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Surprises in this universe were a thing I was used to, but this... this was unsettling, for the last thing I expected was encountering Stryker with a calm demeanor sitting on a timber chair with a broad welcoming smile on his face.
[Stryker LV 31]
"I was waiting for you." He smiled, which made me feel all the more uneasy. As a general rule, an enemy welcoming you to his lair is never a good thing, not like this.
I looked at him, trying to formulate a response; as I inspected my surroundings, he had to have a trap, something. "I see," I replied.
With a grin, Stryker began to clap as he stood up from his chair. "I must admit, I had my doubts as to who you were when Victor told me an enemy was nearby. But, seeing as you are here." he smiled. "Well, I am glad I was correct."
I had to admit; I was lost in this rather bizarre scenario; I mean, he was happy I was here. In fact, he seemed delighted.
"I think this is the first time I see someone so happy to be captured," I replied, eyeing the minimap every now and then; he had to have a trap, an enemy powerful enough to give him this peace, something.
"Well, I am a realistic man." Stryker chuckled. "Besides, you won't capture me."
"Your compliance is not a factor on this." I snorted, walking towards him, ready to end this mission once and for all, when all of a sudden, he tossed a file at me.
"Read that." He smiled, walking towards a small fridge on the ground. "And after that, we can talk about my capture."
I looked at the file and froze; it was a SHIELD file about me. "I see now." I chuckled, grabbing the file with a sigh, "This file is supposed to make me change sides, right?"
"In a way." Stryker nodded.
I looked at the file again, and I started to read the information within the file with a sigh; I had to admit, I was curious about what could be within the file that could make Stryker think I would switch sides, I was to say something, skeptical about the whole thing.
However, soon enough, I found out why he was so sure of this as I read the file more and more, beginning to finally understand why Stryker was giving me this; the file was nothing more than a contingency plan to stop me should I become evil.
It went into great detail how Emily was my main emotional weakness, and how exploiting her would bring me to my knees.
"SHIELD is not your ally." Stryker began, but before he could continue, I started to laugh. "You find that file amusing?"
"This?" I waved the file at him, burning the thing down with my mana. "Nah, it annoys me a bit, sure, but otherwise, I'm okay with it." I chuckled.
"They are planning ways to kill you, and you laugh?" Stryker replied.
"SHIELD is free to plan, just like I am." I winked. "Besides, this is just the report of a random agent stating the obvious."
"Which is?" Stryker inquired, his eyes on me.
"That a father's weakness is his child." I smiled under my helmet.
"I had a feeling you would react this way." Again, Stryker smiled, and once again, I felt uneasy.
"Enough," I stated, pulling his body towards me with telekinesis. "I don't know what game you are playing, but I ain't playing these games."
"Good." He grinned.
Even at my mercy, he was confident, but of what, if the file was not enough, what was his actual plan? "Well, bye." I sighed, my patience running thin, as I opened a portal to throw him into Fury's office, but before I could do that, a magical blast of eldritch energy blasted me into the ground.
"Took you long enough," Stryker commented.
"We had to make some... preparations." I heard someone reply.
Brushing off the dirt of my armor, I stood up as I looked to see who had struck me down with Eldritch magic, only to find a group of women flying in literal brooms above me.
The first woman to the left was a blonde beauty that had what I like to call the no-no eyes, meaning her eyes gave you a feeling of uncertainty like she would stab a man mid-fuck for what he said two years ago. [Adrth'a Lomen LV 151]
The one in the middle looked innocent, inviting, like a trap waiting to strike its prey; it was unsettling, though this one was a brunette, unlike the one to the left. [Royth's Lomen LV 149]
The last one was an Asian beauty, her pristine skin and exotic charm vibrating with her rather revealing clothes; she looked both innocent and dangerous at the same time. [Permf't Lomen LV 150]
"The Lomen Coven," Stryker said, his index finger pointing at them with a cocky smile. "They are my plan to you."
"Those the Ancient One knows you work for him?" I said, cracking my neck.
"Foolish boy." Adrth'a hissed. "We do not answer to that sorceress, for we are witches!"
