Chapter 66: Following the Clues, Aaron Single-Handedly Storms the HYDRA Base
Aaron stared at the pulsing red dot on the holographic screen.
Sokovia.
That was a cold fortress hidden in the mountains of Eastern Europe.
"Aaron, a Base of this scale requires a tactical squad."
Natasha put down the towel in her hand, her nails digging into her palms, "I'll go mobilize S.H.I.E.L.D.'s sleeper Agents in Europe."
She didn't doubt Aaron's strength.
But in a spy's mindset, charging single-handedly into a heavily armed military stronghold was suicide.
Aaron ignored her.
He stood up from the sofa and stretched.
Due to the large movement, his joints emitted a series of faint popping sounds.
"Agents are too slow."
Aaron lowered his eyes, his fingertips gently twisting in the Void Realm.
"By the time they land, the rats there will have already burrowed the cave to collapse."
Gwen wanted to say something, but found that the space in front of her began to distort.
It looked like a flat curtain being brutally rumpled by an invisible hand.
A trace of crimson light exploded in the center of the living room.
The next second.
Aaron disappeared.
Only a lingering trace of fresh orange scent remained in front of the sofa.
Sokovia.
At the edge of a cliff three thousand meters above sea level.
The wind and snow here were like blades, cutting against the barbed wire and making a wailing, miserable sound.
HYDRA's Base 001 was like a black fang embedded in the mountainside.
The searchlight beams swept wildly across the snow.
The muzzles of the heavy anti-aircraft guns pointed obliquely at the sky, like a slumbering steel behemoth.
Aaron appeared out of thin air on the snow slope a hundred meters away.
He was wearing that dark gray shirt he hadn't had time to change out of, with the cuffs rolled up to his forearms.
The cold wind carrying ice shards crashed into him, but automatically bounced away half a centimeter from his skin.
The snow beneath his feet didn't even collapse.
"Intruder!"
The loudspeaker on the guard tower pierced through the wind.
Following closely was a deafening alarm.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Three flare shells rose into the air.
The pale light illuminated the snow as bright as day.
An improved Panther tank rumbled out of the fortress gates.
The treads crushed the ice layer, and the pitch-black muzzle directly locked onto Aaron.
"Don't move!"
The voice in the loudspeaker carried a trace of trembling.
Baron Strucker in the monitoring room stared at the screen, spilling more than half of the red wine in his glass.
He recognized that face.
The man who casually crushed the Chitauri Dragon to death on the New York battlefield.
Aaron didn't stop.
He stepped on the knee-deep snow, walking towards the tank as if taking a stroll.
His pace was very steady, and even his breathing frequency wasn't disordered.
"Fire! Fire!"
Baron Strucker smashed the wine glass, glass shards piercing into his palm, and blood flowed all over the table.
Boom!
The tank's muzzle spewed a ball of orange-red flame.
The armor-piercing discarding sabot shell tore through the air with a sharp whistling sound.
Aaron merely raised his right hand, index and middle fingers together, and casually swiped.
A subtle red trace appeared in the air.
The metal warhead, weighing several kilograms, suddenly deformed the moment it hit the red trace.
There was no explosion.
There was no Impact.
It eerily softened and reorganized in the air.
Finally, with a clatter.
Falling to Aaron's feet was a colorful building block exuding a plastic luster.
The driver inside the tank stepped on the accelerator like crazy.
But in Aaron's eyes, this War Machine had already lost its meaning of existence.
He snapped his fingers.
Red Chaos energy swept across the tank's thick composite armor like water ripples.
Creaking sounds arose everywhere.
Dozens of tons of steel disintegrated, shrank, and colored in the blink of an eye.
Three seconds later.
There was no tank on the snow.
Only a pile of half-human-high, neatly stacked Lego blocks remained.
Even a few block figures wearing small yellow clothes were sitting in the turret parts maintaining a terrified posture.
"Th-This... What kind of magic is this?"
The Agent on the city wall was so frightened that he dropped the rifle in his hand.
The moment the barrel touched the ground, it also turned into a soft, long baguette.
Aaron walked to the main gate of the fortress.
That was a three-layer thickened alloy gate, capable of withstanding close-range Impacts from nuclear bombs.
He reached out, his palm resting against the cold metal surface.
"Too heavy."
Aaron muttered to himself.
His palm exerted force, and the dark red light seeped in through the door gap.
The hard alloy door began to melt like a candle; not only was it melting, but it was being reshaped.
Heavy metallic liquid flowed on the floor.
Finally, it turned into a row of exquisite metal door curtains.
As Aaron stepped inside, the curtains bumped into each other, making a crisp clinking sound.
In the corridor inside the Base, dense footsteps echoed.
Hundreds of HYDRA Agents holding the latest pulse weapons blocked every corner.
"Target has entered Area A3!"
"Free fire!"
Blue pulse currents came overwhelmingly.
Aaron didn't even lift his eyelids.
The moment those energy beams approached his body, they all deflected.
They followed Aaron's surrounding vector orbits and bounced back in reverse.
Screams rose one after another.
The HYDRA Agents were hit by their own weapons, and their bodies were burned into charcoal by the electromagnetic waves.
Aaron stepped over a floor of ashes.
Every step he took, the structure of the corridor mutated once.
The white sterile walls turned into ancient cyan bricks, and the surveillance cameras that were originally full of science fiction turned into withered cabbages.
In every room he passed, all precision instruments degenerated into medieval farm tools under the shroud of Chaos Magic.
Baron Strucker watched through the surveillance as his hard work was turning into an absurd farm.
He was shivering all over, his knuckles pinched until they turned blue-white.
"Activate... Activate those two test subjects!"
He roared into the walkie-talkie, "Quick! Bring them out to stop him!"
Aaron stopped at the end of a deep corridor.
The walls here were exceptionally sturdy, using an alloy mixed with Vibranium components.
A sickening smell of formalin overflowed from the door gap.
He raised his foot and kicked open the door.
There was no roar.
The heavy metal door directly turned into countless pink petals, fluttering all over the laboratory.
The lights inside the laboratory were pale.
Various eerie electric lights and blue energy afterimages floated in the air.
That was the radiation left behind by the Mind Stonescepter.
Right in the center of the room.
Two huge tempered glass chambers stood quietly.
In the pale green nutrient solution, countless tubes entwined two teenage youths—a boy and a girl.
The boy on the left had a head of silver short hair.
Although his eyes were closed, his muscles twitched minutely in the nutrient solution, as if they were ready to break through the shackles of time at any moment.
The girl on the right had long dark red hair.
She seemed to have sensed the arrival of the intruder.
Her palm was pressed against the glass wall, and dark red smoke churned faintly between her fingers.
The color of that smoke unexpectedly bore a few similarities to the red light at Aaron's fingertips.
Aaron walked up to the glass chamber.
He looked at the red-haired girl.
That was Wanda.
And also his target for coming all this way to this crack in the ground.
Sensing the external pressure.
The two people inside the glass chamber suddenly opened their eyes.
The boy's gaze was like a frightened Beast, carrying endless vigilance.
The girl's gaze pierced through layers of water mist, locked firmly onto Aaron's face.
They looked at the man walking amidst the flying petals.
Watching him with one hand in his pocket and a lazy look in his eyes.
On both of their faces, a fear stemming from the depths of their Soul gradually emerged.
Aaron knocked on the tempered glass, the sound crisp.
"Don't be afraid."
He pointed at the boy, then pointed at the girl.
"I'm here to pick you up... from work."
Chapter 67: Intercepting the Scarlet Witch! Wanda, come with me and live the good life
Inside the laboratory, the pungent smell of chemical agents mixed with the scent of burned wires.
That smell crawled into the nasal cavity, making one think of a moldy Underground Room.
Aaron stood in front of the tempered glass cabin, lowering his head to look at his leather shoes.
A few drops of green nutrient solution had splashed onto the expensive custom cowhide.
He frowned unhappily.
This pair of shoes had just been polished for him by Felicialast week.
"The decoration aesthetics of this place are truly rotten to the core."
Aaron spoke, his voice echoing in the spacious laboratory.
There was no echo, as the sound-absorbing cotton pasted on the walls swallowed the sound completely.
He stretched out his hand, his fingers gently digging into the glass that was up to ten centimeters thick.
It was not smashing, nor was it crashing.
It was just like casually tearing open a piece of expired bread.
Clack—snap!
Cracks erupted from Aaron's fingertips, instantly crawling all over the entire glass cabin.
That sound was like tens of thousands of ice silkworms gnawing at the same time.
Crash!
The entire pane of glass collapsed inward, and the green liquid slammed onto the floor like a breached flood.
Wanda slid out along with the momentum of the liquid.
She was barefoot, and a circle of cold alloy shackles was still locked around her ankles.
Her red hair was wetly plastered against her pale cheeks.
She gasped heavily, and due to the residual liquid in her lungs, every breath brought violent choking and coughing.
"Cough... cough cough..."
Wanda propped herself up against the cold floor, her fingernails scratching harsh marks onto the metal floor tiles.
She raised her head.
In this dim, oppressive Hell filled with nothing but experiments and pain.
For the first time, she saw a color other than white lab coats.
Aaron looked down at her from above.
His gaze was very casual, lacking the fanaticism of the laboratory Doctor, nor did it have hatred.
There was only a kind of... boredom like looking at scenery.
"Ah—!"
Wanda suddenly let out a sharp roar.
Having broken free from the restraints of the suppressor, those violent red energies within her completely exploded.
That was the prototype of Chaos Magic.
They were like a group of red ants starved for ten days, biting crazily in the air.
Zzzt!
The heart rate monitor closest to her was instantly twisted into a pretzel.
The red smoke slithered along the floor like a snake.
They sensed danger and subconsciously wanted to destroy everything in front of them.
"Get lost!"
Wanda gritted her teeth, a dense red light emerging from the palms of her hands.
She pushed fiercely toward Aaron.
That was an impact force sufficient to slap a heavy truck into an iron pancake.
Aaron did not dodge.
He didn't even blink his eyelids.
Those runaway red energies crashed into a spot ten centimeters in front of him, as if hitting an invisible, heavy high wall that made people despair.
The energy shattered.
They disintegrated into countless faint spots of light before Aaron's vector barrier.
"Quite a big temper."
Aaron stepped forward.
He walked directly into the center of that red energy vortex sufficient to tear ordinary people to pieces.
Those red lights sufficient to modify reality became surprisingly docile around him.
They even proactively avoided the corners of his clothes.
Aaron squatted down.
He reached out his hand, his movement very light, directly grasping Wanda's cold wrist.
"Stop struggling."
Aaron's tone was very calm.
"That little flame of yours can't even light a cigarette here with me."
At the instant of contacting Aaron's skin.
Wanda's entire person seemed to have been hit by a body-immobilization spell, suddenly stiffening.
She felt that the frantically roaring Beast inside her body suddenly encountered a towering high mountain.
That energy fluctuation of the same origin yet higher by countless dimensions spread throughout her entire body along her wrist.
That was "divinity".
An absolute higher-level suppression originating from the Universe's primeval source and controlling all reality.
The energy that had been darting around wildly inside Wanda instantly calmed down.
They became like cats, shrinking deep within her cells and shivering.
The red halo in Wanda's eyes gradually faded.
She dazedly looked at Aaron, her eyelashes still stained with dew-drops of the nutrient solution.
That suffocating sense of loneliness vanished.
Replaced by a sense of security wrapped by a grand will.
"Didn't HYDRA tell you?"
Aaron let go of his hand, his fingertips brushing past the iron shackles on her ankles.
Click.
The shackles made of special alloy turned into two circles of crispy chocolate under his fingers, shattering all over the ground.
"They merely treat you as a glowing battery."
Aaron stood up, looking at the surveillance camera on the ceiling of the laboratory.
"This kind of dark and sunless sewer has no benefits other than making your skin worse."
Wanda propped herself up against the floor and sat up, her voice somewhat hoarse.
"You... who are you?"
"A passing decorator."
Aaron took out a clean silk handkerchief from his pocket and threw it onto Wanda's lap.
"By the way, I want to recruit a little secretary who can keep watch at the door."
He turned around and pointed at the laboratory door.
"It is snowing heavily outside, but my home has the best constant-temperature wine cellar in New York."
"There are soft long-pile carpets, and Michelin-chef cuisine that you can eat without waiting in line."
"Most importantly."
Aaron turned his head, his black pupils revealing a casual attitude.
"No one dares to draw your blood there, nor does anyone dare to lock you in a glass jar."
Wanda looked at that expensive handkerchief.
The fragrance on it smelled very nice.
That was the scent of sunlight, tobacco, and some precious wood.
It was completely out of place with this Sokovia Base full of disinfectant smell.
Her heart was moved.
Or rather, the moment she felt that homologous "divine" nature on Aaron's body, she was already unable to refuse.
That sense of submission carved into her Soul made her subconsciously want to get close.
"Then... what about Pietro?"
Wanda suddenly looked at another experimental cabin nearby.
Aaron glanced at that unbroken jar.
The silver-haired boy inside was gritting his teeth, veins bulging on his forehead.
"As long as he obeys, I also lack someone to deliver newspapers."
Aaron twitched the corner of his mouth.
Just as he was about to walk towards the second experimental cabin.
The lights in the entire laboratory suddenly dimmed.
Following closely was a deafening sound of metal tearing.
Bang!
The cabin door on the right was not pushed open, but directly smashed apart by an extremely strong kinetic energy.
The splashing glass shards had not yet landed in the air.
A silver afterimage almost impossible to catch with the naked eye dragged out a long stream of light.
The air was instantly displaced, bringing up a harsh sonic boom.
"Where do you want to take her?"
Pietro's voice exploded by Aaron's ear.
That silver stream of light whipped up a violent wind vortex, aiming straight for the back of Aaron's head.
Pietro's movements were extremely fast.
So fast that in Wanda's line of sight, the surrounding time seemed to have already stopped.
The kinetic energy condensed at his fingertips was enough to tear apart the hardest tank armor.
Aaron stood in place, not even turning his head back.
He only slightly tilted his shoulder, still holding that empty orange packaging bag in his hand.
"Too slow."
Aaron murmured in a low voice.
The silver afterimage had already rushed to within an inch of Aaron's front.
Pietro's face, filled with anger, appeared exceptionally distorted in the fierce wind.
His punch, charged with full strength, fiercely slammed down toward Aaron's back.
68Chapter 68 Quicksilver Pietro is unconvinced, but is outpaced by Aaron's walking speed.
The air in the laboratory seemed to have solidified into transparent amber.
Pietro's fist was only three centimeters away from the back of Aaron's head.
Due to the high-speed friction, his knuckles even brought up a hint of dark red charred smell.
That was the ultra-high heat generated after the air was forcibly compressed.
In Pietro's perception, the World had long since stopped.
A drop of nutrient solution dripping from the ceiling hung in mid-air, like a round emerald.
Wanda's flying hair was frozen into a weird arc.
Aaron in front of him looked more like a defenseless wooden stake.
"Too slow."
A voice suddenly sounded in his ear.
Pietro's eyelids twitched.
Due to his excessive speed, his neural reflex arc had not yet had time to process the information of these three words.
He saw Aaron's shoulders sway slightly.
That was not dodging.
It was more like a casual shifting of position while taking a walk in the park.
Aaron just stepped out a distance of half a footprint to the left.
Whoosh—!
Pietro's punch, filled with kinetic energy, swept past the collar of Aaron's shirt.
The violent airflow tore the fibers of the fabric, stirring up a burst of hurried whistling.
But after all, this punch still hit nothing.
Pietro kicked fiercely on the floor.
The high-strength alloy floor tiles under his feet were stepped out with a footprint five centimeters deep, and metal cracks spread like a spider web.
Relying on astonishing inertia, he completed a near-impossible turn in mid-air.
The silver streamer exploded again.
Pietro's figure turned into dozens of afterimages in the two-hundred-square-meter laboratory.
From under the left ribs.
From the blind spot behind the heart.
From the throat directly ahead.
Every second, he threw more than fifty punches.
The power of every punch could pierce through three layers of steel plates.
The air was full of dense, muffled thunder-like bursting sounds.
However.
Aaron stood in place, his left hand still tucked in his pocket.
He held that empty orange bag in his right hand, his fingertips rhythmically flicking against the wrapping paper.
No matter which angle Pietro cut in from.
No matter how many times the speed of sound his instantaneous speed was increased to.
Aaron always walked away casually at that very split second before the fist arrived.
Yes, walked away.
Aaron's footsteps were unhurried, with a frequency as stable as an ancient pendulum.
But in Pietro's vision, this was simply a nightmare.
He had clearly run to his physiological limit, and the oxygen in his lungs was being drained by high-speed movement.
Yet that man in the gray shirt always maintained a social distance of one and a half meters from him.
Not a single fraction more, not an inch less.
"You... what on earth..."
Pietro ran around the field twelve times in one second.
He stopped behind Aaron, opened his mouth, and a large amount of cold air poured into his throat, causing a burning pain.
"Is this your limit?"
Aaron stopped his steps and turned around.
He looked at Pietro's eyes, which were red from congestion, his tone revealing a trace of disappointment.
"If it's only to this degree, even delivering newspapers might get complaints for being late."
Pietro's knuckles cracked.
He felt unprecedented humiliation.
He grew up in the ruins of Sokovia, and speed was his only reliance, as well as his trump card to protect his sister.
"It's not over yet!"
Pietro let out a low roar.
He lowered his body, his spine like a fully drawn hard bow.
This time, he no longer held back.
His pupils reflected the crossbeam at the top of the laboratory, which was the turning point he planned to utilize.
The silver afterimage soared into the sky.
He ran frantically against the wall, using gravity and acceleration to stack his power.
The instruments in the entire laboratory began to tremble under this storm.
"Aaron, watch out!"
Wanda sat on the ground, couldn't help crying out in alarm.
She could feel that the energy fluctuation brought up by Pietro this time was enough to completely collapse this floor of the laboratory.
Aaron raised his eyelids and glanced at the silver shadow flashing rapidly across the ceiling.
"Played enough."
He reached out his right hand and drew a circle in the Void Realm with his index finger.
A trace of deep dark red mist flowed out along his fingertips.
That red mist rapidly seeped into the floor, walls, and every inch of air.
Pietro was preparing to dive down from obliquely above.
At the very moment he was about to exert force.
He found that the World had changed.
The originally stable gravitational constant was forcibly modified by some unspeakable power at this moment.
"Down" turned into "Left".
"Front" turned into "Up".
Pietro's brain simply could not process this kind of dimensional distortion.
He felt as if he had fallen into a huge, constantly rolling centrifuge.
The kinetic energy originally rushing toward Aaron was forcibly snapped by the gravity vector.
"Bang—!"
A muffled-to-the-extreme impact sound.
Pietro, like a kite with a broken string, flatly smacked into the lead-clad wall on the side.
Due to excessive inertia, he hung on the wall for a full three seconds before sliding down along the broken cables.
A big pit was dented into the wall surface.
Several broken steel bars protruded from it, and sparks hit the tips of his hair.
Pietro lay prone on the ground, his whole body's bones feeling as if they had been run over by a heavy tank.
He struggled to prop up his upper body, spat out the rust taste in his mouth, and stared at Aaron in horror.
"This isn't speed."
Pietro's voice was trembling, his fingernails digging into the gaps of the floor tiles, his fingertips turning white.
"You... are you a Mutant? You're also a Mutant, aren't you?"
"Except for the Professor, no one can see my trajectory... Who on earth are you?"
Aaron walked over casually.
Every step he took, the dents on the floor automatically recovered.
Those originally ferocious steel bars and sparks retracted into the wall under the wrapping of the red mist.
"Mutant?"
Aaron stopped in front of Pietro, lowering his head to look at this disheveled teenager.
"Don't lump me together with those little guys tortured by genetic defects."
He bent down.
His left hand naturally took hold of the absent-minded Wanda beside him.
Wanda's fingers were very cold, but the moment she held Aaron's palm, the negative emotions entangled around her instantly evaporated.
Aaron's right hand reached forward.
He grabbed Pietro's tattered experimental garment, just like holding a disobedient kitten by the scruff of its neck.
Even though Pietro was still subconsciously trying to accelerate, he found that his body was as heavy as a mountain in Aaron's hands.
"The burgers in Sokovia have expired onions, they taste awful."
Aaron carried Pietro, turned his head sideways to glance at Wanda, who hadn't recovered her wits yet.
"Let's go."
"I'll take you to Manhattan to try the top-notch ones."
The red light at his fingertips pulsed again.
Deep within the originally sealed laboratory, space began to sway violently like water ripples.
A circular portal leading to a New York penthouse slowly opened amidst the panicked screams of countless HYDRAsoldiers.
On the other side of the door.
One could faintly see the bustling Manhattan neon lights, as well as the oranges that Natasha had peeled and placed in a crystal plate.
Aaron stepped into the portal.
The very second before he disappeared, he waved his hand casually.
A flash of scarlet light, like a devastating plague, instantly swept across the entire Base 001.
All thermal weapons, all precision instruments, all alloy armor.
At this moment, all transformed.
The Base that originally killed without blinking turned into a colorful, childlike... bouncy castle in the blink of an eye.
Baron Strucker discovered in terror that the last pistol in his hand pointing at Aaron had actually turned into a long, pink marshmallow.
And Aaron at this time.
Had already taken his new secretary and new newsboy, disappearing into a skyscraper ten thousand kilometers away in the clouds.
Chapter 69 Wanda's Affection, Supreme Mystery Box Opens Mental Immunity Aura
The red light of the portal dissipated like ripples.
The bone-chilling cold wind of Sokovia was instantly cut off.
Replaced by the bitter aroma of expensive aromatherapy and freshly ground coffee.
That was the unique scent of a New York penthouse.
Wanda stepped barefoot on the wool rug.
The plush rug was a full five centimeters thick, and the sinking touch felt like clouds.
She shrank back slightly, subconsciously wanting to pull her feet back.
This softness was too unfamiliar to her, even making her feel a trace of panic.
Pietro fell onto the floor.
He hadn't recovered from the nausea of the gravity inversion yet.
He propped himself up with his arms and stared outside the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Manhattan's neon lights were like broken diamonds, carpeting the horizon.
"This... is the United States?"
Pietro's voice was trembling, and his throat still carried the rust taste of Sokovia.
"New York, my living room."
Aaron let go of his hand and tossed the medal he had casually swiped onto the bar counter.
The metal struck the marble, making a crisp sound.
Wanda held onto the sofa armrest.
That was the touch of top-grade top-grain cowhide, warm and delicate.
She turned her head to look around.
There were no explosion-proof lights, no cold needles, no hypocritical face of Baron Strucker.
Here, there were huge curved floor-to-ceiling windows, and chandeliers flowing with warm light.
And Aaron.
Aaron had already sunk into his exclusive long sofa.
He casually picked up the remote control on the table and pressed it.
The wall slowly split open.
A constant-temperature wine cabinet was revealed, inside which various wine bottles with expensive labels were neatly stacked.
"Red Queen, raise it by two degrees."
Aaron commanded, "Get something to drink for these two kids as well."
"Understood, Master."
The Red Queen's holographic projection emerged in the center of the living room.
Her bright blue eyes swept over Wanda and Pietro.
"Target body temperature is detected to be low, replenishing heat is recommended."
Wanda was startled.
A trace of red light overflowed from her fingertips, and she stared warily at the little girl's phantom.
"That is artificial intelligence."
Aaron leaned against the cushion and pointed toward the kitchen.
"If you treat it like a ghost, it will be sad."
Natasha walked out from the side room.
She had already changed into a dark green velvet pajamas.
Holding a tray in her hand, on which were three cups of steaming hot cocoa.
She glanced at the disheveled Wanda, and then at Pietrosprawled on the floor.
There was no pity in her eyes, only the composure of "two more wage slaves arriving".
"Drink up."
Natasha handed the cup to Wanda.
The heat of the ceramic cup wall was transmitted into the palm.
Wanda lowered her head and took a sip, the sweet and greasy taste exploding on the tip of her tongue.
That was the sweetest thing she had ever drunk in her life.
So sweet that her eye sockets swelled slightly.
Holding the cup, she slowly walked over and sat down on the rug by Aaron's sofa.
This was closest to Aaron.
That illusory breath of Chaos made her heart, riddled with holes because of the experiment, finally stop beating wildly.
[Ding!]
In Aaron's mind, the System's prompt tone suddenly sounded.
The sound was crisp, like a gold coin falling into a porcelain bowl.
[Host's interception detected as successful: Scarlet Witchand Quicksilver have broken away from their original destiny lines.]
[Plot deviation degree evaluation: Extremely high.]
[Congratulations to the host for obtaining a Supreme Mystery Box (Scarlet Gold) × 1!]
Aaron raised an eyebrow.
A Scarlet Gold-grade mystery box, this was the first time seeing one.
It seemed that the weight of these two little guys in the eyes of the System was much higher than those cornerstones of S.H.I.E.L.D.
"Open."
Aaron chanted silently in his heart, his fingers tapping lightly on his thigh.
In his mind, a treasure chest exuding dark gold luster slowly pulled open.
There were no fancy special effects, only a nearly divine white light.
[Congratulations to the host for opening the Supreme Mystery Box!]
[Obtained Divine Rank Passive: Group Mental Immunity Aura!]
[Effect: The host and selected targets within a one-kilometer radius will be immune to all mind control, telepathy, illusion invasion, and cognitive modification.]
[Evaluation: Within your Domain, even God shouldn't expect to hear your heartbeat.]
Aaron straightened his spine slightly.
Good stuff.
This thing was simply tailor-made for these two little guys.
Wanda and Pietro's powers originated from the Mind Stone.
Although their potential was huge, their spiritual seas were like doors without locks.
HYDRA could brainwash, Ultron could guide, and even that madman Thanos coming later could manipulate them.
But now, the door was locked.
And welded shut.
With the distribution of the System rewards.
An invisible fluctuation centered around Aaron instantly diffused.
This fluctuation passed through the walls, through the floor, and finally snapped onto the Soul shells of Wandaand Pietro like a soft film.
"Hoo..."
Wanda suddenly let out a long breath.
Her hand holding the cup no longer trembled.
Those sharp whispers that had been lurking by her ears and lingering like shadows.
Those maddening roars brought by the radiation of the Mind Stone.
Disappeared.
Cleanly.
Her World had never been so quiet.
Pietro beside her was also stunned.
He stood up holding the wall and pressed his temples.
"That... stinging sensation is gone."
He looked at Aaron, his eyes revealing an unprecedented clarity.
Aaron looked at these two reborn little guys, and his mood improved a lot.
He pointed to the cup in Wanda's hand.
"Take a bath after you finish drinking."
"Felicia has prepared clothes for you in the guest room."
"I don't hope to wake up tomorrow morning and see Sokovia's mud on my rug."
Wanda looked up at Aaron.
The light shone on his face, his side profile deep and calm.
That sense of dependence grew wildly like wild grass.
She didn't know what this man actually wanted to do.
But she knew that here, she was no longer Experimental Subject 06.
She was a girl who could drink hot cocoa.
Wanda propped up her body and walked in front of Aaron.
She lowered her head, her fingers twisting together.
"Thank you... Mr. Aaron."
Her voice was as soft as a mosquito's buzzing, yet exceptionally firm.
Although Pietro still had some arrogance, he also nodded solemnly toward Aaron.
Just now in that battle in the laboratory, he lost completely convinced.
In front of Aaron, his speed was like crawling in a quagmire.
Just at this moment.
The holographic communicator in the living room suddenly flashed violently.
The red warning lights flickered on and off.
Natasha put down the cup, her fingertips tapping in the void.
Nick Fury's dark, big face instantly filled the entire screen.
His background looked like he was on a high-speed flying Quinjet.
Due to the bumping, the image was somewhat distorted.
"Parker!"
As soon as Fury opened his mouth, his voice was almost roared out.
His breathing was very chaotic, and his forehead was densely packed with sweat beads.
"Where are you now?"
Aaron changed his posture, supporting his head with one hand.
"At home, drinking tea."
"Something the matter?"
"You call that drinking tea?"
Nick Fury's voice was trembling, and he turned the camera slightly.
A real-time satellite-transmitted photo appeared on the screen.
That was the mountains of Sokovia.
The heavily guarded HYDRA Base 001 now looked like a playground after a disaster.
That was a huge, colorful inflatable castle swaying with the wind.
The originally heavy tank parts had turned into plastic building blocks.
The originally solemn vanguard phalanx was now sitting in a pile of cotton candy doubting life.
"S.H.I.E.L.D.'s reconnaissance satellites in Europe almost burned out their circuits just now!"
Fury brought his face back in front of the camera, his saliva almost spraying out.
"Baron Strucker is holding a two-meter-long pink cotton candy, crying and surrendering to our Agent!"
"Parker... did you level that Base in Sokovia?"
Chapter 70: HYDRA's Fall, S.H.I.E.L.D. Completely Becomes a Joke
In the holographic screen, Nick Fury's one-eyed old face was almost glued to the lens.
Inside the fighter cabin behind him, the alarm sound was piercing, and red lights flashed hurriedly.
"Parker! You'd better give me a reasonable explanation!"
Fury roared, his throat sounding as if it were stuffed with gravel, "That military fortress in Sokovia has now become an inflatable bounce house for tourist attractions!"
"Do you know that that is HYDRA's Base 001?"
"Do you know how many Agents we lost just to find out those coordinates?"
Aaron put his feet on the white agate coffee table.
He casually pressed the speakerphone button.
"So noisy, Fury."
Aaron pinched the space between his eyebrows, his fingertips still retaining a hint of sweetness from hot cocoa.
"Since it's HYDRA, isn't it pretty good to turn it into a bounce house?"
"At least now Baron Strucker is holding cotton candy in his hand, instead of missiles that could blow New York into the sky."
"You..."
Fury couldn't catch his breath, holding it in until his old face turned purple.
He smashed a fist onto the console, the coffee in his cup splashing all over the table and wetting his black leather coat.
"That's a terrorist organization! That's the core of HYDRA!"
"Your... this kind of 'renovation' method has completely paralyzed S.H.I.E.L.D.'s subsequent evidence-gathering work!"
"Evidence gathering?"
Aaron twitched the corner of his mouth, his eyes revealing an undisguised mockery.
"Fury, have you stayed in that dark room for too long, and your brain rusted?"
"Whose evidence are you going to gather?"
"Alexander Pierce's? Or that STRIKE team under you?"
On the other side of the screen, Fury's breathing suddenly paused for a second.
His originally frantically waving hand stiffened in mid-air, and a complicated emotion flashed through his one eye.
"What do you mean?"
"Red Queen."
Aaron didn't even turn his head, instructing indifferently.
"Data transmission in progress."
Red Queen's cold, crisp little girl voice sounded.
The next second, an encrypted red document crossed S.H.I.E.L.D.'s so-called "indestructible" firewall and slapped directly onto Fury's control screen.
The document slowly opened.
That was a list.
Dense names, followed by specific employment serial numbers and bank account statements.
And their oath-swearing records of loyalty to HYDRA.
Fury stared at those few names at the top of the list, his hands beginning to tremble slightly.
His fingernails sank into the flesh of his palms, pinching out a few white marks.
Alexander Pierce, his old superior, the former Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.
There was also the entire STRIKE unit on the list.
And even several logistics supervisors he trusted most.
"Your house is crawling with poisonous snakes, yet you are worried about me turning people's Base into an inflatable castle?"
Aaron scoffed, his fingers tapping lightly on his knees.
"Crossbones has already lain on my living room floor."
"He said everything that should be said."
"The current S.H.I.E.L.D., besides your eyepatch being real, how many things bear the name 'S.H.I.E.L.D.'?"
Fury fell silent.
In the video screen, his whole person seemed to have instantly aged ten years.
He turned his head to look at the cloudy sky outside the fighter's porthole.
HYDRA had actually parasitized right under his nose for so many years.
"Aaron..."
Fury's voice lowered, no longer roaring, but instead carrying a hoarse exhaustion.
"Is the source of this list reliable?"
"You can choose not to believe it."
Aaron yawned, "And then wait for them to add some radioactive elements to the lemonade you drink one day."
"Or directly mobilize three Insight Helicarriers to wipe New York flat."
Beep——
Aaron swiped his fingertip and directly cut off the communication.
He had no interest in participating in such a mess.
Letting Fury play that set of "internal purge" drama by himself would just happen to give him some peace and quiet for a while.
At this time in Washington, the Triskelion building.
Pierce was holding his enamel mug, just wanting to take a sip of warm water.
Bang!
The door was violently kicked open by fully armed internal security Agents.
Several dark gun barrels directly pressed against his forehead.
"Pierce, you're under arrest."
The Agent's voice was cold, carrying an anger after the collapse of faith.
Pierce looked at those S.H.I.E.L.D. elites in front of him, and then looked at the "surrender list" on the table that was directly broadcasted by Red Queen to all senior executives' mailboxes.
The enamel mug in his hand fell to the ground, shattering into several pieces.
The "Insight Project" that he had meticulously planned for decades had completely failed before it even started, just because of a young man's casualness.
S.H.I.E.L.D. was in complete chaos.
Agents drew guns at each other in the corridors, and the interrogation rooms were crowded with former colleagues.
This behemoth claiming to maintain World peace was as fragile as a joke in front of the list thrown out by Aaron.
Meanwhile.
In the penthouse apartment in Manhattan, sunlight slanted across the frosted glass.
The air was filled with a rich aroma of coffee beans.
This aroma was much more Advanced than the rust smell of Sokovia.
"Look here, Wanda."
Aaron stood in front of the customized coffee machine worth thirty thousand U.S. dollars.
He pointed at the row of silver-glinting touch screens on it.
"This thing is a bit more complicated than HYDRA's centrifuge, but what comes out tastes better."
Wanda had changed into a loose white sweatshirt, standing barefoot next to Aaron.
Her red hair had been blown dry, resting fluffy on her shoulders.
She curiously reached out her finger, her fingertips stopping at the "double espresso" icon, somewhat hesitating.
"Press it down."
Aaron's voice was very steady, "Don't be afraid, it won't explode."
Wanda clicked it.
The coffee machine made a steady grinding sound, and the fine vibration transmitted along the metal shell.
Soon, two streams of brown liquid slowly flowed down the chrome-plated nozzle, stirring up delicate oil foam in the white porcelain cup.
"So magical."
Wanda whispered softly.
She stared at that cup of coffee, her eyes revealing a pure curiosity.
In the laboratory, every button she touched meant pain and electric shocks.
And here, the first thing this man taught her was to enjoy life.
"Taste it."
Aaron pushed the cup in front of her.
Wanda held up the cup and took a small sip.
Bitterness and mellowness intertwined on the tip of her tongue, and a warm current slid down her esophagus into her stomach.
She closed her eyes, feeling her Soul stretch out in this warmth.
"Mr. Aaron."
Wanda put down the cup, a little milk foam stained on the tip of her nose.
"Are you really... just a decorator?"
"Otherwise?"
Aaron added two more sugar cubes into the cup, "Saving the World is too tiring, I am only responsible for making my living environment look more pleasing to the eye."
"For example, turning those eyesore HYDRA members into pink cotton candy."
On the side terrace, Felicia was leaning against the railing.
She was carrying two pieces of sportswear just delivered from the mall in her hand, which were prepared for Pietro.
"Fury is probably going crazy right now, HYDRA Agents are surrendering, and our Director is arresting Directors."
"S.H.I.E.L.D.'s reputation right now is not even as good as the grocery store on the next street."
"They deserve it."
Gwen flipped down from the ceiling and landed lightly on the bar stool.
She took the half cup of coffee Aaron had left over and took a sip without avoiding suspicion.
"Who told them to always feel that they can control everything."
A slight piercing sound of breaking through the air rang out in the living room.
That was Pietro.
He whipped up a breeze in the living room and stopped beside Wanda.
Pietro looked much more pleasing to the eye now.
He wore an expensive dark blue designer sportswear, and on his feet were limited-edition running shoes.
Although his expression was still a bit awkward, the hostility in his eyes had dissipated by more than half.
After all, no one could refuse a landlord who could casually turn tanks into building blocks.
What's more, this landlord also provided meals.
"Hey, kid."
Aaron glanced sideways at Pietro, pulled a golden credit card out of his pocket, and flicked it casually onto the bar counter.
"Go to that shop on Fifth Avenue and buy two portions of Kobe beef platters back."
"And the blueberry pie that Wanda likes."
The card spun on the marble countertop, making a pleasant sound.
Pietro was stunned.
He looked at the unlimited top-tier credit card, and then looked at Aaron's matter-of-fact look.
He was Quicksilver.
His speed should be used to shuttle across battlefields, should be used to save the World, or at least to steal some top-secret intelligence.
"You... asking me to buy takeout?"
Pietro's voice raised half an octave, his fingertips trembling slightly.
"Otherwise?"
Aaron raised his eyebrows, his gaze casual.
"Do you expect me, the boss, to run errands myself?"
"Your speed is so fast, not using it to buy groceries is simply a waste of talent."
Pietro wore that designer sportswear, his chest rising and falling uncertainly.
He looked at Wanda beside him, who was holding a coffee cup and looking at him with a smiling face.
And then looked at Aaron's face that seemed to be written with "you can you up".
He reached out with an extremely reluctant expression and grabbed the credit card on the bar counter.
That was the most intense psychological struggle Pietrohad ever made in his life.
"Do you really want me to buy it?"
He stood in front of Aaron, asking with gritted teeth.