CHAPTER 20

[Octavian Bloom POV]

During the 7th floor…

I watched as he jumped down the ledged he held while my men were engulfed in an explosion and I lost the feed.

"Do we have people on the 8th floor?" I asked the people in the control room with me.

"Yes sir. Olav is down there with two squadrons en route." One of them replied.

Preposterous!

A single man attacking my base while escaping for so long. From the reports I've received, he had killed over 50 people. That was 1/5th of the whole armed soldiers stationed here.

Worst of it was we had no way of knowing what was happening below the 7th floor as there was no surveillance there as there was no need to in the first place as only strictly authorized persons could go there.

The only thing we could rely on was the occasional reports that came in.

Right now, the two squadron had encountered him and I was just waiting for the news of his apprehension.

I waited for what seemed like hours before the transmission came, albeit a broken one.

"S-sir… all… ead… Draugr!" The transmission cut off and the line went quiet as did the control room.

Everyone arrived at the same conclusion from that broken message: The entire squad was dead, putting the death tally to over 80.

"Where is he… FIND HIM!" I screamed to these dull-witted mannequin-shaped bunch of lards and they scrambled to work.

There had to be a way we could see what was happening down there.

That was it!

"The chip. The CHIP!" They all looked at me with confusion, "In his body houses a chip at the base of his neck, Ernst put it there to monitor him and also terminate him in the event something happening to him beyond our power."

"If you can access the chip, we would be able to know where he is and neutralize him."

The moment they understood that, they immediately got to work as they typed away with clicks on their keyboards.

"Sir, it will take a while before we can access the chip since we don't have the doctor's code," one of them reported and immediately got to work.

Thankfully Ernst was a smart man, creating such a failsafe was a testimony to that.

"Sir, we just received confirmation that both Floch's and Olav's teams have intercepted him." Someone reported with urgency.

Finally some good news.

With Floch there and that woman Saw, who can read frequencies, there would be no way for him to run and hide.

I waited as news of their pursuit came at intervals for over 20 minutes before it just stopped.

The thought of what could've happened chilled my heart.

"Contact Floch and ask for the status of his mission now!" I was agitated, rightfully so.

I waited as communications were made to both teams but no response came.

What have we created.

The room remained silent with only the clicking of fingers on keyboards as everyone focused on what they were doing as the atmosphere tensed.

How can we stop him from going further? Sending more people was not feasible and they couldn't send them all at once.

If they could access the chip then they would be able to neutralize with the push of a button and also know what happened to him since the chip also served as neuron scanner.

Olav was the only one who could put up a fight with him as he also underwent the super soldier experimentation and also taught him how to fight.

Unfortunately, Olav was a loose cannon. He had a temper that sometimes clouds his better judgment.

"Sir! We are reading failure in Engine 1 and synaptic collisions of the coil in the energy reactor and the  main power plant!" Someone screamed out.

"What does that mean?" I asked as my calm voice betrayed my frantic mind.

"If another engine were to fail…," he paused there making a pit in my stomach, "What would happen?" This time the franticness in my voice bled out.

"The entire base would blow up… sir."

Immediately panic exploded in control room and some left their station wanting to run at the first order.

"Sir! We've accessed the chip in the Draugr's body." A man at the screen reported back at the gun powder atmosphere was immediately doused in cold water calming the entire room.

Everyone looked at me to give the order.

Finally this nightmare is avoided.

You might think you were our reckoning but you are not. What you did only served to increase your value to is and put a larger noose around your neck.

"Neutralize him." Finally this who charade is over. Now I can-

"Uhm, s-sir…"

"Yes"

"Engine 3 is showing signs of failure due to high electrical discharges."

"What! Then neutralize him completely or blow his head off!" According to Ernst, the amount of electricity that chip can produce would be enough to electrocute a wild mountain boar or an elephant.

So I see no reasons why the full discharge of elec… tricty!

"Stop it now!" No no no no.

At that moment a light tremor vibrated through the building and immediately signals of alarms blared for the computer screens.

"Sir Engine 3 has failed, the same with the backup power plant… The main power plant is at critical efficiency. This w-whole place is going to blow up!"

"W-w-what?" I stuttered out. I didn't even realized when the others started running out of the room and yelling about the base blowing up.

I just stood there transfixed to the screen as it started a 10 minute countdown and continued to give warnings of imminent danger.

The base rumbled once more and I could begin to see cracks appearing in its structure as the rumbling became louder.

So this is it? The end?

How anticlimactic.

…

[Draul St. Cross POV]

The basement, or if I should even call it that, was the most technologically advanced thing I've seen till date.

While the Marvel-verse was technologically advanced, I had never seen it applications in the public.

There were big energy sparkly thing thingies everywhere with big ass tubes and wires.

I had only three bombs with me plus the chip which was more than enough for me to work with.

I first located one of the big whirring machines and blew it up. The moment I did, the electricity running through it immediately came live which was unsettling.

Secondly I aimed for the biggest thing in here with the most tube and wire running through it and threw the second bomb at it. The feeling I got from this was like a gunpowder ready to go off.

Not taking any chances I went to another machine, this one looked like a power plant, and dropped both the chip and the bomb inside it.

I walked towards the exit and took out my gun before I shot at the power plant twice.

