start to feel a bit less one sided, and she decides to zip back over to Diana, watching her back in case someone was hiding in a tank or something and they pass by and give him a sneak attack.

Alexander Pierce has posed:
U.S. Secretary of Defence Alexander Pierce watches from the control room. The distinctive attire of Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman is all he needs to see. SHIELD or no SHIELD, this base is done for - even if they win the fight there'll be more coming. He adjusts his tie and turns on his heels.

The marbled floor features an eloquently inlaid giant skull with octopus tentacles rising from its neck. "Transfer control of the robots to our backup facility," he orders. "...and take care of our guest, my dear friend, Mr. Ross." He strides off to his personal office. To his personal teleporter. His time here is done.

The HYDRA agents in the room salute, two hands thrust forward, "HAIL HYDRA" but Pierce doesn't even bother to respond. He has a war to start.

Pete Ross has posed:
As the smoke fills the space and Captain Marvel rises up in to the air - all guns rise up with them and start to blast at the flying superhero from all sides. More and more troops are charging in but in the confusion, Natasha has found her way up in to the over walks at the ceiling and Grant has dashed past the ranks of rushed soldiers in to the administrative section of the base.

The battle rages violently and fast as cosmic energy weapon lashes out hitting their own people on the far side just as much as staying on target of Carol and Diana. Isalia and Cinquers have the pleasure of getting to pick and choose their targets - the big heavies drawing all the major fire.

Pete hears the explosions inside the base. It's hard not to. He glances at the guard in the room he's being kept in. "Hey. May be you should go check on that.." The guard thinks about it for a moment, then turns and leaves the room. Pete makes haste, using the paperclip he stole earlier. Even with two broken fingers, cracked ribs, and a bruised up face he starts to pick at the cuffs locking him to the chair.

Grant Ward has posed:
One thing that Grant Ward has picked up in his years in SHIELD is a sense of the patterns of deployment in a facility. He watches where the guards run, where the fortifications are, and how they are moving. It is not impeccable, but it gives him a general sense of what the flow of the base may be. He could be wrong, but he takes off down a hallway towards where, if his assumptions are correct, they should be keeping Ross. They'd have their best guys on that, wouldn't the?

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
The sheer volume of fire being put out is akin to a reinforced battalion spraying machine guns on full auto. To stay still is to die. Mobility is all that would allow survival. Natasha's smoke bombs detonate likely to little effect or to cover the group. Sprayin genergy weapons that don't have to worry about ammunition means it's not much of an issue. But it's what little the Black Widow can do. SHe's up near the ceiling of the facility now, grappled up and hopefully lost in all of the chaos. And from here she just goes above and out of the way to dart forwards using her next grapple. Her intent is to just let the heavies deal with the enfilade and smash their way through it and if she can just entirely bypass all of it.

WHere the heaviest stream of reinforcements will be coming from will be where the main enemy array is. So just go to backtrack along that and stay out of observation.

A hand clicks a button as the stealth camouflage of her armor kicks in. Like a chameleon, it blends in to match the background of the corridor, hopefully the only noise being made the pssht as she fires her grapple gun to the next launch point and the reel yanking her along.

Cinque Evers has posed:
Oletha immedidates take cover upon arriving and takes as he glances around the area. "Incdendiary rounds!" Oletha's revolvers makes awhirling sound as it switch its amunition. After seeing the Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman create a lot of chaos, Oletha settles in providing cover fire for the arriving agents until it is time for his guns to recharge.

After throwing two concussive bombs to clear out some more troops, Cinque heads deeper into the facility. His eyes looking out for the data lines as makes his way through the facility. "If I was a Hydra server room, where would I be?

Carol Danvers has posed:
"Not that I don't enjoy the workout, but we're not just here to break toys. The way these guys are throwing themselves at us like this ... "

Captain Marvel pauses, grabbing a particularly bulky trooper armed with some sort of heavy weapon by the throat and hurling him so hard at the concrete wall that he leaves a dent behind.

" ... they're obviously a diversion. You better find Ross and quick."

In the midst of all the fighting, Carol finds herself standing alongside Diana as she blasts an approaching death-machine with a double-barrelled burst of energy.

