<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, Near Port Said<br/>  <strong>Tags:</strong>Open<br/></span></span><hr/><br/><strong>Al-Abassi Mosque<br/>Current SWORD Headquarters<br/>Container Park </strong><br/><br/>"..fuck have you been Tokoro?" Agent DuChamp asked as he saw Tokoro running out of the container park, still slinging her utility vest over the final shoulder, her equipment rattling as it jingled off of her battle kit.<br/><br/>"Sorry sir! Won't happen again sir!" Agent Tokoro replied. Though they were of equal rank, he, being the Weapons Specialist, was senior in combat zones.<br/><br/>"It won't because you'll either learn or you'll be dead!" Agent DuChamp growled back as Tokoro glanced at him, a bit of fear in her eyes as she glanced up at the skies but saw nothing overhead. Her line of sight drifted back down to DuChamp, who apparently had new fresh bandages wrapped around his head. "Listen. You can join Agent Hariri in Alexandria if you don't feel prepared for the fight!" he then added just as emphatically.<br/><br/>"No. I want to be here," she replied, struggling to keep up with him as he sped up to a brisk jogging pace, also wearing a full combat pack.<br/><br/>"Then secure your shit Tokoro and make sure it stops jingling around like a damn wind chime," DuChamp finally said, stopping cold in his tracks and turning on her, the large, heavily built Canadian soldier suddenly towering over her, a grim stare crossing his face. She paused, literally gulping as she looked up at him when he sniffed the air a bit. "You smell funny Tokoro."<br/><br/>She blinked.<br/><br/>"Secure your gear. If we're trudging through the swamp to escape, I don't want you giving me away with your clitter clatter," he said before pausing again, as if something was bothering him, before sniffing her again. "Draw duct tape from supply if you have to," he then added. "These containers are being shipped to Alexandria just in case." With that said Agent Duchamp started off again to check the rest of his men.<br/><br/>"In case what? We lose?" Agent Tokoro asked, calling after him, feeling exasperated.<br/><br/>"Or win," he replied, pointing upwards just as the sounds of jets seemed to roar overhead.<br/><br/>But it wasn't jets.<br/><br/>It was dreadnaughts. HYDRA battle robots capable of flight and fighting. Like IronMan on the cheap or something. Count Nefaria brought a couple of them along. Equivalent of any run of the mill supervillain, or hero, easily. She frowned, then wondered if that was even the appropriate response. Truth be told, if she had to choose, she'd choose Count Nefaria. The sound of a semi tractor truck beeping as it went in reverse suddenly jolted her out of her funk as she glanced back and saw sure enough, containers of supplies were being loaded up and shipped West to Alexandria.<br/><br/>Just in case...<br/><br/><strong>Marshlands of Port Said</strong><br/><br/>Agent Fisher lowered her binoculars. Still no sign of the imminent attack. As she remained half squatting in her marsh filled spider hole, covered by a few laters of thermal and camo netting, clad in her ghillie suit, the only part of her that was exposed being a small, near indiscernible black area for her to see out, she frowned. If they did some mutant crap and teleported in, that would totally ruin her day. Trudging back with all of her gear through crocodile infested marshways was not her idea of a good time. Especially in the middle of a battle. But in order to remain low key, beating feet was her only option regardless. She keyed her short wave radio twice, just to let them know she was in fact still alive for the past fifteen minutes.<br/><br/><strong>Northern Coast of Port Said</strong><br/><br/>"And another one bites the dust," Agent Austen said, looking north, instead of South as two more of the vessels of the mixed task force suddenly peeled off.<br/><br/>"What ignoble Frankish mariner abandoned the Jihad now?" Agent Hariri asked sarcastically, having upgraded from a sling on her arm to a partial cast on her forearm.<br/><br/>The sarcasm clearly going over his head, Agent Austen shook his head. "The Franks aren't even a country anymore. I thought you knew that," he shot back, apparently annoyed at her supposed stupidity even though it was actually him who didn't get her sarcasm. "Two Turkish frigates. Following the corvette that left earlier," the salvage expert said shaking his head.