14371/Operation WATCHFUL: R.O.U.S.

Operation WATCHFUL: R.O.U.S.
Date of Scene:	12 March 2023
Location:	Ruins -- Roosevelt Island
Synopsis:	SHIELD arranges for Rhino's release as one of the conspirators in the Ryker's Island breakout, hoping to track him to his bosses. Instead they find a test site for the alien bioweapon - that is subsequently triggered and released. Several agents are exposed, and while the government scrambles to quarrantine the location and they rush their agents back for treatment, the site is... actually blown up from orbit.
Cast of Characters:	Darcy Lewis, Natasha Romanoff, Toni Ho, Sybil Tan, Jessica Drew, Carin Taylor, Richard Stadler, Cinque Evers

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Darcy Lewis has posed:
WARDEN'S OFFICE, RYKER'S ISLAND - A WEEK AGO

A familiar SHIELD agent (for once) in a smart suit stands in front of the desk of one Percy Alexander Rue, the administrator of the facility. Her expression is rather blase, while his is... somewhat annoyed.

"You can't be serious."

"If you'll examine the paperwork, you'll see that everything is in order. The Governor's signature is on page-"

"But he's dangerous!"

"The man dresses up in an animal costume and likes running into bank vaults head-first. If we don't re-arrest during the op, I'm sure Spider-Man will pick him back up before long. But calling this a matter of National security? That's actually an understatement."

"That's what you spooks always say. Well, not like I've any choice in the matter, hmm? I'll start processing the release-"

"Please observe the instructions on page 4. The district court has cooperated to expediate his most recent appeal, citing evidenciary and procedural irregularities. You're not 'releasing' him: his lawyer beat the system. Understand?"

"Fine." Rue signs, and shoves the papers over. "Now get out of my office."

ROOSEVELT ISLAND, EAST RIVER - NOW

The operation has been long in the planning, but this is the big show. A week prior, SHIELD secured the early departure of one Aleksei Sytsevich, aka The Rhino, from his comfortable cell at Ryker's Island. As far as Aleksei knows, it's another case of the flawed legal system, of a revolving door for supervillains, and not because SHIELD has made him their unwitting informant. He has been under constant surveillance since the minute of his release. The goal? That he leads them to the people behind the Ryker's island break-out. Who might just be aliens plotting biological warfare.

"Signal check."

Once again, Darcy Lewis, unlikely Agent of SHIELD, is playing command and control. They are operating in full tactical readiness: comms integration, satellite images, backup as close as they can get it without spooking the targets. That last one is always the tricky part in an operation like this. Overwhelming force has a way of being obvious. So you balance, right on that knife's edge. In this case, it means they're not using the van. It's too slow, and maybe even too obvious.

A quinjet, maybe? Well, for Darcy, yes. For the ground team? The ones who don't fly arrive via the classic black Zodiac CRRC - basically a military raft. They come in over the water in the dead of night, and find the vast complex of decaying hospital buildings waiting. This isn't the first time this place has been used by villains - it might not even be Rhino's first visit.

"We lost him about 50 meters west of your position. There's not much there beside ruins, but we have hot spots just a bit north. When this place was running, it had all kinds of outbuildings and some had basement connections. Could be our rat knows the secret way in."

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha Romanoff would be along with the team, and note to them <<Do note engage Aleksei unless there's no other option. We can slow him down but actually stopping him will be difficult>> And she's not even sure with the team they have they could do it. <<Do remember by profile he's not particularly bright or observant so that gives us an advantage>> She's wearing her usual eqiupment, along with a set of UV goggles and an air rebreather. Just in case. And minimal light will hopefully help make sure they'r enot seen.
    <<We track him and see where he takes us>> And try and avoid a fight for now. <<IF you can get a tracker on him without him noticing, even better>> To any of the group along with them that might have the ability to do it from a distance. THe objective is for now to track him and see if he leads them to a bigger prize in this operation.
    She's not bothering to give individual orders yet. They don't have enough of an idea as to what they're going to be up against and she trusts her fellow agents to utilize themselves as most effective until they get into the thick of things. She's given them thier objective.

Toni Ho has posed:
Toni is, of course, not on the boat. She's up in the sky, Iron Patriot Mk. I circling the decrepit hospital complex. It's not exactly the stealthiest of things, but she's high enough that she's largely lost in the night sky, the color scheme of the armor actually helping with stealth for once.

She's got eyes on the ground, though one is always swinging back towards the raft, zooming in on her favorite person and just hoping she'll be okay when this goes south.

Because it will.

<<Eyes in the sky reporting. Nothing yet. Which is weird because this dude is the size of a freaking house.>>

Optics zoom and scan, sweeping through the nooks and crannies as they can, but nothing yet.

Sybil Tan has posed:
    While this may not be the usual sort of mission Sybil finds herself on, a combination of no current dimensional breaches plus the fact that her office got blown up recently leaves her a good deal of unbooked time. When the word of this op made it's way around the water coolers, she decided to sign on. Mainly, she's been watching over Rhino. In her case, literally over, about five thousand feet or so. It's not easy spotting a man sized target that far up, so she makes a pretty good watcher.

    <<Kestrel here. Circling above the area for now, I'll let you know if I spot any movement.>>

    She's already plotted the paths of the quinjet and Iron Patriot to make sure there are no embarrassing midair collisions among the high guard. She's also flipping through various vision enhancements, trying to decide what's currently giving the best picture of the area. She's also sending a feed of her sensor info to Darcy in the quinjet so all possible info is available to her.

Jessica Drew has posed:
An anonymous shadow in a balaclava and black tactical gear, Jessica crouches in a cover of marsh grass not far from where they beached the Zodiac. UV goggles hide her green eyes and a rebreather gives her a vague insect-like look, apt considering her abilities.

<<Copy that Agent Romanoff. Moving toward the hospital grounds now.>>

She silently skirts concrete blocks with exposed rebar, thinking of tetnus and flesh-eating bacteria. Ears tuned to the slightest noise ahead she adroitly climbs over the ragged teeth of the fence then stops, head swiveling left and right.

