Night had fallen, and the rain had finally eased from torrential downpour to steady drizzle. The workshop fires were long extinguished, leaving behind nothing but charred rubble and the smell of burned electronics.
Mario stood atop a massive structure. The new workshop was a monolithic box of obsidian that completely enclosed where the old building had stood. He'd spent an entire day in the Nether gathering lava to create the material, draining entire lava lakes in the process.
"Not bad," he muttered, surveying the purple-black fortress. "But it needs water on the exterior. Obsidian's explosion-resistant, but water will help disperse the blast force."
That's when the voice hit his mind.
[CONSTRUCTION WAND MOD LOADING...]
[LOAD COMPLETE]
He stood perfectly still for about five seconds, his eye twitching.
"You have got to be fucking kidding me."
He stared down at the massive obsidian structure he'd just spent half the night building by hand, block by painstaking block. A structure he could have apparently created in minutes if this mod had loaded just earlier.
"You know what? Doesn't matter. I'll need this thing eventually anyway."
He jumped from the roof, pulling out the peacock feather fan mid-fall and giving it a gentle wave toward the ground. A cushion of air caught his body, slowing his descent until he landed softly on the earth.
Inside, the workshop interior was still a disaster zone. He pulled out his pickaxe and began clearing debris, but most of it had been so badly burned that he couldn't even identify what it used to be.
Looking at the meager remains of everything he'd built, he felt a pang of loss.
Footsteps echoed behind him. He turned to see Ivan entering through the obsidian doorway, a toothpick clenched between his teeth.
Mario forced a smile. "Get some rest? How're you feeling?"
Ivan looked around at the ruins. "Just woke up. Wanted to see how bad it was."
Mario's eyes dropped to Ivan's empty left sleeve. In the original timeline, Ivan had died completely. But that had been fate, not Mario's direct fault. This was different.
"There are three ways we can handle your arm. Well, two practical ones."
Ivan raised an eyebrow. "I'm listening."
"First option: mechanical augmentation. I'll find you a suitable prosthetic arm. Might even be better than your original."
"Second option: I turn you into a vampire. Like Pearl. Your physical capabilities would multiply several times over, and the arm would regenerate naturally."
Ivan considered this quietly. After a moment, he asked, "What's the third way? You mentioned three."
Mario gave an awkward smile. "The third option... well, that's more theoretical. Eventually, I might be able to give you a completely new body. But the timing on that is uncertain. Could be months, or longer."
Minecraft had mods for everything, including side-effect-free cloning machines. A missing arm was nothing compared to some of the problems the game could solve. The issue was that he had no idea how to trigger new mod additions, they just appeared randomly.
After another moment of thought, Ivan nodded decisively. "First option. I trust mechanical systems more than biological unknowns."
"Perfect. Three days from now, I'll bring you a new arm. You'll be satisfied, I promise."
Mario's smile became genuine. He was already picturing the Winter Soldier's cybernetic limb. Bucky had lost his left arm too, which was poetic justice. And conveniently, the Winter Soldier was now his enemy.
"Get started on designing the new armor suits. In three days, I'll bring equipment and materials. The rest is up to you and your father."
He clapped Ivan on the shoulder and turned back to the ruins, pulling out his pickaxe to continue the cleanup. Salvageable metal went into furnaces for smelting. Everything else got tossed into a data-converted lava pit, quick, efficient, and environmentally friendly in the weirdest way possible.
---
Two days passed in a blur of construction and planning.
The ruined workshop was completely gone, replaced by a structure built entirely from Minecraft blocks. He had mined massive quantities of nether quartz, crafting it into decorative quartz blocks for the walls. Combined with dark red nether brick pathways, the new facility looked better than the original had ever been.
He sat outside the workshop entrance, basking in afternoon sunlight and enjoying the post-rain freshness.
Fury had called ahead. Time for a meeting.
The S.H.I.E.L.D. Quinjet descended toward the helipad Mario had built over the past two days. Several figures disembarked, Fury in the lead, followed by Rogers, Natasha, Coulson, and a man carrying a compound bow who could only be Hawkeye.
Fury strode forward, his single eye scanning the new obsidian structure.
Before he could speak, Mario asked, "Your house in order?"
Fury gave a slight nod. "As much as it can be. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s beyond saving. I'm abandoning it to establish a new organization."
That was bold, even for him.
Mario was impressed. What he didn't know was that Fury had received S.H.I.E.L.D.'s official investigation report on the workshop attack. According to the report, the assault had been carried out by "unidentified terrorists with unknown affiliations."
Hydra controls everything from field agents to forensics. How the hell do you fight that?
When Fury saw that report, he'd made his decision immediately. He'd secretly transferred every liquid asset S.H.I.E.L.D. controlled and copied every file his clearance could access. Without money, the organization was crippled. Hydra would have to fill the gap with their own resources, and that was no longer his problem.
After exchanging greetings with Rogers and Coulson, Mario turned back to Fury with a grin. "Your organization caused me tremendous losses. Some compensation would be nice, don't you think so?"
Fury's expression didn't shift even slightly. "I'm resigning. Take it up with the next director."
"Passing the buck, huh? Fine. I don't suppose you'll cover for your predecessor, Pierce?"
"I won't."
They boarded the Quinjet together, heading toward S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. The three days were up. Time for payback.
