Training Day - Happy Trails - Part1

(OOC: Joint Post between the entire Team. 7am, 1 week after the team arrived at the facility)

The fresh morning sun was beaming through the windows as Sam quietly walked down the hallway, his back hugging the wall as he did so.
“Intel package located. One floor above you in the main area, Sir.” HELEN stated in a soft tone through Sam’s helmet comm. He had HELEN’s audio input relegated to an isolated channel so he could monitor events discreetly.

“Copy that,” Sam whispered. He quietly skipped up the nearby flight of stairs and stalked down the hallway, making as little noise as possible.

Sam stepped into the large arena, fully geared. It was more silent than he expected, but he remained on guard. He spotted the briefcase near a terminal and began his walk toward it. After reaching the center of the room, he began hearing loud, thumping footsteps. Two defence bots came charging out from the side of the room as they fired blasts at Sam. He performed a combat role, avoiding the energy bolts and charged at the oncoming bots. Gritting his teeth, Sam’s fist connected with the first’s head, putting a major dent in the eye and depowering the unit. He then spun his body around and used his other elbow to bash the second in the chest, likewise bringing it down.

As he finished them, three others came from the auxiliary entrance to the area and Sam unsheathed his baton, activating the shock stock. One bot came straight toward him while the other two sprinted to flank him. They all arrived at him at the same time and began a barrage of punches and blasts. Sam was able to keep up his parries and dodges with great speed. After a few moments, his peripheral caught more movement on his left. Thinking quickly, he grabbed one bot’s arm and flung it’s body across the room, causing it to crash into a group of four bots that were coming in from the other side of the room to rush him, temporarily knocking the group to the ground. As he spun around and jammed his shock baton through the eye of the second bot, the third bot grabbed Sam by the throat and activated its feet thrusters, sending the pair crashing into the wall.

Sam grunted as his body sunk into the metal paneling of the wall. He was able to get both hands gripped on either side of the bot’s head and pressed as hard as he could, slowly collapsing its metal head in on itself. It’s glowing eyes blinked rapidly before going dark and it released its grip on his throat. He barely caught his breath before the other bots were back on their feet and moving in, so he made a full sprint toward the briefcase, grabbing it as he performed a combat role to avoid several energy bolts.

“Intel acquired, what’s the extraction point?” Sam yelled as he dove behind a desk to avoid more enemy fire.

“Main Courtyard. Extraction leaving in 3 minutes.” HELEN responded in a fairly urgent tone.

“That’s not ideal.” He quietly said to himself, peaking over the desk to get a look at the situation. Five bots were spread out, pinning him down with fire and getting closer.

“Three minutes.” Niko scoffed, putting a hand on his ear piece as HELEN spoke. The action wasn't necessary, but it looked cool on TV when agents did it. He spent the first part of the training with his arms crossed, sulking as he leaned against a wall. It was way too early for his liking. “That’s plenty of time." He could have hit the snooze bar at least two more times instead of standing around waiting. "Location?" The speedster would normally enjoy the capture-the-briefcase game in what he would now think of as the ruckus room, had it not been the crack of dawn.

“I’m in the northeast corner of the room, pinned behind a desk. Get to me and I’ll make an opening for you,” Sam responded, still keeping an eye on the slowly approaching bots as they continued to fire. The security doors began to slowly close.

"Yeah, yeah, I’m on it.“ Niko called, bouncing on his toes as he saw the security doors closing. “I'm coming in hot!” he zipped through with nanoseconds to spare. He had to spin sharply and draw one hand upwards to keep his fingertips from being clipped. Without skipping a beat, everything slowed down until he rounded the corner behind the desk. Pausing before grabbing the briefcase, he flashed a smile to Sammy. “Forget the opening. Make me an exit!”

Sam quickly scanned the room and his eye caught a pulse grenade sitting in an open armory locker. He unsheathed his knife and took off his chest harness. “Mind holding this for me? I'm going to try something and I definitely don’t need the extra weight slowing me down for it.” He took off his helmet and placed it on the ground, then readied himself in a track sprinter pose. “On my mark, toss the harness toward their left flank, I'm going to sprint towards their right." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, the noise of the room began to muffle.

"Mark!" Niko launched the chest harness in the air and the bots immediately began firing at the moving target rather than the desk. Sam broke into a full sprint and used the opening to throw his knife at one of the bots firing at his harness, before tackling the bot on the far right. He stepped on the bots hands to prevent it from firing its energy bolts and reached for the pulse grenade, activating it. Jamming the grenade in the bots chest, Sam grabbed it by its feet and, spinning the body in the air, hurled it at the security door. As the bot hit the door, the grenade went off, causing a large blast to tear a hole right through.

“That’ll do!” Niko called, holding the case protectively to his body. He zipped to the exit that Sam made, stopping to dive through the hole made by the bots. He took caution not to get caught up, but just as he had near made it through, a half-downed bot grabbed onto his ankles and wasn’t letting up anytime soon. “Sonuvabitch!” He yelled, struggling with no avail. With his feet pinned together he couldn’t get any momentum to rattle them loose. Considering his options, he whistled through his teeth. “Ghost Spider Girl! Up Top!” He called into the com, waiting until he saw the spiderling swing around the corner (it took FOREVER!) on her webs. Tossing the case into the air, the self proclaimed ‘coolest avenger’ shot a web towards the luggage, catching it mid-swing without slowing her momentum. “Courtyard!” Niko called, then dramatically splayed himself on the ground as the bot held his feet. The sounds of Sam still dodging blaster fire, still echoing.

