Ally Grant: Agent of Shield
Issue # 2
"Taking AIM"
Written by Ali :)

Beautiful, dignified, illustrious--
   "Don't that mean illustrated? I'm just a bunch of words, damnit!"
[[No, that means.... Nevermind, just let me finish.]]
   --and not to mention disagreeable, Allyson--
   "Ally."
   --Ally Grant, Agent of Shield, was in the middle of a well-deserved shower when her phone rang.
   "I know that I can't take no more, it ain't no lie, I wanna see you out that door, baby bye bye byyyeeeee!" Her singing, however, was impossibly loud and irritating, and drowned out the noise of the phone.
   [[Ally, shouldn't you go answer that...?]]
   "Answer what?"
   [[The phone.]]
   "Hah! Like I'm gonna fall for *that* one!" she exclaimed, shampooing her hair. "You're gonna make me get out of the shower, so all those dumb fanboys can peek at me, aren't you?"
   [[Um... Ally... You're just words anyway.]]
   Ally paused to think, and could hear the phone ringing in the other room. "Shit!" she muttered, turning off the water. In doing so, her hair fell in her face, still full of shampoo.
   "My eyes!" she screamed, clawing at her face. "Ow, ow, ow!" The ringing persisted, so Ally was forced to hop out of the shower. "I'm coming, I'm coming..." she snapped, still rubbing her eyes.
   [[There's a towel to your left...]]
   She thrust her hand out, grabbing at the wall.
   [[....Your other left, Ally.]]
   The other hand reached out, grabbing the towel and hastily wrapping it around her. She walked blindly out of the bathroom, smacking into the doorframe. A string of curses escaped her lips as she tried to make her way into her bedroom, where the phone was thankfully still ringing.
   [[Turn here... Be careful of the wall...]]
   Ally turned, running directly into the wall.
   [[Don't say I didn't warn ya...]]
   "Yeah, well...." Ally grumbled, stumbling into the room and grabbing at the phone. Her fingers finally closed around it, and she yanked it up to her ear.
   "Well, whaddaya want?!" she practically screamed into the phone.
   Agent Alan Becker was taken aback. "A...Ally?" he asked uncertainly.
   "Speak, dumbshit." Ally was in an even worse mood, now that she'd been interrupted from her shower, *plus* had been wounded numerous times, *and* had to deal with stinging eyes that refused to open. Hearing "freak-boy" (as she so lovingly calls him) on the other end of the phone just pushed her over the edge. All this, just to talk to her half-witted pop-singing sidekick. Great.
   "Well, what is it?!" she demanded, growing impatient.
   "Nick has a job for us," Alan replied hastily. "A better one, this time. It--"
   "I'll meet you at your place in fifteen minutes. Save the details till then."
   Becker heard the click, but didn't recognize it as the sound of being hung up on. He blinked dumbly at his phone. "Ally?"
   Silence.
   "Ally?"
   [[She hung up the phone.....]]
   "Ally?"
   [[SHE'S GONE, ALAN!]]
   "Oh, right..." He hung up his own phone, then sat down on his couch. "Wait....did she say she was coming here?!"

Meanwhile, Ally had finished her shower, and was now about to get dressed.
   "Sure, come back to me when I'm getting changed!"
   [[It's good for ratings....]]
   "I don't care!" she shouted, flinging her towel over the eyes of whomever might happen to be reading. "No peeking, and that's that..."

