AN: Sorry for the late update. Been busy with work and Shazam ff.
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[London – MI6 Black Site, 26 Minutes After the Broadcast]
Justin Hammer sat slumped in a steel chair, arms cuffed behind his back, knees swollen and throbbing from weeks of stress, overuse, and untreated inflammation. He was dressed in a crumpled designer suit, the once-crisp lines now creased and dirty. His once-perfect hair was slicked back with nervous sweat. His signature smugness?
Gone.
Across the table, a British intelligence officer clicked a pen three times, slowly, deliberately. "Mr. Hammer," she said with a clipped accent, "I suggest you start explaining why your name is plastered across a global war crimes confession."
Hammer tried to smile. The old grin, the boardroom charm. But his lips barely twitched. "Look, I don't know what Osborn said, but he's trying to save his own ass, right? Throw everyone else under the bus. Classic narcissist move."
The agent leaned forward. "We've corroborated the data dump. Your name's on the fund transfers. The cybernetics project in Zagreb? That was your tech. And the failed augmentation trials in Manila? Your signature's on the shipment manifest."
Hammer's voice cracked. "I was funded to innovate! Everything I did was under military contract! You think I wanted those freaks dying in labs?! I was building a future. A safer world! With cooler weapons."
He winced as he shifted as his knees flaring like fire.
The agent didn't blink. "You tested unapproved tech on war orphans. You tried to implant neural jacks into live children. And now, your old friend Norman just spilled every rotten secret you ever tried to bury."
Hammer laughed bitterly. "Norman was supposed to die in that lab. The Mandarin promised..."
He froze.
Too late.
The room went still.
The agent arched a brow. "The Mandarin?"
Hammer swallowed hard. "No. Nothing. Too much stress. I misspoke."
She stood up, walked to the mirror behind him, and tapped her earpiece.
"Get London Cell E on Mandarin intel recovery. Track all recent HammerComm calls. Scrub his last forty-eight hours. If he's lying, bag everyone he's ever spoken to. We finally have a lead on the Mandarin after all these years. Don't lose."
She turned back, cool and deadly. "You're not a businessman anymore, Mr. Hammer. You're evidence."
Hammer slumped forward, chest heaving. "Shit!"
[A few minutes later...]
The room had been quiet for too long.
Justin Hammer sat there alone, bathed in the cold glow of overhead fluorescents. His breathing had slowed, but his nerves hadn't. Every creak of the hallway, every buzz of static from the security panel made him flinch.
The lights flickered once.
He looked up.
Flickered again.
Then went out.
Total darkness.
Hammer's breath hitched in his throat. "H-Hello?"
The emergency backup lights kicked in with a dim red hue.
And then he saw it.
A silhouette, standing in the corner of the room. Perfectly still. As if it had always been there. Unblinking. Unmoving. A black suit. Matte. A faceless mask over the figure's head, featureless except for two small slits where eyes should be.
Hammer's voice cracked. "What the hell?!"
The figure stepped forward. No sound of footsteps. The metal cuffs around Hammer's wrists rattled as he struggled against them.
"You... you can't be here," he stammered. "This is MI6! You can't just walk in..."
The voice that answered was modulated, barely human.
"You are nothing but a liability now."
Hammer blinked. "Wait... wait, we had a deal. I did everything he asked. I kept quiet. I mean, it was just a slip of the tongue. I... I didn't tell them anything about the Shadow Rings or Howard's assassination plan!"
The figure didn't respond.
Then... movement.
A silver blur of light. A glint of steel arced forward, too fast for Hammer to react.
SCHK.
The sound wasn't loud.
But the warmth was immediate.
Hammer looked down and saw the blade sticking out of his chest, angled perfectly through his heart. The blood started to spread, slowly at first, then faster, trickling across his shirt like ink on canvas.
His mouth moved, but no sound came out.
"You talk too much."
Another flash of movement.
SWISH.
His head rolled clean off his shoulders, hitting the floor with a wet thud, eyes wide in shock, mouth still twitching.
A geyser of blood sprayed against the wall in a red arc.
The assassin stood still for a moment, watching the body slump sideways after a little bit of jerking like a headless chicken. His blade was dripping with blood. He reached back, about to sheath the sword into its spine mount... until every sense screamed.
Danger. Close. Immediate.
Instinct told him to run.
But his muscles wouldn't respond.
Something cold pressed against the base of his neck... metal.
Then came a voice, male, low, and calm, right behind his ear.
"I came here to get info out of Hammer, but what was that about an assassination plan on Howard Stark?"
The assassin didn't breathe.
