Part 6

HYDRA Attacks!

By Skytower

Tania didn't like the hospitals in man's world. They were cold, clinical and to her mind almost soulless. The doctors, nurses and orderlies she passed in the corridor seemed barely human. They were stick figures. The curious stares she received only added to her anger. These were medical professionals, they had to have seen a woman’s body before? Even if her Ultrawoman costume was skimpy by their standards…

Stop that, she told herself. The people in here are as dedicated as any Amazon healer. They are giving Wanda the best care they know how to give. And you know well that your costume is meant to attract attention.

Tania felt the anger subside. She knew it wasn't really directed at the people in the hospital, it was rage against men in general. Against the world in general really. Tania had been Ultra Woman for many years now. Over the years a thick skin had grown over her emotions. One that scared her at times. She worried that she would stop caring or stop feeling outrage at the evil that men were capable of. What was done to Wanda reminded her that it would never happen. But it also reminded Tania that the same thing could happen to her or her friends. The cruelty of a man like Whiplash made Tania long for the peace of serenity of her home. She had to keep reminding herself that there were good people in man's world. The people who worked in the hospital were just as just as caring as any of the women who worked in the healing temple on her home island. But the cold steel, concrete, glass, and sterile structure that made up Liberty Memorial Hospital had none of the warmth, humanity or love of the temple. It was an oddly shaped lump of a building that was either comical or disturbing depending on which way you looked at it. It was a horrible example of Brute Force Architecture that spoke more of the city’s corrupt civil structure than anything else. The Amazon Temple of Life with its wide open buildings where sunlight flowed in daily and moonlight floated in nightly was a place to heal the spirit as well as the body. A place where a sick woman could look up at the sky and lose herself in the infinite blue or loose herself in the infinite stars. Not lay helplessly on her back and stare at a cold pattern on a ceiling tile. Even the art in the hospital seemed bland. Empty landscapes no doubt mass-produced in some assembly line. The cracks on the wall were more interesting.

You would do better in the temple my sister, Tania thought as she entered Wanda's room and gazed at Wanda's wan form. A patch of setting sunlight from the window had landed on Wanda's exposed hand but her skin seemed to be rejecting the sunlight. Her arm twitched weakly as if trying to avoid the sunbeam. Wanda's face was tightly drawn against her skull, reminding Tania of a death mask.

Tania knew she shouldn't have expected anything else. After a week of torture, whipping and horrible food Wanda was lucky to be alive. Tania's soul burned with fury as she remembered the condition of Wanda when they had pulled her out of the Hydra base. This was a beautiful caring woman who had never wanted to hurt anyone and she had been tortured just for fun. Never would Tania understand the joy that some people took from others pain. Now Wanda lay on specially constructed sheets of anti-chafing foam. Usually those sheets were for burn victims. But with his lash the villain Whiplash had scoured most of the flesh from Wanda's body. Any movement, any breath brought her pain. Only the morphine drip kept her in any sort of comfort at all. But Tania knew that the morphine wouldn't last forever. It could dull the pain, but all too soon it would become a pain all of its own. The race was between Wanda's body healing and Wanda's body becoming addicted to morphine. But it had been nearly 2 weeks and Wanda showed no sign of improvement. She'd only been awake once or twice and hadn't been aware of her environment at all. That wasn’t normal.

Tania turned to the blue haired mutant that stood beside the bed. Hank McCoy-also known as the Beast-was perhaps one of the most brilliant doctors she had ever known, even if he did look like a large blue ape in a suit.

"Well, Hank?" She asked.

"Whatever they were feeding her was toxic to her system," Hank replied. "But it's the insect bites that are truly the problem. Some species of spider bite that I can't identify. And if I can't…”

There was a knock on the door, and it opened. Tania wasn't worried, the hospital and the room was well defended with surveillance devices that would have warned her of an enemies approach. White Owl walked into the room followed by a nurse.

"How is she?" White Owl asked.

"Not much better," Hank admitted reluctantly.

"Excuse me," the nurse said to Tania. "Are you Ultrawoman?"

