The Reality Stone

It had taken time, but Natalya had finally located SHIELD’s secret storage facility. Locating the facility had involved the bloody interrogation and then death of a high ranking SHIELD agent and then decoding some encrypted files, but finally after several months of searching she now stood before the nondescript warehouse in an industrial area of Brooklyn, NY. The warehouse was unmarked and appeared just like the others in the area. To the naked eye nothing seemed special or unique about it, but Natalya knew differently. This is what the 26 year old had been bred and born to do and she was very good at her job.

Natalya Sokolova was the brainchild of SSB (Soviet Special Branch) Director Tatiana Kruglov who dreamt of creating the ultimate SSB agent. SSB agent Zoya Sokolova and Hydra agent Luca Schulz were carefully chosen for their abilities and qualities. Artificial insemination was used and into the embryo SSB scientists injected a single drop of the super soldier serum which granted Natalya an enhanced immune system, strength, and endurance. Natalya was raised by Tatiana, but given her mother’s last name. In the hands of Tatiana, Natalya trained day and night to become the ultimate SSB agent and Natalya flourished. She was exactly what Tatiana had wanted and soon after becoming an official agent she became their top agent. She was fast, strong, beautiful, and very intelligent. She learned quickly and never questioned her orders. She was beauty and death wrapped in one complete package. Very quickly Natalya got onto SHIELD’s radar after she began killing SHIELD agents and hacking into SHIELD’s computer system. However, SHIELD knows very little about her.

Natalya walked around to the back of the building and found the backdoors chained. She pulled out her bolt cutters and cut off the chain and opened the backdoor. She knew that there was no security system in place up on the main floors of the building, but the basement…well that was another story. The top floors contained anything that one might find in a warehouse and nothing that SHIELD would cry over if they lost. It was all a rouse. Natalya knew that the door to the basement was hidden behind a massive stack of old pallets. Taking her time she moved them all and slowly the door was revealed to her. To the side of the door was a keypad and she punched in the 10 digit code that she had memorized. The light blinked from red to green and she heard the door unlock. There were two more sets of doors, each with their own 10 digit codes that Natalya had to work through, before she finally came to the last door. At this door there was not a keypad, but a retina scanner. Reaching into her pocket, Natalya pulled out a plastic bag. Inside the bag was something small wrapped carefully in a cloth. Natalya pulled it out and gently unwrapped the delicate object. The blue eye stared up at her lifelessly. Natalya had taken it from the SHIELD agent she had interrogated while he was still alive...he hadn’t lived for very long after that. Natalya held the eyeball up and a red beam scanned the eye as Natalya held her breath. Then the red flashing light turned green and Natayla grinned as the heavy, steel door unlocked. Natalya tucked the eye back into her pocket and stepped inside the room. The room was deceptively large and everywhere she looked there were shelves with boxes and other objects neatly stacked and organized. Natalya took off her black leather jacket and pulled her long dark hair up into a ponytail and then got to work. She only knew very little about what she was supposed to be retrieving. The only information she had been given was to be on the lookout for a "Test Cylinder". It wasn't very helpful information, but it was all she had to work with and she had worked with far less than that before.

There were several computers all over the warehouse but it was not immediately apparent which ones were connected to anything important. As she attached the small USB drive to the computer to begin her hack she paused as a slight vibration began below her feet. Natalya bent down and touched the dusty floor of the office. Her hand felt the vibration and she knew that her suspicions were correct. There was more to this place and she stepped out of the office.

It took her a while to find it, a small scratch on the floor by one of the larger wooden crates. That and it appeared that the dust nearby the large crate had been disturbed recently. Further investigation of the crate yielded what she sought. With a pull one side of the crate pulled toward her to reveal what looked like a large, freight elevator that looked nearly as old as the warehouse itself, save for the retinal scanner attached to the control panel on the inside. Before she entered though she removed from her pocket her camera scrambler and turned it on. Now any camera within 10 meters will act as if it was receiving some kind of outside interference. With another scan of the eye the elevator door closed and she felt the lurch of it begin to draw her down to what she hoped was the hidden SHIELD test facility.

