4619/Let's Do The Time Warp Again (Part 2)

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Let's Do The Time Warp Again (Part 2)
Date of Scene: 16 January 2021
Location: An Undisclosed Location in the Mojave Desert. 2021.
Synopsis: Under heavy fire from Leviathan, a determined corps of SHIELD agents defends the 2021 anchor site of the mysterious time anomaly that swept Melinda May away so many weeks ago. Once she's safely home, in finest SHIELD style, they blow the thing to kingdom come.
Cast of Characters: Melinda May, Bobbi Morse, Peggy Carter, Lance Hunter, Clint Barton, Jack Nolan, Leopold Fitz, Daisy Johnson
Tinyplot: Times That Bind


Melinda May has posed:
2021. An Undisclosed Location in the Mojave Desert.

SHIELD has been on this for several weeks now, keeping it locked down tight. Well... tightER, now, given the two attacks the site has already seen. It's mid-afternoon on a mid-January day. The weather is as fair as a winter day in the desert can be -- temps in the mid-seventies and clear skies.

Unlike the SSR's operation 70 years ago, SHIELD has way more resources, personnel, and equipment to throw at this operation. So, the temporal anomaly that shimmered openly beneath a quickly erected scaffold in 1949 is within a carefully constructed containment environment in 2021. And that containment environment has been beefed up considerably since Dottie Underwood's attack. There is only one access point to it, now, and that access point has been reinforced with solid walls and significant checkpoints. It's surrounded by cameras, scanners, and sensors of all sorts. Nothing moves in there without someone in the site's operation control center being aware of it.

Right now, however, the movement all those systems detect is high. Techs move in and out of the space, reinforcing a contemporary scaffolding and the equipment necessary to support the stabilization of the Einstein-Rosen bridge they are trying to create to bridge 70 years of history and bring their Agent home. They are overseen by some of the finest minds SHIELD has to offer.

Up in the ops center, systems and activities are being monitored. Also being monitored is the surrounding countryside. One of the monitoring agents looks up. "Ma'am?" she says, looking to the women who oversee the site. "We've got movement twenty clicks out and moving fast. IFF is inconclusive. Profile recognition suggests bogeys are hostile." She throws the radar images she's getting up on a large screen flanking the space. The shapes of the craft suggest variations on both quinjets and, unsettlingly, the same style of gunships that attacked the intial contact team when SHIELD first arrived.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    Bobbi takes out her allowance card from Fury. Three stupid things. She's already ticked off two of them. The third and final one -- using a mysterious stone found in the past and mailed to them via May's chosen law firm to build a time machine to pry open a hole between eras and pull May back. She ticks the final card spot. Three of three dumb things done.

    Bobbi is pacing like an expectant auntie. Is today fails then May will have no choice but to take the long way home in a metal coffin. A cryo-chamber. It's the least favoured option by any of them.

    "Daisy how do our exterior sensors look? nothing tripped yet?," she taps her comms, <<All teams stay on the look out. Things are approaching their final stage>>.

    Bobbi's head snaps up to the screens when one of her agents informs her the sensors have finally been tripped. "No IFF, we're not taking any chances. Contact Nellis Air Force Base, we have two jets scrambled and in the air already. Get them to intercept. HOT." The agent lifts up a separate phone and then gives a nod to Bobbi as two F-22 raptors pop up on the IFF and move to intercept in the air.

    Bobbi claps her hands and then opens the comms, <<This is it teams, we have incoming hostiles at the 11th hour. Time to bring out A-Game to get Agent May home>>

Peggy Carter has posed:
Peggy's mainly keeping to the command center on this one, as she's been the one in routine touch with May as Bobbi had other missions to over see. That doesn't mean she's not armed AND armored, wearing a white desert-rated SHIELD tac suit, two ICERs in her belt, a rifle over her shoulder, and a few other surprises for more long distance explosives hanging off the back of her belt. She's hovering near the time phone but keeping dark eyes on everything as she smirks to herself, "This all feels... strangely familiar." Unplanned but ironically, she's in something quite similiar to what she wore for this mess in 1949. Just more advanced tech.

Then her eyes jerk up at that report, as if she could see through the desert and walls the things the agents has warned her about. She looks over as Bobbi is already on it, announcing to the team incoming. "Morse, I'll keep a timeline on the phone and when the tech is ready to go if you'll coordinate against the hostiles? Better not to split our attention." She's then looking over to Fitz, "How's that...extra special piece working for? Any ETAs?"

The 'special piece' is a brick. A very fancy, time stone *brick* that arrived in their hands just yesterday, sent from a law firm that had been holding it since 1949. She has no clue how it works, but she knows it's suppose to. It's what they are using in '49 as well to bridge the gap.

Lance Hunter has posed:
Lance Hunter says, "...I'm just saying Bobs, we're criminally underutilizing the potential of time travel here, sure, we're all badass secret agents, but just think, we could all be badass /billionaire/ secret agents," Hunter complains checking over his MP5. The agent is dressed in SHIELD tactical gear, with a good selection of tech toys arrayed around his belt. A long with the weapon checks, talking anyone who would listen's ear off was it was his habit before battle, and if one was being honest (and a little hurtful) it was his habit most other times too.

Though when the word comes down of bogies inbound Hunter shuts down the chatter and gives his weapon one final check. "Well this is going to be a helluva day," he remarks before looking to Bobbi. "Don't die out there," he says doing their own personal pre-battle ritual."

Clint Barton has posed:
Clint has already mentioned -strenuously- that he does NOT want to pull a Dr. Who here. Or literally any time travel show/movie ever and end up unintentionally wrecking the timeline. But, he has his orders so he won't question it. Speaking of Clint, he was on watcher duty. Bow in hand and wearing some sick SHIELD tactical gear that he has extensively modified to serve his personal style of fighting, he was out posted near a Quinjet, pulling at an arrow and humming ever so slightly.

Ah, man, he forgot to turn off the TV again. AND he forgot his 'World's Best Archer' mug at home. Damn everything.

Then he hears the report coming in and that its time for the team to go hot. Clint is a good pilot, but he's better at a 'gunnery' position. So he pulls over a pilot. "Get that bird in the air!" He calls, hopping into the ship and getting his more...anti-air arrows ready to bring some pain. <<"Agent Barton, moving to intercept.>> he reports.

Jack Nolan has posed:
For this being a super secret SHIELD facility housing a super secret project to bring an agent back to the future, it sure looks like one would expect a secret government base in the desert to look like, "Surprised we don't have a bunch of kids trying to Naruto run past the guards." Muses Jack to himself, as he stands atop one of the guard towers.

The alert about incoming bogies makes him frown, as he turns his attention towards the horizon, raising a pair of high spec binoculars up to his eyes and peering through them. He hops down off the tower and lands with a massive thud, kicking sand up around him as he moves towards the closest exit out of the makeshift facility.

He's not exactly flying a quinnjet to do air-to-air currently, so he'll have to do this the old fashioned way, <<Ready for ground intercept. Though if you can blast some of those troop transports that'll make my life a hell of a lot easier.>>

Leopold Fitz has posed:
Naturally enough, one of the minds associated with creating this unique brand of technology is Fitz. Unlike so many of the tech projects he is involved in, this is hardly a one or two person job. The complexities are myriad, very nearly endless and the stakes a little too big to rely on any one individual. Still, he got to help create a TIME HOLE and the associated technology to maintain it in place, holding open a seventy year gap in time. How cool is that?

