----
"That fast…?"
Inside one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s covert facilities, agents in dark tactical gear moved briskly between terminals and holo-tables. Monitors streamed global surveillance feeds. One feed stood out Nolan on screen, freezing and capturing Baron Strucker within moments.
Agent Phil Coulson, now reinstated and trusted by Nick Fury, rubbed his temple in disbelief.
He'd only just been briefed. He thought this mission would take weeks.
But Nolan had located Strucker in less than two days and taken him down with clinical precision.
Coulson glanced at the intel folder in his hand. Once, Nolan had been just another Hydra scientist until something happened. He'd escaped. Aligned with arms trafficker Ulysses Klaue, even eliminated the Winter Soldier at one point… though Hydra had later recovered Bucky Barnes.
Then came New York.
Nolan's rise felt unreal. He recruited Curt Connors, acquired Oscorp, and even tamed Norman Osborn.
Now Oscorp wasn't just a tech giant—it was a superhuman military power under Nolan's control.
Worse, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s surveillance on him had gone dark. Any traceable data was scrubbed in real-time. Are moles planted around Oscorp? Exposed and eliminated. Fury wanted more intel, but Coulson could only sigh.
He wasn't Superman. Nolan was.
"Director!" Skye no, Daisy rushed into the room, worry painted across her face. "The Malick family just started mass capturing Inhumans!"
Coulson stood straighter. "Where?"
"Multiple sites. Random and spread out. They're targeting unregistered Inhumans we were still monitoring."
That was a problem. S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't have a solution yet for the emerging Inhuman population certainly not the infrastructure Xavier had for mutants. They'd barely even mapped Inhuman communities.
But now Malick Hydra's secret puppet masters were hunting them.
"Deploy tactical teams. Track every movement."
"Yes, sir."
As Daisy dashed off, Coulson turned back to the screen, watching Nolan rocket skyward his eyes burning with purpose.
He already knew.
Nolan didn't just uncover Hydra's hidden hand. He was dismantling it before S.H.I.E.L.D. could even react.
"Wiping out Hydra completely?" Coulson muttered. "Maybe he actually will pull it off…"
---
New York City – Midtown
Inside a nondescript SUV, Baron Helmut Zemo stared at a silent GPS. The tracker for Strucker had gone offline.
"Damn it," he growled. "We're being hunted like dogs…"
He clutched a strange, moonlight-colored stone in his palm. A low hum of magical energy buzzed from it, calming his nerves.
Suddenly, the driver stiffened. "Sir something's falling toward us. Fast!"
Zemo's eyes widened. "Turn around! Now!"
"We won't make it…"
CRASH!
A figure slammed into the street in front of them with enough force to crater the concrete. The SUV smashed into him head-on—
—and crumpled like tin foil.
The driver was instantly unconscious, bloodied over the wheel.
Zemo dove out the back, fast too fast.
Nolan stood unmoved, the impact having done nothing. The front half of the SUV had been crushed around his body like a soda can.
He turned slowly toward Zemo.
"Huh… enhanced," Nolan murmured. "Wasn't expecting that."
Zemo was already sprinting down the street.
Nolan launched.
BOOM! A sonic crack echoed as he burst forward. Zemo turned just in time to throw a punch strong enough to shatter a brick.
Nolan caught it effortlessly.
His eyes locked on Zemo's hand. "This stone… is that where your power comes from?"
Zemo's confusion turned to panic as pain tore through his wrist. CRACK! His entire left hand shattered and the moonstone fell into Nolan's palm.
The object pulsed with eerie energy.
Nolan frowned, inspecting it.
"A dimensional conduit," he whispered. "There's a demon's signature embedded in this. Dormammu? Or something lesser…"
A magical relic. Not a coincidence. Someone had gifted Zemo this power.
As Zemo screamed, clutching the stump of his wrist, Nolan simply opened a gold-rimmed portal behind him.
A containment capsule appeared from Oscorp's relay system. The portal swallowed Zemo whole.
Nolan was airborne again a second later gone before the dust even settled.
---
Back on the Ground
People screamed. Phones were up. Cameras recorded everything—the skyfall, the car crash, the man with glowing eyes.
"Superman just landed from the sky—he tore the car in half!"
"He flew off! The whole street's wrecked!"
But before any footage could spread online…
Every video stream froze.
Every account posting is permanently locked.
The takedown was executed by U.S. federal systems within seconds.
Official silence.
But the people had seen it. And the legend of Nolan, the man who made Hydra bleed, only grew.
----
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