bakerstreet | six word stories

Do that teach that routine optimism in SHIELD 101?

I wouldn't know. [ Breath heaving, Daisy tosses her hair and pushes her way out of the rubble. Because this is an Avengers team-up because I said so. Her eyes turn skyward where she suspects Tony is flying around, but responds to him through her headpiece regardless. ] I tested out of that class.

Well, you might want to hit a remedial in a minute. We've got another group coming in off your six. Can you make me an opening?

Where do these things keep coming from?!

[ Daisy wheels around just in time to release a vibrational shockwave at a hoard of buzzing, alien-like creatures that advanced towards her, the pulse acting as a shield to deflect them backwards despite the angry, earnest pump of their wings.

Inhumans used to have a screening process, a training program; now, they were popping up all over without any idea what was happening, courtesy of some fish oil, and one of them decided to use her spawning powers to pollinate Los Angeles with alien flora that grew like any alien fungus might and curled its roots through buildings and streets alike. Not ideal press for the part-alien population.

Worse, her ability to spawn alien underlings made getting close to her … difficult. Daisy reached one hand back and punched through the shield to blast the nuisances back, and turned towards the entangled stadium that seemed to be the centerpoint of the catastrophe. Fingers splayed, she quaked the foundation, trying to use vibrational patterns to peel the vines away and make room for Tony to get in. ]

Everywhere. That's the point. [ tony zooms past overhead, extending one palm to shoot a repulsor blast down at one of the insect-like creatures bearing down towards daisy. ] Friday, get me an analysis of those weak spots. [ his visual interface was abruptly filled with a rush of data streaming down the side, but more notably, twin circles honing in off his peripheral, indicating the areas where daisy was cutting some leeway. ] Coming in hot.

[ with an extra burst of thrust, he rockets straight towards her - shooting past her at dangerous speeds, considering that if they're wrong, he might be slamming straight into a wall. instead, however, their combined efforts rip away the last vines in the way, and he goes soaring into the flora-choked stadium beyond, which looks more like a prehistoric greenhouse now than anything. he comes up to a vertical hover, sending blasts out at the couple of creeping vines that started to literally curl up towards him in the sky, knocking them aside. ]

Not bad, San Andreas.

[ As he whips past, Daisy's head moves with him, and for a flickering moment, the lighted, childlike look of wonder strikes her face, impressed despite herself with the very merits that make him an Avenger. Now that she can count herself among the powered heroes, she doesn't have those moments as often, but it's hard not to have a little fangirlish reverence now that she's working alongside them instead of tangential commonality.

She dusts it off like the relic of another time that it is just before she rushes in after him, before the vines can grow back over, and as she barrels through the hole they've created, it doesn't go missed that they're barricading themselves in here with her. Whatever else she's capable of, they're going to be without back-up, without an easy escape route, without a plan B. ]

I hope you know what you're doing.

[ She makes it to the stadium well-after him, and once there, sees the monstrosity for what she is: cocooned in a flesh-like, half-translucent venus flytrap of some kind, the woman who was once Amy Matters floats in some kind of viscous, primordial goo with still more insects bulbously swelling in her skin like tumors. Bile rises in the back of Daisy's throat, but she bites back the response, which she realizes is pity for a woman who—for one, thankfully hasn't appeared to notice them yet—caused all this carnage. ]

Improvising. [ tony, that is not

comforting.

while he's waiting for daisy to catch up, he takes in the scene: this is pretty damn dark even considering all he's seen, he muses as he watches something slithering beneath the thin stretched skin of the woman in question. from a certain point of view, it's fascinating, but from every prominent point of view in his mind, it's just gotta go.

he's just pretty sure there's no saving her at this point. and he's not quite sure how to break that to the kid serving as his back-up. ]

We've gotta keep her from spawning more. I think that sac might be providing all the conditions for incubation, so if we can break it-- [ SOUNDS EASY RIGHT ]

[ Spawning. The word rings somehow cruel and callous in Daisy's ears, a defensive reaction born out of her empathy for this woman's plight, for the unsubstantiated connection between them constructed by a few shared DNA strands. It's funny what a difference the microscopic can make. Her chest aches, flares with pain for a few brief heartbeats before she realizes Tony's comment demands an answer. ]

We have to get her out of there.

