Ambush on the Chinatown Crew

"Call for backup, yeah? We can't wait for Daisy." "These guys might kill somebody besides each other." "Yeah. Us."

- Alphonso Mackenzie and Phil Coulson

The Ambush on the Chinatown Crew was an attempt by S.H.I.E.L.D. agents Phil Coulson and Alphonso Mackenzie, who were joined by Melinda May's strike team, to find Daisy Johnson who they suspected to be tracking down the Chinatown Crew.

Background
"We get on comms and call the Zephyr for backup, headquarters will know we're on Daisy's trail." "No orders to pull out. She's been tracking this sale. She could show up here any minute."

- Alphonso Mackenzie and Phil Coulson

S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Daisy Johnson decided to leave S.H.I.E.L.D. as she felt responsible for the death of her boyfriend Lincoln Campbell during the Battle of the Playground and she did not want to further harm her friends. However, Phil Coulson, who considered Johnson to be her family, refused to give up on her and was keen on bringing her back to S.H.I.E.L.D. with the assistance of Alphonso Mackenzie.

Johnson became known as the vigilante Quake, who fought against the Watchdogs and their associates. Her involvement in the Ambush on the Aryan Brotherhood was discovered by Melinda May, who told Coulson and Mackenzie that they should look for Johnson in Los Angeles. Coulson's and Mackenzie's search led them to a warehouse where a truck stolen by the Aryan Brotherhood had been taken. In this truck, they discovered two bloody corpses of members of the Chinatown Crew who had gone mad after being infected by Lucy Bauer, forcing their teammates to kill them. The corpses, which wore Cosmogenic uniforms, led Coulson and Mackenzie to the Cosmogenic Warehouse.

Ambush
"What was that?" "A breath of fresh air."

- Chen and Lucy Bauer

Phil Coulson and Alphonso Mackenzie went to the Cosmogenic Warehouse, where they deployed a surveillance system all around the building and waited for their target to come. When the night came, six members of the Chinatown Crew led by Chen met with two other members of the gang posing as Cosmogenic employees inside the warehouse. Coulson and Mackenzie monitored the encounter from the outside.

The two fake Cosmogenic employees explained to Chen that their colleagues had gone crazy after opening the Quantum Battery which was in the stolen truck and which, unbeknownst to everyone, contained Lucy Bauer trapped between two dimensions. Chen blamed the two bandits for having not gotten rid of the bodies and suspected that their associates had been fighting to take control of what they thought to be a powerful weapon. Chen opened the Battery, releasing Bauer who quickly infected Chen and the other members of the Chinatown Crew who had come with him. They all suddenly went crazy, believing to see demonic faces everywhere. In his madness, Chen murdered the two fake Cosmogenic employees, prompting Mackenzie, who was still watching the scene with Coulson, to call for backup. As they were on the verge of being attacked, Coulson and Mackenzie saw the arrival of Melinda May and her team, who had been sent by Jemma Simmons to stop them from chasing Daisy Johnson. May and her team infiltrated the warehouse and quickly took down the Chinatown Crew members with I.C.E.R.s. However, Bauer managed to stealthily infect May without her noticing. The unconscious thugs were put into the Zephyr One to be taken to the Playground.

Aftermath
"The base has been infiltrated. Something got in."

- Melinda May in her dementia

Chen's dementia kept increasing without S.H.I.E.L.D. being able to do anything to cure him. Eventually, Chen died from his psychosis. Having been infected by Lucy Bauer, Melinda May soon suffered from the same symptoms than the Chinatown Crew members and was nearly killed by the disease, only being saved by Jemma Simmons and Holden Radcliffe after they put her through a near-death experience.

Meanwhile, the Quantum Battery was reclaimed by S.H.I.E.L.D. and studied by Leo Fitz and Simmons, who soon discovered that the technological achievement it represented was far beyond common human knowledge. This and the mysterious disease would later put S.H.I.E.L.D. on the trail of an ominous grimoire known as the Darkhold.

As she had been released, Bauer went to a Momentum Labs laboratory in Pasadena, California and released her former colleagues who were trapped between dimensions just like she was, requiring their assistance to get rid of their halituous condition.