In short order he too will no doubt be in that control room, monitoring the situation, the fluxuations in tachyons, the inevitable surges in all that background radiation and energy spikes that could turn this from a stable bridge to a chaotic maelstorm in the blink of an eye. They are playing with some pretty powerful forces here, ones that human beings never really have before. The possible things that could go wrong judt boggle the mind. Or at least most minds.

Which is exactly why Fitz is busy crawling around some of the machinery, checking important junction points, making sure that all the sensory inputs are functioning properly, that the relay points are all operating at peak efficency and that the reduncacies -- so many redundancies -- are all functioning as intended. A little grimace rests on his face and his jumpsuit is streaked with with various stains as he pulls himself out of a little hatchway, arching his back as he stands before stooping to retrieve his kit. "Everything looks good here. All systems look functional. Readings suggest that we have a healthy leeway if temporal interference picks up. We can go at least fifty percent above baseline, perhaps up to sixty," he reports in.

Daisy Johnson has posed:
"Everything is lighting up like a christmas tree out there.." Daisy replies, her eyes up on the comms and she letting out a sigh. She flips a few more buttons on, refining her search over on the various detectors they have around the area. "Yes, also going to buy a sports almanac while you are at it?" this said to Lance. "It worked real well for Biff!"

She clears her throat and then focuses. "We got ground teams incoming, incoming from all directions. Also aerial bogeys. At least a dozen. Unless these clusters here are ships flying together."

Melinda May has posed:
USAF jets scream through the sky, broadcasting an 'identify-or-else' message. It soon quickly becomes a case of 'or else'. They launch their missiles at the gunships, but those enemy pilots, whomever they are, are nearly as skilled as Morse or May or Danvers. (Okay, who're we kidding. SHIELD totally has the BEST pilots.) Regardless, they're good. And they have anti missile ordinance. That helps.

A lot.

Missiles explode in mid-air. The quinjet variants swing low over the perimeter. Paratroopers spill from their back hatches, beginning to fire down on SHIELD perimeter guard positions even as they plummet. Their weapons are energy-based, spewing out brilliant blue fireballs of death.

Simultaneously, humvees and armored trucks come barreling across the hard packed earth, heavy caliber guns on their rooves spitting the same blue death as the paratroopers above. Apparently, these guys don't believe in conventional armanents. So, the basic rule of thumb for today is: For God's sake, don't get hit!

As the QVs climb higher, their gunship companions begin to strafe the SHIELD airfield, seeking to keep the SHIELD birds grounded for as long as possible. Or, of course, ideally, blow them to hell before they ever get airborne. Whoever these bastards are... they're playing for keeps.

They've obviously never met this particular group of SHIELD agents before.

In the midst of all this -- somewhat earlier than the arranged check-in time (which is supposed to be another 30 minutes from now) -- the time phone crackles to life: "Mojave Bravo to Alpha Prime. Mojave Bravo to Alpha Prime. This is May. Do you copy?"

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    "Honey, First of all I'm not sure that's how time travel works. Everything that has happened has happened just how Peggy remembers it happening.. and second I know you're trying to lighten my mood because my heart rate is already high," she says with a smile to Lance, but then adds, "So don't die okay?"

    She motions to Daisy and says, "Activate the stun field around the Hollywood set." Those lovely grenades that shoot up in to the air and stun people in an area of effect? they had time, she had her teams set up a mine field. Over the comms she checks <<Clint have you got eyes on any ground forces yet?>> She gives a passing thumbs up to Peggy. They've discussed this moment in detail. She trusts in the plan, she trusts in the people. She trusts in SHIELD.

    Bobbi motions to Davis, "Position the energy fields to absorb incoming energy weapons fire." Energy SHIELDS for SHIELD. They have portable ones like a riot shield of pulsing blue energy, but they also have tougher ones on wheels that can be moved around. With the amount of energy being used out here on this base they're changing the night eco system from cold to slightly pleasant if somewhat disturbing.

    Bobbi glances down at the heart rate monitor on her wrist - it keeps shooting up and down. This is a critical juncture in getting May home. This is one of the most dangerous pieces of technology ever in SHIELD's possession. And an enemy they know almost nothing about has come back from the dead just for the occasion. With a glance in to the HUD on her tactical goggles, her alien wings power up in a glowing purple and she picks up twin energy weapons. Whatever else happens, she's going to _hold this line to the bitter end_. Dressed from head to toe in her Mockingbird outfit she looks ready for battle. "It was Marty that bought the almanac, Biff simply stole the idea," she corrects.

    She nods to Daisy, "Right then, let's make them regret waking up this morning. Davis.. fire the ground cannons," Bobbi orders. A pair of twin energy weapons, big cannons positioned on the flanks of the base, shimmer as they de-cloak and with a *womph womph* that most of the agents can feel in their bones, begin to fire in to the air.

    Davis calls out to Bobbi, "Nellis AF reports the AC-130 asset won't be in the field for another 10 minutes." She furrows her brow and then nods her head, "We do it the old fashioned way then, boots on the ground. Time to give 'em hell."

Peggy Carter has posed:
The news from Fitz that they can run above power is probably the best news she's heard today. Peggy looks down at him, giving a brief nod. "If you can push to 60 percent over, all the better. Who knows what they are going to hit us with and if we lose power in one area it'd be best to compensate in others. Just... roll up, tell me when the connection is made, and keep it steady long enough to get May fully back with us, alright? I know you have this." Peggy smiles a bit softer to him for just a moment as she realizes she's being an over-hovering mother about it, but being stuck with a phone and little else to assist means hovering is where her energy is going. The time-phone starting up gets a blink, the time earlier than expected. Peggy keeps it on speaker so, mainly, those nearest can get the timeline as well. "Mojave Bravo, we are reading you. Copy. Machine is starting now... we do not yet have connection, but we are powering up with the..." She looks over to that strange Brick in Fitz's care, "special package you sent."

She then pulls the speaker away from her lips so the other side doesn't get all the extraneous information, especially as she hears Bobbi's comment. Her response is over modern SHIELD comms now, <<If I remember this accurately, they're already coming under attack as well. So the timeline is moving up now. As soon as we can connect, we will. Just keep them off our backs for a few minutes.>> A few minutes is forever in a battle, Peggy knows this.

Lance Hunter has posed:
Hunter gives Bobbi a smile. "Guilty," he says about his reasons for rambling before adding to her and Daisy both. "Pff, sports almanac, small potatoes, just think how much better the fifties would have been if they had the iPhone in 1949?" So what if time travel doesn't work that way? It's fun to dream.

Especially when reality was looking like a genuine nightmare. At Bobbi's word to give them hell lance raises his weapon and fires at the first of the Hydra ground troops to come in range and keeps it going as more follow, firing in controlled three-round bursts.

Clint Barton has posed:
Clint and his Quinjet attempt to go into the air, especially when other SHIELD agents hop onto the Quinjet. The communication from Bobbi gets an almost immediate response as the Quinjet gets up and moving. <<Got eyes on multiple humvees and armored trucks, depositing ground soldiers and moving in to bring some pain. Our dance partners are not pulling punchers, over.>> He returns.

Of course, immediately as he says so, he draws an arrow and takes aim at one of the airborne vehicles, loosing an arrow that will explode on target if it strikes true. Of course, he aims for its engine to knock it out of the sky and hopefully into enemy lines to cause some chaos.

