CH 15: Another Successful Raid

"Hehehe! Are you as excited as I am, to see some of HYDRA's secrets, Uncle James?"

"I don't know about being excited, but let's see what we've got."

"Alright, here we go. No.3 has all the data that was available in the server room, although I reckon it isn't everything HYDRA has to offer."

Marcus sorted through the data based on the priority and the first thing he got was the location of few different HYDRA bases around the world, then he got names of different HYDRA employees working under SHIELD and various other institutions.

He scrolled through the list and still didn't find any famous names like Alexander Pierce or Jasper Sitwell, which made him believe his earlier hypothesis, that the list wasn't a complete one and was only for lower-level members.

But that wasn't a problem as Marcus had already got the confidential information from the base leader's mind.

These things were just the cherry on top and could be used as a bargaining chip when dealing with the SHIELD and especially Nick Fury.

"Well, the database didn't have much, but it's good enough. You can rest tonight, uncle. We will attack another base tomorrow night."

Barnes nodded and went back to his room, but Marcus didn't need to sleep because of his meditation, instead, he spent his whole night experimenting with various ways to incorporate the energy weapon in his suit and maybe make one for Barnes too.

He also decided to add a Jet propulsion system to Barnes' Armor and an arc reactor for the energy needed. And the arc reactor would be covered up instead of showing on the outside.

Marcus spent the whole night and even the next whole day in his lab, completing the projects. And finally, after working for nearly 20 hours straight, Marcus was finally done with all of his projects.

"Uncle, come and see your new Armor and I guess you will need to learn how to fly it. Now, if you call me sensei, I can teach you to do so. What do you say?"

"No need, I can learn that on my own."

And Barnes' confidence didn't come from nothing, he really did learn the basics in less than half an hour. For which, Marcus hypothesized, the reason was the super-soldier serum. As it enhanced every aspect of the human body and coordination was one of them, which helped him with learning the basics easily.

"See that, kid. I told you, I can do this on my own."

"Yeah yeah, whatever." Marcus pouted at Barnes' teasing and the failure of his plan to get back at him.

"C'mon now, kid, that face doesn't suit you. Cheer up, I guess you should imagine the new technologies you can find in the upcoming raid, that should do the trick."

"I don't need to do that, whatever they have I can make it ten times better. And that made me remember,"

Marcus tapped a few buttons on the console and a compartment opened up, revealing a futuristic-looking rifle with blue streaks of lightning coursing inside it. (Png in paragraph comments.)

"This is an energy rifle, I designed it after improving on the design I acquired last night. It has an arc reactor as its energy source, so essentially it has unlimited bullets. But the catch is, that the material used to manufacture this gun isn't strong enough to keep holding that kind of firepower, so it can only fire thirty bullets at once before requiring a five-minute cooldown, so as to not destroy the weapon."

"Whistle~ That's cool as heck. Sincerely, Marcus, I want to say thank you for giving me these things."

"Who said I am giving these to you?"

"Huh?"

"Yeah, you can only use them for this mission, I am taking it back afterward."

"What?!"

"Pfftttt! Hahahahaha! You should have seen the look on your face right now. Hahahaha! It's too funny."

"You kid!"

Barnes clasped Marcus in a headlock under his arms and ruffled his hair.

"That oughta teach you to not mess with me."

"Ow ow ow ow! It hurts, it hurts!"

"Shit! I am sorry kid, I didn't mean to. It's just-"

Before Barnes could explain anything, Marcus' laughter rang again.

"Hahahaha! Gotcha!"

While Marcus and Barnes were messing around, Albert knocked on the door.

"Alright, Young Master, Sergeant Barnes, if you had your fun, come to the dining room quickly, your dinner's ready."

"I am hungry, let's go."

Marcus ran to the dining room ahead, leaving Albert and Barnes behind.

"You know Albert, you don't need to keep calling me Sergeant. You can just call me James or Bucky."

"Very well, Sir James."

"Ah! No need to call me Sir James. Only James would suffice."

"Ok...James."

"Yep, that's good. Now let's have our dinner before it goes cold."

While Marcus and the others were enjoying their dinner, something else was going on in the HYDRA bases across the US.

"Strengthen the patrol and arm them with the experimental weapons we have. We can't let anyone in tonight, and plant a charge in the server room, just in case."

After HYDRA had known that Marcus copied their data from the server room of the base that was destroyed, they increased their security to stop Marcus from raiding their bases.

But alas! They didn't know that this time, Marcus and James were stronger than before. Their energy weapon could melt whatever it touched except for really hard objects.

So it could easily melt through Armor and people.

