The main display switched feeds.
Far out on the desert surface, a massive slab disguised as rock rumbled aside. A silver-white missile knifed upward, trailing a long flume of fire, tore through the night on a cold, precise arc, and speared toward the distant valley.
Seconds later—
A light brighter than the sun detonated across the screen.
In soundless imagery, a monstrous, fanged mushroom cloud billowed up, roiling and swelling until it painted the whole sky a doomsday orange-red.
Even two hundred and fifty meters underground, they felt a clear, dull thud travel through the floor.
Phil Coulson, Natasha Romanoff, and Melinda May forgot to breathe.
Shock.
Annihilating, incomparable shock.
They had all seen archival footage of nuclear tests. But watching a warhead launched right before their eyes—used like a standard tool—and witnessing the ruin it wrought… that impact crushed every assumption they'd lived on.
Dr. A167 watched the rising cloud with a near-fervent look, a mix of awe and pride warring on his face.
He murmured, half to the S.H.I.E.L.D. trio, half as if reaffirming a personal creed:
"Secure, Contain, Protect."
"And when absolutely necessary… nuke the anomaly."
"This is the Foundation's mission."
Natasha caught the wobble in his tone and the hole in the phrasing. She stepped in with just the right blend of shock and curiosity. "How many 'anomalies' have you… handled like this? SCP-307 is only one of them?"
A167 cut her a sidelong glance; the corner of his mouth tilted with unhidden pride.
"Its designation is 307. What do you think?"
One line. One sledgehammer.
Three hundred and seven—at least.
A vast organization hiding under the world's shadow, quietly dealing with hundreds of supernatural crises—and using nuclear options as a routine containment measure.
S.H.I.E.L.D.'s vaunted intelligence net had nothing on them.
Cold sweat flooded Coulson's back.
And he understood.
They hadn't provoked a lone wolf or a boutique terror cell.
They had kicked a slab of iron harder than the Himalayas.
"Apprehend Felix"? "Threat assessment"?
It all felt ridiculous now.
Coulson's hand crept toward the emergency transceiver in his pocket.
He needed to cancel every op targeting Felix Ragnell and this base—immediately.
"Play the long game, reel in the big fish."
No.
The truth was simpler: they were the clueless fish lunging for a baited hook.
The Foundation was the abyss.
In the command room, the air settled into an eerie quiet beneath the fading echoes of the blast.
Coulson, Natasha, and Melinda—pillars of S.H.I.E.L.D.—were all drowning in the same storm.
Their eyes returned to Felix's back at the front.
Under the clinic-white lights of the base, the young man's silhouette looked more and more inscrutable—and terrifying.
A hard pride unfurled in Coulson's chest. In his mind, S.H.I.E.L.D., sanctioned by the World Security Council, stood for legitimacy and order.
And this "Foundation," no matter how formidable, acted with chilling disregard for life, tossing nuclear fire around like bleach. To Coulson, that made them an extremely dangerous force that had to be checked.
Their mere existence subverted the world's order.
Natasha's thoughts were more layered. She saw the Foundation's ruthlessness, yes—but also the clean, unblinking logic beneath it: shielding the world from anomalies.
They were night watchmen walking in pitch-black, using the harshest, most impersonal means to do the purest kind of guarding.
Compared to that, S.H.I.E.L.D.—shot through with factional squabbles, bureaucracy, and HYDRA rot—was… what? A half-shadowed, half-sunlit public bureau trying to manage problems born in darkness.
Melinda, as always, kept her silence and her center. Labels like "good" and "evil" felt cheap. With too little intel to judge the whole, any verdict would be irresponsible. She trusted only her eyes—and her read.
On-screen, winds gnawed at the cloud. The glare ebbed; smoke thinned. Clarity returned.
The entire valley had become a vast glassy, char-black crater.
"All right. Get to work."
Felix's voice snapped the quiet.
A167 answered at once, fingers flickering like phantoms over the console.
Far down the runway, a heavy transport lifted soundlessly, arrowed to the valley, and kicked open its rear ramp.
Three oddly shaped machines dropped from its belly.
They hit the scorched earth, stabilized, and went to work.
Coulson's eyes locked on them.
Not S.H.I.E.L.D.'s humanoid or biomimetic elegance. These were industrial monsters—function distilled to the blade.
The first machine's twin arms each ended in an enormous, gleaming alloy shear—capable of snipping rebar as thick as a wrist.
The second's forelimbs were a high-RPM mattock paired with a rock drill—ground-flayers made to bite deep.
The third was simpler: a giant cryogenic containment chest riding atop six nimble mechanical legs.
"Worker-Ant engineering robots."
Coulson recalled the codename from 6547's earlier brief.
He had to admit: even S.H.I.E.L.D.'s elite labs couldn't build robots this specialized, this brutally efficient for containment-first work.
This Foundation wasn't just secret. Their technology was terrifying.
In all three minds, the label deepened: a hidden, hyper-advanced, terrifying organization.
Minutes ticked by.
The three Worker-Ants combed the ruins in crisscrossing paths, carpet-searching for any surviving SCP-307 root cores.
In the command room, the air hung heavy and close.
(End of Chapter)
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