A long time had passed since the attack, and the Howards never mentioned vacation plans again. Instead, they had gone back to their quiet farm life.
With Howard's help, Bucky had fully regained his sanity and freed himself from the trigger words that once controlled him. He chose to stay and help Howard manage the farm.
Both men knew Hydra wouldn't simply give up, so they remained vigilant against potential attacks and continuously strengthened the farm's defenses.
Today, Marcus was walking back to the farm with metal boxes attached to each thigh. These were weapon containers he'd made to store kunai.
He'd developed a recent interest in throwing weapons, so he'd crafted sixteen kunai for "entertainment." The kunai were conveniently divided between the two weapon boxes.
"Never would've guessed Howard and Bucky were dart masters," Marcus mused. "Lucky I'm better, or I'd have lost to them!"
Marcus was still surprised by Howard and Bucky's throwing skills, especially Howard, who never missed the bullseye on the dartboard.
Though he knew Howard had wide-ranging hobbies, seeing his dart-throwing precision in person was remarkable.
By comparison, Tony and Happy's accuracy was pretty terrible. The two could barely ensure their darts hit the board at all, consistently battling for last and second-to-last place.
"Haha, Tony actually made a cheating device!"
Thinking back to their dart game, Marcus couldn't help laughing.
Desperate to win at least once, Tony had built some kind of dart-aiming device. Though it improved his accuracy, everyone refused to let him join the game after that.
When Marcus left, Tony was still sulking on the sidelines.
As he reached the farm, a strange feeling settled in Marcus's gut.
Though everything looked exactly as he'd left it, something felt off.
He brushed his fingers against the weapon boxes and drew two kunai into his hands.
"Do we have mice in the house?"
As the words left his mouth, he sent a kunai flying toward a woodpile.
The kunai, wrapped in void energy, smashed through the stack. As the firewood scattered, a black gun barrel emerged, pointing directly at Marcus.
"Been waiting for you for a while," said a man wearing tactical gear, his pistol aimed at Marcus's head.
"It's been ages since someone threatened me," Marcus smiled, completely unfazed by the gun. "If I were you, I'd be figuring out how to escape right now."
Seeing Marcus's confident expression, the man snorted and slowly raised his left hand.
At his signal, armed figures emerged from all around the farm, surrounding Marcus with their weapons trained on him.
"Well, I see you came prepared," Marcus said, glancing at his would-be captors. "But are you... ready to visit hell? Hydra!"
With that, the kunai in his hand flew toward the leader.
As he moved, the Hydra soldiers opened fire, sending a hail of bullets in his direction.
Marcus's hand moved in a blur, launching kunai that cut paths of light through the air. Each one found its mark in a Hydra soldier's head.
Using void mode to dodge bullets, Marcus efficiently claimed the lives of the Hydra agents. When he reached for another kunai, he found the weapon boxes empty.
"All out," he sighed, looking at the empty containers. "Sixteen kunai really isn't enough."
Seeing that Marcus had run out of throwing weapons, the leader pulled the kunai from his shoulder and tossed it to the ground.
"Take him down!"
To capture Marcus, they'd brought a team with special abilities—powered individuals specifically chosen to counter his skills.
Initially, the leader had thought this would be straightforward, but watching Marcus phase in and out of existence made him realize conventional weapons weren't going to cut it.
Several Hydra soldiers ceased firing and stepped forward. One twisted his foot, and the ground rippled like a giant mole burrowing beneath the surface, sending waves of earth toward Marcus.
Another operative's body suddenly sprouted wild hair all over, the strands forming together into a massive fist that hurtled toward Marcus.
Faced with these unexpected abilities, Marcus raised his eyebrows in surprise. He hadn't expected Hydra to field a team of powered individuals.
"Nice powers, but unfortunately, they're too weak!"
He detached the war blade from his watch, channeling void energy into it.
Under Marcus's control, the blade began spinning wildly around him, instantly shredding the hair-fist attack.
"Time to end this!"
Dodging the earth wave, he hurled the war blade outward, then dashed to a fallen Hydra soldier whose skull had been pierced by a kunai. He retrieved the kunai, grabbed the dead man's gun, and launched his counterattack.
The war blade bounced from one Hydra soldier to another, each impact claiming a life. The gun in Marcus's hand spat fire continuously, void-infused bullets finding their targets with deadly precision. Between shots, he retrieved and threw his kunai whenever possible.
With such a massive power imbalance, the Hydra soldiers fell quickly. Only the few powered operatives and their leader were deliberately left alive by Marcus.
"Alright, I've dealt with the trash. Now it's your turn."
The Hydra ambush had ruined his good mood, and Marcus decided these people needed a harsh lesson.
Directing the war blade toward the powered agents, Marcus appeared in front of the leader in a flash.
"Actually, I'm quite interested in you Hydra folks!"
With that, he grabbed the man's collar, spun around, and slammed him hard into the ground.
Before the leader could recover, Marcus stomped heavily on his back. A few precise gunshots shattered the man's limbs.
"Let's see what you're really capable of," Marcus said, grabbing the leader's head and lifting it to face the battle. "Look—aren't your special operatives fascinating?"
The powered agents were desperately using their abilities to fend off the battle blade, but a weapon charged with void energy was beyond their capacity to resist. They could only keep dodging, growing more exhausted with each passing second.
"I'll show you something truly interesting."
With a snap of his fingers, the war blade bouncing between the powered agents suddenly released an explosive burst of energy, taking them all out at once.
"Quite a spectacle, isn't it?"
His voice was like a devil's whisper. After catching the flying battle blade, Marcus turned his gun toward the survivors.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Marcus fired deliberately, almost lazily. With each shot, a wounded operative's head exploded.
The powered agents tried to fight back, only to discover with horror that their abilities had vanished.
Before they could reach for their weapons, Marcus had eliminated them all.
"Now, let's see where your base is located."
Void energy surged from Marcus's hands as he disappeared from the leader's sight, delving into the man's memories.
A short time later, the leader's eyes snapped open, and he murmured:
"It must be interesting to suddenly become a reverberation of the void in front of Hydra!"
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Marvel : The God Of Punishment System
I Am Raditz
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