Coulson walked out of the office, gently closed the door behind him, and let out a relieved expression like a man who'd just survived a root canal.
The moment he turned around, he found himself face-to-face with Sitwell. Remembering the name from Mario's hit list, his heart skipped a beat. But his training kicked in, and he managed a friendly smile.
"Hey there, Jasper! Long time no see."
Before the whole Hydra revelation, Coulson and Sitwell had actually gotten along pretty well. Hell, back when they were junior agents, they'd even been partners for a while. Good times, apparently built on lies.
Sitwell returned the smile and nodded. "Good to see you too, Phil. I've got some business with Director Fury. I'll catch up with you later when we both have time."
"Sounds good! I've got a mission to handle anyway, so I'll head out first."
Coulson turned and walked away, trying to look casual. Behind him, Sitwell didn't immediately knock on Fury's door. Instead, he watched Coulson's retreating figure while speaking quietly into his earpiece.
"Coulson's leaving the building. Find out what he's up to."
Then, calm as you please, he straightened his tie, raised his hand, and knocked on the office door.
"Come in!"
Sitwell entered, shooting a quick glance at Mario before walking straight to Fury's desk. He placed a file folder on the surface.
"Sir, here are the documents you requested."
Fury looked at Sitwell, and nodded. "Leave them here. You can get back to work."
Sitwell turned and left without any unnecessary small talk. Fury's office was one of the few places in the building that Hydra couldn't monitor directly, he'd only come in for a quick look-see.
As the door clicked shut, Mario dragged his chair up to Fury's desk and leaned back with a smirk.
"Sitwell would make an excellent breakthrough point, you know."
Instead of responding to that comment, Fury changed the subject. "Now can you tell me what the Tesseract actually does?"
Mario sighed and slouched back in his chair like a teenager being lectured by his parents.
"The Tesseract is a container. But it's also the key to starting a cosmic war. Activate that thing, and it opens a portal. At the same time, every spacefaring race in the universe that can detect its energy signature will suddenly take a very keen interest in Earth."
"A container?" Fury immediately latched onto the key detail. The cosmic war part didn't worry him too much, he had his own trump cards for that scenario.
"What's inside?"
"A glowing blue gem."
"Let's wait until we've got our hands on it before we talk details. By the way, think you could spare me some serious firepower? You know how it is, guys like me don't feel safe without something heavy to hold onto."
---
Knock, knock, knock.
Coulson returned carrying a silver briefcase. He placed it on Fury's desk and said, "Sir, we've retrieved it."
Fury nodded and opened the case without ceremony. Inside lay a translucent cube, and faintly visible at its center, something was glowing with soft blue light.
Mario couldn't help but lean in for a closer look. After all, this was the Space Stone, one of the six Infinity Stones. Collect them all, and you could snap your fingers and reshape reality itself.
More importantly, the cube-shaped Tesseract was aesthetically pleasing to him. Thanks to his connection to Minecraft, he felt that squares were the ultimate form of perfection.
Staring at the Tesseract with desire, he grinned, and said, "This thing and I are meant to be together."
When he reached out to pick up the cube, Fury immediately warned, "Careful, this—"
But before he could finish, Mario had already grabbed the Tesseract with his bare hand. Fury fell silent again.
Ordinary people couldn't touch the Tesseract directly, the energy it released would burn them. But seeing how relaxed Mario looked, he swallowed his warning.
Mario had no time to care about Fury's reaction. The instant he picked up the Space Stone, a notification sound that had been silent for weeks suddenly chimed in his mind.
[TRAVEL MAP LOADING...]
[LOADING COMPLETE]
A map appeared in his consciousness, showing a flat layout of the area within a hundred meters around him. Scattered across it were countless dots in different colors.
White dots, green dots, and a large number of red dots.
After studying it carefully, he quickly figured out the meanings: green represented Coulson, friendly; white represented Fury, neutral; and red needed no explanation, hostile contacts.
But after searching thoroughly, he couldn't find the teleportation function he'd hoped for.
