12 Chapter 12 (1/2)

The following events happen simultaneously

Having given a warning to Rhodey, I looked at the Omnitrix. Still red.

”Dammit, you can turn me into over a million superpowered aliens, so why do you have the charge time of an Iphone 5?” I whispered under my breath.

I looked out of cover and immediately ducked my head down as bullets tried to take it off. More HYDRA shooting at me, and they were cautiously coming closer when they realized they were fighting a human being rather than a monster. I pulled back into cover and checked my gun. I'd shot six bullets to try and drive them back, which left me with nine. I leaned back out of cover and shot at a guy trying to sneak up. He ducked behind some pipes, leaving the three bullets I'd shot to hit the walls and a screen nearby.

I got back into cover and looked to my left to come face to face with a HYDRA member.

Maybe he'd simply sneaked around to flank me, or dropped down from a catwalk nearby. Either way, the HYDRA crewman was only a few feet away when we met eyes. He had pale white skin, with some crows feet at the edges of his eyes. He was wearing a hat and a blue uniform with the word 'Insight' stitched over his left pectoral. He was also carrying a gun.

He froze at the same moment I did. Then he raised the big assault rifle in his hands. I leapt for him and grabbed at the gun, dropping mine in the process. We struggled as I began pushing him back. I was bigger than he was and had more muscle mass. He must have been an engineer, not a true killer. Not that he wasn't willing to murder me now.

He grunted when I pushed him back into some pipes. He pulled the trigger on his gun, the rifle bouncing as we struggled with it. Bullets shot into the air until the clip emptied. I tried to knee him in the ribs but bounced off his hip instead. He headbutted towards my face but got me in the neck instead, his forehead barely touching me and thus having no effect.

”Gragh!” He shouted, trying to fight me. He kneed me in the side, the move forcing me to stagger slightly. He pulled away, letting go of his assault rifle and reaching for a handgun at his side. I grabbed at his right wrist before he could get the gun. He used his left hand to go for the knife I still had sheathed at my own hip. In a quick motion, he pulled it out and stabbed it at my neck. I pulled back enough to get a cut along my cheek that felt like fire running along the right side of my face. The guy pulled back to stab at me again, and I got my hand in the way.

”Aaaaahhhh!” A scream was ripped from me when my palm was sliced before I got a grip on his fist. Blood poured from the wound, spilling down my cheek, out of my palm to pool in between our hands. He struggled to stab upwards. Our eyes met. He stared at me, and I could hear him whispering.

”Hail HYDRA,” the knife crept up to my neck. I struggled to keep a grip as my own blood made my hand slip on his fist. ”Hail HYDRA!”

I stopped focusing on the hand holding his knife. Instead, I let go of the hand that had gone for his handgun and pulled it out of the holster myself, copying his earlier move. With the sort of desperate clarity only adrenaline gives you, I shot him in the leg. He screamed as his grip on the knife faltered and I pushed it towards him.

More blood poured over my hands, warm and sticky. I stared into his eyes as he gurgled. I could feel his neck muscles moving against my knuckles. His eyes were wide with fear. I felt myself breath deeply, leaning away while I tried to comprehend what happened. I pulled the knife from his throat. He coughed, a spray of red spraying on my face when his throat sprayed me. He fell to the floor still staring at me until his eyes were no longer seeing anything.

I heard footsteps come up to me from behind. I didn't want to deal with it. I just stared at him, trying to understand what I'd done. My hands felt sticky so I tried to wipe them on my chestplate, only to realize it was because they were bloody. I reached for my gun instead, picking it up and putting it away. The Omnitrix beeped green. I immediately twisted and smacked it. I didn't care who I turned into, I just didn't want to be human anymore.

My skin and bone became plant-life, my height increased. I took a breath, feeling less unsteady now, but still numb.

”Swampfire,” I didn't have the will to yell the name anymore.

A guy came around the corner and started shooting me. I ignored the hail of bullets passing throw me to lower to my knees and close the eyes of the man I'd killed. The gesture felt empty. When the guy who'd been shooting me ran out of bullets, he ran forward to try and hit me in the head with the butt of his rifle. My right hand raised and shot forward, vines extending twelve feet to slam into him and send him flying. Then I opened my hand and released spores from my palm. The spores entered into his lungs, knocking him out as they interacted with his system. With that, I got up and walked out of cover.

More bullets hit me, slicing through my plant form. I ignored them to form seed pods across my arms. I grabbed and ripped one out and tossed it at a catwalk. The razor-sharp seed stabbed into the steel before exploding into vines. I shoved the screaming thoughts of my mind at the plant-life I'd created, and the vines grabbed onto the three HYDRA agents on the catwalk, pulling them in and holding them still.

The other HYDRA agents kept shooting. I grabbed more seeds and threw them again and again. There were about twenty men in the room. By the end, one was dead, three I'd gassed, ten were wrapped in vines, and the last six had run off.

I didn't care. I tapped the Omnitrix on my chest.

”...Jury Rigg,” the red gremlins manic personality was almost a relief.

I leaped at one of the pipes nearby and ripped it out of a wall. Then I went to a computer nearby and dug my way through it. For once, I couldn't muster the urge to yell disassemble. It was easier to process my actions though. For Jury Rigg, while the kill I'd committed was horrific, tearing into technology let me relax a bit. I just tore through the wires, ripped up chunks of steel plating, and slammed pieces of random junk together.

