Free Web NovelChapter 41: Ch 40: Hypersonic!!
[Two days after Hill’s encounter with Veritas in the car.]
Agent Maria Hill walked through the maze of a shipping yard. The salty, humid air clung to her skin.
She stopped in front of a faded, rusty blue container that blended perfectly with the hundreds of others. She checked her surroundings once, then pulled open the heavy latch.
To a normal person, the inside was completely empty and ordinary. But Hill didn’t stop at the entrance. She walked straight to the very end of the container and pressed her hand flat against the back wall.
Click.
The wall slid sideways, revealing a hidden door.
This secret chamber was a massive downgrade compared to the shiny, high-tech halls of SHIELD headquarters at the Triskelion. There were no giant glass screens. No glowing wires or servers.
It was entirely primitive.
The walls were lined with heavy firearms. In the corner sat an emergency medical bay. And in the center of the room sat a simple metal desk where Director Nick Fury sat studying some files.
"Sir," Hill greeted, standing straight and respectful.
"Agent Hill," Fury said, closing the files and steepling his hands. His one good eye looked sharp. "Report."
Standing with her hands locked behind her back, Hill began her debrief. She told Fury everything about her encounter with Veritas, right after her meeting with Gwen Stacy.
She didn’t leave out a single detail. Not the touch on her neck, not his jokes, and certainly not his warnings.
When she finished speaking, she stepped forward and placed a file on his desk.
It contained every single word Veritas had said, exactly as he had said it, along with her own replies. Since there was no digital recording of the encounter, Hill had typed everything down completely from memory.
For a top-tier SHIELD agent, perfect recall was a basic requirement.
Fury’s expression remained stone, but the air in the tiny room grew heavier.
Hydra.
The suspicions had been there in his mind for months, but this simple yet horrifying name made everything connect perfectly. If Hydra had really been living inside S.H.I.E.L.D. like a parasite for decades, then a lot of unexplained and questionable things suddenly made a lot of sense.
Hill watched him process it. When the silence stretched too long, she broke it.
"Sir, if what he said is really true," she said, "If Hydra really has taken over S.H.I.E.L.D., they might already know you suspect something. And are just waiting until you make a definitive move. Under the circumstances, should we halt the Lemurian Star hijack?"
Fury sat back in his chair, considering her suggestion. It made sense. But in this game of espionage, simply knowing the truth was entirely useless. He needed a weapon... He needed hard, undeniable proof.
Fury was a paranoid man. He didn’t trust anyone, not even Veritas. But he already had deep suspicions regarding Project Insight.
He had reason to believe that the first clue he needed to expose the rot was sitting in the databanks of the Lemurian Star.
Project Insight required three specialized satellite payloads to bring those massive Helicarriers online, and the final payload was scheduled to launch in exactly twelve days.
Even if Hydra existed and was watching his every move, they couldn’t risk destroying their own critical data before the launch window closed.
"No," Fury finally commanded, "The mission stays active."
"Understood, sir," Hill replied without missing a beat.
"Your next assignment is to contact General Ross, Agent Hill." Fury opened a drawer and slid a thin yellow folder across the desk toward her.
The corner of Hill’s mouth lifted into a very slight, rare smirk.
With the dreadful suspicion that Hydra had infiltrated SHIELD, they couldn’t trust anyone in their usual circles.
Not their own Agents. Not the World Security Council, which was desperately counting down the days to Project Insight’s launch.
It doesn’t even require saying it, but they definitely couldn’t trust the politicians. Hell, one of them... Senator Stern had recently been thrown into federal custody due to files that Veritas had leaked onto the internet in his last attack.
The man was currently standing trial, and the results were already obvious to everyone—he was either looking at a lifetime in the most secure cell or the death penalty.
And Fury couldn’t even trust Alexander Pierce, his long-time friend, mentor, and the man who made him the director of SHIELD.
But General Thaddeus Thunderbolt Ross? He was a different story. The man was loud, aggressive, and about as subtle as a sledgehammer. fɾēewebnσveℓ.com
Considering the monumentally foolish decisions the man had made throughout his military career in his obsession with Dr. Bruce Banner, there was simply no way a simpleton like him was secretly a Hydra operative.
More importantly, Ross had been promoted to a U.S. Army General a few months after the Battle of New York. He owed Fury more than a few favors. He was one of the very few people on the planet with enough raw military power to back Fury in this crisis, and he would do it with just a single word—without asking too many questions. He wouldn’t be given a reason but he’d have to repay Fury.
"And one more thing," Fury added, looking back up at her. "Contact Veritas. Give him the parameters of the hijack, and tell him to broadcast his stream just like he always does. Let him use the Lemurian Star’s own satellite arrays if he needs the bandwidth."
Based on Hill’s report, Fury had a decent grasp of Veritas’s powers and information-gathering capabilities. He suspected that right now, even Veritas didn’t have concrete evidence of Hydra’s infiltration yet.
If the Jester had the proof, he would have used it by now... either to get something he wanted or to cause chaos.
But Veritas was a wild card. And from what Hill told him, he was targeting Hydra. And that Jester... he would undoubtedly do something to rattle the hornet’s nest.
It would make Hydra sweat and buy Fury some much-needed time.
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12 days slipped by in the blink of an eye. The world spun on. The Dunphy household remained blissfully unaware that its youngest son was moonlighting as an international terrorist.
