—
The hustle and bustle of Queens' streets outside my safehouse window don't seem to be able to distract me from something gnawing at my mind. The past few days, it's been coming to me everywhere and I'm frustrated by it. The mind turns to so many different things when you're this tired. The things and the horrors of my past life, once buried by the hope and expectation for more in this run, it's all coming back to me. It's all my fault.
The mind justifies the body's actions. I think this had to happen. On a long enough timeline, everyone's survival rate drops to zero. She was ready to die any moment. It's not on me.
Snow on the Carpathians, wet and thin as ash. Her laugh seemed to encompass the whole village square. She said that it was her first time seeing snow. She was new to Brooklyn, but it never crossed my mind. We shared a flask of something that night that burned all the way down. But the pain I'm feeling today isn't the kind that burns.
I'm tired of being reminded that I'm guilty. I'm so tired.
And when you're tired, you can't think. You think of course, but you think of all the wrong things in all the wrong ways. You even start to appreciate the good old days. The days when you weren't tired. You slow down and you get bogged down by questions left unanswered.
Who killed Sylvia? What was she doing?
When did this happen? Where in Transylvania?
How was she killed? What were her last words before she died?
Memories upon memories of our every meeting and every booty call seemed to weigh down on my mind with every step and every breath and everything. I can't walk right. I can't breathe right. I can't sleep right. I get tired, and I think to myself, can it get any harder than this, and it would get harder.
Every night, I ask Deep Blue, is there something wrong with me, and he says, nothing's wrong, sir.
I would look into the mirror and never see my face. I would get dressed up and I would try to take one step out the door and I'm paralyzed. I've been starving in this place for days now. I miss the taste of real food, not just zero-point energy flooding into my blood vessels as cerulean mercury.
AAARGH!
I need this to stop. I need to eat. I need to drink water and I need to touch grass and I need to-
You don't need any of those things, do you, Halloway?
A puddle of water made from my tears began to warp my reflection into the face I keep dreaming of.
I feel the puddle rippling like synesthesia, fully knowing that it hasn't moved for the past hour. But I see her.
Her face, emaciated and ran-through by maggots and some other subterranean race. Cold and lifeless and without any blood or water. She seemed tired too…
"You don't need food. You don't need water. You don't need me. You only need them. The ones who took me from you."
I staggered back from the warped reflection, but the voice followed, vibrating in my skull, echoing in every nerve.
No, no, no. Deep Blue, tell me this isn't real-
The synthesized voice I've grown weary of resounded through my ear canal again.
No external entity detected. No presence confirmed.
I held my breath and smashed through the wall behind me. I made sure the carbon plating I had Deep Blue automatically deploy whenever I expected an extreme impact wouldn't stop me on this one. Enhanced strength but no enhanced durability. My hand, forearm and elbow bent in an unnatural way as blood formed and guzzled beneath the skin.
Pain makes me remember I'm alive, even though I hate it.
Sylvia's warped reflection smiled, teeth glinting like knives.
"Your guilt is what makes you special, Ethan. You always were too… affectionate. You never saw me for me yet now you're dying for me. Don't you see the irony in that?
Hydra will never starve. Hydra will never sleep. And neither can you. They turned me into an offering. What will you become?"
I closed my eyes, but I couldn't shut her out. I could still hear her, see her, feel her hand on mine. The phantom warmth, the phantom weight, the phantom pain.
"Stop," I whispered. My voice broke. "Please… stop."
I tasted bile and iron in my throat.
I can't pretend anymore. All this time, I've only been pretending. I would think and say and act differently but I knew. The truth still hasn't come to me.
I'm in another world. 'I', as I know it, is dead. It needs to be burned, broken, left behind. It needs to be born anew.
I need to die. And I need to be born again. I won't fail again.
Pain makes me remember I'm alive. And as long as I'm alive, Hydra isn't safe.
—-
VIPER POV
A long table under the flicker of dying bulbs. Maps, candles, weapons. A tall, austere man whose looks were reminiscent of cold-blooded animals and Victorian era organisms walked in, wearing a standard Hydra uniform.
I'll have to start the conversation, it seems. "John Falsworth, yes? Epithet: Baron Blood?"
"Affirmative."
"You know Kraken and Hive? And Gorgon?" I said as I postured towards the people to my sides.
"Hive, we met. Kraken and Gorgon, by… reputation."
"Good evening," said Kraken.
Hive simply hissed slowly to announce his presence.
Falsworth pointed to me slightly, "aren't you with… with the…"
"Yeah, that's right. Look, John, there's no easy way to go about this… we're taking you off the Transylvanian desk."
"What… why?"
"In fact, we're moving you out of the Thule Society completely."
"That's it- No conversation?"
"We're having a conversation right now, John. This doesn't have to be unpleasant."
"Sarkissian, with all due respect- what the fuck are you talking about?"
"And why is Kraken here?"
