[Open] Devil's Hole

[ms_legendary]

My name is Nikita. Seven years ago, I was taken off Death Row and forced to be an assassin for an elite, covert ops unit of the U.S. government. They called it a second chance, a chance to right the wrongs I'd done. They lied. Four years ago, I got away and started over for real. I became a ghost, living off the grid, and striking from the shadows with my allies. The tide was turning, we had them against the ropes, but then they caught me and dropped me here, on a tropical island purgatory I can't leave or inside my mind. And they've been hunting me. Everyone says today's the day it all goes down. If we can just make it through til tomorrow, the nightmares will stop. Maybe they're right. But if this is Division, if this is Amanda, they made one fatal mistake. They gave me someone to fight for, they gave me Alex and Jason. And now they're screwed...


At first light, Nikita and Alex move out from their extremely well protected hut. They have the ancient pistols they've managed to scavenge from Rapture, the knives, and Nikita has Michael's knife. They hide in the trees, low on intel, unsure what to believe, but trusting what they've picked up from ITF chatter and island-wide notices.

They don't have long to wait. The first group of Division agents hit the perimeter ground wire before the curve of the sun breaks the horizon. There are three of them that get roasted in the fires of impromptu Molotov cocktails. Alex cocks her head, lifting an eyebrow to ask if they should go down and kick the weapons out of the fire.

As much as Nikita wants to, there were three. Standard first deployment team from Division, Amanda, Gogol's going to be at least six. She shakes her head and mouths, 'We wait'. The next three come to strip their fallen fellows of their weapons, shooting the two that have a few breaths remaining to end their pain.

They advance on the second circle of Nikita's defenses, careful. They've been warned. Nikita is their bogeyman. The one who got away. The one who always gets away. Nothing could've prepared them for a Nikita gone guerilla, though, not with Alex at her side and Alex to protect. One, by one, by one, they step into beautifully hidden traps and end up upside down in hemp nets.

There will be more, but not until these fail to report in. Nikita nods to Alex and they drop from the trees, avoiding errant gunfire, and show no mercy in snapping the necks of the two men and one woman who've come to kill them. No mercy, no hesitation, and they waste no time in stripping them of every useful bit of weaponry and technology, trading their island clothes for lightweight black Kevlar, tac vests, weapons, and boots.

In silence, they wire the door of the hut with a spring-mounted automatic and pray today's not the day that someone who isn't Jason or Cassandra decides to come looking for them. Jason will see the signs. They will know not to come any closer. They will know that if the grass is scorched, Nikita is not inside.

The plan all along has been to lead any pursuit out to dinosaur territory where they can get some help picking off the teams from the local fauna. It's a good plan, but they pick up radio chatter mixed English and Russian. Nikita can't tell if it's Amanda and Ari's people or Division, yet, but they're talking about taking hostages. About the island innocents. About having a bead on 'Nikita's little band of merry idiots'.

It's got Amanda written all over it, and even though they know it's a trap, even though Michael's dead by Brandt's hand, or Division's if what she's overheard is true... even though Birkhoff, Michael, Ryan, Sean, Owen, Alex are all dead according to what she heard in the days before Alex arrived, there's nothing else they can do. That kind of loyalty can't be bought, it can't be twisted, it can't be turned. Nikita won't leave them, dead or alive.

They agree to stay in contact by radio and that the first one who finds Jason gives him an extra radio and reads him in. It's not Nikita's favorite plan, but even on an island this small, without Birkhoff QBing, they have to split up. "I will see you when this is all over," she tells Alex, hugs her hard, and then sprints off before she can doubt her own words.

Six down, Amanda's Gogol-fluffed Division to go and it's not even five a.m.

[ooc: the final thread of this is locked to Nikita, Alex, and Jason and will take place in Division in dinosaur territory. Until then, feel free to encounter black-clad extremely well-trained Russian and English speaking assassins and/or Nikita anywhere else on the island. Note: warning for violence, murder, killing, death, but probably no torture or anything especially gruesome.]

Comments

[girlsolo]

The first time Kate sees the insect and reptile creatures, she thinks Abnormals and wonders who's nightmare they are, but there's no time to do anything about them before two soldiers with some pretty fucking impressive weaponry grab her.

Whatever they want, whoever they're here for, it's not her. If she wants to help, best chance is if they think she's toothless. That lasts until one of them mentions 'the Hawaiian kid', and in a heartbeat, everything she's ever learned is at her fingertips and steel-tipped boots.