Evan watched with great interest as the scientists continued their tests on the large, cylinder. It pulses with a dark, violet glow. The large cylinder, about a foot long with a diameter of about 3 inches was in the center of a small square tank of water suspended by metal arms, one at its top and one at the cylinder’s base. The arms were attached to a large machine that was taking readings and the scientists hastily wrote upon their metal clipboards as they viewed the water begin to vibrate inside the tank. From behind the thick safety glass Evan and another scientist stood to observe the test.

Why he was here he could not know but orders were orders and so Evan would watch, observe and...what? Guard this little cylinder? He knew little of what it was or what they were doing, information was never a free thing when it came to SHIELD. It was usually on a need to know basis and those who “needed” to know were far beyond his pay grade.

This facility was buried deep under what appeared to be an old warehouse that held machines, items and components that SHIELD had collected long ago. A few decades ago some of this stuff would have brought foreign agents from all over to learn their secrets but now they were well known about and only placed there as a decoy. The test facility was actually under the warehouse and it could only be reached by either an old freight elevator that led down to the storage bays or a smaller, newer one that opened out into a hallway that led to this room as well as others in the small complex that was built down there. There were security cameras and SHIELD guards who handled the main security and biometric palm print and eye scanners were the only way to access the black level testing areas. SHIELD guards wore black uniforms with kevlar vests and were very good with their stun batons, sidearms and sub-machine guns that they all carried. There were several guards positioned through the facility so Evan thought it was odd that he needed to be here. This place was a fortress for the most part but SHIELD never did take any chances when it came to what it deemed as ‘TOP SECRET’ or ‘CLASSIFIED’. Evan wore boots and black, cargo pants like many of the guards did but only a slimming, long-sleeved shirt, jet black with special pockets at the back of the neck and wrists so he could don a black hood and gloves quickly that were hidden inside the small pockets in the shirt. He had special goggles too that he could put on that shielded his eyes from bright light. He didn’t like bright light and sudden bursts of light could actually disorient him for a time if they were intense enough.

As the scientists changed the frequency of...whatever it was they were doing Evan felt the entire room begin to hum with a certain...resonance. As the machines seemed to come alive with activity, the scientists scribbled quickly to write down their observations at the abrupt changes in the testing.

As Natalya read she felt the floor below her feet begin to vibrate slightly. As she suspected, there ‘was’ more to this place. More that she had obviously not seen yet.

As Natalya began to sift through the seemingly endless rows of shelving she began to realize that this was probably not where she needed to be. She wouldn't put it past SHIELD to have included a basement diversion for any intruders. Just as this thought was entering her mind she felt the floor beneath her feet began to vibrate ever so slightly. It was not the rolling vibrations of an earthquake, but something else and Natalya sensed that this was where she actually needed to be.

Natalya carefully searched the basement and found no door or elevator that might take her down to this subbasement. Remaining patient, but moving quickly, she headed back up the main warehouse floor. She began to search carefully, knowing that the access to this floor would be well hidden. After 40 minutes of diligent searching Natalya found a large, upright crate that was back behind many other large objects. After moving everything out of the way, she opened the crate door and spotted the silver steel exterior of an elevator door. The doors silently opened and she stepped inside. To her relief the security was a retina scanner and she carefully pulled out the eyeball she had tucked back into her pocket and held it up. The red beam scanned the eye and the elevator began its descent. There were no buttons on the elevator, indicating that it only went to one floor. Surprisingly, it was a rather long trip down and she wondered to herself just how deep underground this facility was and what they might be keeping there. The elevator came to a slow stop and the doors silently opened. Natalya used a small mirror to check the hallway before she stepped out. In front of her was a hallway stretching to the right and the left and another directly in front of her. The walls were a sterile white and the floors were white and so well polished that they gleamed underneath the harsh lighting above. It was so bright that it made her blink and it took her eyes a few seconds to adjust. Although she couldn't see the entire floor, she instinctively knew that it was large and she had no idea where she was going or what she might be looking for. She needed to think and quickly. Down here there were no windows or an easy escape route. Looking above her she could see that even any air ducts were very well sealed. She needed to get in and out fast. As Natalya stood there she suddenly heard footsteps coming her way down another hallway. She spotted a door and she quickly stepped inside what turned out to be a closet. She could hear two men talking and she pressed her ear up against the door to hear what they were saying. One was clearly a guard, but the other spoke like a scientist. She glanced out of a small crack in the door and spotted a white laboratory coat and knew that there must be a testing facility here. For what, she wasn't sure, but she had a gut feeling that whatever it was was what her bosses wanted.

