Disclaimer: I do not own Evangelion, or anything associated with it. I have written this story solely because I enjoy writing.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything belonging to Marvel Comics or anything associated with it. I have written this story solely because I enjoy writing.

Chapter 9: The Agents of SHIELD

What's taking so long? Dugan wondered in a cross manner, the Irishman fighting hard to keep his impatience from rising to the surface as he continued to converse with Captain Katsuragi.

The Irishmen knew the precise timing for Mari's drop. That and every other detail regarding her insertion into Tokyo-3 had been planned out with excruciating care, making certain that next to nothing could go wrong. And while Dugan was aware that there remained an X-factor in the element of chance, especially since the plan called for Mari to skydive into the city, the odds of something going critically wrong were relatively small.

And since when has that stopped things from going pear-shaped on us? Dugan reminded himself with a heavy sigh, having taken part in more than a few operations that had gone sour when there had been next to no reason for anything of that nature to happen.

"Uh, excuse me? Major Dugan?" came Misato's voice, startling the Irishman out of his thoughts. "Is something wrong?"

Blinking a few times, the old soldier looked at the woman before him. "Wha-? Oh, sorry, Captain," Dugan replied with a dash of Irish charm. "Did you say something?"

Giving a small titter to this, Misato smiled and asked, "I was wondering if something was bothering you." When Dugan frowned his perplexity, the purple-haired woman added, "You look upset about something, and..."

Groaning inwardly at this reminder that he was nowhere near as good at hiding his emotions as a SHIELD agent should be, and pausing to wonder how Coulson managed to conceal everything beneath such a bland exterior, Dugan sighed and replied, "I guess I'm getting a bit impatient, that's all." When Misato frowned slightly, he added, "I was expecting to hear about Mari by now. But..."

"I wouldn't worry," Misato promptly reassured the Irishman. "The train's probably just running late. Nothing to get worried about."

"I know, I know. But...well, I can't help it," Dugan replied with a shrug. "Not with Mari, at least."

"Sounds like you two are pretty close," the petite Lieutenant Maya Ibuki chimed in from her station.

"Close? My dear woman, I was the one who brought her into this," Dugan informed the petite Lieutenant. "I helped sponsor Mari, get her trained up..."

"Really?" Misato noted with what sounded like genuine surprise.

Wishing that he could be sure anything about Misato or anyone else at NERV was genuine, Dugan continued with, "Aye. Been supervising her training right along, right since Day One. And...well, I've developed quite the fondness for her. She's almost like...one of the family by now." As the purple-haired woman nodded her understanding, the Irishman added in a mock-scolding fashion, "You know, I have to admit to being a bit annoyed with your Commander Ikari, Captain Katsuragi." Pausing to sit down on one of the available chairs, Dugan glared hard at Misato. "We're losing a fine machine to you. And...well, I'm feeling sort of like I'm watching my own daughter moving out of my home."

"I understand," Misato replied thoughtfully. "Still, you have to realize that we need them more than you do. All of the Angels thus far have specifically targeted Tokyo-3 because of the presence of the Evangelions here. Thus a greater concentration of Evangelions helps insure that the Angels would continue to come here. And with all due respect to the other NERV branches, Tokyo-3 and NERV Central are the best equipped to be able to withstand them."

"I know, I know," Dugan nodded understandingly. "Still...I'm gonna miss having the lass around. And no amount of logic and military sense is gonna change that."

As Misato nodded with a smile on her face, Dugan frowned inwardly as his mind slowly shifted to why Coulson hadn't called in yet to report Mari's arrival. Sure, I know there's plenty of things that can go with a jump, he thought, having been on the receiving end of more than a few of them. But...even so, Mari should have made the leap and landed in the city by now. Even if she got blown off-course, Coulson should've tracked her down and picked her quickly enough.

Not liking this, Dugan forced himself to remember that Fury's plan had been the surest way of insuring the switch between Mari and Ditto went off without a hitch, or with anyone realizing that there had been a switch in the first place. After all, NERV wasn't too likely to have eyes or ears in a SHIELD-modified airplane that was hundreds of feet in the air. Still...setting Mari up to look bad like that, it just doesn't -

The sound of a cell phone ringing broke into Dugan's thoughts, prompting him to frown even as Misato started. "Oh, sorry. Excuse me," she replied, glancing about the people looking at her even as she brought out her phone and flipped it open. "Hello, who - Shinji!" The smile the Captain wore immediately broadened as she asked, "Well, this is a surprise! What are you - huh? A girl ran into - she flew into you?! Wearing a parachute?!" Her eyes widening, Misato again looked at the others present on the bridge, who were looking at her with varying measures of confusion. "Wait, hold on - it was Mari?! As in Mari Illustrious Makinami?! Our new pilot?!" The purple-haired woman's eyes slowly shifted to Dugan, narrowing suspiciously. "The 4th Child crashed into you, coming down in a parachute?"

Well, at least I know that Mari's on the ground, Dugan thought, sweat-dropping even as the eyes of seemingly everyone on the bridge settled on him.

"Hold on a second!" Misato started, placing her free hand over the cell phone receiver before glaring dangerously at Dugan. "Shinji just called to let me know that he's met your little girl. Turns out that the reason she's late is because she didn't take the train here after all! She just fell out of the sky, wearing a parachute!"

"What?!" Fuyutsuki glowered, looking incredulously between Dugan and Misato and back again. "Major Dugan, would you have any idea as to why the 4th Child decided to skydive into Tokyo-3?"

Recognizing the look of an unhappy superior officer from a lifetime of experience, Dugan did what was expected of him. He gave a weary groan, sagging a little as he was confronted by several questioning gazes, before at last shrugging helplessly. "Well..." he started, sounding very much like a man who was struggling to find a dignified way out of an exceptionally unpleasant predicament. "I...did warn you that Mari had a few...personality quirks, didn't I?"

"You call skydiving into Tokyo-3 a quirk?" Misato immediately demanded. "Ugh...Problem Child is right!"

As Misato rolled her eyes and removed her hand from the receiver and again started speaking to Shinji, the long-haired Lieutenant Shigeru Aoba wryly noted, "Heh! Looks like we picked up another weirdo girl!"

"And here I was worried the new kid wouldn't fit in with the rest of the pilots!" the bespectacled Lieutenant Makoto Hyuga cracked before breaking down with a case of the giggles.

As Maya worked to shush her chuckling compatriots, Misato held out her free hand to them. "What was-? H-hold on, Shinji!" she blurted out before lowering the phone and covering the receiver. "Quiet, you two!" Punctuating her demand with a glare, Misato brought the phone back up to her ear. "You said you found Mari's phone and wallet on the floor in the school?!"

"What?!" Dugan breathed in astonished confusion, giving Misato a look as dread suspicion twisted about his insides.

"And - you spotted three people with Mari?!" Misato continued, her eyes rounding with increased surprise and horror. "And one of them had a gun to her back?!"

"What?!" Dugan repeated himself, only much louder and more shocked.

"W-wait! Did you see where they took her?!" Misato continued as she began pacing about the bridge. "You couldn't - oh, alright, Shinji! Thanks for telling me! Now I want you to listen to me very carefully! I want you to get out of the school and head straight back home! And make sure to keep your Section 2 escort in sight at all times, understood?!" A beat passed before she nodded. "Right. Take care of yourself." With that, the Captain closed up her phone and looked hard at Dugan. "Major, I -!"

"I'm not deaf, Captain! I heard every word!" Dugan retorted, requiring no effort to portray his outrage as he rose to his feet. He was an old man inside, and had lost more good friends and soldiers in the line of duty than any man had a right to. And sometimes, he could even pretend to be above it all, that he was so battered by years of pain, struggle, and loss, that he had become numb to virtually everything. There were even moments when he believed it himself.

But now was not one of those times.

"But how did anybody get close to Mari to kidnap her?!" Dugan demanded incredulously. "How the bloody hell did that happen?! I thought you people had this whole damn city under surveillance!"

"We do. Or at least, we're supposed to," Fuyutsuki grimly declared. Turning about, the Irishman watched as the old professor picked up the telephone and pressed one of the buttons. "This is Sub Commander Fuyutsuki calling. Get me Chiron immediately."

Determined not to be stuck standing around, doing nothing, Dugan followed Fuyutsuki's example in his own fashion. With his cell phone in hand, he hit the speed dial, and a couple rings later, his call was answered. "Coulson!" he began, not even giving the agent to speak. "Where the bloody hell are you?!"

"We're on our way to Tokyo-3 Junior High, sir," Coulson reported. "Mari landed there, and we're tracking the GPS from her -"

"Well, you better get there bloody damn fast, man!" Dugan furiously ordered. "Mari's been kidnapped! Less than a minute in this damned city, and she's been kidnapped!"

"I -!" Coulson returned, a note of astonishment breaking through his normally reserved voice. "We'll be there in five minutes, sir."

"You have three minutes, man!" Dugan furiously declared. "The kidnappers are reported to be armed! And every second we give them is another chance to put a bullet in her!"

A beat passed before Coulson, an undercurrent of tension the only thing betraying his otherwise calm voice, replied, "Understood, sir. We'll find her, no matter where she is."

Nodding to this, Dugan fought down the urge to shout further orders at his fellow agent of SHIELD. Coulson was as competent and dedicated an agent as any he had ever worked with. If there was a job to be done, then he would do whatever he had to get it done. "I'll keep you updated from here. Route whatever information I can get to you," the Major finally intoned. "Dugan out."

As Dugan closed up his phone and lowered it, he looked up at Fuyutsuki, just in time to see him scowl at them. "I just finished speaking with Chiron. It turns out that the Section 2 escort assigned to the 3rd Child did see Mari's abductors," the old professor intoned in a disgusted manner. "In fact, they were watching the entire time as three persons - two women and a younger male - made their way into his school, and eventually came out again with Mari." Pausing to look over at Misato, the aged professor hesitated for a moment before adding, "They were also able to confirm that they were holding her at gunpoint."

Outrage rising up in the Irishman, Dugan thundered, "They watched the lass get herded off at gunpoint?! They saw the entire thing and didn't do anything to stop them?!"

"I don't believe this! This is pathetic, even for Section 2!" Misato cried out in furious disbelief.

"Apparently, they were prepared to intervene if it turned out that the 3rd Child was in danger," Fuyutsuki grumbled disdainfully. "However, since they failed to recognize Mari as a designated Child, they felt no need to come to her rescue."

"Of all the -!" Misato bellowed, only to cut herself out with a muffled cry of disgust. "Then with all due respect, sir, tell that porker Chiron to light a fire under those assholes! We need to track Mari down! Now!"

Nodding to this, Fuyutsuki went to work while Dugan said, "And while you're at it, get whatever information Section 2 has and send it up here. I'll route it to my people, give them a better chance of tracking these pieces of shit down." The Sub Commander and others gave the Irishman a look, one which he countered by stating, "You'll have to forgive me if I am not exactly impressed with the security measures you people are running here."

A beat passed before Misato admitted, "Can't say I blame you." Then she looked about at the rest of the bridge crew. "Alright, people, you heard Major Dugan! Let's get to work and track Mari down!" she ordered in a voice of authority. "And hope we find her before it's too late!"

