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*****
"She's a spy?"
Tony stood there, momentarily stunned. He turned his head to look at Natasha, who offered no rebuttal. His expression soured instantly, looking as though he had just swallowed something truly foul—honestly, it was a level of disgust far beyond merely finding a fly in his soup.
"Fine," Tony snapped, his voice tight with annoyance. "You're fired!"
Natasha merely shrugged, her face a mask of nonchalance. In truth, her mission during this period had been relatively easy. There had been no need for actual combat; she only had to perform simple intelligence gathering, report on Tony Stark's activities, and provide a personality profile. It was light work.
Pepper, however, was in a state of utter disbelief. Her small hand flew to her mouth as she stared at Natasha, her voice trembling slightly. "Natasha, did you really…?"
"I'm sorry, Ms. Potts," Natasha replied. Her impression of Pepper was actually quite high, and she truly didn't want their relationship to sour completely. She attempted to explain, "I was only responsible for conducting an evaluation of Tony Stark. It wasn't anything personal."
Despite the explanation, Pepper remained fuming. To realize that the person she had personally promoted and trusted as a close confidante was actually an undercover agent made her feel like a complete fool. Consequently, she had no objections whatsoever to Tony's decision to fire her—after all, Pepper was technically Natasha's actual employer at Stark Industries.
Standing to the side, Rhodey watched the scene unfold with a look of confusion. He was the least informed regarding the underlying web of secrets, but his sharp observational skills allowed him to piece together the general situation. Knowing his position as a military liaison made it inappropriate to interfere in Tony's private affairs, he chose to pivot the conversation.
"So," Rhodey asked, breaking the tension, "what's the plan for all this?"
As soon as he spoke, the area fell silent. The surrounding battlefield was a gruesome sight, a landscape of twisted metal and scorched earth that was genuinely harrowing to behold. Worse still, there were an unknown number of civilians and first responders nearby who were likely injured and awaiting rescue.
"Leave the cleanup to us," Natasha said, stepping forward. Maintaining global stability from the shadows was the primary mandate of S.H.I.E.L.D.; handling the aftermath of such superhuman incidents was exactly what they were trained for.
Natasha stepped away to the side to place another call to Nick Fury. After reporting Fini's response, she gave a brief but thorough explanation of the chaotic situation on the ground.
"Understood. I'll have a team there shortly to take over the scene," Nick Fury replied over the line, his voice as steady as ever. Hearing that Fini was willing to engage in contact allowed him to breathe a small sigh of relief, though he couldn't truly rest easy until he had accurately determined the full extent of the threat Fini posed.
While Natasha was occupied with her phone call, Fini was quietly inspecting the "harvest" from this latest battle. To his disappointment, the results were somewhat underwhelming.
His earlier use of 'Explosion Magic' had wiped out somewhere between four hundred to five hundred robots, if not the full six hundred. At that moment, he had been buzzing with excitement as he checked his experience bar.
However, he found that the total gain was only equivalent to about ten "Mordos." If he did the math, that meant it took roughly fifty of these drones just to equal the experience value of a single Mordo!
"Absolute junk," Fini muttered to himself, disparaging the quality of the drones.
Later, when he had rushed in to deal with Ivan Vanko, it wasn't just about stopping the villain; he had also wanted to test whether Ivan's death would grant him a more substantial boost in experience.
Ever since Ivan had been rescued by Hydra, Fini no longer viewed him as a simple old man driven by a singular desire for revenge against the Starks. Hydra was certainly no charitable organization. They wouldn't have helped him manufacture such a massive army of robots without demanding a heavy price in return.
Therefore, Fini hadn't felt much hesitation about the prospect of killing Ivan. Unfortunately, the man's tenacity was startling; he had ultimately chosen to self-destruct. More importantly, the experience gained after the battle concluded was less than impressive. It was only about five Mordos' worth—far less than what he had gained from defeating Obadiah Stane.
Is it because the primary cause of Ivan's death was his own suicide? Fini wondered.
He couldn't quite wrap his head around it. Even now, he still didn't fully understand the underlying algorithm the system used to calculate experience points. He let out a frustrated sigh. After being busy for so long, the rewards were meager, and he had come away with more questions than answers. It was genuinely irritating.
