Although he was very nervous, he was also excited; he couldn't pinpoint why, but he still sat on that stump, waiting for whoever found him first. He twiddled his fingers and looked around.
A Blackhawk flew over him, then did a U-turn and hovered near him. Soon, more Blackhawks came, but instead went past him deeper into the forest. Not long after the Blackhawks flew past him, he heard the crunching of leaves and thumping on the ground all around him. Then he was blinded as flashlights turned on, hitting his mask and body.
He had been encircled. He waited a second before he spoke out loud.
"Hello." He didn't hide his anxiousness, partly because he doubted he could, and because he didn't think he could convince the agents or soldiers.
Nobody present spoke; they kept their eyes stuck to his figure, unable to recall what they thought was the face. It was a long silence; neither side made a move, unclear as to why. Ant asked.
"I'm very willing to talk, so why aren't you? " He paused, "Don't you wanna know the secrets of the universe?" He emphasized the word universe; his little brain was working overtime to be cunning.
Chit-chat was off the table at the moment; however, as they were ordered to raise the place to hell, they were asked to capture some prisoners. They were ordered to capture Ant alive; thus, they moved in, shrinking the circle. Seeing his words fall on deaf ears, Ant made his move.
Unbeknownst to anyone present, he had been continually pumping out his mind-altering power into the atmosphere around him, using the magnifier. While Shield prepared against the reality anchor, they couldn't quite predict much more.
Within the span of a blink, every soldier felt intense pain in their heads, as their memories started to change into absurdities. It turned out that suddenly having all your memories, including those from only 1 second ago, altered, hurt a lot. Perhaps it's overstimulation of the neurons; who knows?
As the soldiers were unable to bear the pain, they collapsed on the ground. They were mentally resilient and had a high pain tolerance, but this was different, as the brain itself was actually getting fried; no normal soldier could withstand that type of pain.
Ant was a tiny bit surprised, as he didn't expect every soldier to go down like that; he expected that maybe 10 would have tanked it, not that he was complaining. He didn't actually understand the principle himself; he had just wanted to trick the soldiers by altering their minds, and expected some wouldn't be as affected; instead, they all suddenly collapsed.
Contrary to his usual nature, he didn't immediately break out into a sprint; he walked up to one of the unconscious soldiers and kicked him lightly. Then he squatted down and searched the soldier for a communication device.
It was small and resembled a hearing aid. When he found it, he put it on and started to walk far away from the unconscious bodies. The other end was not silent whatsoever; they were constantly trying to talk to Ant, but he stayed silent the whole way through his walk. The Blackhawks didn't follow, as the pilots were affected by the memory-altering, but their distance in the air allowed them to stay conscious, and barely keep the helicopter from crashing.
12 minutes, that's how long it took for the pilots to recover. As soon as they did, they were bombarded with orders, talking, and shouting. It was a bit overstimulating after the mental fatigue. By this point, Ant had walked quite a distance away, yet he refused to talk. SHIELD didn't shut communication off, though; they really wanted to interrogate him.
30 minutes later, the unconscious soldiers began to wake up, with a throbbing headache and extremely altered memories; they were so altered, to the point that they couldn't talk, they could make sounds, but not English words. These people would never be the same; they have been dissociated from their own memories too much, and their brains fried. It wouldn't be a stretch to call them disabled.
The person behind all this was still walking, now a considerable distance away from the area.
"Listen, I dislike stress as much as the next guy." These were his first words spoken since he had picked up the device.
"So, let's do something beneficial for both of us. I'll answer a question, and you answer mine." There was a small pause before a familiar voice came through.
"Why would I believe you?" It was Fury; he had been overseeing the operation as much as he could. He had seen the moment the soldiers collapsed, and he had been waiting for a chance to talk.
"I wouldn't dare, especially when I desperately need my question answered truthfully." He was not lying; this question was the only one that could be answered by someone like Fury.
"I'll ask first, then, what exactly is your group's goal?" He had decided on this question, as it was fairly simple, and would lower the odds of lying by the opposite party, as the question was not super invasive.
"Well, that's simple. Our goal is to Secure, Contain, and Protect-" He stopped abruptly, he decided just that would do.
"Now it's my turn, the UNGOC or the Global Occult Coalition, you haven't happened to hear of them before today?" This question held a lot of invisible weight that couldn't be felt unless you knew the depths of it.
There was a silence on Fury's side as they searched that name up on databases; they found nothing, but Fury was less than happy, them not knowing of this coalition, which apparently operated globally, struck a nerve, since when was SHIELD this uninformed?
"No," He answered truthfully.
"Alright, friendly reminder, seeing as we work in a similar Field, that girl you had within your ranks is definitely a reality bender, probably a part of the Serpent's Hand, so I suggest you find her fast." He paused briefly as he crossed a street.
"Speaking of the Serpent's Hand, their goal is to free all the monsters, such as the shadow monster, which I'm assuming she freed, so I suggest you never work with them and instead focus on purging them." He mixed in a couple of truths and a couple of lies; there's no need to think too hard about it.
He pocketed the device and opened a door. The aroma of coffee was strong. He walked up to the counter, ordered a coffee and a donut. He was in Canada in a small border town, luckily, this one accepted USD. He pulled out his phone and contacted his MTF agents, who arrived as fast as they could.
When they pulled up, he had already devoured his donut, leaving only his coffee mostly finished. The adrenaline he was powering on the entire walk subsided, and he was feeling it. The coffee and donut were only going to keep him up a tad longer, so he needed to say the phew words he could before exhaustion took him to the land of unreality.
He walked out of the cafe and went up to the pickup truck. He didn't question where it came from.
"I'm exhausted, I doubt I'll stay conscious for much longer, so let me give you the game plan. For one, we need to head deep into Canada and hide out for a while." He reached into his pocket and pulled out the communicator.
"And this, keep this safe, if anybody talks through this, use Google Translate or something to talk, u can figure the rest out, I'm going to sleep." With those words, he climbed into the truck and passed out.
The MTF that got out, got back in the cars, and drove off presumably deeper into Canada. As this was happening, all the people affected by Ant's power were taken to receive medical help, and it became clear what exactly happened to them pretty fast, or so they think. Each of them was unable to speak, so they assumed they had just lost the ability to speak; little did they know.
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That's the end of this chapter.
1410 Words
Idk if this chapter has plot holes. I've re-read it many times because I wrote it over a period of unnecessary proportions, but it's all good, regarding updates, hopefully the next one should come about before July.