Dammit! Dugan swore vehemently as he considered the situation. Three people with a gun. For Mari, something like that wouldn't even be a threat. Even without her battle suit and weapons, she was more than capable of handling opposition like that without even transforming. But at the same time, there was no way she could have risked it, not that she was now in Tokyo-3.

She knew Section 2 had to be nearby and watching! Dugan realized, wishing that there was someone nearby that he could punch the lights out of. She knew she couldn't put up a fuss, not without blowing her cover! That she couldn't do something unless she felt her life was in imminent danger! Shaking his head in disgust, the Irishman couldn't help but add, Just like I ordered her to...

Caught between cursing himself for giving Mari such orders and knowing that she had done the right thing with Section 2 in such close proximity, Dugan considered the situation. She's gonna be alright, at least for the moment. If the jokers responsible for this had just wanted to kill the lass, they'd have tried it by now! Which means they want her alive, at least for the moment! And that gives us time to find her...and her a chance to get out of this fix without blowing her cover! Heaving a heavy breath as he watched the NERV personnel going to work, already bringing their considerable resources to bear in tracking down the missing child, the Irishman couldn't help but think, I just hope we find her...while we still have time.

I'm running out of time here, Mari realized, scowling as she was jarred and jostled. Staring into the barrel of the gun that had been pointing at her ever since she had been unfortunate enough to run into her abductors.

Soon after being marched away at gunpoint from the school, the trio of cultists had brought Mari to van, where they had moved quickly to tie her up. Thick, heavy ropes were wrapped about her upper body, binding her arms to her side, and she had been gagged with a filthy wad of rags before being dumped in the back of the van. Seconds later, the leader of the trio had gotten into the driver's seat, while the other two had gotten in back with Mari, and were currently glaring at her, while the one with the gun kept the barrel of her weapon trained on Mari's head at all times.

Dammit, this sucks! Mari thought disgustedly, more annoyed and embarrassed by her predicament than anything else. These morons are total amateur hour! I wouldn't even need to transform in order to get out of these ropes! All I'd need is one minute, and I'd be out of here!

Unfortunately, it became increasingly clear that this minute would not be something Mari would be getting. The two cultists did not look away from her, not even for a moment. The gun never wavered, and there was nothing to indicate that they planned on stopping for a bite to eat or anything of that nature. Leaving Mari with nothing to do but glare at her abductors, considering her options.

Of course, that's not the only problem, Mari realized, considering the other problems she was confronted with. If Section 2 was watching - which is what they were supposed to be doing - they could be showing up to save my ass any second! And if they do show up, I don't want to have to explain how I managed to outgrow my clothes and beat the crap out of the three people with a gun!

Pretty sure that something like that would constitute blowing her cover, Mari sighed inwardly. Coulson was on his way to the school. He and whoever he's got with him are bound to find my parachute and the rest of my stuff, she reminded herself. And with the tech SHIELD's got, tracking this rattletrap shouldn't be too much trouble. So if I'm really lucky, they'll be showing soon enough to save my bacon without me having to completely screw everything up.

Hoping that this was the case while silently admitting that she wasn't exactly known for that kind of luck, Mari was jarred out of her thoughts when the van came to a stop. Wondering if her abductors were actually going to do her a favor and leave her alone for a bit, the Super Soldier's hopes were soon dashed when the leader Setsuko ordered, "We're here. Get the blasphemer out."

"Right!" Masashi replied, whatever nervousness he had displayed earlier gone as he moved to open the back doors. Once this was done, he and Kaori grabbed Mari by the sides and veritably dragged her out of the van. With some effort, the Super Soldier managed to land on her feet instead of her butt.

As Mari looked about her surroundings, she scowled inwardly, because it was obvious that they were no longer within Tokyo-3. Gone were the towers of glass and steel that were the fortress city, and in their stead was a village that looked very much like a ghost town, except that it was obvious why this village had been abandoned. From what Mari could tell, much of the buildings had either been destroyed or severely damaged in some kind of explosion.

We must be in Kaisei-2, Mari realized, recognizing her surroundings from SHIELD's files. It was one of the small towns that surrounded Tokyo-3, and had been devastated when a VTOL craft had crashed into the center of town when the Third Angel had marched upon Tokyo-3. Nice choice. No nosy neighbors or police officers to get in the way of their rituals and sacrifices.

Even as she thought this, Setsuko marched into view. "We need to get ready for the ceremony," she ordered. "She has to be sacrificed before anyone can track her here!"

As the other two nodded, Mari grimaced. Dammit, Coulson! What's taking you?! Hurry up with the rescue already! she urged her friend. It's either you pull a rescue or I risk blowing my cover to pieces!

"So do we have her trail?" Coulson asked with deceptive mildness as he sat in the driver's seat of a SHIELD van, watching as members of his team worked feverishly, trying to track their missing comrade.

"I think so," Leopold Fitz reported from his station, a pensive expression on his face. "We couldn't use any of our usual equipment, but...we did manage to isolate a lingering heat signature, as well as traces of vehicular exhaust -"

"- in a nearby alley," Jemma Simmons concluded, the long-haired brunette frowning slightly. "Now, we can't be certain, but it's the only indicator we've been able to find of a vehicle coming or going recently. And given the number of people that have been leaving the city lately, the odds of it being our kidnappers are pretty good."

Nodding to this, Coulson glanced over at the other woman present. "What about you, Skye?" he wondered as he glanced over at her monitor. "Been able to do anything with city surveillance? Satellite feeds?"

"Not yet," Skye was forced to admit with an expression of disgust. "All satellites in Japan are overseen by the MAGI, to make sure they can't be used by...well, by people like us. The same deal with Tokyo-3 security feeds. Even something like a weather satellite will take me time to hack into, and even then, I'm not sure how much help that'll be. Especially with a city like this."

As their resident computer expert shook her head in disgust, Coulson nodded. "Fitz-Simmons, any chance we can track the exhaust fumes you found for me?"

"Exhaust fumes and heat signature," Fitz promptly corrected his superior. "And yes, we should be able to -"

"- unless the trail leads to a freeway or anyplace with a high concentration of vehicles," Simmons concluded.

"Of course, it'd be a whole lot simpler if we could just use the Golden Retrievers," Fitz chimed in, referring to the eight tracking and surveillance drones he had developed for situations like this. "But of course -"

"We can't do it. Not without risking NERV seeing us use SHIELD tech," Simmons concluded.

"I know," Coulson agreed as he looked between the two geniuses. "Alright. Then let's get moving, follow this trail as far as it'll take us."

"But what if it leads us the wrong way?" Skye protested.

"Unless you can get us access to satellite video, it's all we've got," Coulson declared, knowing full well that time was of the essence. The longer it took for them to reach Mari, the more likely she would be forced to do something drastic that would either blow her cover or wind up with her dead. "While you're working, I'll call Dugan. See if NERV willing to share intel with us. And see if there are any other assets we can use here."

"Right," Skye nodded before returning to her work.

"We better get moving," Coulson ordered, frowning warily. "If Mari is forced to break cover, then we want to be the ones to reach her first, not Section 2."

As the three cultists escorted Mari through the deserted town, the gunwoman Kaori continued to glare at their captive. "I don't like this," she declared, glowering distastefully at the girl they were escorting. "Something's wrong."

"What's wrong, Kaori?" Setsuko wondered, raising an eyebrow at the irate gunwoman. "Don't tell me you're having second thoughts."

Her eyes rounding with outrage, Kaori glowered at their leader. "Don't you dare say something like that to me! I'm as dedicated to the salvation of this world as any of us!" Then the gun-toting psycho gestured with her firearm at Mari. "But look at her! Just look at her!" As Masashi and Setsuko did as prompted, Kaori asked, "How many times have we done this?! Gone to find sacrifices to appease the Almighty?!"

I'm sure the local police would love to know the answer to that, shitface, Mari thought grimly.

"And each and every one of them begged for mercy whenever they were able! Cried in fear until they were sacrificed!" Kaori reminded them. "So why is this one so calm?! She doesn't look even the slightest bit scared!"

A querulous noise sounded in Mashashi's throat even as Setsuko frowned in consideration, leaving Mari to groan inwardly. Oh, great! I never was any good at playing the damsel in distress!

"You have a point there," Setsuko admitted, pausing to study Mari's expression searching for even the slightest trace of fear. Only to frown more deeply when she saw nothing. "What is it with you? Are you expecting rescue?"

"Rescue? You mean...the police?! Or NERV?!" Masashi bleated out, whatever confidence he had once had fading in an instant. "But - you threw away her cell phone! And we searched her before we drove out here! There's no way anyone could be tracking her!"

"That's true," Setsuko conceded with a nod. "But still...why are you so calm?" Frowning for a moment longer, the leader of the trio pulled the gag out of Mari's mouth. "Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

"Yeah," Mari nodded, clearing her mouth of the foul taste the gag had left in it, realizing that she had been granted an opportunity. Whether it was Section 2 or Coulson, she knew that, sooner or later, someone would be coming to her rescue. So it was in the best interests of herself and her mission to buy such rescuers as much time as possible. And she knew precisely how to do that.

"First of all, your gun-loving buddy here should invest in some serious anger management lessons!" Mari declared, jerking her head in Kaori's direction. "Because it's obvious she needs 'em!" Taking a moment to relish in how the gunwoman's face swelled and purpled with rage, the bespectacled girl smiled a cat-like smile before going on to say, "And as for the whole question as to why I'm not crying my eyes out in fear, begging for you not to kill me...well, first of all, there's no way I'd give a loser like her the satisfaction of seeing me like that."

Kaori's eyes bulged out of their sockets before she brought the muzzle of her weapon up to Mari's cheek. "How about now, you little -!"

"See? What'd I tell you? Anger management!" Mari continued, looking over at Setsuko. Then she looked back at Kaori and muttered, "And get that thing out of my face! How the hell do you expect to be able to sacrifice me in some kind of ritual if you gun me down now? Try thinking outside of the gun barrel once in a while, why don't you?"

Mari could practically see the plumes of steam erupting from Kaori's ears, a condition that was soon magnified when Masashi started chortling beneath his breath. "The girl's right, Kaori! Put that thing down!" Setsuko irritably instructed. "You don't need to keep it on her now! She's tied up! What can she possibly do?"

"She's pissing me off, that's what she's doing!" Kaori retorted.

"You make it sound like it was all that hard to do," Mari snarked, enjoying the sight of veins bulging from the irate woman's forehead.

As Masashi again chuckled, Setsuko paused only to still his titters with a glare before again focusing on Mari. "I'll ask you again; why are you so calm?" she demanded in a cool, collected voice. "If you're hoping to be rescued, then your hopes are in vain. There is no salvation for you here."

"Uh, not exactly," Mari replied in a nonchalant manner. "Don't get me wrong, I'll gladly take the JSSDF showing up to rain on your parade. Or Section 2. Or the police." Snorting slightly, she added, "Heck, I'll take the Calvary or Girl Scouts with cookies at this point! Seriously!" Pausing to listen as Masashi laughed, she glanced over in his direction before stating, "But seriously, how do you expect me to be scared of a bunch of brainless morons like you?!"

