Hey, I Know You're Dead, But Call Me Maybe

Inside the old casket, there were decaying skeletal remains of an old Viking king.

It had a rusty old long sword on its body and a transparent crystal cube in its hand.

Suddenly, the Hydra leader's eyes shrank as he noticed that the entire interior of the casket was inconspicuously packed with explosives.

He had just pushed open the casket and was entirely focused on the crystal cube that he didn't even get a chance to react.

*KABOOOMMMMM*

There was a bright flash of light, followed by an unnatural pressure that hurled him across the room. His ears were ringing, shards of rubble and shrapnel were flying everywhere. He could feel the unnatural heat from the tongue of flames licking his skin. The smell of smoke and noxious fumes were burning his nose and throat. He could even taste the iron from his blood flowing from his mouth and pouring out from every orifice of his body.

He knew that he was critically injured. His entire chest cavity was caved in, internal organs crushed and mangled, his "face" had melted off revealing a frightening red skull, and even the skin in his entire body had melted off due to terrifying burns.

He knew he had to get out of here, he didn't know the full extent of damages he suffered but he had to get out of here now. Unfortunately, he could barely even move his fingers so he could only lie there drowning in his own pool of blood. His breathing turned erratic as he was filled with dread and helplessness.

As soon as the bright light dissipated, a silhouette dropped down to the ground from the ceiling of the church. Just as he landed, silver lights flashed as two knives were thrown towards his eyes. With a sudden burst of adrenaline, he moved his head to the side escaping the fatal attack but another knife followed right after lodging into his throat.

"How..." He thought.

He grasped his bleeding throat shocked by the sudden turn of events. He was a superior being, evolved beyond any mortal due to the super-soldier serum. He is faster, stronger, and more powerful than humanly possible. The knife shouldn't be able to even scratch his skin. Now that he thought about it... he shouldn't even be hurt this severely by explosives in the first place.

This spoke volumes of the capabilities of the mysterious newcomer and added another layer of fear and dread in his heart.

He felt a wave of dizziness due to the severe injuries and blood loss, the smoke and fumes probably contained traces of poison as well. He should have started healing by now but he could somehow feel the knife lodged in his throat interfering with his regeneration.

By this point, he was struggling just to breathe and all he could do was watch as the silhouette moved closer. As the smoke cleared, he looked at the figure in front of him and felt chills crawling up his spine.

The person in front of him was wearing the exact same clothes as him, a black HYDRA military uniform, windbreaker, and high leather boots. The most terrifying of all, even his face was exactly the same as his own. It was almost as if he were looking at himself in the mirror and that, was the last thing he saw before a pair of knives pierced through his eye sockets, directly penetrating his brain and his body slumped to the ground.

Shen, who was disguised as the red skull, let out a sigh of relief and took a moment to calm down.

One of the biggest, baddest super villains... dead... just like that, without even getting a chance to utter a single word. It wasn't that Red Skull was weak, on the contrary, he is an iconic supervillain considered to be the ultimate nemesis of Captain America for a reason.

He was only able to take out Red Skull with such ease due to the lethal trap he'd set up after months and months of meticulous planning, knowledge of future events, his super-enhanced big brain, and most importantly, a bit of luck.

If Red Skull wasn't so focused on the fake cube, he could probably have avoided being hit at point-blank range. He would still be severely injured of course, since the bombs were not run-of-the-mill explosives used during WWII.

When Shen saw the photo of Howard Stark in the newspaper and deduced that the events would follow closely to 'The First Avenger' movie, Shen came up with the bold and crazy idea to directly get rid of Red Skull and take over the entire HYDRA organization by seizing his identity.

Shen had made meticulous preparations and made plans over plans, constantly updating and improving upon them. To keep things simple, he then divided the entire plan into 6 basic steps.

He knew that it would not be easy to injure, much less kill, someone enhanced with the Super Soldier Serum.

So, step number one was to identify a weakness to exploit while number two, was to plan an ambush.

Step One:

Shen first pulled up the entire Captain America and The Avengers movies and comics from his memories and went over them countless times.

In the Civil War arc in the comics, [A/N Spoiler Alert] Steve Rogers/Captain America was killed by a sniper named Crossbones, with a bullet to the torso. In both movies and comics, he either dodges or uses his Vibranium shield to deflect bullets and projectiles.

This means that he is not completely bulletproof, and even if he doesn't die from the bullets, he can get injured by them. Case in point, when he gets shot multiple times by Bucky in the 'Winter Soldier.'

