The Old Hydrokinetic (MCU AU) : #28

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Disclaimer - All the usual Yada Yada Yada. I don’t own any rights to any characters in this fic save for my OCs. Don’t sue me.

Anywho, without further ado - read on.

Earth-6161 [May 2012]

Triskelion

–Nick Fury–

He, along with many others, watched with bated breath as the drone, the smallest, most non-threatening drone they had, slowly floated to the shack, clearly visible, making all the noises it could, everything they could to make sure that this drone was not smacked out of the sky because Weber thought it was something that would annoy her.

Slowly, the vision became clear as his eyes narrowed at the pieces of the sceptre on the ground, with a yellow gem floating right in front of Weber as she silently looked at the gem, not moving one bit, her face seemingly carved from stone. 

His heartbeat rose as he locked eyes with Hill whose eyes widened in realisation and then panic as she stumbled back and immediately began barking orders at the analysts in a panicked frenzy, while he made sure to keep his eyes on the situation, not even blinking as this was something that could make or break not just SHIELD but the entire world order as they knew it.

“Get me energy signatures! Thermal, infrared, microwave, anything! See what is happening with that gem in the air!” Hill shouted as the analysts scrambled back to their stations. Cons of sending in the smallest drone they could, they did not have much in the way of sensors on that thing. What they did have was a veritable army of ships holding all the advanced sensors they could procure, floating just outside the visible range of that island. That, coupled with SHIELD’s and Stark’s most advanced satellites locked on that island, he hoped to get a clearer picture. 

He hoped, dearly, that the gem being out of its housing did not mean that the mind control prowess of that thing was amplified. It would be the worst joke in the world to realise that the already terrifying mind control capabilities they had seen so far from that sceptre were restrained in some way, and that gem was the true source of those abilities.

“We have something, sir!” Hill spoke as a series of graphs appeared on the giant screen, overlapping with the visual the drone was getting. He had not authorised the drone to go forward because the scene in front of him was just so bizarre. He did not want to risk setting her off. The longer she remained frozen, the better because they simply could not do anything about her.

Their powerlessness coming back to bite them in the ass. They had nothing to restrain her in case she went rogue. Thor might have been their best bet, considering that he was the only one who managed to attack her and stay solid and alive for more than a minute but even he was off-world.

“Sir, we have Stark on the line!” Hills shouted from across the deck as he whirled around and stomped towards his computer, the serious and concerned face of Tony Stark appearing on it.

“Fury! What the fuck happened!” Stark shouted as he sighed and pressed a button to send in all the information they had on hand. It looked like Stark was already in his suit, which was good because they could use all the help they needed and Tony Stark was the one person, aside from Agent Eric, who had lounged on the fucking island with Weber, even going so far as to offer high quality liquor to Weber.

The Arc Reactor on that island, powering everything, was a testament to Tony’s attention to Weber.

Tony rapidly read through everything as his face grew pale in horror at the news, “What are you doing there? Separate her from that stone! What are you waiting for?!”

He exhaled in frustration, the same question echoing in his mind as well, but they could not risk anything here, else the situation became even more catastrophic, if that was even possible, “We can’t. We can’t risk her snapping out and just start mindlessly killing everything. For all we know, her mind might just be silently fighting off the mind control and us attacking her and distracting her might either outright kill her, which seems unlikely or just give the gem the opportunity it needs to fully control her.”

It was all fucked up, how they did not know anything.

Tony’s eyes gained a look of determination in them as he spoke, “I am only 15 minutes away. Get me access to the entire sensor suite you have on her. We need to make a decision, and fast. This is literally world ending and you know it, Fury.”

He grit his teeth as the request for Stark’s pet AI, Jarvis, to gain access to everything SHIELD had in that area popped up and he immediately agreed to it, knowing that the situation was dire and there was no margin for error.

Speaking of error, accuracy and everything related to Gamma Energy, he turned to Hill, “Get in touch with Banner. Get him to the nearest computer terminal or get the nearest terminal to him. I don’t care which! Just tell him that his work in Gamma Energy is needed, for Weber.” Hill nodded and ran away, to the secure meeting room. They could not have Banner’s location being spoken out in the open, or even the fact that they had Banner’s location at all, since SHIELD had officially lost Banner somewhere in Europe once the Avengers had gone their respective ways, with Stark being the official reason why Banner was not recruited by SHIELD, forcibly or otherwise.

Even then, he was reasonably certain that the WOrld Security COuncil had bugged the entire place, and that Hill would spill everything if the World Security COuncil asked with authority, after they had fired him since she was the type of person to follow the rules down to the T, instead of being someone who was willing to bend them if the situation called for it.

Coulson was different like that but this was yet another opportunity to test Hill, to see if she was worthy of being included in the kind of secrets that would have the entire agency shut down and pilfered for all the resources if they were to be known to their higher ups, like WSC or even POTUS.

Secrets like the fact that he had always had a nuke aimed at that island and right now, all his senses were telling him that doing so would be the wrong choice and yet, it was the only option he had in his hands. 

All the other options were calling on other people who could hopefully solve it for him. 

Pathetic. For SHIELD to be reduced to this.

He looked up as the big screen came to life, showing Stark on one side and the visual feed from the drone on the other, showing the entire area bathed in energy invisible to their eyes. His fists clenched as his suspicion was proven correct, as the largest concentration of that energy was near that gem, and the second largest one was near Weber herself, proving his mental assault theory correct.

Yet, that did not fill him with one ounce of joy. It just meant that he was one step closer to just nuking that place and hoping for the best.

Because in no scenario, could they hope to survive against a mind-controlled Weber if Weber were to turn against them. He had no idea who was even doing the mind controlling now, which was somehow even worse since Loki had needed physical contact for the sceptre to control someone.

Was Loki behind this as well? 

A final fuck you to humanity for defeating his forces? He was going to remotely mind control Weber somehow and then unleash her on Earth?

Then why wait for so long? His eyes went to the scattered pieces of the broken sceptre? 

Was that it then? A prerequisite condition for the attack being the sceptre being broken into pieces?

So many questions and not a single fucking answer here.

Just then, Stark spoke, “Fury, I’ll be damned but you were right. They are locked in a battle of mind control. I can’t speak more because I can’t scan her brain from this distance but I can say that the flow of energy seems to be fluctuating, which means that Weber must be doing something. We can only hope that she is winning. Now, and I know you will say no which is why I am not asking, I am telling.”

“What?!” He snapped at the man as a bad feeling bloomed in his heart. What was the madman going to do now?

“I am going to try to take the gem away from her. We can’t affect her, because if we do, she might just go cuckoo and kill us all but what if we can get the stone away from her? From what I am seeing, the Stones’ energy is dispersed all around that shack but in a very limited radius. It has stopped expanding, as you can see. What if it has a fixed range and we get the damned glowing stone out of that range?” Stark spoke hurriedly as another screen popped up in front of him, showing a radar reading of Stark and his suit on a direct collision course with that island.

“Stark!” He gnashed his teeth at that, not because he knew that Stark was not going to listen to him and the only way to stop that suit would be to shoot it out of the damned sky, but also because it was the only option they had that did not involve shooting a freaking nuke at that island and hoping for the best.

They still had no idea where Eric was, and if that island was the key to bringing him back, or if destroying that island would destroy any chances they had of bringing Agent Eric back. He had promised Eric’s brother that he would look out for Eric and even aside from that promise, Eric was their best lead at getting a handle on Weber.

They absolutely could not afford losing Eric here.