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𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐄𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐭

September 2014

Washington D.C, United States of America 

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Once again, unbeknownst to Trickery, she awoke to the same routine as always.

It was the same, always the same. Yet Trickery could never tell. No matter the magnitude of pain, the familiarity of the words being spoken to her in terse Russian or the eerily familiar surroundings, she never knew that she was once again following the pattern. Being exposed to the same torturous routine that kept her mind enslaved and memories hidden.

She awoke, gasping and shivering from the harsh cold. Her bones reduced to the feeling of pure ice. And with every movement, even the smallest of a twitch, she felt them inching closer and closer to snapping.

Then she was dragged down the bleak, dark corridors. Her knobbly knees were forcibly hauled along the rough, concrete floor. But Trickery was too out of it to notice how it resulted in thin scarlet rivulets escaping from the newly made abrasions.

It seemed that the world was spinning right before her eyes. Almost as if she was free-falling from the heavens, unable to do anything but watch as her body plummeted towards the harsh reality that was the world below.

But unfortunately, she never made it to the ground. Instead, she was punished with a much more cruel fate. She was condemned to the chair.

Alike to every other experience, Trickery was thrown into the barbaric contraption. The leather straps confined her to the machine, pulling so tightly that her limbs began to throb. A teeth shield was pushed between her chapped lips as she watched on in sheer terror, unable to make a sound as she was rendered frozen in fear. She could hear the gears grinding in the machine as they lowered a terrifying metal contraption over her, attaching it to her gaunt face.

And before she knew it, the pain started.

Electricity pulsated, radiated and seared through every nerve and muscle in her body. Her guttural cries fell over deaf ears as she was forced to sit and writhe in utter agony. She could feel her body's involuntary convulsions to the electric shocks, reeling from the unforgiving pain that occupied every single limb and part possible.

It felt like years that she endured the pain for. Every second felt like a millennia worth of agony. An agony so unadulterated that it left her with hot tears rolling from her dark eyes and inarticulate screams pouring past her cracked lips.

But finally the pain ended. The electricity stopped running and the machine halted its hums, allowing Trickery the briefest of glimpses at a possible refuge. But then akin to every other occasion, she didn't even have time to let out a breath of relief before her head was sent spiraling yet again.

"Желание, Восприятие, Смертность, Искупление, Пять, Проворных, Шесть, Исход, Восемнадцать, Воинствующих."

"Desire, Perception, Mortality, Redemption, Five, Nimble, Six, Exodus, Eighteen, Militant."

That's all they had to say for Trickery's mind to reset. For her to revert back to the merciless assassin that she was. All at once her mind was bombarded with a tsunami of memories of who she was and what she could do. And all it took was those 10 words, strung together so eloquently.

That's all it took for her to become Trickery again.

"Доброе утро, обман / Good morning, Soldier." A man spoke, the Russian words rolling of his tongue harshly.

Before she even knew what she was doing, Trickery's mouth opened and she uttered her conditioned response. "Я готов отвечать. / Ready to comply."

"У вас есть миссия. / You have a mission." The man informed her, staring into her dark eyes with his own piercing cobalt ones.

The man seemed eerily familiar to Trickery, but she found herself unable to accurately place who he was. His chestnut hair looked thoroughly disheveled, as if he had been running his hand through the locks anxiously. His dark HYDRA suit seemed to compliment his tanned complexion. But it was none of those that held any sentimentality to Trickery.

It was his eyes.

His dark cerulean eyes that held profound melancholia in them. His eyes that were clouded with nostalgia and longing as he gazed down at the animal that had become of Trickery. Even though his face remained void of any emotion, she could see that he was like every other person. He could feel and she knew that because she saw the depth of his emotions displayed through his eyes.

But what she didn't notice was that the nostalgia and longing she observed in his eyes was because of her.

"Вам нужно схватить Сэмюэля Уилсона и извлечь из него подробную информацию о Стиве Роджерсе и секретной оперативной группе S.H.I.E.L.D. / You need to seize Samuel Wilson and extract details regarding Steve Rogers and the covert S.H.I.E.L.D task force from him." The man ordered, drawing Trickery out of her reverie.

