You can read early chapters on my [P].[A].[T].[R].[E].[O].[N].
Link: [email protected]/Arson09
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Ethan was inside the medical pod where Skye lay, while the rest of the team stood watch just outside.
She is not in good shape, Ethan thought. He enveloped his right arm in a concentrated shroud of Reverse Cursed Technique energy while observing Skye's condition from a distance. The rounds perforated her stomach and penetrated both the large and small intestines. The surgeons who operated on her must have resected a significant portion of her organs just to keep her alive, but that only makes my job more difficult, he analyzed further.
Cases involving heavy internal trauma like this were always difficult to manage. If you provided too much positive energy, you risked triggering uncontrolled cellular growth—essentially giving the patient cancer—but if you provided too little, you might as well not have tried at all.
Ethan brought his right hand near the wound and began outputting the RCT slowly.
Outside the medical pod, the agents surrounded the glass, watching Park intently. At the left-side window, Agent Triplett and Agent Simmons were speaking in hushed tones.
"It's tough when it's your team," Triplett said. "You guys go back a ways?"
"Not really, just a few months. We have nothing in common—couldn't be more different," Simmons answered, her focus on Skye undeterred.
"But you couldn't imagine a life without her," Triplett concluded, noting the slight break in Simmons' voice.
Simmons looked at him. "Yes. Have you experienced that, Agent Triplett?"
"I have," Trip replied, and after a pause, he continued, "Sometimes a person takes you by surprise."
"Yeah," Simmons agreed.
"She is very lucky to have you. I know if anything bad ever happens to me, I hope I have you in my corner, too," Triplett spoke.
Simmons and Trip looks towards eachother for a second, then the latter focused back on Skye.
Off to the side, Fitz, who was also focused on the procedure, caught the tail end of the conversation. His head snapped in Trip's direction, though he shook it a second later and refocused on Ethan.
Skye's heartbeat began to stabilize as Ethan continued the Reverse Cursed Technique (RCT) treatment.
On the right side of the window, Agent Coulson and Agent Garrett stood beside each other. Garrett finally spoke, "Why isn't he using those disk devices like he did after the Battle of New York?"
Coulson looked toward him with a signature smile. "You haven't read the reports regarding Ethan, have you?"
"Of course not; those reports are omega-level only—only the Director, Deputy Director, or members of the Security Council have access to them," Garrett remarked.
Coulson's smile remained, though he didn't admit to anything. As he and John locked eyes, a look of realization passed over Garrett's face. "And you wrote those reports..."
Coulson turned back toward Skye. "Let's just say those disks—'Vitalis,' as Park calls them—are more of an extension than the actual source. Park is able to perform RCT naturally through his own body."
Garrett gritted his teeth, Damn you, Fury, Garrett thought bitterly.
What Phil didn't know—or rather, couldn't know—was that Garrett had actually read those reports. After all, he was no longer just an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., but an operative of Hydra, and Secretary Pierce had provided him with the classified contents.
Some time ago, John Garrett had joined the Hydra cell embedded deep within S.H.I.E.L.D.
In 1990, he had stepped on an IED in Sarajevo, and that was the beginning of his end.
The blast left him critically wounded, and he was abandoned by S.H.I.E.L.D. to die. However, Garrett survived the blast.
And when Hydra offered him a chance to be whole again, to become the first test subject in Project Deathlok—a joint initiative between Hydra and their allies at Cybertek Corporation to build a super-soldier via cybernetic prosthetics, he grabbed it with both hands open.
Decades later, Garrett's organic systems began to fail, leaving his biomechanical enhancements as the only things keeping him alive.
He had been desperately searching for a way to stall his imminent mortality.
To the point that He had became highly invested in the Centipede serum after witnessing the results in Mike Peterson.
However, the serum proved too volatile; the only reason Peterson had survived was because Phil's team had shot him with a neurotoxin from the "Night-Night Gun" at the exact right moment.
The resulting chemical mixture had somehow stabilized the serum inside him—in other words, it was pure, unadulterated luck.
He was now ostensibly hunting the same Deathlok program while maintaining his cover as a loyal S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.
Using his own Level 7 clearance, he had granted himself the moniker of "The Clairvoyant."
Yes, Garrett was the Clairvoyant.
When Coulson informed Garrett about Ethan's RCT, he realized in that moment exactly what Fury had done.
The report the World Security Council must have received was a heavily redacted version of the one Coulson had provided to Fury.
Nick Fury had altered the original documentation to make it appear as though Ethan's healing capabilities were entirely dependent on those Vitalis disks, and it was far from the first time the Director had redacted and presented a skewed version of the truth to the Council.
"Dissemination of Intelligence," as Fury liked to call it.
Just then, every agent outside the medical pod heard it—the chant:
"Partial Summoning: Chimera Samsara."
The Wheel of Harmony materialized above Ethan's head, and the glow of his RCT intensified.
Clunk.
Every case was unique when it came to healing; every patient had their own physiological adaptations to overcome before the true healing could begin.
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