Red Star

Chapter 6

No sooner had North's escort left her than the Winter Soldier was circling her, almost predatory in how he sized up her weaknesses. "You have no previous training." He stated, rather than asked.

North answered anyway. "Not that I can remember."

Darting in quickly, the Winter Soldier aimed a punch at North's side. She shied away, and it glanced off her ribcage. North grunted, feeling a deep ache bloom through her bones. "Euh! Why did you do that?!"

"You need to learn to fight properly. Learn by doing to start, and soon we'll move on." He growled authoritatively,insensitive.

North sighed and raised her fists, putting her left behind her right as it was her dominant hand. She measured the Winter Soldier up over the gentle ridges of her smooth knuckles. "Let's get this over with."

|•v•|

Three weeks later, and after a gruelling training session every day, not only with the Winter Soldier (who North now called Soldier) but with other Hydra associates, North considered herself to be largely adept at many forms of fighting. The only one she wasn't able to completely master was her ability to manipulate the void, or rather make something out of nothing. She found out that whatever she made crumbled back to dust exactly 24 hours after she made it, and what she was having mostly trouble with was making things she wasn't very familiar with.

She had no idea how a frypan had worked its way into her life (at least, she had been told she had created a frypan...curiously, she couldn't recall making it, and all efforts to recreate it had thus far been for naught), but when she tried to do the same with a pistol it had only half-formed before it disintegrated. It wasn't very helpful, but with a combination of cruelly long sessions and punishments, she had more or less gotten her void-manipulation under control. Strucker told her that she was voidkinetic, so she went with that.

Now, North finally felt prepared for her first mission with Soldier. She was waiting in her cell to be debriefed, and she was rewarded by a folder being thrown at her from the door. Catching it just before it hit her head, she flipped it open to memorize the contents. She was supposed to hunt down and kill Natasha Romanoff, although she has been known by other names, including (but not limited to) the Black Widow.

Getting up and snapping the folder shut, North stretched her back and started on the rest of her body. She liked to be lithe and limber while on a mission. Moving on to her now quite long brown hair, she pulled it back into a braid running down her back, secured by a black elastic. Finally, using a nub of black body paint, she smeared shadows around her eyes in case her goggles became damaged. Once finished, she walked confidently to the door and knocked thrice, letting the guards know she was ready. Ready to fix the world. Ready to set people free. Pride radiated through North.

She was handed a few guns, knives, and bombs, her weapon of choice being her voidkinetic abilities. She also liked throwing knives, though.

Walking with purpose in her tall black boots, she met Soldier on a jet. "Soldier." She acknowledged.

"Wind." He replied curtly.

With no other formalities, the two boarded the back of the jet, subconsciously standing quite close together. Maybe it was instinct. Maybe it was because they had once known each other in a past life, before Hydra. North started, and looked around, unsure. Where had that thought come from?

Banishing the worrying thought from her head, North focused back on the mission. Silence reigned as the jet took off, until it passed over Russia. The jet lowered until the air pressure was low enough that the back could be opened with a screech, black metal dragging across steel as it opened. North walked, parachute-less, to the open end. Just before she passed Soldier, he grabbed her arm with his flesh hand. North could feel his eyes on hers, though they both wore fitted glasses. "Don't mess up."

Giving a sarcastic salute, North took a leap from the plane. She knew that was the closest to a 'good luck' she was going to get. Her braid whipped upwards, but her eyes were systematically looking for a tree to hold her weight. Finding a fir the was reasonably tall but still had springy youth about it, she reached out and wrapped her gloved hands around the very top.

The tree groaned in protest at her weight and momentum, but it bent far enough that North was about ten feet off the ground. North released it and landed with catlike grace on the balls of her feet, hardly making a sound.

Adjusting the muzzle around her mouth and nose, she made sure that the decal of a crimson star was clearly visible on her chest. Hydra told her that people needed to know exactly who was against them. North didn't fully understand why, exactly, but she was just an asset. It wasn't her business to know why. She had been told so, many times.

Stalking through the forest Hydra had dropped her over, she pulled out a pistol. She had a larger gun strapped to her back, but she didn't want to use that unless he had to because it wasn't very precise.

Finding a trail, barely noticeable, North began tracking it. This Black Widow was good, but not good enough. North stealthily followed the decently fresh trail, eventually finding a camouflaged 'safe' house. North's face didn't so much as twitch (facial expression had been beaten out of her early on), but the irony wasn't lost on her.

She didn't attack immediately, but staked it out. She had two days and a night to complete this mission, and she intended to utilize every second she could. She had been trained to stay stock-still, barely breathing, for hours upon hours in end, so she picked an easily looked over cranny and kept watch. She didn't keep track of the seconds ticking past, although her internal clock was counting down accurately. A breeze brushed her open eyes and she blinked as quick as a whip, not wanting to miss so much as a twitch of foliage.

When she was convinced only Romanoff was the only inhabitant, North moved in. Taking a small silver sphere from a pouch on her belt, she precisely rolled it until it went under the forest-patterned netting. Knowing the acrid grey smoke would force Romanoff out one of the two doors (one being an escape hatch she had noticed earlier) she positioned herself exactly between them.

When the escape hatch opened a good twenty feet away from the safe house itself, perhaps it would've escaped another assassin's notice. Not North's. Her enhanced vision alerted her at once where Romanoff was, and she walked purposefully towards her.

Some hairs that had come loose from North's braid whispered ominously around her goggled and muzzled face. Her pistol was by her side, red star on display. Romanoff took notice and, with a pistol of her own, took aim and shot directly at North's heart.

North's head throbbed as she threw out a hand and created a solid concrete wall in front of her out of snow, dirt, and mulch. The bullets ricocheted off, and North leapt over, firing a few bullets of her own.

However, the Black Widow was prepared. She dodged the bullets and kicked the pistol out of North's hands, diving between her legs. North turned and darted in, digging her shoulder into Romanoff's ribcage to throw her back. Romanoff recovered quickly, and leapt up to get her legs around North's neck. "Who are you?!" Romanoff hissed, eyes dark over clenched teeth.

Gritting her own teeth, North took hold of Romanoff's ankle and threw her off, dislocating the joint. Romanoff grunted in pain, but before she could retaliate North had a hand on her throat and a knee on her stomach. Romanoff tried to punch her temple, but misaimed and caught her goggles. They flew off, revealing her icy grey eyes.

North leaned in, pinning the Black Widow under her. "I am the North Wind, Widow...and you are my target."

Romanoff pushed her off, and pulled herself backwards on her butt. While North was recovering, she put a pill between her teeth.

North put a boot on her ribs, holding her down. She stomped, putting all her weight into it, and heard a few resounding cracks. Romanoff gasped, and bit down. The pill worked its way into her system, slowing her heart and forcing her to black out.

North watched her. Romanoff twitched, but went still after a couple seconds. North crouched and took off her glove, putting it to Romanoff's neck.

Feeling nothing, she put her goggles back on and kept her glove in her palm, turning and walking away without a trace.