8038/First Into the Multiverse

First Into the Multiverse
Date of Scene:	29 September 2021
Location:	An Undisclosed Space Station
Synopsis:	Daniel, Peggy, Abcde, May, and Lily join a small team of TVA troopers to hunt down Arturo Malevolo in a timeline where Captain Carter leads the Avengers and the Red Skull stands on the cusp of destroying the world.
Cast of Characters:	Abcde Prescelta, Daniel Sousa, Melinda May, Peggy Carter

---

Abcde Prescelta has posed:
    Time. Space. Reality. It's more than a linear path. It's a prism... of endless possibility, where a single choice can branch out into infinite realities, creating alternate worlds from the ones you know...

Somewhere out in the night, Uatu the Watcher gazes down on a world similar to and yet so different from the one where Daniel Sousa has agreed to help a suspect time policing agency known as the TVA to capture a time criminal. It's a world where said criminal has been using magic and time technology to resurrect the sins of old. Long dead HYDRA bases, personnel and all.

    It's a world where HYDRA is preparing to make their greatest move ever. High up above the atmosphere a large space station has awoken. Designed in the 70s with a budget that puts all the worlds space agencies to shame. Super science created a weapon. Absorbing the energy of the sun and storing it in a powerful laser that can destroy whole cities with the pull of a lever.

    Arturo Malevolo, the founder of HYDRA, stands on the bridge of the space station watching the world below. Such wonders weren't even dreamed of in his time. Now he stands on the cusp of world domination and at his side.. Johann Schmidt, aka Red Skull. His deformed skull like head in a bloody red is where the name comes from.

    "Energise the weapon. It's time the world feared the name HYDRA once again." Red Skull states with a hand in black leather glove raised and crushed in to fist to emphasis his point.

    Quinjet One drifts through space. A strike team assembled by Melinda May comprising of SHIELD, the new SHIELD that is under Director Stark, and select Avengers, lead by Captain Carter, is on board. The quinjet quietly docks with the HYDRA space station. All their hard work has lead to this moment, finding this place to put an end to Malevolo and the reanimated war against HYDRA.

    In a sleepy wing of the space station, three orange doors open up and through it enters team TVA. Mobius enters last with timepadd in hand. "This one is breaking the curve faster than the others. Whatever they're about to do is becoming apocalypse level. Let's be quick." The half dozen TVA agents aren't too keen on working with a bunch of variants who should, in their opinion, have already been reset... but here they are.

    One of them turns and stares at Daniel, "You cross me and it'll be the last thing you ever do." Mobius places a hand on their shoulder, "Whoa whoa whoa, calm your jets soldier. We're here for the real bad guys." The agent motions fingers to eyes and then to Daniel as he turns and moves out in to the corridor with baton activated.

Daniel Sousa has posed:
Having switched to his modern leg Daniel steps smoothly out of the portal and onto the station. "So we're in space right now?" he asks the others clearly extremely impressed, even Framework Daniel didn't get to go to space. Though the soldier's words of warning bring him back to the moment. "I got it, listen to your boss, we," he glances at his companions. "Are on your side."

He looks to Mobius then. "So, what's the game plan?"

Melinda May has posed:
On the Quinjet, Commander May sets the controls to autodefense. She swings out of the cockpit. "We're running out of time," she tells the others on the jet with her. "If we're going to do this, it's now or never." Avengers. SHIELD. They're as prepared as they can be. The pilot runs her hand through her short-cropped hair before straightening her tacsuit and reaching for her weapons now that they're ready to go. It's the Captain's call, how they go in. Her people will provide support for the big guns. They've played this game before... albeit not with such high stakes.

---

Stepping through the glowing orange door, Melinda May has recovered all her weapons and tucked them into the holsters under her leather jacket. "What's the source of the appocalypse?" she asks, eying the troopers that surround them. She has no greater fondness for them than they do for her or her friends.

Honestly, though, the probably have less love for Lily, who's proven she can take out a huge number of them, ostenisibly without breaking a sweat. Most of them, haven't quite figured out why. And the brown-jacketed timewalker feels no particular need to enlighten them. They'll figure it out. She has a tempad tucked into her jacket, still. She won't be giving that up without a fight. She doesn't follow up on the questions the others ask. They've mostly covered her curiosity.

