Back in America, in the mansion of Alexander Ricci, the pool at the back found itself under an enormous amount of attention. Strong lights armed guards, all of them staring at the totally still waters.
Soundlessly breathlessly waiting. They didn't have to wait long before the calm waters were disturbed by something unseen, unknown.
Disturbance grew stronger and louder until a person breached the surface, gasping for air.
The guards confirmed it was indeed the boss they had awaited and promptly rushed forward to assist him.
"Welcome back, Sir!"
"I will be in my bunker; be ready to respond to my commands!" Alex ordered as he stormed off while ripping off his wet and bloodied suit.
While the guards would have preferred if their boss had a medical check-up first, they knew that his mood was foul and that the Alpha-1, even if not themselves personally, had failed him, so they didn't insist.
Alex, for one, wasted no time discarding his wet clothes, taking the towel offered to him as he walked.
"Excuse me, Sir, but there is blood in your hair, Sir." The attendant respectfully informed him.
"Mirror," Alex ordered snapping his fingers.
Moments later, another attendant brought the mirrors again and helped him show where the blood was.
Alex paused for a moment, standing looking at himself inside. "Prepare a quick shower for me." He said before slightly deviating off his course towards his personal showers while his attendants quickly prepared a fresh change of clothes.
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While Alex was getting cleaned up, his men back in China finished off the cleanup of the airport, which mostly centered around ensuring that no DNA of their boss remained.
Bleach and flamethrowers were both deployed to quickly clean up any remains before they left, leaving behind a large number of Chinese bodies.
It would not have caused a stir, but the news of the attack had already spread, and a stir was spreading, too.
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Xu Wenwu, the Mandarin. He was one of the first people to hear of the assassination. Sitting in his traditional Chinese mansion clad in a pure white conventional Chinese robe, he looked up from an album as he listened to the news.
"And how are they responding to this development?" He asked while the rings around his arm gave a spike in their glow.
"They seem to be continuing towards us." His henchman said.
This had Wenwu pause in thought for a moment. And finally, he noted and looked back down to add a picture of his wife.
"We proceed then with the meeting as arranged to keep me informed."
His henchman responded with an affirmative and went back to prepare for the meeting that very evening.
As he heard about Ricci's assassination, many thoughts passed through Wenwu's head. The first thought was that whoever was responsible might very well be the same mysterious faults behind the death of his own wife.
Perhaps they had somehow found out about the content of this deal and had moved to prevent it by killing off Ricci.
Yet it seemed that the deal would still continue, which meant that it was perhaps a body double that had died. In truth, it mattered little as he would get his answers soon enough.
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Another person who quickly learned of the assassination was Nick Fury, director of Shield.
He not only heard about it, but also saw it thanks to the picture of the action going down taken by his spy satellite. He clearly saw thus the attack itself and the immediate aftermath where the seemingly clueless and defenseless Chinese delegate was slaughtered while the crumbled body of the world's greatest drug kingpin lay on the ground.
There was no way he had survived. One could clearly see the man's destroyed and exposed brain, instant death. Carefully analyzing the pictures he had, he was impressed with the efficiency of his men. Even if they had failed at defending him, they sure did respond in a manner expected for personal bodyguards of the overkill.
He could not see how they dealt with his body As they appeared to drag it away with the shields into the plane and disappeared from view, though it mattered little as he was without a doubt dead.
The question, however, was who was responsible for this assassination, followed by what's his asset still alive? In the last scene of her in the pictures, she had indeed been alive.
How long that would last given the circumstances it wasn't sure about. If they believed that she had a role to play in the assassination, she might even now face torture and interrogation or perhaps was already dead.
There were many questions surrounding the sudden death of Alexander Ricci. Questions he needed answers to.
Reaching out to his intercom, he clicked. "Send Barton in." He said shortly before releasing the button.
This once simple mission had changed greatly, and he now needed his best agents to save one of his best assets and get him some answers.
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As Shield had already gotten the news, the Foundation was naturally also aware of the death of a very high-ranking member. The personal assistant to a O5 member.
This was practically as high up the rank as you could possibly get. This was the kind of person who could, with a word, send a nuclear missile into a populated city, and it was this kind of person who had been killed by hostile forces while a high alert status due to the CK class event was in place.
While it should perhaps have been restricted information, it quickly spread among Foundation staff and became impossible to contain within minutes after his death.
Everyone who heard quickly started to discuss what happened. Was it some kind of SCP outbreak? Was it the actions of hostile organizations out there?
Theories were thrown around from the plausible to the absurd; yes, it could not be denied that it was big news and that it would no doubt be solved by some big actions being taken.