She watched as the guard and the scientist parted ways and the scientist walked into another room while the guard walked down another hallway away from her. She needed a distraction and quickly. When the coast was clear she stepped out of the storage closet and spotted a fire alarm. She walked over and pulled it before ducking back into the closet. The alarm sounded throughout the entire floor and she could hear people walking as confusion about what was happening set in. She saw the scientist walk out of the room he had been in and away from her and she knew that this was her opportunity. As silently as a cat she moved out of the closet and down to what turned out to be an office. She needed to work quickly and she began to sift through the papers on the desk. She then spotted a document labeled "Classified" and she quickly pulled out a small, handheld scanner and she scanned the document into her cell phone. She wasn't sure what the document was, but she saw the words "Reality Stone" near the bottom of the page. She then looked up and spotted a map on the wall of the office. It was a map of the floor she was on. She walked over and studied the map and saw that there was a testing room on the opposite side of the floor she was on. Hanging on the backside of the office door, Natalya spotted a white lab coat. She quickly grabbed it and put it on. She then slicked her hair back into a fresh ponytail and grabbed the pair of glasses she found on the desk and put them on. It was a hasty outfit, but it would have to work. She then stepped out of the office and headed towards the testing room.

A pair of white coated scientists, a man and a woman who were discussing the most recent test passed by Natalya without even glancing at her. A guard passed by her soon after as she walked down the hallway and past several doors on both sides of the hall. The hall turned a corner and smoothly she placed a hand over her badge photo just as the guard that was sitting at the desk there looked up at her. With a quick flash of a smile the guard, a tall, broad, black man in a black beret smiled back and nodded. His gaze followed her but quickly snapped back toward the many view screens on his desk that were going haywire just then.

As she approached the large testing lab she noticed that here there was only thick glass instead of the white walls and the door, which was all unbreakable glass, had a voice print and hand print access keypad. As she approached it she saw several guards and scientists inside the observation room and 2 scientists inside the testing room in full, yellow, hazmat suits. With a well timed yawn as a scientist had just exited the observation room, Natalya picked up her step and managed to slip through the sliding door before it closed again.

Inside as she had seen before, 2 guards were there. One by the door into the testing room and one positioned against the wall near the door she just came in. Neither looked at her directly and both were heavily armed with MP5 sub-machine guns and Sig-Sauer side arms. There were 2 scientists near the observation glass that looked out over the testing lab. A man with short, graying hair and a woman with blonde, red hair and black framed glasses. They hastily scrawled on their metal clip boards as they watched what was happening inside the test lab.

There was one other man inside the observation room with them and though from behind he resembled the guards in many respects he wore no weapons that she could see and instead of Kevlar vests and combat webbing he had on just a long-sleeved, skin tight shirt. His hair looked jet black and fair curly as it settled down his neck and rested on his shoulders. He just stood there with his hands clasped behind his back as he watched what was happening inside the test lab and did not turn to regard her.