The biggest change was Alex. She had relocated to Caltech for a 3-month research training program before her upcoming 10-month research trip to Antarctica.
The Q&A stream was also done. It earned him a solid 139 TP.
The patron viewers had also told him about how he can stream even without the hostage criteria. Basically, Luke had 4 tries for each quest before the penalty of locking him out of the shop for a year was issued.
They told him to safely fail 2 quests to stream whenever he thought it’d be entertaining for the viewers and keep the last 2 tries for the actual quests.
Over the past 12 days, he had gone on a 4-day ’Freelance demo’. During this duration, Veritas didn’t appear at all.
It was a simple move to plant a seed in his family’s subconscious. He needed to break the pattern. He couldn’t let them think that every time Luke Dunphy left home for a few days, Veritas magically appeared on every screen.
By doing absolutely nothing while away, he planted the idea that Luke’s absence and America’s somewhat famous terrorist’s appearance had zero connection.
And now, today, Luke was on another trip. He had been "away from home" for two days now, and today, on day three, the Dunphy family’s youngest son was going to terrorize once again.
5 days ago, Maria Hill had sent him the mission details and the rendezvous point on the secure line that he created with his phone with hers.
Since the Lemurian Star was currently floating in the Indian Ocean, Georges Batroc, his mercenary unit, and Veritas were supposed to meet up in Chennai, a major coastal city in India.
Luke, dressed in a dusty, damaged black hoodie and loose trousers, stepped out of the mouth of a railway tunnel. This tunnel was far away from any of his usual hideouts or populated city streets. Anti Surveillance was already on so worries of getting spotted by a camera or satellite.
The night air felt cool on his sweaty face.
He unlocked the screen, and his T-Stream interface popped up, displaying the details of his upcoming quest.
[Quest: Live Terror Stream]
Objective: Conduct a live-streamed event within any public, commercial, private, or restricted facility.
Conditions:
— 30+ minutes duration
— 20+ hostages
Reward: Terror Shop Discount Voucher (50% off) + 140 Terror Points
Bonus Condition: freёwebnovel.com
— Engage in battle with a superpowered individual.
Bonus Reward: +100 Terror Points (Extra points awarded depending on enemy strength.)
He cracked his fingers, rotated his shoulders to loosen up, and tapped the "Equip" button next to his Terror outfit on the screen.
In a blink, the dusty civilian clothes vanished. In their place was the signature look of Veritas... a sharply tailored black suit over a crisp white shirt, topped off with the grinning, unsettling white Jester mask.
He needed to reach Chennai, India. A quick mental check reminded him that the distance between his current spot in America and the coastal Indian city was roughly 7,400 miles (~11909 KM).
Since his Flying Thunder God technique strictly required a pre-existing physical mark to teleport to, Luke couldn’t just pop over there in the blink of an eye. He had never been to India, so there were no marks waiting for him.
To be fair, there were so many other creative ways to make his travel easier but this guy.. he wanted to test his upgraded powers out.
The distance was large sure...
’But is it really that big a deal?’ Luke thought, the wide, painted grin on his mask perfectly matching the cocky smirk forming underneath it.
He glanced at the time on the top corner of his phone. It was 11:33 PM.
’Let’s see just how long it takes for me to cover this distance with a 100% mastery of explosion quirk...’ he mused, doing a few light hops on his toes to warm up his legs.
Then, Luke readied his posture. He bent his knees slightly and positioned his hands straight back beside his waist, palms facing the ground behind him, much like a human rocket.
He took one deep breath of the cool night air.
And then... he disappeared.
But this time, it was not the silent, instantaneous flash of the Flying Thunder God.
BOOoooom!
A deafening shockwave shattered the quiet night. The sheer, terrifying propulsion from his Explosion Quirk cracked the concrete beneath him, kicking up a massive storm of dust, rocks, and debris.
Like a blazing, uncontrollable meteor, Luke shot diagonally into the night sky, leaving a trail of fireworks and a sonic boom echoing in his wake.
The speed... the wind... the feeling of power... it was exhilarating.
"Hahaaha," The laugh just escaped his lips. "WOOHOooo"
’Let’s see how many Machs I can actually achieve.’
BOOM! BOOM!
Deafening explosions tore through the clouds like rapid-fire thunderclaps.
With every massive, blinding blast from his whole body, Luke propelled himself faster... reaching hypersonic speed, carving a violent trail of orange fireworks across the pitch-black sky.
BOOOOOoooooooooooM!
At Mach 5, he became a fiery comet, tearing through the stratosphere. Luke pushed harder. Explosion after explosion rippled across the upper atmosphere, rapidly accelerating his explosive flight until he peaked at a mind-bending Mach 6.
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(Important A/N: Just a quick note—I’ve expanded the quest objective slightly by adding a few more facility categories. This was mainly done so locations like the Lemurian Star can qualify as valid targets, since they don’t neatly fit under the original "commercial or public facility" wording. There will probably be other locations Veritas targets in the future that fall into the same gray area.
For consistency, just assume that every quest up to this point has always used the updated objective wording, even if it wasn’t explicitly written that way before. )
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Right now 4 advanced Chapters.
Also just wanted to inform you guys, tomorrow my elder sister’s getting engaged so I have to attend it.
Tomorrow no Chapter’s getting released but I’ll probably post a Chapter on Thursday (even tho it’s the no chap day).