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Natasha remained alert, on guard, and supremely nervous as a convoy continued to watch their target. She had by now realized that it seemed that the trade would continue, which meant that she might still be able to fulfill her mission.
However, she also knew that her life and death were now up to the decision of whoever was in charge of this operation.
She might consider herself one of the best of the best. She had no doubt that she would be gone down long before she was able to escape if her verdict was death.
Even still, he continued to do her best to gather information.
During the past hour of driving, she had managed to scope out the other passengers of the vehicle, including the person to her right, who appeared to be just a few years younger than the others and a rookie.
She could see he was no doubt shaken by what had just happened that much she could clearly see from him, and that made it easier for Natasha to offer herself up as someone he could lean on, someone he could speak to.
"Who do you think was behind it?" She leaned in and whispered into his ear.
The young man looked towards his comrades nervously before leaning back in and whispering back.
"I heard it was them Shield people that did it."
Natasha was still determining who these Shield people were at first, even though the name did strike her as somewhat familiar, but she couldn't quite place it.
She quickly realized what Shield meant: an anagram for Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, the organization she now worked for, and the people who sent her here.
She found it difficult to believe that it was her own people that were behind this. After all, they wanted information, which is why she was here. She didn't believe she had been sent here to be part of this assassination plot without being informed.
Perhaps it was a setup? Had someone planted false evidence? After all, she was fairly certain that the eventual payback for this would be enormous, and she was aware that these people had access to at least one nuclear explosive.
She didn't wish to think what would happen, so they decided to use that at the headquarters.
"Really? Aren't those just some peacekeeping spies?" She whispered, digging deeper into the mystery.
"It's probably the hydra…" whatever he was about to say further was cut off by a sharp look from one of his seniors.
Natasha quickly looked away and tried to play innocent even though she doubted it would work on these people who knew her reputation.
Due to her looking away, she missed the grins on the faces of the three men and the looks they exchanged, including the supposedly innocent and careless one.
Natasha already had much to think about. She wasn't entirely sure what he had meant by Hydra, but she mentally filed it away anyway. Perhaps her superiors would be able to make heads or tails of this situation, that is, if she would be able to report back.
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By the time Natasha learned that little nugget of information, Alex had already exited his shower and withdrawn into his bunker, not before learning some important information.
[Flashback]
As Alex addressed and stepped out of his shower, one of his guards called out to him.
"We have him, Sir." The man said, holding out a tablet.
Quickly picking up the tablet, Alex's eyes grew wide as he saw the person in the picture. "The Winter Soldier," he gasped out.
"You're familiar with the assassin?"
"Yes, I know of him; he is a Hydra asset… I want him brought in alive; he can still be of use to us, and ensure that you bring his arm. It is useful tech. He is also enhanced, so placement at SITE in 19 would be smart."
Alex gave out some instructions as he handed that tapped it back and made his way down his bunker."
[Flashback end]
once secure down in his bunker, Alex screamed loudly, banging his hands into the cold metal walls. Had there been something he could throw around, he would no doubt have done that.
After getting his aggression out, he collapsed to the floor, shaking curled up into a ball.
"I died," He repeated out loud again and again.
It has been less than a year since he transmigrated from a normal life to the Marvel Universe; less than a year was all he had managed to last before dying.
"And I didn't even die to an SCP! I died to a fucking bullet, of all things."
"No one fucking dies to bullets!"
After calming himself down by screaming and crying, he finally dragged himself into his seat.
"System, show me the notifications."
[Ding!...]
[Ding!...]
[Ding!...]
[Ding!...]
[Ding!...]
[Ding!...]
[Ding!...]
[Ding!...]
[Ding!...]
[Ding!...]
"Enough!"
He cut off his system's endless barrage of pings, which gave him a headache.
"Stupid, useless system, I will deal with you after I'm done with the Mandarin." He cursed.
He did not have long before the meeting was supposed to happen, and he now had a lot of extra work because his plans had been completely ruined by his death.
New plans needed to be made so they could achieve the same as before, even though he was now in a substantially weaker position.
He would have to lift the Mandarin know that he was alive; this would at least give credence to his claim of being very good at staying alive; this hopefully would also play cretins to his possible ability to offer resurrection.
So much to do and so little time. This little stunt of Hydra's had cost him dearly, and it would cost him much more as he now had to spend time planning his revenge.
Hit wondered to cause as few changes to the timeline as possible, but that would clearly no longer be an option as Hydra and Shield were not going to give him any time to prepare himself for the future he knew was ahead.
'My apologies, ancient one, but the future you see will have to get completely fucked up.'