The two in the yellow hazmat suits in the lab were on both sides of a large, square water tank that had dark water inside that appeared to roil and quiver as two metallic arms conducted energy into a clear cylinder centered inside the tank. The computers inside the lab blinked and whirred as they ran their tests and the lights flickered on and off a few times which sent the scientists babbling about the dangerous experiment that caused whatever was inside the cylinder to glow an eerie violet color.

Natalya held her breath as she slipped through the door into the observation room just as another scientist exited. She stood off to one side, but a quick glance around was enough to tell her that it was going to be nearly impossible to get into the actual testing room as there were two guards both armed with sub machine guns. With her in the observation room she spotted two scientists and another man that appeared to be neither a guard, nor a scientist. However, he was handsome and in a different situation Natalya might try to seduce him. Being sterilized had its advantages in that regard and she often slept with men like him before killing them. For her, both acts were equally as thrilling.

Natalya turned her attention back to the actual testing room and she could see two men in yellow hazmat suits near a large, square water tank. The water inside the tank was dark and it moved and quivered as energy was conducted into the clear cylinder inside the tank. It was evident to Natalya that it wasn't going to be easy to just take this object. However, she hadn't come this far to leave empty handed. She slowly moved closer to the other scientists and glanced over their shoulders to the clipboards they carried.

Evan continued to watch as the 2 in the lab modified the energy output and adjusted the resonance as the cylinder was bombarded with negative energy. The vibrating continued for a moment longer and then changed into a pulse that thudded slowly against the glass of the lab as the Dark Matter contained within the cylinder began to create the pulses of negative energy. This pulse seemed to call to Evan right then and even his heartbeat slowed to the deep thump of the pulses that kept coming from the cylinder. Slowly he reached out and touched the glass with his right hand, his palm flat against it. He closed his eyes as he felt it. A strong irrational pull toward the cylinder...toward the Dark Matter that was contained within it.

The two scientists wrote frantically to get every scrap of their observations down upon their clipboards. Natalya’s contact lens recorded what they were writing as well as took a 3d scan of the room. She saw the word ‘Dark Matter Filament’ and Negative Energy Pulse among the garbled shorthand style of writing these two scientists used which seemed alien to her.

Evan could feel the Dark Matter through the glass and inexplicably the part of the glass that his palm was touching began to warp. All writing stopped as the two scientists turned to see the thick glass begin to warp and turn into a clear liquid. The entire glass wall rippled as for a moment...a brief moment it went from a solid to a liquid. Evan drew back his hand as if he had been bitten by a poisonous Cobra and the glass wall re-solidified again though where it had warped remained warped. Evan frowned on the point of anger as he looked at his undamaged hand.

‘What is happening to me? What is it?’ He asked himself. He knew what the Cylinder contained and it was somehow affecting his powers. He had been thinking about getting a glass of water soon and somehow The Dark Matter had reacted to his thoughts.

“Clear the room!” Evan snapped and turned to look at the 3 scientists and 2 guards. His eyes scanned across Natalya briefly and paused a moment as their eyes met. His attraction to her was immediate but the tingle in his hand diverted his attention to the matter at hand. Evan’s eyes were very dark, almost black and he felt his right hand with the fingers of his left uncomfortably as he looked at her. The moment ended when one of the guards shifted and his gaze moved up to the man’s face. “Tell them to stop and clear the lab,” He said and the guard nodded and moved toward the lab door that had an intercom embedded on the side of the door.

Natalya's eyes scanned over the notes the scientists were frantically taking. She tried to take every little bit of information in that she could, knowing that it all would be important. Natalya suddenly felt the vibrating stop and she looked up only to see that the energy contained within the cylinder had changed to a pulse. Natalya felt slightly hypnotized by the rhythmic pulsing. Her eyes locked onto the cylinder and she felt it difficult to look away. From what she could read of the scientists garbled handwriting, this thing contained dark energy, but what it was exactly she did not know.