Wher emissiles fail, outdated yet modern-modified weaponry might do the trick!

Jack Nolan has posed:
One of those energy riot shields is exactly what Jack Nolan has brought with him in order to engage these guys face to face. He's confident that he'd be able to take a hit from one of those blasts, but the amount of time he'd probably have to spend healing up afterwards isn't really worth the risk.

So with the shield attached to his left arm and deployed to absorb hits from the shots, his right hand is wielding something a bit bigger than a standard ICER. He's brought himself a literal hand cannon, a .500 S&W revolver. Firing rounds that can punch through the engine block of a truck. He's not messing around today, it would seem.

The stone soldier rushes for one of the armed Humvees, and then drops his shoulder, with the riot shield, as it gets close to him, planting his feet and digging in. The truck hits, and when a not unstoppable force meets an immoveable object, well it's pretty obvious what's going to lose that one. The truck summersaults through the air and slams into the sand, smoking and not moving. Jack then turns his revolver on the nearest troops and opens fire. Seems he wants to get right into the middle of the fray, it's where he excels, after all.

Plus they're probably not expecting a stone dragon armed to the teeth to go tearing through their lines, so the element of surprise is his, at least for the moment.

Leopold Fitz has posed:
It's true. Fitz is a bit of a miracle worker. Of the oh so many things that can go wrong with all of this, issues with power certainly check in somewhere near the top of the list. Holding open a time bridge takes an immense amount of power. It helps, true, that they have anchors at both ends. But lets be realistic here. The contributions from the far side -- when it comes to sheer energy output -- can best be described as quaint or cute. Awwww, look at the lil' tykes try. Bless their hearts. It's cheering on the horse and buggy versus the high performance sports car that contemporary SHIELD is bringing to the table. The thought counts, but there's little doubt about just who's bringing the power.

And it's a power supply that is now going to have to be stretched, to not only drive an impossible set of complex machinery and the super computers necessary to run them, but now also power defensive systems. That's a lot to ask under ideal circumstances. And when does SHIELD ever work within the bounds of 'ideal circumstances'?

Still, Fitz will do his very best of course and as he scampers amongst the shot-up up, throwback Hollywood set and the various hubs of equipment and machinery that have been setup to maintain the TIME HOLE he continues to grimace. "Seeing what I can do Agent Carter. I'll keep that buffer up as high as I can," he reports back.

That grimace does not significantly ease as he reaces along, doing his best to avoid tripping over all the piping and cords that have been laid out and each time he hears the nearby buzz of the energy shields that offer some protection from that oncoming hostiles -- for now at least -- each time he hears that buzz increase in frequency into a high pitched whine, no matter how briefly, he can't help but wince. Each of those impacts represent a drain on their energy supply that they can ill afford. Each impact is only a marginal drain. But even marginal drains eventually add up.

Skidding to a stop by another generator Fitz drops to his knees, that kit already open as he pours through it, gathering up the tools and devices as he hastily jerks open the panel there, hastily beginning to recalibrate it to try and coax out just a little more performance. "That's right, lets fire high energy weapons around the TIME HOLE. That's a sensible thing to do. Bloody hell," he mutters that litany of complaints to himself as he works.

Melinda May has posed:
The deployment of energy shields slows the attackers down, to be sure. But it certainly doesn't deter them. And, of course, it doesn't stop the troopers that land within the shielded perimeter.

In the air, enemy air support jinks and rolls to avoid the surface-to-air blasts of cannon fire. Clint's arrow, as one might expect, flies true. It kills the tail of one of the gunships, causing an explosion that sends the vehicle careening towards the earth -- somewhere just outside SHIELD's airfield.

The ground troopers closest to Jack quickly realize the stone man is a much more immediate threat than the rest of SHIELD. Unsurprisingly, they turn their attention on him, firing heavy blue bolts of plasma at him and trying to stay out of the reach of his mighty arms.

The other agents? Morse and Hunter? They have the dubious distinction of drawing less attention than the stone skinned mutant or the quinjets starting to scramble to meet the enemy harriers. Which means they've got the distinct advantage of being able to move much more freely across the battlefield to engage strategically. Oh, and they get to dodge a renewed rain of unholy blue fire. Because, apparently, that's a thing, now.

Meanwhile, in the ops center, the time phone crackles again with May's voice. She sounds calm enough, but her words are clipped in a way that those that really know her will recognize as stressed May: "Copy, Prime. Be advised, we are under fire. Hydra is in the field. We are engaging now. Let me know when you've got a stable connection. Standing by for transport."

She so very much wants to come home.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    Bobbi steps out of the command tent and takes to the skies. Her heads up display lights up with tactical information from the Falcon operating system. "How does Sam deal with so much info in the midst of a battle?," she muses to herself as she flies up and lands on the top of a faux saloon building and spies the incoming Leviathan shock troopers.

    Bobbi does a spinning turn and wing assisted drop down right in to the midst of a group of them. Energy pistols blast holes in their chests and she moves to knock one of their arms out of the way so he fires his own weapon and shoots his friend. She drops in to a sweeping kick and trips another on to the ground where she shoots him and the first she blocked rapidly.

    A fifth fires his weapon and Bobbi lifts up an arm bracer as a round energy SHIELD appears and absorbs the energy blast. She turns to him slowly and he drops his energy weapon and lifts up his fists to fight. She moves in and throws a punch, which he blocks - he counters and she flips him over her body and wraps her thighs about his head, cutting off his blood supply to put him to sleep.

    <<Copy that Clint, I've engaged some ground troops. They are moving up fast and they are all armed with energy weapons so.. don't get hit. I repeat, all agents, don't get hit>> she says, easier said than done.

    With a humm her glowing purple wings whisk her up in the air $$THREAT DETECTED$$ is shown on her goggles and the Falcon software automatically forces her to dodge out of the way of a large bolt of energy fired down from one of the Leviathan planes. She swoops between two of the buildings and activates heat vision on her goggles. She comes to a stop in time to see Jack shoulder barge a humvee, "Dayamn Nolan. What did you have for breakfast?," she muses out loud.

    <<It's time to make them realise we're not messing around either. Quinjets, de-cloak, flank the ground hostiles from west>> three quinjets, waiting in reserve for their chance to get in to the fight suddenly de-cloak and begin to fire missiles at the advancing troops on the west, even as those on the east find themselves face to face with bouncing stun mines. <<All teams draw the enemy fire away from the shields protecting the portal, we can't afford to drain the power supplies too much>> she says with concern that their best defence is also their greatest weakness.

Peggy Carter has posed:
If Peggy focuses on the fight outside, she'll simply internally lose her temper that she can't be there. So, she trusts the team to report in if anything is getting TOO close, Bobbi to coordinate, and she's here holding the phone. Literally. "They're facing down the largest HYDRA force we've seen in ages and I'm a bloody phone operator. I suppose that is SSR tradition..." Peggy mutters, mainly to herself, but there's lots of ears around and someone else might get the irony.

No matter what, it's amused her. She watches Fitz as he goes, concern deeper crossing her features as he's fighting with that panel. Then the phone comes to life again and she presses the button to speak back: ""We are still powering up. 20 seconds... Thirty tops. Get ready to come through on my word..." She lets the button loose so May doesn't get the other hand of her statement, "Come on, Fitz...don't make me a liar." Since he hadn't *exactly* given her an estimate.