Carin Taylor has posed:
    As ever, Carin is thankful for SHIELD-provided gear. She's tapped in to every bit of electronic leash they have for the mission, fusing the GPS trackers with live feeds from aerial sources. And with how her already agile mind makes beautiful music with her Brain Box, it's seamless and there's no sensory overload. Of course, friction-proof agent combat uniform aside, she's packing light. An ICER pistol hangs in a specialized holster and she's working with some NVG's to make up for the darkness.

    <<Zoomy running ground recon... give me a moment...>>

    In conjunction with the data they have, Carin is... off. Gone. Not even a blur, just simply out of sight. The location tracer will blip across the island for the observers at the map, and any recorded footage from her own software will need to be slowed down by some magnitude.

    <<Checking where we lost the big guy...>>

    Zip. Zip. Zoom. Then. A pause. Her dot lingers near a ruined building, and her live feed will focus on what looks to be a concrete staircase and some metal doors. She's there for a heartbeat before dashing off, making a circle around, hunting for security or other pitfalls that the less rapid members of the team might need to watch out for.

    <<Not... really any external security out here... found some doors near where we lost contact. Circling back around.>>

Richard Stadler has posed:
Insertion via Zodiac? That wasn't something Rick had done in... well, a while. Training, certainly, and or two times in the field, people did like to protect things on islands or over rivers, after all) but he wasn't exactly a SEAL. Still, it was a quick hope across the East River; a short time cursing the way the water always made cold days colder and hiding as much of his gear as possible from the spray before the Zodaic beached and they moved toward the objective. He was, ironically enough, one of the few here without an indepdenant air supply. His M50 mask was still secured firmly to his face, the his own night vision afixed to a strap over his head. Black BDUs did what they needed to do this night, making it hard to see admidts the ruins in the darkness. And at the very least, working with SHIELD meant that his ammunition was taken care of. 7.62 for the Mark 17 was pricier than he wanted to admit on a pension.

<<Copy, Lead. Will try to lead off with less lethal if it becoems a problem.>> He noted. Leaving unsaid that he didn't yet have some of those fancy dendrotoxin weapons he'd read about in the odd declassified brief. He was limited to rubber composite, and he checked to make sure the clip with the right color of tape was loaded into the rifle. You didn't want to shoot anyone directly with these in general, but with a name like 'Rhino', there would be concern that these would be... underpowered.

<<Drones show any public entrances to the underground? Certtainly would be a place I'd use if I was running a black site."

Cinque Evers has posed:
- - (First, official Shield recruit mission, and it is not that far from where I normally operate.) - - Cinque thinks to himself as tugs on his gear and bites the bottom of his lip softly. -He begins scanning the area, committing in to his forever memory. Cinque steadies himself on the raft and thinks again to myself - - (I am really glad that I have been taking those advance swimming courses and boat manuevers at the academy. but I got to admit I miss my motorcycle. and my noral gear.) - Cinque makes sure he is listening to the next set of orders that are coming as he continues scanning the area.

Darcy Lewis has posed:
Although their human-sized flyers are OK'd to enter the airspace, the Quinjet remains at a pretty respectable distance out over Hunter's Point. It has its own stealth mode, obviously, but they're not taking chances.

"Eyes in the sky, keep peeled," Darcy signals back to their pair of flyers. "If this is really our ETs, we can't count anything out as far as the opposing force. Including their own aerial armor." The briefing, in fact, would have covered this detail: the so-called 'Raptor' unit, another man-sized flying armor. The agency has some familiarity with the tech via a certain alien defector, but in recent engagements, they've seen a hostile version.

But so far, the approach is clean. Their high-speed surveillance clears the area topside. No hostiles. Not much of anything, beyond decaying buildings.

"Blueprints up now," Darcy comes in again, as Richard asks about entrances. "Keep in mind some of these are sixty-plus years old. But there used to be two buildings here that were part of a single ward complex. You're... basically already inside the footprint of one of them, it's just a shell. But there was a basement underneath that connected both."

"Second building is intact ahead. Multiple entrances, although the location is marked uninhabitable slash for demolition. Sounds more like a death trap than a good place to run a base, but the basement is a possibility."

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha Romanoff would muse lightly and go to speak ot her comms <<Agent Ho, can you get a thermal scan of the building? Use surface penetrating sweeps if possible. Rest of you, fan out and look for other possibilities>> Even a building with a basement that's threatened with collapse isn't the best location for a base. Even if the island is relatively stable, having that much debris collapsing on top is going to end badly. And there cano nly have been so -much- digging if they went to excavate the lower levels and so much space available. However, it's still providing cover, and if the priority is having the base be undetected.. Then it's quite well suited.
    <<Well done. Quick sweep. Ensure that the entrance area is clear and look for evidence of our target's passing>>

Toni Ho has posed:
<<I'll do what I can, chief,>> Toni replies to Nat at the request. She tightens her circle, sweeping the whole area with her sensor suite, feeding the info back to Darcy at the Quinjet before she talks about it. <<Got some strong heat under the not there building, and some lessers under the intact one. Nothing surface level, so I'm dropping lower.>>

Toni's altitude drops, her armor rumbling with repulsors as she gets closer to the ground. It's not quiet, but the Stealth armor is not useful for this kind of exercise. Especially since they're going to have to punch the Rhino in the nose.

Her gaze flickers towards where Carin is on her tac feed on her HUD, smiling to herself, proud. The speedy redhead has come such a long way. It makes her heart feel full.

Jessica Drew has posed:
<<Lead, I'm moving to his last location.>>

The abrupt loss of the subject speaks of underground tunnels and trapdoors. Not, by far, Jess's favorite type of reconnaissance. She has no problem with spider webs or crawly bugs but dreads closed spaces despite having undergone deconditioning.

<<Copy that base.>>

After fifty meters of slogging through nettles and last year's blackberries snagging on her gear, Jess enters the remnants of a door leading to the broken tiles of a corridor. There are no apparent entrances until an abrupt change in the tiles stops her. She kneels, feeling along the edges of the flooring until she finds an inset ring. With her considerable strength, she levers back a metal door, then waits, breath held, expecting alarms .

