Felix Ragnell's gaze drifted back to the 1,550 Legend Points glowing on his system panel.
Use them… or not?
The thought circled his mind like a devil that refused to leave.
A chance at a random summon sat right in front of him.
Maybe he'd pull a god-tier support item like SCP-500 "Panacea."
Or a top-tier enforcer like SCP-076 "Able."
The temptation was colossal.
But in the end, Felix chose to walk away.
"No. I can't gamble."
He took a long breath and forced the impulse back down.
"1,550 only buys one shot. One shot to live or die. How is that any different from going all-in at a casino?"
His plan was to wait a few more days.
Wait for S.H.I.E.L.D. to kick up an even bigger storm once Tony Stark returned.
Wait for Tony to don the real Iron Man armor and step into the global spotlight.
By then, with the Foundation bound tightly to Tony's narrative, they'd funnel him a flood of Legend Points.
If he could scrape together three thousand—even five thousand—
He could do three or five consecutive summons.
Multiple pulls to dilute single-pull risk—that's the safest play.
"I never trusted my luck."
Felix chuckled at himself.
He figured crossing into this world and getting a system had already burnt up a lifetime's worth of good RNG.
What's left was the fate of an unlucky scrub.
With that kind of luck, poking a ten-percent 'world-ending' chance was basically volunteering for assisted suicide.
Out of nearly ten thousand anomalies, nearly a thousand couldn't be reliably contained.
That ratio was insane.
The last thing he wanted was to click "Summon," and then wake up to tomorrow's headline:
"Shock! An Unnameable Old One Awakens Over New York—Human Civilization Declares Its End!"
Yeah, that'd be a riot.
"Hold steady. We play to win."
He jabbed himself with a mental sedative and killed the gacha itch.
After straightening his clothes, he left the empty training room.
There were more important things to do.
Like how to receive that "old friend" from S.H.I.E.L.D. who was about to wake up.
And how to squeeze enough funding out of a certain billionaire.
—
In the observation room of the medical wing, the quiet felt… wrong.
Felix looked at the three people inside the biostasis pods, their vital signs now perfectly stable, and spoke slowly.
"It's time to wake them up."
His voice cut the stillness.
"We need to decide how to 'handle' our guests."
Standing beside him, Natasha Romanoff stiffened almost imperceptibly at the word handle.
Her eyes were drawn—against her will—to Sharon Carter.
They both worked for S.H.I.E.L.D., but Natasha hadn't crossed paths with Sharon all that often. Still, Sharon was Peggy Carter's niece—second-generation core S.H.I.E.L.D., one of the few who still held the agency's "noble ideals" like a creed.
Natasha didn't want anything bad to happen to her.
Dr. A167 stepped into the medical wing.
He carried a briefcase neatly fitted with three syringes, each filled with a pale green fluid.
"SCP-307 neurotoxin–specific awakening serum."
As he prepped, he spoke over the observation room intercom with something close to showmanship: "They'll be conscious in three minutes. No physiological aftereffects—psychological trauma not included, of course."
He moved to Sharon's pod, popped the lid, and slid the needle into her vein with practiced ease.
Then Yinsen. Finally, Tony Stark.
When he was done, he stepped back, arms folded, watching like a researcher awaiting data.
In less than a minute, Sharon's eyelashes trembled.
She was awake.
As a top-tier agent, she didn't snap her eyes open or make a sound.
First, she ran a rapid diagnostic on her own body.
Arms and legs were secured with soft but tough restraints—no movement. Physically weak, but no obvious injuries.
Only then did she slowly open her eyes, feigning a residual haze.
A sleek, sterile white room—all angles and future tech—filled her vision.
Unfamiliar ground.
She clocked Dr. A167 in his lab coat nearby.
And she saw, beyond the one-way glass, the man whose calm ran as deep as an abyss—Felix.
Standing with him was Natasha Romanoff.
The moment Sharon's gaze met Natasha's, Natasha's eyes flickered—so brief most would miss it.
A signal only elite field agents could read at a glance:
—Stay calm. Pretend you don't know me. Say nothing.
Sharon's heart sank, though her face stayed perfectly balanced between wariness and confusion.
Natasha… defected? Or, like Phil Coulson, had she been captured?
Countless possibilities flashed through Sharon's mind, but she chose to trust the signal.
She looked past everyone else and fixed on Felix in the observation room.
She knew he was the one in charge here.
"Who are you?"
Her voice came out hoarse from sleep, but her tone was steady—cold.
"Why did you take me?"
It was a deftly framed question—identity and motive only. She said nothing about how she was brought here, or what she'd seen back in that nightmare cave.
In a situation like this, the less you "know," the safer you are.
Dr. A167 seemed delighted by Sharon's performance. He pushed up his glasses and regarded her like an art piece.
"We're the Foundation."
He jumped in before Felix could speak, pride leaking through every word.
"As for why we brought you… it's your body. Under those conditions, you endured to the end. Your cardiopulmonary capacity, neural response time, your willpower—miles beyond the norm. A physique like yours must serve the Foundation's great work. Otherwise, it would be a loss to all humankind!"
The fanatic spark in his eyes sent a chill down Sharon's spine.
What does that even mean… Serving the Foundation equals serving all humanity?
"Doctor."
Felix's level voice cut off A167's monologue.
"Agent Carter is not Foundation personnel. She doesn't need to know certain things."
No sooner had he finished than Yinsen stirred awake on the other bed.
On the last cot, Tony Stark made his return in a far more theatrical fashion.
"Ugh… my head… I swear I'm never touching that damned whiskey again…"
(End of Chapter)
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