<br/><br/>"Things must be bad up there," Agent Hariri said with a frown. She could only fathom how bad they must've been. Especially in countries so unprepared for such a total war type of situation. Were there thousands of people being forcibly transformed into cannon fodder there as well. It must've be absolutely hellish in the cities. Everyone of them like Cairo. "Can't really expect them to stay here... protect Egyptians when they have their own people to worry about."<br/><br/>"Yeah what about Apocalypse though?" Agent Austen then asked. "Should just nuke the bastard," he said with a frown.<br/><br/>"The British, French, Russians and Israelis all had nukes. Maybe Iran. Maybe North Korea. Chances are the last three are out of the running,we know for sure the Israeli's lost theirs in the last battle and Iran and North Korea, you could count their probables on like one hand. Which leaves the British, the French, and the Russians. Even if they heard that Apocalypse was down here, they can't know for sure. And spending nukes well, they need a good solid target first. Want not. Waste not. Plus... there might still be a few hundred thousand innocents down there," Agent Hariri reasoned.<br/><br/>"Think the Russians care about that?" Agent Austen asked incredulously.<br/><br/>She laughed. "Fair enough. But if they followed every rumor they picked up and nuked it, Timbuktu could be glowing green by now."<br/><br/>"Fuck this shit," Agent Austen then groaned, when almost on cue, another ship started to pull away from the dwindling task force. "Croatian missile boat heading home now. How is Italy managing to keep ships here but fucking Croatia isn't?"<br/><br/>Agent Hariri glanced down the coast, and briefly nodded in the general direction of a nearby resort for the answer.<br/><br/><strong>HYDRA/ Maggia Joint Headquarters<br/>Lobby</strong><br/><br/>Stilt-Man was stationed outside, his long shadow casted over the front courtyard of the resort as Bombshell shook her head. "I just don't see why we don't nuke this Apocalypse guy," the female supervillain reasoned, as she loaded up another bandoleer of grenades of seeming every variety.<br/><br/>"Aren't you worried about like... exploding?" the Shocker asked, warily eyeing all of her various explosive implements.<br/><br/>She just shrugged. "I die. I die," she replied with a nonchalant smile. "Better fighting and better spectacularly then... hiding in some basement the entire day," she then said, glancing over at Crossfire and Mr. Fear, who picked up on the not so subtle verbal barb aimed at them. Like the others, they were preparing for a fight as well, but were to stay at the resort as opposed to heading out as part of the 'reaction force' that Count Nefaria and Direct Brand were working together on implementing. Crossfire and Mr. Fear were here to guard and either oversee the transport or disposal of the prisoners. Apparently Nefaria wanted to do more extensive tests, beyond rape flavored interrogation. "But still.. why not nukes?"<br/><br/>"Yeah you'd think a million kelvin fireball would ruin anyones day," Spymaster said with a shrug.<br/><br/>"It would," suddenly came in a squeaky voice from outside as Stilt-Man walked in and took off his helmet. "The thermal radiation alone means if anything is hit near ground zero that can burn, will burn, if it's not completely destroyed by the blast effects. But the farther out you go, only easily combustible items will burn from the thermal effects. The true killer would be the blast effects. The W76 warhead on a submarine launched Trident nuclear missile releases 420 trillion joules in a roughly uneven sphere," Wilbur Day, the Stilt-man, continued to explain as he walked over to a whiteboard, having garnered everyones attention as he wrote out the math to show everyone.<br/><br/>"At ten meters... ground zero. I don't care. If you're mortal and killable, you're dead," Stilt-man said. "Over a hundred billion joules of energy is relased into your face. At a hundred meters, you're still feeling enough energy that surpasses any conventional weapon known to man. It should kill anyone. Thor. IronMan. Maybe Hulk. Minus any silly magic nonsense," he then said, waving it off with his hand. "Pretty reliably anyways."