Peggy Carter has posed:
As May says they are running out of time, Peggy straps her helmet across her head, staring up at the space station. "Can we get their power source? If you can get me into the power source, I'll disable it. You just have to get me in there..." She looks over to the zero-G suit laying there, debating if she should put the oxygen helmet on. How long could she last in space, really? She hasn't tried it yet, but she's willing to try. "Just keep them off my tail and get me close as you can... I'll do the rest." If she's nervous, she doesn't dare let her voice show it.

Spilling out into the hallway with everyone else, even Peggy's eyes are a little wide, staring about at the space station. She's been in space once before, and it was nothing like this. She makes a fussed face in the TVA soldier's direction as they prod Daniel, "Look, we are all on the same page here. This place is HYDRA, yes? Whatever they are doing is clearly trying to break the universe. So we stop them, we stop the break. Do any of you have any way of getting readings around here?"

Abcde Prescelta has posed:
    Mockingbird adjusts the straps on her gear and pulls on the helmet. A yellow tint to the visor as she nods to Cap', "Keep them off your 6, got it." She offers a fist bump, thinks better of it, and then pats the tall powerful woman's shoulder. "Hey, shouldn't someone have said Avengers Assemble by now?" She holds out her hands and twin ICERs jump from her holsters in to her hands and activate with a blue glow and a electrical whirr.

    Abcde can feel the magic flowing back in to her as she steps through that orange door way. She draws her wand but her tight grin betrays her nervousness. The last time she had a run in with HYDRA they shot at her. Now there's a whole space station filled with the squiddies??

    Mobius barks a laugh and pats Daniel on the shoulder, "Dan, can I call you Dan? We've been chasing this guy from timeline to timeline for weeks and haven't caught him. We need your brain to come up with the good plan this time."

    A HYDRA soldier rounds the corner and one of the TVA agents points the baton. A golden bolt of energy shoots out and his the HYDRA soldier who suddenly freezes and disappears. Blinked out of existence. Reset. Mobius turns quickly and then checks his tempad, "Dodged that one, guess he wasn't important to the sacred timeline. Be smarter 22, the less we have to reset the better."

Daniel Sousa has posed:
There's a nod to Peggy at the question about readings, before he looks to Morbius, "Any chance of narrowing down where we need to look?" he asks before nodding. "And sure, Dan, Sousa whatever you want. As for the plan I'd say a nut job that started HYDRA would be in the command centre of this place, where he could be in absolute control. That's where we find Arturo, if we can seal that area off and go in after him we've got it. As for the break, what does he do to change time? We figure that out we can figure out what we need to stop before we take him out."

Melinda May has posed:
May looks to Cap. "Power source is going to be buried in the middle of this station. Want me to take a team toward the bridge? Chances are we can start an override from there." She motions to the handful of STRIKE agents to form up with her. Either way, she'll be covering their six. That's her job. Mop up what the Avengers put down. Fill in where she can.

---

Melinda has similar thoughts going through her mind. "Daniel's right. We need to get to the ops center and cut off the head. Squids always fall apart once their leaders get taken out."

Lily glances between them. "Let me shunt on ahead," she suggests. "They won't see me coming." She flashes a tight grin Peggy may remember from years gone by. It usually means she's ready for a fight.

Peggy Carter has posed:
A little, rasping bit of a laugh escapes Captain Carter's throat as Mockingbird complains about her not giving the call, "Fine, fine... Avengers, ASSEMBLE! Will that light a fire under your arse?" She asks the other woman with a wider smile beneath her mask, but the more joking generally means the more nerves she has. She's done a lot of dives. She's never done one into space. Then May mentions bringing a team towards the brudge. She gives a fierce nod, "Yes. If we can all board, you get to the bridge. Mockingbird, help her. I don't know computers from, well... Nothing polite. I'll go down below and see how much I can blow up before they stop me. We'll meet back here, got it?" Cap offers with a reassuring smile. But they're all going to board at the same spot, it seems.

Peggy gives a sharp nod to her husband's suggestion, "He's correct. They're all stuck up enough to insist on being there, front row and center, to see everything. Hopefully we have a big enough force to plow our way through. Abcde, if you haven't fought much before, stay towards the middle. Knock out who you can. The rest of us... Well, gear up for a fight. That..." She gives a sideways look to the TVA soldier who just disappered someone, "Maybe doesn't involve permanently erasing people from reality." And then she's off with them, letting Lily go ahead, but she starts the jog down the hall shortly after.