<<Lead, I've found an underground entrance.>>

Mouth set in a frown, she shoots a web to anchor herself to a nearby wall, then begins her descent.

Richard Stadler has posed:
Richard Stadler starts to move forward slowly over overgrown bush and crumbling concrete, grimacing behind the mask as Darcy gives the scoop of whaat they might encounter. <<Don't like the sound of 'aerial armor', Base. I've got some black tip, but the last time I dealt with that stuff on aliens, it took SLAP rounds, and I don't remmember any of you hauling a Ma Deuce off the boat.>> Okay, maybe he was exaggerating, but, frightfully, only a little. At the intel that was provided, Richard nods to himself, and starts to head towar Carin's position. <<If we've got eyes in the sky and an entrance, we may want to enter in force, Lead. We don't have the manpower to get a gun on every gopher hole they might pop out of and I'd be worried about a defeat in detail if we split up.>>

Carin Taylor has posed:
    <<Circling back,>> Carin repeats, though this time she means she's heading back to where she found the door. A quick sweep is still quick, but this time she focuses less on the bigger picture and more on the little details. She still has to stop for a moment, a breath, the beating of a hummingbird's wings. She takes in everything, and then zips out of sight--just in case.

    <<Big doors. Fire exit leading deeper in. Bomb shelter?>> she relays

    <<Stairs are in bad shape,>> she notes, <<...looks like someone or something big and heavy stomped down them. Advise?>> Carin doesn't like sitting still, but she can't just dive in there without reinforcements. She's holding, if not running around in circles. Hearing Toni's voice on the comms, though, sets her at ease. That eye in the sky and their link makes her heart flutter. Good thing that dwelling on her feelings is something she can experience with time at a near-standstill for her. She smiles. <<Holding here to mark the spot.>>

Sybil Tan has posed:
    <<Same from my sensors. I'll stay high guard for now to make sure the whole area is covered. Will come in if things get hot down there.>>

    A quick scan of her systems verify everything is in the green and ready to go if needed. A glance at the control portion of her HUD causes her left gauntlet to reshape itself, forming the energy cannon that is her main weapon. That done, she closes it back down as it isn't needed at this moment. Whisper quiet, she circles the area, adjusting her heading with movements of her body rather than the jets on the edges of her wings. They make her far more maneuverable, but superheated plasma exhaust would give away her position as well as a big spotlight pointed a her would.

    She has the team's sensor feeds lined up on the right side of her display so that she has all the info the team has.

    <<If we need to re-capture Rhino, I know just how to handle him if needed.>>

Darcy Lewis has posed:
"If things get REALLY heavy, we call in backup," Darcy assures Richard. "You guys are there for the surprise factor, to get info before they use it, beam it away, scuttle it, whatever. Like they almost scuttled you the last time. Just hope we find something." 'Hope' is maybe the wrong word there, considering the implication of dangerous biological devices, but... it gets the point across.

Jessica and Carin's points of entry are a distance apart, although ultimately they lead to related destinations. The staircase is an exit down (from what was presumably the hospital when it was there) into the basement complex, which is dusty bare concrete rather than old cracked tile, compared to the remnant floors in the ruin above.

There is a long tunnel running north-south between the two buildings. Footprints on the dusty floor lead further south, into something of a technical room housing old independent generators for the buildings, heating and water equipment, etc. None of it is presently functional, nor the source of the heat signatures, which are stronger further south.

Jessica comes down in the middle of this technical room, Carin closer to the middle of the tunnel. There's another large set of doors on the far side of the technical room, near the hostpot visible from above.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
As Jessica goes on down, Natasha speaks into her comm <<Copy. Agents, split up. Those whom can go with Agent Drew, do so. We don't want to be all concentrated in one area>> That made them easier to pick off if they were clustered. <<Drew, Taylor, you're on point for your group. Excellent, Tan>> To her fellow Red Room survivor along hte comms. Natasha goes through iwht the group deploying after Carin, her gun out in front of her now, even as they go to head on down quietly. She defers to Toni whether to follow along after them or stay up in the sky. She walks along as quietly as she can, along with the team that's sweeping on down from Carin's direction. At least they don't have to sweep and clear.
    Yet.

Toni Ho has posed:
Toni hovers, thermals locked onto the big heat signature. <<I'm gonna do a distraction. You guys capitalize on the chaos,>> she transmits, pausing for a second. <<Be careful, Carin. And everybody else.>>

Repulsors whine as Toni ascends a bit. Not too far, just about the height of the still standing abandoned hospital. She does a little spiral, takes a deep breath and then arcs over. She rockets, fists first, at the concrete below, focused on that big heat signature. She dives, gritting her teeth as she pounds the full weight plus speed of the Iron Patriot into the ground, shattering concrete into gravel and bursting into the hollow below.

She has time to filp before she lands, dropping into a single knee crouch on the now spiderweb cracked floor. Her voice projects from the armor, and it's likely not what whoever is down here expects. "Oh, hey. Am I late for the party?"

She toggles her forcefield on, the air taking on a slight shimmer around the armor. Because she's pretty sure she's going to get pummeled.

Carin Taylor has posed:
    <<I'll try to go slow,>> Carin remarks, now suddenly being the leader in a game of follow-the-leader. She doesn't like moving slow. She doesn't like tight spaces. And these ruins? Are triggering some bad memories. Nothing she can't quell for now, and forcing herself to linger and advance more carefully is, at least, enough of a distraction for the moment. The redhead leads the way into the next section, the dilapidated generator room. <<I think we're converging on the location...>> she states.

    Carin is completely silent, of course, her subvocal mic keeping her from having to actually speak up on the comms. Helpful. Then her eyes widen as Toni makes her play. Her heart skips a beat but she nods--as if anyone can really see it. <<Do we even know what we're grabbing?>> she asks, readying herself to help with a quick extract--if it's not some giant macguffin. She's not very strong, all told.

Sybil Tan has posed:
    Kestrel blinks as the stealth insertion suddenly turns into storming the castle, but takes it in stride. Really, if you can't change plans on the fly, SHIELD probably isn't the place for you.

