The Conceptual Deck

I ended up only being gone for two hours, returning silently on the landing pad. Peggy was watching the bank, sitting far enough from the window that the shadows covered her while Steve sat completely out of sight around a corner, watching a video on his phone. He looked up when I stepped off the landing pad.

"Welcome back," He said with a nod. "Everything all set?"

"Yeah, I figured out our breaching problem." I answered. "If you want to enter through an outside wall we can do that as well now. What are you watching?"

"Peggy set me up on Youtube." Steve said with a shrug. "It's a lot to digest but I've been watching gun and military videos. I'm more than a bit out of touch with everything so I'm just updating myself."

I nodded and sat down next to Peggy, pulling up a chair and activating my helmet so I could look through my own vision enhancement. I activated my wall peeking ability and peered through the outside wall facing us, the entire thing disappearing. I could see soldiers, heavily armed, standing just out of sight of any windows and doors.

"How many people are in there?"

"Twenty seven, other than Bucky." Peggy answered, lifting her glasses to look down at the Hydra tracking tablet. "He has been alone in what we think is a small room for most of the time you were gone."

"I can see some of them through the outside wall." I said, finding someplace to sit down, dropping down into the chair. "They seem pretty relaxed, which is good news for Fury."

"How heavily are they armed?" Steve asked from behind us.

"Pretty heavily, but they seem focused on stealth, everything is silenced." I said, zooming in a bit further. "Some rifles, some submachine guns, nothing that even comes close to being dangerous for us."

"Unless we got hit in the chin." Steve pointed out.

"No, I thought of that." I said with a smile. "Let me see your helmet."

I spent a few minutes fixing the glaring issue with Steve and Peggy's helmets, combining in a retractable face covering. The addition functioned as an air purifying gas mask as well, as well as eye protection. I passed them back after showing them both how they retracted.

"Thanks." Steve said after trying it out. "I hadn't actually meant that as a complaint, you know."

"I know, but this isn't a story, and you don't have plot armor." I said seriously. "You're not really protected until all of you is protected."

"Fair enough." He answered.

The four of us settled into a pattern, taking turns keeping watch over the tablet and the bank. Ema volunteered to take over and keep watch herself but Steve assured her it was better to take turns as it kept people from getting distracted and missing something by accident. As we were still not ready to reveal Ema's non-human status she accepted his reasoning. About an hour after I had returned I got a message.

"Natasha and Coulson just finished clearing the New York headquarters." I said happily, adding on a half hour later. "Fury just cleared the Triskelion."

"That changes the game quite a bit." Peggy said, her own stress lessening just a notch. "They will be able to coordinate teams all over the globe from there."

"That's the plan." I answered. "Fury is moving on to clear the Helicarrier while his second in command stays back and coordinates."

"What's a Helicarrier?" Steve asked, looking away from the window. "And why is it so important?"

"Oh… it's a flying Aircraft carrier." I explained before looking at Peggy. "Should I know that?"

"While it wasn't publicly announced it wasn't a secret either." Peggy explained. "It was too big of a project to hide completely."

"Wait… Like a full sized aircraft carrier?" Steve asked, eyes wide. "How does… Have you seen it?"

"I've seen video's of it." Peggy said. "I couldn't really move around much by the time it was done."

"I'm looking forward to seeing it." I said with a smirk. "If they ever let me on board."

The room was quiet for a while longer, save for a few times when more messages of success came through. Eventually the sky got dark and night came. I pushed out two mattresses so that we could switch back and forth and hopefully get some rest. That proved to be pointless though, as before I could even fall asleep Ema got my attention.

"Fury says Hydra is starting to stir." She said with a frown.

I slowly climbed off of the impromptu bed, while Steve shot off of his mattress like a rocket.

"Any change in the bank?"

"We had a few people arrive fifteen minutes ago, but we wrote it off as people changing guards."

"Compare the two tablets again." I suggested. "Is Bucky still by himself?"

Ema silently held both tablets together, looking between the two.

"No… There are a lot of people congregating, all in one room. Bucky has two people with him... Guards maybe?"

"No, something is happening." Steve said, shaking his head and looking at Peggy. "I think we should go in."

Peggy nodded, before looking back at me. I held up my hands and shrugged.

"Hey, you guys are the ones with the know-how. I'm following your lead."

