[Meanwhile, Back on Earth]
The Hand had survived centuries by doing one thing exceptionally well: disappearing before the blade fell.
This time, there was nowhere left to hide.
Over the last six weeks, their infrastructure had collapsed piece by piece. Safe houses burned. Supply lines vanished overnight. Assassins went missing and never resurfaced. Three of the Five were already dead.
The Hand had gathered in New York City, at the Midland Circle Financial Building. It was also their dig site where they were trying to find the dead dragon's skeleton to create the elixir of immortality. Alexandra Reid was there. So was Elektra, along with her blade and shadow. Madame Gao's group was present, as were the survivors of Murakami.
The lobby doors opened with a chime.
Emma Frost walked in first, heels clicking softly against marble. Her white coat was immaculate. Her expression was calm as usual. But somewhere behind that mask of calmness, she was worried about her sister Sophia, who the Hand took years ago.
Frank Castle followed at her side, skull vest partially hidden beneath a jacket, rifle already in his hands. He scanned angles out of habit, not concern.
The first wave of Hand assassins came at them from the flanks.
They never reached striking distance.
Emma simply flicked her finger. The assassins froze mid-step, confusion flashing across their faces.
Then the screaming started.
Hands turned on hands. Blades found throats they had trained beside for years. A kunai buried itself in a man's eye socket as he begged in a language Emma did not bother translating. Two others lunged at each other, fighting with feral desperation, neither understanding why they suddenly hated the person in front of them.
Frank did not interfere.
He stepped through the carnage, put a single round into anyone who looked like they might regain control, and kept walking.
They passed the elevator.
Frank glanced at it. "Faster."
Emma didn't slow down. "Predictable."
She turned toward the stairwell and pushed the door open.
The first stairwell floor was already full of assassins rushing down.
Emma lifted two fingers.
They stopped, turned and ran upstairs instead, straight into the blades of their own reinforcements pouring down from above. The stairwell became a vertical slaughterhouse. Bodies fell down the steps, limbs bent wrong, blood streaking the walls.
Frank walked through the mess.
Floor by floor, Emma repeated the pattern.
Sometimes Emma took their minds and broke them gently, making them believe their allies were demons, traitors, monsters wearing familiar faces.
Sometimes she was less subtle and simply shattered their sense of self, leaving them screaming, clawing at their own eyes.
Frank handled the rest with bullets.
By the tenth floor, the Hand stopped charging.
By the fifteenth, they tried traps.
By the twentieth, they prayed.
None of it mattered.
They reached the top floor with blood and guts splattered and dripping on the stairs behind them and silence ahead.
The doors opened into a wide chamber of polished wood and ancient decor, relics of old power trying desperately to look modern.
Alexandra Reid stood at the center, hands folded behind her back, face tight but composed.
Elektra was beside her, sai already in hand, eyes locked on Frank with a predator's focus.
Madame Gao leaned on her cane, lips pressed thin. Murakami's remaining lieutenants flanked the room, tense, ready.
Emma stepped forward.
"Good," she said calmly. "You saved me the trouble of hunting you down individually."
Alexandra smiled faintly. "Emma Frost. Always so direct."
Emma's eyes hardened. "Where is my sister?"
Elektra shifted her stance.
Frank raised his rifle slightly.
The room held its breath.
Alexandra exhaled. "You misunderstand the situation. You have walked into the heart of the Hand. You are outnumbered."
Frank tilted his head. "I don't think so." He activated his nanite suit. The black gooey nanites emerged from his gloves, covering his entire body. His HUD lit up and instantly locked on to everyone in the room and those few hidden in the ceiling.
Emma took another step forward, psychic pressure rolling off her like a storm front.
"Last chance," she said. "You tell me where Sophia is, or I peel this place apart... starting with your memories. Ever wondered what it feels like to be trapped in an eternal nightmare, unable to live..." She reached out to the minds of the minions around them. "...unable to die."
The air in the chamber thickened as Emma's telepathy surged outward.
Every remaining assassin stiffened where they stood.
Weapons fell to the ground with a loud noise. Swords slipped from hands that could no longer feel. Guns dropped as well. Some people tried to scream, but their voices were stuck, and no sound came out. Others didn't understand what was happening until their bodies stopped moving.
Then the screaming began.
It was not loud at first. It started as whimpers, shallow breaths, choking gasps as panic set in. Eyes darted wildly, pupils dilating as their minds were pulled inward and twisted. Emma simply removed the walls that kept their fear contained and flooded their minds with insanity.
They saw what they had done.
They felt every life they had taken press back against them at once. Guilt bloomed like poison. Terror followed. Some sobbed openly, tears streaking down frozen faces. Others screamed as their own thoughts turned into knives, cutting again and again with no way to look away.
One man tried to bite his tongue off to end it. His jaw did not move. Another collapsed to his knees, body locked in place, eyes rolled back as his mind shattered.
The room was filled with the sound of breaking people.
Madame Gao's cane struck the floor once.
[Boom!] A massive wave of telekinesis energy swept over the room, killing every single one who fell under Emma's influence. Then Gao shifted the force toward Emma and Frank.
"It's useless," Emma raised her hand again, creating a force field dome around Frank and her.
The telekinetic wave hit the dome like a freight train, compressing the air inside until it vibrated. The floor cracked in spiderweb patterns beneath their feet. The furniture shattered as if struck by a hurricane.
Emma did not step back.
