[Extra Chapter!!]
Bloodshot eyes blazing, Sharon ditched her empty rifle, clenched the tactical knife Aunt Peggy gave her, and hacked like a demon at the vines snaking in.
She was lucky.
SCP-307 had just devoured hundreds of Ten Rings bodies and was relatively "sated." Coupled with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s suppressive fire, its attack drive and speed had dipped a notch—barely.
A wheeze of breathing room. Nothing more.
She knew it was poison in a pretty bottle.
Once the bullets ended and their stamina ran dry, every last one of them would become fertilizer for this violet hell.
Sharon's arms were turning to lead. A tendril speared up from the floor, hunting her ankle—
KRAKOOM!
A world-rattling blast detonated behind her.
The dead-bolted iron door buckled like it had been rammed by a prehistoric beast; with a banshee shriek of tortured metal it blew outward.
The spinning slab of iron mulched several lunging vines.
Through the storm of grit, a hulking, rough-forged silhouette filled the threshold—a man-shaped shell of raw steel.
From its chest, a circular device pulsed with a ghost-blue light—like a beating heart—washing the purple nightmare in cold glow.
"Ladies and gentlemen, remain calm!"
A familiar voice oozed bravado through the rasp and fatigue inside the steel beast.
"Your guardian angel has arrived—genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthrop—"
Tony didn't finish his entrance line.
His voice died.
Behind the faceplate, his eyes went wide.
What was he seeing?
Walls?
No. Not walls—alive.
From floor to ceiling the cavern crawled with tangled veins and nerves, slow-wriggling tendrils shedding an unholy violet sheen.
A few S.H.I.E.L.D. agents hung like flies in webs, cocooned and motionless.
And his "little cousin," Sharon, stared at him in a daze—soaked in blood, a wreck.
The air reeked—rot of plant and rot of corpse braided into one.
Tony Stark's brain blue-screened.
A hardline materialist. A top-tier engineer. And his worldview of forty-plus years just got thrown in a woodchipper.
What was this?
Alien flora invasion? Hell on Earth? Or did some bastard pump him full of hallucinogens while he was kidnapped?
"When I get out, first thing I'm doing is booking a therapist."
The "hero declaration" he'd prepped collapsed into a soul-deep mutter that trembled at the edges.
For the first time, he saw—really saw—the true terrors that hid beneath daylight.
SCP Foundation Forward Base, Command Room
On the main screen, the "Skyeye" drone relayed a crisp feed: Sharon's team under siege; Tony in a crude iron suit blowing the hatch.
"Report, sir! We've hard-locked the SCP-307 core aggregation!"
Dr. A167's voice climbed with manic glee as he jabbed a finger at the cavern carpeted in purple. His face was lit with sick fervor.
"Perfect. Absolutely perfect!"
"The Ten Rings leader's idiotic muster gave us the first bait wave—bled 307's reserves and revealed its rough range."
"And S.H.I.E.L.D.'s little charge was like tossing a steak into a serpent's mouth, luring every scattered root back to the core and exposing the main body to our eyes!"
He gestured like a child with a new toy.
"Best part, sir—we didn't lose a single C-class in the most dangerous recon and lure phase. A textbook low-cost containment run!"
Praise poured out of him—for the plan. For the success. Not a drop of concern for the "bait" and "meat" that died: S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and Ten Rings fodder. Not lives—reagents.
Natasha watched the raving doctor with glacial eyes, then glanced at Felix Ragnell.
She caught it—the barest uptick at the corner of Felix's mouth when A167 said "low-cost."
A cold sheet slid over her heart.
It all clicked.
This wasn't luck. Not coincidence.
From Felix refusing a nuke, to "letting" Coulson pass intel, to ordering Operator 6547's unit to delay insertion—every piece sat exactly where he'd set it.
He'd used Tony as bait to hook Nick Fury.
Then paved the containment route with S.H.I.E.L.D. lives.
Borrow the knife to kill, drive the tiger to eat the wolf.
His mind ran deep. Frighteningly deep.
Natasha swallowed the storm inside. She had no evidence. Against power and calculation this absolute, doubt was paper-thin.
"Someone's in a good mood."
Felix felt her eyes. He turned, voice flat, stating a fact.
He keyed the comm.
"Transmit SCP-307's exact coordinates to 6547."
"Order immediate action."
"Priority One: secure any survivors in the cave. Priority Two: execute Class-A Containment Protocol on SCP-307."
...
Inside the Cavern
Tony finally clawed his way out of shock.
He looked at the agents wound up in vines, lifeless or nearly so. At Yinsen, collapsed and unconscious. At Sharon, eyes begging him for a miracle.
"Dammit."
He could light the boot thrusters and jet solo. The junk-armor wasn't finished, but it could fly—briefly.
But…
He looked at Yinsen.
The man who'd given everything so Tony could live.
Then at Sharon.
Not close, but still the kid he'd watched grow up—his "little cousin."
"Hell with it! I've never been this noble in my life!"
Tony roared, wrestled the clunky armor forward—and stomped.
CRUNCH!
Several tendrils coiling for his legs exploded into pulp under a steel boot.
(End of Chapter)
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