Meanwhile...

Erik could understand the decision to have him be a ‘lookout’ on the outside. In his head at least he thought the decision was likely a mix of Niko not wanting to put too much pressure on him and the team collectively being sick of patching walls and floors. In truth he didn't have much of a complaint given how it had all shaken out. He kept out of a fight where he'd probably just do more damage to the building than any bots, he got to be something other than the muscle of the team, and most importantly the facility had a surprising serenity this early in the morning. It was moments like these that made him wish he had his phone on him, the early morning views felt like something out of a Bob Ross painting. In the distance he could hear birds chirping in the trees, the soft paddle of the water around the lake, and the calming sounds of murderbots flying overhead really brought it...shit.

Another pair of Stark Drones flew overhead toward the courtyard. Erik followed them as quietly as he could on the roof, taking a knee at the overlooking barrier. Sure enough the drones seemed to be flying rings around the jet which was their 'extraction point'. It was too much to expect HELEN to make things easy for them it seemed. He activated his communicator and spoke in a quiet tone, “Hey uhh, not to freak anyone out but the extraction point is kinda swarmed right now.” He looked again over the swarm of drones, “Extraction’s going to be….tight” He said, slightly wavering. In the distance he saw a dirt trail coming from the woods, “Uhh, I think someone’s here.”

“Go on without me!” Niko said dramatically. “I’m not going to make it. Tell my cousin … that I… that I… drank the last soda. Happy Trails, Hans…” He let the comm go silent and yawned, content to grab some extra zzz’s nestling down next to the disabled murder bots.

Meanwhile - further down the driveway...

“What the actual fuck?” the large man asked, running a hand through his receding hairline. The remaining bits of salt-and-pepper hair were cropped close to his head, but as he drove up to the compound, he could feel the salt taking over the pepper. Drones flew overhead, the outside of the compound looked torn to shit, and - was that a crashed Quinjet on the lawn?

Pulling up to the front of the compound, the scene was no better. “What the actual fuck!” the man repeated. Doors were torn off their hinges and the place looked shot to shit.
“Hey, I’m in,” he said, speaking into his watch as he stepped out of the car. “You aren’t going to like what you see. I’ll find out what’s going on and report back.” The front security panel had been pried off by… were those finger indentations? But seeing as there was a wide open gap where the front door once stood, he didn’t think letting himself in would be a problem. He was hit with a full body scan the minute he crossed the threshold.

“Welcome back Mr--”

“Yeah, yeah yeah--” the man cut her off. “HELEN, what the hell happened?”

“Minor repairs were made to the facility after the children of the Avengers engaged security drones in combat.”

“So it’s true, HELEN; this is confirmed? They are the offspring of the original Avengers?”
“Affirmative.”

“This is just fucking great,” he muttered, straightening his tie. “HELEN, where are the little shits now?”

“They are on the third floor training room, except for Erik Foster who is in the courtyard. Gwen Parker, the Coolest Avenger is now on the second floor. Gwen Parker, the Coolest Avenger is now on the first floor. Gwen Parker, the Coolest Avenger is heading for you.”

“Sonuvabitch!” The man in the dark suit, pushing his mid fifties jumped out of the way as a red-clad spider girl swung down from the staircase through the main door, lugging a briefcase behind her. He scowled. “HELEN, patch me into broadcast.”

“Patched in.” HELEN replied.

“Listen!” He called, his voice dripping with agitation. “This is Happy Fucking Hogan. I want all of you destructive little bastards in the front courtyard, right now. You have some serious explaining to do!”

Erik looked over the man, he didn't seem particularly intimidating, but something about his voice carried a heavy weight of authority that snapped him to attention. While hesitant to abandon the drill with the drones still buzzing about slowly, he hurried down the stairs to meet Mr. Hogan.

Niko slowly raised his head, curling the corner of his lip. Whoever it was sounded angry, angry enough to use their own first, middle and last name. He also thought that Fucking had to be the most badass middle name he ever heard, and wished his dad had named him Nikolai Fucking Maximoff instead of Krzysztof.

That aside, he had no idea who Happy Fucking Hogan was, friend or foe, so detangling himself from the murderbots, he zipped off to find his cousin.

Sam stood up from behind the cover he was hiding behind, looking puzzled. He grabbed his helmet and quickly began making his way to the courtyard, stepping over bit of bots as he did so.

"The fuck was that?" Happy asked, as the Spiderling returned.

"Gwen Parker," HELEN replied helpfully. "Child of Peter Parker and the coolest avenger."

Happy rolled his eyes and waited for his blood pressure medication to kick in.

Meanwhile, inside the Compound…

“Niko,” Wanda greeted the speedster, “Theo and I are perfectly capable of finding the front courtyard. I know this place better than you…”

Niko ignored anything said and scooped up his cousin, determined to protect her as well as Ghost Spider Girl from this Happy Fucking Hogan.

Wanda thrusts her hands on her hips and looked around the empty room. Her nephew was just as intolerable as her brother could be. And clearly Niko still had not taken to her being back, though she could not justify his lack of concern for her return.

TBC