He recounted a scene in the 'Civil War' movie where Crossbones threw a magnetic bomb onto his shield, forcing Captain America to throw it aside. Sure, he did it to avoid killing the innocent people caught in the crossfire but if his shield weren't made of Vibranium, it would probably leave him injured as well. At least the injury would be worse than getting shot with a bullet.

'Fortunately, Red Skull doesn't have a Vibranium shield. This combined with an unavoidable ambush...' Shen thought with a maniacal grin.

Going along this line of thought, he knew that he had to make the bombs well... explosive and extremely lethal. Even if Red Skull was injured, he would start healing soon due to the serum's enhancement.

He wouldn't be able to stop the healing ability completely, but he could probably slow it down to a reasonable limit by using some deadly poisons.

Step Two:

Shen calmed down and recounted the events of the movie again. After conducting countless simulations in his head, he concluded that the moment 'a monologuing Johann Schmidt opens the casket and focuses on the fake cube', that would be the perfect time for the ambush. To this end, he decided to hide the bombs meticulously inside the entire interior of the casket as inconspicuously as possible. It would be triggered as soon as the casket was forcefully opened.

Step Three:

Shen couldn't just rely on his knowledge of possible future events. He had to gather real-time updated information on HYDRA and one Johann Schmidtt.

He used his 'GomuNoMochi' to disguise as HYDRA agents to infiltrate a few Nazi military camps and Hydra secret bases.

There were enough Red Skull propaganda posters throughout the camps for him to make out his details while comparing them to the one in his memory from the movie. It turned out to be a complete match. So, he used the details from his memory to create a flawless disguise of the HYDRA leader, paying meticulous attention to every little detail from his face to the military uniform, down to his very boots.

While preparing the disguise, he was also constantly conducting experiments and trying to improve the GomuNoMochi formula. During one of these experiments found something exceptional. By increasing the rubber, decreasing the mochi, and adding polyvinyl acetate and borax in an optimal ratio, he was able to create an almost magical non-Newtonian polymer.

In simple terms, he managed to create a bouncy slime-like substance that can generate and store enormous amounts of kinetic energy when hit. If it were used as a basketball, it would generate energy upon every impact and increase its speed with every bounce.

This property to generate and store energy when being struck is almost like Vibranium. Although it is not as indestructible as Vibranium, its ease of use and varieties of applications were incredible.

After performing quick tests he found that it could easily phase shift between solid and liquid as needed. It is moldable, foldable, ductile, elastic, among many other properties.

Unlike Vibranium, its liquid form can be used to coat any object which would then confer its properties to the said object.

Imagine an ordinary bulletproof vest. If it is coated with the slime, it would make the bulletproof vest have similar properties to that of an inferior Vibranium armor! Every time a bullet was shot, it would generate and store the energy while the bullet would ricochet back at an increased speed.

This finding was absolutely mind-blowing!

The slime reminded him of 'Flubber' (aka flying rubber). Originally invented by Professor Philip Brainard (played by Robbie Williams) in the Disney movie by the same name.

As an homage to the great human being who brought him joy and laughter in his childhood, he named it 'Flubber' as well.

In the movie, Flubber had antigravity properties as well as a molecular composition that allowed the professor to invent a new kind of energy generator. Shen hadn't had the chance to experiment with those properties yet.

It is often said that 'Good Things Come In Threes'. While infiltrating the various Nazi and HYDRA camps, Shen was also borrowing different resources, techs, and precious materials in his storage space. Although he didn't find any legendary Adamantium or Vibranium, during one of his trips he found some prototype versions of Carbonadium in an inconspicuous warehouse. He was ecstatic and almost couldn't believe his luck!

Carbonadium is a resilient metal that is vastly stronger than steel, almost as tough as Adamantium. It might be less durable than True Adamantium, but it is still nearly indestructible with the added benefit of being more flexible, easier to mold, and cheaper.

But this was not even what he was excited about the most.

Carbonadium is highly radioactive, and objects composed of it had proven to slow accelerated healing factors, even as powerful as that of the Wolverine's.

Although the one in front of him was only a prototype version that had not been perfected yet, it was godsent to him.

He now had everything he needed to make final preparations before the last push.

Step Four:

Shen used everything he had to make final preparations.

He first made improvised bombs with Crossbone's 'sticky' magnetic bombs as a baseline. He built the outer shell with some traces of Carbonadium, solid Flubber, and other metal alloys. He recreated the interior with regular magnetic bombs as a base but incorporated a couple of pieces of flubber which would strike against each other and the surrounding confines of the bomb generating massive kinetic energy with each impact. When the trigger is set off, the entire stored energy would be released in one massive lethal explosion.

With the short amount of time and resources available, he could only make a few of these "Magnetic Flubber Bombs" but, it was more than enough. As a final touch, he even did research on the design of the old casket and used his art/sculpting skills to make them look as inconspicuous as possible.