<<The other side is already under fire. I told May we're expecting her in 20 or 30 seconds tops so... we need this functional BY THEN. And the rest of those forces off our backs for at least 45 seconds. Once we have May through, they can destroy this all they want.>> Apparently, Peggy did not plan on this machine remaining in tact. Probably for everyone's safety, the timeline included.

Lance Hunter has posed:
With Bobbi airborne Hunter makes use of the lack of attention thrown his way, to move from cover to cover through the half-demolished set, popping up to pick off enemies as they get within range. Spotting a squad trying to lay into the machinery around the Time Hole, hunter takes a long silver spike off his back, twists the nob at the end and hurls it like a javelin into their midst. "Hope the thing bloody works," he mutters ducking for cover just as the little cylinder at the end pops into the air and blasts out a shockwave in every direction sending the enemies flying. "Huh," Lance says, looking at the downed enemy before squeezing off a shot as one tries to get up. Spotting one of those blue energy guns he helps himself, letting the MP5 hang by it's strap as he continues moving through cover.

Clint Barton has posed:
Boom.

Clint likes it when things that seem tougher than you might expect falls like an insect who just got its wings clipped. Clint smirks a little bit to himself before he's drawing two more arrows and fires them at the ground soldiers, aiming for two headshots, but the arrowheads would explode into heated shrapnel in every direction, hoping to get some multi-kills...though if they have heavy armor, it might be difficult to pierce.

<< Copy that!>> Clint returns to Bobbi. "Take us in low." He tells the Pilot, and Clint's Quinjet is swooping in low with his arrows honed on multiple targets. One goon aims their laser canon at Clint specifically, and he tries to snipe him in the eye with an arrow in return.

Jack Nolan has posed:
Things are getting hectic. Stoneclaw is facing down multiple opponents out in the field, staying mixed within their ranks in order to sow chaos and make them unable to use any big guns or risk blowing up their own men. For a normal person it'd be a stupid tactic, but for a massive mutant who can't hide to save his life anyway, it's probably the best play.

Once his sixth shot is fired from his revolver, he quickly holsters it, and grabs one of the humvees.

And by grab, he's literally hauling it up through the air, before he swings it like a massive club at several of the paratroopers, before throwing it through the air to slam into one of their air vehicles. The guy in that cockpit must have had an interesting view for the last second before the ground vehicle slammed into him. The ship spirals out of control and slams into the ground with an explosion.

Jack roars out in triumph, and then turns on several troopers who are still standing, "Come on you bastards! Surrender now and maybe I won't EAT YOU!" He's just trying to intimidate them. Everybody knows Jack doesn't actually eat people.

Leopold Fitz has posed:
Hey, when the chips are down and it really counts Fitz always comes through. Well, at least eighty-nine percent of the time and that's a pretty damn good percentage when it comes to SCIENCE. It doesn't tend to like being rushed. Slow and steady might win the race but that is not always an option out in the field.

In the end of course, SHIELD's resident engineering genius does not make a liar out of Peggy. It is exactly sixteen seconds later when he reports back in. "The connection is stable Agent Carter. Give Agent May the go," he urges. "We're going to be tight on time though. Our defensive systems are draining the power reserves significantly," he adds, a grim note in his words. From pushing up above one hundred and fifty percent in mere minutes they have dropped down to one hundred and forty-three percent. And the drain is continuing, much faster then Fitz would like.

As the necessary power is redirected to the Einstein-Rosen bridge itself there is almost a shimmer in the air around it, one that seems to move, arching along that passage itself, trailing back through time as that hole through time itself seems to expand momentarily before contracting back, settling into a stable bridge through the decades. Or as stable as something like that will ever truly be. Flickers of color, some in spectrums far outside the range of human eyesight ripple up and down and the hum of machinery trying to hold it all together picks up noticably.

Back at the generator, Fitz settles back on his heels for just a moment, wiping a sleeve across his forehead and leaving a smear of grit and grease there without noticing. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds. That's all the reprieve he allows himself -- or that is allowed to him as one of the power couplings about twenty feet away suddenly hisses loudly and begins to smoke. A half dozen immpacts all pound against the energy shield near by and it flares up brightly, a blue sheen lighting up the air. Emergency power is redirected to reinforce the shield and for just an instant that coupling lights up like a magnesium flare before it bursts with an electronic scream.

Throwing an arm up over his eyes, Fitz twists away, SHIELD his gaze just in time. The ambient light level quickly plunges back to something managable and the tech gets to his feet, high-tailing it over to the conduit. "We have a breach. The energy shield is down in section B-8. Repeat, energy shielding is down in B-8. Seeing what I can do."

The casing around the conduit has simply burst outward, jagged metal sticking up in all directed, scorched black. The wiring within the panel is a mass of burnt cabling, some of it still smoldering red, orange and even white as plastic insulation melts away, leaving little puddles of glistening plastic dangling from fried filiments. Yeah, it's going to take more then a miracle to fix that in less than a few hours.

Glancing up, hands balled into fists at his side he turns his gaze to the rickety remains of the Hollywood set a short distance away. It seems like such a fragile barrier. And indeed, almost on queue another pair of energy blasts strike that breach in the shielding, absoluting rippling through the weathered walls, blasting large holes in them, blacked wood beginning to sear at the edges. Sand and rock goes flying as the blasts continue right on into the ground nearby, sending up a hailstorm of fragments to rain down over Fitz and the ruins of the power conduit. "We're not going to be able to close the gap in time..."

The Power readings plunge to one hundred and thirty-five...

Melinda May has posed:
The enemy forces are suffering losses. But so is SHIELD. One of the air cannons goes offline as an armoured truck purposely slams into it, roof-mounted cannon firing relenlessly. This sends a charge of feedback through the base power systems, which probably isn't good for anyone.

The lack of that cannon is compensated for by the three hidden quinjets that drop their cloaks and bring the full fury of their weapons and their pilots' skill to bear.

The battle is now a chaotic, only semi-coordinated mess of small side skirmishes punctuated by the sweeping air battle overhead. Ground troops engage with SHIELD agents on all sides, sometimes breaking through lines just to be repelled by a flanking attack that redirects them away from the central complex that protects the time machine aparatus.

As the focusing scaffold surrounding the temporal anomaly begins to shudder ominously, May's voice again brings the time phone to life: "Copy, Prime. Standing by..." Presumably, it's all she can do.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    <<Acknowledged>> she replies to Peggy. 45 seconds of pitched battle against one-hit-kill lethal energy weapons. <<Who even funds these assholes?>> or HYDRA for that matter. Oops did she that on comms? oh well.

    She peers at her heart rate monitor in the HUD and takes in a breath, then charges back across the field once more and lands within a grip. She dashes behind the first Leviathan shock trooper and one of his friends shoots him for the trouble. Pushing the body to the second, she shoots the third and blocks the fourths shot with her portable SHIELD.

    Bobbi charges at the third and flying kicks him in the face. The momentum she lets carry her down to the ground and she rolls off of him up in to a shooting position to take out the second guy and the third at the same time. The fifth shoots her in the back as she turns, a sizzling sound and a bunch of error messages in her HUD tell her he got the wings. They're made of a weird alien alloy so she's not too worried that they are irreparable, but they are no longer functioning. "Damnit!," she says to the guy and lifts up both energy pistols and shoots him.

    Bobbi ducks under cover as a Leviathan tank rolls down the Hollywood set. She hops up on to the top of it and spies the entry hatch. She grabs at it and starts to turn - but feels the locking mechanism holding firm. She takes a deep breath and clears her mind, then begins to turn it with an intense squeeel of bending and torsioning metal.

