Multivers, Leveling Up in the World I Created

Chapter 396: 396 MCU 71

After Vulture had rested enough and returned, we started tracking Hydra again when suddenly Bruce ran up to me urgently.

"Jin! Turn on the TV right now. Something huge has happened!"

I turned on the TV immediately, and the news was broadcasting a special report that Captain America, Hawkeye, Thor, Falcon, and Scott (Ant-Man) had been designated as fugitives.

It was due to suspicions of collusion with Hydra, but the specific details hadn’t been released yet.

It seemed Scott had joined them just like in the original, but it wasn’t clear what had led to them being wanted.

"I’ll contact Rhodey to find out what happened."

"Okay."

I immediately contacted Rhodey to get more detailed information.

"Thanks to a citizen tip, the UN was able to track Hydra, but when they sent in a large number of agents to capture them, the Captain interfered. That’s how they ended up as fugitives. I wasn’t at the scene, so I don’t know the exact details, but I heard quite a few UN agents were injured and there was significant damage to the city."

"I see..."

"Things got crazy because of that. There was even talk of arresting all the Avengers, but I convinced them that the Avengers are now split into three teams and that the Captain’s team acted alone, so only the Captain’s team was designated as fugitives."

Rhodey said that, but in reality, the UN would have been under too much pressure to touch us as well.

To be precise, they probably judged that the information I possessed was too dangerous and fatal to them.

The fact that I’d made a proper strike earlier paid off at a moment like this.

If not, they would have just ignored what Tony or Rhodey said.

"By the way, it seems Tony has been working with the UN lately?"

"It’s similar, but to be exact, he’s working with Secretary Ross."

"So it came to that after all... Anyway, thanks for your help. I’ll buy you a drink next time."

"I’m always up for that. Anyway, I just hope the Captain doesn’t cause any more trouble."

After the call ended, I informed the members of this fact.

Natasha rubbed her face and said,

"The Captain... in the end, he caused trouble like this."

"We don’t know yet. Maybe he did it trying to stop Hydra’s plans."

Then Wanda spoke up.

"Honestly, I’m not sure. Maybe it’s his desire to save Bucky that’s making him keep pushing too hard."

"It’s too early to conclude anything. But since the Captain keeps doing this, it does put us in a difficult position, so we need to find Bucky or Rumlow quickly."

"Right. That seems like the only way to resolve things."

"Alright, let’s get to work right away."

Through Minerva and Vision’s analysis, we began tracking the locations where the Captain and the incident had taken place.

"Jin, by tracking the vehicles and routes Hydra used that day, we found an abandoned factory."

"Good, let’s head out immediately."

We took the Odyssey and moved to France, arriving at an abandoned factory.

There were no signs of people, but traces of multiple occupants remained.

It seemed Hydra had used this place as a temporary hideout.

We looked around for anything that could be useful information, but there wasn’t much.

It seemed they had cleaned everything up before leaving.

"Hah... Do we have to start all over again?"

Then Wanda showed us something.

"I found something strange inside a vehicle that was left behind. There was a brochure for ’Wolfs Pond Park.’ This is France, so why is there a brochure for a U.S. beach? It’s not like Hydra would go sightseeing."

At Wanda’s words, Bruce suddenly remembered something and spoke up urgently.

"Wait, that’s where Damage Control is! Could they be targeting Chitauri weapons?"

"They want power to oppose us. That is a very plausible scenario."

Vision also agreed, and after thinking for a moment, I said to the members,

"Hmm... It’s still hard to conclude with so few clues, but it’s certainly a possibility, so let’s return to the base and monitor the situation. The base isn’t far from Damage Control. And if we inform Damage Control about this, we might reduce casualties."

"Good idea."

"Alright."

Everyone agreed, so we returned to the base, informed Damage Control of this fact, and shared the CCTV feeds.

If anything unusual happened, Minerva would alert us immediately.

We continued tracking Hydra while keeping a close watch on Damage Control, and the wait wasn’t long.

As Bruce had predicted, before long, Hydra attacked Damage Control.

We immediately took the Odyssey and deployed.

By the time we arrived, Tony’s team was already there, engaged in a fierce battle with Hydra.

They must have heard the news through Damage Control as well.

ZING—!!! CRASH!!!

"Dammit, there are too many of them!"

Indeed, Hydra had brought a considerable number of super-soldiers, along with Rumlow and Bucky, and among them were some who fought very well—likely the Winter Soldiers awakened from Russia.

Moreover, they had already succeeded in seizing weapons and were fighting with Chitauri weaponry.

Because of that, Tony’s team was being pushed back despite having Rhodey (War Machine).

So I immediately gave orders.

"The situation doesn’t look good. Let’s join them quickly. Vision and Myo Myo, fly over to Tony’s team and help them. The rest of us will approach from the perimeter and push in with the Hulk Strikers while fighting."

"Got it!"

"Understood."

The members quickly disembarked from the ship and began subduing Hydra from the perimeter as planned, while Vision and Myo Myo joined Tony’s team to assist them.

Thwack! Smack! Thump!

"They really have numbers! When did they gather this many super-soldiers again? To create this many, there must have been a lot of victims too."

Natasha grumbled as she fought.

There certainly were a lot of them—roughly 200—and it was impressive that they had smuggled that many into the U.S. secretly.

But they all had a common feature: although there were a few Westerners among them, most were Asian.

Moreover, they seemed to have not received proper care from civilization—they hadn’t washed, gave off strange smells, had very rough hands, and almost all had short sports-style haircuts.