Abcde Prescelta has posed:
Mobius says, "Well, to put it simply, Arturo has adapted some of our timeline reset technology somehow to bring things from the past," he motions with clawed fingers to his left, "to the present," then moves the clawed fingers to the right. "So, you know, general badness all round. If I'd have to guess - I'd say we're in the HYRDA doomsday station. Big kaboom laser."

Abcde presses her lips together, "We should split up.. hedge our bets. If the bulk of us go after Arturo, may be someone should go disable the power core."

Mockingbird gives a little salute to the Captain, "Much better. You got it Cap'." She exits the Quinjet first because, well, she's an Avengers. Barreling forward there are two HYDRA guards who came to investigate. The first shot misses her and she returns the fire dropping them both easily.

As the two groups collide though, Bobbi lifts up her hands in protection and an energy shield appears from her gauntlets. Mockingbird peers between her wrists and says, "... you don't look like HYDRA."

Daniel Sousa has posed:
Daniel nods, "Agreed, Abcde stick close to the centre of the group," a beat as the suggestion of splitting up is pitched. "Whichever group that is, I'm going to go for Arturo," he looks to the TVA people. "Don't suppose you'll give me one of those sticks will ya?" he asks them, expecting a no. "A big kaboom space laser sounds bad, so I guess we shut down the power to it?" he asks. "If that doesn't y'know kill us all or something." Hey it's space what does he know!

Melinda May has posed:
"Copy that," May replies to Cap. She waits for the two Avengers to disembark. Then, she's at the head of her squad, following them down the corridor toward the first junction. There are a pair of ICERS in her hands, too. Because, despite the fact she doesn't need them to take down most of her opponents, she'd rather keep the distance between them... at least to start.

---

Melinda pulls out her ICER and passes it over to Daniel. "Take this," she tells him. "I've got my berretta, if I need it." She's a weapon all on her own. "Stick with Lily. I'll head for the power core with the keystone kops, here. We'll see if there's anything we can do. The rest of you, shut down that ops center."

She motions to a couple of the TVA troopers, expecting them to listen to her. Of course, it wouldn't surprise her if Mobius has to encourage them. In the end though, there's still a ways to go before the corridor splits off.

She wants Abcde with the others. Melinda can handle herself on her own -- even with a bunch of jackbooted troopers she doesn't quite trust at her back. But she worries about the young mage.

Lily, on the other hand, flickers and disappears. She reappears further along, leapfrogging her way down the corridor to see just what's ahead of them and interfere where she can to make it easier for them all to get to the first junction.

Peggy Carter has posed:
The moment they dock, Captain Carter is spilling out after Mockingbird and into the station, her shield at the ready to deflect any bullets that come her way. She gives it a violent toss in the direction of a third HYDRA guard, ramming him into the wall before the thing riochets to her again. It means the team down the hall MIGHT think that Captain America is here. But then she's jogging up with Mockingbird behind them, ready to split off the moment she sees a hallway, and she just blinks. She stands almost a head taller than anyone else in their party, arms and shoulders built, but still with vintage waves of dark hair coming out the back of her helmet. Daniel MIGHT recognize his wife but enlarged, and certainly will when she speaks in confusion, "May?? I thought you were behind us..." She's going to be double confused if Lily flickers into existence again.

Peggy frowns a bit deeper as Melinda says she's going to head for the power core. "If...we get separated here and things go wrong, will you pop back home? I don't want to lose you forever in another time. Just be... careful." But they've all got to start going the same way. So, Peggy starts that jog in that direction... Only to hear a voice ahead of her that very much sounds like her own. Confusion blossoms across her face and she tries to stumble to a stop quick enough that the groups don't fully meet, but they all have too much speed going towards each other. She stares across the other group. Melinda mostly looks like Melinda. She can't tell who the masked woman is but she could guess. And she looks like... Not. Her. "... Oh." She breathes out quietly. "Hullo."

Abcde Prescelta has posed:
Abcde stares in wonder at.. another May. Another Peggy and oh MY what another Peggy. Her eyes travel uuup. She isn't quite sure what one does in these sorts of situations, but she's sticking to the middle because that is the safest place to be.

Mockingbird lowers her energy shields and stares in wonder at the much smaller version of Peggy.. and.. is that Chief Sousa from the SSR and early days of SHIELD? "Huh. Didn't see this one coming.."