    <<Well, that should shake things up a bit. I'll remain eyes in the sky unless needed.>>

    She focuses on the area Toni just opened up, figuring that's where any action is going to kick off. She takes a standard SHIELD drone camera off her belt and drops it, the tiny engine whirring to life as it heads for the ground. Another feed opens on her HUD for the drone, which she guides through the hole Toni made and hovers it near the ceiling, giving her eyes inside the building. This feed is also relayed to the quinjet.

Richard Stadler has posed:
Stadler's reached Carin's entrnace as the start to move down toward the door itself, moving to take up a rear position as Carin and Natasha take the front. Not the most exciting, of course, but someone had to do it. His eyes are fixed back the way they came, then to the tunnel that they found themselves in, looking back toward the empty path, and trying not to turn his head toward the decrpyted systems of the technical room. <<I didn't have a moment to view who the QRF for this operation is, Base. And I really hope I don't get to meet them-" He starts, before hearing the sound of rumbling to the ground, and the radio chatter that might explain it. There's an exasperated sigh as he keeps with the group. "So much for stealth." He makes sure to mutter that off-net, but certainly Natasha aand the others could hear it if their ears were pricked in the right direction.

<<Intel might have more than me, but I'd aim for anything that looks like a sample container, or a data station. If we are dealing with technology we're not used to, it might be hard to know what there examples of a hard drive are, so try to refrain from destroying anything that looks like a terminal. At first. I'd rather torch this facility then let them leave with anything.>>

Darcy Lewis has posed:
The team starts to prepare entry, via various vectors, ground and air. And then a big voice rings out ahead of them. "HEY, HELLO? ANYONE DOWN HERE?" Spotted? Nah, he's talking to someone else.

The area they break into was once, probably, nothing more than storage. All the really weird, dubiously ethical old-timey science probably happened on the floor above. There were no patients down here. But the space is nonetheless something of a graveyard for old medical equipment and related machinery. As with many of the old systems, none of it seems in use, and much has been cleared to the sides.

Well, almost none.

Several large tanks, possibly once used for sensory deprivation or other strange therapies, are set in a central area. They're metal, and quite sturdy looking ("they don't built them like they used to" has some truth to it), with glass portholes with adjustable covers. Those are closed, presently, although it's clear the tanks are hooked up and functional, with some kind of device deployed inbetween, its glossy chrome construction clearly distinct from the older tech. It looks as if it might serve as both power source and pump, connected to them with various wires and tubes. All told, it's pretty compact - perhaps why they had to get as close as they did, with as precise info as they had, to identify the power output as anything unusual.

The others are free to admire the scenery a bit, although Toni's arrival serves to kick off the party. Some of the ceiling falls in, giving them a view of the sky above, showering brick and dust over the tanks... yet neither it (nor Toni) makes it to the weird machine. Her HUD will register the odd interaction of shield-meets-shield before she's thrown fairly violently in another direction, while the falling debris merely slides away, outlining the shape of the shield bubble in the air with concrete dust. A light blinks red on the machine.

"You're looking for that, probably," Darcy tells them, over the comms. Not the chunk of concrete, of course, but she has visuals from Toni, Carin and others, and she can see the thing under the shield.

A moment later, a big shape steps out of one of the dust clouds. "I dunno who you people are, but you're not who I'm- no wait, I DO know who you are! You were there last time, lady!" 'Lady' is Natasha. And this is enough reason for the hulking form of the Rhino pick up and hurl a massive chunk of fallen concrete and rebar at her. And everyone near her. It's a big piece.

"Are you following me?!" The man's caught on! But weirdly, there's almost a touch of something in his voice that is... concerned? "No, no- hey! Hey listen!" Who is he talking to? "Listen to me! I am no rat! These people tricked me!"

Again, on the comms. "Uh, Kestrel, heads up but I am getting some kind of weird reading inbound. You may have a friend."

Toni Ho has posed:
Toni doesn't even have the chance to get up from her SUPER AWESOME ENTRANCE. Instead, her own shield reacts with the shielding around those weird tanks, and she's hurled bodily by the reaction of opposing forces.

The Iron Patriot goes tumbling away as it's launched, crashing into the wall and shattering some brick. She might be stuck for a second, mostly because of angles needed to work herself free.

<<I'm fine, but those tanks are shielded! And he's REALLY BIG!>>

Cinque Evers has posed:
Cinque is feeling too confident descending without his usual costume, so he joins Natasha's group. Cinque pulls out his gun as he continue scanning the area around him. Eyes widen slightly as the sound of distraction takes him by surprise. "I guess we don't do anything small." After each step Cinque takes, he begins to calculate how long it will take to get back to the boat after the completion of the mission. Cinque works on various other calculations related to the mission as he listens to coms, leaving all the speaking to the higher rankng members.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Well, this is is going to go well. Natasha goes to speak into the comms <<Priority is tos ecure the samples and data. Secondary is to take prisoners. Tertiary is to secure the facilities for analysis or failing that deny the enemy the resource>> SHe's not micromanaging the team now. She's given them her instructions and she trusts them to handle the scenario as they see fit. More than anything else they need information.. She's not urging them on after that. Now it's the time for survival.

As Rhino goes to launch the concrete at her, she ducks down and evades it as it would go to slam over against the wall. She goes to tkae out her pistol but instead of loading it with ICER's or something AP, she goes to load it with some small capsules of..? They're grey looking. She fires a burst of the weapon, three capsules launched towards Rhino's face. The capsules would detonate over Rhino's head,c overing it with.. goo?

SHIELD's reverse engineered glue pellets based off Trapster's formula were not remotely as strong as the original.. But for the few minutes they needed, they would hopefully last. And they just had to blind Rhino long enough to neutralize him as a threat for the fight.

<<Blinding Rhino>>

Sybil Tan has posed:
    <<Roger, going into combat mode. Agent Lewis, passing control of the drone to the quinjet.>>

    She glances at the cannon control again, the armor over her arm reshaping into the streamlined weapon. Other controls switch her sensor systems into air to air mode, active scanning coming online. The forcefields that form her wings go to full power, glowing brightly now that stealth is out the window.