"Then we are going in." Steve said with a confident nod "We are leaving in ten, so get ready."

Everyone in the room looked at each other before pressing various buttons, undersuits expanding and armor deploying. Within seconds we were all fully dressed and ready for combat. I was the last one ready, as I had to push out my guns and slide them into their holsters after everything was deployed. Steve, who had been watching, shook his head and deployed his own armor.

"Right, used to that taking longer." He said, a small smirk on his face. "I guess we can go now then."

"Before we do, I have these for you guys." I said, pulling out three cloaks, one dark green, one dark blue and a final one of emerald green.

Peggy and Steve held the cloaks out and looked at me, skeptically at best, while Ema looked excited. In response I simply changed my leather jacket into its cloak form and activated its invisibility. When the cloth was barely a shimmer I pulled it around myself and smirked. Peggy's eyes went wide and Steve could only nod in approval.

It only took us a few minutes to get down and out of the building we were surveilling from, stopping in an alley across from the "abandoned" bank. We stopped there to check and see if the hornets nest was still relatively calm.

"They are agitated." I said quietly, helmet up and still covered by my cloak. "But not waving guns around agitated."

"So they probably know they are being hunted." Peggy said, who was peaking around the corner, looking up and down the street.

"But they don't know we know where they are here." Steve finished, nodding along. "Maker, you said you had a way to get through walls? Is it quiet?"

"It's not an explosive, so it should be, unless we mess up." I explained. "You have to move some stuff around but we should be able to keep it quiet enough."

"Alright, here is the plan. We are going to go back and circle around." He explained, gesturing to the right with his shield in his opposite hand. "We will cross the street further down that way, then make our way to the back. We access through the wall into an empty room. I want to get as close to Bucky as we can before we get found out so they have less time to do anything stupid."

The rest of us nodded along, before agreeing to the plan. With our cloaks wrapped around us, nothing but barely visible shimmers in the dark, we made our way around to the back of the building. It took us a few minutes to get there, only stopping once we were safe behind the bank, hidden in the dark alley. Steve gave me a look and I nodded, stepping back and activating my ability to see through walls. I scanned and found an empty office, dark and far away from any of the patrols or stationed guards. I switched my vision modes to electrical and then to metal, finding the perfect spot to breach through.

Once I had a spot chosen I gave Steve a look and he nodded in confirmation. Grinning to myself I pushed my newest creation into my hands. A two and a half foot long sword appeared in my hands, blade tip pointed up. I expertly spun it in my hands, flourishing it and holding it ready. I could see Ema giving me a look and shaking her head.

It was of course no ordinary sword. I had traveled around Austin and Chicago buying every decently made long sword I could find, combining them together with a dozen sheets of magical super metal. I was tempted to add in the last charges of Thor's spark to it as well, but I held off. There was no reason as I was already relatively sure it would cut through damn near anything at this point and was as tough as I could get it. Besides, those sparks had proven to be extremely valuable.

I had finished off the building process by combining the knowledge of how to fight with half a dozen different melee weapons with a class ring, then adding a transformation card and making my marksman's ring with the result. Now I could change my ring from melee to ranged whenever I needed to. I didn't bother with that now since I was only using the sword as a tool.

I scrolled the selector wheel on the pommel of the sword up to its max and slowly slid it into the wall, unable to keep from smiling when it slid in with barely any resistance. I slowly cut a large oval in the wall, all the way to the ground before pulling my sword out, clicking it down to normal levels of sharpness and carding it. I gestured to Steve and after a few seconds we managed to slowly slide the hunk of rock, wood and metal out of the wall, leaning it against the other side of the alley. Steve peaked his head in and after a moment stepped through. Once he was inside Peggy and I followed, Ema pulling up the rear, bow in one hand, tablet in the other.

After Ema was inside she checked the tablet again, pointing out that two guards would be passing by soon. Steve nodded and we all pulled our cloaks around ourselves. We waited for a moment, listening to the footsteps get closer before passing us by. Together me and Steve slowly opened the door out of the room and stepped out, Ema and Peggy following behind. We slowly made our way down the hall, pausing occasionally for me to check for anyone.

Peggy, who was keeping an eye on the Bucky tracker stopped us, pointing out that Bucky was being escorted to a room that was full of Hydra.