"Dinner later?"

Diana Prince has posed:
A rumbling tank is cast over on to its side.

One of the rising jets is brought back down to the ground, and its VTOL thrusters are ripped off of its undercarriage, cast aside with a clattering of metal and shattered parts.

When Diana steps back away from the wreckage, she looks to Isalia. "Back up the Agents, see if you can help them find Mister Ross." She tells her sister before she finds herself near to where Carol is. There's a moment of time after the question that garners a smirk from the Princess before she notes movement out of the corner of her eye.

"Careful..." She says, and leaps up in to the air, her body arching as her sword comes down to slice right through the raising cannon of another tank taking aim at the heroes here to rescue the captive man. Diana's blade cuts it clean through, before she tilts herself to the side and kicks the cannon emplacement right off of the top of the tank, leaving a huge gap in its upper structure. Diana reaches a hand in and pulls the pilot of the tank up, glaring at him. "No more." She says, before dropping him to the ground where he rolls away.

Isalia has posed:
    Given the attention Diana and Carol are attracting, Isalia feels pretty safe in pulling out the bow again and rising into the air. Arrow after arrow rain down on anything that is wearing the uniform. It takes a bit longer than huge walls of energy or concussive force, but eventually might catch up since Isalia just doesn't miss.

    An occasional energy bolt is shot her way, but she either moves out of the way or parries it with her bracer. Since she's up there she is also scanning the area to see if there is anywhere HYDRA is gathering to fight back or escape through a passage off the main room.

    Hearing Diana's command, she rockets over to the hallway Grant went down and heads in to back him up.

Alexander Pierce has posed:
Alex adjusts his sleeve cuffs as the beam of light washes over him, teleporting him away. A small puff of smoke rises from the machine as its internal circuits are destroyed.

Pete Ross has posed:
Pete gets the cuffs off. Thanks to some of his friends having taught him how to do that. He rises up and as the guard comes back in, he picks up the chair and smashes it over the guard. The chair bends and the guard knocks it away. He draws his weapon.

The administrative section of the building is much quieter than the outer area where the HYDRA army is. It's easy for the SHIELD agents and Isalia to find their way through.

The army, however big it is and its seemingly endless numbers of devotees --- is no match for the new era of combat. This is the kind of army that would tear through a modern city and fifty years ago probably conquered a small nation in a day.

What HYDRA needs is a new kind of army. This? This highly efficient modern technologically advanced vision of power simply cannot stand up against powerful beings like Carol and Diana. It is no wonder, then, that HYDRA has moved on to giant robots powered by dark energy and alien technology.

In some respects Carol is right. Less a distraction though and simply fodder. TO be thrown in the HYDRA paper shredder because it takes up money, space, and logistical threats by simply being so big without a war to fight.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Still in stealth mode, once she gets to the administrative section Natasha Romanova goes to 'ping' along the SHIELD comms to her location. For anyone else on the comm-net Natasha would instruct <<Sweep and clear. Priority is location and evacuation of VIP. Secondary priority is to locate enemy control room and command personnel for incapacitation and seizure>> She goes to dart along, moving from shadow to shadow. Even an advanced Hydra base will hopefully have a familiar layout.

So that means hopefully she can quickly track to where it's the likeliest Hydra would store high value prisoners, the control room, or anything else of priority importance without too much exploring required. She's trying to avoid engagement as much as possible to remain in stealth mode and letting each of the others go to split off to their own routes. Ordinarily she would keep them together, but they're immensely outnumbered, on a clock, and have no guarantee that they can secure the facility before being driven out.

Carol Danvers has posed:
Captain Marvel was brought here to act as a buffer between the stealthier agents and the ludicrous amounts of weaponry that HYDRA had been hiding away for a rainy day. She does just that.

The quips fall by the wayside for now, instead focusing on efficient and total destruction. Beams of golden light lance through the air to slice tempered steel apart, while fists like atom bombs tear into anything that gets in her way. One tank is lifted from the ground and ends up embedded in the ceiling, sparking and smouldering in places.

"Anyone got a ping on where we are exactly?"

She asks the queston, but she's already looking upward with a thoughtful expression on her face.