She stops, head down, and one of them prods her with the nose of his automatic. His mistake. She grabs it, yanks him toward her, and before the surprise is done flickering in his eyes, bone and cartilage are crunching above his knee and her fist his slamming into his throat. His hold on the weapon releases, and she spins it around to shoot his partner before the woman's got enough distance to shoot her without hitting him. She's dead before she hits the ground and a few seconds later, so's the guy.

Kate's aware these two are way better trained than her and it's just dumb luck and sheer fury that made that work out, but goddamn it. No one threatens her kid.

Quick as a cat Kate strips them of all their useful weaponry and takes off again in search of the insectoids and reptilians she saw before. Because if they're Abnormals, they might go after Lilo too. Sanctuary's part of her ohana.

[prodigaljaybird]

He's killed three people.

He hadn't stopped to think about the first, saw scorched earth and a man in black, and he'd dropped him without a thought, squeezed an extra bullet into his head before he ever considered what Cap would say.

By the third, Jason's well past remorse.

There's fury in him, rage like he hasn't felt since Bruce disappeared, but Jason lets it in like the old friend it is, lets it feed him, make him faster, smarter, deadlier. He follows a pair of them - Division, they have to be, just like she said - and watches the fence. Three more slip out of dinosaur territory, and one of them says her name.

Jason spends two more bullets, and uses his knife on the third.

He takes their ammo and their comms, then slips inside himself, eyes wild but hands steady when he casts a line high into the trees.

[ms_legendary]

Nikita hears the comm chatter, staccato bursts of angry Russian. "Who is this one?" and "He's not Division-trained" and "He kills like Division" and then there are two cracks and no more sound. No more sound until she hears angry breathing in the comms, the now-familiar hiss and thwack of a line into the trees.

From her own perch, Nikita smiles grimly but her heart aches for what she's done to him. It doesn't take a season pass holder for Comic Con to know Robins aren't supposed to kill. "Hey, little bird," she says into the comms, false cheer radiating from her voice. "I'm looking for a butterfly. Have you seen her?" He knows that much by now, because he saw the drawing and Alex's tattoo. Now she just hopes he's a better Bat about codes than he is about killing, because if they hurt him, she's going to end every last one of them.

[babochka_x899]

Later, Alex will be able to say just how many agents she's killed, but until the threat is neutralized, she doesn't let the numbers touch her. Some of the faces have been familiar, agents she'd seen in the halls of Division, but Division has always been her enemy, even when she was using them and Amanda for her own ends, and she knows they wouldn't hesitate to kill her on their way to Nikita. So she kills, collecting weapons and comms or stashing them in hiding spots on the way: protect the innocent, protect her partner, protect herself, just like Nikita taught her.

By the time she sneaks her way into dinosaur territory, flanking and then taking out another team of three - you'd think they'd have figured out small teams weren't enough, but she's not going to complain that they haven't - and heads toward the rendezvous. If Nikita isn't there... the daughter of Nikolai Udinov will show what she is made of.

[ms_legendary]

Before Jason can answer, Nikita spots Alex on her way through the electric fence into dinosaur territory. "Spotted a rare monarch in the Paleozoic," she teases despite the growing tightness around her chest, her breath weighed down by the number of bodies they've left in their wake, the claims they may have to answer for, if they live to tomorrow. The lives Alex and Jason will have to answer for if she doesn't.

"Could really use our Nerd's eye view right now." That's mostly for Alex, bringing the three of them together in this. "I hate going up against this blind." And that's mostly for any Division-Gogol agents listening in on their chatter. She's not that blind, and Amanda taught them to use their fear, channel it.

Phoenix, Robin, Butterfly. They all have wings. Nikita wishes she could shake the feeling they're desperately going to need them. "Alex, I'm bird-catching. Meet you at rendezvous in five minutes. Little bird--" Don't give them his name, either of them. That's operational protocol. If she has anything to say about it, they're not going to be alive long enough to use it. "I'm coming to you. Stay put. Do you copy?"

[prodigaljaybird]

Jason's voice is rough when it comes, shredded with the angry tears he's been holding back ever since he found her hut, but his answer comes steadily. "I copy," he says, holding in the trees. It's a good vantage point - he can see nearly a full three hundred and sixty degrees below, and so far none of these agents have had the sense to search up.

He clears his throat, and then his voice does shake. "Are you okay?

