2014.04.07 - Boom! Fzzt! Thunk!

Previous logs in this story arc are: Pop Goes The Co-Ed and ...But Then I took An Arrow To The Knee

It’s almost two weeks now since Clint and Etta went in with the rest of the team to trace the source of the drugs that led to the two Columbia University co-eds exploding in their dorm room. They weren’t in time to save two more girls from decapitation in the basement of the warehouse being used as an underground night club, but they did, at least, manage to bag the pseudo-doctor in the backseat that was, at least in part, responsible.

Doctor Jack Hart, former biomedical research scientist at Johns Hopkins University, dismissed in 2011 for gross ethical misconduct, and now... well, it’s somewhat unclear what exactly the less-than-good Doctor is up to these days, though it can probably safely be described as ‘no good’. The longer he’s been in SHIELD custody, the more agitated he’s become, but thus far he’s given up very little in the way of information about the reasons for his gruesome actions or the mysterious white-haired man that left the scene before they went in. Still, he may not be ready to talk... yet... but he’s getting close it would seem.

Which makes this situation that much more frustrating. Normally SHIELD’s international jurisdiction and credentials would exempt them from having to undertake anything so lowly as a detention hearing in a US court. Oh, sure, if they happen to hold someone with a good enough legal team, and if that legal team happens to /know/ they’re being so held, they might go through the motions of filing this or that writ or motion, which SHIELD lawyers would have quashed as matter of practice. And the whole thing really amounts to nothing more than volleys of paperwork. But this time... someone seems to have pulled enough strings to have actually managed to require them to actually produce the Doctor in a special court. The dismissal is a given, and just a matter of form, but that they have to show up at all is rather remarkable.

After running all this by Clint and hearing his concerns about the unusual nature of this hearing and all its implications, they haven’t spared any measures in the transport. Once the helicopter lands they’re met by two armored and fully outfitted black SHIELD SUVs and another team of agents to run support for the trip over and back. The harried and slightly haggard looking Doctor is slipped into the backseat of the SUV ‘Etta and Clint will be taking, still occasionally shouting, “I want my phone call! I have rights! I’m a US Citizen!”

Henrietta, dressed in her black, skin-tight SHIELD-issue tactical gear, just rolls her eyes at Clint in response to the Doctor. “Would you like to drive or shall I? I promise I’m getting much better about remembering which side of the road you Yanks prefer.”

Clint smile to her, "You can drive." He says, "That way I can keep a look out." he is in his Avenger Uniform since that is what he had on when he was talking with Maria no long ago. He looks to the doctor, "I hope you enjoy the field trip is it the last one you will get for a while."

The Doctor, having mostly gotten used to being ignored when he’s not being vigorously questioned, looks at Clint sullenly from the backseat of the SUV, slumped forward in seeming defeat.

”Righty-O” Etta chirps, wandering over to the other two agents to collect the keys from them. “We’d like you to run point if you don’t mind. Just... in case. “ She says in an attempt to keep things light. “Agents... Martin and Chance, isn’t it? The address and route should be in the GPS. So whenever you’re ready then?”

They nod and smile and part ways, Etta moving around to slip into the driver’s seat and check to make sure everything’s just so with both the car and the equipment strapped to her thighs. “So its... the right side, yes? No left... no... well, it’ll come to me.” She teases Clint with a grin.

He smiles over to Agent Black, "Well if you forget just take your half out of the middle that way you will be at least half right." he gets himself buckles in but fidgets a bit. "Always feel s confines with a quiver on, car seats were just not made for them."

“You /would/ look rather dashing on a horse, but I don’t think they’re ideal for prisoner transport. Still, you’d get points for style...” Etta observes, putting the car in gear and pulling out onto the road without immediately crashing into any oncoming traffic. A promising start. She follows along in the wake of the lead SUV for several blocks, her blue-green gaze shifting left, right, ahead, to her mirrors. She seems to be taking his concerns about an ambush to heart.

”It’s not too much farther. We moved the drop point to keep this as unpredictable and short as possible. So, no matter what happens... at least we’ve taken every precaution.” She observes in a murmur.

He grins, "Well I did ride in my old act a few times.' he looks back to the prisoner then to Etta, then back outside the vehicle he keeps his eyes moving as well. "You have and even if nothing happens that was a good call to make."

She steals a quick glance at him out of the corner of her eyes at his mention of riding in the circus. “Did you? I did too...” a pause of a beat and she says with wry amusement. “I took Bruce for a lesson the other day. It was a lot of fun and he only fell of once. I think that next time....”

She trails off into nothing, her brows furrowing together slightly as she looks up into the air over the SUV in front of her where a little shadow is /just/ visible against the pale illumination of the cloudy afternoon sky. “What’s that...?”

He looks at the shadow and tries to focus in on it to get a good look at what it could be. He says to her, Be careful.' he shifts a bit unbuckling his belt and getting the bow out. "Looks like you might have a visitor Doc."

