[David's POV]
As I entered the basement, I murmured, "Gideon, tell me you're seeing what is happening outside."
"Ten men. Tactical gear. They are called the STRIKE team. ETA 3 minutes," she confirmed. "SHIELD-sanctioned. Someone named Sitwell ordered them in."
I cursed under my breath. Sitwell. That bald-headed, geeky-looking Hydra bastard. He probably thought he was about to clean up a loose end. Funny how things never go quite as planned.
"Time to leave," I muttered. "Gideon, keep me updated."
I moved.
Smoke bomb. Thunk.
Another followed. Clink.
Thick plumes rolled through the warehouse swirling and blinding, sowing panic in the incoming squad of mercs.
I was already behind them.
The first guy never saw me. I yanked him into the smoke, arm around his throat. He struggled, dropped his weapon. I did not let go until he sagged, unconscious.
The second tried to shout. I drove a fist into his ribs, blades flicking from my knuckle dusters as I jammed them into the gaps in his armor, above the chest. He collapsed like a ragdoll.
Bullets tore through the smoke. The mercs were not playing around.
Three came at me from the side. I sprinted up a metal rack, kicked off a crate midair, and spun into them. One took a boot to the face. Another caught my elbow under the chin. The third raised his rifle.
He got two syringes to the neck. Fast-acting anesthetic. He spasmed and dropped.
Bullets tore through the air around me. I used the rack as cover, grabbing a hanging chain and swinging across a gap in the floor. My boots slammed into another merc's chest. He flew backward into a steel drum.
I moved toward the northeast stairwell.
One of them peeked the corner, rifle aimed. I pulled a flash bang from my inventory and tossed it like a lazy arc of death.
Pop.
He staggered, blinded. I grabbed his arm and twisted it backward, dislocating his shoulder before driving him face-first into the wall. He went limp.
His partner fired wildly as he was panicked, uncoordinated. I dove low, swept his legs, and cracked his helmeted head against the concrete floor with a sickening crack.
The remaining mercs regrouped near the rear. I heard them bark orders.
But I had no time. Chitauri tech was in my inventory.
SHIELD would not let me walk away. They would shoot first and ask questions later.
So I made the decision easy.
I hit the back hallway running, another smoke bomb in hand. As the cloud filled the narrow corridor, I darted through like a phantom, gun raised. The one guarding the door tried to react. Too slow. Two rounds in his thigh, one in the elbow. He dropped, screaming.
Another came at me with a combat knife.
I sidestepped the lunge, grabbed his wrist mid-swing, snapped it, then used the same arm to slam him into the steel wall until he stopped moving.
My boots crunched over broken glass and shell casings as I moved through the haze.
Smoke clung to the corridors like fog in a graveyard, thick enough to hide me from eyes on the catwalks or stairwells.
I reached the end of the hall, where the floor leveled out beside rows of stacked crates.
I did not waste time.
One after another, the crates vanished into my inventory. Ammunition. Black-market weapons. Even alien devices.
But I was not invisible. Footsteps echoed above, then thundered down the steel stairs.
I lobbed a flashbang over the crates. It bounced once, rolled, then burst in a white explosion of light and sound. The men shouted, disoriented, hands flying to their faces.
I hurled a smoke bomb after it, flooding the corridor in a dense white screen.
Then I moved.
A merc rounded the corner, eyes squinting through the chaos. He raised his weapon.
Too slow.
I slid low, catching his knees and toppling him hard onto his back. Before he could shout, my blade flicked out just a quick jab to the throat to knock the air out of him. He crumpled without a sound.
I sprinted deeper into the storage corridor, angling toward the back.
According to the blueprint that gideon had collected, there was a secondary exit, one the gang thought they had secured. It connected to a alley behind the block.
Two gang members were guarding it.
Both looked twitchy, already spooked by the noise and smoke bleeding through the walls. I stepped out of the mist and fired twice. Both rounds hit center mass.
The first man dropped without a word. The second fell against the wall, his gun clattering to the concrete.
I reached the steel exit door. It opened into an L-shaped alley, a right-angle deathtrap. No cameras. No surveillance coverage. A blind spot.
A perfect place for an ambush.
Gideon had not seen it coming.
And I had not expected it either. I had made the mistake of assuming SHIELD would overlook this exit.
The metal door groaned as I pushed it open. Smoke hissed out behind me, trailing from the chaos I left in the basement.
I stepped into the narrow alley.
Two figures waited.
One stood directly ahead.
The other stood off to my right, positioned at the far end beneath the orange spill of a rusted streetlamp.
The man was broad and older, with squared shoulders that told me he had worn a badge for too many years. The woman had dark hair and tactical gear, her stance alert and focused. Her eyes locked on mine the moment I stepped out.
Shit.
I summoned Lucy and ombra from my inventory in a breath, with my hand behind my back. My hand moved like a reflex, finger brushing the trigger.
The matte-black slide of the pistol gleamed faintly under the light as I aimed straight at the woman's chest.
"Drop it," she barked, already raising her weapon.
Blake, the man, mirrored her move. Two barrels now aimed at my head.
"Nice setup," I said, voice low behind the mask. "But you're late to the party."
Neither of them answered.
I kept Lucy steady. My mind ran a high-speed calc—Shinya Kogami's combat analysis engine thrumming through me. Their posture, their placement, the tension in their legs. If they fired, I could dodge.