For Ally's sake (sorry fanboys), we'll go back to Alan's apartment.  Currently, he seemed to be having a hissy fit, trying to get things in order.
        "Oh no, oh no, she'll be here any minute!" he muttered to himself, straightening the couch coushions.  A few more hectic cleaning sprees and Alan was finished, but exhausted.  His apartment gleamed.  Proud of himself, Agent Becker sat down on the couch to catch his breath.  Before he knew it, he was asleep.
        Downstairs, Ally waited impatiently for the elevator.  She never waited patiently for anything, anyhow.
        "Do too."
        [[Not.]]
        "Too."
        [[Not.]]
        "Listen, ya wann--"
        The elevator arrived, and several people got off.  Ally shoved her way through them, and punched the button for Alan's floor.  The ride was slow, and the music was terrible.  Yet somehow, Ally managed to make it to Alan's apartment safely.  She pounded on the door, and waited.  Nobody came.  So she pounded again, louder this time.  Still nothing.
        "FREAK-BOY!" she shouted, "I know you're in there!"  She pounded once more.  Alan, hearing the racket outside, woke up.  He looked around, then realized he'd fallen asleep.  Groggily, he walked over to the door.
        "BECKER!" Ally roared, just as the door was opened.  Alan nearly fell backwards.  A sheepish look crossed Ally's face, but quickly vanished into a frown.  "Selectively deaf, are we?" she asked, shoving past him.  Her dirty boots made tracks across his newly cleaned floor.
        "So?" she demanded crossly.  "What's our mission?"  Alan took a deep breath, gesturing towards the couch.
        "Won't you have a seat?"  Ally stared at him as if he'd grown another head.
        "Who ever told you to be an agent, boy?  You have no common sense whatsoever.  I didn't come here to gossip, I came here to get an explination of a mission.  So spit it out."
        "Well...."  Alan began, trying to keep cool.  "We have to go to Russia, and--"
        "Russia?!"  Ally exclaimed.  "Wow, a real job!  Keep talkin' kid, keep talkin'!"  She sat down in an armchair, eyes fixed on her partner.  Up went the dirty boots, onto the nice and shiny coffee table.  Alan winced, but went on.
        "It's just been discovered that the war between Hydra and AIM was caused by a local mobster.  A guy named...uhh...  Ivan...  Pushkin.  So basically, both groups got pissed, and turned the war on him."
        "Good, so what's that got to do with us?  Do we get to can this Pushkin guy, or what?"  Ally asked, leaning forward in her chair.  She was immensely excited--this was their first *real* mission!
        "Uhmm....not exactly," Becker said, scooting back a few paces as Ally narrowed her eyes.  He hurried on before she could comment.  "A Shield agent was taken hostage by this other guy, Ransom Sole.  After the war, she was taken by AIM, and we gotta go get her and bring her back."  He looked at Ally as he finished, watching her expression.  She frowned, but shrugged.
        "Well, then bring her back is what we're gonna do," is all she said.

With surprisingly few arguements (besides who was going to sit on the aisleway in the airplane), the two soon found themselves in Russia.  With absolutely no clue where to go.
        "This is all your fault," Ally stated, crossing her arms.  "I thought you said Nick told you *everything* you needed to know."
        "Well, he did..." Alan protested quietly, looking at the ground.
        "Yeah everything except WHERE THE FLYIN' @#$% WE WERE SUPPOSED TO GO!"
        [[Children, children...  Calm down!]]
        "How are we supposed to be calm if we're lost in frickin' Siberia or wherever the hell we are, huh?"  Ally protested.
        [[Just look around...  If *you* were an orginization of psychopaths, where would you hide?]]
        "An abandoned warehouse!" Alan piped up.  
        Ally conked him over the head.  "That's only in the movies, dipshit."
        [[Suit yourself...  Only trying to help.]]
        "Well where is there a...."  Ally trailed off as she turned and saw a giant warehouse.  Rolling her eyes, she started off in that direction.  "C'mon, Becker."

The warehouse was surprisingly easy to break into, only a few guards to beat up.  But it was like a maze on the inside.  Ally's eyes widened.
        "Don't suppose you have a map, eh Freak-boy?" she joked, kicking down a door.  "No stolen chicks in here...  Next!"
        "But this could take forever, Ally..."  Alan said, glancing in a room.
        "You got any better ideas, punk?"  Ally replied, shoving him up against a door.  The door had been open just a crack, and easily fell open with Alan's added weight.  He flew into the room, landing ontop of a woman.  She was tied to a chair, and gagged with a handkerchief.  Typical hostage stuff.
        "See, knew it would work," Ally told him, striding into the room.  She walked over behind the chair, inspecting the knotted rope.  "Just like I thought, it's a square knot!  Simple!"  She began tampering with the rope, trying to untie the knots.  Alan caught her hand.
        "Hey wait!" he cried, "That's no square knot!  You're going to get her stuck!  It's a Windsor knot!"
        Ally paused, glaring at him.  "The hell is a Windsor knot, boy?  You just want to untie it and get all the glory, don't you?"  She shook her head.  "Making up knots..."
        "Y'know, like a necktie knot?"  Alan protested, hands on his hips.  "Just let me untie it..."
        "Mmph!" the woman said.  Both looked at her.
        "WHAT?" they asked in unison, equally irritated.  The woman nodded her head towards the door behind them, making more muffled sounds.
        "Yeah, we know you wanna get out..." Ally said, going back to the knot.  Alan busied himself trying to keep her away from it, trying to untie it himself.
        [[Uhh....guys....]]
        "Busy!" Ally insisted as she smacked Alan's hand.  A gun clicked behind her head.
        "Stand up and turn around slowly," a man's voice demanded.  Both did as they were told, turning to face a roomful of AIM agents.
        Alan gulped.  "Somehow I think this mission's failed."


TBC ~ Issue 3!  Look for it in stands sometime....uhh...  After Christmas.  ;)