A coordinated sweep for a compliant withdrawal, Pandora's Box sets sail
Red lights began to illuminate the area, stretching from the entrance of the tunnel to the Landing Pad, seemingly endless.
Hela stood in front of the sensor screen, looked at it for three breaths, and suddenly laughed.
"Alright," she said, "I've been holding it in all this way."
No one stopped her.
Wanda tightened the Scarlet seal on the Archive Cabinet again and took a half step back. "The cabinet remains in the Main Control Room," Jean's Psychic Power watched. She paused, "I'm going out for some exercise."
Jean Grey opened her eyes. "I'll guard the seal on the Recognition Layer," she said, "But those big ones at the end of the passage are mine."
In a few words, the division of labor was settled. There was no arguing or fighting. Gwen Stacy stood in front of the Control Console, holding the Data Pad, momentarily stunned.
"Ladies and gentlemen," she cleared her throat, "a reminder. This is Abandoned Timeline, and the rules are fragile. Using large-scale methods will trigger a secondary Pruning Protocol, and the data we just analyzed—"
"I know." Hela interrupted her, raising her hand to summon the Night Sky Sword. The blade, unsheathed, was pitch black, devoid of any light. "No explosions, no burning, no tearing of space. Just one strike at a time."
"How long will you keep cutting?"
"Cut until all are cut."
A thin layer of red light rose from Wanda's fingertips, condensing and lingering. "I only disassembled the joints," she said, "It doesn't take much magic."
Qin didn't speak, but simply straightened her cuffs.
Gwen Stacy looked at the three of them and swallowed the rest of her words. She added a line to the supervisor's log: Clearance operation, force level -- restraint. After writing it, she looked at it and felt that the two words were rather forced, but she couldn't think of a more appropriate one.
The passageway door opened.
Hela was the first to go in.
The first row of Mechanical Guards ' eye sockets flashed red light, and the gears in their chests had only turned half a circle when the sword arrived. There was no slashing sound; the blade went in along the guard's neck and came out from his side, splitting the more than ten-foot-tall iron behemoth into two pieces with a clean cut, without even a few sparks flying.
The second row surrounded her. Hela didn't retreat but advanced, her sword moving with her, each step a step, each step a segment. She didn't walk fast, even leisurely. Wherever she passed, metal debris fell to both sides, making way for a straight path.
Wanda followed behind her. She didn't touch the sword, but only raised her hand. The red light was so thin it was almost invisible, but it slipped into the gaps between the guards' joints and twisted gently. The knees of the guards at the front buckled, and they all knelt down in unison, their arms still in a forward-leaning position, frozen in place. She walked over and touched the core of each of their necks with her fingertips. The red light entered their bodies, and the gears stopped turning.
He patiently selected each machine, one by one.
Qin walked at the back. She didn't make a move, only occasionally raising her eyes. Whenever a guard tried to flank her, the red light in her eyes would go out before they could even get close— her Psychic Power would penetrate and turn that pitiful program into a mess, leaving the iron shell standing in place, a mere decoration.
At the end of the passage stood six heavy guards, each over two zhang tall, with rotary cannons mounted on their arms. The cannons were preheating, humming loudly.
Qin stopped and raised one hand.
Six machine guns fired simultaneously. The hail of bullets came crashing down, stopping abruptly three feet in front of her, suspended in mid-air, a dense, layered mass. She clenched her fingers. The bullets returned along their original path, penetrating the cannon barrels, causing the six heavy guards to explode from the inside, their parts scattering all over the ground with a crackling sound.
"Special Envoy," Gwen Stacy's voice came through the rear communicator, tinged with helplessness, "We agreed not to bomb."
"They exploded themselves." Qin withdrew her hand and dusted off her sleeve. "I'm just returning the things."
Gwen Stacy crossed out the word "restraint" in the record and changed it to: "Overall under control".