[ms_legendary]

His voice wavers, fear and anger in it, but more hurt, and it slices through Nikita, softening her. Once upon a time, she'd have thought that softness a weakness, but Michael even more than Amanda, taught her it was her greatest strength.

She wings through the treetops like Jason taught her, alights on a branch next to him, steady and certain. Her face is dirt and soot-streaked and under the black body-armor she's been swiping piece by piece, she's got some bruises, but she's all right. Her unmasked eyes meet his and her hand rests steady on his arm when she tells him, "I'm fine, babe. Glad you had our backs out there even without me asking, sorry you got mixed up in this, but fine."

He probably won't appreciate it, but it doesn't stop Nikita from brushing her fingers through his hair. "Are you?" It's clear enough she's not asking about his body. That she can see for herself. But he needs to be okay before they go on. Because this isn't going to get any less bloody.

[prodigaljaybird]

"I'm good," says Jason, and he means it, even if he hadn't been only seconds ago. He'd heard her, but he needed to see her, feel the easy weight of her hand on his arm, and now he has. Pulling an arm up, he swipes the sweat from his forehead before it can drip into his eyes, anger still a living thing inside of him, but contained now, malleable once more. It's something Bruce would have wanted him to hide, or worse, never feel at all, but Nikita's never minded, and Jason actually smiles.

"What's the plan?"

[ms_legendary]

"The plan is to stay alive," Nikita answers, both perfectly serious and somehow glib at the same time. She's not making light of the situation, but Jason and Alex need her confident and cocky, not shaken to her core with overheard threats to bring her in to Division.

She smiles, even winks, when she glances back over her shoulder at Jason with a follow me curl of two fingers. "And if not, we take as many of them off the gameboard as possible and die trying." It sounds a lot more likely than it is, but even terrified, Nikita's never been one to accept that the odds are against her.

[babochka_x899]

It's not quite five minutes later when Nikita and Jason close on the RV point where Alex is waiting, keeping watch. The realization hits her, not for the first time, she misses Birkhoff chattering away on comms. It's not enough to distract her though, Nikita's training and Michael's - and yeah, she'd rather have him around too - keeping her focused on the objective, staying alive. "Everybody good?" she asks when they're in range.

[ms_legendary]

"Good's probably optimistic," Nikita answers through the comms, but she shoots a not too bruised or bloodied smile at Alex when they come in range. "Nobody's bleeding to death and we got ourselves--" A tip of her chin to Jason who's dropping down beside her and a little smile as she sets her hand on his shoulder again, definitely approving. "A guardian Robin." They've met, but they've never trained or worked together and, right now, their lives depend on Alex trusting Jason.

She gives Alex a quick hug and checks her over, nodding when she sees she's all right, too.

"The good news is, I was right. They are hiding Division in Dinosaur Territory." Keep it together, Nikita. One thing at a time. You can do this. "The bad news is, I was right. They're hiding Division in Dinosaur Territory."

[prodigaljaybird]

Jason doesn't exactly look trustworthy on the best of days, armed to the teeth and dangerous even without, it's obvious in the way he holds himself, the streak of white in his dark hair a shock that only makes his pale eyes burn brighter. But he grins and nods at Alex, rocking back on his heel as he adjusts a gauntlet.

"If anybody needs an extra gun," he adds, jerking a heavily strapped thigh, "I picked some up along the way."

[babochka_x899]

Looks can be deceiving, anyone who's been through Division knows that, and the important thing is that Nikita trusts Jason. It'd be better if they'd trained together, but there's no time to worry about that now. So she nods back.

"Bourne Identity in the Jurassic Park, sounds like fun." There are still pop culture references she doesn't get, but she's picked up enough to fake it most of the time. "Don't get eaten, don't get shot, take down as much of Division as we can, right?"

[ms_legendary]

Nikita's pretty sure neither of them are going to like what she has to suggest. Hell, she doesn't like what she has to suggest, but it's the only way. Whether this Division building is a product of her fears or it's been here all along, they're never going to survive the day if they can't shut it down.

"That's the basic gist of the plan," Nikita says, easing into it and wishing her heartrate would settle down. She hasn't reacted like this to a fight since training, except when she thought Michael was... Not the time for thinking about that. "Except for the part where, once we find Division HQ, I'm going to get captured, get inside, and shut them down while you two keep them busy out here."