    With a snap the locking mechanism breaks and the hatch opens. She tosses in a grenade and dives away. The tank turns its turret toward the heart of their operation but before it has a chance to fire, there is a loud explosion and the insides of the tank are shredded to pieces leaving a burning husk on the middle of the 'street'.

    Bobbi scampers quickly back to cover and calls over the comms <<All agents report>> -- no one is going to be left behind today. HYDRA forcefully built SHIELD up for this kind of pitched battle and now Leviathan is paying the price for that eighty year long conflict. Bobbi notices a lone heat signature trying to sneak up through the wood thanks to her goggles.

    She shoots the Leviathan soldier through five walls of wood. She then sees a soldier aiming his laser rifle up at a quinjet and then an arrow pierces right through his skull.. and then explodes. <<Niiice shot Barton>> she comments grins over at Lance. Adrenaline high is hitting her and she's starting to feel that dangerous feeling of being invincible. That's always when she gets hurt. She's known Jack for a while now.. but even she pauses and wonders.. would he actually eat them?

Peggy Carter has posed:
The moment Fitz gives her the go, Peggy hits the button on the phone and starts speaking over the chaos of the fight around her, "Mojavo Bravo, Alpha prime is ready for you. Do you read?" And, uncomfortably, all Peggy is getting in response is a loud amount of static which is only getting worse as the attacks increase around them. "May!? Do you READ? We are ready for you now! Agent May!" She curses as the whole interior lights up with blinding light, instinctively shielding her face just as Fitz does. The news she gets from him a moment later is less than great, but now that the power has died down, she tries the phone once more, "Agent May? We are ready for you now!" And hopefully some of that got through.

Peggy is practically shielding the time phone with her body, slightly crouched and curled around it incase other things start blowing up around her. It's their only way to contact May right now. Her flesh can be fixed -- that connection cannot possibly ever be reformed if they lose it now. So, she remains a human SHIELD as she keeps repeating, "May, come through, we are ready for you now," like a faint echo of a relentless, if hopeless, SOS signal lost on the seat of time.

<<Fitz, do *whatever* you can to keep it up. I'm getting static with the other side. Everyone else... keep buying time. We should have May any moment." She hopes.

Lance Hunter has posed:
"Bloody hell," Lance exclaims pausing behind cover to watch Bobbi work in her Mockingbird suit. "Like she wasn't insufferable enoughwithout the wings," he grumbles, despite the grin on his lips. He pops out behind the cover to blast a Leviathan jeep with the energy gun he'd recovered. "Never going to hear the end of it, I can fly, oh and I'm a strong as Captain bloody America too?" Another jeep pulls out ahead and he blasts it before diving back out of sight. << Hunter reporting in>> he says over comms. << Like the wings there, Bob, got a set for me? >> he ribs Bobbi as he gets ready to move again.

Jack Nolan has posed:
If Jack's own friends and colleagues aren't 100% sure he won't actually eat somebody, that really has to make the Leviathan troops second guess themselves. A few of them do in fact break and run, no matter how much they're getting paid it's not enough for this.

He chimes in over radio after a moment, <Nolan here, I'm still good! The sooner the better though!> He's doing what he can to avoid the blasts from the guys who aren't willing to give up so easily. He rolls behind cover of one of the destroyed trucks, and reloads his revolver with a quick loader, before engaging once again, <So are we gonna bail as soon as we've got her back? Don't suppose we have a ton of charges in that camp, do we?>

Leopold Fitz has posed:
There are more then a dozen auxillary generators situated around the site, all feeding into a main generator that sits right next to the TIME HOLE. Well... as close to it as they could possibly arrange. The background radiation and various energy spikes flaring from that bridge are enough that they had to set up the main generator a good fifty feet away. Fitz has been working at the fringe, tweaking the auxillary generators. They are the safety net, the insurance that they will have enough power, not only to continue to funnel into the Einstein-Rosen bridge to keep it stable, but also to power all the additional infrastructure that SHIELD has brought onsite. They also were where he was most likely going to be able to optimize the energy flow and get a few extra percentanges of reserve power.

They're kind of past all of that now, though. And clearly, Agent Fitz knows that very well.

Fitz doesn't even bother returning the tools in hand to the kit. He just grabs hold of the open pack with one hand, clutching a half dozen tools and devices to his chest in the other and begins to stagger his way towards the TIME HOLE and the main generator -- along with the terminal that will give him access to all power systems on this makeshift base. He is only about twenty-five feet away when another energy blast tears through that gap in the SHIELD defenses, ripping into the auxillary generator he just left behind. There is an explosion and the concussive wave takes him right off his feet, sending him sprawling in the dirt, scrambling to regain his footing. There is no burnt wiring or scorched metal left to worry about. Just a crater that gleams darkly under the desert sun, the heat having melted the sand into a glass-like finish.

Continuing towards the main generator, Fitz never even notices that jagged shard of metal jutting out of his leg or the trail of blood droplets he leaves behind, adrenaline blotting out the pain for the moment.

Staggering up to the power terminal, Fitz just lets both the tools clutched to his chest and the kit drop from his hands as he begins to pull up the necessary displays, eyes flickering over the power-distribution models, checking the statuses of the other auxillary generators. Only the one down so far, that's something. But the others are strained past capacity. Time to make some decisions.

Tossing a glance back over his shoulder, he is close enought to see the TIME HOLE, close enough to see that the machinery around it is still all intact, that all indications are that the bridge through time is still stable. Then he turns back to the matter at hand. "Fitz here. I'm at the main generator. I'm going to redirect power from systems that are non-essential at the moment. Standby," he offers up. And then he begins to do just that.

The lighting goes first, in all those areas that they have actually sealed off from the desert outside. Emergency lighting kicks in a moment later, filling the command center and other units with it's reddish glow. All power to the residential unit goes next. There will be no celebratory ice cream if they pull this one out. That definitely hurts. He hesitates for jsut a moment, and then pulls the plug on the satelitte uplink as well. They don't need to scan the world for temporal energy signals any more and nothing they report back to the Triskelion in the next few minutes is going to make a lick of difference. The power they save by turning it off though just might. Still... he probably should have asked permission from Agent Morse first. Oh well.

The energy drain slows, but it doesn't stop. One hundred and twenty-nine percent. One hundred and twenty-eight percent...

Melinda May has posed:
Half the enemy aircraft are burning hulks on scorched earth now. SHIELD pilots harry the remaing craft relentlessly. Gatling guns rattle as heavy projectiles streak towards enemy targets. More explosions light up the afternoon sky. Some of them are from the enemy craft. Some of them are from airborn countermeasures.

On the ground, enemy combatants receive sharp orders, pushing them more fiercely towards the center. They must overrun that compound and secure it. They need control of that time portal -- and, according to 70 year old intel they stole several decades ago, they want the agent that's coming through it, too. Thus, the enemy can be seen regrouping to make a renewed push towards the ops center and the anomaly it protects. Especially when that auxilliary generator goes up.