<br/><br/>"But at two hundred meters, we're only talking oh... 12 point 5 million joules. Roughly the equivalent of a tank cannon blowing up or more accurately, the entire front side of your body having a tank cannon going off, point blank... all over that side of your body. That'll kill most folks, even most superhumans. But someone like Thor or IronMan? Maybe... Maybe not."<br/><br/>He wrote another line of calculations. "At eighteen hundred meters, the energy released matches that of one of those heavy machine guns outside. Enough force to knock down brick walls. Punch through an inch of steel or so. Rupture vital organs. Someone like Thor or IronMan... ehhh they can take machine gun fire."<br/><br/>Stilt-Man then wrote out a final line of calculations. "At three thousand meters... we're talking the equivalent energy of rifle fire. It's like rainwater to heavies," Stilt-Man then said with a snort as the other villains exchanged curious glances, though folks like the Shocker were able to work out the numbers themselves and realize his math was more or less generally correct.<br/><br/>"So what you're telling me is that if this Apocalypse guy is really a tough hombre, a nuclear missile has to land within a football field length of him to guarantee finishing him off?" Beetle asked, still wrapping his brain around the revelation.<br/><br/>Stilt-man shrugged. "I have no idea this Apocalypse's capabilities but I think it would suffice to say that yes, otherwise the strike itself would be fruitless in the elimination of the primary threat, all other variables being normal."<br/><br/>"How's Count Nefaria supposed to stand up to something that can take a nuke?" Ringer asked in amazement, suddenly feeling a sinking feeling in his gut as he looked to his wife in the Beetle power armor.<br/><br/>But just as Wilbur started to open his mouth, Count Luchino Nefaria stepped in, his authoritative voice dominating the conversation immediately as every head in the room turned to him. "I have never seen a nuclear weapon go off in the atmosphere until four days ago, during the initial attacks," Count Nefaria stated firmly. "In a manner of seconds, tens of thousands of people were killed right before my eyes and if I was any less of a man, I too would have perished. But as it was, I was the only thing standing within a few hundred meters of ground zero..." He locked his gaze over the room, watching the various villains he had managed to assemble shift under his withering stare. "I learned that day how there is rarely a simple answer to such formidable obstacles," Count Nefaria stated with a steadily growing smile. "When Apocalypse arrives... I intend not to make the same mistake."<br/><br/>"And what mistake is that sir?" Spymaster asked respectfully, yet without fear. Unlike some of the others, he wasn't so easily cowed. And he wanted to learn a trick of the trade from one of the best.<br/><br/>"Apocalypse didn't miss. He left my demise to chance. Now that I know Apocalypse is coming here, I won't be giving him the same chance," he said grimly.<br/><br/><em>NPC's</em><br/><br/>SWORD:<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 Marksman<br/>Agent Tokoro (http://i1001.photobucket.com/albums/af134/MNBlend/Class/AmiTokito.jpg) (Japan): Communications Technician<br/>Agent Kang (http://i.imgur.com/fzF5tH7.jpg) (Kazakhstan): Weapons Specialist.<br/>Provisional Agent Austen (http://i.imgur.com/4vP6csw.jpg) (United States): Underwater Demolitions.<br/><br/>HYDRA/Maggia: (Beggars can't be choosers)<br/>Count Nefaria (http://www.comicvine.com/count-nefaria/29-3229/)<br/>Crossfire (http://www.comicvine.com/crossfire/29-30800/)<br/>Mr. Fear (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Fear#Larry_Cranston)<br/>Spymaster (http://www.comicvine.com/spymaster/29-10222/)<br/>The Shocker (http://www.comicvine.com/shocker/29-4825/)<br/>Stilt-Man (http://www.comicvine.com/stilt-man/29-2474/)<br/>Bombshell (http://www.comicvine.com/bombshell/29-27882/)<br/>Ringer (http://www.comicvine.com/ringer/29-14046/)<br/>Beetle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leila_Davis)<br/>Dreadnoughts (http://www.marveldirectory.com/individuals/d/dreadnought.htm)<br/><br/>Prisoners:<br/>Joystick (http://www.comicvine.com/joystick/29-4809/)