FALLEN ─ marvel

I. Enhanced Children

Chapter One
Alex

"We're at the back entrance," Soroya whispers into the coms next to me. "Are you ready?"

"Just give the word." Sharon whispers back.

For the past several months we have been hunting down a man named Benjamin Anderson, a US born criminal who has been kidnapping children and selling them to equally sick people around the world. There are many human traffickers around the world, but what makes Anderson unique, and sought after by the Avengers specifically, is that he's only kidnapping enhanced children, children with powers. Over the past decade or so there have been several reports of children having powers, but the question is where are they getting their powers from. None of us know the answer, but whatever that answer is, it will have to wait. Right now getting these children back to their families is our number one priority.

Anderson has made serval stops around the US and has stayed in several hideouts, all of which are deserted by the time we reach them. He's always been one step ahead, but this time we have an advantage. One of Anderson's scouts, a person he sends to find enhanced children, turned himself over to us and has given us intel that he's hiding out in an abandoned warehouse in Nigeria. Soroya, Bucky, John, Sharon, and a team of CIA agents are here with me to apprehend Anderson and free the kids. I just hope that the scout's intel is right.

Soroya gives me a nod, and with that, we bust open the back door, aiming our guns up. The back door leads to a storage room by the looks of it, and as I look around, I immediately feel a pit in my stomach. This storage area is filled with empty cages, small, about the size it would take to fit a child inside. This sight makes my legs move faster down the fall, my anger boiling to a new level.

The hallway leads to the rest of the warehouse, where twenty or so cages rest on the ground, with scared looking children cowering inside, all ranging between ages three to twelve. Off to the side of these cages is Benjamin Anderson, a mid thirties white man with long red hair and an equally long beard. His green eyes fill with panic as he sees us, and he orders his henchmen to take us out. I scan the warehouse again and see that there are about ten henchmen, but they don't look like they're in any hurry to fight us off.

One henchmen gets a burst of courage and runs forward, charging at Soroya. She dodges his bullet fire and drops down, flinging her legs up just as the henchman reaches her, her ankles wrapping around his neck. She twists her body around and brings him down to the ground. She flips herself up and steps on his hand as he tries to reach for his fallen gun, and her voice is commanding and firm as she addresses the whole room: "Lower your weapons and surrender now. We have the place surrounded, and if you cooperate, your punishment will not be as bad as your boss's."

Anderson looks pissed as he watches his men lower their guns onto the ground and hold their hands up in surrender. He tries to run towards the back entrance, but John and Sharon have come through with the other agents, the former of which punches Anderson in the face and tackles him to the ground, beginning to cuff his hands together.

"I'll go help John with Anderson, you two help the agents free the kids." Soroya directs Bucky and I, already heading over there.

John has been working with Sharon a lot lately, and if not her, with other CIA agents. It's been this way ever since he joined the CIA five years ago in the Joint Terrorism Task Force along with Sharon. As much as we are happy he found this new position, we've missed going on missions with him like we used to. The same goes for Sam and Jade, who are taking less and less missions as the years go on, wanting to spend time with the bakery they own in Denmark. Soroya and Bucky don't take nearly as much missions as they used to either, and often only have one of them go on a mission at a time. They do this so they can be home with their two kids: Olivia and Steve, the latter of which was born two years after his sister, and was named after Steve Rogers and Julian as they had planned. This is the first mission in a while that they have taken together, but catching Anderson was too important for just one of them. As parents themselves, I think they wanted to make sure each child was safe and protected.

Bucky and I are helping the agents break out the children as Soroya had instructed. Each child looks terrified as we approach their prisons, but once we break them free they seem to relax, especially the older children. The younger children are more confused about what's going on, which makes me wonder how long they have been held captive. I see a child that looks no older than three, he may not remember anything before this. He may not even know his name.

I come across a cage that gives me pause. It appears empty, but I sense that something is inside. I can hear a rapid heartbeat, I can smell their scent, I can hear their breathing. I bend down towards the cage and drop my voice low, trying to act as friendly as possible as I say: "You can show yourself. I'm here to help you."

After a few seconds, a little girl appears in the cage. She looks around four years old, of Chinese descent, chocolate brown eyes, long black hair, and an American accent as she asks: "Are you going to free me?"

I nod, smiling at the girl. "My name is Alex, my friends and I are going to get all of you home." I step back from the cage and shift into a gorilla, ripping the door completely off the metal cage. When I shift back, I see the girl's eyes go wide, not in fear though, in awe.

I extend my hand out to her and give her some reassuring words: "I'm just like you, there's no need to be afraid."

The girl grabs onto my hand and lets me help her out. She smiles as she steps outside the confines of the cage, and stares around the room at the other children being freed. She looks like she's in a trance, like she can't believe what's happening right now. She's brought out of her trance however as Bucky rips a cage door off, which startles the girl, making her disappear again, but only from sight. I can still sense her right there. This girl has invisibility powers.

I kneel down in front of her and giving her a smile. "You don't need to be scared."

She becomes visible again and asks me softly: "You can see me?"

"Not with my eyes. I have the power to turn into animals, as you saw, and that power allows me to sense things like animals can."

The girl nods in understanding, though I can tell she is still confused. "Do you have a name?" I ask her after a moment.

She shakes her head. "I don't know."

"Do you have any parents? A home?"

She shakes her head again. "I don't know."

My anger returns as I turn my head towards Anderson, who is being dragged away by Soroya and John. What sick twisted person would take children and stuff them in cages like animals? Or anyone for that matter. I know what it's like to be caged and treated like a beast, like a monster, and at such a young age. I was only fourteen when HYDRA took me and stuffed me in a cage just like this one. But to force someone so young, just pats the age of a toddler...I don't think even HYDRA would do something like that.

I reach forward and grip onto the girl's hand. "Don't worry," I tell her. "We're going to find out."