Chapter 14

Heather panted as sweat trickled down her nose. Visible bruises covered her exposed arm and face. She could barely feel her arms and legs due to the soreness.

"Get up." A husky voice ordered. Heather raised her head a little and stared into the eyes of her tormentor, a burly woman by the name of Nadia who assigned by SHIELD to temper her body. She had been sparing which her for hours and was almost at her limit. Heather felt her muscles protest in pain and she stood back up. Nadia didn't give her a chance to recover as she aimed a kick toward Heather's midsection. On instinct, Heather sidestepped the kick before grabbing onto the older woman's leg. She then attempted to punch the her kneecaps only to see Nadia twisting her body as she swung her remaining leg at Heather. In a panic, Heather let go off her opponents leg and back stepped, narrowly dodged the kick. Nadia fell onto the ground once her attack missed and Heather used this opportunity to advance for attack. Unfortunately, she failed to react as Nadia used her legs to sweep the younger girls legs, tripping her before following up with a headlock prompting Heather to tap out in defeat.

"Well good news is that you're improving. Bad news is that you are not improving enough. I have had wheel chair bound agents who can fight better than you." Nadia began chastising Heather. "Did you blackmail them as well?" Heather rebutted before she realised her mistake. Nadia glared at her with fury as before chuckling ominously. "Just for that, you are on toilet duty. Heads up, Tyler and Anderson are had Mexican for dinner last night." she said before grabbing a towel and leaving the gym leaving behind a horrified Heather. "Oh come on. Not again." she muttered under her breath.

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"So..... Enjoyed the toilet duty?" A middle aged blonde man, Tyler chided as Heather sat down next to him with a tray of food. The latter held a blank expression as she began picking at her food. A brief moment of silence followed before she said, almost in a whisper." How?"

"Hmm?" Tyler looked at her.

"How can a human being create something some thing so foul? 'That' belongs in a biohazard container. You two really need to consult a doctor." Heather began speaking while increasing becoming louder. Her statement resulted in a series of laughs and chuckled around the table before she resumed her lunch.

She was currently in a secret SHIELD training faculty which masqueraded as a gym. The moment she was able to walk, Agent Hill had sent her there. It wasn't easy for Heather to convince Iris to let her go as Iris had become marginally more protective of her ever since she woke up. Heather felt a pang of guilt about having to lie to Iris but she consoled herself with the fact that she was doing this to protect Iris.

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Sina crept through the foliage as she followed the purifier patrol. She had spotted them on the outskirts of the city before following them from a distance. After she had undergone several hit and run attacks on the purifiers, they have bolstered their security and had gone on the defensive, making it harder for Sina to do too much damage. She would have liked to have Iris with her but she was still training her newfound abilities she gained from her interdimensional outing.

Of course Sina wasn't here to attack them. Not this time anyway. After her previous skirmishes had failed to provide any information regarding the enemy's base, Sina had decided to change tactics and tail the purifiers hoping that they'd lead them to the base of operations. She had tried her luck with two separate patrol but had to abandon her pursuit because of surveillance drones that were patrolling the outskirts whenever a patrol is arriving. And so Sina had opted to wait until she saw a gap the drone's perimeter and sneaking in before resuming pursuit of the patrol.

Eventually, she followed the patrol into a clearing and was almost shocked by what she saw. She saw several purifiers patrolling on foot around a construction site. Several vehicles were bringing in construction materials while dismissing the heavily armed extremists as if they were a common occurrence. But what caught her eye was the high tech installations that were littered around the site. It didn't take long for Sina to put the two and two together. This was the main base of operations for the purifiers. And whatever they were constructing played a huge part on the the commissioner's schemes.

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"Are you certain that that's where you found them?" Iris asked Sina as she contemplated the latter's words. "Yes. Why? Do you know something?" Sina inquired. Iris nodded before booting up her computer and began typing. A few moments later, a newspaper article was displayed. "A while back, some company wanted to buy that land and build a country club. But due to several protests and the fact that they didn't have proper permissions, they were not given consent."

"So what changed? I doubt the city doesn't know about the construction."

"Wait let me check." Iris said as she began typing away. A few minutes passed in silence until her eyes widened in shock. "Take a look at this." she said. "Andrew Larson, a high ranking politician in the environmental ministry opposed the construction which was instrumental for getting their proposal rejected. And now look." Iris said as she opened another tab. It was the obituary for the bomb attacks. "Apparently, he was also one of the victims of the bombs."

"Wait. You mean to say that the Vances killed dozens of people over a country club?" Sina asked skeptically. "I know. It doesn't make sense. Couldn't they have just changed the location? It seems like a lot of effort for just a country club. Unless....."

"There's something there which is of value to them. Enough to resort to such drastic measures." Sina finished Iris's thought. "What are we going to do?" Sina asked. "We'll evict them of course." Iris said matter of factly.

"Sound good."