    Picking up on the sensor stream from the quinjet, she turns in the direction of the uncertain contact and starts actively scanning with all her sensors, trying to pick up on what's out there.

Richard Stadler has posed:
Stadler frowns, turning around briefly at the sound of a voice calling out into the darkness, once they enter the new room, looking to the various old medical devices. A dusty alarm bell went off, snoozed for a bit as He looked over the large sensory deprevation tanks. <<That doesn't look like something for producing a biological agent. It looks like something for introducing one.>> He noted, and thtat, that was terrifying.

For a brief moment, with the shuddering smashing of concrete from the roof, Rick thought that they might have lost their chance at analysis... but there was simply something blocking contact. For both debries and the armored individual that was making a dynamic entry from the ceiling. <<I don't suppose->>

Oh, hell. Richard was still... not used to the combat tactic of 'weaponized building material', but 'move out of way of big object' served him well enough to have him scatter along the floor, sliding aganist the concrete as chunks of it impact the floor around him. IN the chaos, a small part of him considered making a radio call about that snoozed alarm bell in his head, but he discarded the notion; it would just have the net effect of being distracting, and certainly Darcy would have told them if there were any old radiological devices down here. Being covered in cesium was a problem for future Stadler. Besides, any organization that could be inventive enough to develop glue rounds had to have countermeasures for radiation.

Richard gets up, but only into a crouch, before moving over to the energy shielded containers, sliding aganist what looks to have been a thicker sort of examination table. Sturdy, at least, but it was /vital/ to note that conceaalment was not cover when you were dealing with concrete chunks. His own rifle comes up, bracing at the top of the bed, as he squeezed the trigger, sending three of the rubber composite rounds toward Rhino's leg. Center mass looked like it would just piss him off.

Carin Taylor has posed:
    Dodging giant projectiles is not a problem for a speedster. Carin doesn't have to worry about the giant hunk of concrete. She does have to worry about watching Toni's armor get slammed across the lab space in agonizingly slow motion. The wince lingers on her face far, far longer than she'd like. The sensation lasts for not long enough to impair her, and she works overtime to zip between concrete chunks and bat aside the ones that might be more difficult to dodge!

    But that shield. That thing. The glowing macguffin dome sitting in the middle of the room. She circles it once, twice, three times and kicks up a whirlwind of dust to make it flicker and wrap around it. So they can all see it. <<Hit the shield!>> she blurts out, eyes wide. Maybe she'd seen it, for just a split-second when Toni crashed into it. The most faint of flickers.

    <<Hit it as hard as you can, with whatever you can. I might just be able to...>>

Darcy Lewis has posed:
The lights on the device - a whole control panel, really - do more than just turn red. That's the initial reaction, but they cycle through a variety of of other outputs. There are displays there too, perhaps things that would make sense with a little study, though obviously, with a shower of concrete dust and larger pieces being thrown around, it's a little hectic.

"Can someone get me a visual, on what the machine's doing... because it looks like it's doing something," Darcy pipes in.

Meanwhile, Natasha's shot is true, as Rhino isn't known (among many things) for being terribly agile. There's a 'splat' as the goo hits his face, and he makes a satisfying roar over the fact, reaching to try and pull and scrape at the material. Without success, his movements become even more erratic, and potentially, more dangerous - he charges a few steps, crashes into the shield (causing another flare up of the energy), stumbles away, turns and runs another way, swinging in the air as he goes. It's so wild as to hardly be a risk of hitting anyone (in fact, he's running... completely the wrong way?), although it does smash through supports as he goes, bringing more of the ceiling down. And he cares a lot less about being hit in the head by falling debris than the rest.

Compared to most of that, Richard's shots, while accurate, don't do much more than make him stumble a bit in that awkward charge. He scrambles back up, and continues charging ... away from them?

For Kestrel, it turns out their briefing was on point. Almost on cue, as she deploys her own weapons, both her sensors and own, unusual senses go off with just enough warning to dodge a large blast of energy that rips out of the night sky. The origin is almost invisible against the black background, the dark-hued metal opponent sweeping toward her. There's a lot in common between them, including the avian themes, with metallic wings stretching beneath its arms.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Rhino's heading out. As far as Natasha is concerned, that means he's out of the way. <<Rhino is disengaging for the moment>> And hopefully no one shoots at him on the way out to remind him which way the fight is! Natasha goes to keep her weapons sweeping hte area, going over towards the machine and the materials.

Whatever else is present for these few moments isn't a threat or at least that the group can't handle. Natasha goes to confirm a visual over on the thing, moving to wait for the camera hookup and sensors to get a good view on it.

She doesn't say anything to interrupt. THe thing is activating and going through some routine, and she's not about to smash it unless she has to. She'll let the more technically inclined specialists handle it.

<<Ho, your discretion of whether stay here to analyse this or go and assist topside>>

Carin Taylor has posed:
    She watches, she waits, Carin circling around and avoiding the skirmish as it goes on around Rhino and his... well, Rhino in a China Shop routine. One errant swing from him and she's going to have a one-way ticket to SHIELD medical with a Bane Special injury. Not a fun way to spend a weekend. Thankfully, she doesn't have to worry so much, the goo bullets and... there. THERE. Carin focuses her senses to the moment before Rhino hits the shield... and she bolts.

    If anyone could see her, it would be almost graceful. A dance in slow motion, her body half-turning, her toes digging into the concrete, hands coming up to push still-falling debris aside. Then the shield flickers, and for her, it goes down. A lasting moment stolen like the impact of a raindrop on a smooth pond. The teasing press of water tension before it vanishes. And she's in. It blinks behind her and she gasps.

    <<What am I looking at how do I turn it off?>> she asks, relaying her visual data, as she do, to the team. Well, she had half a plan.

Toni Ho has posed:
<<I can hang with the building falling on me, no big deal, boss,>> Toni replies as she finally digs herself free of the wall, shutting her forcefield off as Rhino ... Rhinos off. Debris falls from her armor plates as she clanks over to the crackling forcefield that Carin just blipped through. Perfect timing, perfect speed.