Still, regardless of the quality, he had still pocketed fifteen Mordos' worth of experience. That was enough to bring a small smile to his face, especially considering that Mordo had been actively avoiding him lately. The man had even started secretly asking others to bring him his "Violet-marked Fried Chicken Rolls" just to stay away from Fini.
It was honestly a bit much! As the "Absolute Provider" of Kamar-Taj, Fini felt it was his duty to put a stop to such unhealthy habits. If a mage wanted to eat, they should say so loudly and proudly; sneaking around was no way for a proper sorcerer to behave.
As Fini pondered how to deal with Mordo, Natasha returned from her call, informing the group that a cleanup crew would be arriving momentarily.
"Alright then, I should head back and report on the mission as well," Rhodey said. Now that the fighting was over, he had duties to attend to. Although the "War Machine" armor was technically a gift from Tony, on paper, it belonged to the military. Every deployment required documentation and a full mission debrief.
"Catch you later, then!" Fini said, giving Rhodey a friendly wave. He had originally considered offering Rhodey one of his specialized chicken rolls, but with Natasha standing right there, he didn't dare reveal them.
Those specific rolls were only found in the Upper East Side of Manhattan—or rather, they were unique in the entire universe. Even if someone didn't know his name, the moment they identified the food, they would undoubtedly be able to trace his identity.
Rhodey took off in the War Machine armor, leaving only four people remaining on the field.
"I'm heading out too," Fini announced. Between having his name exposed and the lackluster experience gains, he wasn't in the mood to linger. Furthermore, he had unceremoniously dumped Skye at Kamar-Taj earlier without a word of explanation. Given her temper, if he didn't hurry back to explain himself, she would definitely be in a foul mood.
"Our Director said he'll be coming to see you as soon as possible," Natasha added just as he was about to leave. It seemed today's display of power had been quite a shock to the S.H.I.E.L.D. director.
In truth, Fini didn't realize that it wasn't just Nick Fury who was shaken; his actions had sent shockwaves throughout the entire world. The words the Ancient One had once spoken seemed to be slowly manifesting their reality.
Kamar-Taj
When Fini deactivated "Incursio" and arrived back at Kamar-Taj, his return didn't cause much of a stir. It was currently 2:00 AM, the middle of the night, and very few sorcerers were likely to be wandering around or surfing the web at such an hour.
However, just because the sorcerers weren't online didn't mean Skye wasn't.
When Fini walked into his room, he immediately saw Skye glued to the computer screen, watching footage of the battle. The unofficial versions were filmed from poor angles, but the content was nonetheless breathtaking.
Curious to see how the scene looked through the eyes of others, Fini remained silent and stood quietly behind Skye to watch along.
In the video, he was suspended in mid-air with his palm outstretched. His white cape billowed in the wind, and the silver plating of the "Incursio" armor shimmered brilliantly under the sunlight. Even Fini himself thought he looked incredibly cool, bordering on legendary.
The video continued all the way until the robots began to self-destruct. Even through a screen, the rapid-fire, firecracker-like explosions looked incredibly dangerous.
"Alright, that's enough. Get ready to go back!"
When the video ended and Skye moved to click on another link, Fini finally spoke up, giving her a massive fright. But Skye was apparently becoming accustomed to his sudden appearances; her heart was resilient, and she recovered almost instantly.
She spun around and threw her arms around Fini in a tight hug. After a moment, she pulled back and meticulously inspected him from head to toe. Only after confirming he was unharmed did she finally seem to relax, though her expression quickly turned into a huff of anger.
"If you ever dare to do that again, I'll… I'll…"
She trailed off, unable to think of a single effective threat. Fini couldn't help but chuckle at her struggle.
"I know, I know!" Fini said, patting Skye's head with a smile. "It was my fault. I should have explained things better. The situation was just very urgent this time. It won't happen again."
He said the words, but in his heart, Fini knew the truth: if New York were ever in grave danger again, he wouldn't hesitate for a second to open a portal and send Skye to safety first.
(End of Chapter)