Looking over, Natalya could see that handsome, dark haired man was being deeply affected by this dark energy. She watched as the glass around his palm began to wrap and change. Then, suddenly the entire glass wall began to ripple as if it had turned to liquid. However, as soon as he drew his hand away, the glass re-solidified, apart from the area that had been warped. Suddenly, his brow furled and he turned and commanded them all to leave. She watched as his eyes scanned briefly across her and as their eyes met she gave him the slightest of smiles. Natalya waited as the others left, standing close to the entry to the actual testing lab. She waited as the men in the hazmat suits stopped the test. The pulsing stopped and Natalya knew that she needed to act now. As the men exited the lab Natalya looked over and saw that one of the guards had relaxed and his gun was at his side. In one swift move Natalya grabbed the gun and shot the guard, before the other guard could make a move she shot him as well through the head.

In the span of a few seconds one guard was relieved of his weapon, shot in the neck and the other had just fallen back against the outer glass and drooped lifelessly down to the floor as he left a bloodstain from the back of his head that smeared down to where he came to rest. Evan’s eyes widened as the two in yellow hazmat suits held up their hands in an attempt to show that they would not hinder the dark-haired woman who now brandished the machine gun. Before she had dispatched the second guard Evan called upon his power and flung himself at the warped glass nearest to him. With the sound of breaking glass he crashed through it, thankful that whatever had happened to it had weakened it so much so that it actually broke like glass instead of he being bounced back and likely knocked unconscious. Darkness quickly filled the lab and seeped through the opened door and broken glass into the observation room. Not instantaneous to be sure but as the woman bashed one in the head with the butt of the weapon and shoved the other out of the way the fog-like darkness was already pressing up against the outer glass to the observation room and all light ceased to exist there. Clear evidence now that the man Natalya had seen had powers. Even erected a shield of darkness before him incase the crazed woman decided to shoot at him and by pure luck managed to hit him. He hadn’t been given specific orders to protect the Filament but one guard at least was dead, possibly two and his own survival was what was on his mind now.

Ofcourse he made the darkness capable of blinding her but he left it so that she could hear sounds so he could talk her down if that was even possible now.

Natalya remained extremely calm and to Evan's eye it would be clear that she was not a crazy person, but someone extremely well trained. Natalya was not to be underestimated, despite being a very attractive woman and she proved this within a span of only a few seconds. Thankfully, the scientists all surrendered without a fight. She wanted to keep one alive that she could take back to her bosses along with whatever it was that was in the cylinder. However, just before she could decide which scientist to take she heard the sound of breaking glass and she looked over to see that the dark haired man had jumped through the glass of the observation room and into the testing room. At the same time a foggy darkness began to fill the room. Natalya recognized immediately that this man was a mutant and it irritated her that she had to deal with this. She continued to hold the sub machine gun firmly and confidently in her hands as she stepped into the dark room.

"Give me the cylinder and I will let you live," she said in an accent that sounded Russian, but with hints of French.

Evan was more than a little disturbed at how calm the woman’s voice was. Calm, confident and intent on getting the cylinder that contained the Dark Matter Filament. Speaking would give her a general idea where he was but he doubted she’d be able to get the cylinder out of the tank without risking damage to it.

“You must know by now that you’ve alerted security and as we speak the guards are moving to stop your escape,” he said though his voice was a shade less calm than hers was. ‘Was that a hint of a slavic accent in her voice? Was she an agent of some kind? She wanted the cylinder...so she was sent by someone,’ he thought.

“If you try to forcibly remove the cylinder you risk releasing the Dark Matter that is contained within it. I don’t think you’d like what that would do to you. So I will give you the option of withdrawing though you did just kill a man. I’ve a mind to make you pay for that but I will give you this one chance to leave, while you still can,” he said and managed a much more confident tone that time. He ofcourse could see her by the lab door and must be holding it open with her foot or leg.

Natalya knew that her time was extremely limited and that she needed to move quickly. However, this man did have a point. She did not have the knowledge to get the cylinder safely out of the tank and she did not want to risk damaging what was inside in the process. And so she turned and grabbed one of the scientists and pulled him forcibly in front of her. She held the gun at his back.

