<div class="floatleft">(http://i.imgur.com/9tb7F.png)</div><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>  Name:</strong>Abigail Brand<br/>  <strong>Title:</strong>Agent Brand or Ma'am or Miss. Not 'Hydra-Hair.'<br/>  <strong>Affiliation:</strong>  Resistance<br/>  <strong>Location:</strong>   Northern Egypt, Near Port Said<br/>  <strong>Tags:</strong><br/></span></span><hr/><br/><strong>Sixty Hours Ago...<br/>   SWORD (Sentient World Observation and Response Department) Space Station known as “The Peak”</strong><br/><br/>Agent Abigail Brand, Director of SWORD, the space oriented counterpart of SHIELD, was best known for her impressive stewardship for the past several years as the head of this new agency of global security. As its first and only Director, as well as its still most recognizable advocate, Abigail Brand had spent her entire adult life dedicated to bringing Earth properly and safely into the world of intergalactic community much like those brave diplomats sixty years ago brought the world together into the United Nations. For decades, despite Earths disproportionate impact on extra-terrestrial affairs, Earth had never elected to create a world body dedicated to those affairs, relying for ages on a haphazard mix of superhuman intervention, national responses and creating large numbers of intergalactic incidents which if not for sheer fortune, luck or will, could've brought a decisive end to life on Earth as everyone knew it.<br/><br/>But now finally, there was an organization. People in the press and on the blogs were drawing comparisons of her to Henry Kissinger, or less favorably J. Edgar Hoover. She didn't mind the comparison. Each of them had exceptional personality flaws, but they were great men of history. And all people, even aliens and mutants, had flaws. Abigail... being born of both parentages, knew she had her own. Much like them, they accused her of being paranoid, authoritarian, abrasive, even hateful. Pro-mutant groups always accused her of ignoring the mutant problem. Pro-Earth groups accused her of being sympathetic to aliens. But there were already advocates for mutants and humans at large. Mutants would always have the famous Charles Xavier and the courageous turnaroud of Senator Robert Kelly to look up to.<br/><br/>It was lost in these deep thoughts that she sent off Beta Ray Bill, an alien with an Equine appearance and honored defender of both Midgard and Asgard off on a goodwill mission. Beta Ray Bill, being an Alpha class powerhouse, didn't work for SWORD, but he was a good person and willing to act in a consular capacity representing SWORD's and Earth's interest. There were rumors that Loki of all people, the notorious Trickster God, was present on Earth and though it occupied a gray area, Agent Brand wasn't going to let that go without investigation. In her opinion, Asgardians were aliens and thus fell under her jurisdiction as much as they did SHIELD's. Beta Ray Bill was going to go to Asgard and investigate the circumstances of Loki's location and current activities, and report back within, in his own words, 'a fortnight' at the most on his investigations there.<br/><br/>Abigail liked Beta Ray Bill... then again... she always had a thing for the smart, studly nonhuman humanoids...<br/><br/>She was wondering just how this day could get any worse when as soon as she returned a green fatigue wearing orderly raced up to her with a datapad bearing news directly from SHIELD. “Ma'am. It's a Level One Security Alert being issued to all agencies!” the young male Agent said with a distinct Quebecois accent.<br/><br/>“Give it here Agent Duchamp” she then said, before glancing at it, her brow furrowing almost immediately. “Possible imminent Superhuman assault in force on government, military and symbolic targets. Possible links to Mutant extremists or militants. All agencies are advised to increase alert levels,” she then muttered, reading over the main points before sighing. The chances of mutant extremists attacking 'The Peak' was extremely unlikely, especially since she, a half-mutant, was its head and one of the few who was in charge of any high level organization that had a mutant parent. Still, not wanting to be grilled by Henry Gyrich or some other self loathing bureaucrat, she handed the datapad back to Agent Hariri. “Move us to Alert Status Two. Re-orient the surveillance scopes towards...” she paused. New York City could handle itself. “Los Angeles. Beijing. And ummm... Jerusalem. And increase drone patrols in our surrounding space.”<br/><br/>Plenty of symbolism there in Jerusalem after all. Considering all of its other problems, mutant rights happened to not be one of them in the Holy Land. But there was a first time for everything.<br/><br/>A moment later, her bad mood had an excuse to turn more sour. “Agent Brand... the surveillance scope on Los Angeles has gone black,” said the agent monitoring the visual feed on one of the spy satellites now pointing at Earth.