Witches huh, I wonder if they are related to the witch that at one point will try to steal the dark scepter from the ancient one in the future.
"But you answer to a man with no powers or magic, good to know." I chuckled.
"Laugh while you can, little sorcerer." Royth's grinned. "Soon, we will be the ones laughing."
"Okay... well, time to go," I muttered, considering these three were around my level, and the enemies around the camp and those who I had left in the middle of nowhere were drawing near; I would soon be outmatched in numbers at least, so it was time to do what people call a tactical retreat.
However, as I tried to open a portal, nothing happened.
It felt like something was blocking my magic altogether.
"Runes... and a claimed space, the nightmare of every magic caster, don't you think?" Permf't winked, flying towards me in a rather seductive manner. "You are powerless here."
Runes, this bastard was buying time... meaning the witches were otherwise occupied creating a runic space to block all but their magic, well fuck, Stryker just outplayed me.
"You learn a lot from videos and such." Stryker grinned as Ajax, Copycat and Kimura arrived, walking towards him all with smiles on their faces. "I knew SHIELD would eventually send you, so I invested a lot of time and money into hiring these resourceful witches."
"Well... fuck..." I sighed; it seemed like I would have to get out of this with my hands and my hands only. Suddenly I'm glad I have an almost indestructible set of armor protecting me; I feel like I'm about to get a lot of hits today.
If you want to read up to 20 chapters ahead go to https://www.patreón.com/cornbringer
Discord invite: https://discord.gg/XHduApz
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[Unknown POV]
In the center of the military camp, a bitter frosty chill permeated the hot air of Africa, sending shivers down Alex's spine as he studied his situation, full of people; an unnatural silence covered the camp as they all stared at Alex, who made no move. Everyone knew what was going to happen, but even then, the tension was palpable.
Stryker smiled at the sight of the unmoving foe that was Alex; for him, Alex was trapped, powerless to face what was to come, but the reality of the situation was another.
"I have to admit; you are probably the first person to prepare so much for me." Alex addressed his foe with a smile under his helmet, "But, like everyone else before you, you didn't prepare well enough." he declared.
"I could say the same about you," replied Stryker with an air of absolute confidence, "You are a mutant, a magical one, a reckless killer who leaves a trail of blood wherever he goes. What did you think would happen here? Did you really think everyone would fall for the same tricks? Fool... You are overconfident, trusting your skills so much you never bothered to hide your silly trail, and now here we are."
Alex looked at him, almost laughing at Stryker's bravado. And while deep down Alex knew what Stryker had said was partly true, he was in no way powerless as the man thought he was; in fact, one could say he was even more dangerous now that he didn't have the luxury of trapping his opponents as he had done with Victor Creed.
"Capture him," Stryker ordered his people, and soon, everyone around started to move according to his orders.
"All right then," Alex announced, cracking his knuckles, "shall we?".
With a roar, Kimura lunged at Alex with trying to kick the armored warrior on the head, but in a fluent motion of speed and agility, Alex dodged her attack with minimal movement, and then before she could react properly to what had happened, he grabbed her leg and swung her like a weapon to Ajax who was sneaking behind Alex during this time.
Crashing the two, Alex jumped into the air as Ajax and Kimura laid on the ground, and pulling a pair of knives from his dimensional inventory, he landed on the ground on a crouch, almost as if mimicking a cat.
Then in his crouching position, he kicked at the ground as hard as he could. Darting towards Stryker with great speed.
But before he could reach him, Copycat, who had been observing the exchange so far from the shadows, quickly closed the gap between the two, lunging toward him sending a flying kick in the process. However, Alex was well aware of her presence thanks to his mini-map and caught her foot as it came towards his chest, only to receive a blast on his back before he managed to punch Copycat away.
Alex knew this battle would be hard, the witches, the mutants, and the soldiers would make sure of that, but even then, his will was unwavering; he would survive, just like he had done until now.