"Look, John-"
"What the fuck is this? First, you brand me a traitor, then this? Is it my- I know it's not my work."
"Falsworth-"
"I can die for the Society if need be!I 'm a great fucking occultist! Is it-"
"John, you know things aren't going well. As you know."
Gorgon intercepted.
"You're old."
Stunned silence. I look at Hive but he sways his head against me.
"I'm… old."
I responded, "This doesn't have to be unpleasant. We found you something in Britain. It's-"
Kraken continued.
"-a lower clearance level. Yes. But we're not, this isn't us terminating you."
"This is an assault." Falsworth whispered.
Gorgon raised one of his eyebrows with a smirk.
"This is an assault. I'm… old? Fuck you, Gorgon, you're just a rookie from Hand who got in here from nepotism!"
"Come on, John-"
"Next to you, we're all old! Bloody hell! Whose ass didn't I kiss? Let's be honest!"
I nod at Kraken.
"Okay, Falsworth," said Kraken, trying to take control.
He gets to his feet, agitated and wrathful.
"... This is a crucifixion! This is political!"
He bellowed as he posed like the cross.
"Don't tell me it's not!"
He storms out the door.
Through my enhanced hearing, I can hear his remarks through the door.
"... I'm old?!"
The door slams after Baron Blood storms out. The silence lingers, heavy and choking.
Kraken fiddles with his gloves.
"He'll cool off," he said as he shuffled the rounds of his helmet, "he'll die of old age down south."
Hive twitches like he's hungry, wet with contempt. "He's the first to be exiled but he won't be the last."
Gorgon looks amused at the mess. "If weakness offends him, let him call it crucifixion. Better to prune dead branches than water them."
They're blind. They're busy licking their wounds. None of them see it. None of them see the truth screaming in front of their faces.
"We reconvene at dawn. There's business elsewhere." Kraken cleared his throat, trying to salvage whatever's left.
They shuffle out, and no one looks back at me.
The dying bulbs above flicker. Shadows writhe across my face.
Hydra is bleeding out. Hydra fractures, Hydra doubts, Hydra gnaws at its old bones while the enemy sharpens blades at our throats.
They don't see it but I do. This is the start of a civil war. Eventually, this'll snowball into something that could serve as the final blow to Hydra; the straw that broke the camel's back.
Not if I'm here.
Now, Shield is closing in on major operations all around the world, exploiting the moments of weakness we've had over the last month. Thule Society members are getting massacred, mass-killed or missing in action.
Hydra is bleeding. Kraken's bases of operations have gone haywire. Gorgon is… Gorgon. Hive is up to no good, what with the secret meetings with Baron Blood.
In every war, one must raise the banner. I can be the rallying point for every Hydra member in the Western Hemisphere. I don't need to unite them. I just need to make them fear the symbol. To rage against the ones against them. To commit loyalty to me. With these, I can save Hydra.
Hydra, as I see it now, is worthless. It does nothing for the collective good of anything at all. It is a stationary object, trying to control something that isn't worth controlling. Despite years of servitude to the cause, I cannot even begin to convince myself that Hydra has a valid point.
What is the point of conquering a world that is already choking on its own leash? Governments are carcasses being dragged by maggots in suits. Slavery runs constantly through many forms, ever-changing, ever-cruel. And even though Hydra could, in the blink of an eye, fix the world…
It can't. It's a redundant organization. Hydra pretends to be the knife at the throat, but we are just another parasite feeding on a host already dying.
And yet… in death there is opportunity.
In the modern day, the true ideals of Hydra are muddled by the continuous degradation and perversion of the creed. The spirit borne of fire and death becoming more than itself with every failure eventually to pursue the greatest form of itself. That is why Hydra was born. That is what kept it alive.
I must take that banner and raise it up once again. Not to revive the Hydra of today but to supersede it.
For one final glorious evolution.
And I will be the one to unleash it!
===
Sorry for the short chapter today. It would just feel disjointed if I added more. But seriously guys, comment once or twice. Maybe drop a review. I just need interaction.
The only things to come out of you guys's mouths are directions for what templates to add, asking if there'll be harems, and whether or not the protag will have a hero complex.
To answer your questions, I do have templates in mind, but I'm open to change. DO make sure that the template is above the mc's current power level, whose memories and the life they lead is relevant to my story, and that they look good.
No, the mc will not have a hero complex. He won't be a villain or an anti-hero. He's going to have a messiah complex.
Harems are a sensitive topic. Romance is something that consistently isn't done right. Happyvainglory's novels show decent romance but the punchlines come easy so there's not a lot of substance. Marvel: breezing through history has a great romance that builds up over time, but that's it. The most enjoyable part was when they were working up to it. it doesn't have a great depiction of life after being husband and wife. They got a kid and that's it. Harems are even more difficult. Who in their right rational and proper mind would share their partner? How can I even begin to justify that and how would that contribute to the story if not to entertain you guys and nothing more?
Anyway, give me powerstones.