The words are no sooner past his lips than the deceptively small little shadow spits out a blast of light that results in the SUV in front of them flipping sideways in a lurid explosion of flame. ‘Etta doesn’t even have time to curse, pulling on the wheel hard with a screech of tires to avoid plowing into her upended SHIELD companions. Another blast of light carves a cavern out of the road just where they would have been an instant ago, but that’s about as far as Henrietta’s driving skills carry them.

An instant later a nondescript white box van rams the side of their already skidding SUV, sending them spiraling about several times before Etta manages to control the skid to a halt.

Clint picked the exact wrong time to unbuckle. He manages to hang onto the bow in that mess but he bounces around his seat, the door and the dash enough that he will be bruised in the morning. He looks over to Etta, "You alright?' he asks as he is already in motion he opens the door and steps out of the van moving away from it attempting to draw some fire from the vehicle and the agent and prisoner inside. And of course if he draws said fire it gives him a target to shoot back at.

Etta has a bloodied welt across her forehead when the car’s finally stopped, but enough presence of mind to nod at Clint. She’s got the prisoner if he’s got... well, most all the rest of things. And if there’s any blessing to be had here its that the guys in the van take just as long to recover from the impact as Clint does, if not a little bit more. They’re just climbing out of the van, guns drawn, when Clint’s climbing out the shattered window of the SUV.

There’s three guys, all fit and dressed in coveralls that make them look like they work in a warehouse. Or would, if they weren’t armed with automatic weapons, all of which are raising towards Clint.

A shot rings out from behind him as one of the agents from the overturned SUV is wriggling out of the window, forcing the three guys in coveralls to think about taking cover. Meanwhile Etta is recovered enough to make some effort to secure the cuffed and disoriented doctor in the back of the SUV, her H&K drawn and ready.

It would all be very handle-able, were it not for the drone with the energy weapons. It makes another pass just then, shooting at the ground near Clint’s feet and filling the air with the smell of melted asphalt.

Alright men in coveralls they are a problem but the back up agents and Etta are trained well enough to deal with them. That drone might be a different story. The pavement around him erupts as a result of the energy blast and send him into the air he regains enough of his composure to turn it into a summersault but he still lands hard giving him a few more future pains to worry about another time. He quickly draws and fires an arrow at the drone the first one is just a normal hunting tip, he test out this new devices durability. He is already nocking another arrow as the first one flies toward the drone.

Ping. The ordinary arrow hits the target true, as any arrow Hawkeye fired is likely to, but its shell is apparently going to need something more to disrupt it. It does veer a little to one side under the impact, however, which is helpful in saving the bloodied Agent Chance still hanging halfway out of his overturned SUV from being toasted like a marshmallow at summer camp. The energy beam hits the pavement in front of him, spitting up chunks of dirt and half-melted paving material at him.

Meanwhile the three guys in coveralls are spreading out, starting to try and flank Clint and Etta’s SUV. “Bugger.” She says when she notes this, crawling over into the backseat and grabbing the doctor by the cuffs. “They’re going to try and flank us and all our rides are dead in the water...” She calls out to Clint just before firing through the back window at one of the approaching men, at least forestalling his ability to circle around behind them.

Clint nods at the intel for Etta, "Alright." He then fires the second arrow at the drone. This one delivers an electrical charge on impact. He then turns his attention on the man in overalls going to the front of the SUV. He shoots an arrow towards him as well this one will not hit him it does not even get close instead it arcs in front of him and gives off a blinding flash in the attempt to cause him to be blinded while the Avenging Archers runs forward using the hood of the SUV as a vault to then flip over and into the hopefully blinded gunman.

There’s a visible sizzle of electricity as Clint’s arrow latches onto the drone on its next pass. It wobbles right and left before its electrical systems are completely fried, at which point it sort of sails in a lazy arc down to connect at speed with the ground. A shower of drone-parts testify to the fact that it won’t be causing Clint any more problems.

Neither will the guy with Clint’s boots in his chest, though it’s a near thing. Blinded by the whizzing arrow, he fires his automatic rifle in a few wild arcs, peppering nearby cars and drawing a scream from bystanders who haven’t been quick enough to flee the area yet. He’s down a moment later, though not totally out, just winded. And meanwhile, the guy to his right has enough distance from the tracer arrow that he’s not totally blind and still armed. He squints, starting to train his gun on Clint.

By this point, Etta has the cuffed Dr. Hart out of the back of the SUV and is using him as a bit of a shield to deter his would-be rescuers. She spies the guy turning toward Clint and fires off a round, likely half-deafening the good doctor in the process. It just wings his arm but doesn’t put him down. And there’s another fast-advancing dot on the horizon that looks to be another incoming drone.

Clint sees the dot, "We got another incoming radio for back up." He shouts to Agent change then he kicks the gun away from the tug he landed on. "Nice shooting." Clint compliments Etta and she wings the one that was aiming at him and he sends a blunt arrow at him to finish the job. He then looks around, 'You take care of the one in back?" He asks her.

That’s one of the three down for the count at least. Clint’s blunt arrow hits him in the temple, making his eyes roll up into his head before he collapses into a boneless heap, his gun falling from his limp hand. The guy Clint knocked to the ground is starting to recover though, lashing out at Agent Barton’s feet with the butt end of his gun as he tries to get his fingers back on the trigger.