[prodigaljaybird]

Jason's entire body tenses, palms itching for the weight of a firearm, but he doesn't draw. He likes to insist that Bruce hadn't taught him much, but he had taught him stillness, even if Jason never mastered it under his direction. Even so, stock still but for his breathing, Jason feels as if he's vibrating, the words coming clipped when he speaks them.

"Can you live through that?" he asks, cutting to the heart of it. He can do danger, he can do injury, but he won't do death. Not again, and not when it's her.

[babochka_x899]

"She's done it before." Alex hadn't liked it then, and she doesn't like it now. And last time, Alex had been on the inside and working to get her out. "Amanda won't want to kill her right away, not when she could try to break her first." It's the same argument Nikita used before sacrificing herself to save Alex when her 'graduation' went south, and Alex...she's not as green as she was then. If it's what they have to do, then that's the plan to go with.

[ms_legendary]

"I'm surprisingly hard to kill." Nikita gives Jason a reassuring smile she wishes she felt down to her toes, and then an upchinned thanks for the vote of confidence, babe to Alex. "And Alex is right. Whether it's Percy or Amanda or Amanda and Ari in there, they all have way too much invested in hating me to kill me. They need me. They're losing control of their people. If they want to get it back, they can't create a martyr. They need me to say I'm wrong."

And Nikita won't. There's nothing they can do to her to make her recant. Division's a cancer. It has to be eradicated. Percy, Amanda, Ari and Gogol, they all need to go down, hard.

"They know I'm not alone out here, so you need to stay sharp." Because there's nothing they can do to her that will make her recant, but they all know by now, you don't hurt Nikita by hurting Nikita. You hurt Nikita by hurting the people she loves. "Keep your heads down. I'm counting on you to get me out if it doesn't go down the way I plan."

She looks at each of them, a good long look, no just in case, but she wants their faces fresh in her mind, in case she forgets why she's doing this when the blows start falling. "Are we good?"

[prodigaljaybird]

Jason nods, once, adding with dreadful certainty, "Then we'll get you out." And though he's still riding the line between boy and man, chin lifted and addressing another pro, he can't stop himself adding, "Be careful. We only break so many times before we can't come back from it."

[babochka_x899]

"Good's probably optimistic," Alex gives Nikita's earlier words back to her, followed by a sharp chin nod to Jason because they will get her out.

When she asks Jason, "Do you speak Russian?" the question might seem like it comes out of nowhere, but Alex needs to know. At least half the comm chatter has been in Russian, not English, and while Alex trusts Nikita not to bring him into this fight if he can't handle it, better to ask now than find out too late an assumption's bit them on the ass.

[ms_legendary]

Jason's Russian's gotten a lot better than serviceable in the months since Nikita met him. He's been teaching her vigilante-tricks and she's been teaching him spycraft, everything from language skills to soft cons and how to turn vulnerability into strength.

But.

"Russian's not safe, babochka. We've got no idea how long Amanda's been working with Ari, and Russian's in the standard field ops training package anyway." She hates over-riding Alex's instincts, and normally she wouldn't, but if they're going to survive today, she can't take any extra chances. Not with their lives. "Use Mandarin."

And just like that, in a way Jason's probably used to from his 'family' and Alex is from Nikita-on-a-mission, she's off, trotting ahead into the jungle toward the last place in the universe she wants to be. They know what to do, and she has to trust them now to do it.

The first signs are the bodies. Not Division bodies, but civilians. They're faces she recognizes from around the island, but there's no time to identify them, to grieve, to apologize. Tomorrow's going to have to be soon enough for goodbyes and apologies. If...

No ifs, no ifs, Nikita, you know that. If you start thinking in ifs, you're dead already. The only way to be invincible is to believe it. Which is why, when she fakes being "found" a half an hour later in clear sight of the entrance tunnel to "Division", the only thing she says, loud enough for both her partners to hear is, "My name is Nikita, and you have one chance to save your own lives."

It doesn't work. It never does. One of the soldiers tells her to shut up, in Russian, and knocks her in the back of a head with a rifle butt. She's unconscious before she hits the ground.

[babochka_x899]

Never assume the enemy doesn't understand the language you're using. It was one of the first lessons Nikita had taught her, and Alex had taken advantage more than once of others making that assumption. But she doesn't correct Nikita she'd been asking so she'd know if Jason could understand their current enemies' Russian.

"Mandarin, then if we have to talk," she says once Nikita's moved off toward Division HQ. "But with Russian ears on them." A tip of her head suggests let's go, and she's all business. "Every one we draw out and put down is one less that can touch her, right?"