"Yes," Tania said, wondering if she would have to sign an autograph and try not to show her annoyance.

"This is for you," the nurse said handing her a folder. She turned to White Owl and handed her a similar folder. "And this is for you White Owl."

She turned and quickly left the room, closing the door behind her. Tania opened the folder and saw a small folded piece of paper inside of it. Puzzlement turned to fury as she recognized the paper. She saw the same look of fury on White Owl's face.

"A court summons!" Tania growled.

"They can't be serious," Athena said.

"Yes," Jenifer Walters said from behind her desk. “They can and they are.”

Tania felt an urge to hit something. She knew that Athena felt the same way. But smashing anything in the Avengers Legal Offices wouldn’t do any good. Not that the offices hadn’t been wrecked before, but that had been by supervillains. The tastefully and expensively furnished set of offices were staffed by a group of lawyers whose only job was to smooth over the various legal problems of the Avengers and their allies.

"Basically," Jenifer said "the firm of Hammer, Hammer and Angel are suing you-both of you-for excessive force."

"Why both of us?" Athena demanded.

"I was the one who broke Whiplash's wrist," Tania said.

"They know that," Jen said, matching Tania’s smile with her own. "But you did more than break it. You pulped it. He may never use it again and he’s crying pretty loudly about that. They're using that as a smokescreen to try to get a reduced sentence."

"Will it work?" Tania asked.

"Not with Abby Carmichael, heading the prosecution," Jen said. "She's holding out for him to turn state's evidence against Hydra. He won't I'm sure of that but in the meantime Hammer are going to make Whiplash look as pathetic as possible for the jury.

“After what he did to Wanda?” Tania demanded. “What of sympathy for her?”

“H,H & A are working on that too,” Jenifer said. “She’s a mutant and was with the Brother Hood of Evil Mutants, her father is Magneto. They've already got that Midnight Metro rag doing an exposé on her. They’re going to try to portray this as two supervillains fighting it out."

“Will it work?” Athena asked.

“I doubt it,” Jenifer said. "And as head of the Avengers legal division, I'll work hard to make sure it doesn't. But it won’t be easy. To the average person on the jury anyone with superpowers is dangerous. To most of them a fight between two people in costumes is like a wrestling match on TV and you can be damn sure that Hammer will try to fill the jury box with those type of people."

"So what do we do?" Athena asked.

"Show up on time for court," Jenifer said. "But before then I want to set up some mock trials with you. I have some friends who used to work at Hammer, they'll put you on the stand and do exactly what Hammer will do to you so you be ready for it. Be ready to be raked over the coals. At the real trial Abby will give you as much cover as she can, but it will be rough."

"Sometimes I hate the legal system," Athena said as they walked down the steps of the legal office building. "A mock trial! I barely have time to be a superhero!"

"Testifying will not be easy," Tania said, wondering how she could fit this into her own schedule and still keep an eye on Wanda.

"It'll be like being strapped into a torture rack," Athena agreed. "And we…"

Tania saw a blur of motion out of the corner of her eye. Anyone else might have ignored it, but not someone who’d spend most of her life as a scout in the wilderness. She pushed Athena, away from her even as she leapt up to avoid the blow, but it was too late. The blur became a silver streak that wrapped itself around her ankle. Tania screamed as electricity surged through her body. She didn't have the chance to scream again as her leg was nearly pulled from its socket when the whip around her ankle was yanked back. Tania hit the ground with enough force to crack the concrete pavement. Standing about 10 feet away from her was a thickly built man wearing a black body suit and mask with an orange stripe running down the front. From his right wrist, a coiled metal whip had wrapped itself around Tania's ankle.

"Hail Hydra!" He shouted as he raised his other arm. Another whip appeared, shooting out from the arm. Glowing with electrical energy it arched toward Tania's head.

A trap, Tania’s shaken mind told her. But how? How did they know where we would be?

Athena had a split second to realize what was going on before something big and gray hit her hard. She flew through the air and only her strength saved her from multiple broken bones when she slammed into the wall. Stunned, it was only Athena's long experience and training that got her to roll out of the way before the massive fist slammed into a wall where she had been a split second before. Getting unsteadily to her knees Athena looked up and saw a very large broad mass of a man in a gray rhino suit.