Marcus chose another base out of all the available ones after which James and he flew towards it.

But soon as they neared the base, the local RADAR system caught their wind.

"Sir, they are here. What should we do?"

"Initiate lockdown procedures, leave the first door open, let them come in and then we can bury them here."

Marcus also got the prompt that he was detected as his suit also captured the incoming radio waves from the RADAR.

Marcus targeted the RADAR and sent a few micro missiles to destroy it. After the RADAR was hit and disabled, James and Marcus touched down near the base and Marcus scanned the surroundings for life-forms.

But he didn't find anyone, "Hmm, looks like they have wised up. Uncle, I think there is an ambush waiting for us inside that door. What do you say, are you ready?"

"I am always ready, kid. Let's show them that they can't defeat us, even with an ambush."

Marcus and Barnes swaggered through the front gate expecting an ambush, which didn't come.

"Huh? Was I overestimating them?"

Marcus scanned the parameters again but didn't find anything, so he didn't care much and used his laser to cut through the thick metal door.

But soon as he removed the cut-out, something hit him with a great amount of force and he was pushed back a little.

Marcus saw a naked man in front of him with his eyes glowing yellow.

'Those eyes, it's the same as those experimental subjects whom I injected with the Oz serum. But how did HYDRA get their hands on it? Don't tell me Norman decided to sell it to them!'

Marcus was thinking when the naked man suddenly jumped towards Barnes, and due to his speed, Barnes didn't get the chance to fire his rifle as the man was already in his face with his hands cocked back, ready to punch him.

The punch landed on Barnes' face and sent him flying into a pillar.

After which, the man turned back towards Marcus and jumped at him. Marcus didn't waste any time and used his gauntlets to fire an energy blast at the man. Which burnt the skin on his abdomen and made him fall to the ground in front of Marcus.

But before Marcus could attack him again, the fallen man grabbed his leg with one hand and threw him towards a wall.

Luckily for Marcus, No.3 controlled his suit at the correct time and used the thrusters to stop him from flying into the wall.

Marcus activated his parallel thought skill and then used his telekinesis to hold down the man.

'Huh? Why does he have stitch marks on his abdomen? They look recent too-'

"Uncle, run!"

Marcus screamed in the transmitter.

"What?!"

"I said, run away right now."

Marcus had guessed the purpose of the man in front of them, he wasn't sent here to defeat them, but instead to die with them.

Now Marcus had enough confidence in his armor, but he didn't know if MUSHA Mark II could take the blast as well.

And true to Marcus' instincts, as the man jumped toward him and his thermals shot up quickly. And in less than a millisecond, he blew up in an explosion, big enough to cover Marcus and nearly touch the airborne Barnes.

"MARCUS!"

"I am alright, uncle. In fact, you did more damage to my ears than the blast in front of me."

"Foooohh~ you nearly scared me to death."

Barnes landed near Marcus, whose armor was steaming and had turned completely black.

"Are you alright inside?"

"Of course, the steam you see is the armor cooling its exterior. It's made in such a way that it doesn't let heat or cold come inside, well unless it's damaged. However, it can take some severe punishment, so that's not gonna happen anytime soon."

"Well, I guess you are ok. But that man, how was he so strong? Even super-soldiers aren't that strong."

"It's a new type of serum which is made by Norman Osborn. It can increase the overall strength and agility beyond human levels but it makes the user insane. I tried to modify it but couldn't. The formula is a failure from the ground up, it can't be modified to be better. But let's leave that aside, we still need to take care of the filth that's still inside this base and I reckon there aren't any more of these here, otherwise they would have sent them by now."

Meanwhile, Inside the base….

"Sir, the prototype failed to eliminate him, even the backup plan didn't work. Now he is making his way downstairs. And our doors aren't able to hold him back and neither are our soldiers. What should we do sir?"

"SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! Execute the final plan, set the charges, and blow up the database, and when he is inside blow up the base along with him. Meanwhile, hold him back while I evacuate and take this news to the superiors, HAIL HYDRA."

"But sir, the problem is, he is alread-"

As the man was trying to speak, he froze mid-sentence and so did everyone else.

"Uncle…take care of the people in the server room,...they are planting a charge to blow it up…hurry…I can't hold for long."

Marcus had used his telekinesis along with his telepathy to hold down everyone for a few seconds and those few seconds were enough for Barnes to secure the server room.

Marcus let go of his control and gasped for breath as he used his meditation to recover his energy.

The upcoming fight was easy, with Barnes and Marcus using the energy weapons, the agents were easily taken care of and Marcus did his usual routine of copying the data and making gestures towards the camera.