The guards on the Landing Pad awoke row by row, only to fall again. Hela's sword never stopped; no blood was seen on the blade, only engine oil trickling down its spine. When she struck the seventieth machine, her movements remained steady, almost mechanically so. But Natasha, standing before the sensors in the Main Control Room, saw it clearly—every strike landed precisely on a vital spot, every strike's force perfectly controlled, not a single bit wasted.
This is not a clearance operation.
This is to vent. Using these metal shells, we can release the anger that has been building up all along the way.
"A side note from the Inspection Office," Natasha said slowly into the communication channel, "Please dismantle them carefully. These guards are old TVA products. If any core Chip are still intact, bring them back to headquarters; they'll be evidence."
"What do you need the evidence for?" Hela sliced open the breastplate of a Guardian with her sword, casually picked out the Chip, and threw it towards the entrance of the passage.
"Check it out," Natasha caught the Chip and examined it against the light. "How many years have they been guarding this place? And who gave them orders to only wake up when we cut the cabinet away?"
There was a moment of silence on the channel.
Wanda shattered the core of a Guardian, then calmly replied, "What the acting Director means is that this ambush was planned by someone."
"I didn't mean anything by it." Natasha put the Chip into the evidence bag. "I just think that the fact that they only woke up the moment the cabinet was cut off was too coincidental. It's not so coincidental as a defense mechanism, but more like—"
She paused.
"It looks more like a farewell party."
No one answered. Hela's sword, however, moved even faster.
Half an hour later, there was no longer a single metal shell standing on the Landing Pad. The wreckage was ankle-deep, and engine oil trickled down the deck seams. Hela sheathed her sword, the soft click of the blade returning to its place standing out starkly in the deathly silence.
"It's over," she said.
Gwen Stacy finished the inventory and her voice came through the communicator. "All 317 Guardians are disabled. 41 intact Chip have been recovered. The Timeline structure is stable, and the Pruning Protocol was not triggered. Everyone, we can return to base now."
The Archive Cabinet, supported by an Anti-Gravity platform, was slowly moved out of the Main Control Room. Three Seals, Scarlet, one jet black, and one pale gold, were wrapped around it, none touching the other, and none able to break the other.
The Landing Craft's hatch closed. The engines ignited, the hull shuddered slightly, and it detached from the Landing Pad, climbing toward the Nibelung.
No one spoke inside the cabin.
Hela leaned against the bulkhead, her eyes closed, her hand still resting on the hilt of her sword. Wanda sat to the left of the filing Archive Cabinet, her gaze fixed on the seal on the cabinet door, unsure whether she was looking at the seal itself or what lay beneath it. Jean sat to the right, her golden eyes half-closed, her Psychic Power swirling around the cabinet. Natasha sat in the corner, head down, organizing evidence bags, each Chip neatly arranged. Gwen Stacy sat behind the pilot's seat, staring into the darkness outside the porthole, Data Pad resting on her lap, the screen's light illuminating her face.
Five people. One cabinet.
They all wanted to know what was locked in the closet, but none of them wanted anyone else to know first.
The tacit understanding they had built up while dismantling the metal shell vanished completely the moment the hatch closed. The air pressure inside the cabin gradually decreased, until Gwen Stacy found it difficult to breathe.
She lowered her head and wrote a line at the end of the supervisor's record: Physical evidence has been loaded onto the vessel, the Vanguard has returned to port, and there were no abnormalities throughout the process.
After writing it down, she stared at the words "no abnormalities" for a couple of moments, but ultimately didn't cross it out.
Gwen Stacy's Private Terminal vibrated as the Landing Craft docked with the Nibelung.
An encrypted message. Sender: Director's Office.
She clicked on it. There was only one line of text.
"Upon arrival of the cabinet in Hong Kong, it will be immediately sealed in Zero Storage Room. Also--"
Gwen Stacy's gaze fell on the word "other," and her pupils contracted slightly.
"When Natasha inspected the counter, there was an extra item on her left sleeve. Check."