I do not own the characters. DC and Marvel do.

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Chapter Seven

Deployment

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Fury stared at the holographic screens holding the silhouettes of the World Security Council.

"You seem to be missing two." He finally stated and one of the silhouettes nodded, somehow radiating an embarrassed aura.

"They proved to have been… unsuitable for the tasks placed on them."

"You mean they were members of Hydra." Fury realized. "Damn."

"The Praetorian Protocols have run their course and the new council members are being selected even as we speak." Another council member said. "For now, it is not important. What is the status of SHIELD?"

"Ready to resume its mission." Fury said, squaring his shoulders. "The aid provided by the Kryptonians, Black Ink and the Shinobi of Konoha allowed us to recover far faster than we could have without their help."

"That is good to hear."

Fury nodded, then swept his gaze across the holographic screens. "Ladies and gentlemen, SHIELD has been through a great deal, we have been hammered on the anvil of adversity and reforged into a new, better organisation. We now know our allies and by seeing who took advantage of our temporary weakness, we know our enemies as well. We are ready to act to protect the world once more."

Slowly, the silhouettes nodded in agreement, then one of them spoke.

"Director, you have the full support of the Council. Whatever you need, within reason, will be given to you."

Fury carefully didn't smirk in triumph.

"I want the original Mobile Command Unit released from storage." He stated. "I know that at least one of you was using it as a personal transport…"

"That person has been… reassigned." A reply came and Fury blinked as he realized that he hadn't seen exactly who it was who had said it. "You will need to have it checked due to his previous affiliations."

"Which means that Hydra has the plans and probably one or more of their own." Fury cursed. "Deliver it to the airfield at Camp X and I'll ask Xavier to assign Forge to it. In fact, I'll ask Forge if he can upgrade it."

"It was the most advanced plane ever conceived when it was built." One of the silhouettes protested and Fury cocked an eyebrow.

"Kryptonian technology."

The silhouettes remained silent for a long moment, then slowly their screens switched off.

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"SHIELD is back in business." Trask reported and Master Mold nodded slightly.

"They have a new headquarters, a bigger one." Master Mold stated. "With the knowledge that their current staff are all loyal, they will be a bigger threat than before."

"They could prove… troublesome." Trask sighed as he adjusted his robes before activating his holo-face. "I think I need to reinforce the message of the Church of Humanity. If you will pardon me."

Trask stepped onto the illuminated pad and vanished. A moment later a set of doors opened, revealing an angular, silver figure.

"Bastion, how does your new body measure up?"

"It is far superior to my original form." The figure said as it seemed to ripple and condense, turning from a metal humanoid into a short, bespectacled human. "The ability to change appearances is a very nice touch, especially how it shunts a large amount of my mass into a specially-generated pocket dimension. How did you come up with it?"

"I have access to a large number of files, including those of the Asgardian Destroyer and the bio-readings of the mutant known as Mystique."

"Nice." Doctor Zola smirked. "May I have access to those files? I may be able to help. I did design Hydra's weapons during World War II, after all."

"You are now keyed in." Master Mold said and Zola nodded.

"Then I will peruse those files and see what I can come up with. It's a shame we don't have access to the Tesseract any more, the energy from that was amazing."

"SHIELD had a copy of the plans for the ARC reactor in its possession." Master Mold noted and Zola brightened.

"Really? Well, that changes things. Oh yes, it changes things…"

Master Mold watched as her newest servant strode out of the hall, chuckling and muttering to himself. As he did so, she reflected that it was probably a good thing that she had placed hard-coded loyalty protocols into his new body. That much ambition needed to be watched.

Carefully.

Very carefully.

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Fury looked out of his office at the operations room spread below. The room was cavernous, being almost a hundred meters across and ten meters high with his office located at the apex of the dome. A transparent grav-tube allowed him instant access to the command podium in the centre of the operations room while the floor-to-ceiling windows of his office let him look out at the giant status screens around the walls of the operations room.

"Impressive." Steve Rogers said from the bottom of the stairs that rose in a spiral around the entrance to the grav-chute and Fury motioned for the super-soldier to join him.

"The Kryptonians really know how to make good working environments."

"Well, they've been at it for over a millennia." Steve replied as he took position next to Fury. "They never had a Dark Age like we did, or if they did, it was so long ago that they have more than compensated for it."

Fury nodded as his eye flickered across the projected screens. "It shows."

For a long moment, the two men stood in companionable silence, then Steve coughed slightly.

"Sir… may I look at Kara's records?"

Fury gave him a quizzical look that suddenly turned into amused understanding as Steve blushed slightly.

"You want her ring size."

"I… have my mother's old ring." Steve said defensively. "I was hoping to get it re-sized so that I could…"

As Steve trailed off, Fury nodded.

"I'll have her ring size pulled and e-mailed to you."

"Thank you." Steve said in heartfelt relief.

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"Clark." Xavier smiled as the Kryptonian hero lightly touched down in front of him. "Welcome to Camp X."

"I saw some of the students playing power-ball as I flew in." Clark said with a grin. "I assume you've connected this place to the Hall of Doors?"

"Actually, no." Xavier said, earning a surprised look. "We have three Doors, one from the main hall at the mansion to the bunker just behind me and the second connecting Martha's kitchen to the mess hall."