It started leaking out oil or whatever it ran on and I immediately bolted out of the room.

This time I took the elevators not caring if I got caught since the base would most likely blow up before they caught me.

This elevator only took me up to the 7th floor where I would have to change elevators before I could go any higher.

I was in the elevator moments before I got to the 7th floor when I felt the rumbling. 'Oh crap,' the second the doors slid open I ran out of the elevator and went for the other one.

I got to the elevator but the doors wouldn't open and I could even hear some people trapped in there. With that avenue inaccessible to me I made way for the stairs.

By this time the rumbling was getting more pronounced and the cracks started appearing on the walls. I ran, jumping from steps to steps, making way for the top as the building started shaking.

I pass some soldiers who didn't even bother to spare me another glance while some actually shot at me with overwhelming anger.

Killing those who shot at me while I cursed at them for wasting my time, I finally got to the 5th floor.

Halfway across the fifth floor, everyone stopped as a wave blasted through the base. Seconds passed and immediately a mad craze washed over everyone as they pushed, shoved and shot at each other as they scrambled upwards.

It was the we heard the loud explosion.

None of us could take another step before a gigantic flame engulfed us as the entire base explosive in a magnitude of flames.

'Hopefully my resistance to temperatures would save me from it which was what I was counting on but seeing the force of the flames I am no longer that confident.'

These were my last worry before I lost consciousness.

[April 11th, 2003. An Hydra base in South Carolina blew up killing everybody 1km away from its center. All except for one.]

…

[Nick Fury POV – S.H.I.E.L.D Headquarters.]

Sometimes the universe fucks with you and other times the universe gives you a Rubix cube intending to fuck with you.

It might not make sense but it is what it is.

Now imagine my surprise when a few days ago during an ambush mission, Barton gave me some information that had me thinking.

Now, someone killing a fellow teammate while frowned upon isn't something new, happens all the time.

But killing an unhurt teammate during the heat of fire wasn't exactly a brilliant plan and according to Barton, the assailant was weird.

As the boss, it is my divine duty to straiten any superstitious or fuckery propaganda in my subordinates, but my instinct told me otherwise.

The same instinct that saved all over the years rang again so I hesitated to give Barton the order to neutralize.

They escaped but since I already got my one good eye on them how could they escape me.

I ordered the newbies, fucking miscreants, to put an eagles view on a three-state radius around Virginia and also every checkpoint, mainroads, airports and borders.

It wasn't even three whole days before I got a report of intense radiation clusters in South Carolina.

My first thought was who the fuck dropped an A-bomb on little sweet Carolina, while my second was what the hell could produce such clusters of radiation in South Carolina. It was South Carolina for crying out loud.

"Talk to me Coulson."

"Sir we're at the site and it looks like it a base of sorts." I was already on my way when I called Coulson, having a competent man by your side was always something I was thankful for. Not that I was ever going to tell him that.

He started giving me what they found and it was making me one good eye twitch.

"The radiation seems to come from what ever blew the base up. What we are absolutely sure of is that whatever blew it up came from the base not at it…"

He paused at the end which was uncharacteristic of him. "Coulson, what else is there?"

"Sir I think you need to see this personally."

Well ain't that ominous as fuck.

Half hour later and we flew over the bomb site and-

"What the fuck happened here?" It was at least a kilometer wide and that was only the visible damage.

Coulson came to me the moment I touched down like the perfect shadow he was.

"The radiations we picked up were mostly alpha and gamma particles clustered mostly at ground zero and also traces of strontium-90."

"Where is it, Coulson." I asked.

"We were trying to see what we could dig up under the rubble when we found this."

He brought me to a tent and my breath labored as soon as I saw it.

A red flag with an skull on it with six octopus legs.

"Hydra."

"…Yes sir."

Right now I'm confused.

Hydra's leadership was nipped back in '45 leaving them with only headless legs which Director Carter, Howard Stark and Arnim Zola worked together to destroy, which in turns mean that there shouldn't be an active Hydra base in South California.

"I want every hands on ground working together to clear that rubble. We'll dig the entire base up if we have to."

"Yes sir!"

I could still see the burning flames in the distance which doesn't look like it'll come down today. Factor in the radiation and the hands we've got, we might be here for a week.

I was still ensnared with the view before my phone rang.

Shit!

"Director Fury have we identified the origin of that radiation storm?"

Fuck this, someone ratted me out to Peirce.

"Sir I think our concerns right now shouldn't be the radiation but what caused it. Or rather whom."

"What are getting at Director?"

"Hydra."

"Is this a joke? I'll have you know I'm not in a joking mood."

"Neither am I."

He went silent for a while before he asked. "Is there any survivor? What else have you found?"

"I don't think anyone could survive an explosion of this scale."

"If that's all then I'll be signing off. Keep me posted." He said before he cut off the call.

"Will do sir."

The world did know how to fuck with someone. Yesterday I had ham and bacon with freshly squeezed orange juice and today I'm hunting a myth.

The search went on for four days of unearthing whatever could be salvaged before a call came in.

"Sir we found a body." Fucking newbies who can't give a proper report.

"Guess what agent, I've been looking at bodies for days!" I shouted back a reply.

"… But sir, he's alive."

Well well well, would you look at that. Looks like I just found me a Perseus.