The soldiers under Stryker circled Alex as he looked around, inspecting their techniques and finding holes in their defenses. Right now, the man known as Alex was no more; his training was overriding every emotion, no mercy, no hesitation, no survivors, so it's the way of the Apex predator.
Growling, Ajax jumped at Alex, being this the last mistake the man would ever make, for Alex turned around allowing Ajax's attack to connect just to get the man in range, Alex was well aware of how fighting worked, and he knew most creatures would tend to lower their guards after a successful hit, it was an instinct warriors would dedicate years of training to erase, for it was a weakness.
A weakness Ajax found out it existed too late, as Alex took advantage of that brief moment of weakness, digging both of his adamantium knives deep into his skull, each one protruding from the opposite end of the penetration point with blood and bits of brain, killing the man in the blink of an eye.
"You told us he was heavily reliant on magic." Copycat hissed.
Now everyone was double guessing how to approach the man who killed one of them and looked like nothing had happened.
"It seems my information was incomplete," Stryker growled. "Change of plans, kill hi---" it was here where Stryker found out Alex had more than just physical might to match for his lack of magic; he also had other powers, powers strong enough to kill the man from a distance, like he had done right now, crushing Stryker's head like a grape with his telekinesis.
"What..." In shock, the Lomen coven turned to see their contractor on the ground on a pool of his own blood.
"You bastard!" Kimura, at the sight of her boss dead, ran towards Alex, punching him in the face.
Punching the woman in the face with enough force to blow a human skull, Alex found out one thing; his attacks were doing no damage to Kimura, something he had noticed earlier but had discarded, for the time being, thinking his first attack had been too weak to damage the woman.
Considering the information he had and the attacks the woman was throwing at him, he knew he was physically stronger than her, but somehow her body seemed to be as resilient as his armor.
"I will rip your eyes out!" Kimura growled, kicking Alex away.
But as she tried to follow that up, Alex tackled her to the ground, burying her face on the ground, his intentions clear, if he could not harm her, he would let her own body kill her by suffocating her.
Noticing this, Copycat transformed into Ajax and started to punch and kick Alex as Kimura struggled for her life, trying desperately to scratch the man off her, but no matter how many attacked him, he didn't move.
Using his superior physical might and telekinesis to hold tight, becoming an unmovable force by human standards.
Five minutes later, Kimura stopped moving, her dark skin now pale, her heart finally stopping, her last moments on earth staring at the black nothingness inside the soil of her base.
Without saying a word, Alex stood up, turning to see his next target, the Copycat, who, in terror by his cold, emotionless gaze, lost control of her transformation, going back to her original form.
"We were not paid enough for this!" One of the three witches hissed, the other two nodding in approval.
"You can't leave!" Copycat hissed at them, but they paid her no heed, and with a move of their hands, teleported out of sight, taking with them the runic limitation that kept Alex trapped in place.
Fear creeping up her spine, Copycat looked at Alex, who moved towards her as the soldiers around shoot at him, wasting bullets on an armor that would never break.
"I give up!" Copycat exclaimed, thinking that perhaps if she showed submissiveness, he would spare her.
However, she was barking at the wrong tree; right now, Alex was not the normally amiable man he normally was; right now, he was in the zone, right now he was an assassin, a soldier with a mission, for him everything right now was kill or be killed.
Realizing she had no hope of escaping a fight, she did what she thought was best, a foolish endeavor, trying to transform into Alex; in her mind, the only way to kill the monster that stood in front of her was becoming him, after all, she would get all his powers by transforming into him.
"Now, let's---" that was all Copycat managed to say in Alex's form, her transformed body freezing in place, before she started to convulse violently, blood seeping out of every hole in her body, eyes, ears, noses, even her hair follicles were bleeding. "I DIDN'T KNOW! PLEASE DON'T!" she begged as her body turned back to normal, but to who? "I DIDN'T------" the answer to that question died with her, for her death came in a rather gruesome manner by having the poor girl throw up everything within her until she wasn't nothing but a lifeless husk.
Even Alex seemed shocked by her death; after all, why did transforming into him brought upon her such a gruesome death, and to whom she was apologizing for doing so.
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