"I actually killed two and if you don't want to risk another I would strongly advise you to step aside...NOW."

Well ‘that’ didn’t go as well as he would have liked! Obviously the woman meant business and would kill anyone and everyone to complete her mission if she had to. Evan reached out with his senses and ‘felt’ the nearby shadows then made no sound come to her ears in the darkness that enveloped her. He took a step back into the shadow nearest to him and stepped out of one near her. With his elbow he came down hard upon her forearm that held the gun then jerked it back and tossed it aside into the darkness. It struck the far wall soundlessly then slid until it stopped in the corner of the room. He guessed she’d let go of the scientist to deal with him and as he shifted aside to give her a harder target to attack he put his other arm up to guard his neck in anticipation of her attacking his throat.

Natalya was disoriented in the darkness and was agitated by the feelings of vulnerability. And so she was surprised when suddenly this man appeared beside her. She had heard nothing and she was not prepared when he suddenly used his elbow to come down hard upon her forearm that held the gun. She released it, enabling him to grab it and toss it aside. Natalya was now angry and turned her full attention to his man, letting the scientist flee the scene. She couldn't see him exactly, but it was darker in the area where she began to assume he was. She had estimated his height and she punched with the strength of a well trained boxer, right where his face would have been.

Because he expected her attack and that he already had his arm up he was able to partially deflect her punch. It still connected though right above his ear and he learned quickly that the woman was very strong and very fast!

He backed up a pace and saw two more quick jabs come in at where he had been but before she could press her attack further arms of darkness came up to take hold of her legs. He formed an image of shackles in his head and the shadows coalesced into black bonds that formed upon her wrists and connected to black tendrils of woven shadow that attached to her legs. He released the deafening component  of his darkness and then began to drop the darkness fog down below their chests.

“I told you you should have withdrawn,” he said as he reached up to feel where she had hit him. A bruise was already forming on the side of his head. If she had hit him squarely it would be likely he’d be missing some teeth at the very least. “Now perhaps you will be more susceptible to diplomacy now that I’ve clipped your claws,” He said in a slightly smug voice. He took away her side arm, removed the clip and ejected the bullet then tossed it aside. “Do you have a name?” he asked plainly as his eyes scanned over her form. A very attractive form he noted.

Natalya was completely out of her element fighting against a mutant and before she could carry on with her attack she saw dark tendrils from around her ankles and then also around her wrists. She tried to pull her wrists free, but the tendrils were just as strong as real iron. She just stood there, strangely calm, without speaking as he took away her sidearm. She had only ever been captured once before and that was because she had wanted to be and she had not remained a prisoner for long. This situation, however, was different but she had no intention of giving this man any information. As he asked for her name she saw his eyes scan over her body. Her eyes softened and she flashed him a sexy smile.

"How about we solve this matter in bed...where I know you wish we were right now."

She moved closer to him and lowered her voice to a sexy whisper in his ear. "I can make all of your fantasies come true."

Her responses, her smile and the look in her eyes made him, for a moment, feel giddy. Her look appeared and felt genuine but unfortunately for her he knew what she was. He had never seen an agent of her caliber before but he suspected she belonged to someone. Even had been with beautiful women before. His dark, mysterious nature was a draw for a lot of women and so he never had difficulty in that department.

“I’m sure you would,” He said though her offer still stuck in his mind. He looked her over once more but didn’t dare go nearer to her than he was already. “You know, I think you are little more than an errand girl. Someone snaps their fingers and you get down on your knees to lick their boots,” he said insultingly. “You kill 2 men today lady,” he said and his expression changed suddenly and grew colder. Wrinkles on the sides of his face near his eyes gave him a dark, sinister look as he pumped anger into his mind. “Do you know what SHIELD does to spies?” He asked and began to flood her mind with fear. He didn’t know if it would matter much but she had made him angry and he was feeling unusually spiteful at the moment.

