The document signed by Nick Fury bore a bright red Top Secret label. Agent Hill carried it to complete the necessary procedures.
Within S.H.I.E.L.D., strict requirements governed every project and plan. After finishing the paperwork, Agent Hill went straight to a laboratory.
"So?"
She looked at the researchers inside.
"This experiment feels like it's pushing the limits of humanity, but at least it's much better than studying that terrifying scroll," said a seemingly frail yet shapely female researcher with a self-deprecating smile.
Her name was Dr. Jemma Simmons.
A young scientist recruited into S.H.I.E.L.D. by Coulson, she was exceptionally gifted in both alien and human life sciences. Because of that, she now led this unofficial laboratory.
"The scroll research has made decent progress, but it's already cost many lives. No one would dare touch it again." Agent Hill's expression remained stern, as always, showing little emotion.
"There was definitely a voice luring people in… damn it." Jemma Simmons spoke in defense of those who had died, her face still unsettled.
"I expect you all to learn from that. Be extremely careful in your research," Agent Hill warned seriously. The last thing she wanted was to see S.H.I.E.L.D. suffer more unnecessary casualties.
"They're just organs—how could they possibly talk?" Jemma Simmons asked, eyeing the cylindrical containers with suspicion.
The lab was filled with organs preserved in formalin.
Yet every organ writhed with unnatural vitality, defying scientific understanding of life itself.
"Who can say? What you need to do is figure out why they're alive and what happens when they're transplanted into a human body."
Agent Hill stepped closer to the containers.
"Did the Director really authorize cloning and further study?" Jemma Simmons followed her to the tanks.
"That's right."
Agent Hill showed her the document signed by Nick Fury.
"This project will operate jointly with the Devil's Scroll initiative, so you'll need to re-evaluate the lab's security protocols."
Her words were direct and to the point.
"What exactly are we trying to create here?" Jemma Simmons frowned.
"A force that can protect Earth."
Agent Hill studied the labels. The markings clearly indicated that they all came from someone named Wade.
Indeed.
These were Deadpool's organs—
The very ones he had once sold on the streets!
"All we can do is pray nothing goes wrong. Otherwise, we'll be the ones who opened Pandora's box."
A faint trace of unease flickered in Agent Hill's eyes. She knew all too well what would happen if research like this ever spiraled out of control.
Experiments with human enhancement had already produced a green monster. What S.H.I.E.L.D. was dealing with now was far more dangerous.
The power of demons, immortal organs… taboos among taboos. Hill didn't know whether Nick Fury's plan was the right path, but in a world growing ever more perilous, S.H.I.E.L.D. had no choice but to take risks.
"Let's just hope we don't end up making monsters."
...
S.H.I.E.L.D. was conducting secret experiments.
Meanwhile.
Herman had been wandering around New Mexico for a while.
New York was quite a distance from New Mexico, but with Herman's Raven Teleportation, anywhere he had already visited—no matter how far—was only moments away.
The moment Nick Fury left the Stellar Tower, Herman appeared directly in New Mexico, at the secret base where the Loom of Fate had once been hidden.
Since the base was in the middle of the city, Herman took some time to stroll the streets and soak in the local atmosphere.
To be fair, the food here was excellent.
Compared to typical American fare, New Mexico's flavors suited his palate far better.
Herman bought a serving of Mexican barbecue, eating as he walked out of the city. On the way, he ran into a blockade set up by a group of Mexican gangsters.
Probably noticing his designer clothes and the fact that he didn't look local, the gang members decided to grab him and extort his family.
"Sorry, I don't have any family here… but soon, your families won't either," Herman said in words the gangsters couldn't understand.
They raised their guns and tried to shout threats, but Herman seized control of their bodies, forcing them to turn their weapons on themselves.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
A burst of gunfire erupted.
The gangsters fell one by one, as if lined up to commit suicide.
Horrified, they realized their bodies weren't their own to command. They couldn't even beg for mercy—only stare wide-eyed as their fingers squeezed the triggers. Blood splattered across the street.
