Corrupted - The Tigris Series Book 1

Chapter Twenty One

July 23, 2012

"Sir, we've lost all power in engine one." an Agent's voice sounded in my earpiece.

Well played, Barton.

S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents scrambled around the room, desperately flailing around to try and do anything to regain control over the helicarrier. Their voices blended together around me, overwhelming my sensitive ears and causing me to me disoriented. I gritted my teeth, pressing the palms of my hands against my ears as a poor attempt to drown them out. The panicked environment was dizzying; I can't stay in here.

"It's Barton. He took out our systems. He's headed for the detention level." Fury's voice interrupted. "Does anybody copy?"

If this doesn't get Natasha to snap out of it, nothing will.

"This is Agent Romanoff. . . I copy." Natasha said shakily, right on cue.

I stumbled out of the main room, still holding my head in my hands. "Stark! What the hell is taking you so long?! I don't know if you've noticed, but we're falling from the sky!" I yelled in frustration.

"Yep, noticed." Stark replied.

I looked around at my surroundings, trying to remember the correct route to take to get to engine three. "What's your status?"

"I'm pushing the rotors." he said, simply.

I felt my eyes slightly widen at his statement. "You're what?"

Stark grunted slightly, indicating that he was indeed physically pushing the rotors himself. "Look, as much as I enjoy our little chats, I'm gonna have to cut this one short."

Without thinking twice, I sprinted through the hallways towards where I hoped was engine three. I doubted that Stark would be doing something that reckless if it wasn't the only option, but if there's no one there to stop them from reaching max speed, he will be torn to shreds; and I didn't have much faith in Steve in having the know-how to find the right lever. I turned a couple corners, then instantly stopped in my tracks when I heard a separate pair of footsteps from a distance.

I grit my teeth and deeply furrowed my brows, mentally locating where Loki's men were running from behind the walls, and sprinted forward again. I then unsheathed my claws and jumped up onto the wall on my left, using the momentum I built to climb across it as if I was defying gravity. I had timed it just well enough to meet the armored man as he reached the intersection, and launched myself at him with a corkscrew spin faster than he could get his gun up to shoot me. I tackled him to the ground with enough force to knock the wind out of him, and had my claws dug deep into his thickly padded chest armor. He grunted in pain, feeling the claws reach his bare skin, and tried to move to buck me off of him. I growled as I raised my right arm up high above my head, and brought it down to punch him hard in the glass of his helmet, shattering it instantly while also leaving a deep imprint of the shape of my fist. The harsh impact instantly silenced him, and knocked him out cold.

I snapped my head up as two more Agents ran towards me from the other side of the long hallway with their guns up. I let out a sharp exhale through my nostrils and swiftly pulled two handguns in both of my hands from the agent's leg holsters under me, firing a single shot from both guns at both of the approaching agents' heads. The bullets went straight through the center of their helmets, killing them instantly as they dropped limply to the ground at the same time.

I wasted no time, and quickly stood to continue on my way towards engine three, taking the two handguns with me. I fired them at more of Loki's agents as I passed them, not slowing down for a moment. Each one I passed, I gunned down with only a single shot, not giving any of them any time to retaliate. I didn't have time to mess around. I used my sense of smell and hearing to locate the agents that I could not immediately see, and shot them without having to look at them. I realized that there was an entire unit going towards engine three, most likely to finish the job. Steve was probably busy protecting it from the ones who were already there.