In 1949, May's radio explodes with static and she catches only the last two words of Peggy's transmission. Her eyes dart toward the rift. "Say again Prime," she says, holding the radio close to her mouth again and crouching down as the Hydra forces the SSR agents battle draw ever closer. "Did not copy. I repeat: Say again." Yes, her stress levels are rising. The clipped, sharp-consonants of her words give that away in spades.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    Bobbi spies a set of troopers pushing past the Nolan-frontal-assault and flanking SHIELD agents. She breaks in to a sprint and dives just barely in time to catch a bolt from their energy weapons and protect her less experienced agents. She rises up from a tuck and roll and aims her energy pistols. Clickclick.. nothing. Drained.

    She tosses the empty pistols at the enemies and draws out her stun batons at the same time as she breaks in to a run. A cartwheel to dodge some energy weapons fire and then tosses the first baton at the head of the first enemy soldier even as the second baton is shot out of her hand by an energy weapon.

    "Stop!," she says with annoyance as she closes the distance and grabs his armor, lifting him up and punching him in his helmet, "Breaking!" she punches him again, "My!" she says is about to punch him again when a junior SHIELD agent shoots the guy... "Stuff!" She drops the lifeless body and then adjusts her armor and picks up her two batons. With a cordial nod to the agent she breaks in over comms <<If we're still running low on power.. drop the shields, all of them>>. It's a risk, a big risk, but she's given them permission to do it now. If they need to.

    The quinjets strafe past their position again and blast through the ranks of the enemy shock troopers. Bobbi uses the moment to take off at a run to get closer to backup Nolan, <<Sure Lance, I'll put in the requisition form for alien anti-gravity plates as soon as we get back>> she says sarcastically, then adds <<Barton, Lance, Give Nolan cover fire. This fight ends when we win. We have an AC-130 three minutes out, hold your lines>> she says as she turns the corner and comes face to face with a 7' tall monster of a Leviathan soldier. He grabs her by the neck and slams her against the wooden structure behind her, breaking it.

    Bobbi's eyes widen behind her yellow tactical goggles and she slams her hands down on his forearms.. nothing. She hits harder.. nothing. Air constricting, her heart rate spiking wildly. She can feel the numb tingles in her left hand already. Her eyes rolling back in her head she focuses one last time and *slams* her hands down on the enemy forearms and hears a sickening crack as his bones break.

    He cries out in pain as Bobbi drops to the ground gasping for breath. Croaking she says, "Someone had too many wheaties for breakfast." A red pulse of energy shoots over his arms and he yowls in pain as his bones are forcefully reset by a structural shielding system. Awkwardly stumbling back to her feet, Bobbi takes out her batons again. She gives him a look of 'are you sure we really want to do this?' even as she coughs again for air. He cracks his knuckles and neck, then advances on her.

Peggy Carter has posed:
Peggy has no clue how much time dropping all the shields will buy them, but she'd rather it not happen if it doesn't have to. Hearing May's clipped, stressed voice over the phone is a moment of pure relief and Peggy immediately starts cutting into repeated transmissions, not wanting her words to get lost in any more power surges or drops. If she just keeps speaking, eventually, May will hear her. "This is Alpha Prime. We are ready for you now. We are ready for you now. GO NOW. Go. NOW. May, go NOW." She can't entirely hide the stress in her own voice that she's not gotten the message through in enough time. She has no clue how much power this is going to take to actually process May through decades of time, but it's now or never.

Especially as her eyes trail across the chaos around her and towards Fitz in the distance. She's not certain if it's debris behind him or blood coming from his leg, but it's concerning either way. <<Fitz, as soon as we have eyes on May, kill all power and get *out* of there. We can blow this entire place, other than the stone they sent us. Understood? We recover May and the stone and NOTHING else. Team, as soon as we see May, get ready to withdraw. Understood? Everyone on birds and OUT.>>

Lance Hunter has posed:
<< You could just say no >> Lance complains at Bobbi's response but there's a note of humour in it too. When given the orders to be ready to fall back and to cover Nolan, Hunter combines them. <<Nolan, drop back and draw some of them in with you. Barton, what do you say we dump a little fire power on them while they're chasing our big stone dino friend?"

Jack Nolan has posed:
<That sounds like a plan I can get behind! Bringing them your way now!> Nolan grabs one of the guys by the neck, and knocks his gun away, before sprinting away from the group. He throws the trooper over his back so that he has a shield on his back as well. It pays off as one of those energy weapon shots slams into the Leviathan guarding his back, and Nolan can't help but be grateful he thought of some extra protection.

He's out in the open now, though, so anyone who's planning on raining hell down upon the guys chasing and shooting at him better get on it soon, because there's no other Leviathan troopers to take as a human shield a second time near him.

Leopold Fitz has posed:
It's a gamble, right? Dropping the energy shield will almost definitely increase the damage that the base is taking, it will put those agents who aren't already out there in the thick of fighting in more danger. But it will almost instantly stabilize their energy situation. The defensive cannons draw a fraction of the energy of the shields and the stun grendage mines none at all.

Yep, it fixes everything right until the moment enemy fire starts to take out more of the auxillary generators. Then, instead of a slow drain they will have sharp, sudden drops in their power reserve. Take your pick of bad situations.

"Copy that, Agent Morse. I'm starting a phased drop of the energy shields," Fitz replies, rapidly typing at the keyboard. Instead of just dropping everything at once he lets the outer defensive network shut down first, rolling back slowly. The energy matrix around the command center and the bridge head he keeps up as long as possibly, having them shutdown only a two minutes after the initial shields go down. One hundred and twenty seconds. That's what htey have to complete this impossible rescue operation.

With the power situation dealt with -- at least until the auxillary generators start going up like roman candles anyway -- Fitz turns away from the power terminal and almost immediately falls, the time spent in one place enough to make the sudden motion twist that jagged metal spike in his flesh. Glancing down, he finally notices the tear in his jumpsuit, notices the shrapnel jutting from his leg -- and notice the fact that the jumpsuit is stained a much darker, bloodier color around the wound -- and he grimaces again, doing his best to hobble over to the TIME HOLE itself, positioning him right by the cluster of machines that line it's edge. "I'm at the perimeter. As soon as Agent May is through I'll pull the stone and withdraw," he reports back to Peggy. In the meantime he settles in and pulls out his pad, beginning to fiddle with it some. "I've tightened up the bandwidth signal on the time radio to filter out some of the interference. Hopefully that will clear up that signal degredation loss," he adds a moment later.

Hurray for multitasking.

Melinda May has posed:
In 1949, May looks to the crackling rift and then at the battle all around. She registers the well wishes from her SSR compatriots and finds an odd lump rising in her throat. Still... it's now or never. Peggy will live. They'll all live. She knows that. So, she turns and *dives* for that rift. Her body disappears in an outline of lightning surrounding impossible darkness...

Only to appear in 2021 with a flash of light and thunder that rocks the scaffolding around the time portal.

"Ufff!" She hits the ground heavily in a tight roll, tumbling several feet away from the destabilizing portal. Energy flashes out violently, more light and sound that pressure wave. Then the rift collapses in on itself, winking suddenly out of existence.

But the discharge of energy is enough to start overloading all the machines and supporting infrastructure that surrounded it. Arcs of lightning electrify the scaffolding and start an overload cascade in the power systems.

It only takes May half a hearbeat to come back to her feet. As the machine starts falling to pieces all around her, she throws her arms up over her head to protect herself from the energy arcing all over that time machine, now.

Guess she's not out of danger yet.