"So, this is why you didn't run while I was killing your minions. But... if this is all you've got then..."
Multiple cracks appeared on Emma's force field.
Madame Gao stomped her staff once again, sending another massive telekinetic blast at Emma, which shattered her force field, sending them flying.
Emma and Frank crashed through into what had once been a conference hall, skidding across shattered stone and overturned tables. Emma hit first, diamond skin taking the brunt of the impact, sparks flashing where her body carved a trench through reinforced flooring. Frank landed hard behind her, boosters flaring just enough to keep his spine intact as he rolled and came up on one knee, rifle already tracking.
They did not get a second to breathe.
Murakami was already moving.
He burst through the collapsing wall like a missile, his body glowing with a dark energy. He struck Emma directly in the chest. This was not just a strong hit; it combined skill and precision. The blow aimed to damage her organs instead of just breaking bones.
Emma slid backward, boots carving lines in the floor, diamond form holding but ringing from the impact like struck crystal.
Frank fired.
Murakami twisted, impossibly fast, rounds tearing through the space where his head had been. He closed the distance in two steps and brought his fist down toward Frank's weapon arm. Frank blocked with his forearm. The collision sounded like metal on stone. Pain flared even through the suit as chi bled through the nanite armor.
Behind Murakami, Elektra moved.
She slipped along the edges of the chaos, eyes never leaving Emma. She waited for the moment she had been trained for since childhood.
Emma shifted.
The diamond sheen rippled away as she reverted to flesh. Her eyes flared white as telepathic force surged outward, slamming into Murakami's mind like a spike. He staggered half a step, jaw tightening as foreign thoughts and memories tried to tear their way in.
That half step was enough.
Elektra struck.
She appeared behind Emma, silent as a held breath, and drove a sai forward with surgical precision. The blade slid between Emma's ribs, punching through muscle and lung. Blood bloomed dark and fast across white fabric.
Emma gasped, the telepathic field collapsing instantly.
She turned just enough to see Elektra's eyes, calm and focused, before the assassin twisted the blade and ripped it free.
Emma fell to one knee.
Murakami recovered and followed up immediately, his kick catching Emma across the side of the head and sending her sprawling across the room. She hit a broken pillar and slid down, leaving a smear of red against the stone.
Frank roared and opened fire.
Elektra vanished into motion, deflecting rounds with her blades and impossible angles. Murakami advanced through the barrage, chi hardening his body, bullets flattening or deflecting as they struck. Frank switched to heavy munitions, shoulder launcher snapping open as he fired a concussive round point blank.
Murakami crossed his arms and took it.
The explosion tore the floor apart and threw him backward through a support beam, but he rolled to his feet on the far side, bleeding but grinning through it.
Then the air changed.
Frank felt it before he saw it.
Pressure wrapped around him from all directions. His armor screamed warnings as internal supports buckled. He was lifted off the ground, limbs pinned, rifle torn from his hands and crushed into a useless knot.
Madame Gao stepped forward, cane tapping once against the floor.
Her eyes glowed yellow for a moment.
"No one can defy the Hand," she said quietly.
She clenched her hand.
Frank screamed as the telekinetic force tightened, compressing his chest until his breath came in ragged gasps. The nanites fought to reinforce his frame, rebuilding and breaking in the same instant. His bones cracked and blood filled his mouth before his body went limp.
Across the room, Emma forced herself upright.
Blood soaked her clothes, her breathing shallow and wet. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and smiled anyway, teeth red.
Madame Gao used her telekinesis to pull Emma closer to her. She looked into her eyes and felt Emma's telepathy trying to invade her mind, but it was useless. Gao has lived for over 400 years and mastered Chi, which can resist telepathy. She said, "So you continue your fight, but for how long, I wonder."
However, Gao's eyes widened as the world turned upside down. She lost her sense of direction as her body fell into nothingness.
Murakami took out his gun, put it in his mouth and shot himself.
Electra appeared behind Alexandra and stabbed her lung and heard at the same time with her twin sai.
"Kugg!!" Alexandra's eyes widened. "What are... you... doing?"
Then they heard the shattering sound of a mirror as the world around them shifted, revealing the truth.
Emma and Frank stood before them without a single scratch, and so did everyone.
Murakami gasped as he stumbled back. He remembered dying a moment ago. "What the..."
Madame Gao fell to her knees, gasping for air as she finally stopped falling. Alexandra and Electra gasped as they realized what just happened.
They were never in control in the first place...
...Emma was.
Emma repeated the cycle of killing them over and over again while extracting information about her sister from their minds. But she decided not to torment Electra after she looked through her memories once.
Finally, she got a location and extracted all the secrets they had been hiding for centuries.
"Stop it!" Murakami was the first one to break.
"Yes. It's time to stop it," Emma said as she looked at them with an ice-cold glare before she used her Psionic Blasts inside their heads and just killed them on the spot. Then she turned around. "Take Electra with you and go to Stark Tower. I'll call in the Shield agents and Yelena."
"Your sister?" Frank asked.
"She's okay, and I know where to find her," Emma said, letting out a breath she had held for years. She was so glad to know that Sophia was alive.
----
[Back on Mars]
Tony made a tent while Wanda made a little campfire near the tent.
"So, we need some food," She said.
Tony made two fishing rods using his nanites and gave one to Wanda. "Up for a little fishing challenge?" He smirked.
"No powers?" Wanda narrowed her eyes.
He nodded, "No power."
--
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