Diana Prince has posed:
A group of HYDRA soldiers rush up in to one of the Quinjet-ripoffs, laying down suppression fire as they fold up in to the Jet together... and Wonder Woman is there, deflecting their bullets with shield and Bracer. She trails after them, actually going up in to the Jet herself...

What follows is the whole Quinjet shaking to the starboard side, then to the portside, followed by the sounds of screaming, and a few bodies being sent tumbling back out of the Jet's lowered boarding ramp.

When Diana emerges again, she's dragging a line of men all tied up in the glowing golden Lasso of Hestia. They have submitted to the Princess' skills, and are rolling around as Wonder Woman disembarks the Jet to stand upon the base's tarmac once more.

" I am not sure of our location, yet...." She replies to Carol with a glance up to where the Captain is.

"Please update us the moment Mister Ross is found too."

Isalia has posed:
    With her speed, it is easy to zip through the admin areas, looking for either Grant or Pete himself. The bow is away again since in these smaller spaces hand to hand combat is probably all that is needed. As a matter of fact, she does find personnel here or there who need a quick hand to catch up on sleep, and she obliges them. Still, she doesn't forget the mission, so each knocked out guard is progress in searching the base, not just fun.

    Still, a base with so many soldiers and their equipment has to be large, so there's a good deal to search through. Maybe she'll find one or another of the SHIELD agents or just keep searching through empty rooms where all the people being put to sleep in the main room sleep and train.

    Either way, there is an exhilaration when going into battle, and she has a smile on her face as she makes her sweep though the base.

Grant Ward has posed:
It turns out it is a good thing that Ward acted on instinct, and that that instinct was correct. He rounds a corner and spots the door, hearing the smash of the chair echo out of the room. One way or another, that's a bad sign.

Ward darts in and sizes up the scene quickly. Once again, he lets instinct take over as he sees a weapon trained on Ross. He is moving before the guard can pull the trigger, SHIELD training kicking into gear. He cannot get to Ross, OR the guard - but he can get in between.

Launching himself as he aims his own firearm at the guard, Ward discharges several ICER rounds at the guards head, not knowing how many will be needed to drop him. But sadly not fast enough to STOP him from pulling the trigger. But Ward's timing is on point, and the bullet catching him just at the point of his shoulder above the body armor with a thunk and a splash of blood. He lets loose a grunt of pain as he skids across the floor, but at least Ross is safe.

Cinque Evers has posed:
He had do some spatchcocking of a Hydra guard with his Bowie knife while his guns recharged. His enhanced intuition pays offs as he follows the data cable, and findss the server room, but that is where his luck ends. It is being guarded by two Hydra agents. "Armor piercers" The revolvers again switch ammunition. He throws a smoke bomb in front of the guards, followed by two rapid shots from his revolver bringing the agents down. Cinque pulls out his hacking tools to get him inside the server room

Oletha smirks behind his mask as he steps inside the server room, "Now the real fun begin!

Pete Ross has posed:
Pete is stunned as an Agent of SHIELD comes out of no where and jumps in front of a bullet for him. The HYDRA guard drops to the floor from the ICER rounds. Pete knows calling out for help would be pointless. He helps Grant up, letting the agent put his weight on him, "So. You're the rescue party?"

Pete starts to walk to the door with Grant, pauses, then turns back and grabs his keys on the table nearby. "Encryption key. All the evidence is locked on DoD servers," he says. He's been waiting since his abduction to tell someone who is responsible for all this.

"It's Alexander Pierce. I'm going to make a formal statement to the nation if we get out of here alive." He helps Grant move with him out in to the hallway and sees Isalia there. He doesn't see Natasha though - she's practically invisible. He smiles when he sees the amazon though as they were the ones protecting him before he got taken. "Greetings. This brave Agent..." he expects Ward to insert his name there, "Just saved my life. Tell me there's a way out of this base?"

The HYDRA military has realised it's a losing cause to fight Carol and Diana like this. One of the guards hits the hanger doors and the cold air of the mountains rushes in to the base. Several of the quinjets start to take off and move toward their only escape from the onslaught of the heroes. The alps are very recognisable for anyone who has travelled enough - it's clear the HYDRA base is built inside one of the mountains there. They're in Switzerland.

