The Vault

Ava's booted foot made almost no sound, her bare foot was completely silent as she made her way along another nondescript corridor. This place was a complete maze, but she had studied the floor plans until she knew it better than her quarters back at base.

As she made so little noise, Ava easily heard the clomping of boots coming towards her. She turned invisible and intangible, and two guards turned a corner and walked right through her. One was male, the other just recognisable as female under the black armour. As an afterthought, Ava turned one hand back and quickly whipped the female guard's belt from its loops. The woman walked another few steps before her trousers dropped to her knees, revealing a brief white thong.

"Hey! What the...?!" the guard exclaimed as her partner started laughing.

Ava smiled, and a moment later stopped as she reached her target, a section of corridor that looked identical to all the others, but was precisely six metres from the third right turn.

This time she curled into a ball and dropped smoothly, right through the floor and landing silently on the next level down.

She became visible and tangible again just before hitting the next floor. She was in a large room, mostly bare except for a desk as one end, with various weapons scattered across it. Most of them were glowing blue in places.

A woman was sat at the desk, she lifted her head at the almost imperceptible sound of Ava's arrival. She spun on her chair and stood up.

The woman was petite, shorter than Ava. She had fiery red hair in a bob cut, green eyes and a mass of freckles across her cheeks. She was dressed in a tactical vest, zipped at the front and as far as Ava could tell naked underneath, and a pair of figure-hugging black leather trousers.

"Sin, I assume." Ava said. "Illegitimate descendant of Johann Schmidt, the Red Skull. You're coming back to the states with me."

"The famous Ghost." Sin said, her words marked with a faint german accent. She squinted at Ava's plain white mask. "I wonder what sort of man would think he can waltz into this building."

"No man at all." Ava replied, "And you're either coming with me or never leaving this room alive. But this Hydra cell is finished." she took a step towards the woman.

Sin had her hand on one of the weapons, she spun it round and unleashed a plume of blue fire from the barrel.

Ava turned intangible at the same moment the fire hit her. Not quite fast enough to prevent it blasting her across the room, straight at the far wall, where she fell to the floor, her armoured suit clattering.

"Hmm. Disappointing." Sin said, walking over. "I thought the rumours I was hearing were true, the man who can walk through walls, who is a better assassin than anyone the Red Room ever produced. But you are still just..."

The body had not moved, the entire time Sin had been talking. Now she was right next to it, and prodded it with the toe of her boot. The helmet detatched and rolled a few inches away. The sleeve she had kicked collapsed in on itself, no arm inside.

The suit was empty.