22.| EXPLOSIVE

WITH PROJECT SYNTHESIS SCRAPED FOR THE AVENGERS, JASMINE WAS BACK TO STEP ONE. Hours went by as she was busy at work, attempting to put together something that would be able to help them. As always, she wanted to make sure that the Avengers were going to be safe. She wanted them to be protected in any way that they could be, against anyone that they would go against. Now, it was going to be difficult for her to beat the Necromancer, Annika Marlowe, and her little pouches of anti-death, but she had to do something. She had to put her best foot forward and figure out a way that she was going to keep them all alive.

And that was what made her think of return pads.

Stark Industries had the tech that she could use whenever, and that was what she was going to do. With the help of F.R.I.D.A.Y, she was attempting to configure a return pad for the Avengers to be able to carry with them in case they couldn't reach a checkpoint and needed to get back to their quinjets. It was a simple device that they would be able to carry on their hips, and she knew that she could do it. If Tony Stark was able to create new Iron Man suits, and she was able to design synthetic material to create a new body for herself, then she knew that she was capable of just about anything.

Her glasses were on the bridge of her nose as she stared up at the screen in front of her, and Andrea was on the other side of the hologram. The two women were busy at work as they attempted to piece together everything that they could to make the return pads. There were going to be bugs with them, just as all devices did. But she wanted to make sure that they were up and running for the Avenger's next big mission, and she didn't want them to be faulty in any major way.

The woman pressed her lips together as she stared up at the screen in front of her, before tilting her head to the side. There was something about the chemical equations in front of her that didn't make sense to her. Her brain was whirling at a hundred miles a minute as she stared at it. There had to be something else going on as she was attempting to figure it out. And she could tell that Andrea saw it too. That she could see the flaw in the system in front of them.

And it wasn't going to be a good flaw unless they fixed it.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ "Do you see that?" Andrea questioned as she moved her glasses to the top of her head. She shook her head as she motioned her hands in front of her, in a mannerism that Bruce would use on the daily. "The chemicals are reacting in a way that they shouldn't be . . . as if they're going to-"

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ "They're not going to react negatively," Jasmine replied quickly as she shook her head. She snapped her attention over toward Andrea and she clenched her jaw as she stared at her, before her attention met back with the hologram in front of them. "I've scanned the data-"

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ "And what did the data tell you?" Andrea questioned as she folded her arms over her chest. "That it wasn't going to implode in our faces?" She motioned her arms over toward the hologram. "Jasmine, a chemical pairing like this is . . . explosive, it may take out the entire facility!"

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ "No," Jasmine replied as she shook her head, continuing to work on the device in front of them. She didn't want to believe that another one of her projects could fail so quickly. She wanted to believe that it was going to work. That everything was going to be alright and that the two of them were going to be perfectly fine. "If I just tweak this, then everything will be-"

That was when a large blast of energy threw the two women back and the alarms in Jasmine's lab began to blare throughout the corridor outside. Jasmine's throat was filled with smoke as she pushed herself onto the palm of her hands and she shook her head. Her eyes lifted as she began to scan the office that she was in and she noticed that Andrea was a few feet away. Blood trickling down her temple and smoke beginning to create soot along with her clothing.

The woman didn't know what to think of the whole thing, but that was when she noticed the fire eating away at everything around them. She realized that it hadn't gotten to any of the flammable objects in the lab, which only gave her a small window to get over toward Andrea and get her out. The Host pushed herself to her feet and she could feel that there was something wrong with her shoulder, and with a deep breath, she shoved it back into place. The woman twisted her head around as she cracked it before she began to make her way over toward Andrea.

Smoke blew into her face as she inched closer and closer toward Andrea. Once she was in front of her, she pulled her to her feet and Andrea erupted into a fit of coughing, but Jasmine didn't do anything as she began to lead her toward the exit. The Host glanced over her shoulder toward the flames and her eyes caught sight of them as she watched them inch closer and closer toward the oxygen tanks in the lab and her eyes widened.

That gave her enough time to thrust Andrea out of the lab, but not enough time to get herself out. Jasmine was blown through the glass windows of the lab and she gasped. Glass scraped against her synthetic skin and her body rolled against the flooring. Voices began to make their way over toward the lab and it was only a matter of moments before the flames were extinguished.

Jasmine stared through her lashes at her lab as it was consumed by flames for only a matter of moments, before Vision was in front of her. The Android stared at her for a moment, and Jasmine rested her hand against his cheek. The two of them stared at each other for a moment, before Jasmine's head fell over his arm.

Her eyes rolling into the back of her head.