"Hail Hydra!" The Rhino said as he charged at her again.

Dazed Tania reacted instinctively, and wrongly. As the whip came toward her she raised her wrist to block it with her bracelet. Even as she was moving her arm Tania knew that it was the wrong thing to do. But her mind wouldn't work fast enough to stop the arm from rising. One whip was already wrapped around her ankle and now the other wrapped around her bracelet. The electricity raced from one contact to the next and used her body as a conduit. Tania felt her heart skip a beat, stop and start again and skip another beat. Every muscle in her body froze. A harsh metallic taste filled her mouth. Her wrist and her ankle started to burn as a cold sweat enveloped her body.

When the Constrictor pulled in his whips Tania collapsed to the ground twitching. She could barely think and even if she could have her body was not going to move. Through a dim haze of pain she saw another whip coming toward her.

Athena tried to dodge again, but the Rhino’s blow caught her in left side and sent her reeling into the wall. He'd caught her in the corner and there was no way to dodge to and she was too rattled fly. She felt her ribs cracked under the impact and insanely wished that they hadn't use granite for the foundation of the building. Dazed, she was still able to reach into her belt and pull out a shock bomb. She dove to one side and tossed the bomb. It exploded but before she could do anything the Rhino had grabbed her ankle. The bomb hadn’t fazed him at all. Athena had a moment of dizziness as she was lifted into the air before the Rhino slammed her into the pavement as if she were a hammer driving a nail into a board.

Somehow Tania managed to stagger to her feet. She wasn't sure how, later she wouldn't even remember doing it. It was a mistake. The Constrictor’s whip wrapped itself around her neck and he jerked her off balance. As soon as he released the whip Tania tumbled head over heels down the stone steps of the courthouse and hit her head against a fire hydrant. A few moments later White Owl flew through the air and landed on top of her. White owl was strong enough to roll off of Tania but not strong enough to do anything else. The Constrictor and Rhino stood at the top of the stairs and both shouted: "Hail Hydra!" Then the Constrictor's whips lashed out again.

Tania felt the whip burn as the metal sliced between her breasts. Her costume split open, leaving them nearly exposed. Beside her White Owl's costume was also torn. The Rhino stomped down the steps of the courthouse and grabbed each heroin by her ankle. Tania felt new wave of pain as her head bounced off of each stone step.

When they reached the top of the stairs the Rhino shifted his grip from their ankles to their hair and pulled them into a semi-standing position. They were being displayed to a crowd that had gathered. Even in the kind of pain she was in Tania saw that there were at least 10 men in Hydra uniforms pointing guns at the crowd.

How did they take us by surprise, Tania wondered through her pain. Where have they all come from? She wished that she could do more than ask questions of herself but she was too weak to move.

"Everyone listen up," the Constrictor shouted. "This is what you get when you mess with Hydra! We're taking these two with us, and we are going to teach them what it means to mess with Hydra! The next time you see them they'll be in pieces!"

"Hail Hydra!" The men shouted in almost a chanted chorus. "Immortal Hydra! Cut off a head and two more will grow in its place! We serve none but the master as the world will soon serve us!"

The Rhino grabbed her throat and tightened his grip and Tania felt her throat start to close. Every instinct, every bit of adrenaline she had worked to get her body to move. This was death, her brain told her body. Work or die! But the body ignored the brain. Random electrical charges still ran up and down her nervous system scrambling any commands. All that her body managed to do was moan. The brain wouldn't give up even as Tania's vision started to gray out.

"The next time you see them…" The Constrictor started to shout.

"Avengers assemble!"

Tania recognized the red white and blue blur that sailed past her head as Captain America's shield. The Rhino let her go and she fell the ground and into darkness.

Part 7

The Enslavement of Ms. Marvel

Tania hated hospitals and man's world, but she hated them even more when she was a patient. It was nearly a week after the attack she was still sore and her hands still twitched. She still tasted tinfoil in her mouth. Athena had luckily escaped from serious injury and would be out of the hospital the next day. Tania was almost jealous. Athena had just been beaten, not beaten and electrocuted.