I knew, intellectually, that I'd had no choice, that killing that man was self-defense. I'd thought I was ready. And in a sick way, I was proud that I'd managed to kill him. But the look in his eyes, the feel of his blood against my skin, knowing I'd killed someone, it left feeling empty.

Soon I had finished the device in question, a metal tower the height of Blitzwolfer with a yellow light glowing in the center from a tube. I'd turned a computer screen into a touch screen control. I tapped at it for a bit and stepped away as the yellow light in the central tube began to glow a bright blue. Other than that, not much happened on the surface. Hacking, no matter how impressive the technology you use to do it, just isn't cinematic. But as of now, my creation was stealing every bit of energy from the helicarrier I was sitting in to do its thing.

”Receiving your signal,” X said through the Omnitrix. ”The device is acting wonderfully, sir.”

Virtual VI X

X, contrary to popular belief on how computer programs worked, did not swim through the internet, as though it was a tunnel he flew through. He saw it more like thousands of blocks of zeros and ones forming information floating in a void of light, if such a concept could be explained by words like 'saw'. Jarvis was 'next' to him as they did their job. Their task was to aid all loyal SHIELD agents in fighting off/killing/capturing all HYDRA personnel as well as depriving the organization of resources. Using the power of the X-device and Stark's computers, they 'moved' across the world to do their work. Fury, Maria, and Natasha all were kept apprised of what was happening. The three humans would take endless seconds to think over the situation, during which X and Jarvis would continue to monitor the Hercules app, inform SHIELD agents of ambushes, and fight off all attempts by HYDRA hackers to fight them off.

On the Iliad, X watched as Robert Gonzales used information and tactics given by Fury to take his ship back. The older Hispanic man strode slowly through a hallway of his aircraft carrier carrying a Glock 17 while two others walked alongside him. A tall blonde woman wearing black clothes that X found out was named Barbara 'Bobbi' Morse after a brief inquiry into SHIELD's database, a skilled fighter on par with SHIELD's best. She followed on Gonzales' right, holding a carbine. On Gonzales' left as a surprise. Alphonso Mackenzie, an engineer rather than a fighter like Miss Morse. He was a tall and powerful looking man, with dark skin and a shaved head. He carried a gun as well.

Gonzales' group met with another group of people. Isabelle Hartley, a brunette woman with a record similar to Miss Morse's, lead a team of four. As X watched, the group lifted phones, all of them visibly relaxing when their phones flashed green.

”Good to see you, Hartley,” Bobbi said with a smile.

”Same, Bobbi,” the other woman said. ”Mack, what are you doing carrying a gun?”

”Trying not to get killed,” the man said uncomfortably. He gave the weapon a look of distaste but didn't put it down.

”Fury sent you to help us?” Gonzales asked.

”Yeah,” Hartley replied. ”He's been leading us through the ship, keeping us apprised of ambushes with those AI helping out,” X would have sighed at the misnomer if he was capable of being annoyed. VI was the correct term, thank you. ”So far it's been a breeze.”

”HYDRA,” Gonzales said the word as though it was a curse. ”Thank god Captain America and Fury warned us in time, gave us Hercules.”

Hartley nodded. ”So, just one more room?”

Gonzales, Morse, and Mackenzie all held their guns up and continued down the hallway. X informed Fury, who used his holographic screen to watch. The group got to a door. There was a beat, then Mackenzie kicked the door in. Seven HYDRA soldiers trying to manipulate the computers rose up, ready to fight. The SHIELD agents shot first.

When it was over, Gonzales had been shot in the shoulder, and two agents had died. But all the HYDRA soldiers were killed.

”Sir!” Bobbi yelled upon noticing the wounded Gonzales. She rushed over to him, Mack grabbing a med kit off the wall.

”I'm fine,” Gonzales said grumpily as he was forced to sit in a swivel chair.

”No, you aren't,” Isabelle Hartley said severely. She ripped at the clothes around his wound. ”Now, sit down and let us help you. We're done now.”

”Gonzales,” Fury said over the intercoms when Gonzales tried to get up once more.

Gonzales looked up. ”Yes, sir?”

”Sit your grumpy ass down. You saved the ship, your crew is alive, and the monolith is untouched. Now get your shoulder taken care of. I want you in top shape.”

Gonzales grumbled, but the heat was removed from it. Bobbi smiled at the older man. Mack chuckled. Hartley started cleaning out his wound, mumbling something about old grumps.

X noted that there seemed to be a similar expression on their faces. On checking his database, he noted it was actually two micro-expressions. Sadness, and satisfaction. How fascinating.

Just A Rather Very Intelligent System

Jarvis aided Victoria Hand in the Hub, the secondary headquarters of SHIELD, keeping an eye on proceedings there on Maria Hill's orders. She was in a operations room of the Hub with Agent Phil Coulson, someone Jarvis had been told was dead. Mr. Stark would need to hear about that.

Hand and Coulson were watching as a man was put into a body bag. Coulson's gun was holstered now but had been recently used.

”Did you ever suspect Ward?” Hand asked, her black hair with its pink streak flipping as she turned to look at Coulson.

Coulson closed his eyes. He seemed to be in emotional turmoil. Jarvis was older than X. He could understand, in a superficial way, how Coulson was feeling. ”No... Never. I didn't...”

”Betrayal,” Hand said briskly, but not unkindly. ”It never comes from people we don't know. And it will always hurt.”

”Have you felt this way?” Coulson asked.

”Once,” Hand admitted. ”When I thought you had betrayed us.”

Coulson looked at her. Hand smiled sadly. The two looked back at the body of Grant Ward as it was wheeled out of the room.