The iron door slammed shut behind him with a dull thud. The echo rolled several times through the dark passage before finally fading away unwillingly.
That sound was like a fermata—a forced full stop—cutting off the insane symphony of explosions, energy beams, and writhing monster tentacles behind him. The world was split cleanly in two: on one side, hellish chaos; on the other, the deep, silent darkness of the tunnel before him.
Levi didn't look back.
He collapsed against the cold iron door, his chest heaving as he gulped down foul, stale air. The adrenaline drained from his body like a receding tide, leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion that nearly crushed him. His legs felt as heavy as if they were filled with molten lead, no longer truly his own. Every muscle screamed in aching protest after being pushed far beyond its limits. His head was a tangled mess, like a swarm of bees buzzing madly inside his skull, leaving him dizzy and disoriented.
That final act—violently twisting apart the lock core—had looked crude and simple, but it had nearly drained the very last trace of energy he could still muster. Right now, he felt like an ancient battery that had been completely discharged: the casing intact, the inside utterly empty.
Sliding down the icy wall, his body gave out entirely. He ended up sitting heavily on the freezing concrete floor.
The tunnel was pitch-black—pure darkness without the slightest impurity, so deep he couldn't see his own fingers. The air carried a nauseating mixture of smells: rusty metal, greasy machine oil, and the damp mold of old dust. Somewhere above, liquid gurgled through pipes with a hollow glub-glub sound, adding an eerie sense of life to the stillness. Farther away, the base's alarm—monotonous and unrelenting—hummed faintly, like the heartbeat of a dying man, stubbornly reminding him that danger had not truly passed.
He was safe—but only for now.
Levi closed his eyes and sank his mind inward, assessing his condition. That newly fused, overwhelming power lay dormant within him like a hibernating serpent—vast, heavy, coiled through every inch of his body, from muscle fibers to the depths of his bones. He could clearly feel its presence, an oppressive vastness in and of itself, yet he could no longer command it as freely as he had in the hangar. It felt sluggish, distant, almost wary of him, as if suspicious of its new host.
The system interface in his mind remained a lifeless gray. No matter how he called out, there was no response. The "cheat" he had relied on for so long was truly drained and dormant now. When—or if—it would wake again was completely unknown.
Without the system's guidance, he felt like a farmer who had never seen modern technology, suddenly tossed into the cockpit of the world's most advanced fighter jet. He knew the machine beneath him could level cities, but he couldn't read a single gauge, let alone start the engine or pull the controls.
Everything would have to be figured out on his own.
"Energy perception…" he murmured silently, repeating the name of his new ability.
Fortunately, this power seemed fully integrated into his senses, a passive instinct that required no conscious activation. With a slight shift of thought, a new world unfolded in his mind. He could see coolant fluids flowing through thick overhead pipes, carrying faint energy signatures. He could see the dense network of cables hidden within the walls, radiating steady, rhythmic pulses like the veins of a steel leviathan. The massive underground base gradually formed a crude three-dimensional map in his mind, woven from countless intersecting energy lines.
A small blessing amid disaster.
At least he wouldn't wander this subterranean labyrinth like a headless fly.
He sat there for what felt like five minutes—or maybe longer. Time had lost its meaning. Forcing himself to move, he fished out the last bit of food from his pocket: an energy bar he'd swiped from a S.H.I.E.L.D. holding cell. It was rock-hard and tasteless. He chewed and swallowed mechanically. A faint warmth spread in his stomach and into his limbs, restoring just a sliver of strength.
He couldn't stay here.
The thought surfaced clearly in his mind.
Levi knew better than anyone what kind of man Nick Fury was. That one-eyed bastard's paranoia and obsession with control bordered on pathological. A "missing prisoner" like him would immediately become Fury's biggest red flag. Once S.H.I.E.L.D. fully locked down the base, he'd truly be a turtle in a jar—nowhere left to run.
Bracing himself against the rough wall, legs trembling, he staggered to his feet.
Guided by the constantly updating energy map in his mind, he carefully avoided areas with strong energy concentrations—places brightly lit and heavily guarded, likely checkpoints or command centers. Instead, he chose the weakest, most inconspicuous route, slipping through the darkness like a ghost, moving steadily toward a destination he'd already decided on.
He remembered this well: any large military base—especially one built near the sea—had to have a massive waste-disposal system. It was an engineering necessity.
And right now, it was his only way out.
…
Meanwhile, Hangar B7.
The shrill alarms had been silenced, but the aftermath of chaos still rippled through the area. Medics rushed back and forth with stretchers, racing against time to treat the wounded. Phil Coulson directed the surviving agents as they cleared debris and tallied losses. The hangar looked like it had been ravaged by a colossal beast. The air reeked of burnt protein and molten metal, nauseating to the extreme.
Nick Fury sat on a relatively intact equipment crate, expressionless, while a young female medic carefully treated his left eye with disinfectant-soaked cotton swabs.
"Sir… the wound is very deep. It penetrated the eyeball. The internal tissue is completely destroyed. I'm afraid…" Her voice trembled, unable to finish the sentence.
"Just tell me the result," Fury said calmly—so calm it sent a chill down the spine.
The medic took a deep breath. "Your left eye… can't be saved."
Fury fell silent.
There was no rage. No scream of pain. He simply raised a hand and lightly touched the fresh scar running from his forehead down his cheek. The skin still burned fiercely, like it was being pressed again and again with a hot iron—an unrelenting reminder of how real, and how absurd, everything that had just happened was.
Aliens. Energy weapons. And an orange cat that could sprout countless grotesque tentacles.
The worldview he'd spent decades building—rooted in logic and reality—had been smashed to pieces in a single night.