Mobius figures it out right away. He steps out between the two groups with his hands up. "Now before anyone gets too shooty. This is just your standard variant meets variant situation. So I'll clear the air first." He motions to himself, "Hi, My name is Mobius. We're here to stop a dangerous time criminal named Arturo Malevolo. I asusme, given you are who you.. are.. that you're here for something similar."

Abcde hasn't lowered her wand yet but she's relaxing a touch. "Is that a safe assumption to be making? How do all these different timelines even work and which one is sacred?"

Mobius gives Abcde a look and says, "It's an interconnected weave of timelines that makes up the sacred timeline. Let's all be friends here and work together, whaddaya say?"

Daniel Sousa has posed:
Taking the ICER with a nod to May, Daniel makes his way forward only to skid to a stop beside Peggy as the two groups meet. Another May (or is it Lily?), Agent Morse and Peggy? dear god, Peggy. "Wow" he murmurs, before adding soto voice to Peggy. "I guess this is what happens when you don't work through all your meals in a day, you grow up big and strong." Still, he's stunned.

Though Mobius' pitch gets a supporting nod from Daniel. "We're probably both here to save your world, which is going to go a heck of a lot easier with all of us on side."

Melinda May has posed:
May is about to lead her team around Cap and Mockingbird when the Variants pull Cap up short. "I'm still behind you," she says, moving forward instead so that she's able to better peek out from behind... between... around... the two amazons up front. Some things don't change, even across timelines. Unless, apparently, you're Peggy Carter. Because May? She's still a tiny Asian woman.

Who apparently let her hair grow out again? "What the hell?"

---

Melinda gives Peggy a tight, faint smile. "I'm laying odds Lily won't let me get left behind," she tells her friend. Yeah, Lily's not immediately here to confirm that, but... can Peggy really doubt it?

They make their way down the corridor, only to stop short when the incoming team from the present timeline skid to a stop in front of them. Melinda's eyes sweep up to Captain Carter's face and it's impossible for her to actually conceal her surprise this time -- probably because *everyone* is reflecting it at her. "Oh, hell..."

Then, of course, things get even stranger as Lily, in her brown, 1950's bomber jacket, an old SSR logo on its sleeve, appears between the two groups. "No time," she tells them, pausing briefy to glance swiftly back and forth between Cap and Peggy, a look of complete surprise on her face. It fades quickly, however. "Red Skull's about to blow up New York."

Peggy Carter has posed:
Captain Carter was not prepared to see herself, or another Melinda May, on a mission like this. She definitely wasn't prepared for alternate timelines. She stands there, blinking a moment, but Mobius' words do seem to cut through her mind after a second and she shakes her head clear. "Yes. Arturo Malevolo needs to be destroyed, along with the Red Skull. If... alternate timelines are appearing in our world, that might account for some of the HYDRA bases that have been reappearing," She says to May and Mockingbird, her expression growing a bit grim. "So, we take out Malevolo and stop this? Count me in. They're activating an energy weapon and, while I don't know exactly what they are going to blow up-" And then there is someone else there. May? She looks even more confused, "Well, they are blowing up New York. No time is right." She just has no clue how to split up the teams.

Fortunately, while Director Peggy Carter isn't a hulking Amazon, she has been a leader for decades longer than anyone else here. Including her counterpart. She already heard where Melinda was planning on going and saw the way the amazon of herself was running. "Captain. My Melinda. Lily. Go, to the power core. Shut it down using any means necessary. The rest of us head up to command and maybe we can cut off the head before they pull the trigger. Come on. Move!" No more time to natter about timelines or anything. Then she's running again, motioning for Mockingbird and May to lead the way since they hopefully have scans of the place. Daniel gets a slightly deeper smirk, "I have grown up big and strong, thank you very much!" She quips to her husband as they run, but she's not really offended. Just very curious.

Abcde Prescelta has posed:
    The art directors of 007 movies are put to shame by the reality of the command deck. Rows of 70s era computer consoles with blinking lights and switches. A large wall of glass looking out over Earth. Red Skull never saw Star Wars yet somehow he says, "You may fire when ready."

    Arturo stands by his side, dressed in modern day Earth clothing instead of his Italian renaissance get up that they first saw him in. "Today is the dawn of a new age of mankind," Red Skull begins his speech, "When humanity will kneel before HYDRA and we will take our rightful place as their rulers."