Her brown eyes clock Fitz and the blood running down his leg. "Fitz!" Doesn't matter that she's just travelled 70 years through time or that the sky seems to be falling all around her. She's the goddamned Cavalry. As it becomes clear the machine is about to explode -- with them still in the middle of the blast radius -- she sprints headlong towards him and grabs him by shoulder and collar to bodily haul him as far away as they can both reasonably get before all hell breaks loose.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    Bobbi clears her throat and prepares herself for the 7' giant. He starts with a few small jabs - great, he knows boxing, then throws a big hail maker. She blocks, reinforced with staves, then ducks under his big punch and pushes her stave down with extreme force at the back of his calf. It makes a sickening snap noise.. then the red shielding covers it up and he rights himself again and shakes his head, advancing on her again.

    Bobbi circles around him slowly and then the fight speeds up. He starts to kick and punch and block as she counters his attacks. He grabs her by the arm and slams his mask in to her face twice, then punches her hard enough that she stumbles back against a table dazed.

    Where-ever that shield generator is, it's not obvious to her eyes.. which leaves one patently untested theory: It's inside him. Bobbi blocks and hops up on to a table top, then throws a false kick to give her some leverage as she jumps up and slams a baton down through his face plate and mouth, to get inside of him. She presses the stun button at the tip of the stave and yanks him down to the ground.

    There is a sizzling inside of him as his whole body jerks and the red shield shuts down, leaving his broken bones to flop about. Bobbi wipes at the blood streaming down her face and coughs up yet more of it <<All agents, status report. Davis give me an AC-130 update>> she croaks in to the comms. Because evacing in quinjets without superior air support is not an option.

    Then, Bobbi promptly tips on to her side and hugs her aching arm as the little warning on her goggles flashes <<Myocardial Infarction Detected>>. Her eyelashes flutter closed as the pain shoots through the whole left side of her body.

Peggy Carter has posed:
<<Evacuation NOW. Clear the machine area NOW!>> The moment Peggy sees May come through, she starts yelling the evac. She trusts Fitz and May to pull the time brick, not close enough to get over there herself and clear in any amount of time. The phone is slipped into the side of her belt, just in case, and she grabs the remote demolition trigger from the command post which she expects to be going up with the time machine any minute now.

Then she's turning on the ball of her foot and starting to book it. Down the small amount of scaffolding stairs and into the desert where she's probably exposing herself to HYDRA fire -- if they are at all paying attention to things that close to command -- but it's more survivable than what is going to happen to the machine shortly. She splits her attention between the fight and those back at the time machine -- May and Fitz most importantly. <<May, good to see you. As soon as you and Fitz are clear, give the word, and this whole place is blowing.>>

Then she looks forward, catching sight of the fight and she swears she sees Bobbi going down, but maybe it's just battle exhaustion. Probably not. <<Barton. We need evac now. Get Bobbi and the machine crew OUT. I'm running to meet you now. We're less than 20 seconds from blowing this whole place to kingdom come.>>

Lance Hunter has posed:
As the men follow Nolan, Hunter lays into them with his new energy rifle, shuddering a little as the blasts rip through flesh and bone as readily as air, leaving bloody splotches where people used to be. He pulls up short though hearing Bobbi's voice croaking over the comms <<My status is on the bloody way to you Bobs>> Hunter replies with his status. Radio protocol? What's that? Hunter sprints towards Bobbi taking out a couple more Leviathan troopers on the run as he does, << Nolan could use a bloody hand over here >> he shouts. Bugger if he was going to be able to haul Bobbi out of here to one of the jets before Fitz's gizmo blew this place sky high.

Clint Barton has posed:
Clint's been a little busy.

Loosing arrow after arrow into enemy ranks, even knocking down another flying object or two, until he notices that things are heating up. Quite literally. Looks like they need to get May and Fitz the hell out of dodge. and anyone else who needs a ride.

So, as soon as the Quinjet lands due to Clint's orders, he waves down Fitz and May. "Get on with it! Lets get the hell out!" Then he hears a transmission about Nolan and Clint turns his attention there, moving to the other side of the Quinjet to loose an arrow in that direction as it sails through the air. Snags a bastard before he can get to Nolan right in the neck.

<Seriously, let's book it. I don't want to be late to dinner!>

Jack Nolan has posed:
Jack is really hoping that that AC-130 is on station already, because this is going to get a bit hairy if it's not here yet. He finally finds cover as Lance and Clint manage to light up most of the dudes who were following him, seems using himself as bait has worked out pretty well.

The mutant takes a couple of moments to catch his breath, staying down for the moment in order to allow air support to mop up, before he chimes in over the comms again, <If anyone is near my position and needs help, let me know. I'm finally in the clear. Any word on that gunship?>

Leopold Fitz has posed:
He has done just about everything that he can do at this point. Unless the auxillary generators are all taken out in the next few moments -- or the main generator is -- their power levels will be high enough to sustain the bridge head for Agent May to get through. The interference with the time radio has been minimized as much as possible. The machinery monitoring and maintaining the Einstein-Rosen bridge is all operating as well as can be expected and while the readings clearly show a build-up of tachyon particles and a whole host of energy spikes they have all been accounted for. Not that there is very much they could do about it at this point anyways. No, it's out of his hands now. All he can do is wait and hope that the rest of the SHIELD agents can keep their attackers at bay for just a little while longer.

And then Agent May's through. A brief, exhausted smile lights on FItz's face but it doesn't linger long. He lifts a hand tiredly in greeting, but almost immediately he drops his attention back to the device in front of him, the machinery there the main stabilizing mechanism hholding the bridge in place.

Or at least it was. As energy begins to arc around the scaffolding surrounding the TIME HOLE, as the bridge through time winks out of existence, there is nowhere else for that power to go. Fitz frantically hits the override in front of him, a panel sliding open and the piece of machinery that serves as the housing for the time brick springing free. Grabbing hold of the stone that was the key to all of this Fitz tugs and... nothing. The damn thing stays stubbornly in place!

Fitz gives the stone another tug, straining, and then grabs it with his other hand as well, trying to yank the stubborn thing free. Which is right when Agent May swoops in, all but pulling him from the console as that energy discharge rips it's away past the scaffolding and begins to arc through the machinery, little explosions causing metal and wiring to bulge as it is ripped apart from the inside. Fingers cling to that brick, one last effort and as he is swept past it the stone comes free in his hand, grasped precariously there.

It is pretty much all Fitz can do to stagger along beside Agent May, but fortunately it's not just any agent that's helping him stagger to safety, right? It's the Cavalry. "Don't wait Agent Carter, start the destruction sequence now. There was energy feedback. We need the area blown now to stop it before it reaches critical mass," he says harriedly.

They might be hard pressed to get out of the blast radius if the explosives go off now. The issue? If the feedback from the collapsed TIME HOLE reaches critical mass the blast radius could be anywhere from about twenty-five feet to say, the entire solar system.

There's a lot of good reasons not to mess around with Space-Time. This would be one of them.

Melinda May has posed:
It's a damned good thing May thought to put her modern com back in her ear while they were waiting for the festivities to begin back in 1949. Call it a rare moment of optimism on her part. Or trust in her friends. But it means she actually hears Peggy's instructions -- and the chatter indicating Morse is down. <<Please, tell me you're not bleeding, Carter!>> she growls, half-dragging, half-running with Fitz toward Barton's quinjet.

Because Morse's tendency to go all heartattacky at inopportune moments is right up there with Carter's tendency to become a walking blood fountain.