<br/><br/>“Same for Jerusalem,” suddenly said its respective agent.<br/><br/>Agent Brand took a moment to confirm those satellites were in fact still in orbit and realized they were and immediately surmised something else. “We're being jammed. Active the Electronic Warfare packages and-.”<br/><br/>Red lights started flaring and klaxons started blaring.<br/><br/>“Ma'am! We're getting reports from SHIELD command. There's an attack in progress in New York City,” the Agent stated. “It's serious.”<br/><br/>“Ask for details. I want eyes on New York City. Clear up the jams and clear out the comms. If the satellites don't work, hack into a weather satellite. I need to know what's happening people,” she then said. “Suit up the Space Mandroids,” she then added, wondering if this wasn't a mutant or even terrestrial attack. Maybe it was aliens. The Skrulls. The Kree. Annihilus. Blastaar. The Badoon. She needed intelligence now.<br/><br/>Just then every monitor went snow white.<br/><br/>But auditory systems remained. “WARNING! COLLISION IMMINENT!”<br/><br/>And she could still look outside the window. She was savvy enough to recognize every former Herald of Galactus by appearance. Little known fact, Terrax the Tamer, in addition to being a cosmic level asshole, was also a rarely found alien mutant.<br/><br/>Agent Brand frowned. Maybe it was mutants after all. “Raise shields,” she said, hoping they'd still be working.<br/><br/><strong>   Fifty Four Hours Ago...</strong><br/><br/>The Peak almost seemed to convulse, as the reactor itself, based on exotic technologies focused on harnessing the power of anti-matter, collapsed inward before reacting with the matter based universe it now found itself reacting to. Needless to say, the explosion was terrific and the shockwave as it soundlessly rippled through the vacuum of space soon translated into the rather violent and loud vibrations of the escape pod Abigail Brand was currently housed within. Strapped into the cockpit of the cigar shaped spacecraft, she glanced back at the terrified personnel strapped in behind her. “Don't worry. This ship is made to take hyperspace, micrometeorites and planetary re-entry. It can handle a little anti-matter induced turbulence,” she said reassuringly, though not all that confident of the ships structural integrity herself. “You look nervous Agent Hariri,” she then said to the dusky eyed female Agent sitting beside her.<br/><br/>Agent Hariri glanced back at her and offered a nervous smile. “It's just the first time I fired a nuclear weapon before,” she replied back before cracking a forced smile.<br/><br/>“Hopefully it'll be the last,” Abigail said with a grunt before glancing back over her shoulder, out the window at the wreckage of the Peak and idly hoping Terrax the Tamer went with the explosion. “I'm setting a course towards the Sinai,” she then added as Hariri's eyes lit up.<br/><br/>“Why there?” she asked, her interest obviously piqued. Agent Hariri had hailed from the Levant, and was a member of Lebanese military intelligence before being recruited into SWORD. Naturally her interest was peaked.<br/><br/>“New York City, Los Angeles, Tokyo and Moscow all have powerful nations and superhumans to back them up. What does Cairo have exactly? If we're falling planetside, we're going where we can do the most good,” Agent Brand said.<br/><br/>“Do you really think it's Apocalypse,” asked Agent Marquez, his voice having an undercurrent of fear in it.<br/><br/>“Well if it is, then we're heading to the right place...” Abigail stated grimly.<br/><br/><strong>48 Hours Ago...<br/>   Suez Governate</strong><br/><br/>“Leave the nine millimeters. Rifles and survival packs!” Abigail screamed over the roar of what she initially thought was a jet engine. Needless to say, she was wrong. She watched as her green garbed agents scrambled away from the landing site, as pulses of energy shot up the dirt around them. Green was a poor choice of color for a desert environment. They were ditching the pistols and submachine guns and everything too heavy to carry on their backsides as they scrambled up the rocky slope of the mountain, hoping that the otherside would bring safety, or at least an escape route via the Suez Canal.<br/><br/>The roar grew louder as their singular pursuer wasn't so much climbing up the hill as walking up it. Taking cover behind the spacecraft, itself now riddled with pulses of energy, she reached into an olive green duffel bag and then glanced at Agent Duchamp. “I need covering fire on the flyers!” she screamed over the din of the inhuman roars.