It had been a setup, Tania thought for the thousandth time. She walked down the hospital corridor at her mind replayed the attack again and again. They had popped up out of nowhere! No warning. Normally any teleport system created a noise or tingling sensation as energy was displaced in the air. Tania had noticed either of them. Some people looked at her as she walked down the corridor but she didn’t get the stares this time. She was in a hospital gown and robe, not her costume. Not that it could ever be proven but Tania was sure that the legal firm representing Whiplash had timed the attack perfectly. Of course there was no way to prove that.

She stopped at the door to Wanda's room and knocked.

"Come in," a soft voice answered.

Tania stepped into the room and saw that Wanda was no better and in fact looked worse. Her skin was going to gray and she was noticeably thinner. Beside her bed a tall blonde sat reading a magazine. Tania knew her, Carol Danvers otherwise known as Ms. Marvel. She had never fought beside the woman though they had met socially. Carol was wearing a pair of jeans and a Grateful Dead T-shirt. Tania knew that she was a little slimmer, her shoulders a little narrower and her breast smaller but other than that Carol Danvers could have been a sister.

"How you feeling?" Carol asked putting the magazine down.

"Fine," Tania said.

"That's good," Carol said "now how you feeling really?"

"Like every muscle in my body is on strike," Tania admitted. She gratefully took the chair as Carol stood up. "More importantly how is Wanda doing?"

"She's..." Carol started to reply but a beeping from the pocket of Tania's robe interrupted her. At the same time a spider dropped from the ceiling and landed on Carol's head.

Tina stepped out of the shadow in the corner of the room followed by Shadow Web. A quick check showed her that all was well. Tania was frozen, her mind stopped in an instant of time. Ms. Marvel was also frozen, her mind ensnared in a web. The Scarlet Witch was still asleep. The sight of them helpless made Tina feel more confident but a random noise outside the door nearly made her heart stop. If that was Thor or Captain America then they were cooked. For a moment images of prison cells floated across her eyes.

"I cannot hold her for long," Shadow Web said strain evident in her voice. "Do it quickly."

"Just hold Ms. Marvel," Tina said rushing over to the bed. Taking a small pile of red liquid from her pocket she opened Wanda's mouth and poured the liquid into her. Wanda swallowed it with an unconscious moan.

"There!" Shadow Web declared with hate in her voice. "Drink that potion daughter of gypsies!"

Leaving Scarlet Tina moved, grabbing Ms. Marvel and lowering her to the floor. Whatever the reward this was crazy to do. They could have waited until Ms. Marvel was in her apartment. They were in a heavily guarded hospital and the Avengers were already on the alert because of the attack on Ultrawoman and White Owl. But Shadow Web insisted that the Scarlet Witch be changed now and not later and Modok wanted Ms. Marvel to suffer. Tina was out voted. Again!

All I have to do is get this done without getting caught, Tina thought. Come on girl, you can do this. It's not like all the other times when you failed. Tina swallowed hard at the thought. When she had been younger she had been so sure of her of own invincibility. But defeat after defeat, failure after failure had left her scarred. For all of her intelligence Tina was a poor prisoner, prey to inmates and guards alike. But while she was scared of being caught she hated the heroines who had everything. She hated the society that bred them and that they protected. A society that had never done her anything but harm no matter what promises had been made.

Despite her fear Tina held her fingers steady as they moved around Ms. Marvel's mouth. She moved as quickly as before, drilling, implanting the seed and repairing the tooth. But by the time she was finished sweat was dripping off her forehead. Then she stood Ms. Marvel upright and turned to go back toward the shadow portal.

I should be enjoying this, she thought. These bitches have everything; they have it handed to them! But if I get caught, damn! I'm just not a danger junkie!

There was a noise outside the door and her heart stopped. Both she and Shadow Web looked at each other, wondering what to do. But after a few moments nothing happened. Relieved Tina ran back into the shadow and vanished. Shadow Web followed her and with a jerk pulled her spider in.

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