" В настоящее время он находится в Вашингтоне, округ Колумбия. Тем не менее, Стив Роджерс, как известно, часто посещает этот район, поэтому будьте начеку. Не занимайтесь с ним. / He is currently located in Washington DC. However, Steve Rogers is known to frequent the area so keep on alert. Do not engage with him." The man continued, closing the red book in his hands and placing it down on a metal table as men scurried around behind Trickery. She sat silently as they loosened her restraints and removed the contraption from around her face.

"да хозяин / Yes, master." She answered once they released her from the death trap.

The man nodded at Trickery and opened his mouth to say something else but was quickly interrupted by a phone ringing. An annoyed sigh fell past his lips, prompting one of the soldiers to rush and answer the machine. The soldier picked up the phone, finally stopping the incessant ringing, before he turned back to the man standing in front of Trickery.

"Mikael, Von Strucker is on the line." He informed the man, otherwise known as Mikael.

Mikael let out another annoyed sigh at that, running his hands through his dark locks, confirming Trickery's earlier suspicions. "Strucker is going to get us into trouble with his bloody twins. We don't need any more press after the fall of Pierce." He muttered.

"Do I tell him to call again later?" The soldier questioned.

"No, I'll talk to him now." Mikael answered with a glower before he turned back to Trickery. "Go get ready, Trickery. I'll meet you at the hangar in 15 minutes." He ordered.

Trickery nodded as she rose from her seat, watching as two guards approached her. Silently she was escorted out of the room and down the vast labyrinth of corridors that made up the HYDRA base.

As she followed behind the two guards, she began to notice something strange. All of the HYDRA soldiers were speaking in English which sounded foreign to Trickery. Her own responses were conditioned to be in Russian so she assumed that the other soldiers would speak Russian too. But the further that she walked into the base, she began to realize that she must not be in Russia anymore.

But where she was is a question that she didn't have an answer to, nor was it important.

Pushing the thought from her mind, Trickery followed after the guards until she reached a small chamber. One of the guards handed over her uniform and her usual arsenal, mainly consisting of throwing knives and various types of guns. She hurriedly changed into the uniform and strapped her weapons to the suit, ignoring how both the guards' eyes hungrily raked over her body. Once she stepped out of the chamber, the guards handed over her mask and collar, quickly fastening them to her face.

And then after that, she followed the guards back down the hallways, only this time they were heading towards the hangar. As the trio entered the shed, Trickery's eyes were trained on the small, black quinjet that sat on the runway. Around it was a swarm of people, all performing various different tasks to prepare the jet for takeoff. But amongst the mass of faces, Trickery failed to notice Mikael, causing her to frown beneath the mask.

Trickery turned to face the guards only to notice that they had disappeared into the crowd. With a sigh, she headed towards the dark plane, watching silently as the entire array of people refused to even meet her eyes.

Finally, she spotted the two guards talking to a member of the crew and she wasted no time in walking over to them.

"Where is Mikael?" She questioned, breaking the guards from their conversation with the other man.

"There's been a change of plans. He isn't coming." One of the guards answered, scowling down at Trickery in contempt before he cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted into the crowd. "Wheels up in 5, everyone! Let's get going."

And with a final sigh, Trickery boarded the plane.

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The flight to Washington D.C took only a couple of hours which surprised Trickery. She had been expecting a long flight where she would have to endure the overly loud roaring of the engine that would keep her from any form of sleep. But alas, she was grateful for the short trip.

During the flight, she had been handed Samuel Wilson's file which had been an interesting read. Samuel Thomas "Sam" Wilson, better known by his alias Falcon, was a former United States Air Force pararescue airman. His repertoire was quite impressive and he had many accolades to corroborate his skill in the area.

But where she got confused was how Samuel was a known accomplice of Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff. There was no visible connection between the man and the two avengers other than the fact that they all resided in Washington, just like 600,000 other people. So how does a former pararescue airman suddenly come into cahoots with two of the most famous avengers?

However, she guessed that if she was able to read the entirety of the report that she would know. But unfortunately, a large section of the report had been redacted, preventing her from finding out.

Once she had memorized the entire file, or rather the majority of it that wasn't redacted, they had landed just outside the country's capital. Almost immediately she was hustled into a minivan that was headed towards Samuel's house in D.C. They had barely been 5 minutes into the trip when the tracker left on Samuel's car started to move, already complicating the mission.