<br/><br/>Duchamp nodded, raising his light machine gun and firing several tracer heavy bursts into the sky at the pair of darting humanoid specks that were peppering them with brightly colored energy pulses. Originally, there had been four of the superhuman flyers but they quickly learned that flight and shooting fancy energy out of your hands or even having fancy armor doesn't make you automatically bulletproof as much as bullet-resistant. The other two backed off and were seemingly content at annoying them. As another energy pulse glassed the sand only a few feet away from her, Abigail just smiled. “Once I get  Stinger with some image-recog software on it... Or a quad fifty...” she started to mutter, shaking her head.<br/><br/>“Brand. You have LOS!” Duchamp then screamed before suddenly ducking down as a massive clawed hand, a giant human sized one, suddenly careened through the air to take a swipe at the rocky protrusion he was hiding behind. The previous five minutes of the skirmish revealed an annoying immunity to anything but being annoyed by heavy caliber gunfire, even to the creatures foot wide eyeballs.<br/><br/>But as she rounded the rear edge of the spacecraft, emerging from cover, she drew a bead on those same bulletproof eyeballs. The massive dark orbs with a hint of red to the iris. They matched the cruelly twisted visage of the ugly humanoid giant that it belonged to. It was, needless to say, a shock to be attacked by a hundred plus foot tall monster with giant clawed hands like a wolverine and with a face that looked like the Bald Bull from the game Punchout, but being SWORD agents, they reached to the unexpected rather admirably and finally had lured him into the killzone.<br/><br/>The giants eyes might've been bulletproof. But were they rocket proof. Specifically a high explosive round meant to burn through a tanks armor launched from a Carl Gustav recoilless rifle? She fired, muttering Nick Fury's popular and largely unknown motto in combat. “When in doubt, don't just wait to see the white of their eyes but aim for them!”<br/><br/>She did.<br/><br/>As it turned out, giant eyeballs were not rocket proof... at all. And giant roasted eyeballs didn't smell all that great either.<br/><br/>Another energy pulse whistled over her head. Three down. Two more to go. “Agent Hariri and Marquez, find the Barrett. I think all that time Fisher spent clay pigeon shooting is finally going to pay off,” Abigail then ordered before the sound of the giant tumbling back down the slope drowned out her voice.<br/><strong><br/>   24 Hours Ago...<br/>   Southwestern Sinai Peninula</strong><br/><br/>Salah al-Masri, a senior leader of the Islamic Glory Brigade in the Land of the Nile suddenly toppled background, his nose broken as the dagger he was once wielding clattered to the ground between them. Landing on his posterior, Abigail Brand then aimed her pistol at the man. “Make no mistake Salah al-Masri. I respect everyone who treats me with respect, including Muhammad, peace be upon him. But I will not sacrifice a single life or waste a single breath on factional struggles. There's us and there's them. And they just killed more of your co-religionists then every Crusader, Zionist, infidel and Persian in the past fifty years and if you can't reign in your people, I'll be more then willing to make a martyr out of you.”<br/><br/>She glanced over her shoulder at Agent Hariri, who was confidently leveling a weapon at a pair of blue eyed brunettes who if they weren't wearing IAF uniforms, looked like they wouldn't be out of place on Miami beach or Monaco sunbathing. “There's no time for revenge killing and blood feuds. I'm Lebanese. If we can get over it in moments of crisis, so can you,” Agent Hariri said with a frown.<br/><br/>“Good? We're good right?” Abigail then asked, the tone of her voice letting both parties know if they weren't, that things were going to get messy for everyone involved. “If any of you have any problems, talk to Colonel Farahani, don't try to hash it out between each other anymore. This isn't another religious skirmish. This war is for the species girls and boys and if we're not all on board tomorrow, we're going to lose this war before the weeks over.”<br/><strong><br/>   18 Hours Ago...<br/>   Muslim Brotherhood Headquarters, Ismailia Egypt</strong><br/><br/>The entire building was shaking as Agent Hariri raced downstairs and handed Brand the holographic datapad. Agent Brand's green accented brow furrowed again. They had gotten a response from the Kree and Skrull Empires. Immediately the twelve inch tall holographic image of a human woman in a business suit with long locks, a pretty face and tall figure appeared, her unnaturally flawless features marred by worry. “Agent Coffeecake, this is Abigail, report.”<br/><br/>The beautiful Agent frowned. “The events on Earth have been received in most of the Capitals of the major powers including the Kree, Skrulls, Sh'iar and Badoon but no help will be forthcoming,” Agent Coffeecake replied in a terse voice. “After talking with the Ambassadors and my own analysis, I think the best way the mood could be described is... 'Silent Jubilation.'”