Which just leaves the third guy. He glares at Etta as she keeps the wild-eyed Doctor between him and her and finally, apparently, decides that either extraction is optional or that he’s a really good shot, because he brings his gun up and aims. Etta, however, already has her gun up and trained on him, so it’s actually not that difficult for her to get a shot off first. He dives out of the way, tucking into a roll and taking cover behind an abandoned Subaru. “We’re taking fire. Both cars down, Agents Chance and Martin are hurt... we need back up and a cordon for crowd control!” Etta says into her ear piece com during the brief lull.

It’s very brief. The second drone zips overhead, spitting energy blasts that shatter car windows and dislodge chunks of asphalt. Adrenaline does rather tend to encourage hasty decision making, and in the moment Etta’s first thought is that Clint has his back turned to it. With one hand wrapped around the doctor she detaches her tactical aerial silks from her thigh holster and aims it up at the drone. It connects with a thunk, which makes the first part of her plan successful. The next, however, was probably not entirely anticipated.

Instead of pulling /it/ out of the air, it pulls /her/ straight off her feet. It would probably carry her off entirely except she manages as she’s being ripped off the ground to hook her foot into the Doctor’s handcuffs, and their combined weight is enough to sort of tether it in place, albeit a lot like a lassoed stallion.

”CLINT!” she shouts, the pair of them being jerked right and left as the drone tries to break free of its harness.

Hawkeye turns to the sound of her voice then is momentarily taken off guard off all the things he expected to see that was not one of them. He says, "Alright this could get interesting." he climbs on top of the SUV and sparing a second to fire one of his tear gas arrows at the thug on the ground reaching for the trigger of his gun. He then leaps up trying to grab ahold of the Doctor hoping his weight will turn the tide.

That’s two. The second thug immediately starts to cough and cry, and though he’s trying to flee now its at a literal crawl that suggests that they’ll have time to deal with him if they’re not, you know, carried off by a laser spitting drone. Etta manages to get off one more shot as she dangles there, keeping guy number 3 pinned down behind the Subaru before Clint leaps onto the Doctor and starts to try and tug her and the drone out of the sky.

”Uh! Got another... electrical-whatsit in your quiver?” She manages to ask, her voice strained, as one might expect from a girl caught between an advanced robotic drone and two guys hanging form her ankles. The drone teeters about wildly, firing a few poorly aimed shots into more cars before it starts to sputter. A bit. They could be here a while.

"Yeah." He then lets go with one hand to draw the arrow from his quiver. He the tosses the arrow up at the drone. He is not nearly as skilled with thrown objects but thankfully the target is only about 12 feet away a bit less depending on the heights of Etta and the Doctor and conveniently straight up. "Let’s hope they do not have a third drone on the way I did not pack a lot of them."

Fzzt. Another shower of sparks and the drone gives out, dropping Etta with a loud ‘thwap’ sound directly atop the now helplessly weeping Doctor. “Bloody hell.” ‘Etta mutters, wincing a little as she gets to her feet. She looks sheepishly at Hawkeye and says, “Sorry about that. It was the first thing that popped into my head.”

”Oh DO stop, won’t you? Its over!” She calls out to the third guy who is attempting to creep around the car. This is followed by another ping of gunfire to keep him in place, just as the sound of approaching sirens herald the arrival of backup.

He gets up and says, "No it was not a bad idea. Keep those instincts the unexpected can often save your life." He shoves the Doctor off him once Etta gets up. He then lies to the gunman, "I would give up if I were you the only arrows I have left are the explosive variety and well the leave a mark."

Henrietta smiles her gratitude at Hawkeye, giving a little shake of her head for lack of ready words. But what she’s thinking is something akin to ‘My mentor is an amazing badass’ and it shows in her face. A moment later she turns towards the car, noting that Agent Chance has already managed to pull Agent Martin from the wreckage of their overturned SUV, and though the latter is unconscious and bloody, he’s at least not dead. And by now other SUVs have begun screeching up, disgorging fresh agents that run up with weapons drawn.

”There, there and there!” Etta calls out, indicating the positions of the three fallen assailants, the latter of whom has wisely dropped his gun and is kneeling with hands raised. “Have a sci-tech team come clear the scene after. We have some broken toys we’ll want analyzed. And clear the ambulances for transport. There may be some civilian casualties as well, but I’m not sure...” She heaves a sigh and looks to Clint, the bloody welt on her forehead standing out sharply against her pale skin. “We’re going to have to reschedule this hearing again.”

Clint nods "But maybe this attack was enough to at least convince the Judge to come to us." he then stands up and moves her hair from her forehead to look at the welt, "you might want to get that checked out." he is of course ignoring the various bruises, scrapes and abrasions that he has from this little encounter.

She gives him a small but distinctly adoring smile, and despite the weeping Doctor, the wreckage of cars and concrete and the sudden onslaught of a dozen agents, for a moment she only has eyes for her mentor. “Thank you.” She says quietly. “For everything. The training, the advice... for not letting me be carried away by a flying laser cannon. You’re the best mentor a girl could ask for.” She adds with a grin that’s grown a bit wry.