章節 87: Alexander Pierce

As Liam entered the room, he saw Alexander standing there. Beside him were two super soldiers, and in front of him stood six elite agents led by Crossbones. One of the super soldiers was someone Liam immediately recognized: the Winter Soldier.

"I assume this was your doing," Alexander began, gesturing to the ruined building around them. "How impressive."

He paced around the room, continuing, "With all the effort I spent making the kill squad usable again..." He paused dramatically. "You can't imagine how surprised I was to find them all dead in different locations."

He stopped, facing Liam with a smile. "However, did you know the people standing beside you have done many terrible things over the years?" Alexander asked. As he prepared to elaborate, Clint drew his bow and released an arrow from behind Liam.

Without hesitation, Liam snatched the arrow from the air, unwilling to let Hawkeye end the man prematurely.

Alexander chuckled, misunderstanding the reason why Liam caught the arrow. "I see you're interested in this story."

"Natasha and Clint have killed countless innocents, even children. For instance, in Budapest, they bombed the house of a Russian general, killing his innocent twelve-year-old daughter," Alexander said. His voice still calm, as if everything was under control. "Compared to atrocities like that, Hydra is a l—"

"Enough." Liam raised a hand, cutting Alexander off mid-sentence. "I don't give a shit." His tone was calm, but small signs of anger were detectable. He saw through Alexander's poor attempt to sow distrust and it angered him even more.

Alexander shrugged. "I see," he said before turning to the Winter Soldier. "Soldier, with me. Crossbones, go."

At the command, Crossbones and his squad raised their weapons. Meanwhile, Alexander and the Winter Soldier moved towards a concealed exit, slipping away as Crossbones prepared to fire.

Before the first shots could ring out, Liam slashed his weapon in a single, perfect motion. A golden arc of energy sliced through the soldiers and Crossbones, evaporating their midsections before they could react.

The remaining super soldier, however, managed to somewhat leap over the arc. He lost both his legs in the attempt but survived. Unlike the others, this soldier had better instincts—likely the captain of their kill squad.

Natasha and Clint stood in shock, their expressions frozen as they took in the devastation Liam had caused.

The injured super soldier strugged to move on the floor, because of that, he took out a gun. Liam walked forwards without hesitation, stabbing his spear into the soldier's head and ending his suffering. He then turned his attention toward the hidden exit Alexander had escaped through.

"We're still friends, right?" Natasha asked, trying to ease the tension. But the attempt only increased her unease when Liam didn't respond and instead took off after Alexander.

Liam sprinted through the narrow corridor of the hidden exit, and at its end, he found Alexander and the Winter Soldier waiting. The corridor ended abruptly with a gaping hole in the floor, leaving them nowhere to run.

"Attack, Soldier," Alexander ordered.

The Winter Soldier responded immediately, firing bullets at Liam. They ricocheted harmlessly off the walls. Realizing their ineffectiveness, he switched to a grenade launcher, firing anti-tank rounds at the floor between them.

The explosions tore the floor apart, but Liam kept going forward, leaping over the crumbling ground. As he took another step, a platform of stone formed beneath him, originating from a wall further away.

The Winter Soldier fired more grenades, this time towards Liam himself. Smoke and debris filled the air, but Liam emerged from the smoke unscathed, coming straight towards him.

Seeing Liam's approach, the Winter Soldier drew twin combat knives and lunged, aiming to entangle Liam and drag him down into the hole in the floor with him.

As the Winter Soldier came closer, Liam summoned a white rift directly in his path. The soldier disappeared into the portal, and Liam sealed it shut before turning his attention back to Alexander.

"Wait! Listen to me!" Alexander began, his calmness no longer in his voice. "I have information! Valuable information! I'll trade it for my life!"

Liam grabbed him by the neck, ignoring his pleas. He opened another rift and dragged the struggling Alexander through it.

On the other side of the portal, the Winter Soldier stood, knives at the ready. He charged at Liam as soon as he appeared with Alexander.

Without hesitation, Liam raised his free hand. A magic circle formed in the air, and from it, an ice beam shot forth. The beam struck the Winter Soldier, creating a thick layer of ice around him, freezing him in place.

'Not sure what I'll do with him yet,' Liam thought before turning his attention back to Alexander.

Alexander struggled and screamed offers, but Liam remained unmoved. He dropped him to the ground and froze his feet together before also freezing his hands together.

