CHAPTER 44

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[Draul St. Cross POV]

The plan was to attack the last HYDRA base in New York where, according to Fury, there had been suspicious movements.

S.H.I.E.L.D couldn't take HYDRA down on their own. It wasn't even funny since S.H.I.E.L.D was a breeding nest for HYDRA. It was like using a clean wool to wipe out ink from a clean sheet of paper, both would get smudged.

So I was needed to be the pivotal force in HYDRA's downfall. If we were to be honest, I was the only thing standing between S.H.I.E.L.D's defeat at HYDRA's hand.

I mean, our team consisted of me, Fury, Clint, Coulson and Agent Hill. It was only now that I knew what kind of sick shit we were about to jump into. No wonder Fury was being all negative yesterday.

We all geared up, well everyone except me, and drove to the final spot in little ol'New York.

Fury, Hill and Coulson were going to confront Pierce and capture him, while my job was to 'do what you always do' as Fury put it.

I tried multiple times to calm my heart beat but it didn't work. It wasn't due to fear or nervousness, but rather expectation and excitement.

"You are smiling." Clint commented.

"Am I?" I didn't even know I was. Just like Fury, I had a lot riding on this mission.

"Yes you are." Clint replied. "What are you going to do after this? Any plans?"

Hmm, I did have a few things sorted out.

"Probably open a media company." I told him which prompted a raised brow from him.

"I didn't take you for the white collar type. You look more like you could swing a mean drink at a bar." I gave a small smile as he said that.

Facebook was just a stepping stone for me. Tiktok, Instagram, YouTube, Gmail; none of them had been created yet.

I also had a lot to learn. From coding to science. From my powers to learning how to manipulate other things. All this would only be possible if HYDRA went down today.

"You think you can sleep better after today?" Clint asked in a rare show of concern.

At first I had kept my distance from Clint because I knew Fury was using him to keep an eye on me, but during those time we spent raiding bases and lounging on the couch with beers and pizzas, I was able to see the kind of person he was. He was someone I could at least afford the bare minimum of trust. Someone I could call a friend.

"Hell yeah!" I gave him a laugh. HYDRA was a knot in my psyche. They were something needed to make unimportant. I won't delude myself into thinking I could kill every last member of HYDRA on Earth. But I was confident that I could drag them back down to the crevices of the Earth they crawled out from, but then again they would just make a base out of it.

The car we were in was a Shelby Mustang with Clint at the wheels. Our destination – an abandoned mental facility. Or most accurately, the base underneath.

Like always, I'll first go in while Clint took care of the stragglers… at least that was how it was supposed to be if not for the warhead heading for us.

"Looks like they were expecting us!" Clint spurn the wheel and the car swerved in subservience putting me in a straight line for the missile.

"No shit Sherlock!" I quickly formed an exploding arrow and sent it to the missile while Clint continued driving, trying to get us closer to the base.

"Since when could you do that?" Asked the surprised Clint as he saw me send out other exploding arrows to the base ahead.

"For a while now. Pretty neat, ain't it?"

I used my X-ray vision and scanned the parts of the building I could see and saw as turrets started coming out of small open compartments.

With my enhanced vision and optic acuity I was able to fire off another volley of arrows that exploded on impact, rendering the turrets useless.

Clint stopped the car and came down while I already jumped to the top of the building, since it wasn't that high.

I didn't know if this would work since I haven't ever tried it, except during the time I was angry.

I used my X-ray vision, but instead of just slightly enhancing the ocular nerves with gamma rays, I pushed in a fuckton amount of energy and just let it pass out through my eyes.

*S-SZZ-SZOOOM*

It flickered on and off for a while before a beam of red lasers shot out from my eyes and broke through the floors, opening a straight path to the underground base.

There were few enemies with heavy weaponry in the top floor, so I willed my transformation and immediately red cracks started appearing over my body as wisps of red flames flickered on and off through it.

The first group of opponents I came across were quickly disposed of. Clint was to clear the ground floor while I took care of the heavy fire from the top and meet up with him on his floor before we both descended.

'Tch. I really need a weapon.' I thought as I slammed the head of a man against the wall and saw as it burst open and his brain went splat.

It took me a few moments to wipe out any enemy homie from the top floors as I made my way to rendezvous with Clint… and that was when I found an answer to my problem.

Hung on the wall was an axe. I couldn't help but grin as I held it. It just felt right.

Feeling in the mood to try something new, I closed my eyes as I visualized the head of the axe in my hands freezing. I could feel something was on the cusp of happening but no matter how I tried to get use to that feeling and control it, it just didn't work.

Neutral elements like ice were harder to control than an active one like fire, even though my pyromancy still sucked.

I ignored everything around me, even going as far as disabling my enhanced senses as I focused everything on the axe head I held.

Slowly but surely, I could feel the frost creeping through the metal head. I didn't try to control the frost but just let it flow around the surface and when I felt it was completely covered, I pushed in more ice energy and opened my eyes.

What laid on my hands was a frozen metal-head axe. It wasn't just frozen too, but had a larger ice casing around the head of the axe, making it almost bigger than the entire axe.

"Hahahaha! Yes!" Aside from the questionable practicality, its cool appearance already had me sold on what my choice of weapon would be.