So it's just a fancy radar system?
Can't be too greedy, I guess. Being able to tell friend from foe is already pretty useful.
With the map active, he felt his next moves would be much easier to plan.
He shifted his attention back to the Tesseract itself. Aside from a cool, icy sensation, it gave him no other feedback.
Feeling frustrated, he thought of home and muttered, "Portal..."
The Tesseract didn't react at all.
"You sure this is the real deal? You're not trying to pass off some fancy paperweight, are you?"
Fury said nothing, but his expression made it clear, this was definitely the genuine article.
Now it was Mario's turn to feel stumped. The thing was completely useless to him for travel purposes. When he stored it in his inventory, a description immediately appeared.
[TESSERACT]
[UNKNOWN ITEM, MODULE NOT INSTALLED...]
He sighed deeply, pulled the Tesseract back out, and tried every activation method he could think of. Voice commands, mental focus, even giving it a good shake. But the cube remained as responsive as a brick.
Maybe this thing only works with the Infinity Gauntlet? That doesn't make sense, didn't the Ancient One's Time Stone work fine on its own?
Finally, Mario looked helplessly at Fury. "This thing is completely useless to me for what I need. Let's talk about Hydra instead."
"Activate the Avengers Initiative! Form a team of enhanced individuals to counter Hydra. That's your only real chance of regaining control of S.H.I.E.L.D."
"This plan sounds awfully familiar..."
Hearing Mario lay out the exact strategy he'd been considering, Fury was at a loss for words. By now, he was convinced Mario possessed some kind of precognitive ability.
"Who do you think should be on this team?"
Mario tossed the Tesseract back into his inventory and drummed his fingers on the desk. "Just go with whoever you had in mind originally."
"Oh, mind giving me a ride home? I'm planning to do some fishing, see if I can reel in something interesting this time."
Looking at the red dots scattered across his minimap, a bright smile spread across Mario's face.
---
The weather was perfect, clear skies with a gentle breeze. By the lakeside in Central Park, a lone figure sat on a couch, holding a fishing rod made of connected blocks, peacefully angling for whatever might bite.
A ripple swam toward his bobber, and the moment it made contact, the float sank sharply. Mario quickly raised the rod, and an enchanted book glowing with purple light flew out of the water, landing directly in his hands.
"Finally! An enchanted book!"
Excited, he opened his inventory to examine the glowing tome. Without lapis lazuli for enchanting tables, fishing was his only hope for getting useful enchantments.
"Flame I... not bad!"
His gaze shifted to the sniper rifle beside him. A bold idea formed in his mind. Without hesitation, he pulled out the anvil he'd crafted earlier and placed it on the ground.
He stored the gun in his inventory, opened the anvil interface, and placed both the sniper rifle and the Flame enchantment book inside. The required 7 levels of experience made his heart race.
"It actually works!"
I need to ask Coulson and Fury about the most powerful weapons they know of. What if I fish up an Infinity enchantment? That would be sweet as hell!
Without hesitation, he spent the 7 levels to enchant the sniper rifle with Flame enchantment. When he retrieved the weapon from the anvil, its originally dark metal was now wrapped in purple energy, matching the glow of the enchanted book.
He gently worked the bolt action, and his smile lasted exactly two seconds before turning into a frustrated grimace.
With no targets to test his enhanced weapon on, he felt let down. He'd expected that returning to Central Park would provoke Hydra into making another move. But in reality, they'd done absolutely nothing. His minimap showed zero red dots within a hundred meters.
He didn't believe Hydra would just give up on him. There were only two possibilities: either their surveillance range extended beyond the minimap's coverage, or their operatives somehow didn't register as hostile.
The second possibility seemed extremely unlikely.
"Back to fishing it is."
Mario cast his line into the water again and settled in to wait. A few seconds later, ripples appeared on the lake's surface. With Lure III, his fishing speed had increased dramatically, but most catches were just fish or random junk. Enchanted books remained frustratingly rare.