[ Which, you know, is what he said, but with an entirely different focus. She charges forward recklessly. ]

Just remember: this isn't her. She has no idea what's happening, no way to control it.

[ It seems myopic, to be so concerned about one woman when that woman has leveled the homes and business of thousands of others already, has introduced a new organism to the ecosystem and allowed it to run roughshod over the whole of LA unchecked, but that's why Daisy's here. The Avengers won't help Amy Matters, but she will. ]

Help me blast through the membrane.

[ She raises her hands, starts counting to three, but gets cut short when Amy's eyes open—no pupils, all white, staring unerringly at the intruders—and a root bubbles up from underneath the stadium grass, cracking the concrete below to whip out and pin Daisy's arms. She lets out a yell of surprise and thrashes against the binds. ]

[ shit. he whips around at the sound of daisy's shout, raising one hand to point at the writhing plant tentacle, as friday struggled to lock onto a weak point ] Oh, no you don't, Audrey II. [ no sooner had he finally got an affirmative and blasted ... probably a bit too close for comfort to daiy's wrist, but another root appeared to take its place. ] No good.

I think she definitely knows we're here now.

Not her. She's not … in control.

[ The arc blast damages one of her gauntlets—surface only, probably, but Daisy's not taking any chances with it backfiring. As she ducks and jumps out of the way of another root, she unstraps it and drops it on the turf. The words come out through gritted teeth while she bobs and weaves over the stadium grass, which seems to be moving, she realizes once she stops.

Daisy looks down, brow furrowed, and the ground explodes all around them as roots rip up to come at them in a flurry of frantic whips. Her hands lift and she snipes the few that grapple near Tony, unchecked vibrations shredding them to a confetti that falls to the uneven mess of concrete, pipes, and turf that make up the ground. ]

[ about that. ] I don't see an off-switch. But I'm open to suggestions. [ the problem is, he knows they don't have much time for weighing their options - not that they have many in the first place. he sails close enough to the ground to try to draw some of their focus off daisy, but there's just always more, the entire place roiling with unnatural life. one wraps around his arm, yanking him backwards mid-flight, and he aims a blast point-blank at it, the tension snapping him further back through the air away from her ] New idea.

What happens if you shake, rattle, and roll that membrane up close and personal?

I don't know—it pops?

[ That's the hope, at least. There's some haplessness in Daisy's answer, obviously distracted by the one-and-off assault of the slinging roots and vines that protect the central gestation pod. ]

Good working theory. Let's test it.

Grab on. [ and with that he... rockets right down towards her, blasting a searing beam through what vines he can, and reaching out an armor to just... scoop her right up, soaring right at the pod and doing a graceful upward arc right before they crash into it, dropping her on top of it and then whirling around in the air above, trying to direct cover fire at the incoming insectoid creatures and vines threatening to converge her. ]

[ Initially, the feeling of weightlessness catches her off guard, but it only lasts an instant, because then she's on top of the pulsing alien bulb while Iron Man, only a few yards away, goes skeet-shooting with vines, roots, and the angry bees that are trying to make their way inside the dome.

Daisy's feet thud, the kind of hollow gulping sound that indicates some considerable surface tension to this pod and thickness to the liquid inside it. Fitz probably has some equipment that could scan and parcel out the composition, analyze it. Simmons would want a sample. She's not thinking of granting anyone's wishes for that right now, though; she's focused on Amy Matters. ]

Whatever you use to stabilize that thing, I suggest you kick it into overdrive. This could get messy. [ With that small warning, Daisy focuses her vibrations downward, amplifying the natural frequency of the thin membrane that surrounds the woman, encapsulates her, until it seizes and explodes, sending the gel-matrix that held her in stasis everywhere, alternatively in a viscous spray and in grainy clumps.

Daisy plummets into the remains of the plant and vanishes among its slick flesh. ]

[ as plant guts spew everywhere, tony finds his suit smeared in them, a particularly big glob landing right on his visor and making him wish for a second that he'd installed windshield wipers. he reaches up a gauntleted hand to wipe it away, but by the time he looks down, daisy is gone.

that can't be good. ] Give me a sign of life, Quake.

