Buzzkill: The Reckoning

Chapter 18

The chill of the night air approached steadily as Ruth ran to the opened french doors, following close behind Kal who darted to the right. As soon as Ruth stepped out onto the patio a knife that flew just over her head, sliding down on her knees to avoid contact, grabbing her own knife from her thigh and throwing it back at Kal. Kal jolted to the side, the knife flying behind her and skidding across the ground.

Ruth used her momentum and ran to Kal, breaking the short distance between them as she jumped in the air, aiming an elbow to back straight at her cheekbone. The blow only skidded past Kal's face, the two of them now engaged in an all out fist fight. Ruth didn't want to kill her, not yet. She had questions.

The familiarity of the fight flooded Ruth's mind, it was something they had done against each other so many times before. Ruth took a step back and sent her knee straight to Kal's chest, Kal falling back, sweeping Ruth's legs and sending her to the ground. Kal stood and grabbed Ruth by the collar of her dress, her greater strength evident as she threw Ruth against the stone wall beside them. Air shoved out of Ruth's body with a hard crack of a thud, her back colliding with the wall.

As soon as Kal released her grip on Ruth to see her slam against the brick, she continued to run away across the stone patio.

Ruth's chest heaved as she looked to Kal, taking the earring from her ear and throwing it straight at her target, the electric charge striking Kal, stunning her to the ground with a thud.

Ruth tried to gain her breath, wincing at the pain that throbbed through her lungs. Seeing Kal unconscious from the shock, Ruth grabbed the gun from her thigh holster and walked over to Kal, aiming it straight at her as Bucky came rushing outside.

"It's about time you showed up," Ruth quipped to Bucky as he came jogging over to her.

"You took off running, I had no idea where the hell you were," Bucky argued back, stopping to look at the woman lying on the ground.

"Guys, we need a little backup here. I'm on the far north east side of the building on an outdoor patio," Ruth called through the comms.

"On our way. Bringing the van around. Natasha will distract the guards," Steve replied.

"Who is this?" Bucky asked her, thoroughly confused at everything that just happened.

"A blast from the past," Ruth replied, a bitterness in her voice. Just when she thought things couldn't get any more complicated back at SHIELD, another reason for them to kill her just showed up.

"Her name's Kalina. Mostly called Kal." Ruth explained to the others back on the Quinjet just after taking off. Kal sat quiet within a small holding cell in the jet, her view blocked from anyone outside.

Ruth, Bucky, Steve, Sam, and Natasha stood in the main galley of the jet, Sam taking a step over to peek through the window of the cell to look at the woman sitting inside.

"She was raised at the facility in Sweden alongside me," Ruth continued.

"And she's your age?" Bucky asked.

"A couple years older," Ruth replied.

Sam scratched the back of his head, stress building. "Another Hydra agent that we're bringing back to SHIELD?"

Ruth sighed with annoyance. "I have no idea who she works for now. And for the last time, we weren't raised as Hydra. I didn't become Hydra until I signed up for that experiment."

"Oh, really?" Sam remarked with an irritation building in his voice, "So the person who raised you wasn't buddy buddy with Hydra? Hydra just thought you were special enough to start experimenting on?"