Feeling the intense cold, Alexander began to scream. His body wasn't used to any form of discomfort since taking his role as Secretary of S.H.I.E.L.D. and was now completely overwhelmed by the intense cold. He could feel the ice attaching on his skin, before slowly spreading into his nerves.

The weight of the ice pinned him down to the ground, making any attempts to move impossible. His body went into cold shock, his breaths becoming rapid and shallow as the freezing slowly consumed him.

Liam watched, unmoved by the man's suffering. He had nothing to say to him. Alexander had given orders that killed thousands, with tens of thousands more dying as collateral damage—and now he begged for mercy.

Without a word, Liam opened a rift and stepped through, leaving Alexander alone for the moment.

Back in the ruined building, he found Natasha and Clint standing at the edge of the floor, looking down. They were trying to determine if Liam and Alexander had fallen.

The sound of the rift and Liam's footsteps got their attention. Both turned around, somewhat relieved to see Liam.

"Where's Alexander?" Natasha asked.

"He's taken care of," Liam replied. "Come on, I'll return the area around the machine to normal."

Natasha nodded, and they followed Liam back to the main room.

Upon arrival, Liam focused deeply on his energy, manipulating just the room he was in to go back to normal.

Slowly, the room began reverting to its original state. The metal table, chairs, and pedestal reappeared, though shattered glass was still all over the floor, and the massive hole caused by the energy arc remained.

When the pedestal reappeared, Natasha walked to the computer beside it. A hologram appeared as she began typing.

"Where's Alexander's corpse?" Natasha asked, retrieving a container filled with water. Inside it was a scratched eye.

Liam looked at the scratched eye in surprise. Fury had willingly endured the pain of losing an eye for this mission, this was something Liam found unexpected and respectable.

Snapping back to the task at hand, Liam summoned a rift and stepped through. On the other side, Alexander lay unconscious, the skin around his hands and feet had turned blue from frostbite. Liam grabbed him by the neck and dragged him back through the rift.

Natasha and Clint's expressions darkened as they saw Alexander's frostbitten limbs.

"Are you ready?" Liam asked, bringing Alexander's face close to the hologram.

"Yes," Natasha replied, holding Fury's eye in front of the scanner.

[One Alpha-Level User Required] the system uttered.

Liam forced Alexander's eye open, holding it up to the hologram. The system unlocked with a beep.

"Are you good now?" Liam asked Natasha.

"Yes. You can take him back," she replied, placing Fury's eye back in its container.

Liam nodded, dragging Alexander back through the rift. He dropped the man on the other side and stepped back into the room with Natasha and Clint.

創作者的想法
Donnuuu

Merry Christmas everyone!

The Alexander stuff is inspired by the movie: Snowpiercer (2013).

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章節 88: Chakrams

Liam and Clint stared in silence as Natasha worked on the laptop. After a minute or so, she finished and contacted Maria to upload all S.H.I.E.L.D. member profiles to the network. As the files began uploading, Natasha stepped away from the device.

"The laptop will finish the rest. We need to get down there now, Clint," she said.

Clint nodded, pulling the bow from his back again.

"Can you take us down a few floors?" Natasha asked, looking at Liam.

"Yes, go to the elevator again. Once there, I'll start lowering the platform," Liam replied. He couldn't leave the room himself since he needed to make sure his domain didn't delete the laptop again.

"Thank you," Natasha said, turning and walking toward the elevator.

Clint nodded at Liam before following her.

With both of them gone, Liam began creating a plan to eliminate the remaining Hydra agents as efficiently as possible.

As Natasha and Clint stood on the stone platform, it slowly began descending.

"You get the feeling we're in too deep?" Clint asked, keeping his bow aimed at the elevator entrance as they went down.

"Always," Natasha replied, keeping her handgun ready and pointed at any potential openings in the elevator walls. "But we've been in worse spots before."

"Collapsed building, magic, and one or two thousand enemies," Clint said. "Remind me when we've been in worse."

"Magic's a new one, but aside from that—" Natasha began, abruptly ducking down as gunfire erupted through a larger hole in the shaft. She quickly fired back twice, killing two soldiers with a single bullet through each of their heads. "Nothing we aren't used to," she finished, completing her sentence.

Clint nodded, a faint smile appearing as he loosed an arrow at another agent raising a gun at him.

When they reached the tenth floor, their phones buzzed with incoming messages.

"It's started," Clint said.

"There are four entrances to this room; if we sp—" Clint began, but he was interrupted as the floor beneath them began changing.

