Chosen

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Five: The Final Battle

"Hold on tight, this ride is a wild one. Make no mistake, the day will come when you can't cover up what you've done. Now don't lose your fight, kid." All Time Low: Missing You.

-

Time slows down as a blanket of despair falls on each of our shoulders. No one dares to speak a word as we feel the same universal depression overcome us. All of us kneel down by or stand around our fallen friend. Wavering breaths from us echo down the elevator shaft. Even though most of us did not know Agent Tripp personally, we can feel the love from others that surrounded him.

I hear Skye trying to contain her sobs on the other end of the line. Simmons is whimpering too as she cries. Agent May is not crying or on the verge of; only her eyes are moisten with tears. I do not hear anything directly from Director Coulson; however, a crash was heard from his line. I assume he may have thrown an item out of anger.

"Uh, t-they are reboo-rebooting the stabilizers," Fitz's voice cracks and falters, "The ship w-will return to its natural position in a-a moment."

We pull ourselves out of the misery of death to focus at the mission at hand. No one has the desire to purposely leave Antoine's lifeless body uncourteously to remain forgotten in an elevator shaft. Bucky heaves Tripp over his shoulder as we look for our exit. It becomes apparent that we need to get out of the elevator shaft expeditiously. Luckily, the door that we need to go to is roughly fifteen yards down from us.

Right when we begin to move, the floor once again tilts to a dangerous angle. Everyone begins to move both voluntarily and involuntarily faster. Apparently it does not take too long for such a large ship to rotate, however. I quickly find myself sliding down instead of running. Our destination quickly approaches but not where we are out of control.

The ground continues to turn away from our feet. Running that had turned into sliding has now turned into falling. Captain Rogers leaps onto my back as I fire up my repulsors. Thor grabs onto Uncle Rhodey, not flying himself as doing so in the crowded confined space would cause trouble for all of the others. Tony graciously grabs onto Agent May before having her latch onto his back. Sam uses his jetpack to keep him from falling to his death. Hawkeye fires a cable arrow that finds its mark above the door. Black Widow releases a grappling line that attaches to the doorframe right next to Barton's. Bucky latches onto Natasha with one arm. He struggles to maintain a grip on Tripp as he moves with Agent Romanoff.

By the time I use my repulsors to break open the elevator door, the spaceship is completely back to being upright. But the reestablished spacecraft means the creation of other problems. "Ma'am, the power has been restored to the spaceship," Lucis alerts us.

"Good! No more annoying lights," I remark.

"Yes, however, the elevator is running again and I'm afraid it is in use."

I look up and sure enough, the elevator cab is plummeting down towards us. The team moves with a reinstated urgency. The captain and I are the first to enter through the busted door. Tony and May are right behind us followed by Uncle Rhodey with Thor. Clint swings in with Natasha and Bucky following his tail. The moment Bucky's feet touch the ground, the cabin whooshes past the open door. Bucky barely has a hold on Agent Tripp when he comes in safely from the elevator shaft. He lets out a loud sigh when he is able to put down our fallen comrade. Director Coulson informs us that Skye will be coming to retrieve the body.

Now that the ship is back in its proper position and we have light, it is much less confusing to navigate through the corridors. We begin the last run of our journey to the cockpit of the Black Order spacecraft. With Captain America in the front, we march down the corridors.