This stopped Mashashi's mirth right in its tracks, his laughter falling flat in his mouth. Even as Kaori again jammed her gun against Mari's cheeks, snarling, "One more word out of you, just one more -!"

"Kaori, stop it!" Setsuko snapped, pushing aside her gun hand.

"Well, what do you expect me to think?! It's obvious you're no real brain trust!" Mari went on, doing her best to chew up time. "If you were, you'd realize just how much trouble you're asking for here!"

"What's that supposed to mean?!" Masashi demanded.

"Isn't it obvious?" Mari continued, deciding to cash in on the weakness of another member of this trio. "Even assuming that you've gotten away with sacrificing people in the past - and unfortunately, I'd say that's a pretty safe bet! - do you have any idea what NERV will do to you idiots if they find out you killed a designated Child?!" Giving this a moment to sink in, she watched as Masashi's so-called brain began picking up on the breadcrumbs she was laying out for him to gobble up. "That's life in prison at the very least! Heck, you could get life in prison even if you don't get around to sacrificing me! And as I said, that's the least punishment you'd get! Don't you know anything?!"

"We are aware of the penalties that non-believers would impose upon us," Setsuko intoned with the voice of the perfect fanatic. "And we will all gladly pay them, in order to appease the Almighty's righteous wrath."

"Yeah, but I bet you'd rather not," Mari sniped, glancing at Masashi as she made this comment. The look on his face making it clear that he was more inclined to think of little things like prison and death row than his compatriots. "Seriously, I had people waiting for me to arrive here in the city! I freaking called them to pick me up before you grabbed me! They're gonna find my stuff back at the school, and then what do you think they're gonna do?!"

A beat passed as the trio considered what Mari said, with Kaori soon sneering, "You're lying. You're just trying to trick us into sparing your miserable life!"

"And even if you're not...then by the time your so-called protectors track you here, you will be dead, and we will be gone," Setsuko intoned.

"Which brings me to the next reason I think you're all idiots!" Mari went on, determined to buy as much time as she was able. "You really think that those rejects from a Godzilla movie are Angels?! Because some high and mighty council of naming strange things decided to call them that?! How stupid can you get?!" Glancing over at Kaori, she smirked and continued with, "For example, that gun of yours? I could call it a rose, and that wouldn't make it one, now would it?!"

"Do you think us blind?!" Kaori shrilled, again jamming her gun right in Mari's face. "Do you believe us incapable of knowing the Divine when we see it?! Of not -?!"

"What she believes isn't important. What she's doing is," Setsuko broke in, again forcing Kaori to pull her gun away. As the irate woman looked at their leader, she gave Mari a look, as well as a condescending smile. "You're a clever little thing. Like the serpent that tempted Eve, and cast us all from Paradise."

"Huh?" Kaori scowled as Masashi frowned his confusion. "What are you talking about?!"

"She's stalling. Trying to cast doubt in our minds, and dissension among us," Setsuko intoned. "Trying to buy time for whatever rescuers she believes are coming."

Groaning at this, Mari retorted, "Oh, shucky-darn. I guess this means I don't get the Academy Award for the Best Improvisation after all!" Then she narrowed her eyes at the woman and added, "But still, I wasn't lying about people coming after me! And when they get here -!"

"You'll be dead, our work done, and we'll be gone," Setsuko declared in a voice of smug superiority even as she shoved the gag back into Mari's mouth. "Now be silent, you wicked viper."

Oh, great, Mari thought, rolling her eyes as her captors again started moving. Wincing at the foul tasting rags that were presently pressing against her tongue, the magenta-haired girl scanned her surroundings. Coulson, seriously, I would really love for you to pull off one of those last-minute saves heroes do in the movies!

But as the trio continued to push Mari forward, there was no sign of any rescue in the works. The only people coming into view were wearing robes of various colors, with some of them carrying wooden swords or katanas. "We're here, brothers and sisters!" Setsuko called out, prompting them all to cease whatever conversations they were having and turn their way. "We have done it!"

The people that could only be their fellow cultists looked at them with varying expressions of awe and joy. And as the trio approached with Mari, a middle-aged man emerged from the crowd. He was dressed in saffron robes that had been embroidered with the image of a red and dragon, and instead of a sword, he carried with him a double-headed axe that sported a coat of gold paint. "Sister Setsuko..." he breathed, looking at the bespectacled girl they held with a look of surprise and muted disgust. "...you succeeded? You've brought us one of NERV's vipers?"

"Yes. A new arrival," Setsuko declared with a look of cruel satisfaction as she gave Mari a shaking. "Their newest Child."

A broad smile split his face at this. "Excellent, good sister," he intoned, drawing himself up to his full height so as to look down upon Mari with a look of divine contempt. "So, you are one of the corrupt creatures who have chosen to defy God's will! To spill the blood of his Angels! To further Man's sins and give greater flame to His rage!"

Coulson, oh, Coulson! Where are you? Mari thought in a sing-song manner, fighting down the urge to roll her eyes at a diatribe that sounded like it had come right out of one of the cheesier movies she had made the mistake of watching. I'm kinda running out of time here...!

"Father, we must proceed quickly!" Masashi broke in even as the head cultist opened his mouth once more. "We have taken one of NERV's Children! They won't be long in trying to find her! We must perform the ritual and leave as quickly as possible!"

Mari noted Kaori giving her companion a dirty look, but then the head cultist intoned, "Agreed, brother. For though we are willing to die in service to the Lord, we cannot do His good work if we are taken prisoner by non-believers." Holding up his double-bladed axe, he then intoned. "Everyone! Prepare for the ritual!"

As one, the cultists began cheering as Setsuko and her fellows forced Mari to move forward, marching her up towards a simple altar. Knowing that her back was against the wall and she was very close to being out of time, she began to make her move. When she had been first tied up, Mari's SHIELD training had kicked in, and she had tensed her muscles and filled her lungs as full as she could, puffing out her body to the fullest extent.

As she was led up to the altar, Mari allowed her body to relax, causing the ropes to become slack around her. Not enough to be particularly noticeable, but enough for her to work with. As she was lifted up onto the altar, she made a show of resisting her captors even as she squirmed about in her bindings, already slipping free of them.

Once Mari was down on the altar, Setsuko and her fellows distanced themselves from her, allowing the head cultist to approach. "Brothers and sisters, we of the Light of the Divine have come here for one reason! To soothe God's righteous wrath by punishing those that choose to defile His word, to defy His will, and to stand against His Angels!"

That's right, asshole! Just keep yapping away like a good little villain from a Bond movie! Mari thought as she continued to squirm, looking very much like she was struggling futilely against her bindings even as she worked at the knot. I just need a few seconds...!

Fortunately, it looked like the cultist was going to oblige Mari by giving her those few precious seconds. "Just as the serpent tempted Eve, this vile creature stands with the enemies of God, claiming that her defiance is for the good of humanity!" he went on, making the Super Soldier wish that she could cover her ears or punch his teeth in. "But on this day, the Earth will run red with her wicked blood! Her death will help soothe the Lord's righteous rage! It will demonstrate that we are truly a God-fearing people, that we acknowledge our sinfulness and eagerness to repent!"

Got it! Mari thought, the gag keeping her from grinning in triumph as the knot came undone in her hands. Now, all I have to do is -!

"Now, vile creature!" the head cultist intoned, prompting Mari to look up and see him standing off to her side, holding his axe high overhead. "You will die for your sins!"

Ugh...so much for holding out for rescue, Mari groaned, already imaging the lecture she was certain she would get even as the cultist tensed for his swing. Fury, just for the record, this is all your fault.

Even as the axe began its downward arc, Mari slipped her arms free of the untied ropes and brought her hands up to grab the axe by the handle. The cultist cried out in surprise, his eyes bulging in shock as the girl he assumed to be bound and helpless proved to be anything but. As he tried to figure out how she had managed to get free, let alone stop his killing strike, Mari swung her body about and brought her legs up to deliver a punishing kick to the cultist's face. As the rest of the lunatics looked on, crying out in astonished horror as nasal cartilage snapped, blood already gushing from the man's face as he fell back, surrendering the axe as he fell into unconsciousness.

Not losing any momentum, Mari tossed the axe aside and then flipped herself up onto the altar, discarding the ropes that still clung to her in the process. Coming to her feet, she paused just long enough to rip the gag from her mouth before lunging at a nearby cultist. Gotta move! Gotta keep moving! she told herself even as she fired a palm shot at the cultist's face, shattering his nose as well. I don't want to have to transform if I can help it! And there's still at least one nut here with a gun!

Realizing that there was a danger of there being more than one gun-toting nut in this pack of pistachios, Mari kept the momentum going. Even as her latest victim crashed to the ground, clutching as his broken nose, she grabbed another surprised cultist by the wrist even as she made a clumsy attempt to strike Mari with a wooden sword. The Super Soldier then followed through by delivering a brutal kick to her solar plexus, driving the air from her lungs and sending her crumpling to the ground.

At this point, the shock of Mari's escape had worn off and the cultists began coming after Mari en masse, calling her demon and other less flattering things. And once again, her SHIELD training kicked in even as her ears pricked and her eyes keened, picking up every last detail of her enemy's movements. They were moving without discipline, coming at her from all sides with their swords of metal and wood poised to strike, in an attempt to dogpile the Super Soldier.

It was an attempt that was easily thwarted. Just as the first of the swords came down at her, Mari grabbed her attacker by the wrist and turned his momentum against him in the form of a respectable judo throw. Not only did this make him the target of several strikes, as well as spoiling several more attacks as cultist's hesitated to avoid hitting their own fellow, it also gave Mari an opening to exploit. As her latest victim flew, cut and bruised, through the air and into several other cultists, she barreled through the space he had once occupied, and quickly ran into another cultist.

At this point, Mari's heart was thundering mightily in her chest, the adrenaline surging through her veins, all of which served to wash away her fears and concerns. A lunatic grin splitting her face, she leapt forward and fired a powerful kick right into her new foe's groin, doubling him over. As he fell to his knees, clutching his never regions, Mari gave a deadly laugh of excitement as she jumped up on his back and used it as a springboard to launch herself at another cultist. Seeing her coming, she attempted to counter her leap with a swing of a metal sword.

Mari saw the swing coming. Her augmented senses perceived every aspect of the swing, her enhanced brain allowed her to analyze and break down the exact way her sword was moving, the angle of her every limb, far faster than an ordinary human could. And in the span of a second, these things allowed her to arch backwards and under the strike, enabling Mari to wrap her arms about her assailant's own limb, the momentum of the Super Soldier's leap dragging the cultist down as she landed. With a cry of shock, the cultist crashed down first, and was so completely stunned by the fall that it gave Mari all the time she needed to twist her arm in just the right way and with just enough force that the sickening crunch of bones snapping was heard.

