Marvel: Incursio

Liam and Clint stared in silence as Natasha worked on the laptop. After a minute or so, she finished and contacted Maria to upload all S.H.I.E.L.D. member profiles to the network. As the files began uploading, Natasha stepped away from the device.

"The laptop will finish the rest. We need to get down there now, Clint," she said.

Clint nodded, pulling the bow from his back again.

"Can you take us down a few floors?" Natasha asked, looking at Liam.

"Yes, go to the elevator again. Once there, I'll start lowering the platform," Liam replied. He couldn't leave the room himself since he needed to make sure his domain didn't delete the laptop again.

"Thank you," Natasha said, turning and walking toward the elevator.

Clint nodded at Liam before following her.

With both of them gone, Liam began creating a plan to eliminate the remaining Hydra agents as efficiently as possible.

As Natasha and Clint stood on the stone platform, it slowly began descending.

"You get the feeling we're in too deep?" Clint asked, keeping his bow aimed at the elevator entrance as they went down.

"Always," Natasha replied, keeping her handgun ready and pointed at any potential openings in the elevator walls. "But we've been in worse spots before."

"Collapsed building, magic, and one or two thousand enemies," Clint said. "Remind me when we've been in worse."

"Magic's a new one, but aside from that—" Natasha began, abruptly ducking down as gunfire erupted through a larger hole in the shaft. She quickly fired back twice, killing two soldiers with a single bullet through each of their heads. "Nothing we aren't used to," she finished, completing her sentence.

Clint nodded, a faint smile appearing as he loosed an arrow at another agent raising a gun at him.

When they reached the tenth floor, their phones buzzed with incoming messages.

"It's started," Clint said.

"There are four entrances to this room; if we sp—" Clint began, but he was interrupted as the floor beneath them began changing.

All the interior walls lowered into the ground, leaving behind a wide open space filled with confused people. Two staircases appeared on either side of the room, each large enough for two people to walk side by side. One staircase connected to the floors above, the other to the floors below.

"Well, that makes this a lot easier," Clint muttered, having his bow ready.

Most of the people on floors eight through ten were control personnel—technicians and support staff—one of the reasons Liam had chosen this location. Fury had confirmed that very few Hydra agents were present on this floor after sorting through the data.

But "very few" didn't mean none. Fourteen Hydra agents and four technicians loyal to Hydra were scattered across the area, most grouped in threes or fours.

As the walls lowered, panic set in among the technicians until Natasha fired a round into the ceiling, grabbing everyone's attention.

"Listen up!" she commanded. "We're here under Fury's direct orders. Director Fury is not dead. He was attacked by Hydra, who infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. afterwards."

Murmurs began spreading through the crowd, but Natasha ignored them. "Hydra was being led by Alexander Pierce," she continued, "but he's already been taken care of."

At the mention of Pierce's death, two groups of three Hydra agents on the right side of the room drew their weapons. Clint had anticipated this. He loosed three arrows simultaneously, quickly notching another as they flew.

The arrows struck accurately—one agent fell dead immediately with an arrow pierced into his skull, a second had her shooting hand impaled, and the third also died, taking an arrow to the throat.

Clint swiftly killed the injured female agent with a second arrow to the brain as she reached for her gun with her other hand.

Meanwhile, Natasha shot two more Hydra agents from the other group before a third gunshot rang out, finishing the last. She turned, surprised, to see a blonde woman in office clothes holding a handgun a few meters away.

"Agent Sharon Carter. Reporting," the woman announced.

Natasha nodded in acknowledgment, but her earpiece buzzed with a new update. "Middle of the room, left side," Maria's voice came through. "Seven targets—six male, one female. All confirmed Hydra. The one wearing the cap is identified as an executive-level operative."

At the same time, Coulson relayed the same message to Clint. He turned and fired an explosive arrow into the group, killing three instantly and injuring two more. The remaining Hydra agents grabbed innocent technicians, hoping to use them as hostages.

Natasha and Sharon didn't hesitate. They opened fire, killing the remaining uninjured agents. One of the Hydra operatives who was severly injured by Clint, in his final moments, began shooting around at random, hitting multiple technicians and even instantly killing one.

Natasha ended him with a single shot through the brain, her bullet tearing through his S.H.I.E.L.D. cap. The other injured operative had already died to blood loss after losing a leg in the explosion from Clint's arrow.

At the same time, the four Hydra technicians ran for the staircase but were quickly killed by Sharon and Clint.

"All personnel remaining here are loyal to S.H.I.E.L.D.," Natasha commanded. "Treat the injured, then assist me or Clint in holding the staircases."

She moved to cover one staircase while Clint took position at the other.

Meanwhile, back in Liam's room, the laptop's loading bar showing the messages were almost fully sent. These messages weren't only going to S.H.I.E.L.D. members in the building—Fury send the messages to all confirmed S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, since he couldn't predict who would be at the main building during the mission.

Liam considered his next steps. His first idea was to destroy everything above the tenth floor. But he threw that idea out, not sure how much energy it would require to destroy an entire floor and if he could prevent the twenty-five stories above from crushing the tenth floor afterwards. Besides, S.H.I.E.L.D. would still need a functioning base after this was over.

As he thought more about his spells, he realized he didn't have any specifically made for killing lots of enemies in an area with a lot of obstacles like this.

Sure, the Bolts of Balthakk could work, but they would only take out at most four enemies at a time. In a building with over a thousand enemies, that wouldn't be nearly enough. Casting the spell 200 times while making all of them lethal would not only drain a large amount of energy but also waste a lot of time.

Him manipulating his domain had the same problem, it works but it costs quite some energy to do so for each and every single person. 'Although I will keep this in mind if in case I want to speed things up even more.' Liam thought.

Then, he got an idea. He realized he might have an alternative.

He summoned a construct of a weapon he was somewhat unfamiliar with, having only used it once or twice during combat training.

Two golden weapons materialized in his hands. They were completely circular with razor-sharp edges all the way around them. At the center of each was a handle, which he wrapped his fingers around. The weapons were chakrams.

"Eldritch Constructs," Liam murmured with a small smile, watching the loading bar reach one hundred percent. "Still my favorite spell."