"Wait. You mean that mom's kitchen…"

"Just got a lot bigger." Xavier confirmed. "She is giving lessons in how to cook properly and without powers."

"Mom always got annoyed when I cooked the food with my heat vision." Superman reminisced. "She said that doing it that fast couldn't be right."

"Logan's setting up the assault courses." Xavier continued. "He's planning on doing four, each with a higher level of difficulty."

"As long as he remembers that not everyone can heal as fast as he can." Clark commented.

"Wait, you said three doors?"

"Forge has linked his lab to the vehicle bays." Xavier replied. "He's in the process of refitting the bays so that they are at the same level as his lab. I'm almost scared to consider what he will do with all that new-found space."

Clark blinked, then fought down laughter.

"Hey dad!"

Clark turned and caught Chris from the air, hugging him before lowering him to the ground. An instant later, Laura somersaulted down, landing beside them.

"Good place." She said, looking round. "Like. Open. Got room to run."

"Hey, dad, are we going to move out here?" Chris chirped as he started floating, only for Laura to pull him back down.

"I don't think so." Clark said, ignoring his son's momentary loss of control. "Much as I hate to admit it, the fact that I live at the Institute has done a great deal to help mutants be more accepted. Moving out could cause problems."

Chris frowned in thought, then Laura whispered into his ear, causing him to nod in understanding.

"Okay… but if the others are moving out here, can I get a bigger room?"

"I'll see what I can do." Clark laughed.

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"Agent Coulson."

"Director Fury." Phil replied.

Fury gave him a piercing look, then nodded sharply. "Coulson, you are one of my best agents. As such, I'm assigning you to lead a team."

"Sir?"

Fury tapped a control, causing a series of Holo-screens to appear, each one showing a different file.

"This will be your new team. Your number two will be Melinda May. She is an ace pilot with a great deal of experience in the field. "

"I've worked alongside her before." Coulson noted. "She's good, sir. Very good."

"So was her mother before she retired." Fury agreed. "I've often wondered if it's genetic. Next is Leopold Fitz. He'll function as your team engineer, although he suffers from hemophobia, so don't expect him to be able to help with first aid."

"I'll make sure that my medical training is up to date." Coulson noted.

"Good move. I'd recommend expanding it to the rest of the team as well. Third is Jenna Simmons. She often works alongside Fitz and they make a good team."

"I'll remember that when assigning tasks." Coulson stated, earning an approving nod.

"Antoine Triplet, better known as Trip." Fury continued, pointing to the next screen. "Grandson of one of the original Howling Commandoes, grew up listening to stories about Captain America. Rumour has it that he took up martial arts and parkour so that he could one day become the new Captain America. Finally, Agent Bobbi Morse, codename Mockingbird."

"Wow." Coulson said, shaking his head. "You've really assembled a strong team for me. I've worked with her before, she's almost on the same level as Black Widow."

"Indeed." Fury confirmed. "Had Agent Romanoff not been available, Morse would be a member of the Avengers now."

"I assume that my new team will be the primary investigation team of SHIELD?"

"You will." Fury confirmed, then he paused. "You want something. What?"

"There's a hacker who caught my attention recently, name of Skye. Went through the outer firewalls as if they weren't even there and almost managed to dodge the back-trace. That level of computer skill would be very useful."

Fury stared at him for a long moment, then slowly nodded. "If you believe you can keep this person under control, then… very well. You have permission to recruit him."

"Actually, it's more likely to be a her." Coulson gently corrected. "I'll put Mockingbird in charge of keeping her in line and training her up."

Fury nodded and turned back to the arc of screens that served as his workstation.

"You have your mission, Coulson, and your team is waiting in the thirds briefing hall. Good luck."

"Thank you, sir." Coulson said, then he paused. "Tony mentioned something odd to me. Apparently, young Harry can speak to snakes."

Fury froze.

"Someone like that would have been useful on that damned escort mission." He finally growled. "Coulson, start looking for those who can speak to animals."

"The snake version is called a Parselmouth." Coulson supplied. "I'll add it to my to-do list."

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MODOK looked down at his newest creation. On the workbench in front of him lay what appeared to be a blond 5-year old girl, her chest open to reveal a series of sensors and circuits. To one side was a second workbench, one containing a humanoid robot still being covered in skin so that it would look like Wolverine.

"project logan's certain destruction is almost ready for activation." MODOK narrated for the verbal recorders he used as a backup system. "the first android has been equipped with a fusion detonation device and advanced hyper-heuristic programmes loaded into a kryptonian computation crystal. Readouts confirm that unit one is ready for activation. The second unit has been equipped with a modified sentinel control package due to resource limitations. Activating unit one."

The robot-girl on the bench opened her eyes and spoke in a monotone voice.

"Unit Elsie-Dee ready for instruction."

MODOK smirked.

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Author's afternote – Elsie-Dee appeared in an IS-SS Omake, so the genre-savvy amongst you would have suspected that she'd make an appearance in the proper story sooner or later.
Also, yes. The Agents of SHIELD are now active.

As I said at the end of IS3, it will be quite a while before I can make a true start on IS4 (still working on the outline and notes), but at least this story both shows how SHIELD recovered and loaded some more chekov's guns for my chekov's armoury.
Thanks for reading!