CH27- The Hand

Azrael Maximoff View

"Why are you here Azrael?" Colleen questioned me again.

"I was simply curious. It's not everyday you see a woman with such power and skill to easily take down two men at once in a no rules cage fight." This was pretty much the truth, so whether or not she believed it or not was to be seen.

"How can I believe someone who refuses to show their face to me?" She baited. She probably thought that if she saw my face, she could report my appearance to people from The Hand and use them to check if whether or not my identity was accurate as what I said it was.

'Either way, that plan would horribly fail. My current face isn't registered anywhere except for the data stored in the Hydra base that we escaped from. And I destroyed that data. It's highly likely that this data was backed up somewhere else, but The Hand was simply not as skilled at hacking as Hydra was.'

With all of these facts and reasons pilling up, I determined that I was safe to show my face to her. I was completely immune from her if her intentions are as I assume. I also had to consider what benefits I could receive by revealing my face to her.

'I could gain a little trust from her and if that leads into a positive relationship that grows even more trust between us, that leads me many opportunities.' To be more specific, I wanted to take over The Hand. There were many major flaws with that ideal however, aside from my obvious greed.

For one, they were pseudo immortal humans because they worshipped a demon known as a Beast. There was nothing in my, or anyone else's arsenal that could deal with a demon.

'Except Chaos Magic.' I realized. At full potential, Wanda's reality warping ability from Chaos Magic literally corrupted the entire Multiverse. Who's to say it can't simply make demons disappear from existence.

To fully take over The Hand, I need to make Wanda much stronger to handle The Beast.

'It could take time to make her abilities that strong, so for now I decided to go with a classic move that I find myself using a lot.

'It's my trademark!'

Psychologically planting seeds into someone else's mind to convince them of something they don't believe. I could do it with or without my powers, didn't matter.

"You'll know my face when you realize that The Hand is not as it seems." That was without using my powers.

Me using mind abilities to increase specific emotions within her brain, was using my powers.

"What are you saying?" She asked slowly, raising her guard at how I knew about The Hand. I noticed her slowly moving the katana, so that's when I decided to dip.

I subtly used telekinesis to grab something random in the room and threw it out of a window. She jumped up and rushed over to the window, thinking it was an attack orchestrated by enemies of The Hand.

While she was distracted, I used telekinesis to heavily silence my movements and escape swiftly. She noticed almost instantly, but was still too late to stop me. She ran after me, but after I disappeared quickly past many corners and even flew up a building so she couldn't see me, she gave up gravely.

——

Colleen Wing View

"I checked the cameras that weren't ripped out of the wall and it appears that the window was broken from the inside. It seems that you need more training, as you were too distracted to notice that the object thrown was on the outside." Bokuto said disappointed.

I kept my head down and kneeled on one knee in respect.

"I'm sorry Bakuto. My youth is simply not an excuse, I have no idea what I was thinking."

"Don't apologize. You will be trained to not allow this to happen again. He is aware of the existence of our clan and successfully escaped. You will help us capture this man because of your ignorance." I nodded in agreement, but couldn't help but think about Azrael's words.

'The Hand is not as it seems.. what does this mean? What could be wrong about The Hand?'

——

"Where were you at?" As soon as I opened the door, I was questioned by Laura who stared at me confusingly. I smiled sheepishly at this growing personality of hers.

"I got curious." That simple answer seemed to make Laura forget about it. Everyone in this house knew that I was the single person in this house who needed to be active a lot of the time to be entertained. Whether it be an adventure or something simple.

"Tell me when you plan on going somewhere for so long." She demanded before ignoring me and continuing to watch TV.

I walked into our room and closed the door behind me with a content sigh. Although I didn't truly feel any fatigue from my small adventure, I liked sleeping. It made me feel more human rather than the undead being I simply was.

Same reason I still ate food, drink water, and breathed in air. I didn't need to do any of those things, but it made me feel normal. Something I would never be again.

'Of course, if I was offered the chance to be normal again, I would never take it. I like who I am now, but I still liked doing normal things. It felt natural.'

I dispersed the melancholy atmosphere around me and changed into better clothes, suitable for sleeping. After assessing all of today's events while sorting them into a list of importance to me, I managed to drift off to sleep successfully.

——