Even as the fallen cultist shrieked in pain, more of her fellows came at Mari from different directions. But despite still being in her normal form, the Super Soldier was still strong, fast, and nimble enough to spring to her feet and leap at the cultist in front of her. Bringing her arms out to her sides, she quickly smashed him on the ears, scrambling his inner ears and deafening him at once. As the cultist screamed in pain, Mari then grabbed him by the shoulders, and with a backwards glance at the approaching cultists, fired off two kicks that caught them in their respective faces.

Shit! This is the most fun I've had in forever! Mari couldn't help but think, delirious with the rush of excitement she was experiencing even as the cultist she was perched on crumbled to the ground. I might actually have to -!

The sound of a gun cocking was the only warning Mari had. And fortunately enough, it was more than enough to trigger her SHIELD training. Without a second thought, she launched herself away from the cultist she had staggered...just before an enormous red hole appeared in his chest, his blood billowing up in a plume of death.

The resultant stench of the cultist's demise filled Mari's nose, and she was instantly sickened. This was not the deep, primal scent of LCL, of life personified. This was the pungent stench of death, of life being wasted. And it twisted her insides, sparking something else in her. A primal anger.

Even as this anger made itself known, Mari's training again kicked in, alerting her to the folly of remaining immobile when an opponent had a gun. Without a thought, she launched herself towards the safest possible of places; between more of the cultists. And she was just in time, for another shot rang out, the fired bullet kicking up dirt that nipped at her heels.

"Damn you, bitch!" came the painfully familiar voice of Kaori. "Stand still and die!"

As this demand was punctuated by the cry of another cultist, Mari couldn't help but wonder, Why do people say stuff like that?! Do they really think anyone would actually do something that stupid?!

But even as Mari reminded herself that she was not exactly dealing with a major brain trust here, another shot was heard, prompting the cultists between her and the crazed gunwoman to try and scatter, to give Kaori a better shot. I'm seriously missing my shield right about now! the Super Soldier couldn't help but think even as she darted about tattered structures and cultists. I'm not going to win this by going head-to-head with these nuts! Not as myself! But maybe...!

An idea coming to her, Mari dashed right towards another set of cultists, moving as swiftly as her legs could carry her, another gunshot spurring her on even faster. Hoping that Kaori would exercise at least a tiny shred of restraint if her fellows were imperiled, the Super Soldier threw herself into the midst of the cultists.

"Dammit!" Kaori snarled, baring her gun at her fellows. "Get out of my way!"

"Wait! No, Kaori! Don't shoot!" screamed one of the cultists, a sentiment that was quickly echoed by the others even as they tried to deal with Mari. But the pigtailed girl was already going into action, dropping into a sweep kick that knocked two of the cultists off their feet.

"Devilspawn filth!" Kaori spat, firing off another round that found its way into somebody's shoulder.

As the stricken cultist fell, the others took this as their cue to get out of the line of fire. But even as they did so, Mari grabbed up one of the metal katanas from the fallen cultists and glared at Kaori. She was going to get only one chance at this, and she had to make that chance count. So even as the triggerhappy fanatic took deadly aim at her, Mari hefted the katana, and threw it at her with all her strength.

The katana spun through the air, glinting dangerously as it collided with Kaori's gun hand, pommel first. But even though she had not been cut by the weapon, the gun lover cried out in pain as her weapon fell from her stricken hand.

Why can't I make my shield go that straight?! Mari had time to think even as she launched herself into a run. Caught between addressing her charging foe and searching for her weapon, Kaori left herself wide open. Firing off a brutal punch to the fanatic's midsection, Mari followed up with a kick to her ankle, and a palm shot to her jaw that sent her crashing to the ground. Unwilling to give her opponent a chance to recover, Mari then leapt up over her, and draw her elbow down into her.

A cry of pain was the only thing to escape Kaori's lips before she tumbled into unconsciousness, at which Mari quickly leapt to her feet and evaluated her situation. In the brief time she had required to address the gun toting fruitcake, at least a dozen of the cultists had recovered enough so as to be standing nearby, staring at her in a mix of amazed confusion and horrified awe.

Pausing just long enough to look back at them, Mari then glanced about, following the stench of burnt gunpowder. A moment later, she found Kaori's gun, lying a short distance away, along with the katana the Super Soldier had used to knock it from her grasp. Without hesitation, Mari reached down and took both in hand. "Now, then," she grinned dangerously, caught between the rush of battle and the fury brought on by the stench of death and the evil of the people around her, and readied herself for the fight to come, "who's up for some more fun?"

"I honestly don't know how you manage to do it, Skye," Fitz remarked, shaking his head in amazement as he looked down at the PDA in his hands. A PDA that was much larger than a normal one, and displayed thermal imaging of the surrounding area. "You certainly are a miracle worker."

"Yeah, a miracle worker who scored big with dumb shit luck," Skye retorted with a wan smile. "I finally managed to slip past the MAGI enough to be able to intercept feeds from the local weather satellites. And, I...still can't really do all that much with them. But when we lost the trail as it was leading outside of Tokyo-3, I remembered that there were a couple towns nearby that were abandoned when the Third Angel attacked."

"Which isn't all that surprising," Simmons remarked, the brown-haired scientist giving a hapless shrug. "I can't imagine people wanting to live anywhere near a city where giant monsters are going to be fighting it out on a regular basis."

"But that also makes these places perfect for a bunch of kidnappers to hide out. No nosy neighbors, no police to hear your captive screaming, and miles away from anybody who might get in your way," Skye pointed out. "And since these places are basically ghost towns, I figured that I might be able to do something, even if it wasn't exactly a spy satellite." Then she shot Fitz a friendly smile before saying, "Or at least, one of us could do something."

"Well, that part really wasn't all that difficult," Fitz returned with a boyish smile. "Weather satellites are equipped with scanning radiometers designed for thermal and infrared scanning, which is normally used to determine the temperature of clouds. But with the skies as clear as they are, and with a little tweaking, I was able to get a set of thermal images that showed something moving in Kaisei-2."

"And since the trail we were following was heading the right general direction, it's as good a place as any to start looking for Mari," Simmons chimed in with a slight smile. A smile that quickly turned into a frown when she added, "Of course, it'd be best if it was the last place we looked, because if she isn't there..."

"Then we'll cross that bridge when we get to it," Coulson declared under no uncertain terms as he drove the van onward, leading a convoy of several black SUVs as they sped along the Japanese landscape. His well-trained mind already wading through the nightmarish mish-mash of worst-case scenarios his imagination was presently conjuring up regarding Mari's potential fate.

These people clearly weren't professionals. If they were, then they would have made certain that there were no witnesses. Instead, they had not only failed to notice Shinji seeing them, but they had failed to stop him from reporting them. Mari had had her NERV ID on her before she was taken, so it was logical that she had either shown it to the kidnappers or they had seen it when they had taken her, so they had to have known she was NERV. And given the consequences of tampering with a designated Child, that meant that only someone who was a complete idiot or who had a serious grudge with NERV would do something like this.

Which means this is probably one of the local cults, Coulson realized with a heavy frown. As a result of Second Impact, several cults of religious zealots had started popping up, with some of the deciding that the only way to 'appease God's anger' was through human sacrifice. People like that would definitely hold a grudge against NERV, thinking that they were killing actual angels from heaven. And if they found out that Mari was an Eva pilot, then she'd be a perfect sacrifice in their eyes.

Coulson was satisfied with this theory, as it fit the situation at hand to a tee. But at the same time, it also meant that they were racing against the clock, and they likely didn't have much time. For it meant that Mari's kidnappers would waste little time in sacrificing her in one of their rituals. And if she wasn't able to escape or deal with them...

No. I'm not thinking that. She's alive until we know otherwise, Coulson thought determinedly. Then he shifted his thoughts elsewhere and mused, At least we got out here before Section 2. No matter what happens, we have to reach Mari before they can.

But this thought wasn't enough to distract Coulson for long. He was a trained SHIELD agent, to be sure, used to keeping his emotions in check and his mind on mission. Doing whatever had to be done in order to accomplish a mission. But this present crisis was hitting him on two very different, yet equally import fronts. Mari's infiltration of NERV hadn't even properly begun, and yet because of a chain of things going thoroughly and totally wrong, her mission was already on the brink of complete disaster. And on a more personal level, Coulson had been working with and helping to train Mari ever since the Rebirth process had begun. He had gotten to know her, and while she was nothing like what he had imagined her great-grandfather would be like, she was still a nice and fun-loving girl. And an innocent that he and Dugan had been forced to drag into this world of spies and secrecy against her will.

So even as Kaisei-2 came into view, Coulson struggled to keep the many nightmarish visions of Mari's dead body out of his mind. To remind himself that, until he knew otherwise, she was alive and awaiting rescue. To keep himself focused on what needed to be done in order to save her. And even with all of his efforts, it felt like an eternity had passed before at last they reached the outer limits of the ghost town.

As soon as the van he was driving ground to a halt, Coulson slammed it into park, removed his seatbelt, and flung open the door. "Fitz-Simmons, Skye, stay here. Keep the doors locked and be on the lookout," he ordered as he got out of the van, already drawing out his gun as four more vehicles pulled up near his and came to a halt. A beat later, additional agents began pouring out of them. Glad that he had been able to bring of the people he knew well and trusted onto his team, he watched as they approached, already tensed and ready for action. "Alright, everyone, listen. According to what Skye and Fitzsimmons have been able to get, there's a cluster of heat signatures located at the center of town. Now we can't be sure if it's people or machinery or something else, but it's as good a place as any to start. But keep in mind that we don't know what exactly we're dealing with, but we can safely assume that; if these are the kidnappers, they're likely armed and dangerous."

"Yeah, that goes with the territory," Trip muttered with a nod.

Unable to deny that, Coulson gave a half smile before continuing. "You, May, Morse, and I will each take three people and fan out," he instructed, glancing from one senior agent to the next, each of whom nodded in turn. "Take it slow and be on the alert. We can't help Mari if we get into trouble ourselves."

"Like that's gonna happen," Morse smirked, seeming to be amused by Coulson's caution. "Whoever's responsible, it's pretty obvious that they're strictly amateur hour."

"Even amateurs get lucky, Morse," May noted in a hard tone of voice, shooting her a deadly glare. "Especially when the pros get careless."

"May's right. Don't take any chances you don't have to." A beat passed before Coulson added, "Let's just do this and get Mari back. Go."

No further words were said, nor were they needed. Each and every one of them were trained agents of SHIELD, and knew precisely what had to be done. Moving with military precision, Coulson and the three senior team leaders took three additional agents, all of them armed and ready for action. They then made their way into the abandoned town of Kaisei-2, fanning out as they did so. It wasn't long before Coulson lost sight of the other teams, but that did not concern him. He had every faith in their capabilities, and thanks to the earpieces they all wore, they would be in constant contact and Fitzsimmons would be able to track their movements if anything happened.

But nothing happened. As Coulson and the three agents he had taken with him made their way past the various houses and small businesses that had long since been abandoned, he took note of many places from which an ambush could be launched, a sniper could be laying in wait, a trap of some sort could be set. But there was nothing. No assailant, no sniper, nothing to indicate an enemy presence.