They ended up trailing Samuel's car for 10 minutes until he pulled up outside a small cafe. Trickery was forced to stay cooped up inside the van whilst some of the HYDRA members hacked into his computer. Leaving Trickery with nothing to do but watch over the HYDRA soldiers' shoulders as they monitored Samuel's searches.

Samuel spent almost half an hour researching two specific individuals, someone called James Barnes and the Winter Soldier. Both of which she had never heard of before. But despite as interested that Trickery was in learning who those two individuals were, Trickery knew that it was not her place to ask questions.

Search after search, Samuel kept digging up information on the two aforementioned names, leaving Trickery with an overwhelming sense of boredom. All that she had been doing for the past 30 minutes was trying to peer over the HYDRA soldiers' shoulders to see what Samuel was searching, which had been more or less of the same thing. All she caught sight of was a garbled mixture of letters and numbers, which Trickery assumed to be coding.

But thankfully, a phone call to Samuel's phone broke Trickery free from her intense boredom.

"He is receiving a phone call from an unknown number." One of the soldiers called out, alerting the other soldiers who sat in the front of the car.

"Get the conversation on the line now." They ordered, urgency clear in their tone.

The car was silent for a few moments except for the soft typing of the soldiers who were heavily focused on the screens in front of them. Trickery watched on in amazement as they typed seemingly random strings of letters and numbers in an attempt to hack into the phone.

But after a tense filled couple of moments, the soldiers let out a chorus of depleted sighs. "Their encryption is too strong. We can't get the other side of the conversation but we think that it may be Steve Rogers." One of them grumbled before they pressed a button and turned the audio on.

"His last known location was on the Interstate 495, Baltimore bound." A voice said, Samuel Wilson, Trickery assumed.

"Personally, I don't think he would have left the country yet. If he was willing to drag you out of the water and save your life, he obviously is beginning to remember things. And what better way to remember things than to return to your home." Samuel continued, confusing Trickery with his chosen topic of conversation.

"I think that he will most likely be in the Brooklyn or tri-state area. He will go looking for things that are familiar and since he can't go to you, he will most likely head to places that are familiar in New York." Murmurs echoed throughout the car as Samuel talking and Trickery could do nothing but furrow her brows in confusion. She had no idea of the importance of what Samuel was saying or why it was so interesting.

"I know. I'm doing my best with what I can..."

"It's like he is a ghost, Steve. This is the best intel that I've been able to gather since his disappearance..."

"Alright, I'll see you soon." Samuel said before he hung up the phone. Whispers continued to reverberate throughout the car despite the end of the phone call but Trickery chose not to focus on it.

Instead, she trained her gaze on Samuel who was quickly exiting the cafe and heading back towards his car.

Trickery abruptly called an end to everyone's conversation and directed their attention to Samuel's retreating figure. Immediately the car's engine was flawed and they began to follow Samuel who was seemingly returning back to his house.

The drive back to Samuel's home was much quicker than the drive to the cafe, albeit less scenic. During the entirety of the drive, all Trickery did was gaze out the window and stare at the large, posh buildings.

But what did catch Trickery's attention was the many posters of a particular man hanging up around the city. The man had raven, almost greasy looking locks that rested on his shoulders. He wore clothes that she would almost describe as being medieval. The dark material had stunning gold and green embellishments and he wore a particularly unusual headpiece. It was some sort of gilded, horned helmet that somewhat resembled Ram's horns.

His eyes held a certain ambiguity to them. Not only were they a color that she would describe as a mix of emerald and blue, but they were dark and sunken in, revealing his pure fatigue. But somehow in the back of Trickery's mind, there was a single thought that said, "that's not how he looked."

The thought confused the hell out of Trickery which is why she chose to ignore it. Because how the hell would she know what the man, Loki as the poster said, looked like? She had never even met the man before.

So she shook her head in a vain attempt to rid her mind of the thought. And for the rest of the trip, she leaned her head against the back of her seat and awaited their arrival to Samuel's house.

Thankfully, the trip wasn't very long. And before Trickery even knew it, they had pulled up at the end of Samuel's street and were preparing themselves for the mission. Her job was relatively easy at this point. All she had to do was make sure that they got to Samuel's house undetected and to help sedate him if the canisters of gas didn't work.

