Four Months Later
"Is everyone ready and does everyone remember what they have to do?" Arclight said, scanning the team.
"Break into a secured base packed with armed men and blow the brains out of the golden goose?" Gambit smirked.
"But why are the kid and I the ones going inside?" Puma grumbled, always dissatisfied with everything.
"Because Remy and I will be drawing the base's forces toward us. And nothing draws attention quite like an earthquake with explosive special effects," Philippa said, smiling rather bloodthirstily.
"Let's begin," Arclight commanded, rushing ahead of everyone and shattering a section of the concrete wall with a single blow.
Once inside, we split up—everyone had their own objectives. Puma and I were tasked with breaking through to the target and eliminating him. Gambit and Arclight would be dist... attracting the enemy forces. Shocker would handle the bunker's external power supply, then use his latest invention to blast a super EMP through the underground generators, de-energizing the bunker and removing the possibility of it being quickly sealed. This base relied far too heavily on technology!
By the way, I haven't told you who our target is. It's the lovely, elderly Hydra head, Daniel Whitehall. Our dear friend is a true Nazi who served under Hitler. You're probably wondering why anyone would want to kill a man well into his 90s? It's quite simple: Grandpa went and gorged himself on golden apples. Or, he harvested all the organs of an Inhuman vampire, depending on which version you find more realistic. In short, our friend rejuvenated himself and decided to start seizing power from the younger heads of this 'kind and tolerant' organization. Surprisingly, these younger men, only in their 40s, showed no patience or understanding for his actions and contracted us to take him out, agreeing to pay each of us a million per head.
And so... Thomas and I are running, exterminating members of this ancient dark cult, and I found myself thinking about how bad it must have been for our target all those 30-40 years in prison with a last name like that. I actually felt a bit of sympathy for the old man and decided to kill him quickly.
You're probably asking yourself: why did they agree to pay us such a large sum? It's simple. Over these months, our team managed to get on the military's radar by completing a contract to protect their weapons shipments. We also distinguished ourselves in Eastern conflicts, destroying a couple of bases on order. And the icing on the cake was our mission in Texas, where we managed to stop Abomination. The guy was very creepy and strong. This freak was exposed to the same radiation as Banner, but unlike his counterpart, he managed to keep his intelligence—though maybe that's why he wasn't as strong as the Hulk. Where the guy really got unlucky was in his transformation, which was permanent. Everything would have been okay if he looked like a -3 on a ten-point scale: lumps all over his body, with bones sticking out in places that miraculously didn't pierce his green skin. We had a hard time back then, but we managed to wear the bastard out and capture him. So, our green 'something' is sitting somewhere in a secret prison under Ross's supervision.
Breaking through my future colleagues, I used Thomas as a living shield, through which I quickly took the guys out of the game with well-aimed shots to the head. They didn't even have time to notice me, though I wouldn't credit their inattentiveness to my Stealth skill. It was more likely the effect of a seven-foot humanoid cougar that quite successfully ignored bullets and regenerated perhaps only slightly slower than Wolverine. While my friend was tearing one agent apart, I had already managed to put holes in the heads of two others.
After some time and a pile of corpses, I met an old acquaintance. It happened at a new turn when Puma, who had run around the corner, flew back out and left a rather accurate silhouette of himself in the wall. Prepared for the worst, I saw Creel (The Absorbing Man) step out, having absorbed the properties of some metal. Realizing the futility of my actions, I still fired a couple of bullets into his head and watched them spectacularly produce a shower of sparks as they collided with his forehead. It looked like I couldn't avoid a transformation this time. Taking my full form, I noticed Carl reach into a bag on his belt, and his skin changed to some kind of crystal. Puma recovered at that moment and lunged at my former bodyguard. I watched as my colleague's claws and fangs couldn't even leave a scratch on Creel's new form. Realizing I'd have to repeat my trick for a second time and make the baldy think he was the victim of two terrifying animals that somehow managed to cancel his ability and defeated the poor guy in an unfair fight—two against one.
"Puma, keep going! I'll stall him!" I shouted, distracting Creel's attention with a flashbang from my belt.
Managing to look away unlike Carl, I was able to get closer to him and began reciting the mantra. After a couple of minutes, he was already under my power, and taking advantage of this, I forced him to remember our battle in a new way, then sent him back, giving the command to hold off enemy forces while killing all Hydra agents and to lose consciousness upon exiting the building.