<br/><br/>Agent Hariri's face visibly paled in horror at the statement, while Agent Brand looked nonplussed. “Thank you Agent Coffeecake. We're sending you a burst transmission. Try and follow these orders and disseminate them as best you can. We have to move again before they find us. Good luck!” Agent Brand then said, before cutting off the transmission before it could be reliably traced.<br/><br/>Brand looked up at Hariri, knowing what she was thinking right now. “Don't be so surprised Agent Hariri. We've been meddling in intergalactic affairs for years now, disrupting the delicate balance of intergalactic politics. Truth is, most aliens think of Earth as a rogue state like Iran, but instead of nuclear missiles we have superhumans, mutants and the damn Fantastic Four. As far as they're concerned, a lot of them think this is poetic justice.”<br/><br/>“But millions might have already died... maybe bill-,” Agent Hariri started to protest.<br/><br/>“Galactic politics is always on a bigger scale Agent Hariri. The longer you're in SWORD, the more you'll realize this. What Apocalypse has done to our planet... Galactus does worse every other month,” she stated drly. “You can't expect people light years away to give a damn about us unless we make them.” Abigail took in a deep breath. “We're on our own I think. At least for now.”<br/><br/>The cellar rattled again. It was time to move.<br/><br/><strong>   Present Time<br/>   Somewhere south of Port Said</strong><br/><br/>Abigail Brand peered through the scope, observing the maritime traffic through the marshes and could see even in broad daylight how the hundreds of canals and streams and miles upon miles of thick vegetation and wetlands, people were still trying to escape northward. Off the Egyptian coast, a motley fleet of military and civilian vessels were hiding away or dispersed in deep water, waiting to return to Port Said and Damietta and innumerable smaller ports to send in supplies and take refugees away to what were hopefully safer havens. Cyprus. The Aegean Islands. Crete. Libya. Even Israel.<br/><br/>It was from her overwatch position on slope of this high ridge that she was watching the trickle of refugees sneaking towards them whether on small boats, darting across the ground, or wading through the marshes. Next to her, Agent Fisher, born and bred the Transmissippi delta, was chewing a wad of gum as she peered through her sniper... or rather, anti-material rifle scope, just waiting for a target of opportunity to try and descend on the helpless scattered refuees filtering through the delta area before them. “Anything yet?” Abigail asked, trusting her snipers eyes better then her own.<br/><br/>“Nope,” Fisher replied with a bit of a drawl.<br/><br/>“They're probably consolidating themselves in Cairo and the other population centers. But make no mistake. They can't ignore us for much longer. Not with us so close to their base of operations,” Abigail then said with a nod. “We're a threat as long as we're clinging to this sliver of the Nile Delta.”<br/><br/>“Whaddaya intend to do?” Agent Fisher then asked. “Get out as many refugees as possible?”<br/><br/>“No,” Abigail replied dryly. “That's merely a side benefit. When they come I want to bleed them dry and when they're so embroiled in destroying us, we'll deal with Apocalypse's power base the same way we dealt with Terrax three days ago... and the Japanese in forty five.”<br/><br/>Fisher took his eyes off the scope, glancing at her green haired Boss incredulously. “You can't mean...”<br/><br/>Abigail frowned, not feeling the need to give out the details. “Apocalypse's first strike on Israel crippled their long range missile capability, but leave it to the Israeli's to be so paranoid to have several redundancies in case of first strikes. I've been negotiating with the surviving IDF high command about acknowledging they still have some, much less utilizing them.”<br/><br/>“The Egyptians can't be condoning this,” Agent Fisher then said, gazing back into her scope for a moment. “Hell even Hariri must...<br/><br/>Abigail Brand looked Fisher straight in the eye with an intensity that Fisher could almost feel send chills through her body. “It's become that kind of situation,” Abigail stated flatly.<br/><br/><em>Other SWORD Agents:</em><br/><br/>Agent Hariri (http://i1001.photobucket.com/albums/af134/MNBlend/Class/PaulaGarces.jpg) (Lebanon): Linguistics and Diplomacy.<br/>Agent Marquez (http://i.imgur.com/xmUcy.jpg) (Philippines): Intelligence Analysis.<br/>Agent Duchamp (http://i1001.photobucket.com/albums/af134/MNBlend/Guys/PatrickCote.jpg) (Canada): Weapons Specialist.<br/>Agent Fisher (http://i1001.photobucket.com/albums/af134/MNBlend/Class/PaigeWyatt2.jpg) (United States of America): Reconnaissance<br/>Agent Coffeecake (http://i1001.photobucket.com/albums/af134/MNBlend/Susan%20Coffey/1decadentdesigns.jpg) (LMD): Offworld Consular Relations<br/>