Chapter 261
[SHIELD Headquarters, New York]
"Good evening gentlemen, what do you think of this?" Nick Fury asked two of his most trusted subordinates namely Agent Maria Hill and Agent Phil Coulson and pushed forward the file, both Agent Coulson and Agent Hill looked curiously at the file…
A huge stamp could be seen on the top of the file 'CLASSIFIED Level-10'. Both Agent Hill and Coulson knew that to read this file you needed Clearance Level-10, which was the highest Clearance level, the one their Director Nicholas Joseph Fury had.
Now, they were being shown a file, which could only be seen by Director Fury, so they knew that it must be something serious. Agent Coulson finally picked up the file and opened it, holding it in front of him in such a manner that Agent Hill can see it too.
Both of their eyebrows shot up, a huge frown marred their faces as soon as they saw the first page. On the first page, a picture of a glowing blue cube was attached. They already knew what this meant… whatever was inside this file was related to Tesseract.
With a deep scowl on their faces, they read the first page and understood what the higher-ups wanted from them. "Sir, are we really going to do this?" Agent Hill asked in a worried tone.
Someone high-ranking like Agent Hill already knew what Tesseract was and what kind of disasters this thing could lead to, so she wasn't excited after reading the file.
"This is out of my hand, now. The World Security Council wants a weapon to fight Leviathan and this was right in front of them… so, we all know how easy it was for them to make such a decision" Fury spoke in an indifferent tone.
Fury didn't care about what methods he was going to use but he also believed that Leviathan was a threat to Earth that needed to be dealt with as quickly as possible. "We already know those normal weapons aren't much threat to Leviathan" Fury growled, both Agent Hill and Coulson reluctantly nodded their heads.
"But sir, we would need to be careful with this, we can't let PHASE 2 become public knowledge" Agent Coulson said carefully.
"Agent Coulson, I completely agree with you in that regard" Fury sighed and nodded his head. He also knew what kind of backlash it would have if this thing got out… personally, he would have preferred the Avengers Initiative but that wouldn't work because he was currently lacking the super-humans for the Avengers Initiative.
"Hill, from today onwards, I am putting you in charge of PHASE 2, it must be done behind the scenes, it must be kept under wraps… on the front, we would be studying the Tesseract collaborating with NASA to continue Project PEGASUS, I will be assigning Agent Barton to keep an eye on the Tesseract when the scientists are around" Fury dished out the orders. Agent Hill nodded her head in acceptance.
"Agent Hill, this is an abandoned facility in Mojave Desert, Nevada. SHIELD recently acquired this… I think it would be nice if it was put into some use" Fury said while pushing forward another file but this didn't have a 'CLASSIFIED' stamp on it. Agent Hill nodded her head… both Agent Coulson and Hill knew that Director Fury was telling them to use this place to keep the Tesseract.
After that, they dished out some minor details regarding PHASE 2. When they were finally done… Fury released a huge sigh and rubbed his bald head. "Coulson, what's the status of Super Soldier Serum General Ross was working on?" Fury asked. At first, Agent Coulson frowned when he heard the question but his facial expressions returned to normal in a second.
"Very little, all the scientists working under him don't even know that they are trying to recreate the Super Soldier Serum. General Ross, also lacks a base product to use as the starting point" Coulson finished with a scowl on his face.
He didn't like this Project, and this fact wasn't a secret from anyone. Since his personal emotions were getting in the way, Fury had to pull him out of the Project, currently, Agent Barton was overseeing the Project. The reason Coulson didn't like this Project was because he was an avid fan of Captain America.
The recreation of Super Soldier Serum would lead to the recreation of Captain America and according to him there could be no one who could possibly take the place of Captain America or Steve Rogers. But Agent Barton reported back to Agent Coulson so, Coulson had to grit his teeth and carry on his job.
"Let's wait and see what happens" Fury said with disappointment clear in his voice. "What about the Project General Newman was talking about?" Fury asked with a slight interest in his voice.
"The President is still reluctant to give the green light. He had read reports of the things General Stryker has done and the mistakes his predecessor has made… he is scared with how Leviathan would react if he finds out" Coulson stated. Both Fury and Agent Hill gave him odd looks.
"Leviathan had affected our way of life on a much deeper level than we had first thought" Agent Hill murmured with clear distaste in her voice.
Hearing both statements Fury's face soured, he felt like he swallowed a bug, it took a few seconds for him to get his indifferent look back on his face. "There is nothing we could do now… even though I don't like it but I agree with the President, currently we have no way of dealing with Leviathan and General Newman's Project would definitely attract Leviathan's ire" Fury finished while he was gritting his teeth in frustration.
"What does this so-called Project entail?" Agent Hill asked curiously, she knew that General Newman was trying to get his Project passed but the President was in clear denial. She had no idea about the Project… but it was clear now that both Agent Coulson and Director Fury knew about it.
Agent Coulson looked towards Director Fury for permission who just nodded his head indifferently. Coulson turned towards his fellow colleague "We already know, that every human has X-Genes inside their bodies… what makes us different from the mutants is that the X-Genes are active in their bodies while those genes lie dormant in our bodies" Coulson said and decided to take a small pause so that Agent Hill could digest the information. When Agent Hill nodded her head, Coulson decided to continue.
"General Newman wants to find a way to jump-start the X-Genes inside our bodies without any repercussions, when he is successful he wants to make our own force of mutants so that we could fight against Leviathan" Coulson finished with a wry smile on his face.
"Now, I can understand why the President would be reluctant to give the green light" Agent Hill said and nodded her head sagely. Both Coulson and Fury nodded their head sullenly…
[Kamaj-Taj, Nepal]
With a huge grin on her face, Luna walked out of the portal followed by the Ancient One. Both of them arrived in the Ancient One's room. The Ancient One was somewhat bored so she decided to meet Luna and invite her for some tea.
Luna obviously agreed and decided to join the Ancient One. The Ancient One gestured Luna to sit who happily plopped down. Luna had her usual dreamy look on her face.
"So, how have you been, Luna?" the Ancient One asked and waved her hand, and sets of teacups and snacks appeared on the table.
Luna beamed and happily accepted the tea and snacks. "I have been nice, thanks for asking" Luna said and took a small sip from her cup. The Ancient One smiled when she heard Luna's reply.
"Luna, I wanted to ask you if you knew something about the disturbances in the dimensions?" The Ancient One asked curiously. It has been a few days since she had noticed some minor disturbances in some dimensions. It was not major and she could have chucked them as a common occurrence but for whatever reason, she decided to talk with Luna.
Luna thought for a few seconds, she obviously knew what was causing the problems but she wanted to check if she could tell the Ancient One about it or not. When she finally confirmed that there won't be any problems she decided to tell the Ancient One about it.
"It was due to the destruction of alternate timelines" Luna answered cryptically.
"The destruction of alternate timeline?" the Ancient One asked with a confused look on her face.
Luna took another sip "Yes, alternate timelines, they could be really dangerous. So, there is an organization called Time Variation Authority that intervenes and destroys an alternate timeline when created. According to them, there should be only one timeline and I completely agree with them" Luna said and took a small pause to see how the Ancient One was reacting.
"Wow… that's a lot to take in" the Ancient One said with a shocked look on her face…