Natalya was actually slightly disappointed in his rejection. Normally, she didn't care if men rejected her (which was extremely rare), but with this guy she had been hoping to try him out. Her disappointment was fleeting though because she knew she was in a very tough spot and she had to get out. As he began to insult her, Natalya grew still and quiet and just stared straight ahead. There was no flicker of recognition that he was even speaking. As apart of her training she had been extremely well trained against any kind of torture or interrogation. She had been beaten and subjected to many different types of torture and she had even been gang raped. Natalya was prepared for almost anything. She didn't flinch or look at him. Her eyes just stared straight ahead.

Suddenly Evan's cell phone began to ring. It was Commander Alyssa Hart who had been alerted to the situation happening at the warehouse. Alyssa Hart was in her early 40s and had been recruited by SHIELD when she was in the military. She had trained Evan herself and looked after the young man (though he really didn't need any looking after if the truth be told). She was tough on him, as she was with all the SHIELD agents under her direct command, but she liked Evan and thought him a good agent and so she did what she could to help him succeed. Alyssa had never been able to have any children of her own with her husband, who worked as a SHIELD Intelligence Agent, and so after he died in a car accident she was left feeling very much alone. Evan had helped to fill that void and they shared a relationship that, at times, was more akin to an aunt and nephew, though she was always quick to put him in his place if he challenged her authority. She had been the one to give Evan this detail and so when she was made aware that something serious was happening she became very concerned, for a multitude of reasons, and quickly called him up.

The call was not unexpected but in truth Evan did not know how the loss of 2 SHIELD soldiers was going to go over with Alyssa. Alyssa Hart didn’t tolerate mistakes if she felt they could have been avoided and in truth Evan felt partly responsible for those men. If he had been more observant and less complacent. If he had been more on guard. If...if...he could think of so many Ifs but ultimately those men’s deaths were on his head and no one else’s. Not even the woman that stared blankly ahead and resisted his fear compulsion. Whomever she was, he still felt as if she were Russian or Ukrainian, she was well trained and improvised to get into the lab.

This facility was rarely used by SHIELD and so it was not on the tightest of security. Sometimes...well more than sometimes, other organizations seemed to notice when SHIELD did something under tight security. The world seemed to take more notice in such situations and the call to keep the security of the study of the Dark Matter filament to a minimum was Alyssa’s call though she had been backed up by Nick himself. Obviously though someone found out about it and it was all Evan could do to keep his concentration when he looked st her. She was absolutely gorgeous and what made it even worse was that he knew she knew it.

“We have a situation Ma’am, two men are dead, a couple scientists injured and I have a prisoner. Russian or maybe Ukrainian. I need an extraction team and By the looks of her we’ll need a sub dermal scanner. She got in here with very little so I’m certain she is being tracked somehow,” he said into the phone. He could have added the lab would need to be relocated but he didn’t want to aggravate Alyssa more than she was already.

It was all Alyssa could do to keep herself from yelling at Evan, though her moments of silence would have spoken volumes as to how she felt right then. She had warned Evan to be extremely vigilant regarding this experiment. She knew that if word was somehow leaked about this Dark Matter filament to other organizations that they would certainly try to locate it. Evan could be cocky and complacent. He was young and sure of himself and that was something she had been desperately attempting to fix. Now two men were dead and the lab was compromised and she would have to answer to Director Fury herself about it. She gripped her phone and clenched her teeth for a moment, but then forced herself to relax. At the very least he had taken the spy prisoner.

"She's probably an SSB agent," she said finally, thinking little of it. The SSB had many agents, but to have located the facility and broken in it was evident that she was extremely well trained. Suddenly, a thought came into her mind. Could it be...no...it couldn't...could it? "Evan, she doesn't happen to have long, dark hair, dark eyes, and be probably the most beautiful woman you have ever seen?"

With a quirk in his brow and a small grin Evan shifted to lower the dial screen on his phone and being up the camera. He positioned it to take a photo of her.

