章節 90: Massacre (2/2)
"How's the situation on the floors above here?" Natasha asked.
"About 300 left," Liam replied.
"That many, huh." Natasha sighed.
"I'm going to finish them up now," Liam said. "You guys are good for a few more minutes, right?"
"Yes, but do hurry up. Our agents are getting tired, and there isn't much ammunition left," Natasha responded.
Liam nodded. "If that's the case, I'll clear the upper side from here. You can have the rest of your agents deal with people coming from below and help the injured."
"You're sure you can take that many on at once, right?" Natasha asked.
"Yes, it'll be fine," Liam responded.
"I'll give out the orders then," Natasha said, giving Liam a nod.
He turned and walked towards the entrance where agent Carter was taking temporary command, Natasha following behind him. Despite being shot in the leg, Natasha moved on.
As Liam passed the agents, who were firing at Hydra operatives shooting at them from hidden angles, they looked up at him with questioning gazes. At the same time, Natasha informed agent Carter of the next course of action. Sharon, despite asking Natasha multiple times if she was sure, eventually gave the orders for her agents to leave.
Liam walked up the stairs, putting away his chakrams. Instead, he summoned Neontote into his hand as a stone wall slowly rose to cover the entrance behind him, shielding the others from the gunfire of Hydra agents.
Liam looked around at the Hydra operatives in the room before raising Neontote. According to Natasha and Maria's reports on the total number of people in here, there couldn't be many Hydra agents left on the lower floors since he had already eliminated hundreds. He decided to switch his approach—an option only made possible by saving his energy earlier on.
He looked up at the ceiling and around the room. With a wave of his hand, all the internal walls and hiding spots disappeared. At the same time, the ceiling above the Hydra agents started to disappear. Seconds later, there was a pop, then another, then a large number of thuds were heard, as agents from the floor above fell into the now-open space.
A few seconds passed, and soon all the agents from the floor above had dropped down. The room now had 240 Hydra operatives in one large, box-like space without any obstacles in it. With this, Liam knew they couldn't run or hide anymore.
Confusion spread amongst the agents that weren't brainwashed. Most of the other fallen agents, who were brainwashed, quickly recovered and began firing at Liam with the same emotionless expression as before.
Liam didn't say a word as he raised Neontote. The weapon began to shift into a different form.
Some Hydra members, those not fully brainwashed, realized the danger they were in. They turned to run, heading for where the staircase had been.
'The guys from upstairs said this one's a monster. Even then, I didn't expect him to be able to manipulate the building like this,' one high-ranking Hydra operative thought, desperate to save his life as he sprinted past his emotionless comrades. "Damn it, the stairs are gone. I need another way out."
His eyes searched around the entire room, finding that there weren't any gaps in the walls to escape from. Then he realized that the only way out was behind Liam.
"If I can get past him, I might reach the agents downstairs but I will still have better chances than with this guy," he reasoned, sprinting at Liam with all his might. Some of the other smarter agents soon followed his lead, running at Liam together.
'Good,' he thought with a smile. 'If I time this right, that guy will focus on the others, and I can slip past him.'
As he closed the distance, the agent noticed a small orange glow at the tip of Liam's spear. The light rapidly changed colors—orange to blue, then to a deep purple.
"Wh—" he started, but the words were never able to leave his mouth.
A surge of purple flame came from Neontote. The agent felt a short spike of pain, before his vision slowly turned to darkness and his mind stopped. He didn't even have time to understand what had happened, let alone understand that he had died.
Liam had poured a significant amount of energy into the spear, heating the flames to over 5432 degrees Fahrenheit (3000°C). With a release of power, a purple wave of fire went through the room.
The first row of agents disintegrated into ash almost instantly, their bones visible for a second before crumbling into ash. The flames continued, incinerating everyone in its path. Some agents, slower to understand the danger, scrambled to the back of the room, but the flames engulfed them as well. Others stood still, shouting Hydra slogans until they too were reduced to ash.
Liam slowly moved Neontote from the left side to the right side of the room, making sure every Hydra operative was killed while doing so. When he sensed no life remaining, he cut off the energy flow and released the spear's hold.
A gap opened in the ceiling, and Liam went up to the last floor with enemies on it. There, he dealt with the remaining agents swiftly, using his domain. Sharp spikes shot out from the walls, piercing the necks, hearts, or heads of the Hydra operatives.
Some managed to barely dodge the first spikes, getting pierced in a non-lethal location, only to be finished off by a second spike. Those who survived the first wave found themselves hit and killed by knife constructs that Liam threw instead.
Once the floor thirteen was cleared, Liam went down again. At the staircase, he encountered some agents from Natasha's team, whom were vomiting from the smell of burned flesh. They looked at Liam with fear as they backed away from him and focused on gathering weapons from the staircases.
'Luckily, I don't have to deal with the smell,' Liam thought, thanking Incursio and himself for the air filter that they had adapted for the toxic gases at the volcano.
Now that he had finished clearing the upper floors, he went down and swiftly dealt with the remaining 150 or so enemies scattered across the nine lower floors. He killed them all with the use of his domain and the chakrams.
After clearing them all out, he sighed in relief, knowing he was done for now, and returned upstairs to Natasha and Clint, who had already began making their way down with a group of people following them.
'I can't cancel my domain yet,' Liam thought, aware that doing so might cause people to become trapped in chairs, tables and other reappearing items, leading to injuries or even deaths.
章節 91: Baron Strucker
After climbing the stairs, Liam encountered Natasha and Clint. Behind them were the technicians and other agents. Some agents carried the injured, while others held the bodies of the dead.