Which would make sense if we're dealing with idiots, cultists, or both, Coulson thought to himself with a frown as he turned another corner, gun at the ready and ultimately confronted with nothing once more. They wouldn't want to hang around here if all they wanted to do was sacrifice Mari. But even as he thought this, his frown deepened. Then...why are they hanging around?

It didn't make any sense in Coulson's mind. If it was cultists with the motives he imagined, then they would either have killed Mari by now or they would have lookouts to warn them of potential threats. If they were in the wrong place and something else was happening, then either they would be hearing the activities of whomever was here, or they still would have encountered lookouts if the activity they were intruding upon was illegal. But there was no sound, no signs of movement or activity of any kind, nothing to indicate that this was anything more than a ghost town.

So either we're in the wrong place, or - Coulson started to think.

"Coulson," came Melinda May's voice over his earpiece. "I just found a van that matches one the description of a vehicle seen leaving Tokyo-3 shortly after Mari's abduction. No sign of the kidnappers, though."

"We're on the right trail, though," Coulson returned, pausing to thank the lucky stars that Section 2 had been able to find the pertinent surveillance video and that Dugan had been able to send it their way. "Keep searching. Either the kidnappers are here, or -"

"Uh, Coulson?" broke in another voice, this time Trip's. "Thought you should know...I just spotted Mari."

The instant these words were heard, Coulson thought his heart was going to jump clean up his throat. "Where is she?" he heard Morse asking. "Is she...?"

"She's still sucking oxygen, Bobbi," Trip promptly assured her. "Looks a bit banged up from where I'm looking, but other than that -"

"What about the kidnappers?!" Coulson broke in a flash of impatience. "Is Mari in any immediate danger?!"

A groan of hesitation was heard before Trip finally answered, "I don't think the kidnappers are gonna be problem, sir. I...let's just say that you're gonna have to see it to believe it."

Coulson was sorely tempted to demand a more precise description of the situation from his subordinate, but instead, he asked, "May, Morse, any sign of hostiles?"

"Negative," May promptly assured him.

"Nothing on my end," Morse seconded.

"And I'm pretty sure there aren't gonna be any hostiles," Trip assured them in a low voice. "They look kinda...tied up from where I'm standing."

That did it as far as Coulson was concerned. Without hesitation, he ordered, "Fitz-Simmons, guide us to Trip's location. Everyone, stay on the alert, just in case."

"Alright, Agent Coulson, sir, just head straight ahead for the next block, then turn right," Fitz instructed him, instructions he promptly followed. "Agent May, you'll need to..."

Listening as their geniuses in residence guided each team towards Trip's position, Coulson continued to navigate the apparent ghost town, weapon always at the ready. Always on the alert for some potential threat, something that had somehow evaded notice thus far. Always caught between the need for caution and the urge to get to Mari as soon as possible. So much so that it was with tremendous relief that he finally caught sight of Trip and his three agent team standing next one of the houses, with the African-American agent slowly shaking his head.

"Trip!" Coulson called out, all eyes on him as he made his way over to the agent's side. As Trip glanced his way, Coulson asked, "Where's Mari?! What about the kidnappers?!"

Trip didn't respond right away. Instead, he looked back the way he had been looking before, let out a low whistle of awe before saying, "They're right over there, sir."

Coulson immediately followed Trip's gaze...right before his eyes bugged and his jaw dropped right to the ground.

As Trip had said, Mari looked to be in condition, save for her hair being musses up and one of her pigtails being undone. It looked like her glasses were broken, her stockings were clearly a mess, and the British school uniform she typically wore was soiled and dirty, but aside from dirt and looked like a few spatters of blood marking her, she looked to be alright. She had a sword in one hand, a gun in the other, and as he listened, he heard her singing a cheerless tune in a low voice. And to Coulson's shock, she was presently sitting on a pile of people that were bound in large bands of cloth. One of several such piles there.

"Whoa," gaped one of the agents Coulson had taken with him. "Did she...?!"

"Do you see anyone else around who coulda done this?" Trip asked incredulously, arching a raised eyebrow at the man. "Man, and here I thought people were exaggerating when they said she -!"

"Hey, Coulson," came Mari's voice, freezing the agents of SHIELD in place. As Coulson looked up in the Super Soldier's direction, he realized that she was looking right in his direction, smiling a smile that didn't even touch her face. "Are you here to rescue me?"

A beat passed as Coulson and Trip exchanged a sheepish look before the lead agent shrugged, "Well...yeah."

"My heroes," Mari returned in a voice that was dripping sarcasm. "So what kept you?"

Ignoring that barbed question for the moment, Coulson started towards Mari, eyeing the battlefield around him. Everywhere he looked, he saw badly beaten and battered people tied up in robes of various colors. Broken wooden swords and twisted metal katanas lay strew all over the place, and when he caught a glimpse at the exposed flesh of some of what he guessed to be cultists. Several of them had dislocated shoulders and broken arms and/or legs.

And as Coulson looked about, he spotted two figures that were completely obscured by their robes. Covered up as if...

"Damn, what happened here?" Trip wondered as he came up behind Coulson. "What were these creeps up to, anyway?!"

"Oh, you know. The usual. Toga party with a side of human sacrifice. No biggie," Mari declared with a roll of her eyes. "Things kinda got outta hand when that asshole over there," she began, jerking her thumb at a man wrapped in a yellow robe with a gold-painted axe and a broken nose, "decided to give me a haircut that went a little too low." When the Super Soldier punctuated her statement by making a slashing gesture across her neck with her gun hand, Coulson opened his mouth to speak, only to stop when he heard a faint groaning. "Uh, hang on a sec," she said even as she glanced over to her side. As Coulson and Trip followed her gaze, they saw the source of the noise; one of the battered victims in the pile Mari was sitting on was stirring, and was now dazedly glancing about. "Hey, you're awake!" she smirked in a manner Coulson knew too well. "You know what? You're the first to regain consciousness!"

"Huh...?" the young man in question dazedly groaned as he glanced in Mari's direction.

"And that means you win first prize!" Mari decreed...right before thunking him over the head with the butt of the katana she held. The boy let out a pained groan before once more tumbling back into unconsciousness, right before she added, "That's right; it's your very own concussion."

"That's first prize?!" came Morse's voice, drawing the gazes of everyone still conscious. "If you ask me, it looked more like he stopped at a Whammy!"

"Coulson, we need to secure the area," came the much more levelheaded voice of May as she came up alongside Morse. "If anybody sees this, then -!"

"Teach?! Is that you?!" Mari cried out in surprised disbelief.

A beat passed as May looked at Mari, issuing a sigh as she angled her eyes briefly skyward before giving a wan smile. "Hello, Mari." Then her expression went back to its usual businesslike manner as she looked at the agent in charge. "Coulson, I think you should get her back home and get her debriefed on what happened. The rest of us will stay here, take care of cleanup. Tie up any loose ends."

"Right, good thinking," Coulson nodded, also thinking of a father who was more than likely already getting worried sick about his little girl, and would likely appreciate an explanation as to why it was taking so long for her to get their new home.

"Uh, wait a minute," Mari started, the slight smile she had garnered upon seeing May fading as she glanced between her and Coulson. "Debrief me?"

"We need to assess the situation. Determine what damage has been done to the operation, and make certain that nothing happens that blows your cover," Coulson explained, deciding that they could throw caution to the wind to the degree; if NERV was already aware of what Mari had done, then that was it. Their operation was done and over with before it could even begin. "Which means that you have to be thoroughly debriefed on everything that happened."

Issuing a weary groan, Mari rolled her eyes and grumbled, "Great. Just perfect. Remind me to stick a bomb up Fury's ass for this one."

As this statement earned a few looks from the others, Coulson just sighed and looked hard at his charge. "C'mon, Mari. The sooner we get going, the sooner it'll get done. So let's get you back to home," he stated as he approached her. Then he noted the weapons she still held and added, "Though I think you should leave those here."

Looking from May to the sword and gun she had appropriated, Mari's smile faltered. "Uh, yeah. Good point," she admitted before glancing about at the agents around her. "Umm..."

Sensing the unspoken question on Mari's mind, Coulson looked at one of the agents he'd brought with him. "Agent Kirby, if you please?"

"Certainly, sir," the agent responded, giving a polite bow of his head before he made his way up to Mari. The tattered girl all too gladly dismounted the pile of pummeled kidnappers, then heaved a sigh as she turned over the purloined weapons.

"Alright, let's get going," Coulson told her in a gentle manner. "This has already been a long day, and since I'm a firm believer in Murphy's Law, I'm not in the mood to do something stupid to tempt fate into making this day any worse than it already is."

"Smart guy," Mari decided with a wry smile even as Coulson started forward, a smile that didn't look right in his eye. As the two of them passed May and Morse, she forced the corner of her mouth upwards and said, "Seeya later, Teach. I hope."

May didn't say anything to this, not that Coulson could blame her. For while Melinda Qiaolian May was an excellent agent of SHIELD and had been a big help in getting Mari trained while she had been undergoing the Rebirth process, she was also someone who had been hurt badly in the line of duty. And while he did not know what exactly happened during the mission that had earned her the unwanted nickname, 'the Cavalry', he did know just how much that experience had changed her. And dealing with a fun-loving girl who had come to seriously enjoy fighting and possessed all the social subtlety of a falling brick wall probably wasn't the easiest of things for her to deal with.

Wondering not for the first time just how much of their relationship was based on mutual friendship and how much upon Mari just bulling her way forward and May deciding to just go along with it, Coulson glanced over at the girl that all of this rode on as they made their way back to the vans. A trip that was made in total silence, with the Super Soldier doing none of the things she was known to do when things were too quiet and when something was bothering here. She didn't joke, she didn't sing, she didn't engage in idle chatter. She just walked alongside of Coulson, her eyes drooping the tiniest bit.

Something's wrong, Coulson thought as they made their way to the vans. Mari's not acting like herself. And as he came to this conclusion, he found himself wondering what the problem was. If she was coming off a battle high, that would make sense. And if she were upset about getting kidnapped and everything that went wrong, I could definitely understand that. But...she's being too quiet now. Something's definitely bothering her.

And as Coulson considered the matter, it didn't take long for him to realize what that something was. For while he hadn't had time to really and truly study the aftermath of Mari's fight with the apparent cultists, he had noticed two people back there that hadn't been restrained, but instead had robes draped over them. As if there was no need to worry about them getting back up and attacking once more.

Because they'd never get back up again... Coulson thought with a frown. Is that what happened? Did Mari kill them? Did things get that out of control?

That was certainly a possibility, Coulson unfortunately knew. Even though Mari had managed to avoid transforming, she had been trained into a fighting machine over the past two years. She had mastered every single fighting style she been trained in, thanks to her copy ability, and in the heat of battle, staying one's self from delivering a killing blow wasn't always possible, especially in situations like this. And even if she hadn't meant for it to happen, even if she had just been defending herself from lunatics intent on killing her, that wouldn't change the fact that blood was now on her hands.

And that never gets any easier, no matter what anyone tells you, Coulson frowned, knowing this painful reality from personal experience. I need to talk to her about this...