His hand twitched, fingers brushing the hilt of his second blade, but the pressure at his neck shifted, just enough to remind him: one wrong move, and his spine would separate from his skull before the thought even finished forming.
The assassin didn't blink, didn't twitch. But his lips moved ever so slightly.
A click... faint, almost imperceptible.
"Poison pill," he muttered, recognizing the signs too late.
But nothing happened.
The assassin's body jolted slightly, then froze.
His fingers twitched once. Twice.
Then… nothing.
No foaming at the mouth. No blue lips. No convulsions.
Just confusion in his eyes.
The man behind him tilted his head. "Huh. Looks like your little cyanide cocktail had expired. How the fuck did you become an assassin? Using expired products is bad for health."
The assassin's eyes widened. He tried to move, but his body failed him completely. Limbs sluggish, vision blurry. The skin around his jaw began to flush red… but not in the way it should. The toxin had been neutralized before it could activate.
The assassin's knees buckled as he fell forward, hitting the floor.
"Shhh. That fading feeling? That's your nervous system going on vacation. You'll wake up. Probably."
He glanced toward the corner.
"Bring the bag."
Two Widows emerged silently from the hallway, out of their invisible mode.
"Looks like Norman wasn't the only one who was after your dad's life," one said.
"Well, fucking Mandarin. I shut him down years ago. Now it would seem that he has crawled back and is targeting Dad again," Tony sighed. "Tag him, strip all gear, lock out every nerve point. I want him untouched until Melina gets her hands on him. He's not to say a single word until then. Understood?"
"Understood," they echoed in unison.
They moved quickly, efficiently. One Widow lifted the assassin's body while the other gathered his weapons into a sealed nanite case.
Tony turned and looked at the remains of Justin Hammer. The blood. The head. The look of stunned betrayal was still frozen on his lifeless face.
"You could've just kept your mouth shut, Hammer," he muttered. "But no. You had to be you."
Justin dying right now was bad for Shadow Legion's reputation. Tony didn't want the public or the authorities to think of them as cold-blooded murderers. He wanted to use the CCTV footage, but there was none. The assassin had destroyed it before entering the place. So, Tony used Hermes to create fake footage and voices. For the AI, it was child's play. He opened his palm. The nanites formed a tiny USB with the fake footage of one of the corrupt MI6 agents killing Hammer. He placed the drive on the table.
Then they disappeared into the shadows.
As for where are the agents?
Well, the assassin blasted a bomb right outside the place before infiltrating. So, the agents were busy tackling the problem. And the few guards who were inside were put to sleep using sleeping gas.
[Two Hours Later]
[Location: U.S. Military Black Site, Eastern Seaboard]
[Status: Critical – Operation Internal Storm: In Progress]
Red alert sirens echoed through the compound. Floodlights lit the base like a battlefield, and the heavy thrum of helicopters vibrated the air overhead. Inside the facility, a small army of military police, U.S. Marshals, and federal tactical teams moved with precision through reinforced corridors.
The President's Order Had Been Clear:
"Bring me General Thaddeus Ross. Alive. Before the Shadow Legion gets their hands on him."
Although no one knew about the Shadow Legion before tonight, the fact that they have found so much information about the corruption so quickly was enough to rattle them. Right now, everyone was afraid, thinking about their little misdeeds and misuse of power, and fears that they might get publicly exposed.
The only way to minimize the damage was to get Ross alive and get all secret files and records from him before the Legion. Or else, the entire government will collspe if that information gets exposed.
But Ross wasn't going quietly.
[Command Room – Level 3]
General Ross stood at the center of the chaos, a full tactical vest strapped over his uniform. A heavy-duty custom sidearm rested in his holster, while encrypted hard drives were being loaded into a reinforced briefcase behind him. He barked into his comms.
"Status on Exfil Route Bravo?"
A voice crackled over the channel. "Compromised. The extraction helicopter was intercepted. We're rerouting to the secondary bunker."
Ross slammed his fist into the console. "Damn it! We are not losing this base!"
Aide: "Sir, the President declared you rogue. The chain of command has collapsed. Orders are coming directly from the Oval..."
Ross pulled his gun and fired a round into the console beside the aide's head. Sparks exploded from the monitor.
"I am the chain of command."
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SPOILERS> Click it. Nothing serious.[1]
Next: Ch: 76 [Project Goblin: Unleashed]
Ch: 77 [Red Vial]
Ch: 78 [The Serum Scam]
Ch: 79 [Pain is a Language]
Ch: 80 [Gods and Ghosts]
[1] Some of you have been asking me to create Mecha and Transformers for quite a while now. So, why the hell not? Transformers and Mecha will be there. Model 50 and Mecha will be introduced in Ch: 90.