During the time Natasha and Clint had held the stairs, remarkably few agents on their side had been killed. Only 18 agents had died while they defended the stairs for roughly thirty to forty-five minutes, which Liam found impressive.
'Especially with the limited ammo they had and the fact that most of them were still in their office clothes,' Liam thought. 'Most of the deaths came from brainwashed Hydra agents rushing in large groups without fear of pain or death.'
If it hadn't been for the walls Liam had created for cover and the narrow size of the staircase, it was very unlikely that any of them had survived with Hydra's suicide attacks.
"How's everything downstairs?" Clint asked.
"All dead," Liam replied, as he observed all the people struggling while going down to this floor.
'It's going to take a while to get all the technicians and injured people down the stairs, especially with all the holes everywhere,' Liam thought. 'It would use a lot less energy if I just portaled them down instead of waiting for them to go down themselves for the remaining nine floors.'
"Get everyone over here," Liam said. "I'll open a portal to the ground floor."
Clint looked surprised but nodded.
With that, Liam created a portal with his slingring, leading to the ground floor. Clint, Natasha, and Sharon began guiding the agents through one by one, while Liam used his domain to create a door at the ground floor which he had completely sealed off to prevent people from escaping.
Stepping through the portal, Liam looked around the withered grass surrounding the building. He saw several bodies spread out everywhere with blood pooling around their heads. What he found weird, though, was the absence of additional agents waiting outside—neither Hydra nor SHIELD reinforcements.
Liam's domain hadn't covered areas outside of the main building. He had expected some agents from either Hydra or SHIELD from those area's to come towards the main building.
As Liam walked across the grass, he noticed something strange: a woman's body lying just outside his domain. A small pool of blood had formed around her head, with bits of pink brain matter inside of it.
Kneeling beside her, Liam examined the body more closely. As he reached her head, he turned it around slightly. On the back, he found a large bullet wound at the back of her skull. Letting her head drop back, Liam stood and walked outside of his domain.
The sight that greeted him was something he hadn't imagined would happen: dozens of bodies all over the parking garages and hangars. Judging by their uniforms, most of them were maintenance workers.
'And this is just the outside,' Liam thought. 'Fury sent a message to everyone, so a couple of deaths because of Hydra agents would be logical. But this many?'
All the bodies had fallen in the same direction, suggesting they had been running away when they were gunned down. There were trails of blood behind some of the corpses, as if they had tried to pull themselves to safety.
'This looks like a mass shooting. Some of them weren't even finished off,' Liam thought. 'No immediate danger for now. I need to get to Clint and make sure the've all left the building, so I don't waste more energy incase something happens.'
Liam returned to the others and informed them it was safe to move outside. Then, he gestured for Clint and Natasha to follow him.
"What's up?" Natasha asked.
"Something happened outside," Liam replied. "There are dozens of dead bodies everywhere, all with bullet wounds."
Natasha raised an eyebrow, while Clint opened his mouth.
"Was it a fight between agents?" Clint asked.
"No," Liam said, shaking his head. "All the bodies fell in the same direction. It looks like they were running away when they got sprayed down."
"We'll evacuate all non-combat personnel first," Natasha decided. "After that, we can search for any survivors."
Liam and Clint nodded.
Once everyone had left the main building, Liam deactivated his domain, allowing the building to slowly go back to its original form. While Natasha led the technicians to the broken front gate, Liam and Clint headed into the parking garages.
They passed a crashed car riddled with bullet holes. The roof of the car had been caved in, as if something heavy had rammed into it to clear a path. Liam checked the interior and found the driver slumped lifelessly, already dead.
Continuing their search, they eventually heard faint whimpering coming from a nearby janitor's closet. Liam opened the door to find a young man clutching a broom, trembling violently.
As soon as the door opened, the man swung the broom at Liam, but the handle snapped on impact. He retreated into the corner of the room, begging for his life.
"Relax. We're here to help," Liam said, unsummoning his armor as he approached to calm the man down while remaining vigilant. Clint followed closely behind him.
Once they managed to calm the young man and check for injuries, Liam began asking questions.
"What happened here?"
"I was cleaning the floors when the building outside started changing," the man began, his voice shaky. "A man with a few others escorting him walked over the pathway. He looked at the building, turned to his men, said something, and then raised one arm up. After that, they just… started shooting everywhere."
'An important Hydra figure, most likely,' Liam thought, nodding.
"While I ran and hid in here," the man continued.
"How did the man look?" Liam asked.
"I don't remember… I don't remember!" the man repeated frantically. "He just seemed like an ordinary person to me."
"It's alright. Take your time," Liam said. He gestured for Clint to stay with the young man while he continued searching.
In the parking garages, Liam found more bodies but nothing important. Eventually, he returned to Clint, who now stood outside the janitor's room.
"Anything?" Liam asked.
"The guy had a monocle," Clint said. "The janitor also mentioned hearing him say 'Hail Hydra' before raising his arm."
'Only one Hydra figure with a monocle comes to mind,' Liam thought. 'Baron Strucker.'
"Fury's already radioed in," Clint added. "A lot of SHIELD agents are returning to base to help sort out this mess. The ones involved in the fight are being treated and resting, and Fury is on his way here now."
"Alright," Liam replied, nodding while in thought.
They helped the janitor out of the room and accompanied him to the front gate.
'Looks like I need to ask Alexander some questions.' Liam thought. 'And Fury....'
創作者的想法
Donnuuu
Donnuuu
Can't just erase Wanda and Pietro by letting Strucker die (yet) :).
Probably only one more chapter of this before finishing this up, then we get to the even more fun plots. After that, a lot of fun stuff is coming up since we are in the peak plot activity years now :D.
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