3rd Person POV
The drop zone in Prague was as quiet as a tomb. The team had arrived in the dead of night, moving under the cover of darkness. Gerald, in his tactical gear, stood just behind Agent Reynolds, adjusting the straps on his armor. The weight of the situation wasn't lost on him—this was no ordinary mission. He might hate following orders, but for once, he had no reason to break them. He'd earned his place here.
Reynolds had given him one directive: stay within the mission parameters. No wild improvisation, no "funny" use of powers.
And for the first time in a long while, Gerald actually thought about it.
He had his powers—the ones that made him terrifying. But if he unleashed his full strength, it would turn this mission into a warzone. And Fury had made it very clear that subtlety was the name of the game this time. So, he adjusted.
Gerald focused for a moment, his fingers curling into fists. His muscles began to tighten, energy swirling inside him as his body recalibrated. Just above Captain America strength, he thought. He didn't need to throw cars or collapse buildings—he just needed to be fast and strong enough to handle the mercs with precision. He settled into a controlled strength level—his limbs feeling like coiled springs, his muscles more defined than before, his reflexes honed to near perfection.
"Everyone, gear check," Reynolds said, her sharp gaze sweeping over the team. Gerald shot her a quick grin, letting her know he was in control.
"Check," he said, cracking his neck. "Let's do this."
The factory was less than a mile away, a dark silhouette in the distance, bathed in the faint glow of streetlights and the dim moonlight. The mission was to infiltrate, neutralize the mercenary threat, and secure the experimental weapons without causing a major international incident. The kind of job Fury liked to send people like them on—high-risk, high-stakes, low-expectations.
They moved as a unit, sticking to the shadows. Gerald was in the middle of the formation, always keeping an eye on his surroundings. Every few steps, he adjusted his strength, testing his limits without overexerting himself. His enhanced physique was a natural advantage—his speed and power put him a step ahead of the rest, but he kept pace with the team. No need to show off. Not yet.
As they reached the factory's perimeter, Reynolds held up her hand. The team froze.
"Intel says there are at least six mercs inside. Possibly more. We'll move in silent. Neutralize any resistance. I'll take point, Weston, you're on backup."
Gerald nodded, the smile playing at the edges of his lips. Backup. That was cute. He wasn't the backup—he was the nuke.
Reynolds motioned for the team to move. They infiltrated through a side entrance, creeping along the walls, avoiding the cameras and guards.
They reached the control room with no problem. Reynolds signaled for them to stop as she peered around the corner. Two mercenaries stood outside the reinforced entrance, leaning against the wall, lazily chatting and checking their gear.
They were relaxed. Unaware. Vulnerable.
Gerald didn't need the order.
Silent as a shadow, he moved. His footfalls were soundless, his body coiled and precise. His fingers curled—index and middle—stiffening with unnatural hardness, like a spearpoint forged from living steel. The moment he closed the distance, he struck.
His fingers plunged straight into the first mercenary's right temple.
There was a soft, wet crunch as bone gave way under the pressure. The temporal bone—thin and fragile—shattered like porcelain. His fingers slid into the cranial cavity, breaching the sphenoid and rupturing the middle meningeal artery in a fraction of a second. The man's pupils dilated, his body twitched—and he collapsed before he could even register the pain. Death was instant.
The second mercenary, eyes widening in primal terror, fumbled for his sidearm. His mouth opened to shout—but he didn't get the chance.
Gerald spun toward him, stepping in with the brutal elegance of a practiced killer. He drove the same two fingers into the man's forehead, just above the glabella, where the frontal bone was thinnest. The impact fractured the anterior cranial fossa, sending shards of bone inward like shrapnel. The brain's prefrontal cortex—responsible for decision-making, impulse control, and thought—was obliterated in an instant.
The man's scream never came. His weapon clattered uselessly to the floor. He crumpled backward, eyes still wide in shock as life fled from them.
Gerald exhaled slowly, shaking the blood off his hand as he turned back toward the team, who had just caught up.
Reynolds stared at him with an unreadable expression. "Jesus Christ."
"What?" Gerald said, completely unfazed. "I aimed for the head. That's what you said in training, right?"
"That's not what we meant by restraint," one of the agents muttered under their breath.
Gerald looked at Reynolds. "Still too much?"
Reynolds paused for a moment, glancing at the two twitching corpses. "No. That… was just enough."
She turned her attention back to the door, tapping into the control panel. "We're two levels away from the weapons cache. Intel says there's a fortified vault. Likely guarded by whatever's left of their elite security."
