<div class="floatleft">(http://i.imgur.com/1w6Sw.jpg)</div><hr/><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, Mersa Matruh<br/>  <strong>Tags:</strong> Open<br/></span></span><hr/><br/>Abigail was struggling to maintain a serious face in the face of Stark's prerecorded withering assaults upon her sense of humor, before finally succumbing just enough to shake her head before lifting a hand to her face, covering her mouth reflexively as she let out a bit of a smile before turning to Kurt briefly during an interlude in the recording. "Damn Stark is on the other side of the world and he still gets me," she said dryly when the weapons lockers suddenly opened up, with enough modern firearms and ammunition to fully equip at least a platoon of first world level military forces.<br/><br/>Another recording seemed to pick up and soon more displays were opening up, revealing even more munitions as Director Brand found herself literally becoming tense, realizing Tony Stark's sense for theatrics, and moreso, his love of the steady buildup. And with Stark, in situations like this, she knew the buildup would always payoff with a perfect climax so to speak.<br/><br/>As the followed a suddenly lighted pathway down to yet another area of the safe house, her ears perking up to the computerized voice, she soon realized that the climax was about to occur. Up ahead the lights around the large display case come to life, and the outer doors of the display case slide open. A glass shell is under the metal case against that wall, but under the glass.. a suit of armor. It looks like Iron Man, alright. But with subtle differences.. the glass shielding slides apart and disappears into the wall, and there is the sudden and subtle sound of the suit itself powering up. The eyes of the armor flash to life, as does the triangular chest insignia.<br/><br/>Her eyes grew wide as she then glanced over to Kurt, as if to confirm that there was corroboration to what she was bearing witness to. An actual IronMan modular variant suit of armor, here in Northern Egypt. "Ah..." she suddenly grunted, bringing her fingers to her nose and squeezing the bridge of it as Tony's recording made some general remarks on Sandstorm. "Oh man..." she finally said dryly, immediately wondering if she could even operate something like this, or if it was made for her, when almost as soon as she thought of what to ask, Stark's recorded message seemed to pre-empt her concerns and answer her questions.<br/><br/>Damn it he was smart.<br/><br/>She turned back to Kurt and then realized, fair was fair. "I ummm... did you want to wear the armor?" she suddenly asked, deciding to at least make the offer of being polite before seizing it for herself as she reached for her SWORD communicator. She needed to contact Agent Kang and Tokoro who were hopefully still en route. They needed to be appraised of what was discovered.<br/><br/>"Intrud-.... Intruduuuuuuuuuuuude."<br/><br/>The safe houses digital voice overhead suddenly slurred before cutting out completely, as immediately the SWORD Director grew wary, wondering if telling the Egpytian soldiers to go back to base was a good idea. Then again... she realized a few men with guns wouldn't of likely stopped anyone that was able to pursue them here.<br/><br/>"It's Nefaria," Abigail then deduced, figuring if it was Apocalypse, there'd be more of a bang and far less subtlety. Wishing she had actually grabbed one of the super nice assault rifles they had passed by earlier, but instead only had the Kalashnikov she got from the jeep as she started to move towards the side of the room, looking down the flickering lights of the pathway leading to Sandstorms display case. "If it's actually Nefaria, I'm going to need that armor," the Director then said, suddenly wondering if the armor would even make a difference in a showdown with him. Her eyes begged Kurt for an idea of what they should do as she glanced at the armor.<br/><br/>She didn't want to tell him to hold off what could've been one of the most powerful supervillains left on the planet while she got into the armor, but she kind of desired him to stumble upon that option himself.<br/><br/>Just a few dozen meters away, still descending down the stairs, three villains, albeit none of them Count Nefaria, gingerly made their way down into the safe house as Spymaster idly punched away at the keys on a wrist mounted computer as he hacked into the safe houses passive security systems, already somewhat compromised by the entrance of Abigail and Kurt earlier. Being the most familiar with Stark security systems, Spymaster found that the unique circumstances of the situation allowed him a far easier job of accessing and hacking into this safe house then would've been typical as he brought up the rear.<br/><br/>Crossfire and Mr. Fear though, clad in their respective armored costumes, led the way. "This guy is a teleporter," Crossfire stated as he activated his nightvision in his cybernetic eye, while amplifying the ambient sound in his similarly artificial ear implant while drawing out a pair of twin high capacity pistols.<br/><br/>"Maybe we should gas them out," Mr. Fear then said as he glanced back at Spymaster and realizing what was about to happen, Crossfire donned a gasmask as the other two seemed to already have air filtration equipment filtered. A submachine gun in one hand, Mr. Fear produced a gas grenade from her other and as soon as they reached the bottom of the stairs, he chucked one of them down the hallway, the fear gas immediately billowing out, cutting off this entrance from possible retreat. "It'd be more effective if we find a ventiliation port."<br/><br/>"I'm looking," Crossfire replied as they moved deeper into the facility, the three villain all apparently having the ability to see in the dark to various degrees thanks to the myriad of technology they were all utilizing.<br/><br/>Spymaster meanwhile brought up the rear and instead of using a gun, moved a hand to his electronically amplified nunchakus. If Nightcrawler was in fact a swordsman, might as well use a weapon that was designed to counter them. He'd already seen reports of gunmen trying to confront Nightcrawler.<br/><br/>Details aside, Nightcrawler was still around. He wasn't going to make the same mistake.<br/><br/>But then again, watching the methodical approach of his two sadistic companions as they moved into the safe house concerned him a bit. It was clear they had come as prepared as could be. If it was just Nightcrawler, maybe that poor mutant would be in trouble.<br/><br/>It mattered not. Spymaster had one advantage over both of these guys.<br/><br/>He knew Stark and Stark tech better then any of them. Nefaria's or Brand's faction. When the time was right, he'd be able to make a play of his own and if anyone got in his way, well Apocalypse would be the least of their immediate problems.<br/><br/><strong>Nefaria's Goon Squad:</strong><br/><br/>Crossfire (http://www.comicvine.com/crossfire/29-30800/)<br/>Mr. Fear (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Fear#Larry_Cranston)<br/>Spymaster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spymaster_%28comics%29#Original_Spymaster)