Pantheon
No Choice

by ElenaRoan

Alternate ATF Universe: Pantheon

Character Focus: Vin, Ezra

Disclaimer: Don’t own any of them, written purely for enjoyment. Mog created the ATF universe.

Beta by Kalde.

Summary: Ezra's missing and finding him will change the ATF team forever.


Prologue: Tempers Frayed

"Damn'it!" With one sweep of his arm Vin sent the things on his desk flying, causing his teammates to pause in their activities.

"Temper, temper brother," Josiah said calmly, plucking a pen out of the notice board from where it had lodged in front of his nose.

"Take a break, Vin," Chris ordered softly. If it had been anyone else, someone would have been hit by the flying desk top items.

Vin rounded on him angrily. "He's out there somewhere and you want me to take a break!?"

"You need to calm down before you can be constructive," Chris returned levelly. Everyone always made a big thing out of how protective Chris was of his team, but in the eight days since Ezra's disappearance they had got to see Vin's protective side; the sniper seemed to be taking it almost as a personal affront that their undercover agent had been kidnapped.

"Fine!" Vin turned and stormed out of the office.

"I'm glad there was nothing breakable on his desk," Buck commented, pulling a pair of scissors out of the wall.

Chris glared at him. "Any progress?"

"Still waiting to hear back on a few leads. I'm guessing junior hit a dead end."

"Keep trying."

---

"Think they'll find us?"

"I have utmost confidence in my compatriot's ability to ascertain our location."

"But will it be in time?" The other man, an agent assigned to Team 3, questioned fearfully.

His eyes flicked to the slow countdown on the device between them.

"We will survive unscathed I assure you." He finished silently to himself, 'though it is anyone's guess whether our lives will be intact afterwards.'

---

Chapter 1:

The other agent nearly whimpered as the countdown flicked to 30 minutes remaining.

"You lie too well, Standish. I actually believed you when you said we'd get out alive."

"We are not out of innings yet, my friend."

---

"Spread out and clear the buildings."

At a standstill for the moment in their search for their friend, Team Seven had been ordered to assist another team in a joint investigation with the FBI and Police. To say they were not happy about it would be an understatement, but regardless of their feelings, they would do their best. The sooner they got it done the sooner they could get back to the search.

---

Ezra looked up as the door to their torture chamber prison opened cautiously. He had given up hope of getting out with his life intact when the countdown had reached 5 minutes. That had been over 4 minutes ago.

All eyes widened when Vin slipped through the door to check the room.

"Ez!" The sniper started down towards them.

"NO!" Ezra called back urgently, halting the other agents progress. "There's a bomb!"

Vin swore, "Hang in there both of you, I'll get the bomb squad."

"No! Just get out of here!"

"Ez!"

The undercover agent dropped his eyes to the readout and started reading it aloud.

"15."

Vin's eyes went wide as he realised what that meant.

"14."

With one last agonised glance at his friend the sharpshooter turned and bolted for the exit.

13

12

11

10

9

8

7

Everyone spun towards him as Vin burst from the building.

6

"Get away from the building!"

5

"What?" JD stammered.

4

"Move!" Vin grabbed the computer expert and spun him away from the building, dragging him along with him.

3

"What is it!?" Chris demanded.

2

"Bomb." Vin replied succinctly.

1

0

Vin dived over JD as the building went up in a blaze of flame and debris.

Chris ran over to the two agents once debris stopped falling around them.

"Vin, JD, you ok?"

Vin looked up at him with tortured eyes and pulled himself off the smaller agent.

"Yeah..." He turned around and gazed at the burning building from his seated position.

JD picked himself up and dusted himself off. "I'm good."

"What type of bomb was it?" The leader of the team they were assisting asked.

"Didn't see it," Vin replied softly, his eyes fixed on the flames.

"Then how did you know it was there?"

Vin looked at him with pure agony in his eyes. "'cause Ezra told me."

JD gasped and Chris put a comforting hand on his best friend's shoulder. Vin ducked his head as tears began to run down his face.

---

Chapter 2:

As the countdown flipped to 1 Ezra wrapped his legs around the other agent's and shifted away from the building about to become a pile of rubble.

"What?" the other agent gasped out looking around at the base they had suddenly translocated to.

"We are dead, my friend," Ezra stated, "at least officially."

He looked at him dumbfounded.

"I am no liar. I would have preferred keeping our lives intact as well but one can only work with the hand one is given."

"What happens now? What about my family?"

"Undoubtedly the Hero Authority has procedures in place to deal with these types of situations."

He ran a shakey hand through his hair and Ezra slipped into the small kitchen to make them both a coffee.

"What now?" He asked after sipping his coffee for a few moments.

"We wait." Ezra returned. "The rest of the team will come here once they can."

"Your entire team has a double life, don't you?"

"Yes."

He shook his head in amazement. "To think we all thought you were just very good agents."

Ezra just chuckled at that.

About an hour after they had come to the base a faint chime announced the arrival of someone else.

Vin burst into the room. Coming over to Ezra he pulled him into a fierce hug.

"Damn it Ezra, don't scare me like that again!" The sniper turned to the other agent. "How are you?"

"A little stunned, but happy to be alive."

Vin nodded. "I'll contact Scintillation Shock about relocating you."

"What about my family?"

"They'll have to stay for your funeral and act like you're dead, but after that no one will think anything of it if they leave to find a new life."

He shook his head in amazement. "You're the Silver Archer aren't you?"

Vin nodded while Chris chuckled behind him.

They could nearly see the wheels turning in his head.

"I know why Joculator chose that name now," he stated with a chuckle.

"The giant clown." Chris agreed with his own chuckle. He gave a mock glare at Ezra, "Like making things difficult difficult for me don't you? Now not only do I have to break in a new undercover agent, I have to think of something nice to say at your funeral."

"I always aim to please," Ezra returned with a smile.

End

Feedback to: ElenaRoan78@yahoo.com.au


Author's Note: I didn't think this was necessary, however there's at least one person convinced that I hate Ezra and have killed him off. So to put it in very plain English:

  1. I do not hate Ezra. He is in fact quite an important part of the Seven superhero group.
  2. Ezra isn't going anywhere, the others wouldn't allow it for one. If any of them are able to create a brand new civilian identity and reinsert into the ATF team it's him.
  3. The only person needing to relocate is the other agent who was taken with Ezra and I'm pretty sure he and his family are rather pleased to not have to bury his pieces despite the inconvenience.

Because of various real world situations that I'm still working on fixing there are several stories I'm recreating and several more that are still in progress. This story is set several years after the superhero team formed and there's easily a dozen stories in between. This just happened to be finished and I didn't see a reason to hold it back while recreating and finishing the stories that came between them.