In a stroke of happiness I jumped down from the floor I was to where Clint was waiting for me.

"Where the hell did you find something like that?" Clint asked as he saw all too eye-catching weapon in my hand.

"I just made it. Like it?" I could practically see the shit eating currently plastered on my face.

"Too eye-catching." Was all he said before he looked at the hole in front of us.

"You know they're probably waiting for us right? Could very well be a trap" Clint said as he nocked three arrows onto his bow.

"Ready?" I nodded.

I jumped down the hole and surprise surprise, it was like a whole battalion in here. They didn't even give me a second to take in the view before I was bombarded with everything they had.

The force from the explosions and hail of bullets pushed me backwards during my fall and even then they didn't let up.

It turns out I was right. My body was growing stronger, almost every day in fact. My two anger outbursts seemed to have pushed the growth further a few points ahead.

My body was literally covered in bullet wounds but none of them were enough to fully enter inside my skin as they all stopped halfway while some outright bounced back.

I made sure to cover my new weapon so it wouldn't be destroyed by the rain of aggression until the bullets stopped.

'They never learn.'

Booom!

With Clint creating the perfect breather I needed, it was time to break my new weapon in.

Before they could reorganize themselves during the small chaotic explosions, I leapt at the group near me and brought my axe down on the first three within my reach as three different heads flew into the air.

I spotted someone trying to turn a turret at me and immediately, on instinct, I let my energy flow through the axe and threw it at the motherfucker and the strangest thing happened.

The moment the axe pierced him through, it froze the area around the wound. Without thinking much of it since I could do a lot of that later, I jumped at the frozen man and yanked the axe out of him.

'It really froze through!'

The others were already coordinated as they once again opened fire in me while Clint took out their snipers and any long range damage dealer he could find.

Without paying any attention to Clint, I began my slaughter fest.

Heads, limbs, midsections. Everything flew off as I swung my axe with wild abandon.

Battles were really a place for a fighter like me to grow.

I was learning, adapting, as I fought.

Every swing of mine were refined before the next one, creating perfect synchrony with all of my abilities.

Close-range went to the axe, mid-range for my lasers, while long range for my arrows. I didn't even know when a layer of frost appeared over my torso even as it shone in a mix hue of silver-blue and haunting-red.

My slashes froze every skin they cut through, blood and bones, while my flames burnt till there was nothing. The whole base smelled like smoke and death.

There was some mutants mixed between the soldiers but I didn't care. Most of them didn't even have the chance to use their abilities before my axe reaped their lives.

All in all, Clint and I had annihilated this base. The number of bases in America now was less than 20. Although it was still much, it wouldn't be so for long.

"*Huff*Is that *huff* all?" Clint asked me through the comms sounding slightly out of breath.

"No." I saw it when I was fighting a whole ago, slowly making its way here. The monster I fought yesterday.

Unlike Clint, I wasn't that winded from the fight. I was a walking tank of energy, it would take a lot more than this to get me truly tired.

Very soon, I could feel the light tremors due to their heavy footsteps.

"The fuck is that?" Clint asked.

"Just some big mean monster I fought yesterday. It looks like I will be paying it back for what it's sibling did to me yesterday." I said as I made my way to the middle of the space we were in.

"What the hell are those?" Clint asked as he saw the two monsters walking towards me. They didn't have their spikes out yet which if the one from yesterday was the same type, then they all absorbed intense heat to produce those spikes.

'Fucking doomsday ripoff.'

"This isn't going to be like yesterday, ya hear me!" I shouted as I lunged at the monsters who roared as the both attacked me.

"Don't shot at them with explosives." I informed Clint as I clashed with the first one as I swung my axe at its hand which it blocked with some carapace like skin.

'Now that I look at them, the have small differences.' The one from yesterday didn't have any other feature apart from the spikes it produced whole this one had scale like skin. The last one was just like the one from yesterday – no distinguishable feature.

Clint was kiting anyone I wasn't fighting, keeping their focus disgruntled.

I ducked under a fist that crashed to the ground and swung the frozen axe at its ankle which immediately split apart as it let out an enraged roar.

I left it for Clint with its reduced mobility as I attacked the other one with the scales. This one was tricky.

Since I couldn't use any heat attack, my attacks were severely limited. I dodged as I swung my axe with I could already see cracks appearing on it even after I reinforced the frost casing. It wouldn't last long and I need to kill these things before it expired.

I heard a roar behind me and turned to see an arrow lodged into the tennis ball sized eye of the monster.

I did a back flip even as the monster continued it raging shout and swung my axe with my augmented strength at the jugular of the abomination and almost grinned at it gurgle and choked on it own blood and slumped to the ground dead as I pulled out my axe.

'One down, you to go.'

I turned to the last monster was being bombarded by a triangular formation of sonic waves as it clutched two tiny openings at the side of its head.

I took a last look at my axe and steeled my heart as I flooded it with ice energy freezing it from the head to the hilt.

I looked at the screaming monster and with the strongest force I could muster I swung the axe, making it leave my hand with a boom as it burst through the neck of the beast less than a second later, freezing its entire neck dead.

An arrow from Clint later and its head rolled on the floor.

"You okay man?" Clint spoke as I stared at the corpse of the monster.

"I miss her already."

"…"