[ A croak of a groan answers him as Daisy pushes herself up off the ground in the mess of plant parts and fluids. She looks around through the muck. ]

Don't worry about me. Scan for life—where's Amy?

[ Because Daisy isn't having much luck finding her despite all her best efforts of lumbering to her feet and filtering through the containing leaves that stabilized the bulb. ]

[ breathing silent relief, tony gets friday on that, the little hud sending a cursor across his vision as it seeks out anything. ] You're not gonna like this.

[ A pit hardens and sinks in her stomach as she gets to her feet, shoulders loose with fatigue, legs swaying. ]

No.

[ Denial chokes up and thickens her voice. ]

No. [ It's louder, this time. ] Scan again!

You've gotta get out of there. [ it's not a no, and to be honest, he's still scanning, but what FRIDAY pulls up isn't... particularly normal. ] Whatever she is, I'm not sure living's the word for it anymore. [ but he's not sure dead is, either, and that's what he's worried about. ]

What does that mean?

[ She turns around, fixes her attention up on him in the sky as if she's talking directly to him instead of through a headset. ]

Stark, what does that mean?

GO. [ but it's too late. from beneath the husk of the membrane something arises - something amy-shaped... but there's something entirely plant-like about the cast of her skin, and her hair has withered, hanging unnaturally down in front of her face. she reaches out to try and grasp daisy, and when she opens her eyes, they're completely white - it's impossible to read her expression or tell how much of amy is actually in there. ]

[ It's not the grip of her hand that levels Skye, but the soulless look in the eyes of the woman she'd believed so doggedly she could save, fought so tirelessly to try and rescue from the inhuman gene that Daisy insists over and over again isn't a virus, a plague, a curse, a disease. It looks like one from this perspective. It has consumed Amy. And whatever might be left of her in there, in that moment, Daisy realizes that she wouldn't want to come back from it. The loss, the destruction, the fear.

She knows it well because she went through it, but she was still Daisy—this isn't the same as earthquakes in San Juan. This is Andrew, who'd barely hung on long enough to pull her back from the brink, who'd suffered like he did because nature believed in balance—well what was this trying to balance out? What could Amy's inhuan powers be guiding them towards, what purpose were they serving?

One more person she failed to save. One more person who will be dead because of Agent Johnson. Daisy can't pull her hand away, so she stops trying; instead, she opens her palm, and a sonic flare explodes from it, a sudden, violent hum that shakes what used to be Amy down to her very atoms. The frequency is piercing, and she knows the ripples of the reverberation will scramble Stark's equipment, but she has to stop it. ]

[ the seismic waves rock his flight pattern, and at first he tries to stabilize versus the turbulence, before he realizes that his systems are blinking in front of his face. ] FRIDAY, switch to auxiliary -- [ but it's too late, and the suit goes spiraling towards the ground, slamming him helmet first along the wrecked terrain, digging a trench as he goes, before he lands with a heavy clang. ]

[ She hears the calm staggering back-up procedure come slipping out in Stark's voice in her ear, knows what it means, but it's too late. The ground rattles beneath them even as he crashes too it; the whole city is alive, stirring on a fault line, and Daisy rattles it with the shockwaves of what becomes apparent in the mist that starts to drive up into the smog-thickened atmosphere: Amy, disintegrating, torn apart on the atomic level by the frequency of Daisy's power.

A natural disaster, spurred on in the most unnatural of ways.

As Amy fades, Daisy comes back, the force lessening from her fingertips and her body slumping in time to see what has already started, what she can't stop; the stadium shifts and stirs, splits at its foundation and breaks new seams in the circular dome that shelters it. Turning hastily, she searches Tony out in what remains of the field and runs for him. ]

Stark!

[ the world is coming down around them, and tony just barely manages to disengage his helmet so that he can catch a glimpse of it, his hand falling back down to the ground as he groans. the darkened view of his dead visor was preferable to this. he closes his eyes, trying to will his body to move, even though it already is, albeit as a result of the ground literally roiling beneath it. ] Here...

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