Traitors and Mercenaries, Part 1
Posted on Mon May 3rd, 2021 @ 4:39pm by First Lieutenant Bethany Harrison & Captain Jonathon Harrison
Edited on on Thu May 6th, 2021 @ 5:00pm
Mission:
The Factions
Location: Somewhere in the desert
Timeline: Present day
Sitting out in the middle of the desert was nothing new for Bethany. She had been raised in the desert and was normally quite at home in those surroundings. Besides that, she had burned down a lot of energy bringing down the HYDRA spy that they had been sent after. So she sat on a rock, her skin sparkling as she literally fed on the sunlight that the rest of the team was trying to hide from, while they waited for their transport.
It had been a long and tiring mission, and the green-eyed brawler was looking forward to going home, taking a long, hot shower, then dragging Jon into bed and keeping him there for as long as she could manage. They were both exhausted, something that was ever-present along the bond that they shared. Besides, her twenty-first birthday was coming up, and she was looking forward to whatever Jon had planned. He always surprised her somehow.
“What’s that smile for?” An only newly familiar voice asked, as the newest member of their team approached, grinning at the shimmering girl.
A sigh escaped Bethany, and she opened her odd eyes, her irises swirling with rainbow light. That strange gaze fixed Garret with a polite smile to replace the slightly wistful one. “We accomplished our mission, we’re heading home. I figure that’s something to smile about.”
She didn’t really trust the man, but then, that was nothing new. Men weren’t creatures that she tended to trust. Still, he had been a last minute replacement on the team, and there had been more than enough issues with the mission that seemed to revolve around the vaguely roguish mercenary.
“True enough,” Garret said, leaning back against a taller rock next to Bethany and looking out over the ruddy, rocky landscape. He nodded towards Jon, who was standing watch over their prisoner, with the others. “You two are kind of attached at the hip, aren’t ya?”
The hair stood up on the back of the young woman’s neck at the question, but she just shrugged, saying, “That’s not really any of your business.” She wasn’t ashamed of her relationship with Jon, despite their age difference, but she was a private person when it came to such things, and she definitely wasn’t interested in sharing her life with a stranger.
“Water?” Jon asked the HYDRA agent, holding out a canteen. He looked over at where Beth sat in the sun with the new guy, Garrett. She didn’t like him, but then she didn’t like most men. Jon shook his head. Why hadn’t Pierce sent his own people on this mission? Jon checked the time, wondering where their extraction was.
The HYDRA agent, a woman just about Jon’s age, with dark hair, and eyes so black that one could swear that they contained the abyss, glared at the man, then turned her head away with nothing more than an irritated growl.
She saw a glint of metal and glanced down, her rainbow-colored eyes widening in surprise. “Grenade!” Bethany shouted, as the weapon rolled lazily out of the mercenary’s hand. She leapt to her feet just as the flash-bang went off in front of them. The light didn’t cause the young soldier any issues, her vision simply adjusted, but the concussion sent a shockwave through her that rattled her bones, tossing her onto her back, her ears ringing.
Garrett seemed completely unphased by the explosion, and he walked over, crouching down to grab Bethany by the throat. He gave her another of those grins that made her skin crawl. “Let’s take a walk.”
Jon cursed, grabbing the HYDRA agent and dragging her clear, tumbling out into the sun. He rolled away, raising his carbine, but he couldn’t get a clear shot until the lights stopped dancing in his eyes. “Garrett! Put her down!” he ordered. “What the hell are you up to, mate?”
“Like I’m gonna get caught monologuing,” Garrett snapped off with a chuckle as he dropped a device that opened up some kind of portal, and suddenly shot through it, hauling Bethany along with him. As they went through, the round metallic device short-circuited, collapsing the odd purple field, then exploded. Somewhere in the distance, a sonic boom went off and echoed through the desert valley.
Jon spun around, lowering his rifle. “Radar!” he barked at the tall, lanky young blonde man. “Get on the line. I need to know where the hell our extraction is, and then a satellite link on Fractal’s nano.”
Jon grabbed up the Hydra woman. “Was he working for you?” Jon demanded of her. “Start talking, or I find an anthill and leave you out here for them.”
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The other end of the portal opened up along a sheer cliff face, and Bethany barely had time to reach up to the odd X tattoo on the back of her neck and activate her nano-armor before being slammed ingloriously into a thick base of rock. Then everything took on that odd, black sensation, and she caught herself as she fell, loosened rocks and sand falling around her.
She rose from the rubble, clad in form-fitting black armor, the only visible parts of her body being her furiously swirling, brilliantly colorful eyes, and her unnaturally thick hair that had spiraled through with a dangerous mixture of crimson and orange. “I knew you were trouble,” she said, her tone emotionless, distant.
“You’re bright like that,” Garrett said, driving at her once again, more of the terrain falling around them as another deafening crack of a sonic boom tore at their surroundings.
The young brawler felt her ribs bow, the familiar sensation of a couple of them cracking, as Garrett seemed to try to drive her through the pink granite that had been revealed in the chaos. It didn’t matter though, pain was inconsequential. Fractal’s body shimmered out of view, his grip losing purchase, his hands singed as she shifted to pure, fiery light.
She laughed darkly as he passed right through her, the final push of his attack only causing him to launch headfirst into the very stone that he’d tried to grind her into. The young light bearer solidified and turned to watch him free himself from the stone. “What have I done to you?” she asked, though her tone was one of disinterest.
“Oh, girlie, there’s a few people willing to pay a pretty penny for you,” he said, glaring at her as he cracked his neck. “Some want you alive, some want your hide.”
Fractal’s jaw tightened. “Another traitor. A greedy one,” she said, light flaring in her eyes as she waited for his next attack, drinking in as much light as she could, trying to regain her energy stores.
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“On it, Boss!” Radar said, his voice coming out through a speaker clipped to his belt, his mouth not moving. He closed his eyes, focusing his talent for manipulating radio waves to contact the extraction team, and then the satellite.
“ETA on th’extraction is four minutes,” the young man reported , then continued, “Christ, she’s about ten clicks ta the west, Boss. No matter what, it’s gonna take time ta get ta her.”
The Hydra agent looked into the eyes of the man that had hauled her up off of the ground, and her face paled at what she saw there. “That guy’s a merc. What do you expect? They don’t know what loyalty means,” she said, her voice barely more than a strained whisper.
Jon glared at the woman and dumped her down. “We’re stuck here, then,” he said. It would be faster to get on the evac and head to Beth’s location. “We should have had a bloody teleporter,” Jon grumbled.
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Again, Garrett shot at Fractal at frightening speed, and with the help of the nano’s targeting system, she twirled out of the way as he reached her. At those speeds, even the shockwave was enough to send her reeling, and she was tossed to the ground again, sliding and rolling across the rough terrain.
“You’re going to have to do better than that,” Fractal said as she rose, still sounding bored and disinterested in what was going on, even though she knew that she was taking damage from his attacks. All of the armor in the world didn’t do much if your insides were shaken to death. But in that dark, combative frame of mind, none of that mattered. Still, she refrained from attacking, staying in the sun, gathering strength.
TBC
