29. Obelisk

"Damn I lost," Trip said as he saw May's figure laying on the ground while Grant was standing few feet from her.

"May! Are you okay?" asked Skye as she walked towards her to help her.

May raised her hand to stop Skye from helping her, after taking few deep breaths and shaking her head she seemed to calm down and regain some of her strength.

May stood up and stared at Ward "You have been holding back until now"

"Yeah, I thought you wouldn't be satisfied from my punishment and would like to beat me so I held back in our spars" Grant replied

"So you think that I am satisfied after 6 months," asked May in her monotone voice.

"Umm... I can continue to hold back if-" before Grant could finish his, May interrupted him, "Don't! Don't ever hold back against me in the future"

"Yes, I understand," said Grant nodding his head.

After saying her piece May walked out of the training room. Skye was worried about her so she followed May after waving her hands towards Ward and Trip.

"I hope you successfully hijack Lola otherwise you will be punished without even able to ride it," Grant said with a smile as he walked out of the training room.

"Aah dammit, what was I thinking making such a bet" Trip said as he slapped himself on his head.

In the night everyone in the playground was woken up. Trip tried to hijack Lola but Coulson had installed too many safety measures and was caught in the process.

His punishment was cleaning all the bathrooms, Weapons, and Vehicles in the playground along with the daily spars with May, who was told to beat Trip every day for a month.

Grant was, of course, laughing while Trip was getting punished but other than him Fitz and Skye who knew about the bet couldn't control themselves and had to hide in corners to support themselves as they laughed.

_________________________________

1 Week Later.

The mission that Ward was waiting for finally came.

In  Alexandria,  2014,  Roger Browning has the file on the Obelisk and is willing to sell it to  Lance Hunter,   Isabelle Hartley, and  Idaho, three mercenaries working undercover for the new S.H.I.E.L.D. under  Phil Coulson's direction. Melinda May,   Skye, and  Antoine Triplett act as back-up.

"This looks like a box. Sorry... a picture of a box. A picture of a box which you don't have." said Hunter as he looked at the picture that Roger was showing them

"The government has it. Along with thousands of other assets they seized from S.H.I.E.L.D. And they don't know what to make of half of them." stated Roger

As they were going to continue to talk the Negotiations are interrupted by an assassin who rushes in, kills Browning, and, despite t aking gunfire, escapes by jumping from a twenty-five-foot high window.

"So why are you here? To keep eye on us?" asked Hunter

"No, we were your backup but it looks like we couldn't do much to the guy," said Skye as she picked up the metal shard that came of from the assassin after taking many rounds of bullets from the six of them.

The six returned to the Playground where  Billy Koenig  and  Alphonso Mackenzie await them. To their surprise, Coulson is there as well, but he will only speak with May. During their conversation, Coulson prepared to leave for  London but decides against it when he is debriefed on the situation. The assassin stole a file on the original 0-8-4, the Obelisk.

"Looks like I can't go on a recruiting mission for now," Coulson said after once again taking a look over the picture of the Obelisk.

"What about this assassin?" asked May

"Call Ward in the briefing room, he would know more about this guy than anyone of us" Coulson stated

May nodded her head and left to call the team in the briefing room along with Ward.

In the briefing room

"Ward? Do you want to fill everyone in on our assassin?" said Coulson

Grant nodded shortly and glanced around the room at the assembled team, "Carl Creel was a boxer, nicknamed the crusher. Turn out any opponent has a glass jaw when you have steel fists under your gloves. Once Creel touches a substance he can absorb it and somehow transforms the molecules into that substance that's why he was able to bounce off bullets and jump from a height of a 25-foot tall building."

"Awesome" Skye groaned while Trip just shook his head in dismay.

May grimaced, "How do we find him?"

"When Hydra was communicating with SHIELD, we would use white noise in the gaps between SHIELD's quantum key distribution channels to hide messages, those frequencies are still there. Since Hydra's giving command to Creel we will be able to locate him and even know what orders are given to him" Grant explained

Coulson jumped in the operation details and asked Fitz to start listening to those frequencies and inform him whenever Hydra uses it to pass a message.

Thanks to it Coulson finds out that, Creel is ordered to attack Glenn Talbot.

"We need to save Glenn Talbot and I need to talk to him, go save him and bring him to the bus" Coulson ordered.

Creel attacked Glenn Talbot, who was enjoying time with his wife and son, but he is saved by Skye and May. As Creel is detained by the United States Armed Forces, May and Skye kidnapped Talbot and takes him to the Cage in the Bus. The two newly-promoted men talk, but Coulson is forced to trick Talbot into revealing information before Coulson puts him to sleep with an I.C.E.R. Meanwhile, Creel uses his powers to escape detainment.

Coulson sends the six on a two-pronged mission: obtaining a Quinjet and getting the Obelisk. When Hartley finds the Obelisk, the Absorbing Man attacks. She touched the object in order to defend herself and it begins to kill her. Hartley, Hunter, and Idaho attempt to escape to get Hartley medical attention, but Creel flips their S.H.I.E.L.D. SUV, killing Idaho and Hartley. Hunter feigns that he is dead as Creel takes the alien artifact.

"Do you think it's right to send them on such a mission?" asked Fitz while sitting on his chair in the lab.

"We both know how important this mission is Fitz, only its success will allow SHIELD to survive right now"