With a light pull, another fish flew out of the water.
Time slipped by unnoticed. The sky turned fiery red with sunset, and Mario had sat by the lake all day, quietly fishing without even registering the passing hours.
"Alright, that's enough."
He put away his fishing rod and stood up, stretching muscles. Glancing at the sky, he muttered, "Inventory's full again."
"Too much random junk. Time to head home."
He brushed off his pants. Thank god for his new physiology, a normal person sitting motionless all day would have gone completely numb.
He checked the minimap one final time. Still no red dots. Pursing his lips in dissatisfaction, he dove straight into the clear lake, swimming toward his underwater base entrance.
---
Back home, Mario organized the day's fishing haul into storage chests.
"Way too few enchanted books. Not even a full chest after an entire day... a bit disappointing."
He pulled out two Power IV books, combined them into Power V using the anvil, then added Infinity, applying both enchantments to his sniper rifle.
With a satisfied grin, he stroked the weapon's enhanced surface like he was caressing a lover.
"Mario, you're finally back!"
Pearl flapped his great wings and swooped over. Mario hadn't told him about the earlier attack.
"It's nighttime now. Shouldn't we go hunting?" Pearl's wings started flapping noticeably faster.
"Yeah, let me organize some gear first, then we'll head out."
Mario planned to enchant his diamond sword next. As for his iron armor, he dismissed that idea. The stuff wasn't worth the investment.
After some work, he ended up with a Sharpness V, Unbreaking III, Looting III diamond sword, and a Fortune III, Efficiency IV, Mending diamond pickaxe.
"Really need to find more Mending books somehow."
Once again, his combat effectiveness had increased dramatically. Ready to leave with Pearl, he glanced at the minimap, and was startled to see several red dots positioned above his head.
"Well, well..."
The red dots were spread out in a search pattern. He narrowed his eyes, quickly realizing these hostile contacts were clearly trying to locate his position.
"There's a tracker on me somewhere."
The thought hit him immediately. He quickly searched his body and soon found a small, inconspicuous sticker-like device on his lower back.
Just as he was about to store it in his inventory, he changed his mind and called Pearl over.
"Come here for a sec."
He stuck the tracker onto the vampire and said, "Fly through the tunnel toward the lakeside."
Pearl glanced at the device now attached to his body, immediately understood the plan, and without another word shot into the tunnel. Mario kept his eyes fixed on the minimap. Sure enough, all the red dots stopped moving, then most began following Pearl toward the lake. However, two remained behind, they'd noticed Mario had lingered at this spot for quite some time.
"I was just thinking about testing this rifle, and you guys show up right on schedule."
Through his tunnel system, he reached the surface. He pulled an invisibility potion from his inventory and drank it, carefully digging through the grass block above while tracking the two remaining enemies.
The potion's effect was even stronger than in the game, not only did he turn invisible, but his weapon vanished along with him.
Two men in casual clothes were leaning against a tree, pretending to be relaxed while periodically scanning their surroundings. Without the minimap's red dots, anyone would have mistaken them for ordinary people enjoying an evening stroll.
Mario found optimal positioning, went prone, and set up his enhanced sniper rifle.
Breathe in... breathe out...
He controlled his breathing, locked onto one target through the scope. The man was completely unaware that death was about to come calling.
BANG.
The suppressed rifle discharged. The target's entire head simply ceased to exist, exploding as if a bomb had detonated inside his skull. Blood and brain matter scattered everywhere, but the spray immediately ignited thanks to the Flame enchantment. The corpse burned to ash while the surrounding grass and trees remained completely untouched.
The second operative, startled by the gunfire, immediately grabbed an assault rifle from a black duffel bag. While scanning toward shot's general direction, he quickly took cover behind a tree trunk.
Mario was shaken by the weapon's sheer destructive power. The scene was far more gruesome than he'd expected. This was his first time witnessing what an anti-materiel rifle did to human anatomy.
That power... Forget headshots, even a leg hit would be a death sentence.