Nevertheless, as she and Fitz make it to the quinjet's ramp, she snaps crisply into coms, <<Clear! We're clear! We're on the jet. Go, go, go!>>

Then, the quinjet is rising to go collect anyone else it can -- Carter, Daisy, and Davis; Bobbi and Lance; Nolan and any other stragglers that the other jets might have messed.

On the edge of the battle, the sound of the AC-130's motors can be heard over the roar of combat. Its guns rain covering fire down on the enemy operatives, preventing them from derailing the evacuation operation.

It's a good thing, too... because just as the SHIELD quinjets are securing their ramps and screaming skyward, a high pitched whine sounds from the time scaffold. Klaxxons blare within the now empty ops center. And -- whether due to the power surge from the time hole or a well timed button pushed by Carter -- explosions start going off all over the camp. SHIELD self-destruct protocols have been engaged. In concentric circles starting at ops and flowing out from there, buried explosives ignite and destroy infrastructure and enemy personnel alike.

As impressive as that is, however, it is absolutely nothing compared to the blast from the center of the base itself. The machinery around the now-closed time hole overloads and explodes with the force of a mid-sized nuclear bomb. If Stark still owns this plot of land... well, when the dust finally settles (some days later!), his father's investment will be seen to be little more than a crater in the middle of nowhere.

But the shockwaves from that horrific explosion and the mushroom cloud are enough to buffet all the aerial vehicles still flying. Of them, the only things shielded well enough to withstand the force of the blast are the AC-130 and the five SHIELD quinjets. The others?

They're slag.

Of course, this means the people on the surviving quinjets get tossed around -- especially if they're not strapped in. Inevitably, there will be bumps, bruises, and possibly a broken bone or two.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    Bobbi hears Lance's voice over the comms but doesn't respond, she's in too much pain. Then she hears it in person and feels his arm about her helping her up. She limps with him, her eyes fluttering open and closed as she goes. Her heart rate is still bouncing around wildly.

    As they approach the landed quinjet, it finally starts to settle a bit and the healing abilities of her body start to take over. She slumps in to a chair and simply holds Lance's hand, panting hard. It was an exhausting fight and she is covered in sweat, dirt, and blood. Some of it her own. She looks as weak as a puppy right now to boot.

    Her eyes widen as she sees May and then she smiles, "Sup stranger." It's a quiet strained voice that comes past her lips but Peggy has _got this_. She couldn't really go wrong with having a founder of SHIELD as her 2IC after all. "Get us out of here Peggy," she says.

    Then the blinding explosion and shockwave hit them. Bobbi is tossed like a ragdoll against the seatbelt. She ooooofs, "Add whiplash to my list of injuries," she says somehow sounding slightly more alive than mere moments before.

Peggy Carter has posed:
One of the very last aboard the remaining quinjets, Peggy's not getting out until she's certain her team is out. That's just part of being a good commander. But she pulls that button the second she even *sees* the possibility of getting on a ramp, having confidence in her team that they'll keep the Leviathan opposition off and ramp open enough for her and the two other technicials left in command to dash up just in time. She is *not* bleeding, just dust and sweat covered, but the woman barely saw action today other than being a comms operator.

Well, until that explosion went off. She's definitely not buckled in and curls instinctively into herself as the place whips around her, the quin jet's shields taking far more damage than they really should be. She's going to be sore in the morning, but her head is protected and she takes the worst of it along her lower left ribs. At least she slammed into a panel, not a person.

<<Everyone...Report IN. Everybody in one piece? Do we have the stone? It's no matter. Get us out of here. *Now*." Leviathan can take whatever tiny scraps are left from the explosion, far worse than the first zero matter explosion in the 40s. She slowly pulls herself off the floor and over to a console so she can see what's left behind them. <<And welcome home, Agent May... it's... very good to *see* you.>>

Lance Hunter has posed:
There's definite concern in Hunter's eyes as he takes Bobbi to the quinet, her body pretty much limp in his arms. Still, this is Lance and there's no force on earth that can stop him from making a playful dig at Bobbi when he has the chance. "Where's all that Captain America strength now?" he asks her by way of offering comfort. If it was really serious he wouldn't be joking would he? Still he doesn't doddle in getting Bobbi strapped into the jet and holds tight to her hand as they take off, reaching over swifty to try and steady here even as he's thrown against his own restraints.

Everyone alright?" he asks as the shockwave passes, before nodding to May and Fitz as he takes notice of them. "So, jobs done, May's home, Red Dawn is averted, so, home, then Swordfish?" he asks them all hopefully and only half-joking.

Clint Barton has posed:
They manage to get out, if but barely. Clint had been thrown at the wall of the Quinjet when the damage was done, but he's just gonna have some light bruises. "Ow..." He murmurs as he gets back on his feet. "Everybody alive?" He questions, but he cracks his neck a bit.

<We all missed ya, May. Welcome back.> Clint transmits before he just sits down. "Now take us home." He tells the pilot as they strat singing that way.

He takes a deep breath and holds his bow across his lap. Oof, that was smooth and rough at the same time.

Jack Nolan has posed:
Yep it's time to leave. Jack scrambles for one of the Quinnjets, getting on board and quickly getting down on the deck. He grabs a cargo strap and ties himself down with it, just in time to avoid being thrown around like a literal several hundred pound rock.

He comes over comms, <Nolan checking in. I'm missing a few chunks, but I'll live.>

He lays there on the deck of the quinnjet for now, more than happy to just be alive after that whole thing.

Leopold Fitz has posed:
The next few... seconds? minutes? ...are pretty uch a blur for Fitz as he just focuses his attention completely on putting one foot in front of the other, trying to keep pace with Agent May while he also clings to the time brick that he clutches in one hand, trying to make it to the Quinjet before the explosions start in earnest. He just follows May -- or more likely is jerked along, half carried at times. He only barely notices when they board the ramp of the Quinjet, his leg throbbing by the time he slumps down into his seat.

The flight harness somehow appears on him -- he is not entirely sure if he managed to do it somehow or if someone else did. Glancing back as the aircraft begins to rise, he registers the fact that the ramp is lifting back into place, that they seem to have made it out. Score one for SHIELD. Mission accomplished and all that.

Agent Carter's question does get a response and Fitz realizes that he is still clutching that stone -- which he now raises up to show off. "Got it. One time stone, as ordered," he offers before both arm and stone slump back down to his side. "I'm just going to pass out now. Wake me up when we get back to HQ?" he asks, eyes sliding shut.

By the time the big explosion rips through what remains of the field base below, before that mushroom cloud and the resulting shockwave begins to buffet the escaping Quinjets, Fitz is entirely oblivious to the world, jostled in his seat like everyone else but not waking even in the worst of the turbulence, that flight harness keeping him safe and sound in his seat.

Melinda May has posed:
May clings to a strut just below a cargo hatch as the quinjet is tossed about by the explosion. Her knuckles are white, keeping herself upright, that black canvas bag with its various pieces of prized cargo -- her SHIELD equipment, a spiral bound notebook given to her by a new/old friend, and the most precious treasure of all... an unaltered sample of Peggy Carter's original DNA -- still on her back.

As the jet evens out, she releases her hold on the strut and pulls that bag around to her front so she can slump into a seat and strap in properly. She looks around at the faces of her friends, hears their voices over com, and... swallows against a strange tightness in her throat. Her dark brown eyes shine. The rarest of all things happens, then.

Melinda May grins.

And with the mention of the Swordfish, she nods. She owes them all so much more than a drink. But a drink will do.

"First round's on me."