He walked forward through the remains, utterly calm. The crunch of bone under his boots was the only sound that followed him.
Behind him, Natasha stepped carefully over fallen weapons and shredded gear, still trying to wrap her head around what she'd just witnessed.
"It was the same power," she said quietly, eyes on the skeletal warriors that silently lined the corridor. "You used it during the New York battle... when that skeletal army rose to protect the civilians."
Michael didn't look back, but he nodded.
"That was just a glimpse," he said, his voice echoing faintly through the blood-stained hall. "Back then, I only needed them to protect. This time… they're here to clear the path."
Ahead, one of the skeletal soldiers raised its bone blade and struck the sealed door before them with a single, precise blow. A flash of white light erupted as its arm pulsed with dark energy—Dark Mana, the signature of Michael's White Devil Dark aura, surged through the weapon.
The door groaned, then split open cleanly, falling apart like paper.
Michael stepped through first.
The path ahead had no more obstacles. The skeletal guards moved swiftly, their black bones glowing with ethereal markings as they swept the halls, removing debris and dispatching stragglers before Michael even reached them.
Every barrier fell before him.
The Hydra base—once a fortress buried in the frozen silence of Siberia—was crumbling not from explosions or brute force, but from the relentless precision of death itself walking its halls.
Natasha kept pace behind him, silent now. But in her mind, one thing was becoming clearer with each step:
Michael wasn't just fighting Hydra.
He was here for something.
The way he moved, the precision with which he commanded the skeletal army, how he bypassed entire sections of the base without a glance—it wasn't aimless destruction. It was methodical. Purposeful.
A retrieval.
He's after something HYDRA has... or had.
Her eyes narrowed slightly as she jogged up beside him. "You're not here just to burn out the last of Hydra, are you?" she asked, voice low. "You're looking for something. A weapon?"
Michael didn't slow his pace, nor did he glance her way. But he did speak.
"How'd you end up a spy with such talkative mouth?" he muttered, almost offhand, as he moved deeper into the ruined facility.
Natasha frowned as she didn't get the answer, just kept following. Around them, the frozen halls of the old Hydra base stretched like a steel tomb. Any agents that tried to stop them had already been cut down—some by her, most by the skeletal soldiers marching silently behind Michael like grim sentinels.
Many of these corridors had Hydra's signature, she noticed. But the design here was different—older, deeper, more secretive than anything she'd seen even during her Red Room days. Whatever Hydra was doing down here... it wasn't sanctioned by anyone.
The group moved steadily downward, until at last Michael halted at a thick, frost-covered door. A bio-lock. Old tech. Red warning lights blinked faintly under layers of ice.
He placed his hand against the panel. His aura pulsed, black and silver. The lock sizzled. Melted.
The door slid open with a screech of dying hydraulics, revealing a chamber that had been untouched for years.
Six cryopods stood in a perfect arc at the far end of the chamber, each one sealed in ice.
Natasha's eyes blinked as he see the silhouette of the person inside.
Inside each pod... was a soldier.
Men encased in stasis. Half-machine, half-man. Their suits bore no insignia, but Hydra's fingerprints were all over them—cold tech, brutal enhancements, and silent death.
"This…" she said, stepping forward cautiously. "What are these?."
"Winter Soldiers," Michael replied " It was HYDRA new division soldier they were preparing, "
" Human enhanced with not just Super Soldier serum but with robotic parts too" He replied as he moved to one pod as he said " Come here you might know him" he said as Natasha came to him, inside the pod was an male with his left arm being robotic.
"I've seen him somewhere…" Natasha murmured, squinting at the red-lit pod. Her eyes flicked to the face frozen inside. "He's… Bucky. Steve's old friend. I remember Steve showing me a photo—he had it in a locket. Bucky Barnes."
Michael nodded without looking back. "Yeah. Bucky. Like a brother to Steve… only the world thought he died. Fell off a cliff during the war."
"But Hydra got to him," Natasha said, her voice tight.
"They didn't just get to him," Michael replied. "They broke him. Remade him. And used him."
He placed his palm on the pod's surface. Light pulsed from his hand, and with a hiss of pressure and frost, the seal broke. The cryo-chamber cracked open, and Bucky's body slumped forward with a heavy thud, unconscious but alive.
Michael caught him easily, laying him down with surprising care.
"I've already removed what was left of Hydra's programming," he said quietly, silver aura fading from his hand. "There's no more brainwashing. He'll remember who he is when he wakes up."
Natasha knelt beside Bucky, brushing frost from his cheek, eyes narrowed. Even now, the ghost of the Winter Soldier lingered in his expression. But she said nothing—just watched.
Meanwhile, Michael moved to the remaining pods, standing before them in silence.
This time, he didn't release the soldiers. Instead, he extended his hand—his aura flaring like a phantom mist—and began reading their memories. Their lives. Their crimes.
"I can't take chances," he muttered. "Bucky was a victim. But the others… they might have gone willingly. Might have become monsters long before Hydra got to them."
His eyes narrowed as the information flowed into his mind.
"If they're killers… I end it here."
He clenched his fists, weighing their sins in silence.
"If they were forced—if they were broken like Bucky—then maybe, just maybe… they get a second chance."
Natasha stood up slowly, watching him.
"I thought you were just going to recruit them," Natasha said, her voice low, unsure.
Michael didn't turn to her as he replied, voice cool and even, "I'm recruiting them—to work for me. And they'll represent me."
He removed his hand from the cryo pod, stepping back. With a casual flick of his fingers, a spark of energy danced in the air.
Snap.
The sound echoed through the chamber like a death sentence.
Inside the pod, the Winter Soldier twitched violently. His skin shimmered, then began to change—melting away like wax in fire, reshaped by shadow and power. Dark armor formed over his body, wrapping him in black steel and obsidian mesh, forming a brutal visage: a knight born of war and death.
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