Once everybody was ready, they began making their way towards Samuel's house. Trickery's eyes turned bright silver once again as she hastily went to work on weaving an illusion. Thankfully, the street was nearly empty so Trickery only had to focus on a few brain waves, making it much easier for her to manipulate their minds. The illusion was also relatively simple, as all she had to do was make it appear that they were invisible which was something that she had perfected a long time ago.

With near ease, the group snuck into Samuel's apartment. His home was nothing extravagant, it was just like every other house on the street. It featured a small front garden and the typical white and grey facade, akin to all of his neighbors. They walked along the modest cobblestone pathway around to the side of the house, keeping out of sight.

Once they were hidden around the flank of the house, Trickery dropped the illusion and began listening intently to find where Samuel was located inside. The cadenced thumps of his heart were easy for her to find, but the sound was quickly drowned out by his loud typing. She could hear the white noise of the television in the background and she guessed that he must have been sitting down in his lounge room.

"He's down this way." Trickery informed the group, pointing towards the rear of the house where a single-window sat. "The window is our access point to the room."

Immediately the group heeded her instructions and stalked down towards the window. Peering into the house, Trickery saw how Samuel was typing away at his desk in what appeared to be a lounge room, confirming Trickery's earlier suspicions.

Trickery then turned her gaze to the outside of the window, which was clearly locked and would need busting open if they were to get into Samuel's house. Trickery gazed back towards the few other soldiers who were clearly sharing the same thought and were looking at her expectantly.

Sighing, she swiftly let her eyes flash their usual shade of grey as she focused on Samuel's own brain waves. She began crafting another simple illusion as she turned towards the soldiers and gave them a small nod, indicating that it was time for them to start.

Hastily, one of the soldiers pulled out some sort of machine and drilled through the lock loudly. The noise made Trickery wince but she kept her focus maintained on Samuel, ensuring that her illusion kept him from hearing the noise too. The process didn't take very long which was a relief, as Trickery didn't want to waste any more time than necessary.

Once the lock had been drilled off, the window was cranked open slightly and the soldiers pulled out a few canisters of gas. Samuel still sat inside his house, oblivious to what was going outside due to Trickery's illusions.

But when he did notice, it was too late.

He had just been minding his own business, trying to track down James Barnes on his laptop when all of a sudden, he had smelt something odd. He knew that he had not been cooking anything in the kitchen so he swiftly spun around in his chair and was shocked to see billowing clouds of gas escaping from dark canisters that had seemingly came out of nowhere.

He was frozen in shock for a few moments as the fumes poured into the room, filling every crevice with its noxious fog. But he quickly snapped out of it, slamming his hand against the button beneath his desk and hastily moving his hands over his mouth. As the room began to swim before his eyes, he scrambled out of his chair and tried to kick the canisters as far away from him as he could.

But the poison acted quickly, immediately overwhelming his senses and tearing down his consciousness. Blackness clouded the edge of his vision as he fell against the doorway to the living room, heaving in breathes between his parted lips. His hands gripped the timber wall tightly as he tried to push himself back up so that he could escape the toxic cloud of gas.

But his efforts were proven futile as the very next step that he took sent him hurtling towards the floor with no time to stop his fall. And the very last thing that he saw before he entered the abyss of darkness, was a pair of striking silver eyes peering down at him through the dense fog.

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Hey guys,

I am so so so sorry for the huge ass wait for this chapter! It has been a hot minute since I have updated which is why I happily present to you this not so long but quite intense chapter that I have been waiting for weeks to give you! Finally we are getting into the good stuff!

But just wait for the next chapter or two which I am very excited to release!

However, I do owe you guys I huge thank you!! Tricks just hit 17k reads which is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! Never in a thousand years did I ever think that Tricks would get to the stage that it is now so thank you to every single one of you!

And now onto the questions,

1. What did you think of this chapter and what do you think will happen next?

2. What do you guys think of the new covers!!

3. Have you guys listened to Harry's album yet? (If not go listen to it!!)

(I am highkey so far up his ass that he could release a kiddy bop album and I'd still think it would be God's miracle!)

4. Who's ready for Christmas!!!

- Grace xx