With all these done, he used some of the Carbonadium to create throwing knives for himself and laced them with Flubber coating. These knives were now almost as tough as Adamantium, had the kinetic properties of pseudo Vibranium and best of all, it would be able to slow accelerated healing factors. He was sure Red Skull's healing isn't anywhere near Wolverine's.

With all these preparations done, all he needed to do was go to the old church and set up the ambush.

Step Five:

It was fairly easy for him to sneak past the Tower Keeper and set the bombs in the casket. He removed any traces of himself and patiently waited for HYDRA to make their entrance

Step Six:

Things went according to plan with him lodging two knives into the eye sockets of Red Skull effectively killing him, permanently.

Shen quickly stored Red Skull's body into his dimensional space. Everyone in the church was dead due to the explosion so no one would ever know what happened here.

As the dust and smoke, and poisonous fumes from the explosion gradually subsided, a group of HYDRA agents hurriedly rushed in.

Seeing Shen standing there unharmed in the land of fire and devastation, they stood at attention and saluted immediately, "Hail Hydra!"

Nobody asked any questions about what happened here. Red Skull had absolute authority in the organization. They were trained not to ask questions, just execute orders.

Shen nodded slowly in satisfaction. Schmidt had trained the Hydra agents very well which saved him a lot of trouble.

Ignoring the soldiers, Shen turned and looked around the church. The violent explosion had completely destroyed the entire area, and even the murals on the walls were torn apart.

He had to admit though, the enhancement provided by the Super Soldier Serum is truly incredible. He was looking forward to obtaining it.

Shen smirked internally and walked towards the wall which was originally decorated with the mural of the World Tree. He found the giant snake Nidhogg that was entrenched at the root of the tree and pressed on its eye. With a soft click, a wooden box popped out from the jaws of the snake.

Shen slowly opened up the box as dazzling blue rays of light shone upon his face.

Inside the box, was a breathtaking blue cube that appeared to contain the endless starry sky on its crystalline surface. It promised an eternal profound mystery that could make a person fall into a trance unable to look away.

The Tesseract, a containment vessel for the Space Stone; one of the six Infinity Stones that predate the universe and possess unlimited energy.

Shen slowly closed the box, turned around, and walked out. Suddenly, he noticed a flash of silver light from the corner of his eye.

He paused his steps and looked towards the source. In the corner, a silver long sword was deeply embedded into a stone pillar, its silver light being reflected by the light from the fire.

Walking to the stone pillar, Shen grasped the hilt of the sword and slowly pulled it out.

'As I recall, this should be the sword that was buried along with the skeletal remains of the Viking king,' Shen thought while carefully examining it.

Its originally rusty old surface had fallen off in the explosion, revealing its true form; a brilliant and sharp silver sword.

This was a two-handed broad sword, with a blade length of one meter and a handle more than 20 cm long. It had a crossguard with a round carved counterweight and a wide and sharp blade.

He didn't know what material it was made of yet. Its weight was much heavier than any ordinary two-handed sword, but it felt light and stable in Shen's hands.

He slashed the sword in his hand towards the stone pillar and the slender silver blade passed through the pillar smoothly, easily cutting it off.

'It seems that this king's sword is not an ordinary funeral ornament. I will study it further when I get a chance,' Shen thought as he walked out of the chaotic church in content.

Looking at the huge war tank that looked more like a steel fortress in front of him, Shen had to admire the fact that Hydra's technological advancement is really beyond this era. In a way, even the technology in his current era is much worse than theirs.

Fortunately, it all belonged to him now.

Taking control of Hydra would now allow him to move forward with his subsequent goals.

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[AUTHOR'S NOTE]

Alright Alright Alright! This is officially an original book from this point on. The events have diverged so far from the Chinese crack-fic that it couldn't be considered a translation anymore.

I mean, killing Red Skull with normal WWII explosives and normal knives? *Pshhh* Blasphemy! Amirite??

Anyway, Flubber!! He's now invented Flubber which is absolutely brilliant and very underutilized.

A slime that can easily shift between solid and liquid, is highly strechable, can be coated onto objects, and most importantly, can generate and store almost endless Kinetic energy.

In the movie, it is sentient which makes it crazy and uncontrollable. In our case, it is controllable since... well, it doesn't have a mind of its own.

This means he doesn't really need to go to Wakanda to steal Vibranium or wait for Ulysses Klaue to be born, grow up, smuggle said Vibranium, etc, etc.

Now that he has the entire HYDRA in the palm of his hands, What do YOU think he should do next??

Have some idea about the story? Comment it and let me know.

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