Her faceplate snaps up, and she's grinning like an idiot. "That was -so cool-!" The faceplate slaps back down, so she can zoom in on the control panel. She mutters to herself, trying to make sense of it. <<Need a second to decipher, sweetie. I'll tell you what to hit when I figure it out.>>

Sybil Tan has posed:
    The maneuvering jets on her wings flare brightly as she rolls to the side to avoid the blast, at the same time locking sensors on the opposing armor since visual on it is iffy. Once it's locked in, several blasts from the energy cannon will test it's defenses and maneuverability.

    <<Kestrel engaging enemy armored suit. I'll be busy for a bit.>>

    She begins the age-old game of pilots, trying to maneuver for a shot while not allowing the enemy an opening. Whenever she has a good angle a blast of energy crosses the space between them as she tests the other armor's speed and defenses. She does her best to evade shots fired at her rather then taking them on the forcefields since she doesn't know the strength of the incoming blasts.

Richard Stadler has posed:
Stadler peers up, as Rhino decides to leave... and he was rather certain that it wasn't the BBs that he had shot at his leg was what caused it. He comes out from cover, weapon pointed toward the direction he left as he had something of a bad feeling about what was going on. <<Did it seem to anyone else like he was talking to someone else when we walked in?>> He reported on the net, before Carin indicated she was looking at something. <<Wait one.>> Okay, he had that tablet in his back, it at least turned on properly... what application was it for visual data, again? Sometimes he really wished Land Warrior had taken off more than it did- There it was. All right. Pause here. There were some indicators... signs. Frowning. <<Not a suprise, but these look like monitoring indicators. Like an EKG set up... Hold on.>> He frowned underneath his mask. This stuff looked familiar... that first lab they were in, the one that they left to an anbandoned area. It had the same sort of equipment. If that was true... He had run through some-

A section of report remembered, a piece clicking into place, cold sweat aganist his back and an almost painful pounding of the heart. <<Net call, /everyone/ back away from the container, now! I don't know what the hell's inside, but we're about to find out. Lead, suggest we have an exit in mind!>> The tablet's hastily stowed, and Rick's alreeady moving. There was enough to worry about at the moment, but they knew where the exit was, and where they might have cover. He seeks the latter close to the former, and quickly ejects the clip in his rifle, replacing it with the AP ammunition. He wasn't about to take chances.

Darcy Lewis has posed:
Rhino really doesn't know what he's doing. And being blind doesn't help. He runs in one direction, eventually hits a wall that has island bedrock behind it, and -doesn't- just blow through it. That leaves him stunned a moment, before he turns to run back the other way, now at (or at least, through) the group! "Gotta get outta-"

Meanwhile, Carin does the impossible, it seems, slipping between the flickering static at the moment of impact on the shield, and gets a close look at things. It may not mean much to her, although with her relay, the intel people can work with it.

Unfortunately Darcy has bad news: "I have no idea. Actually overriding a Shi'ar system is still a little beyond my expertise, uh standby- wait, what was that? Dr. Stadler, did you see those?"

He did.

"If you're not armored, masks on, NOW," she calls on the radio.

The displays change on the machine, and there's a distinctive hissing sound, mist beginning to pour outward from vents around the central machine, as those tubes cycle liquid between itself and the large tanks. To Carin's vision, it's slow, and she can see how the same modulations in the shield that allowed her to penetrate it now allow the tiny particulates to do the same as it pumps gas out into the room.

And a second later, Rhino runs right into it.

Well, the shield. One, this throws up some warning lights that the tech-savy might distinguish as 'impact beyond safe rating.' Two? Blind, thrashing, and yes, breathing deeply in the center of it, the man starts to cough, and then groan, and then... huddle over and scream, as his body starts to almost pulse, as if something was growing against his clothes from the inside out.

--

Outside, Kestrel quickly discovers in person what SHIELD briefings may have outlined in more abstract terms. The armor is... elegant, graceful, powerful, deadly. Glowing red streaks rake through the sky as it trades fire. She avoids a few, but then one scores a hit against those shields, throwing up angry warnings that instantly prove her instinct right - it hits hard.

By contrast, though agile, it seems less concerned with dodging her fire, several of the shots deflecting off the strange metal of its construction. It's not clear if it takes damage and endures it or is totally unaffected, but it keeps coming.

It may be no surprise. If this is the same model as in their files, the last time they ran into it... it took a hit from Mjolnir to put it down.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha doesn't bother to ask -why- Richard is yelling at them to leave. She doesn't ask for an explanation. <<All personnel, disengage! Put on respirators and seal yourselves>> She has her facemask on for a reason, even as she goes to withdraw. <<Taylor, Ho, extract the team. Drew, with me, we'll cover. When you get to the surface, assist against enemy flier>> This is quickly turning into a 'fall back' routine.

<<Command, requesting airstrikes on standby>> That's what you do for a critical mass bio-containment event. You make sure nothing gets out of the area.
    That includes the team, in some contingencies. She's moving to fall into a rear guard position as the others go to fall back. In case someone doesn't make it in time and falls. Or if something comes -out- of that goo and moves to attack them.
    And also passing along the visual and sensor data up to tehir observation units. Each little bit and byte would hopefully add up some.

Cinque Evers has posed:
Cinque's powers actually allow him to witness Carin's almost graceful dance through the forcefield. Cinque begins to process all the visual data that is relayed to him. Cinque furrows his brow and begin to moves his fingers in the air as he starts to caculate, "It is obvious alien technology, and none of our movements have cause any fluctuations in its power, so it have probably been activated remotely. Cinque furrows his brow, "First, I thinking the strongest parts of the forcefield will be covering how their controlling it remotely, but I digress. I am not sure if you want to work on the remote control part, or the data retrieval first.

Cinque peers at the visuals and begins looking at all of the data as he uses his enhanced pattern recognituon to figure out how to operate the machine. Before he can complained about not having enough data, he hears the warning to fall back and to put on masks. Cinque puts on his masks and his accelerated perception allows him to see the tiny particles Cinque falls back, committing what they learn to memory.