Even as the HYDRA military tries to make its evacuations Oletha is quickly downloading decades of battle plans for every country on the planet. Invasions, infiltrations. It's a true treasure trove. But it all ends a decade ago when HYDRAs moves suddenly started to change - everything there confirms what SHIELD always suspected they were up to. A lot of HYDRA plants are going to get burned by this data breach.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
They've gotten the VIP secured and are hopefully goign to extract. Now they go for secondary objectives. Natasha quickly locates the command center and nearby a server farm with computers. She's making a beeline over towards them while flipping down more smoke grenades for cover. She's still not sure if they can secure the place in the attack with all the firepower present against them. Much less if Hydra can teelport in reinforcements from other locations.

Also without direct access to the power generators, atually destroying the base takes more time than they likely have. She quickly darts into the command center, and goes to take out a USB hub and inserts it into a command console, letting the automated virus go to upload itself into the computers.. And to the server farms and cloud data. Given there's a fihgt in progress hopefully Hydra has had no chance to wipe the data files as is standard procedure. It will be heavily encrypted..

But with luck taking a massive load of data from a major Hydra operations base will be a huge payoff for SHIELD to try and counter thier future and ongoing operations.

Natasha goes to speak to her comm <<Inserting virus to computer files. All personnel, status update and tactical options.>> Virus uploaded, she's going to quickly maneuver to rendezous with the rest of the team.

Carol Danvers has posed:
"We can make plans when we're on home soil," Carol tells Ross, no longer glowing as menacingly as she was during the fight, "I think we've got what we came for here."

She turns to look out towards the opened blast doors and the Swiss Alps beyond, looking around the largely-demolished hangar bay thoughtfully.

"I'm guessing we can't rely on the teleporter to put us back where it found us. These jets don't look like anything I can't handle. C'mon, get in and buckle up."

She turns her head slightly, speaking into her communication device: "We're making a break for it. Hustle or you're walking home. Well, skiing, I guess ... "

Diana Prince has posed:
Once Diana has gotten the HYDRA soldiers to cuff themselves with their own handcuffs, she draws her lasso back with a snap of her wrist, coiling it up in her hands as the hangar doors open up to let in a blast of the cold air outside.

It washes over the Princess, her long hair waving gently against her shoulders, her eyes out upon the wintery landscape. The Alps. she'd been here a number of times, for a wide array of differing reasons.

Her eyes go then to where Carol is loading up a Quinjet.

"I should stay." She says. "I should wait for SHIELD to arrive, and my Jet can come to retrieve me. I would be remiss to leave this location unchecked until a team can be here to secure the site..." She says with a smile toward the Captain. "Take Mister Ross out of here, though, and anyone who wishes to go along. I will meet you back in New York for that dinner."

Diana clutches her lasso in front of her waist now, holding it in both hands as she turns to start to move again...

Cinque Evers has posed:
"Okay, this is information that put in a grave situations. I need to get this information to someone used to fishing for these whales." Cinque puts his hacking tools away and pulls out his two revolvers and battles him way back to the others.

Grant Ward has posed:
"No," grunts Ward as he leans against Pete, nodding in the direction of where the explosions can be heard. "They are." He lifts a hand to point in the direction of Danvers, Diana, and the rest of the crew.

He manages to not slow down Pete too much, one hand pressed over the wound to slow the flow of blood.

"Ward," he gasps out as Ross seems to make the introduction. "We got what we came for, so it's time to bug out."

Pete Ross has posed:
Pete stares in wonder a moment as he sees Diana and Carol. Diana he knows. He gives her a small wave; but Carol's plan to get out of her is perfect. He helps Grant in to that jet. Cinque joining them as Diana chooses to stay behind. Isalia with them.

Their escape from the HYDRA base is assured. The nearest SHIELD official base is in Geneva. It's not going to be a long flight with Carol as their mode of transport. The HYDRA base is in shambles with so many of their heavy equipment destroyed and many of their soldiers hurt, unconscious, or trying to flee.

What they don't find, however, is any evidence of the robots or how they're controlling them. They have at least left with Pete though. Clark will be able to rest easy and Pete has a press conference to hold.