Among the scattered corpses, Herman kept eating his barbecue without flinching, then left the scene, abandoning the panicked, terrified crowd of onlookers behind him.
Before long, New Mexico police arrived.
"Gang shootout!"
Seeing the scene, they dismissed the witnesses' accounts and ruled the deaths as just another turf war.
They came quickly and left just as fast… In this land, gang violence was something law enforcement usually turned a blind eye to.
It wasn't that no officer had tried to interfere—those who did rarely lived long enough to try again.
Herman left the city, tossing away his empty paper bowl.
He propelled himself upward with Telekinesis, breaking through to the skies above the clouds. With the navigation system on his watch, he didn't have to worry about losing his way. After flying only a short while, he found the place where Thor's hammer had fallen.
The one managing the scene was his old acquaintance, Coulson. But here, his control was nowhere near as strict as it had been back in the States.
Maybe the agents he brought couldn't keep the locals in check. Whatever the case, Herman saw plenty of people holding a party right around the fallen hammer.
"Go, Jason!"
"Eli! Lift it up!"
Inside a massive crater, like one carved out by a meteor strike, crowds gathered around an iron hammer etched with complex runes, treating it like the centerpiece of a festival.
Tables, chairs, and grills had been set up. Drinks and booze of every color were being mixed and passed around.
"Skinny! Out of the way! Let me try!"
A heavyset man shoved aside a scrawny kid and stepped up to the hammer amid cheers and whistles.
He rolled up his sleeves, gripped the handle with both hands, and nervously adjusted his fingers.
"Come on, Tom! You're our strongman! You've got this!"
"Time to prove you're the champion!"
The crowd egged him on with laughter and shouts.
The man, Tom, swelled with confidence from their encouragement. He took a deep breath and shouted.
"Of course I can! I'm the best! I'm stronger than anyone!"
He braced his feet, flexed his thick arms, and strained with all his might.
"Ahhh!"
But no matter how hard he pulled, the hammer didn't budge an inch.
"Get up!"
Tom's face flushed purple with effort, humiliated by his failure, yet he still refused to let go of the hammer.
"He says he's super strong, and this is all he's got?" A man in sunglasses and casual clothes walked up to the cluster of black-suited agents.
They were Coulson and his team. Unable to stop the rowdy crowd, the agents had given up and blended into the party.
Of course, that didn't mean they'd completely let go.
They were still constantly monitoring Mjolnir's condition. But clearing out the civilians was impossible—they'd even faced armed resistance.
"I just got a call from the Director. Didn't expect you to show up this fast." Coulson looked at the man in sunglasses with surprise.
That man was Herman. He picked up a drink from the table behind Coulson and stuck a straw straight into it.
"I'm always fast. Don't tell me you've never read my ability profile?" Herman took a sip of the drink, its flavor distinctly Mexican.
"Direct spatial travel—pretty convenient. Saves you a lot on gas." Coulson admitted with a shrug.
"What's wrong? Couldn't follow protocol and disperse the crowd? Looks like U.S. credentials don't carry much weight here."
Herman teased the agents about their situation.
"We actually got Mexican police credentials too… but, well." Coulson let the sentence hang.
The meaning was clear enough.
Mexican police badges had even less credibility than FBI IDs.
"Maybe you should get some gang IDs made instead." Herman suggested as he grabbed a bag of chips from the table.
"My idea might be better. Why don't you just fly up and give these stubborn idiots a good scare?"
A buzz-cut agent walked over, carrying a compound bow on his back. "Maybe even flash those glowing eyes of yours while you're at it."
He showed no sign of fear toward Herman.
"Agent Barton," Coulson introduced, "he's in charge of security."
"Security? In this mess? Feels like I could retire on the spot." Barton spread cream cheese on bread, his tone laced with self-mockery as he took a bite.
They hadn't been on-site long.
S.H.I.E.L.D. had just discovered Mjolnir earlier than anyone else. But operating in New Mexico wasn't easy—they first had to deal with tensions with the local authorities.
If it weren't absolutely necessary, S.H.I.E.L.D. wouldn't even set foot in this so-called haven of narcotics.