Toni Ho has posed:
Rhino comes back and crashes into the forcefield hard, and Toni takes a step back from it as it flickers. Her faceplate flips open again. "Carin! Get out of there," she says worriedly. "Who knows what's coming out of that thing!" She leaves the faceplate up, punching at the forcefield in an attempt to further overload it and bring it down. The crackle and the sound of her strikes hides the hiss. Her comms system hits a flicker of interference at the exactly wrong time.

She looks incredibly confused as people start putting on respirators and masks. By then, it's too late. The mysterious gas hits her and she staggers, faceplate clamping shut with a strange sense of finality.

Luckily she doesn't trigger communications, but the muffled screams from within the armor are, in a word, haunting.

Sybil Tan has posed:
    After a few minutes of give and take with the enemy armor, Kestrel feels she has a pretty good idea of it.. and it is plainly meaner than she is. She may have a slight edge in maneuverability, but on weapons and defense it looks like she's outclassed.

    Which means, of course, that it's time to cheat.

    The next shot from the cannon isn't aimed at the enemy, it's aimed directly ahead of her and opens a glowing portal that she flies directly into. A split second later another portal opens up right behind the enemy, an energy blast directly into it leading Kestrel out of the portal. "Dodge _that_ sucker."

    She begins a series of attacks that would make Nightcrawler proud of her, using her portals to appear above, behind, to the side, basically popping in and out of existence as she sees if she can whittle away at the enemy's defense or if it's going to take something major to deal with this thing.

    Finally, she appears right above it and lashes out with one foot, testing how well it's defended against razor sharp adamantium.

Carin Taylor has posed:
    She's right there. At as zero as ground zero can be. She stares as the warning comes, watching the atomizer trigger. She's so distracted by things going pear-shaped that she's almost bowled into by Rhino. Carin stumbles back, grabbing at one of the pods to steady herself. All she can do is watch in horror as Rhino starts to agonize over.. whatever it is he's inhaling. She registers the call for breathing masks, and hears Toni call out to her. <<W-wait what?>>

    The shield flickers and she looks up, just in time to see the armor snap shut. She's close enough to hear the noises, though, and she breathes deep in a hard, pained gasp. "Toni!" she calls out, unprotected, drawing the agent into her own lungs in the process. She coughs, chokes, and stumbles as she tries to get to the armored agent. Can she support the armor on her own? Of course not. But she's sure as well going to try to drag her out of there.

    <<I.. I think... *COUGH* ..we..we need extraction.. please..>>

Richard Stadler has posed:
This is exactly why, when dealing with a suspected biohazard, Richard had the mask on. It was uncomfortable, hard to speak through, and generally a pain in the neck, but he'd gotten used to working with it for the better part of two decades for the brief moments of sheer terror like these. He can see the pod open, the way gas starts venting from the device, and it was only cool professionalism that kept him from sounding shrill with excessive concern and a touch of panic as he saw thoose still unmasked close to the container. <<MASKS!>> He yells into the radio, a desperate plea that they would at least seal up before it hit them... to no success. Well. Fuck.

Things were happening rapidly, too rapidly for him to worry about the muffled booms and cracks coming from the open ceiling above them as two armored suits danced in the sky. The only thing he was concerned about now was how that would effect the air strike he knew had to be coming in here. Would they use Mark 77s? Were there any in stock at Andrews? Where the hell did SHIELD-

Rick's rifle came up, pointing at the man that stumbled out of the pod, pulsing unnaturally. It seemed that screaming at him to stay on the ground would do little good, so they just watched.

<<Lead, we've got two contaiminated here. Sealed armor on one. Tell me we can get an 1133 that can seal up.>> It was cold, but what the hell else were they going to do?

Darcy Lewis has posed:
Even 'plenty of backup to deal with a heavy situation' didn't mean artillery on standby. Even for SHIELD, that's a difficult ask inside the most populated city in the US. Not an impossible ask (ask Fury about those nukes), but... a little outside of their usual operational parameters. They have non-SHIELD local ships in the river, now moving in to blockade it. They have choppers inbound and NOW? People on the line to McGuire AFB and the NY Air National Guard.

The Quinjet itself is armed, albeit not to a 'scorch the Earth clean' degree. Still, between the radio calls and their tracking of the dogfight (birdfight?) in the air, they plot in a course.

"We're inbound to extract, relaying for extra backup and advising locals to keep distance."

As the Jet approaches, the flying armor remains equally a threat to it as it does to Kestrel's smaller profile. Perhaps even moreso. Indeed, they're forced to veer off so hard that Darcy is thrown around in her seat harness as it takes a shot at them with one of those cannons, before returning its sights to Kestrel.

Who... disappears.

And then returns. Although it's speed seems (and perhaps whatever sensory abilities) seem to handle her attack to -some- degree, without being totally overwhelmed... Adamantium? It turns out, goes through the armor reasonably well. Not in the 'like butter' way she might be used to, suggesting some unique alien alloy, but still. It cuts. And as she cuts, she's rewarded with an interesting sight as she gouges into the 'guts' of the armor...

...that its not armor. No one inside. Just wires. And as she lands that blow, her own senses will reward her with another glimpse of some strange dimensional displacement before it simply vanishes out of the air ahead of her. Gone.

Right?

---

Below, they're in full evac. Except Rhino. Even in his agony, he seems to understand something of what is happening. "BASTARDS! IT WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE ME!" Slamming his fists against the shields until the self-contained power unit can't keep up. It says something for how strong he is. And then he brings those same fists down on the device itself, shattering it, spilling some of the fluid within, to join the more intentional gaseous dispersal.

As he thrashes around, several of the tanks goes over, portal covers knocked ajar, or spilled open entirely, revealing their contents to the retreating team. Human? Hardly anymore. Humanoid at best, though even that is a failing proposition, with an assortment of tumorous growths, chitinous patches, and strange, multi-segmented eyes. Some just writhe, but one displays a certain predatory instinct as it approaches Richard.

He may have to pull that trigger.

Above them, Darcy's Quinjet is coming in, through the now presumably hostile-cleared airspace. There's a hole in the ground, so there's no real reason to worry about that hallway or anything else. Up is the fastest way out now, with various piles of debris making useful ramps.