Finished here, I went after Puma. Reaching a fork that wasn't on the plans we managed to get, I decided to trust luck and turned left. Running through the labyrinth of corridors, I nearly lost my head when a clawed hand lunged out from a room on the right. Dodging, I felt someone behind me and managed to jump at the last second, hooking my claws into the ceiling. I was quite shocked, as my sense of smell and hearing had never failed me before! Examining the two attackers, I saw men in black uniforms with strange masks on their faces. One of them had claws even longer than mine. The other's uniform had open sleeves, and his arms were completely covered in fur, ending in similar claws.
"Are you sure you want this?" I asked them, though I already knew the answer.
In response, I heard something resembling a snarl, and they lunged at me. Dodging, I noticed their physical capabilities were extremely high, and if there had been less animalistic rage and more tactics in their actions, and if I didn't have Time Acceleration, I would have at least suffered serious injuries. but in this state, they blindly threw themselves at me, not even trying to take advantage of their numerical edge. Although the one with the claws sometimes tried to exploit my divided attention, the hairy one interfered, acting as if the world would end if anyone but him killed me.
After destroying a couple of rooms and depriving the hairy one of his hands and the clawed one of his fingers and damaging the leg muscles of both, I continued on my way. Not knowing what awaited me next.
Traveling for another seven minutes at maximum speed, I finally saw the squad leading Whitehall to a secret passage. It seemed these geniuses realized that all power sources had been disabled, and sitting downstairs was equivalent to simply waiting for death. Seeing me, I noticed fear flash in his eyes, but overcoming the shock as he hid, he managed to give some order to two people in the uniform I already knew. They put on masks, and then their transformation began. These two were a guy and a girl. Their appearance underwent more drastic changes. Their legs and arms became like mine, except the girl had bald-looking zones in some places occupied by dark green scales.
Emitting something like a snarl, they lunged at me, and this time I used the acceleration not just to shorten the fight time, but to get a chance to come out of it alive. Unlike the previous pair, they worked perfectly in tandem. The girl was very agile and backed me into a corner, while the guy was like a sledgehammer, knocking down walls and tearing off giant chunks. His arms had grown at least twice their size after the transformation. Dodging and neutralizing some of their attacks, I was extremely grateful to Philippa; without her training over these months, I wouldn't have lasted against them for even a couple of minutes. Waiting for the moment the lizard-girl made a mistake, I managed to pierce her chest and felt like I hit the heart. Even in the final moments of her life, she tried to wound me.
Seeing what happened to his girlfriend, the guy was surprisingly cold-blooded and continued trying to tear me apart. I began to realize I lacked the speed to take advantage of the openings after his attacks without getting hit in return, and just as I was about to dump points into Agility, I heard a door open behind me and the sound of a bolt being racked. Realizing the room was about to get hot, I prepared to try and break through and make it so my new friend stood between the lead and me. But my plans were cut short by an extremely unexpected blow to the leg from the—as I thought—dead girl. Failing to dodge, I felt myself get hit a total of three times, and then, before I could receive a new portion of lead, I was sent flying by a blow. Meeting the wall, I was, to put it mildly, in total deep s***. I had three bullet wounds, one of my legs was out of commission, and my ribs now resembled a broken jigsaw puzzle. Realizing I could no longer maintain the transformation in such a state, using all my remaining strength, I managed to pull the mask from the back of my head over my face.
Surprisingly, I didn't receive another portion of lead and wasn't even smashed into the floor. Then I heard footsteps from behind that door. I realized the person approaching me was Whitehall.
"Well now... And who was it that contracted me, eh?" asked the man with slight graying hair and stupid glasses.
"Which of these youngsters decided he was the smartest? Though you don't have to answer—I'll find out myself, because unlike them, I know that patience is a supreme virtue. Number 96, finish the job."
After his command, the guy headed toward me and, realizing that my end was coming, I began to think quickly about how to save my ass. Realizing my body was in total s*** and even if I got out of here, the probability of my survival wouldn't be that high, I dumped 125 points into Endurance and immediately felt my injuries no longer hurting enough to require all my strength just to stay conscious.
Perhaps the proximity of death, or maybe the dulling of the pain, made my brain finally remember the teleport ticket. But realizing I wouldn't have time to use it, I experienced shame mixed with an insanely strong desire to live, and perhaps it was a gift from above, but for some reason, he stopped.
"Why have you stopped? I said finish him!" Whitehall said irritably.
But that hesitation was enough for me. I knew that even now, if I wasn't helped quickly enough, I'd fly off to the heavens. So, teleporting, I decided that if I was going to the next world, I'd go with music! And I launched the auto-selection of a track for the situation.