---
Night had fallen by the time they landed at the Triskelion. Mario had been here once before, but this visit felt different. He'd already consumed an invisibility potion, and as they walked through the building's halls, his eyes narrowed at what his mini-map was showing.
Compared to daytime operations, the nightshift was skeleton crew. But that wasn't what bothered him.
The ratio of red dots to green had skyrocketed. Last time he'd visited, Hydra comprised maybe seventy percent of personnel. Now it looked closer to ninety-nine percent. The place was swarming with hostiles, with only one or two neutral dots scattered throughout.
Walking beside Fury's group while invisible, he leaned close and whispered, "You're not leaving here easily tonight. You might want to consider surrender. This entire building is Hydra."
Fury casually glanced around, but Mario could tell he believed it. The loyal agents he had secretly positioned were nowhere to be seen.
Acting like nothing was wrong, he walked toward his office. When he opened the door, a figure sat behind his desk.
"Pierce."
Alexander Pierce looked up with a pleasant smile. Mario and the others followed Fury inside.
"Working late, I see."
Fury's voice was neutral. "Unexpected visit at this hour."
Pierce stood, and immediately armed Hydra operatives poured from adjoining rooms. Assault rifles tracked toward Fury's group from every angle.
"Do you know why I chose you as my successor?"
Fury remained silent.
Pierce continued as if having a pleasant conversation. "Because you were born for this work. You're the most talented, most ruthlessly efficient operative I've ever encountered. I suspect you've figured some things out. Honestly, I regret trusting Zola's assessment. He said Mario Argento would become Hydra's greatest threat. Without that warning, you might never have noticed our organization."
Outside the office, more Hydra operatives gathered. Among them stood a figure that immediately caught Mario's attention, a masked man with cold, empty eyes and a metal left arm.
The Winter Soldier. Bucky Barnes.
I was wondering how I'd track this guy down. He just delivered himself to me.
He glanced at Pierce, who was still monologuing, and pulled his sniper rifle from his inventory. Taking a deep breath, he gently bumped against the people beside him, his way of saying "heads up."
BANG.
The bullet appeared from nowhere and went through Pierce's skull before anyone could react. Enhanced or not, no one survived a shot like that to the brain.
"Talk too much," Mario muttered.
Without plot armor protecting him, the highest-ranking Hydra agent in S.H.I.E.L.D. collapsed with his head destroyed. He looked at the corpse.
The gunshot drew every eye in the room. Hydra's response was fast, they opened fire.
But the next moment, a black wall erupted from the floor. Mario held obsidian blocks in one hand and the Construction Wand in the other, sealing off the office entrance before the enemy outside could push through.
Rogers moved almost as fast, his enhanced reflexes processing the situation instantly. He hurled his shield at the Hydra strike team members inside the office.
Gunfire erupted in a storm.
"Shit! Argento's here!"
Rumlow's voice came from outside. Having fought Mario before, he knew exactly how troublesome the Italian was, unpredictable abilities, overwhelming offensive power, and that infuriating tendency to vanish when things got dicey. Hydra had never found an effective counter.
Mario sealed the doorway completely with obsidian, leaving them only to deal with enemies already in the room.
Pfft.
Coulson took a stray bullet to the shoulder and dropped, his weapon clattering across the floor.
Mario tossed him a healing potion. "Drink up, quick!"
Fortunately, the round had passed clean through without lodging in bone. Otherwise, even with the potion, Coulson would need surgery to extract it later.
After drinking, his pale face quickly regained color.
"Stay down and try not to die again," Mario told him, then downed a Potion of Swiftness II. His movement speed increased by forty percent, and suddenly everything around him seemed to move in slow motion.
He raised his sniper rifle, tracked an enemy, and fired.
BANG.
The Hydra operative's chest exploded in a spray.
Within moments, every hostile in the office was down.
Mario glanced at his mini-map, seeing the swarm of red dots outside. "At least seventy or eighty hostiles out there. This obsidian barrier won't break easily without heavy weapons."
Fury remained remarkably calm, looking at the bodies scattered across his office floor. "I thought he'd try assassination. Didn't expect a direct assault in my own headquarters."
Mario rolled his eyes, though since he was invisible, Fury didn't see it. "You drained all of Hydra's money from S.H.I.E.L.D. accounts. Of course they flipped the table."
Fury didn't seem concerned. He pulled out a communicator, pressed a button, and said simply, "Execute."
Mario blinked in surprise, then understood. This was Fury's style. The director hadn't told Mario about his backup plan because he didn't truly trust anyone. Even though they were fighting Hydra together, Fury still showed as a white dot on his mini-map, neutral, not allied.
BOOM.
The obsidian wall held firm, but part of the regular office wall exploded inward, showering the room with debris.
Rogers grabbed an assault rifle and returned fire through the opening, shield in one hand and weapon in the other. Without plot armor protecting him, he looked far more vulnerable than his legend suggested, relying on tactics rather than superhuman invincibility.
A grenade rolled through the breach. He dove behind the obsidian barrier as the explosive detonated, sending shrapnel ricocheting off the black stone.
Mario frowned slightly, reassessing. Hawkeye was proving more impressive than expected, the archer's hands moved with machine-like precision, drawing and releasing arrows through the opening. Every few shots included an explosive-tipped shaft that detonated on impact.
"I'm going out there to handle them. Stay alive."
Mario disappeared.