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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.
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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[Alex Walker POV]
I stared in shock as Copycat's husk of a body lay on the ground. I had no idea what had happened or how it had happened; one second, I was about to fight her, the next she transformed into me, and then, she died. It was all so fast, so sudden, and so... frightening that I didn't know what to think.
What struck me the most was not just the way she died but her screams for mercy. They were screams of pure and utter fear.
By the time I managed to come out of my state of shock, the camp, once filled with soldiers and others, was empty, with dozens of red dots fading away on the mini-map.
And the truth was, I had no energy to pursue them, emotionally speaking.
[Quest Completed: The Hunt for Project
Rewards: Weapon X research DATA, Abraham Cornelius Super Soldier Research DATA, 25.000.000EXP
By killing Stryker and not capturing some X-Subjects, some rewards have been eliminated.
]
With an ironic laugh, I sighed, sitting down on the ground.
It made sense; I had killed Stryker and eliminated almost everyone I was supposed to capture.
With an exhausted sigh, I opened a portal to Fury's office, just noticing that my magic was no longer being blocked. "I guess the witches decided to live to fight another day," I commented.
Fury, upon seeing me enter his office, smiled, "I wasn't expecting you today."
"I finished doing what you asked me to do," I said, getting straight to the point.
Fury, being who he was, read the underlying subtext of my expression. "I'll take care of cleaning this up." the super spy declared.
"Ok," I replied, opening a portal to my house; I needed a bath and a nap to erase some of what I experienced today.
Killing people was already usual for me, torturing the same. But how Copycat died, to see her vomit her whole being, her organs, her bones, her... everything, I wasn't totally prepared for that.
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After a hot bath and a two-hour nap, I got ready to pick up Natasha and Emily from school as I had promised them a week ago.
"Daddy!" Emily said, getting into the car with a smile, followed by Natasha.
"Mr. Walker." Natasha greeted me with considerably less enthusiasm compared to Emily.
"How was your day, girls?" I asked as they put on their seatbelts.
"Well, I got an A+ on my math test," Emily replied proudly, showing off her test.
"Congratulations!" I smile at her, giving her a kiss on the forehead.
"My day was, uh, pretty normal," Natasha said with just the hint of a smile.
"Well, since you both had a normal day full of routine, who wants ice cream to celebrate?" I smiled, glancing sideways at Natasha as I started the car to leave the school.
"YES!!!" Emily replied, basically screaming.
"I wouldn't mind." Natasha smiled, looking at Emily.
"Ok... so, Gelato, here we come!" I declared enthusiastically.
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After a delicious ice cream-filled afternoon, Natasha and Emily went to their respective after-school classes, Emily with The Ancient One, or bald granny as she calls her, and Natasha with a pair of former SHIELD agents I had hired to teach her how to fight.
Which left me alone, with not much to do; Hank was managing the company, the girls were busy, and I didn't want to do dungeons at the moment.
"I guess I can stick to my super soldier serum project for the time being," I said to myself as I sank into my five thousand dollar couch. "I should stop spending on Italian stuff; they are too comfortable."
Using all my willpower to get up from the couch, I walked to my lab, pulling out the data I had gained from my last mission out of my inventory.
Abraham Cornelius Super Soldier DATA.
Maybe with that, I would be able to finish deciphering the formula.
Or maybe nothing would happen, the chances were unpredictable, but for my own sake, I would not stop until I succeeded, I mean... Russia succeeded, Hydra succeeded... it would be sad if I was the only one that didn't.
Absorbing the data I had obtained. So many of the questions and problems I had had so far with the formula came to an end.
But even so, the formula was still not clear, but now, unlike before, I could see more of the picture, the image, the painting of the formula in its splendor.
I had to admit, Abraham Cornelius was a genius. His research had saved me a couple of years on my side, to the point that I could almost taste the complete formula; I could feel it brushing against my fingertips.
And to think that a single scientist managed to create this complex formula, one I was still struggling to decode, but he simply created during such a sad technological time, and during the WW2 to add salt to the injury, geniuses like him were one in a billion.
"Well, time not to sleep to see if I make progress on anything," I said with a renewed enthusiasm. With this leap of information, I felt I was closer to my goal.
"Meow?" Goose meowed, startling me a little.
"What are you doing here?" I said, grabbing the cat off the floor, "You ate my back door again, didn't you?"
Goose purred, looking proud that she had eaten my back door.
"Goose, that's bad; I've already changed forty-seven doors this month," I said with a laugh.
Goose simply purred louder, looking even more proud than before, as if smiling at the number of doors she had devoured this month only, in the end, alien or not, a cat was a cat.
"Let's go before you start throwing up door pommels on my lab." I chuckled, walking out of the lab with Goose on my arms, who continued to purr at my touch.
Maybe I could try and feed her more tuna; perhaps if I doubled her rations of premium exported tuna, she would stop eating my lab doors; who am I kidding? She just hates my lab is the only room in the house that is always closed, and cats have a thing for closed rooms; they just can't accept them being closed.
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