As the back of the jet lowers its ramp, they're greeted with a grim sight, however: they've already sealed the rear compartment, with Darcy looking at them through a window. Full quarantine for the whole team.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
And there they are with the team. The ground group cannot handle Rhino. Not if they have to contain him. That will be something heavier units are for. That's why they have reinforcements on the way. Hopefully that can overpower Rhino and take him in for isolation. Now, as the group goes onto the Quinjet, Natasha would glance mutely over at those that had been exposed. None of them will be going anywhere for awhile.

She doesn't bother to ask how they're doing, what they feel.. She just looks over at Kestrel, that had been flying in teh air, and muses..

"Your thoughts on enemy combatant." Just what that flier was capable of. She always had her job.

Toni Ho has posed:
Whatever that gas is doing to Toni, it's not good. Not good at all. She at least manages to willpower herself into the quinjet and via blink commands lock the Iron Patriot armor down.

The most painful part of this for her later will be that for a moment, she forgot about Carin.

Luckily, she won't have to think about that for a while, because her mind is too busy processing pain. Alone. In the darkness of her shut down armor.

Sybil Tan has posed:
    It may be gone for now, but it's likely that she'll be encountering that armor again in the future, so the knowledge that her talons work well enough on it is a bit reassuring. Always good to know your weapon will work when engaging an enemy.

    <<Kestrel here. Enemy armor has retreated for now, you should be clear to land and get the team out. I'll remain up here in case it comes back.>>

    The info she's getting over the team's feeds is not good, at least one and maybe more infected with an unknown, but obviously deadly pathogen.

    <<I'll drop down and capture Rhino after the team has extracted, we can't let him go and start infecting people.>>

    True to her word, once the team is out she dives down through the hole, takes aim at Rhino and fires. Not a blast, but another portal right in the big man's path. He hits it and vanishes inside, the portal closing behind him.

    <<Ok, got him safe and sound in my pocket, as it were.>>

    She flies back up through the hole in the ceiling and hovers near the opening.

    <<I'll wait here for the cleanup crew so they can decontaminate my armor before I start dropping microbes all over. Oh, and the enemy armor is fast, tough, maneuverable and not armor but a robot of some type. Adamantium blades get through it's armor with a bit of effort.>>

Carin Taylor has posed:
    "Come... on..." Carin's outside of the armor, trying to push the thing as Toni works it on semi-autopilot from the inside. Up the debris, up the ramp. It doesn't matter that there's a quarantine waiting for them. They got out. They'll be okay. Right? ...right?

    "...I'm here..." she tries to tap on the faceplate just a bit, to remind the other that she's not alone.

    <<Saving... saving a copy of everything I saw locally.. in case.. interference did something. I know I breathed in some of that stuff. Is it.. going to turn us into those. Things?>>

Richard Stadler has posed:
Stadler wasn't privvy to decision making at that level... at least, inside the United States. Maybe that's why he defaulted to firebombing the island into a charred cinder and deal with the political fallout if and when New York City still had about 8 million people thereabout. Though, perhaps, the reaction he was having was one because he was seeing what was coming out of those truely God-forsaken containers. Growth encouraged beyond any reasonable, sane, moral limit, the result being these... things. He wasn't sure they used to be people, or if they had just been constructed in such a way as to appear to. It was enough to make someone who appreciated life itself to freeze up for a moment. Just for a moment, though, and at least he had one before that creature looked at him and started to approch.

Nope.

He pulled the trigger once, and then again, and then again. Five times, rapidly, aiming the rounds for where thaat things eyes were. It certainly appeared to be a head, and most things contained some control of the nervous system there. He wasn't waiting to see if it would recover or it's reaction, though. Rhino's raging screams to an unknown party had to be ignored, because there simply wasn't anything he could do about it. They had contained armored support for that- Fuck.

He pulled back, through the tunnel, to the entrance Jessica had found before, coming up to the island. <<Lead, unless Rhino is critical to this mission, I do not advise leaving anyone here. We don't know what this stuff will do in minutes, much less hours, and we risk losing two when we would only lose one.>> He's up through the outside, and into the Quinjet. He stares briefly at the sealed window that Darcy looks through, and a brief moment of anger hits him. Why was he back in a situation like this? Like he was in his fucking 30s?

A look to Toni and Carin briefly answers the question. Becuase at least if he was hear, some of those young ones might not have to go in his place.

Darcy Lewis has posed:
Once they get their people on board, the Quinjet is immediately back in the air. There are a lot of tricky complications to this, and being a spy agency, well.. better to handle that stuff internally, right? Let the authorities handle the main site. With the river blockaded, the bridge closed and helicopters scanning the area, access is quickly cut off, the whole island soon joining the quarantine.

As for Rhino? "Sounds like we've got him. I don't even know how we begin to quarrantine him, but we'll figure it out. I'll radio back to the Trisk to see how they want it handled."

Thus the SHIELD Quinjet will fly off, to get their people help. Not a good outcome necessarily, but all things considered, they've at least isolated the threat, re-captured the-

Suddenly, there's a bright flash outside the jet, followed by the echo - and shockwave - of a huge explosion. The little plane shakes, but levels off after a moment, leaving the passengers to crowd to whatever windows or viewscreens to see what happened:

Behind them, at the site of the abandonned hospital building, there is now nothing but a burning crater. It's a surprisingly precise area of destruction, no more than the area of the complex they were just inside.

"Cavalry sure got here fast, huh?" asks one of the pilots up front.

"... they're still 8 minutes out," Darcy answers, after taking a moment on the comms. The comment hangs for a moment, before the pilot shrugs and resumes his flight. Darcy's eyes, however, turn upward. "I don't think that was OUR cavalry."

That's an existensial crisis for another day. Once the jet is stable in its return course, she pulls out of her harness again to walk back to the cargo partition now holding the rest of the team. She can't answer Carin's hanging question with any certainty. "I... we don't know anything about how this works. But we'll do everything we can. Keep an eye on their vitals till we get them back to base, doc. Simmons is gonna have a lot on her plate."