To be honest, the mess Robbie Reyes had caused this time was not going to be easy to clean up.
Half the prison population was dead, and the few doses of stabilizing serum Wanda Maximoff and the S.H.I.E.L.D. team had on hand weren't nearly enough. By the time the police discovered something was wrong at South Ridge Prison, the carnage inside was enough to make the faint of heart collapse. Faced with the relentless tide of inmates, the witch had eventually joined the fight, but it was as if the fear switch in the prisoners' brains had been flipped off—no matter how much magic she demonstrated, they kept charging forward, screaming. The news later mentioned that a so-called "anti-Inhuman terrorist group" was among them. These idiots had barely set foot in Los Angeles before the police scooped them up. After so many high-profile failures, the LAPD had been desperate for a win to salvage their reputation, and these thugs had walked right into it.
They'd mistaken Robbie Reyes and Wanda Maximoff for Inhumans, and combined with the hallucinations Lucy Bauer had placed in their minds, not even charred corpses or mangled remains could shake their determination to attack. Almost the entire "terrorist group" locked up in the prison died. When Coulson and May arrived, they had to step over floors soaked in blood and ash, pass rows of empty cells, and drag along several still-dazed guards.
"Holy shit…"
"I'm certain those footprints belong to Wanda Maximoff, Robbie Reyes, and Elias Morrow," Coulson said, pointing to the chaotic tracks ahead, pressed into the mix of ash and pooled blood. "Mike, did you see where they went?"
"Coulson, they ditched their comms." Mike, stationed aboard Zephyr One and ready to coordinate support with Fitz, sounded just as frustrated. It seemed that from the moment the riot began, the witch and the Ghost Rider had no intention of keeping contact with S.H.I.E.L.D. Mike had caught sight of them on the security feeds heading into Cell Block E, where Morrow was held, with a mob of inmates right behind them. Those same inmates had taken the time to smash every camera along the way, leaving no feed untouched. With the visuals gone, Mike was forced to rely on deduction alone to deploy support agents to the right places—S.H.I.E.L.D. needed whatever intel Morrow could provide, and if Wanda Maximoff and Robbie Reyes managed to walk him out, the mission was as good as dead. At that point, they might as well just trail the Eternal City and try to pick up scraps.
"Fitz, I need your drones. Send them through these corridors, enter through the windows and check for signs of a fight. If there's nothing, proceed in the direction I mark. If there is, hold position and keep watching." Mike pointed to several hallways on the 3D prison layout—ones not included on the paths Coulson and May had already cleared. With this method, he could quickly map the witch and Ghost Rider's route while steering S.H.I.E.L.D. agents clear of danger.
"Very clever," Fitz said with a nod. He loved math more than most people loved breathing. A handful of agents—veterans of Coulson's team since the Hydra uprising and now officially back in service—hauled out his drone case as the ramp of Zephyr One lowered. Over a hundred palm-sized drones shot into the air at once, swarming like a living cloud, their collective hum cutting through the wind as they streaked toward the prison.
Even knowing how it would turn out, Stephanie Malik still couldn't stop herself from clenching her fists every time she read this part of the report, forcing herself to believe the expense had been worth it. Right now, every cent of the Eternal City's money had to be spent wisely. Bribing local officials and police just to pull a few clues from an evidence locker hardly counted as wise spending—yet it was still a necessary expense. Even with the Eternal City's vast holdings in Hydra enterprises and corporate shares, Stephanie had to pinch every penny. Even Solomon's office liquor cabinet was stocked on his own dime, and the biotech lab's massive expenses sometimes forced him to dip into his personal reserves. He had never left a single record of private spending on the Eternal City's official accounts.
With a boss like that, Stephanie Malik naturally treated any unnecessary cost as an enemy. Every coin the Eternal City spent had to turn into something tangible. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s refusal to share these costs only made her more hostile toward them. She'd even called Coulson directly to complain, but Melinda May had hung up on her without hesitation—adding yet another bold stroke to the ancient enmity between Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D.
At that moment, not everyone involved knew what had happened inside South Ridge Prison.
Daisy Johnson had waited twenty minutes on the rooftop as agreed when the assault transport arrived. Boarding via the ramp, she found the Praetorian Guard seated inside, with a gray crate marked with the S.H.I.E.L.D. insignia at his feet, crammed into what little space remained. "If you ask me, I still prefer a Quinjet. Not as roomy as this, but at least it's easier on the eyes."
"This transport can get you back via low-orbit flight," Constantine said evenly. "To be precise, it's a voidcraft, perfectly capable of atmospheric transport. If I were you, I'd buckle up now—the G-force on takeoff is going to make you puke."
Daisy took his advice and sat beside him.
"You know what Agent Coulson's doing right now?"
"Yes, I know," Constantine said with a nod. Then the air between them went quiet, broken only by the ramp closing and the thrum of the engines. With his helmet on, Daisy had no chance of reading his expression—not that it would've helped without training in microexpressions.
The first minute of the transport's ascent was brutal. Daisy endured fifty seconds of tunnel vision and blood-deprivation fuzz before she finally came to, needing half an hour to feel normal again.
"So?" she asked. "You know what Coulson's doing?"
"Yes. And I'm taking you to link up with the S.H.I.E.L.D. team," Constantine said. "Wanda Maximoff is already with them. It's time to drop you off."
"I left on my own. I'm not going back!"
"I didn't realize your rebellious phase was still going."
"Oh my God, do you even understand plain English?!"
"Is it because you think going back would be humiliating? So you want Agent Coulson or someone else to ask you to return?" Constantine nodded slightly. "It's fine. I understand this adolescent human mentality. I've read books on the subject."
"No! It's because… just leave me alone!" Daisy blurted, at a loss for words. She barely registered that they were now beyond Earth's gravity—if not for her safety harness, she'd already be floating. "That's it. I'm getting off this thing. I'm not talking puberty with a three-meter-tall Sheldon Lee Cooper!"
"I can open the ramp now if you like, but I'm certain you'd freeze to death in low orbit," Constantine said calmly. "Shall I open it? Or can your powers get you back to the surface?"
"You're an even bigger asshole than your master, Constantine!"
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