“Can I get a smile love?” He said allowing his more playful side to seep out into the open as he took the picture of her and messaged it to Alyssa. “So that is a big yes,” Evan said as he returned the phone to his ear. “If memory serves Ma’am, the SSB don’t take kindly to failure,” he said as the cylinder held by a black tentacle made of shadow floated into his hand. He examined it in the available light and saw that it was in tact. Lucky for them all!

Natalya didn't move or respond. She just stared straight ahead and appeared to almost be in some kind of trance. She didn't even flinch when Evan took the picture of her. When Alyssa received the picture he would hear silence on the other end for a moment.

"Evan...your recent failures may have all just been made up. An extraction team is already on the way. Do NOT lose her."

Several hours later Alyssa finally laid eyes on her for the first time through a thick sheet of glass. The woman was confined to a windowless room with only one door in or out. Her hands were chained and there were three guards positioned outside of the door. The glass allowed Alyssa and Evan to look in, but the woman could not see them...although she knew they were there. She just continued to sit and stare ahead. Alyssa had her tablet and she opened up a file and handed the tablet to Evan.

"That is Natalya Sokolova," she told him. "She is the SSB's most dangerous agent. She has single handedly killed more SHIELD agents than any other agent of any other organization...and those are just the ones we have confirmed were her. Director Fury has been wanting to capture her since we first learned about her, but no one has been able to do it until now."

Evan began to read the rather lengthy dossier SHIELD had on the woman. He wondered why they sent her alone. And how they found out about the Dark Matter. That and what the SSB wanted with it. All thoughts about that ended when he flipped to Natalya’s history. Selected from birth? Trained since she was a child? Subjected to torture, violence and rape? An unusual feeling of pity flooded into Evan as he continued to read.

For himself his mother at one time was an Evil
Woman. Well, an Evil Goddess. But she had a capacity to love and she decided to love a modest life as a human. Evan loved his mother, loved both of his parents and couldn’t begin to guess what Natalya’s life had to have been like. She could not possibly know any other way but to be who and what she was.

Evan’s own power of darkness had an inherent weakness. It’s polar opposite. Life was about balance and in the best of circumstances sometimes children still grew up to be terrible misguided adults. Natalya never even had that chance. She was what the SSB made her and it made him want to sick up. So much so that he handed the tablet back to Alyssa who gave him a concerned look.

“Why would someone do that to a child?” Evan said softly as he shook his head. He looked at her now and what he saw was not the woman she was that say shackled to a chair. She was just a woman, a very beautiful woman who had never known compassion or kindness, or fairness or love. Everything she did had a purpose. Subvert your enemies until they submit or they die. Such a waste, he thought sadly. “What will happen to her now? The SSB will likely not allow her to be in our custody for very long. If they can’t extract her they’ll just kill her I suspect,” he said as he looked at her. “I want to speak with her...alone, and no a/v either,” he said numbly as he looked at her face. A face that seemed to stir something deep inside of him.

Alyssa took back the tablet and looked at Evan. She could see that what he had read he had not liked. And this was just what SHIELD could confirm that they knew about her. There was very likely so much more that they did not know.

"Natalya is quite literally an SSB experiment. Her mother was an SSB agent while her father was a Hydra agent. They were both chosen for very specific qualities and artificial insemination and a surrogate were used. Natalya was then taken at birth and raised by the SSB's director who wanted to create the ultimate SSB agent. She wasn't taken, but created entirely by them. She is an experiment and if they feel that the experiment is failing then...well they will end it...and by that I mean her and then probably start all over."

When Evan then announced that he wanted to talk to her alone Alyssa looked at him. She could see him looking at Natalya and could see something in his eyes that worried her. "Evan...do not get attached to this woman. She's going to die. Either we're going to kill her or the SSB is. But...if you want to talk to her then fine. I'll give you 10 minutes."

Ooc: new thread