That was exactly why HYDRA had chosen it for their war-mech research base—a base Herman had already found deserted on his way here.
Whiplash's rampage had left HYDRA extremely cautious.
"Not your fault. They had rocket launchers." Coulson pointed to a burly man nearby hefting one on his shoulder, offering Barton a word of consolation.
"Hawkeye."
Herman recognized him immediately.
Hawkeye—like Black Widow, a mortal who forced his way into the Avengers. His archery was superb, and his close-quarters weapon skills were extraordinary.
"So it's true. My identity is classified at Level Nine. Natasha said you had a mole inside S.H.I.E.L.D., and it looks like she was right."
Exposed by Herman, Hawkeye let out a low whistle, his direct tone carrying a note of admiration.
"You should dig a little deeper—you might uncover something big." Herman smiled knowingly, offering no further explanation.
His gaze shifted to the compound bow on Hawkeye's back. "I've heard of a legendary archer named Hanzo. I wonder who's stronger—you or him."
"An archer? Legendary?" Hawkeye perked up immediately.
"Absolutely. A mere mortal who fought against an army of Mecha Gods. His arrows even glowed blue when released."
Herman said it with complete seriousness.
...
Hawkeye felt a strange sense of awe.
"Blue fire? Sounds like some kind of enhancement to boost an arrow's lethality. Makes sense—you'd need something extra against armored enemies."
He analyzed Herman's words with complete seriousness.
"By the way, could you give me his contact? Maybe I could spar with him." Hawkeye looked at Herman with genuine sincerity.
"I don't have it. I've only heard of him. Maybe try your luck in Japan?" Herman was speechless at this man's total lack of humor.
"The Director said this thing that fell is a weapon from mythology? Thor's hammer, Mjolnir?" Coulson and his team, as mission operatives, had access to such intel. Like Nick Fury, he had been shaken by the revelation.
"That's right. A weapon forged by Odin using the core of a dead star." Herman stared at the hammer in the distance. He could already feel the laws woven into its power.
It was overwhelming—
And it carried a weight of absolute authority. That must have been Odin's enchantment, granting Mjolnir a fragment of divinity.
A God King had the power to confer godhood.
Even if the one being consecrated was a hammer.
"The core of a dead star? What's that?" Hawkeye asked. His knowledge outside of fieldwork was limited; he had been recruited for his specialized skills, not scholarly pursuits.
"A dead star—you can think of it as a sun that burned out. Odin used the core of such a sun to forge this hammer."
Herman explained matter-of-factly.
"No wonder no one can lift it. It's basically the core of a star!" Hawkeye's eyes went wide, looking as though his worldview had just expanded.
Herman didn't bother to explain that the hammer itself wasn't actually heavy—it simply couldn't be lifted because Odin had placed a kind of "password lock" on it.
"So… are we just waiting here for the hammer's rightful owner to show up?" Coulson admitted he had no idea how to handle a "diplomatic incident" like this.
All he could do was turn to Herman, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s so-called "envoy."
"What else? Call Odin down here?" Herman had, in fact, passed through the nearest town on his way.
There, he'd seen the future female Thor, Jane, along with her explosively fit friend, and Dr. Erik Selvig, who he knew would one day fall under Loki's control.
The trio was all there—
But Thor himself was nowhere to be found.
Maybe another butterfly effect had already unfolded, or maybe the thunder god was stuck halfway down the Bifröst.
Either way, without Thor… there was no way to resolve Nick Fury's imagined diplomatic standoff.
"When are the new IDs getting here?" Hawkeye asked suddenly, still focused on locking down the scene.
"An hour at most. We'll have the civilians cleared out by then." Coulson checked the tracking info for the delivery.
Hawkeye nodded.
"You're not going to try it? Coulson and I both gave it a shot earlier… no luck." He was curious whether the strength of this "Homelander" could lift the core of a star.
"No rush. I'm waiting for someone." Herman leaned against a table, watching the crowd gathered around Mjolnir.
"Thor?" Hawkeye guessed.
"No."
Herman's eyes darkened, carrying a deeper meaning.
"An old man."