But it'd turn this alley into a warzone with no cover. And they'd call backup in under ten seconds. Probably already had.
So I did the only thing I could.
I raised my free hand slowly. "Let's not do this," I said, keeping my voice low. "I don't want to shoot anyone unless I have to."
"You already shot plenty inside," the woman snapped.
So they had been watching. That confirmed it.
"Only the ones who needed it," I said.
Felix Blake stayed quiet. He shifted slightly to his right, trying to flank me. I turned Lucy just enough to keep him in my peripheral. His grip on the sidearm was steady.
"I'm walking out of here," I told them. "You can try to stop me. Or you can stand down."
"Who are you?" the woman asked. Her tone was clipped, demanding.
I didn't answer. My finger moved closer to the trigger.
Then I saw both the agents talk into their hands.
---
---
[Few Moments before the chaos in the basement]
[Jason Sitwell POV]
I rose from my seat after hearing that STRIKE was 1 minute away, adjusted my vest, and grabbed my sidearm.
The soft green light from the monitors reflected off my glasses as I turned to the rest of the agents seated behind me. "It is time." I said calmly.
"Blake, take Agent Palamas and the other four operatives. I want all the outer exits secured. No one gets out. You see someone armed, you drop them. You see the masked guy, do not try to apprehend him. Just report. Understood?"
Blake's voice came back a second later. "Understood. We are moving into position."
I opened the van doors and signaled the STRIKE team to move as soon as they landed. Ten operatives moved with me, armed with compact submachine guns and suppressed rifles. We exited silently into the cold night, boots crunching against gravel and broken concrete.
The warehouse loomed ahead, its steel walls stained with years of rust and neglect. The front entrance had been left open.
We breached the front entrance in formation, clearing the first room with swift, practiced motions. The air inside smelled of gunpowder and blood. There were signs of recent conflict. Bullet casings littered the ground.
Scattered bodies of gang members and a few mercenaries lay strewn across the floor, most of them unconscious, groaning in pain. A few were dead.
I bent down briefly, examining the corpse. Then I stood and waved my team forward.
As we moved deeper into the warehouse, I noticed something else. There was a clear pattern in the takedowns. Whoever did this had avoided unnecessary bloodshed when possible. Non-lethal methods were applied in most cases.
Crushed windpipes, dislocated shoulders, tactical strikes to the ribs or groin. Smoke residue was visible near the stairs. Someone had used flashbangs and smoke grenades.
"This was a surgical assault," I said quietly.
One of the agents looked at me. "Sir?"
"Nothing. Keep moving."
We passed the remains of a shootout near what used to be a processing station. Judging by the positions of the bodies and blood trails, our masked guest had come through here like a storm.
The deeper we went, the more this operation looked like something out of a high-level extraction or infiltration playbook. Which made one thing abundantly clear.
This was someone trained. Trained at a level that S.H.I.E.L.D. had only seen in a handful of people.
I clenched my jaw.
That thought narrowed the list considerably. And I did not like any of the names on it.
We reached the basement level, boots echoing against concrete.
It was supposed to be full. Twelve crates. Each of them sealed. Each of them holding tech we were never supposed to touch again. That was the intel. That was the surveillance. That was the entire reason for this operation.
But there was nothing.
Not a single crate. Not a single scrap of alien alloy.
No drag marks. No signs anything had ever been there.
Just a wide open space.
"What the hell…" I muttered, stepping forward into the room.
I scanned for any clue. Nothing. No loading equipment. No forced entry. No surveillance. It was as if someone had snapped their fingers and made it all vanish.
And that was when the chill settled into my gut.
My comm clicked on as I lifted a hand to my earpiece.
"All agents," I said, voice low and clipped, "we have a possible Gifted situation. I repeat, we have a possible Gifted situation. The alien tech is missing. There is no sign of crates. I want eyes on the masked suspect. Now."
A voice cut in, sharp and rattled.
"Sir, this is Agent 33," Kara said, her tone tense. "We have visual. Target is in the alley behind the warehouse. Armed. Masked. He has two weapons drawn and is holding position. He came out just before your call."
My breath caught.
That alley was a blind spot.
Either way, it confirmed what I already suspected. We were not dealing with a gang thief or a tech scavenger. This was someone trained in infiltration and extraction at an elite level.
He had entered a hostile zone, evaded detection, looted an entire shipment of sensitive extraterrestrial hardware, and was now walking out with it while avoiding real-time tracking.
Which meant he was dangerous.
And if I was right, he had powers. A mutant. Maybe an Inhuman.
I needed to get my hands on the masked man. For me. For HYDRA.
I broke into a jog with the STRIKE team at my back. We had to flank the exit fast. I wanted the asset. I wanted answers.
I wanted to know how the hell he got that tech out.
---
---
[Present Time]
[David's POV]
As they spoke, I suddenly heard Gideon's voice in my earpiece.
"David, there are at least four people moving toward your location from the sides of the warehouse."
I did not take my eyes off either of them, and I saw the change hit instantly. Their posture shifted. Shoulders tight.
I think the gig is up.
They must have found the missing crates.
The man pointing the gun at me stepped forward slightly. "Where are the crates? And before you say you don't know, think twice. We already know you have powers. We know you stole the tech. So tell us."
Yup. Definitely stalling for time.
I spotted two more figures slipping into the alley behind the man. Another behind the woman. They were moving slow, trying to be quiet, trying to box me in.
I needed to escape. Now.
To Be Continued...