    He turns tucking his hands behind his back, his long leather black coat swirling about ankles as he sees the group of heroes burst on to the scene. "Kill them all." And the host of HYDRA agents standing around with machine guns, let alone the ones at the computer consoles, spring in to action.

    Abcde only has eyes on Arturo when she thrusts her wand toward him, "Somnia tibi. Somnus." (Time to dream, sleep.) Blue magical energy swirls about her and funnels into her wand, then lances out toward him.

    Arturo is surprised by the unexpected attack. But his look graduates in to a wicked smirk as the magical energy blooms about him as if a oval capsule contained him. A gem hanging from his neck glows bright yellow, protecting him from the spell.

    "Piu fortuna la prossima volta, TVA." (Better luck next time, TVA.) From his pocket he takes out a tempad and presses a button, then steps backward through an orange doorway which closes behind him.

Daniel Sousa has posed:
Daniel flashes a grin back at Peggy, "Noted, would to love to know what her story is though," he admits before they're moving in on the James Bond-esque command deck and the jokes are replaced with deadly focus. "Good luck," he wishes Peggy and lifts his gun to fire at Arturo just as he's stepping through the portal. The rounds follow him through the closing portal but if they hit or not, Arturo is out of their reach. "Mobius can you find out where he went?!" he shouts as he takes cover behind a console.

Melinda May has posed:
May isn't entirely sure she's willing to leave the protection of her world -- or her friend -- in the hands of people she doesn't know. And, really? This variant of herself... variant_s_, even? She doesn't know them. Even if one of them bears her daughter's name.

The look she shoots Cap makes it clear she doesn't like this other Carter's plan. She is, however, willing to go try to kick some Red Skull ass while Cap goes after the power core. It's no different than what they'd planned coming in. And she doesn't at all mind keeping an eye on these interlopers to make sure they're on the level.

"Do *not* get dead," she tells Cap. "Lily will be pissed if you miss the wedding." Then, she's motioning her team ahead and they're pelting for the main ops center.

Her team spreads out within the center, engaging HYDRA troops with all the fury of any Avenger -- despite the fact they lack the metahuman boost. They're trained SHIELD agents and they're highly motivated. No less so than their Commander, who fires shots off at Schmidt himself. Arturo's escape is problematic, sure. But not nearly so much as the laser being fired.

She launches herself over a console to knock the operator clean out of his chair and away from that button.

---

"Copy that," Melinda says in automatic response to Peggy. Perhaps Captain Carter will take some reassurance in the fact this stranger with her friend's face responds similarly to the smaller version of her. Regardless, Melinda pulls out her berretta and glances to the amazon version of her friend. "I've got your six, Captain." She then glances back at the timecops and shakes her head briefly. Doesn't really matter if they come or not. Not with some version of Peggy playing Captain America.

Thus, she races along with the others toward the power center, sliding in under the Shield to fire expertly at the squids monitoring the power flux from the central core. It's a surprise attack. And she's as deadly as Cap has ever seen her counterpart be.

---

Lily gives Peggy a jaunty salute though her concern is clear in her eyes. But she gets the other woman's plan -- someone with a tempad to look after Melinda. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to keep up with that plan. She flickers ahead of both women, reappearing at intervals to engage with resistance and take them out. Melinda, she knows, will stick to Carter. And Carter, she suspects, will head straight for that power core, likely with that Shield.

Again, not rocket science.

So, the timewalker uses all the temporal and physical tricks in her arsenal to clear out the opposition between them and their goal, while Melinda mops up the outliers and stragglers so Carter can do her hero thing.

It's still weird, though. Even Lily, who has seen a whole lot of weird shit in her long life, can admit that.

Peggy Carter has posed:
Captain Carter gives the strange group one more look, then she's on her way. She knows she'll have to run JUST a bit slower for Melinda to keep up with her, but that Lily is zooming ahead, clearing out many distractions. When one HYDRA agent does manage to get through, the Captain slams her shield straight into his jaw line, the man flung to the side with a cry of pain, and she keeps going. As they are approaching the actual power core, quite a bit of fighting and scrambling later, Captain calls over to the unfamiliar woman, "I'm going to trust you know computers better than I do! I can keep them all off your back while you try to pull the plug?!" She isn't certain who their other defense is, but she's not complaining. She twists around, her back to Melinda, trying to keep the woman shielded (literally) from the press of HYDRA troops that come as she moves for the power core itself. "I'd just pound it to pieces otherwise. I suspect you can to this more elegantly!"

