Kapitel 48: Unlikely Allies
She said softly, "Hi, nice to see you again."
As soon as she finished speaking, Barnes, in Soren's grasp, suddenly began to struggle violently!
He twisted his arm at an almost impossible angle, using his metal arm to hit Soren's neck while pulling him down.
Soren dodged the attack, but Barnes's force caused him to momentarily lose his balance.
He flapped his wings hard to steady himself and pressed the Executioner's Staff deeply against Barnes's neck and chest, leaving deep red marks on his skin.
Natasha saw this and quickly raised her Widow's Bite.
As Soren was trying to restrain Barnes, she fired a dart.
With a sharp hiss, it struck Barnes in the left chest!
This dart was a special S.H.I.E.L.D. version; it only needed 0.5 ml of the drug to take down an elephant.
Even a super-enhanced soldier like Barnes couldn't resist its effects.
As the dart entered Barnes's body, his movements immediately slowed down.
By the time he turned around to look at Natasha, his arms had dropped, and his eyelids quickly closed as he fell unconscious.
"What did you do?!" Soren hurriedly looked at Barnes's wound, but Natasha had already moved up to Barnes's waist, "Alright, hand him over to me. He's a fugitive S.H.I.E.L.D. has been tracking. Don't worry, my target today isn't you."
She nimbly climbed up Barnes's body.
Soren caught the unconscious Barnes in his left arm, landed on the ground, and blocked Natasha's move with his right hand, "Wait, you have to tell me first—you're not going to harm your own teacher, are you?"
Natasha suddenly stopped.
Her striking green eyes filled with curiosity as she looked at Soren, her back straightening. "...Who are you?"
Soren opened his mouth to respond, but Batman spoke first. "He's an alien."
Soren: …
No, he's not an alien.
He's an alien who will soon die without his gene suppressor.
He glanced at Batman and then addressed Natasha, "Who I am isn't important, Miss Romanoff. What's important is if you know that your teacher was a highly respected soldier in World War II."
Natasha hesitated.
She wasn't there to capture Soren but to investigate recent cases of disappearances and kidnappings.
In the past few months, several cases of disappearances had raised S.H.I.E.L.D.'s alert.
They quickly discovered that all the missing people were scattered in an area radiating out from Gotham.
This led them to investigate Gotham itself.
Despite Gotham's bad reputation, most outside agencies are reluctant to get involved with Gotham's affairs.
However, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s high-ranking officials had sensed something.
The forces behind these cases might be connected to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s old enemy, Hydra.
So, S.H.I.E.L.D. sent their top agent to Gotham.
Before opening the door, she didn't know she would encounter her old mentor—the one who had taught her all her combat skills as a teenager.
She also didn't expect that this man that was long buried in her memories, might have a complex past that should have stayed in historical records.
She signaled to a few agents at the door to come in and rescue the hostages.
Then, she turned her green eyes to Bucky in Soren's arms and said quietly, "This will need further verification from S.H.I.E.L.D."
Soren looked at her and said, "I can hand him over to you, Miss Romanoff, not just because I know your connection with him, but because I trust that S.H.I.E.L.D. will treat a WWII veteran, a Howling Commandos member, and a true hero who has suffered for seventy years with fairness."
"But I haven't agreed yet," Batman said darkly from behind him.
Soren replied, "...Can you please stop talking for a moment?"
He took a deep breath and said, "Listen, Batman, not every criminal in Gotham is your responsibility. It's not fair to you, and it's not fair to others."
He handed Bucky over to Natasha, then straightened up and looked at Batman.
He gathered his courage and said, "He's just a victim. It's not fair to use your brutal methods on him. If you insist on using your intimidation tactics on him... Sorry, I won't let you do that."
Batman stood in silence.
He didn't respond, remaining cold and still in the shadow of his dark cape.
His steel-blue eyes were as deep as a cold lake.
But he didn't stop Soren.
At this point, the three parties reluctantly reached an agreement.
Natasha would take Bucky Barnes back to S.H.I.E.L.D. for further investigation (and she reminded Soren to come to S.H.I.E.L.D. himself to turn himself in when he had time).
Meanwhile, Soren and Batman would work together to rescue the people who had been imprisoned by Hydra for months.
It turned out that this was a secret Hydra base for biochemical experimentation.
Hydra had secretly captured many ordinary citizens with special abilities in nearby areas, locking them up here and subjecting them to various inhumane experiments.
Cold experiments, starvation experiments, electric shock experiments, high-temperature experiments...
These extreme tests tortured them horribly, causing them unbearable pain and suffering, all just to unleash their greatest potential and turn them into Hydra's new "assets."
During the experiments, many innocent people who were already weak could not withstand the inhumane treatment and died in the lab.
However, they did manage to awaken the abilities of a few of them.
The boy who was previously executed was one of them.
His real name was Roberto Da Costa, and his ability was to absorb sunlight and convert it into his own power.
After surviving several extreme experiments, he quickly discovered that his ability to absorb sunlight had increased dozens of times compared to before.
Before being captured by Hydra, he only occasionally emitted strong light waves.
But later, he could store and absorb sunlight by pressing his hands against a window gap and then create powerful energy explosions.
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein