On the screen, the battle ended in seconds.
Countless vine tendrils, snakelike and deft, wrapped easily around the agents' limbs and torsos.
They thrashed hard, but their movements soon slowed, stiffened, and finally, all resistance ceased.
The paralytic toxin in the vines had taken hold.
What followed became the most indelible nightmare of Phil Coulson, Natasha Romanoff, and Melinda May's careers.
The command room's monitors had razor-sharp resolution; even the audio fed through with brutal clarity.
They watched, eyes wide, as one agent—hoisted high by the vines—had his tactical suit corroded, then dissolved, at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Then came his skin.
A swarm of hair-fine, needlelike rootlets punched through his body.
The agent convulsed violently, but paralyzed as he was, no scream escaped—only a stare, blown wide with terror and agony.
And then the worst part began.
His abdomen caved in, as if something inside was being vacuumed out.
A potent digestive slurry was working from within.
Organs, muscle, blood—everything—liquefied to a viscous sludge in moments and was greedily drawn up by those roots.
On the screen, the purple vines visibly brightened and thickened as they fed.
The whole process took under thirty seconds.
When the vines let go, what fell was just a pale skeleton sheathed in shreds of skin.
Clatter.
The bones hit the ground and scattered.
In the command room, deathly silence.
Natasha's face went paper-white; even she—accustomed to torture and death—felt her stomach roil.
Melinda clenched her fists so hard that her nails bit deep into her palms. She forced herself to keep watching, burning this hellscape into memory.
Coulson was simply stunned. He stared at the scattered remains, at the other agents meeting the same fate, his body trembling—eyes swimming with pain, remorse, and a fear deeper than anything he'd known.
By contrast, Felix Ragnell, 6547, and Dr. A167 were composed.
Their expressions were grave, yes—but more with concern over an escalating failure than with shock.
They knew: this was a containment object's true face.
Felix turned, his eyes falling on the hollow-eyed Coulson, his voice empty of warmth.
"Do you see now, Agent Coulson?"
He pointed at another display in front of A167—the biomass curve for SCP-307, now spiking at a near-vertical climb.
"Because of your pointless interference, we missed the optimal window to purge it."
"Now that SCP-307 has absorbed a payload of biomass far beyond projections—courtesy of your squad—its rhizome network has completed the final energy ramp."
Dr. A167, ashen, picked up from there, indicating a red box blinking on the main screen.
"Report, sir… energy output is past threshold. Its primary root has penetrated the bedrock beneath the valley and is spreading outward."
"It's gone fully out of control."
Coulson sagged as 6547 released his arm. He stared at the purple tide now racing across the desert on the screen and listened to A167's bleak report. A long breath escaped him.
In that sigh lay mourning for the dead, guilt for his own order, and the helplessness of a man finally seeing—firsthand—how far beyond comprehension this world of terror truly ran.
"What now?"
Coulson's voice was raw. Forcing his eyes off the slaughter, he looked to Dr. A167.
The plan to grab Felix was a bad joke now. Before them loomed a fully out-of-control, freshly well-fed monstrosity.
As a senior S.H.I.E.L.D. operative, neutralizing the crisis had to come first.
"This SCP-307—this 'Carnivorous Ivy'—what's the full brief? How do we fight it?"
Dr. A167 pushed up his glasses, ice-cold derision behind the lenses.
"Now you remember to ask? Agent Coulson, do you think every unknown will wait around like movie aliens for your heroic monologue before it starts destroying the world?"
He did not soften the blow. "SCP-307, Euclid-class. A carnivorous plant lifeform. Attacks and assimilates all warm-blooded animals within range. Absorbed biomass accelerates its growth and expansion. Extremely dangerous. No communication possible. Inherently hostile to human civilization."
"And now," he said, jabbing a finger at the purple bloom racing outward, "thanks to you, it's full. Every pre-limit measure we set up has been rendered moot by that idiotic recon team."
A167's anger nearly spilled over.
Coulson flushed, then blanched, with no rebuttal to reach for.
Every word was true.
His order had helped create this, and it had killed his people.
"Enough."
Felix's voice cut through, glacial. He never looked at anyone—only at the biomass graph, now peaking higher than ever.
He chose.
"A167, restart the launch sequence."
Everyone in the room—A167 included—hesitated.
"Sir?" A167 asked, uncertain. "Launch now? It's already spread beyond the valley. The blast radius—"
"I don't care where it's spread." Felix overrode him. "Target the core of the energy signature—the valley center—and blow it."
"Even if we can't annihilate it, we slam it with maximum impulse to crush its growth curve and buy our containment teams time."
There was no room for debate.
Dr. A167 drew a steadying breath. He understood Felix's intent.
This wasn't annihilation. It was suppression.
To use the most extreme force humanity commands to tell the monster: You are not welcome here.
"Yes, sir!"
A167's hands flew over the console once more.
"Launch program rebooting! Target re-calibrated! Authorization confirmed! Silo doors opening!"
"Ten, nine, eight…"
This time, Coulson didn't move to stop it.
He just stared at the screen, watching death's countdown tick to zero.
"…three, two, one—Launch!"
(End of Chapter)
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