Above decks, Peggy finally lays eyes on the Red Skull. It's a fight she's been dying to have, almost literally, for decades. The disappearance of Arturo is problematic, but she's not going to lose a chance to take down the Red Skull if she can help it. With May in front of her, bashing people aside, and the young witch doing her best with magic, Peggy rushes forwards next to her husband and mutters, "I'll distract. You and the others see if you can finish it." Peggy knows how to goad the Red Skull. If she can keep his eyes on her, then Mockingbird, Daniel, and May might be able to finish this!

"You're done for now, Red Skull. Lost your greatest ally. He just disappeared, didn't he? Didn't even say good bye. And in his place...Two Peggy Carters, two Melinda Mays... For every HYDRA base you stole out of the timeline, we've got two SHIELD bases. We just needed to get you all in one place so you could watch your work disappear before your eyes before I kill you." She's clipping off a few shots at his guards, but doing her best to just yell at him from not too far away, walking a semi circle in his direction to keep his attention with her gun alternating shots to him and to his guards.

Abcde Prescelta has posed:
    The klaxons sound as the battle shifts in to high gear. Between the STRIKE team, the TVA Agents, most of the HYDRA goons seem to be in a pitched battle for their supremacy and lives. Red Skull, for his part, scowls with annoyance and paces as Peggy mocks him, "Something happened to you Carter. Lost your mojo?" He smirks and says, "It's no matter that Malevolo has no taste for real action. This attack is meaningly. You've come to your grave."

    Mockingbird for her part, can't help herself. Not with him so distracted by smol-Peggy's words. The wings on her back spread and the purple glow is met with a blast of rockets to propel her forward through the air. She tackles Red Skull and the pair tumble in to the glass. There's a crunching sound from their combined weight but it doesn't crack.. yet.

    ICERs are shot but do nothing to Red Skull and the pair end up in hand to hand combat. "Your fighting style is a hundred years old, old man," Mockingbird states and Red Skull recants, "You can't beat the classics." Bobbi laughs, "Watch me."

    As Red Skull moves in for a super punch Bobbi ducks out of the way and takes off one of her gauntlets. Red Skull's punch lands on the glass and the cracks begin to spread. Bobbi ducks behind him and kicks him hard in the side, crashing his body through the window and out in to space.

    Mockingbird lets go of the gauntlet, activating the shield. The sudden pull pins her against it as the shield fills the cracked window space. She watches with satisfaction as Red Skull drifts out to space with a frozen look of surprised horror on his face.

    Abcde scowls and nods to Daniel as their prey got away. She glances around the room and says, "I have an idea..." She shuts her eyes a moment, then lifts up her wand and says, "Tua arma malfunction." (Your weapons malfunction).. all the lights begin to flicker as blue magical energy spreads out from her wand tip.. The HYDRA soldiers moving in to better positions to stop the intruders raise their weapons to fire. One has a bead on May stopping the big red button from being pushed. He pulls the trigger... and the gun jams. They all jam. Every single HYDRA weapon on the space station suddenly jams at once.

    Mobius shouts to Daniel over all the shooting and fighting, "Would that I could Dan. But without his tempad we have to wait and see where time anomalies pop up."

    He looks at his tempad and holds it up for Daniel to see, "Looks like your friends have stopped the apocalypse, this divergent timeline is converging back to the one true path. Our best bet for tracking Arturo will be to go back to the TVA and see what the analysts have dug up."

Daniel Sousa has posed:
As Red Skull is sent into the void of space, Daniel takes a moment to appreciate the view. He didn't have the same history with the man as Peggy but it was still damn good to see anyhow. Though before long it's back to the fight for him, clocking one HYDRA goon before ICERing another as they check the try to get their weapons working.

Looking over at Mobius he nods, "Gotcha, wait until he makes more trouble, we sure the crisis is done here? We could back up the doubles down in the power core."

Melinda May has posed:
"Hold that option in reserve," Melinda recommends to Carter. "This would be a whole lot easier with an EMP charge." Daisy Johnston, Melinda May is not. But, she's been around SHIELD for a good thirty years, now. That's long enough for any old dog to learn a few tricks.

This system, she quickly realizes, is based on stuff she used early in her career. Hell, it's based on stuff that was *old* early in her career. "Oh..." she croons softly, "Oh, yeah. I got this."