But even as Coulson thought this, he knew he couldn't speak to Mari about it out in the open. This was the kind of sensitive subject that required privacy to speak of. And also, he needed time to select the right words to say to her. He couldn't make the same mistakes he had made with May after she had stepped out of a tragedy.

Already considering how best to approach the situation, Coulson was almost relieved when he spotted the vans. Ushering Mari towards the one that remained occupied, he glanced over to her and said, "Why don't you take shotgun? The back's already full."

"I noticed, actually," Mari rejoined without a smile of any sort, pausing to sniff at the air. "Unless you've developed a taste for prosciutto and buffalo mozzarella."

Chuckling at this despite everything, Coulson watched as Mari made her way to the passenger's side door and got inside. A moment or so later, he got inside as well. Once the doors were closed, he looked back at the passengers and declared, "Mission accomplished. May and the others will be handling cleanup."

"So we heard," Skye noted with a wry smile. "And without a single shot fired. That's a first."

"Unless the shots were fired before we even got here," Fitz pointed out.

"Whatever the case, I'm just glad that Ms. Makinami's still in one piece!" Simmons remarked, smiling broadly at Mari. "Are you alright? You weren't hurt too badly, were you?"

Glancing back at the other occupants of the van, Mari shrugged. "I'm a bit banged up, but I'm still alive, so it's all good," she replied easily. "Anyway, it wasn't all that bad. I've faced worse."

"So your profile says," Skye noted with a hint of awe. "Looks like you seriously majored in asskicking back in SHIELD Hogwarts." When Mari glanced back at their resident computer expert, she added, "I just wish you could have met my ex-boyfriend."

"Why?" Mari wondered. "Did he major in asskicking as well?"

"Yeah. But I think you'd have been perfect for giving him one as well," Skye chuckled. "Because, trust me when I say, he was a serious asshole."

"Alright, settle down, you three," Coulson instructed them before turning towards the Super Soldier. "Mari, this is Skye, and Fitz-Simmons. They're the ones who managed to track you here."

"Oh. Well, then I guess I have you three to thank for the fact that I'm not walking back to Tokyo-3," Mari replied in a lame attempt at humor. Shooting Coulson a glance, she then frowned at the three big brains of their team and wondered, "Uh...so, it's Skye, Fitzsimmons, and...?"

"Oh, no, no, no!" Simmons spoke up even as Coulson realized his mistake in introducing them. "He meant Fitz and Simmons!"

"People just tend to call us Fitz-Simmons because we're, well..." Fitz began, only to trail off in humiliation.

"Because they're pretty much two peas in a pod," Skye continued for him. "Seriously, I can count the number of times they've been apart for like even a day on one hand without even using all five fingers."

"Anyway, I'm Jemma Simmons -" Simmons continued, holding out her hand.

"- and I'm Leopold Fitz," Fitz said, speaking and extending his hand to Mari at almost the same time as Simmons did.

As for Mari, she just sat there for a moment, glancing between the two scientists for a time before taking both their hands. "Well, that sure clears up everything..."

"Don't worry, you'll get used to it," Skye assured Mari as she shook both scientists' hands. "I know I did...eventually."

Smiling at this awkward moment of breaking the ice, Coulson focused on Mari. "Well, now that the introductions have been handled, we need you get back home and then to the base." When the young Captain and the others looked at Coulson in surprise, he added, "I know you've already been through a lot, Mari, but I really need to get you to Major Jones. He's going to want to debrief you as soon as possible."

Looking away from the trio in the back, Mari frowned in confusion. "Major Jones? As in...Gabriel Jones?"

"I take it Dugan told you about him," Coulson nodded, understanding Mari's concern in this respect. "Sorry, I know you've already been through a lot, but...well, he is in overall command of this mission, so..."

"Okay, okay, I get the big picture," Mari replied, waving aside Coulson's concerns. "But before we get there...before I left, Dum Dum made it very clear that I wasn't to break cover unless my life is in imminent danger." When Coulson nodded and the other three looked on, the Super Soldier went on to say, "Just so we're clear, being tied up by a bunch of lunatic cultists who are all armed and at least one of them has a gun and one of them is about a second away from taking your head off with an axe...that does qualify as being in 'imminent danger', right?"

A beat passed as Coulson considered this before glancing over at the other occupants of the van. Skye, Fitz, and Simmons all wore near identical expressions of surprised confusion, with the computer putting this into words when she said, "Uh, yeah! I mean...how could that not qualify?!"

"Well, SHIELD seems to have different standards than the rest of the world," Mari said by way of explanation. "And since I've already gotten one lecture from the douchebag running this outfit, I decided to make sure I wasn't in for another one."

"When could your life be in more danger than when your head is about to be chopped off?!" Skye demanded. "When you've already taken a bullet to the gut?!"

"Or you're being shoved out of an airplane hundreds of feet above the ocean?!" Simmons wondered.

"Or you're trapped on the ocean floor and you have no oxygen and can't even swim?!" Fitz added.

"Uh, relax, Mari. I'm pretty sure that nobody's going to hold this against you," Coulson assured her before the others could get really warmed up. "You followed orders, and something went wrong despite everything. It happens. It shouldn't have happened, but it did. No one can blame you for that."

"Yeah, well, I'm sure someone will try to, anyway," Mari grumbled in a irritated manner with a heavy frown on her face.

While Skye, Fitz, and Simmons glanced about themselves perplexedly, Coulson smiled sadly. Dugan had already told him about what happened with the Pacific Fleet, and how Fury had condemned Mari for listening to her heart instead of backing off and let the 6th Angel wipe it out and everyone that was there without a fight. How he had disabled the American Dream's weapons and didn't even bother to tell her or warn anyone about the disaster that had been about to come. "Not if I have anything to say about it," he finally assured her. When Mari didn't even respond to this, Coulson gave a weary smile and inserted the key into the ignition. "Now, c'mon, let's go. We still have a lot that needs to be taken care of." Before turning the key, however, he paused and gave Mari a reassuring pat on her back. "And later on...well, let's see about doing something to make up for how this day worked out."

A beat passed as Mari considered this, shifting her eyes in Coulson's direction. "If you want to make up for how things went today, I can think of two very good ways you can start," she started, something akin to one of her more catlike smiles appearing on her face. "You don't even have to do both. One or the other will do just fine."

Pausing to consider this, Coulson shrugged. "Okay, sure," he finally decided. "What are my choices?"

"Well...you can either call that self-serving, arrogant, chain-smoking cyclops Fury, and tell him on my behalf that he's an asshole, a moron, that I'd love to be able to make him swallow a grenade sidewise, and that the next time he comes up with some brilliant idea for slipping me into enemy territory, he can go fuck himself with a loaded bazooka," Mari suggested, her smile broadening as she went on. "Or..."

Pausing to glance at the astonished looks of horror that Mari's first suggestion had garnered from the others, Coulson hesitated just long enough to imagine himself doing something that stupid before asking, "Or what?"

"Or you can be the one to tell my dad about what happened today, why everything went to blazes, and why none of it is my fault," Mari informed him.

Coulson didn't even need a second to make his decision between angering Fury or dealing with an upset father. "I think I'll go with that last option."

"Figured you would," Mari informed him, nodding slightly.

"And that was that," Mari concluded as she looked at the pudgy SHIELD agent that had been tasked with debriefing her. "After they were all down for the count, I tied them up with their robes, and...well, I covered up the ones that were...and then I just sat there, waiting for someone to come pick me up and hoping that it was the Coulson cavalry."

"I see," nodded agent Billy Koenig, his expression as bland and uninterested as could be. "And you didn't transform into you augmented form at any time?"

Glancing down at her school uniform, which had clearly seen better days, but was whole and reparable save for her stockings, Mari asked, "Do you think my clothes would still be in one piece if I had?"

Billy didn't say anything to this. He just glanced down at the table he was seated at and studied the electronic display built into the top. A display that showed Mari's brainwaves, heartbeat, pupil dilation, oxygen consumption, and 92 other variables to make certain that, if a single lie came out of the Super Soldier's mouth, he'd know about it. "What about the two cultists you mentioned dying?" he asked, giving her a stern look. "You're positive that you weren't the cause of their deaths?"

At these words, Mari winced even as she sat in the specialized chair that was monitoring her biological conditions to determine that she told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. "Yes, I'm sure," she then replied. "One of them...died instantly from being shot by that gun nut I told you about. And the other...he bled out over the course of the fight. I... sensed it happening."

"You...sensed it?" Billy repeated, giving her a look.

A beat passed as Mari gulped slightly. "I...I could smell the blood bleeding out of him, and...I heard his heart stop. Heard him stop breathing," she explained, really hating how she was being forced to put this all into words. "He was bleeding really bad. The bullet...it must've struck an artery, and...he died from it."

Even as Billy looked at the readouts, nodding thoughtfully at what he saw, Mari couldn't help but sigh. He died. Two simple, pathetically easy to say words that were used to be sum up something as catastrophic as death. Of everything a person had ever been and ever would be, simply being ripped away from them. Of actually feeling with her own enhanced senses the exact moment when a person took their last breath.

Mari had been training hard under SHIELD's oversight. She had mastered every single fighting skill they had thrown her way, mastered every firearm, hand weapon, and more over the course of her training. It was no exaggeration to say that her entire body was a lethal weapon. She could kill just about anybody she wanted at any time.

But as she thought back to that moment when she had sensed that first cultist dying, a victim of his comrade's foul aim and berserk temper, Mari couldn't help but feel her insides twisting about like a nest of vipers as she thought about the possibility of doing the same. Because whether you believed in a world beyond this one or not, there was no getting around the fact that killing someone was something that couldn't be taken back. And while the battle with the 6th Angel had been the first time she had seen death with her own two eyes, this day had provided her with additional sensory perceptions of that catastrophic event. The smells, sounds, and sensations to go with the sights of death.

Mari had known right from the beginning that she had been training to fight. And from the journals she had read, as well as plain common sense, she had known that death was a factor in any war. But as she sat there in the lie detector they had cobbled together, she thought of the events that day. And it hit her as never before that she had been trained to do more than fight. She had been trained to kill. To cause those things to happen, over and over again...

"Well, that should just about do it, Captain Makinami," Billy finally declared, a pleasant smile adorning his features as he shut down the lie detector. "We'll still have to wait and see how things go with cleanup, but...it seems you did everything you could to keep your cover intact."

"You needed a lie detector in order to tell that?" Mari snarked even as Billy moved to disconnect her from the high-tech chair.

"Oh, pay that no mind. This is the first time we've used this particular machine since we've installed it, so it makes for a good test run," Billy stated. then he gave a hapless shrug and added, "Besides, Major Jones made it clear that he wanted to be absolutely certain of your report. After all, if your cover has been compromised, then...that's it. Mission over."

Not bothering to mention the fact that her father would be a very happy person if that was indeed the case, Mari changed topics. "Speaking of the Major...when do I get the privilege of meeting him?"

Before Billy could open his mouth, a voice sounded over a PA. "Billy," came Skye's voice over, a smile to her words. "Thought you and Mari might want to know that Mari's father and Coulson have just arrived."