All the interior walls lowered into the ground, leaving behind a wide open space filled with confused people. Two staircases appeared on either side of the room, each large enough for two people to walk side by side. One staircase connected to the floors above, the other to the floors below.

"Well, that makes this a lot easier," Clint muttered, having his bow ready.

Most of the people on floors eight through ten were control personnel—technicians and support staff—one of the reasons Liam had chosen this location. Fury had confirmed that very few Hydra agents were present on this floor after sorting through the data.

But "very few" didn't mean none. Fourteen Hydra agents and four technicians loyal to Hydra were scattered across the area, most grouped in threes or fours.

As the walls lowered, panic set in among the technicians until Natasha fired a round into the ceiling, grabbing everyone's attention.

"Listen up!" she commanded. "We're here under Fury's direct orders. Director Fury is not dead. He was attacked by Hydra, who infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. afterwards."

Murmurs began spreading through the crowd, but Natasha ignored them. "Hydra was being led by Alexander Pierce," she continued, "but he's already been taken care of."

At the mention of Pierce's death, two groups of three Hydra agents on the right side of the room drew their weapons. Clint had anticipated this. He loosed three arrows simultaneously, quickly notching another as they flew.

The arrows struck accurately—one agent fell dead immediately with an arrow pierced into his skull, a second had her shooting hand impaled, and the third also died, taking an arrow to the throat.

Clint swiftly killed the injured female agent with a second arrow to the brain as she reached for her gun with her other hand.

Meanwhile, Natasha shot two more Hydra agents from the other group before a third gunshot rang out, finishing the last. She turned, surprised, to see a blonde woman in office clothes holding a handgun a few meters away.

"Agent Sharon Carter. Reporting," the woman announced.

Natasha nodded in acknowledgment, but her earpiece buzzed with a new update. "Middle of the room, left side," Maria's voice came through. "Seven targets—six male, one female. All confirmed Hydra. The one wearing the cap is identified as an executive-level operative."

At the same time, Coulson relayed the same message to Clint. He turned and fired an explosive arrow into the group, killing three instantly and injuring two more. The remaining Hydra agents grabbed innocent technicians, hoping to use them as hostages.

Natasha and Sharon didn't hesitate. They opened fire, killing the remaining uninjured agents. One of the Hydra operatives who was severly injured by Clint, in his final moments, began shooting around at random, hitting multiple technicians and even instantly killing one.

Natasha ended him with a single shot through the brain, her bullet tearing through his S.H.I.E.L.D. cap. The other injured operative had already died to blood loss after losing a leg in the explosion from Clint's arrow.

At the same time, the four Hydra technicians ran for the staircase but were quickly killed by Sharon and Clint.

"All personnel remaining here are loyal to S.H.I.E.L.D.," Natasha commanded. "Treat the injured, then assist me or Clint in holding the staircases."

She moved to cover one staircase while Clint took position at the other.

Meanwhile, back in Liam's room, the laptop's loading bar showing the messages were almost fully sent. These messages weren't only going to S.H.I.E.L.D. members in the building—Fury send the messages to all confirmed S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, since he couldn't predict who would be at the main building during the mission.

Liam considered his next steps. His first idea was to destroy everything above the tenth floor. But he threw that idea out, not sure how much energy it would require to destroy an entire floor and if he could prevent the twenty-five stories above from crushing the tenth floor afterwards. Besides, S.H.I.E.L.D. would still need a functioning base after this was over.

As he thought more about his spells, he realized he didn't have any specifically made for killing lots of enemies in an area with a lot of obstacles like this.

Sure, the Bolts of Balthakk could work, but they would only take out at most four enemies at a time. In a building with over a thousand enemies, that wouldn't be nearly enough. Casting the spell 200 times while making all of them lethal would not only drain a large amount of energy but also waste a lot of time.

Him manipulating his domain had the same problem, it works but it costs quite some energy to do so for each and every single person. 'Although I will keep this in mind if in case I want to speed things up even more.' Liam thought.

Then, he got an idea. He realized he might have an alternative.

He summoned a construct of a weapon he was somewhat unfamiliar with, having only used it once or twice during combat training.

Two golden weapons materialized in his hands. They were completely circular with razor-sharp edges all the way around them. At the center of each was a handle, which he wrapped his fingers around. The weapons were chakrams.

"Eldritch Constructs," Liam murmured with a small smile, watching the loading bar reach one hundred percent. "Still my favorite spell."

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