She flinches briefly as one of the soldiers Carter deflects flashes by her peripheral vision. But her attention remains on the screen. She uses old dos commands to navigate through the directories until she finds the kill command she's looking for. A small, dark smile touches her lips as she activates that shutdown.

The harmonic resonance of the power station decrescendos with a falling tone -- easily sounding like the shutdown sequence in any of the original Star Wars movies. >>Zhooooom*plt*<<

---

While Carter defends Melinda, Lily continues to skip seconds to appear and disappear throughout that power complex. A HYDRA goon falls from a sniper perch on an upper level, arms and legs pinwheeling as he screams past his compatriots, tumbling down into the heart of the core.

The timewalker soon appears down beside Carter and Melinda, however, joining Carter in keeping Melinda protected as she fakes her way through being a hacker.

When they're rewarded with what appears to be a successful shutdown sequence -- about the same time all those HYDRA weapons jam -- she flashes her double a fierce grin and flickers out of the way of an incoming punch. The man ends up bouncing off of Carter's shield instead.

---

In the ops center, May dispatches the deathray operator with prejudice. She hears Peggy taunting Schmidt and has to snirk. Carter isn't as inclined to verbal distractions -- mainly because she's a 6-foot amazon with a vibranium Shield and a shit ton of kick ass attitude. The smaller version, however, lacks such advantages. But obviously doesn't lack brains or tactical smarts.

May can respect that.

She drops to one knee behind a console, firing at HYDRA goons who still try to fight. And when she runs out of ammo, she does what she does best in almost any timeline: She switches to feet and fists and ancient martial arts.

It's only when Schmidt floats helplessly past the windows that she lets up -- and then only enough to make sure her opponent knows how he's been defeated.

She looks at the others in the room and moves toward Bobbi. "Pretty sure this is one of the weirder missions we've been on," she tells her.

Peggy Carter has posed:
In the power room, Captain Carter is on a run. It's just like working a punching bag, but the bag are the faces of HYDRA soldiers. With Lily behind her, Melinda is not getting touched by a single one of the bastards. And then the shut down comes. Weapons jam. And Captain Carter grins ear to ear. "..Time to go gather the troops and get back home. Only... I hope you can find your way somewhere else, May, because we already got one of you. And...take the little one with you. I don't have time to answer questions about that." Then Captain Carter is jogging back up front to meet with the rest of her team, hoping she'll wake up tomorrow and these time doubles will be nothing but a bad dream.

Peggy is smiling nearly as wide. Just to see Schmidt floating like that? It's a reward in and of itself. She looks over at Daniel and Mockingbird, giving a breathless nod, "Good job, but... I suspect it's time to get home, before there are more questions. Or, well, back to... Never mind." She mutters, realizing there are still too many of this world here. "You all, keep up the good fight. Daniel, where's your new best friend? We still have the first head of HYDRA to hunt." Because Peggy has promised she won't sleep until every head of HYDRA is cut off, but they need the biggest head of all - Malevolo. They just get to jump through a glowing orange portal of 'There's No Place Like Time Home' before they can try again. Fortunately, they have all the time in the world now.

Abcde Prescelta has posed:
    Bobbi pushes herself up off of the energy shield keeping everyone from being sucked out. She rubs her bare forearm and then smirks at Commander May, "You think?" Her eyes glance over to smol-Peggy and she gives her a smile and a small salute in thanks, "I'm not so sure."

    She's not their Peggy - that much is obvious - but when the moment mattered she distracted Red Skull. "It's uncanny," she says softly as she walks over to her May, "She's like.. a tiny Cap'. Also... no shield." Her wings collapse back in on her back and she takes off her helmet as the STRIKE team gathers up the remaining HYDRA agents now that none of them have weapons.

    Abcde slumps against the back of a computer console and catches her breath. She braces for the backlash she knows will be coming her way. Prying an eye open when nothing happens, she lets out a small breath. "I can't believe we came all this way and Arturo got away," she says.

    The most junior of juniors ever in this crowd really thought it'd be as simple as pointing a wand at the guy. "He had a magical amulet of sorcery protection. We're going to need some null magic to get through that."

    Mobius stands up and adjusts his shirt and tie, "Here. Present. Good job everyone." The TVA agents gather back in and turn off their sticks.

    A nod is given to Daniel, "Certain. See how the line is pointing back down. Arturo's influence is gone. The big bad he summoned from the past is ... re-deaded. That's a word right? We're good here. Say your good byes, it's time for us to move on."