"No way..."

When I momentarily stopped fighting, Wanda urgently asked,

"Jin, what are you doing! We’re still in the middle of battle!"

"These are North Korean soldiers."

"Wha, what!? Th... Huff... That’s surprising, but let’s talk after this is over. It seems like it’ll be a long story."

"Right..."

Not only Wanda but the other members also seemed quite shocked by my words, but they focused on the battle for now.

The immediate situation was urgent.

I was quite shocked myself.

Maybe it was because I’m from Korea, but North Korea suddenly showing up here was unexpected.

The Hulk Strikers led the charge, roughly pushing through and subduing the enemies, while I used Mystic Arts to block the incoming beam weaponry and protect our allies.

Wanda and Cosmo used telekinesis to disarm the super-soldiers or lift them into the air and slam them to the ground, and Vulture used his plasma cannon from above to clear out surrounding enemies.

Natasha quickly subdued any enemies that got close with her agile combat skills.

Boom! Thump! Crash!

"Argh!"

"Gah!"

"Good, now we just need to join up with Tony."

But then, a loud noise started coming from where Tony was.

"It seems something’s happened on Tony’s side. We need to hurry."

"Right, but why is Damage Control so needlessly big!"

As Wanda grumbled, Bruce replied,

"When aliens invaded New York, the scale was huge. Plus, there was a lot of material from the S.H.I.E.L.D. incident and the Ultron incident, so it can’t be helped."

Then Vulture looked around and said,

"Boss, something’s off about Hydra. They’re not actively fighting—they seem to be just holding us back."

That was true.

After the loud noise from Tony’s side, for some reason they started attacking more passively or just holding us back, and began gathering their fallen comrades.

"They got their weapons, so maybe they’re preparing to run?"

"Even if that’s the case, we can’t do much about it right now. We don’t know what’s happening with Tony, so that’s the priority."

"Should I go ahead first?"

"Yeah, please. We’ll be right behind."

With that, Vulture flew ahead to where Tony was, and we followed after him.

Since Hydra wasn’t responding aggressively, we were able to arrive quickly.

But by the time we got there, it was already a complete mess.

Tony’s team was relentlessly attacking Rumlow and Bucky, and the Captain’s team—somehow having arrived at some point—was holding off Hydra while blocking Tony’s team’s attacks.

Hydra was taking advantage of the chaos to escape, and Vision, Myo Myo, and Vulture were watching the situation, unable to intervene.

"What in the world..."

The arriving members were also flustered.

"Boss... What should we do? Should we stop them?"

I thought for a moment at Vulture’s question and then said to the members,

"Let’s prioritize securing Bucky. From what I can see, that’s the best way to calm this situation. Don’t worry about the others."

"...Understood, Boss. But what about the bomb inside Bucky?"

"I’ll handle that with magic somehow. Vision and Myo Myo, block Bucky’s escape."

We dove into the chaos and tried to head toward Bucky, but Hydra blocked our path, and it seemed it would take time to get through them.

Still, I thought Vision and Myo Myo would be enough to prevent them from escaping.

Vision and Myo Myo flew quickly and cut off Bucky and Rumlow’s escape route, each firing a beam from their foreheads to draw an X in front of them as a threat.

"This is as far as you go. Give up. You can’t escape any further."

"Dammit, didn’t you hear there’s a bomb inside this guy!?"

Rumlow repeated his threats like last time.

He was a ruthless guy, but he didn’t seem very smart.

"It doesn’t matter. Our goal is only to prevent you from escaping."

Vision and Myo Myo had also noticed that and glared at them as if it didn’t matter, standing like statues blocking their way.

"Damn it..."

Just then, Iron Man flew over and unexpectedly praised Vision and Myo Myo.

"Good job! Vision, Myo Myo—leave the rest to me."

Tony said that and immediately fired a unibeam at Rumlow and Bucky, but the Captain quickly jumped in with his shield and blocked Iron Man’s unibeam.

ZING—!!! SHZZZZZZ—!!!

"Tony!! Bucky is a victim!"

"Cap, even if we subdue him safely, there’s no way to fix him!"

"There must be a way."

"Cap... I hate to say this, but I’ve looked into it and tried various things on Hydra’s brainwashed victims. They all failed. The right thing to do is to let him go peacefully."

"No. There might be another way."

Then Tony got angry and confronted him.

"Do you realize that because of you, the team is split, and our position has become difficult? Some of us have even become criminals!"

"Tony, I know. But peace built on sacrifices is not right. And Hydra is trying to swallow an entire nation right now."

"Wha, what!? Are you seriously asking me to believe that now?"

"We found out during our investigation. We only have circumstantial evidence, so it’s hard to say for sure..."

Tony was dumbfounded.

"Hah... You were saying all that without any evidence?"

"Tony..."

"Fine! If you’re going to keep being stubborn, so be it."

Tony, thinking further conversation was pointless, flew at the Captain and threw a punch, starting a fight.

Meanwhile, Thor and Rhodey were locked in combat, and Pietro and Hawkeye were also in the middle of a fight.

Falcon, Ant-Man, and Jess were dealing with Hydra’s super-soldiers, but they were outnumbered, and with the Winter Soldiers joining in, they were gradually being pushed back.

Then, somehow having gotten the information, Wakanda’s Royal Talon Fighter suddenly flew in and landed.

T’Challa and the Dora Milaje got out and began subduing Hydra, giving us a brief respite.

But from what I could see, the situation had only escalated into an even bigger mess.