Coulson hurried over, his face pale under the hangar lights. "Sir. Casualty report is in. Seventeen agents dead, thirty-four injured. As for the Kree… they left no bodies. It's like they vanished into thin air."
Fury nodded. He'd expected that. "And?"
Coulson hesitated, then leaned closer and lowered his voice so only the two of them could hear. "There's one more thing. The prisoner we recovered from the glacier… Levi. He's gone."
Fury's remaining right eye snapped sharp, like a blade drawn in an instant.
"Gone?"
"Yes, sir." Coulson handed him a tablet. "His cell is empty. The lock was forcibly destroyed from the inside. Surveillance shows that during the chaos, he entered the B7 hangar area—and then… nothing. No further footage. We searched the entire hangar. No body. No blood."
Fury took the tablet. On-screen was Levi's file photo: black hair, dark eyes, an Eastern man with a calm, unfathomable gaze. The file itself was shockingly sparse: WWII soldier, auxiliary member of the Howling Commandos, fell into a glacier during his final mission with Captain America. Body mysteriously preserved at peak condition.
A soldier asleep for over fifty years.
Fury's mind raced, threads connecting at breakneck speed.
The light-speed engine exploded. A pilot named Carol Danvers vanished.
Then, this mysterious prisoner—also present near the explosion, also under S.H.I.E.L.D. control—disappeared in the chaos.
Coincidence?
Nick Fury never believed in coincidences. Only in conspiracies—and uncontrollable variables.
He remembered the state Levi had been found in, the WWII uniform so out of place in this era, the body that defied every known scientific principle, warm like that of a living man.
"Raise his threat classification to maximum," Fury said coldly, handing the tablet back. "Seal all exits. Conduct a full-scale search. Alive or dead—I want him found."
"Yes, sir."
"Wait." Fury stopped him. "The search stays covert. I don't want anyone besides you and me knowing we lost a 'prisoner.'"
Coulson paused, then immediately understood. "Understood."
Watching Coulson hurry away, Fury slowly stood and walked toward the orange cat.
Goose looked utterly exhausted, sprawled lazily on the ground, meticulously licking its paws as if the earlier carnage had nothing to do with it. When Fury approached, it merely lifted its head and gave an innocent "meow," green eyes pure and guileless.
Fury stared at it for a long time. His gaze was impossibly complex—wary, curious, and even… longing.
"I think I'd better keep an eye on you," he murmured, half to himself, half to the creature.
The world had grown far more dangerous—and far stranger.
He needed more weapons. More trump cards. To face the threats lurking in the shadows—and beyond the stars.
A man pulled from the ice, shrouded in mystery, vanished without a trace.
And a cat… that could swallow an elite alien squad whole.
Fury's gaze drifted through the massive hole in the hangar roof, up into the endless, star-filled night sky.
"Avengers…" he whispered, voicing a word long buried in his heart.
Maybe it was time.
…
Levi had no idea how long he'd been wandering the maze of underground pipes.
An hour. Maybe two. In this sealed darkness, time blurred into something dull and meaningless.
The tunnels grew wider, the stench heavier—shifting from mold to the fermented reek of chemicals and human waste. He knew he was close.
At last, at a junction, he turned into a massive circular pipe over two meters in diameter. A wave of overpowering stench hit him head-on, so intense it churned his stomach and nearly made him vomit.
He didn't care.
Because he heard it.
From the far end of the pipe, cutting through layers of filth, came the most beautiful sound he'd ever heard—the rhythmic crash of waves against rock.
The symphony of freedom.
Fighting nausea, he waded through knee-deep, viscous sewage, stumbling forward step by step. His exhaustion had reached its limit. Though his healing factor slowly repaired damaged muscles, it couldn't replenish his depleted energy. Every step felt like walking on knife edges, draining the last of his will.
Finally, he reached the end.
A circular exit sealed by a thick, rusted iron grate.
Through the bars, he could see the black, shimmering ocean. He could smell the salty sea breeze. He could feel the icy air of freedom on his skin.
One last step.
Summoning every scrap of strength left, Levi grabbed the slick, freezing iron bars.
"O—pen… up!"
He clenched his teeth, veins bulging along his neck as a beast-like growl tore from his throat. Muscles surged, coiling like ancient tree roots. The power granted by the super-soldier serum was squeezed to its absolute limit, every cell burning.
Creeeak—groan—
The grate screamed under the strain. Cracks spread through the concrete base like spiderwebs, dust and rubble raining down into the sewage below.
His arms felt like they were about to tear apart—but he didn't let go. Instead, he leaned in harder, throwing his full weight into it.
CRACK!
A sharp, resounding snap echoed through the pipe.
The entire iron grate was ripped straight out of the wall.
The backlash sent him flying backward. Grate and man tumbled together, crashing into the open sea outside.
Icy water swallowed him whole, the freezing shock stabbing into his brain and snapping his foggy mind awake. He broke the surface, gasping desperately, sucking in salty air like a drowning man revived.
He looked back at the dark, reeking drainage outlet—then up at the bright moon and endless stars.
He made it.
He was free.
Completely spent, Levi floated on the cold waves, abandoning all resistance, letting the gentle surf carry him toward a nearby beach. The tide deposited him onto the shore. He lay there on the damp sand, staring at the vast starry sky, his mind blank.
He survived.
He escaped.
He now possessed unimaginable power—power he couldn't yet fully control.
And then…
A painfully practical question surfaced in his empty mind.
He looked down at the filthy, tattered white prison uniform clinging to him. His pockets held nothing but wet sand.
No money. No ID. Almost no understanding of a world he'd been gone from for fifty years.
Alright, Levi.
Now what?
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