"Really?" Billy started, raising an eyebrow at this. Then he gave Mari a knowing smile and added, "Well...I guess there's no time like the present for introductions, then."

"Swell," Mari returned as she thought about meeting the man who was responsible for her being in the position in the first place. "I'd say that I was looking forward to it, but given where I'm sitting..."

Chuckling at this bit of wit, Billy finished releasing Mari's restraints, allowing her to get down to floor. Glad to be free of that chair, she paused to shake out limps that were protesting their lack of use for what felt like hours. Wondering just how long she had spent being debriefed, and if it was even the same day, Mari followed Billy out of the interrogation room into the base proper. Which didn't look a thing like the interior of an abandoned and empty strip mall.

As Mari scanned her surroundings, she saw a technological wonderland that looked like a cross between mission control at NASA and something out of a sci-fi movie. One wall was dominated by a series of holographic displays, with several views of different sections of Tokyo-3 and a computer graphic representation of Japan as seen from above. There were half a dozen computer stations there, each with someone working it, and off to the side, there was a section that was partitioned off from the rest of the area that was clearly a small but highly efficient laboratory. And it was clear that there was more to this small base, as Mari could see a couple other doors. And even as she looked on, an African-American man was emerging from one of them. A man that Mari immediately recognized from the old pictures from her mother's collection of journals.

"Ah! Major Jones!" Billy called out, raising his hand to catch the Major's attention. "Listen, I just finished -!"

"Mari!" broke in a much more familiar voice, one that caused the girl in question and several other people to jump in surprise. Already realizing what was about to happen, the Super Soldier had just enough time to turn to face her father as he flung himself at her and wrapped his arms about her frame. "Oh, god...my little girl...!"

Caught between the joy of being reunited with her father and his loving embrace, and the fact that such an embrace was taking place in the heart of a covert base employed by the beyond top-secret organization she was working for, and thus she had plenty of people watching. But after a few seconds, she just smiled, decided 'to hell with it', and happily returned the embrace. "Hi, Dad," she murmured in a soft voice. "Sorry I'm late."

"Are you alright?!" Katsuo demanded in a more forceful voice. "Here, let me look at you." With that, Mari's father pulled back enough so as to look her over, scrutinizing her physical condition and taking in the damage done to her clothes, as well as the absence of the broken glasses she had discarded after arriving there. "They - they didn't -?!"

"I'm fine, Dad!" Mari lied. For while she was fine physically, she knew there were some things that she would have to sort out in her head later. But this was something that her father really didn't need to hear after just finding out that she had been kidnapped by crazy cultists intent on using her as a human sacrifice. "I just need to get my outfit sewn up a bit, get some new glasses, and I'll be as good as..." she started to assure her father, only to trail off when she saw a ghostly figure stagger into view behind him. "...and what the hell happened to you?!"

"Huh?" Katsuo wondered, furrowing his brows in confusion before following Mari's gaze. "Oh, him," he declared, noting Coulson's presence. "Well, when he told me what happened to you, I -"

"You really let him have it, huh?" Mari decided, raising an eyebrow at the staggered SHIELD agent. Coulson's face was a ghostly white, his mouth was hanging slightly open, his eyes so wide that his pupils looked tiny by comparison, and he looked somewhat balder than he had before.

"After finding out what happened because of SHIELD's stupidity?! Damn right, I did!" Katsuo declared, delivering a poisonous glare that Coulson didn't even register. "Dammit, Mari! Bad enough that I knew something like this would happen, but for SHIELD to let something like this happen?! Of all the -!"

"Uh, Mr. Makinami?" called a voice that Mari didn't recognize. As both Katsuo and Mari paused and looked about, they saw the man that could only be Gabriel Jones approaching, a kindly expression on his face. "Sorry to interrupt, but...I'd like to take a moment to welcome you and Mari to SHIELD Outpost 2301." Giving this a moment to sink in, he then extended his hand and added, "Major Gabriel Jones, at your service."

Katsuo paused to consider Gabriel's hand the same way a normal person would consider a venomous snake, but before Mari could find out if he would actually take his hand, Billy came up beside the Major and asked, "Agent Coulson? What happened?"

"I should've given Fury the message..." Coulson moaned, sounding like a man speaking from beyond the grave.

Mari couldn't help but smirk a little. "Coulson and my dad had a chat while I was being briefed," she said by way of explanation. "Let's just say that Dad...has a way with words."

"So I see," Gabriel noted with a raised eyebrow. "Uh, Billy, would you take Agent Coulson to get something to drink or something like that? He looks like he could use it."

"Uh, sure thing, Major Jones," Billy nodded before making his way over to Coulson. "Right this way, Agent Coulson."

"How can anybody swear that much...?" Coulson wondered dazedly. "He didn't even stop to breathe...!"

Wow. And I thought Dad was pissed the day SHIELD brought us in, Mari thought with an air of awe. I better not tell him about Fury and the Pacific Fleet...

Not even wanting to imagine the fireworks of profanity that this would result in, Mari was brought back to the moment when Gabriel said, "I take it that Agent Coulson has already informed you of the...incident that happened earlier today."

"Incident?! That's what you call my daughter getting kidnapped by lunatics all because SHIELD decided to drop her out of the sky instead of having her ride the train here with me like any sane person?!" Katsuo declared in a voice rife with outrage. "Of all the -!"

"Mr. Makinami, please. I understand that you're upset about this, and rightfully so," Gabriel broke in with a stern, yet pleasant voice. "Today's incident was unfortunate to say the least, and it should never have happened. But - and with due respect - your daughter came out of it alive and in one piece. The culprits responsible have been dealt with, and won't be able to hurt anyone else. And although we still have to do some damage control, all the evidence we currently have indicates that Mari's cover is intact. So while we definitely stepped in it, we still came out smelling like roses."

"He scorched the wallpaper. By swearing..." came Coulson's dazed voice from off in the distance, so soft that Mari couldn't be sure if anyone without her enhanced hearing could detect it. "How do you even do that...?"

"And are you certain that Mari's cover is intact?!" Katsuo demanded, his arms folded across his chest. "Don't think I've forgotten what you've brought her to do! If NERV finds out -!"

"Believe me, sir, we are painfully aware of the dangers involved in this operation," Gabriel broke in, keeping his voice level and his manner sympathetic. "You may not believe it, but I've been in this position more times than I would ever want to count. I've had things go wrong on a mission before, and the cost was the failure of the operation and good men and women dying. So when I say I understand what you're feeling, trust me, because it's the truth."

"How did he even know some of those words...?" Coulson's dazed voice came once more.

"Were any of those 'good men and women' you told me about ever your own family?" Katsuo declared in a deadly serious voice.

"Believe it or not...yes," Gabriel declared, his words seeming to take Katsuo by surprise. "I'm a family man, like you. Got married, had a few kids of my own. And one or two of them decided that they wanted to grow up to be just like Daddy, fighting the good fight and take down the bad guys." Then his eyes narrowed and hardened as he added, "And one of them...one of them I had to bury. So believe me, sir...I do know what you're feeling right at this moment." A beat passed the former Howling Commando heaved a deep sigh and gave Katsuo a solemn look. "And for what it's worth...I hope that you never have to learn what it feels like...to outlive your own child."

There was a sincerity to Gabriel's words, an emotion that Mari could sense, and her heightened senses detected nothing to indicate the SHIELD agent wasn't telling the truth. And as she glanced up at her father, she could tell that he, too, was also being affected by the Major's words. I wonder how he'd feel if he found out this guy was old enough to have his own great-grandchildren? she couldn't help but think, wondering if she should mention this little detail to her father. Feeling that now might not be the best time, especially since it was obvious from Coulson's current condition that her father was in rare form this day, the Super Soldier decided it might be a good idea to change subjects. "Besides, Dad, SHIELD wasn't the only ones that dropped the ball on this."

"That's correct," Gabriel confirmed with a nod. "According to Major Dugan, NERV's secret police, Section 2, was watching when your daughter was abducted. And apparently, someone didn't bother to notify them that she was a designated Child, and that it was their job to make sure something like this did not happen."

Katsuo mouthed the word 'what', then grunted and threw up his arms in disgust. "Terrific," he grumbled. "The good guys are secret agent morons, the bad guys are even bigger morons, and here we are, stuck in the middle. Guh..."

"Well, that's one way of looking at it," Gabriel decided with a shrug. "Anyway, you two, let me give you both the fifty-cent tour. And later on, I'll have Coulson show you about your new apartment. Show you the...modifications we've made to the place."

"Is there a list on the gifted index for profanity...?" came Coulson's dazed voice once more. "If not...we might have to start one..."

"You damned, incompetent morons!" Chiron raged as he stood behind his desk in his private office, glaring pure hatred at the two agents that sat before him. "You let the 4th Child get kidnapped! You actually watched it happen, and you stood around, doing nothing!"

The two bland agents that were under his command simply sat in their seats, looking perplexedly at the Captain of Section 2. It was plainly obvious that they didn't understand why Chiron was so upset with them. Which just made him that much more furious. "And don't give me that bullshit about not recognizing her! You knew that bitch was the 4th Child! I briefed each and every one of you idiots on her weeks ago! You were given pictures, personality profiles, the damned works! And you still let a bunch of cultists walk off with her like they had the keys to the damned city!"

Glancing over at his partner, one of the idiots started to protest, "But - but, sir -!"

"I don't want to hear any 'buts'! I don't want any excuses or lies or anything else you idiots might try and come up with!" Chiron declared, swiveling a deadly gaze at the both of them. "All I want from you two right now is to look me in the eye, and tell me why the hell you did something that stupid!"

Several seconds crawled past in silence as the two agents slowly exchanged glances, and Chiron could almost see the sweat rolling down their faces, and smell them planting whatever courage they had in their pants. "Well, sir..." one of them finally began, "...Commander Ikari...you told us he wanted Makinami dead, right?"

"That's what you said in the briefing," the second agent nervously chimed in. "That Commander Ikari was only interested in her Eva, and that you...you ordered us to study her files and be ready to observe her when she got here, so...so we could kill her."

"So we could dispose of her in a way that doesn't look like murder, yes," Chiron confirmed, already suspecting he knew where this was going.

"That's right. So...well, when we saw the cultists going after her, we...we thought that would be just perfect!" the first agent explained. "All we'd have to do was pretend that we didn't realize she was a pilot, and the cultists would take care of the girl for us!"

"No fuss, no muss, and no way to blame us for anything," the second agent nodded. "Really, sir...it seemed perfect!"

"And what about the 3rd Child?" Chiron pointedly demanded. "If the cultists had gone after him instead...?"

"We were ready for that, sir," the first agent quickly assured him. "We had a sniper rifle on hand, and we had a clear view of the roof. We'd have had them in our sights the moment they even tried going after the Third, sir."

For a time, Chiron sat there, considering their statements, letting them sweat a bit while considering the events of this day, events that they clearly hadn't considered. He thought of the outraged call he had gotten from Sub Commander Fuyutsuki, as well as the dressing down he was sure to receive from Commander Ikari as a result of their actions. Not to mention the political backlash that was bound to follow and the egg that would be on the face of NERV Central, all because of two morons that thought that they knew better than anyone. "Well, I can see how all of that would make sense," he finally conceded. Pausing to enjoy the brief moments of clear relief on the faces of the two agents before he snuffed out their hopes. "However, there is one problem that neither of you two imbeciles considered."