"Elite," Gerald said with a grin, flexing the bloodied fingers of his right hand. "Can't wait to meet them."
Reynolds gave him a look. "Just remember, Weston—controlled force."
Gerald nodded. "Of course. Controlled." He wiped his fingers clean with a cloth from his belt, "Besides… I'm just getting warmed up."
They stacked up at the door. Beyond it, the factory's lower levels waited—filled with secrets, heat signatures, and the next unlucky bastards who thought they could hold the line.
And Gerald Weston was walking in.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The metal door hissed open, revealing a narrow corridor dimly lit by overhead fluorescents. The team advanced quickly, rifles raised, eyes scanning for movement.
Gerald took the lead.
There were five mercs on this floor, spread out in a staggered patrol pattern. None of them knew they were being hunted.
The first was leaning against a steel crate, scrolling through a device, utterly distracted. Gerald crept up behind him like a ghost, then struck—his palm slammed into the man's cervical spine, right at C3. The blow shut down motor control without fracturing the vertebra, rendering the merc unconscious instantly. He collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut.
The second came around the corner. Before he could react, Gerald seized him by the collar and yanked him back into the shadows. One arm wrapped around the man's throat in a tight rear naked choke while the other clamped over his mouth. The merc struggled for six seconds—then slumped, unconscious. Gerald laid him down gently, checking his pulse. Stable.
The third stood near the vault access terminal, humming tunelessly. Gerald moved from above this time—leaping from a scaffold and landing behind him with silence. A swift strike to the solar plexus knocked the wind out of him, and a precise blow to the side of the neck—just below the mastoid—sent him into unconsciousness. He crumpled without a sound.
The fourth and fifth were trickier: two-man patrol, walking side-by-side down the central walkway.
Gerald timed it perfectly. He dropped behind them as they passed beneath a flickering light, then dashed forward in near silence.
He struck the first with a precision chop to the brachial plexus, stunning him instantly, followed by a sharp elbow to the base of the skull. As he fell, Gerald spun, driving his knee into the other's abdomen—crushing the diaphragm and folding him in half. He twisted the second merc's arm behind his back and applied pressure to the radial nerve bundle. The man jerked once, then passed out from the pain.
All five were down.
All breathing.
Gerald signaled the team, and they emerged from cover, impressed by the brutal efficiency of his work. Reynolds knelt beside one of the mercs and checked vitals.
"Clean," she said. "You left them in prime condition for interrogation."
Gerald shrugged, cracking his knuckles. "Didn't even use a fraction of my strength"
"Good. Because we'll need those." Reynolds nodded toward the vault. "Open it."
As Gerald approached the terminal, he couldn't help but glance back at the pile of groaning mercenaries.
"Honestly," he muttered, "they should be thanking me. This was the gentle version."
The door beeped. A mechanical hiss followed.
The vault was opening.
The vault door groaned open with a hydraulic hiss, releasing a gust of cold, recycled air. Inside, rows of reinforced weapon crates lined the walls, sealed with biometric locks. In the center, suspended in a containment cradle, hovered something… new.
A sleek, obsidian-black device, no larger than a rifle, but clearly not made for conventional warfare. Its frame shimmered faintly with internal power, etched with micro-filament channels and quantum insulation plating. Gerald approached slowly.
"What is that?" Reynolds asked, eyes narrowing.
Gerald tilted his head. "Something someone wasn't supposed to build."
Embedded into the weapon's side was a pulsating core—crystal-like, encased in stabilizing rings. The readout above it translated its purpose.
GRAVITON COLLAPSER MK II
"AUTHORIZED FOR ZERO-G THEATERS ONLY"
"PROPERTY OF DARKMATTER INITIATIVE"
Reynolds exhaled slowly. "Darkmatter? That's black-tier R&D. Not even SHIELD has access to this."
Gerald reached out and touched the weapon gently. "This thing doesn't fire bullets… it fires directional gravitational anomalies. Small-scale singularity bursts. You hit a person with this, they don't bleed. They fold in half—spatially."
She blinked. "You've seen this before?"
Gerald shook his head slowly. "No, but I've spent a good amount of time studying advanced science when I get the chance," he muttered
She looked at him, incredulous. "You study this kind of thing on your own?"
Gerald's lips curled into a slight, knowing smirk. "When you've got the kind of time I do, you learn to appreciate the finer things."
[Power Stone]