Bruno ran his eyes over the large archways that made up the entrance to the library, studying the intricate details and sculptures. The whole arch was engraved with geometrical patterns, and, a bit closer to the top, the battle for Sokovia of almost a century before.

The last time Bruno had walked under these designs, it had been with Tessa dragging him along to find information on Hammer HQ. As much as he loved admiring the chiseled arch, he would have preferred to have Tessa with him again any day.

They walked into the library. It was 15:55 - they were five minutes early.

He let his eyes run over the endless shelves, pausing at the long table lines with public computers.

There was Liz, her feet on the table and a wild grin on her face.

"There she is," Bruno pointed her out to them, and seconds later Cove was already standing behind her.

"Hi Sonic," Liz smirked, "I hear you got your friends kidnapped?"

"Can I tell you a secret?" Cove asked.

"Sure," Liz replied.

He leaned towards her.

"I'm actually blaming this one Bruno," he whispered.

"You're blaming the kidnapping of Tessa on the Banner kid?" Liz raised her eyebrows in disbelief, "what was stopping you from superspeeding in there and saving the day?"

"I wasn't there," Cove shrugged, "for all I know, Bruno might've kidnapped them himself. Maybe he arranged the whole thing," - Cove mock-gasped -"maybe Bruno is a traitor."

"Enough, Cove," Winter stated, managing to convey authority in her voice without raising it above her normal volume, "let's just figure out where that AWSOMR prison is and go."

"An AWSOMR prison?" Liz repeated, impressed, "whoa, you guys really do go about looking for trouble, don't you?"

"Yeah, it's an occupational hazard," Cove shrugged.

"Your occupation being..."

"...an Avenger, duh."

"I know you two could keep on sassing for hours," Bruno spoke up, his voice even softer than Winter's, but conveying a different kind of authority. Winter's voice had been one of an old sibling telling a younger one to shut up or else, while Bruno's authority was that of someone who was determined to do what he'd come to do and wasn't about to let anything get in his way.

"And there's nothing wrong with a bit of sass from time to time. But right now, somewhere out there, Lilian, Hanna, Steve, Tessa, and Pascal are locked up in a dark cell. And I don't know about you all, but I'd like to get them out sooner rather than later."

Liz and Cove had stopped talking when he'd begun, and now they exchanged a slightly guilty look.

"Where do you want me to start?" Liz enquired, opening her laptop and typing in her password in a blur.

"It's a secret AWSOMR prison," Hugo took over, "you'll need to go the official AWSOMR website, hack into a admin account, and get to the data storage files. Then-"

"Hold up shortcake," Liz interrupted, starting up the AWSOMR website, "I'm going to need the name of an admin account in order to hack into it."

Hugo and Rudy exchanged a look.

"Agent Odainzone," they chorused.

Liz raised an eyebrow.

"You wouldn't happen to know the password?"

Rudy shook his head.

"Unfortunately not."

"Too bad, I'll have to hack my way in then."

Bruno watched as Liz spewed out strings of code, her fingers flying over the keyboard. Moments later she had hacked into the account, and was opening the data storage files about AWSOMR prisons.

"Alright, here's the list," she leaned back so that they could take a look, "whoa, that's a lot of prisons. Why would the AWSOMR need that many prisons?"

"To lock anybody who disagrees with them into," Hugo remarked dryly, "haven't you noticed that overpopulation hasn't been a problem since the AWSOMR was founded?"

"Ouch, that's dark," Cove noted.

"Okay, that sounded a lot less bad in my head," Hugo admitted.

"What exactly are you looking for?" Liz enquired.

"A prison shaped like an ashtray," Winter answered, "can't be more than three hours' distance from here in a helicopter-"

"Shaped like an ashtray..." Liz mumbled. She clicked on the search bar and started typing in 'ashtray'.

"Wait, how about that one?" Cove enquired, pointing to one of the results that showed a picture of a roundish building that, with some imagination, resembled an ashtray.

"The ASWOMR Secret Headquarters Detainment Residence At Yellowbridge," Liz frowned, "is that still a prison?"

"ASHDRAY," Bruno mumbled, "they could've come up with a better acronym."

"It has the word detainment in it," Cove shrugged, "that implies it's a prison."

"Do you think there's any top view pictures?" Winter asked, and Liz clicked on the ASHDRAY gallery, showing a few bird's eye view images.

"That's it," Winter nodded, "that's the place. How far away is it?"

"Not far," Liz noted, "if you take the bus, you could be there in just over an hour."

The small nameless squad exchanged a few looks.

Hugo took his phone out of his pocket.

"Do you think you could copy the information about this place onto here?" he asked, "then we can read it on the way. Cove, you run up ahead and arrange bus tickets. Winter and Bruno, buy some snacks and meet us at the Central Station, we'll leave from there. Rudy and I will catch up."

Cove turned to Winter for confirmation, clearly unwilling to take orders from Hugo.

Winter nodded slowly.

"That seems like a good plan. Thank you for your help, Elizabeth."

"Please just call me Liz," Liz replied while rolling her eyes, "and you're welcome, if you ever need my help again just give a yelp and I'll see what I can do. Although I'd appreciate it if you waited a little while before keeping me to that, next time."

"Yeah, I'm sorry," Bruno apologized, "it was just... chaos."

"I'm a teenager in high school, I know what chaos is. Good luck with your little quest."

"Thanks," Bruno smiled, following Winter out of the library. Cove had already sped off, too impatient to wait for them to finish.

Liz connected Hugo's phone to the computer, and copied all the information about the ASHDRAY onto it.

"There," she stated, handing his phone back to him and logging the computer out, "that was that."

"Thanks again," Hugo smirked, pocketing his phone.

"It was nothing," Liz shrugged, putting on her backpack and walking towards one of the tall shelves filled with science fiction, "I needed to be in the library anyway."

She disappeared around a corner, and Hugo turned to Rudy.

"That girl has enough sass to be a Stark."

A small smirk crossed Rudy's lips.

"Someone got a crush?"

"Oh please, look who's talking," Hugo scoffed, "you still haven't confessed your undying love for Winter, and until then you don't have the right to comment on my nonexistant love life."

Rudy chuckled, and together they walked out of the library.

They had twelve percent of a plan, and now all they had to do was complete it.

-

- SOMEWHERE ELSE -

"Agent Odainzone."

The name came through the recordings sounding static and crackly, but it was unmistakable.

"Traitors," Rouge growled, looking just about ready to smash the ancient computer.

Agent Odainzone shook his head.

"No, you're coming to a conclusion too quickly. Don't underestimate Rudy and Hugo, especially not Hugo. He thinks like I do, which means there's a solid chance that he's just awaiting the right moment to strike. This is a minor setback - I may be an admin on that website, but only because I hacked into it to make myself one. There's nothing on there that could betray us."

"Yes, but they could've given anyone's admin username. They know at least three others' besides ours. Why give yours?"

"Curiosity," Agent Odainzone shrugged, "I would do the same."

Rouge still seemed skeptical, but turned instead to a map hanging on the wall. Pinned to it were different pins in all sort of colours - each pin representing an important person.

"The Silent Soldier is in position, Rouge," Agent Odainzone remarked, "whatever they do now will only play into our hands. Everything is going as planned."

Rouge's eyes landed on the purple pin representing the Silent Soldier, and shook his head. It was standing amidst several other pins on the same location - a gold pin, two red ones and an orange one.

"Perhaps you're right."

-

Question of the chapter: who do you think the pins represent?

Please don't forget to vote & comment, I would really appreciate that :)

~Evanlyn