The two agents glanced at each other, both frowning in confusion before the second agent asked, "What do you mean, sir?"

"As you two pointed out, it's the not the pilot Commander Ikari is interested in, it's the Eva. And he wants it being piloted by someone he's certain he can control," Chiron explained in a slow, patient manner. One that he then threw away when he continued with, "But he can't do that until we actually get the Eva!"

Stunned by both Chiron's words and the force with which he spoke them, the two agents glanced at each other before the first one asked, "But - Makinami's here, the Eva's on its way, so -!"

"But they haven't been signed over to us yet!" Chiron declared, rising up to glare down upon both agents from a more appropriate stance. "Nothing's official until Dugan writes his name on the transfer papers! And I just learned that won't be happening until after Unit 05 arrives here!" Giving this a moment to sink in, the Section 2 head then asked, "Now, do you two idiots really think the Americans would give us that damned machine if we let its pilot get killed on the same damned day she got here?!"

This time, Chiron was certain he could smell the two agents soiling themselves as the second one sputtered out, "B-b-but, sir - we - we just thought -!"

"Don't think! Got that?!" Chiron snapped, glaring down into the agents' eyes. "Let me make it very, very simple to you two; it goes from God to the Committee to the Commander to me! So you don't do something unless I specifically order you to!" Pausing to take a breath after expelling his frustration over this batch of utter and complete incompetence, the Section 2 head straightened himself up a bit. Imagining himself ordering the two idiots to unload their sidearms into their heads, Chiron muttered, "I have a meeting with Commander Ikari later today, during which time I will be considering an appropriate punishment for you both. So until I say otherwise, you're both suspended from duty. Is that understood?!"

"Yes, sir!" both agents replied almost instantly.

Satisfied that he had gotten his point across, Chiron said, "Dismissed." Which was all the cue the two idiots needed to stand up from their seats and turn to depart. And once they were gone, the Section 2 head groaned, knowing that he was not going to be enjoying what came next.

Section 2's my responsibility. When something goes wrong, it's on my plate, Chiron knew, this being one of the basic realities of command. The buck stopped with him; that was one of the thorns in the sides of the privileges and powers he garnered from his position. It didn't matter that what happened wasn't his fault; it still remained his responsibility. One thing's for sure; I better make sure that something like this doesn't happen again. And that when it does come time to dispose of Makinami...I better do it myself. The last thing I need is for someone else to screw things up any more than they already have been...

Author's Notes: Now that Murphy's Law has had its evil way with Mari's arrival in Japan, it's time for the real fun to begin! So please, read and review! And maybe check out my other stories?

Now, some of you might think I was going too far with Mari and how she reacted to the deaths of those cultists, but I'd have to imagine that killing and finding a dead person are among some of the hardest things for a person to go through. I remember my mother telling me about how she found a close friend of hers dead, and how shaken she was as a result. And since I'm basically trying to pretend Rebuild 3.0 doesn't exist for the most part, I figured this would work for helping to flesh out Mari here.

In regards to Mari's father's Cluster F Bomb on Coulson, that was kept offscreen because my skills with profanity aren't nearly as developed as my mother's. Plus, this is the sort of thing that works better if you leave it to the imagination.

reality deviant, hope you enjoy this update as well.

Quathis, the problem with Mari just taking down those cultists is that something like that would completely blow her cover, which would be bad. Not to mention potentially fatal for her and her father. But yup, as seen here, she's the whole shebang.

Mike313, don't worry. From here on out, things will be picking up in a major way. As for Asuka liking Maria...I think it works more like Asuka respects her, simply because she's also worked for her station. So in a way, the two have a lot in common, with their own problems. Though they handle them very differently.

Okay, now that I'm trying to shake off the slump that the complete mess that is my life in the real world is, here are some omakes!

Omake 1

Once Mari was down on the altar, Setsuko and her fellows distanced themselves from her, allowing the head cultist to approach. "Brothers and sisters, we of the Light of the Divine have come here for one reason! To soothe God's righteous wrath by punishing those that choose to defile His word, to defy His will, and to stand against His Angels!"

Oh, brother! Mari thought, rolling her eyes and suppressing the urge to chuckle at the lame dialogue being used by her captor. Where'd this yutz get this dialogue?!

"Just as the serpent tempted Eve, this vile creature stands with the enemies of God, claiming that her defiance is for the good of humanity!" the head cultist went on. "But on this day, the Earth will run red with...her...wicked..." he the slowly trailed off, his monologue being derailed by the fact that his intended sacrifice was coming down with a bad case of the giggles. Looking very cross with her, he paused long enough to remove her gag and demand, "What do you think you're doing?!"

Chuckling incredulously despite being tied up, Mari snickered out, "What's it look like?! I'm laughing, you great big turd blossom!"

Scowling at her like she was a piece of dung stuck to his shoe, the lead cultist heaved a deep breath and continued. "But on this day, the Earth will run red with her wicked blood!" he spoke, trying to drown out Mari's continued laughter. "Her death will help soothe the Lord's righteous rage! It will demonstrate that we are truly a God-fearing people, that we acknowledge..." An even higher pitched burst of laughter interrupted the cultist's diatribe, causing him to roll his eyes and lower his eyes before grumbling, "Would you please be silent?!"

"I can't help it!" Mari cried out, now in the throes of laughter. "I mean, just listen to you! Such narmy dialogue! And that deadpan delivery! You are hee-haw-larious!" Kicking her legs about in uncontrolled mirth, the girl was forced to heave in several deep breaths. "Oh, my sides! I...oh...oh!"

As the lead cultist and his followers looked on, clearly at a loss to understand what the heck was going on. Their confusion growing even more profound when a strange, creaking noise was heard...followed by the sound of cloth tearing.

"What in God's name?!" the lead cultist demanded as he looked down upon Mari, still caught up in laughter as her body swelled beneath her clothing. Before their eyes, the girl's breasts ballooned up, pushing hard at her shirt and soon sending a couple buttons flying off. Her muscles swelled and bulged a bit more with each laugh to tumble free of her lips, expanding to the point where they strained both Mari's clothes and the ropes that still held her taut. The creaking noise intensified until at last her shirt burst open at the front and the sleeves were completely annihilated. What was left of her stockings fell away in tatters, and a moment later, the ropes that bound her snapped.

Followed immediately by her bra.

As the cultists goggled at the half-naked Amazon Mari had become, she eventually became aware of their dumbfounded gazes. "Hey, what are you staring at?!" she demanded, still laughing. "What's - huh?!"

A moment later, Mari became aware of a serious draft. Then she glanced down at herself, took stock of her current state, and instantly stopped laughing. "Aw, dammit!" she cried out, sitting up and looking down at her breasts that were hanging out for everyone to see, then furrowed her brows at the lead cultist. "And that was my favorite shirt!" she vehemently declared before ramming her elbow into the lead cultist's nose, crushing it and sending him tumbling to the ground unconscious. "Thanks a bunch, Needle-Dick!"

Omake 2

Once Mari was down on the altar, Setsuko and her fellows distanced themselves from her, allowing the head cultist to approach. "Brothers and sisters, we of the Light of the Divine have come here for one reason! To soothe God's righteous wrath by punishing those that choose to defile His word, to defy His will, and to stand against His Angels!"

That's right, asshole! Just keep yapping away like a good little villain from a Bond movie! Mari thought as she continued to squirm, looking very much like she was struggling futilely against her bindings even as she worked at the knot. I just need a few seconds...!

Fortunately, it looked like the cultist was going to oblige Mari by giving her those few precious seconds. "Just as the serpent tempted Eve, this vile creature stands with the enemies of God, claiming that her defiance is for the good of humanity!" he went on, making the Super Soldier wish that she could cover her ears or punch his teeth in. "But on this day, the Earth will run red with her wicked blood! Her death will help soothe the Lord's righteous rage! It will demonstrate that we are truly a God-fearing people, that we acknowledge..."

A low, powerful sound began to rise in the background, stopping the lead cultist in mid-word as he and his fellows began looking about perplexedly. Even Mari herself was given pause as she looked about, trying to identify the source of the noise and what it was coming from.

But even as Mari continued to glance about in confusion, she felt a sharp draft coming down from overhead. Before she could even wonder what was happening, the air above her and the cultists rippled and distorted, slowly revealing a massive jet hanging overhead, colored in the red, white, and blue and with two massive cannons emerging from the top.

As Mari and the cultists looked upwards in unmitigated shock, a hatch opened in the bottom of the American Dream, revealing an African-American man with a mini-gun in hand and a determined expression on his face as he aimed it at the cultists.

"Well, look at this!" came a voice from off to the side. As Mari and the cultists looked about, they saw Coulson walking towards them with Bobbi Morse at his side, with the both of them holding large assault rifles. "Appears we got here just in the nick of time! What's that make us?"

"Big damn heroes, sir!" Morse enthusiastically declared.

"Ain't we just?" Coulson nodded as the two SHIELD agents advanced upon the crowd of cultists. "Sorry to interrupt, folks. Y'all got something that belongs to us." Pausing to glance at Mari, he added, "And we'd like it back."

Scowling pompously at Coulson, the lead cultist declared, "This is a holy cleansing! You cannot think to thwart God's will!"

Still smiling unperturbed, Coulson glanced up at Trip. "Y'all see the man hanging out of the ship with the really big gun?" Watching as the cultists again glanced up at the American Dream, he went up to Mari's side and declared, "Now I'm not saying you weren't easy to find. It was kinda out of our way, and he didn't want to come in the first place. Man's lookin' to kill some folk. So really it's his will y'all should worry about thwarting." As the cultists paused to consider this, Coulson turned his attention to the Super Soldier. "Gotta say, Mari, your talent for alienatin' folk is near miraculous."

Mari just grinned and returned, "Yes, I'm very proud."

Morse than hoisted her gun and aimed it at the lead cultist. "Cut her loose."

The lead cultist just stared at the gun for a moment before protesting, "That girl is a devil!"

"Yeah, but she's our devil!" Morse countered, cocking her gun. "So cut her the hell loose."

"Annnnd...cut! That's a wrap!" Orion declared from his place in the director's chair. "That's great! Great job, everybody, great job!" Applauding the efforts of the people before him, he then declared, "Let's have a big hand for the newest members of our crew; the Agents of SHIELD!"

With that, the rest of the filming crew burst into applause for the newest members of their team. "Thanks a bunch, everybody!" Morse declared, smiling at the crew. "It's just too bad this scene won't make it into the story proper. I'm a big fan of 'Firefly'!"

"Eh, no worries. It gives you a chance to have some fun, get used to the crew...and this bit will be great for the extras reels!" Orion easily declared. "Once again, let's hear it for the Agents of SHIELD!"

(Disclaimer: I do not own Firefly or anything associated with it. I have written this story solely because I enjoy writing.)