19 Chapter 19

I stood in the monitoring room, six new level two techs sat around me, I had freshly purchased them after receiving my points from the debrief, they weren't much individually but there were alot of missions to find Cain, and they still gave deployment and patrol points, although the system credited the immense property damage, the death of eighty percent of Alpha-1, and the capture of Jones were all counted against me and points were deducted, so not as much as it could have been. but it was enough, I could set in place proper staff and start a new MTF, buy the regeneration ability although it was only level one, and I also began laying the groundwork for a counter attack against Hydra.

back to the present, the screen in front of me showed a pacing Fury, a Furious Fury? either way, I couldn't blame him, first he's promised a tour, and then he helped the leader of the organization that promised him the tour, now hes been imprisoned by that same organization. Barton stood there, twirling an arrow, and Widow just stared around the room.

the Overseer, now back to his calmer self, handed me several files that had been recently sent over by the Shield-Bearers, even with only an hour after instating the new techs they had managed to sort the reports from the three sets of Sleeper agents, the Visionaries had made no progress infiltrating Stark Industries, as was to be expected, Jarvis was a big wall to get through for the low level agents, and the Cordycepts had managed to infiltrate Pym Technologies, although none of them held a high position and fewer still knew about Project Yellowjacket yet. I wanted that technology for a new MTF I had in mind, an assassination group who I could even make a search and retrieval if they could nail time travel through the quantum realm.

I perused the files, each detailing an uncovered Hydra agent in Shield, Pierces file was also there along with Rumlows, but I needed them to come into possession of Lokis Staff after the battle of New York, because it was through them that Strucker gained the staff and the Mind Stone, and it was those expiraments that gave us The Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. but beyond those key elements, I saw no reason to keep them alive. Both shouldn't be necessary. I'm sure Rumlow would take the staff as a sign of goodwill to join Strucker's branch of Hydra. making a decision, I left Rumlows file with the Overseer and took the rest.

I opened the door slowly, flanked by two security staff and the Overseer, I sat at the table and motioned for Fury to do the same. as I sat, I had an idea and whispered to the Overseer, who promptly left the room.

"Well, Fury, you look like you've got a lot on your mind," I said with as much nonchalance as I could.

"Was this a ploy for our capture? I can't see any other possibilities on how you recovered so much so fast in less than twenty-four hours without the injuries being fake in the first place. now unless you plan on holding us forever, I would ask to be released, me and my agents have been her about twelve hours and were all exhausted, " Fury said, attempting to push for some authority

I smiled and set down the files one after another. As Fury looked at the photos on the front, he gained a small frown. "You're spying on my agents now. How many spies do you have in shield." he asked

"we are currently here to discuss the infestation of Shield and how to remove it" I said "but first you should read this file, and it should shed some light on why we had to detain you" I passed him Pierces file.

as Fury read it, I could see the gears turn in his head, and as he got farther, the horror as he realized just how deep Hydra had its teeth "how do I know that your not just making this up" he said warily, I couldn't blame him, here I was telling him that his close friend was one of the heads of Hydra, and one of his mortal enemies

"How much do you know?" Fury asked. With a smile, I waved to the camera. a few minutes later, the Overseer reentered, this time with a plate of toast and a small wooden box. the toast was placed in the middle of the table, with each and every slice cut exactly down the vertical line. he handed me the wooden box and then left the room again.

Fury looked at the toast, then to me, before leaning forward, "I see," he muttered then as if a light bulb went off he snapped back to me "why did your organization not help" he said squinting. I smiled before speaking, "My takeover of the Foundation is... recent. before me the policy was hands off with us only containing what we could easily get our hands on or certain world ending threats, however as you and Danvers were already working on fighting the invasion, the council decided non-interference was the best course of action, a decision I heavily disagreed with, but I wasn't in charge at the time so there wasn't anything I could do." I spouted off the lie as easy as breathing, Deciever might be broken.

Fury still seemed troubled, but he understood being under a councils thumb. "So what's in the box?" he asked. I opened the box before taking out the iron nail enclosed inside. "This is SCP-272, and this little thing is going to prove my words about the anomalies treating the normality we seek to maintain, the horrors we force back into the dark." I said, "Now let's make a bet, I'm going to place this on the floor next to one of you, you can decide who, and then the guards are going to step away from the door there, then the selected individual can take any action to leave the open door, if they succeed then I'll give you three favors that the foundation will do for you if it's within our power, regardless of consequences. if you fail to leave, then after Hydra is taken care of, we will talk about cooperation between us and Shield, true cooperation, not this cease fire we currently have." I spoke smugly

"The catch?" Fury asked

"No one is allowed to come into contact with the nail, while active it resists human contact and will psychicly lash out, no one has survived its retaliation to date." I said, a bit of an exaggeration, but this way, they wouldn't remove the nail, securing my victory in this bet

Fury took a moment to think, then nodded to Natasha. Natasha walked over to the corner of the room, where I indicated before I imbeded the nail in her shadow and walked away. she looked at me skeptically. "That's it?" she asked, I didn't respond and simply waved to the now open door. She confidently strode forward before suddenly stopping, her forehead creased. she had reached the end of her shadow, and she continued to lean forward, attempting movement. "Come on Natasha, stop playing," Barton taunted from the table. Natasha glared at him before backing up to the wall and sprinting forward before attempting to leap farther than her earlier attempt. it looked like she might succeed for a moment before coming to a sudden stop in mid-air as if she had hit a clothesline. this caused Barton to frown. The stop was very sudden and obvious. him and Fury approached the trapped Widow before both of them pulled on her, making exactly zero progress.

I walked around them before setting the wooden box over the nail, covering it in shadow once again. Fury and Co. dropped to the ground in a jumbled heap before Romanoff looked back at me and leaped to her feet and made a dash to the door. Just before she crossed the threshold, I lifted the box. the nail, no longer covered in shade, began to re-exert its influence on its victim, said victim came to a sudden stop before getting dragged backwards very quickly, losing her balance and crashing back into Fury as he climbed back to his feet.

after dragging himself back to his feet for the second time, Fury turned to me, "Okay, I get it, you win."

I smiled and held out my hand "to our future cooperation"

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biggest chapter yet, 1400 words

I've had more free time recently, idk how long it will last, but I've enjoyed being able to sit down and actually work on this book for a good amount of time

thank yall for reading. You're all wonderful