"I don't like that." Steve said softly, looking up and down one of the halls.

"I agree." I said with a nod. "I think it might be time to go loud and put some pep in our step. I'll go first since I have a silent pistol but I think stealth just became secondary."

Everyone agreed and we started traveling much faster, Steve following close behind me, my back up pistol out and on its highest setting. Our increased pace quickly got us caught, even with our cloaks on. I quickly killed the patrol that spotted us, only to get shot at by another patrolling pair of guards. Their silenced weapons were anything but, and like that the jig was up. I carded my cloak, reset the pistol back into my ring and pulled out my revolvers.

Before I could aim at the stationed guards Peggy and Steve fired once each, nailing both of the guards and killing them instantly. We could hear muffled shouts from around the building as we all looked at each other.

"Peggy, lead us to Bucky!" Steve ordered, throwing me his cloak.

I quickly carded everyone's cloaks as Peggy guided us through the bank. Soon we stepped into the main room, a large open space filled with guards. We were immediately peppered by bullets from several guards who had been standing at the ready. Steve brought up his shield and crouched slowly while I simply laughed and returned fire, bullets pinging off of me as I slowly worked my way through the room, incapacitating where I could but killing where I had to. From beside us two large soldiers charged us, attempting to take us by surprise. Steve reacted almost as fast as I did with my danger sense, throwing his shield, knocking one of them back and over a desk while I simply stepped forward and kicked the other in the chest, sending them flying until they smashed into a wall and crumpled.

"Where to?" Steve asked Peggy, getting pointed in a back direction.

"Ema, stay behind and keep an eye out for reinforcements." I said, pushing out a huge pack of zip ties and the healing flashlight. "Use your sleep ring, heal any of them that are still alive and zip them up. Oh and call Fury. Make sure Hydra doesn't get real Shield agents as back up."

She nodded and got to work, heading to the closest Hydra soldier. Steve gave me a look and I shrugged, wincing slightly.

"Sorry? I'm not the best at the whole chain of command thing." I apologized as the three of us headed to the back.

"It's fine, it was a good idea." He said, looking over his shoulder. "Are you sure about leaving her alone?"

"Steve, in a fight between her and all three of us, even with everything I gave you I wouldn't put money on us." I explained confidently, smirking slightly. "At least as long as she was being serious."

"Alright, I trust your judgment, you know her better." He said with a nod, walking forward, casually kicking through a moderately reinforced door. "It's strange fighting alongside other enhanced people."

We made our way deeper into the bank, quickly meeting more soldiers and dispatching them easily. After a quick message to Ema warning her of more wounded we headed deeper, finally getting to the massive door of a bank vault… on the other side of a metal gate. I quickly pushed out my sword and set it to its max. With a few swift swings I quickly cut through the bars, letting them tumble to the floor before kicking them away. I stepped forward to the main vault door, Peggy and Steve taking up positions on either side of me.

"I'm going to cut it, and then card it." I said, getting a nod from both of them. "When it's gone I'll step back."

With that I slid the sword into the seam of the vault door, cutting around it, making sure that I was cutting at an angle that would keep the door stable until I was ready to card it. I slowly cut through everything locking the door in place, including the hinges on the right side, but left the bottom seam alone. I checked with Steve and Peggy again, and after getting a thumbs and a nod from them I sliced through the bottom of the door. I quickly stood up straight, put my hand on the door and carded it, the steel door vanishing.

Standing on the other side of the door were about ten people. Some of them were armed soldiers, some of them appeared to be unarmed scientists. I could see Bucky sitting on the seat of a contraption that was just oozing danger and unethical brutality, while an older gentleman stood in front of him. The closest to the door was a single soldier who I didn't recognize, armed with a bow, an arrow already nocked and pulled back.

My danger sense screamed at me hard enough that it caught me off guard. I watched as the man released the arrow, which slammed into me. The sound of screaming and rending metal filled the room for a split second as the arrow pierced through a gap in my armor, through my undersuit and through me, not stopping until it hit the other side. The soldier quickly pulled another arrow, and I finally recognized them.

A tank killer arrow. My tank killer arrow.

Images of the three Ema had shot while fighting the Destroyer armor played in my head while the soldier fired his second arrow. This one flew past me, missing by inches as Steve reached around the doorway and grabbed me, pulling me into cover and out of the way.