Carl's jaw tightened.
He thought of Wanda, sleeping peacefully in their home on the other side of the city. He thought of Pietro, bristling with protective energy at every perceived threat to his sister. He thought of the world outside his window — a world that didn't know it was being watched by gods and monsters and things that made both look tame.
If I play it safe now, and something happens before I'm ready...
The thought didn't need finishing.
Carl reached for the intercom.
"Luka."
"Sir?"
"Call off Jack's investigation. Tell his people to pull back — all of them. No more surveillance, no more inquiries."
A pause. "Sir, we haven't identified the kidnappers yet. If we stop now—"
"I know who took him," Carl said. "And I know where he is. Continuing the investigation risks alerting them. Pull everyone back."
Another pause — longer this time, laden with the weight of a subordinate processing an order that contradicted everything his training demanded.
"Understood, sir."
"One more thing. I need the surveillance files on the Sokovia Eastern Mountain Research Facility. Everything we've compiled over the past three years. Bring them to my office within the hour."
"The mountain facility?" Luka's voice carried a carefully controlled note of surprise. "Sir, that's a government installation. Our surveillance on it has always been... unofficial."
"Which is why I'm asking for the files and not a formal report. One hour, Luka."
"Yes, sir."
Carl ended the call and turned back to the window.
The Sokovia Eastern Mountain Research Facility.
That was its official designation — a military research installation operated by the Sokovian Ministry of Defence, ostensibly conducting experiments in advanced materials science and energy systems. It had been established eight years ago, following a period of political instability that had drawn international intervention. SHIELD had been involved in the "peacekeeping" operations that stabilized Sokovia during that period, and the facility had been built with partial SHIELD funding and oversight.
On paper, it was exactly what it claimed to be: a legitimate government research station with legitimate security clearances and legitimate chains of command.
Carl had known it was a HYDRA base since his first year in this world.
Not because of any brilliant investigation. Not because of intelligence networks or surveillance operations. Simply because he remembered.
His knowledge of the MCU was fragmentary — faded impressions from a previous life, half-remembered plot points, scenes watched on a screen that no longer existed. But certain facts had crystallized with painful clarity, and one of them was this: HYDRA had a base in Sokovia. In the mountains. Commanded by Baron Wolfgang von Strucker.
In the original timeline — the one Carl remembered in fragments — that base would eventually house Loki's scepter, which contained the Mind Stone. Strucker would use it to experiment on human subjects, attempting to create enhanced individuals. Most of the subjects would die. Two would survive: a pair of young Sokovian twins who'd volunteered out of grief and rage over their parents' deaths.
Pietro and Wanda Maximoff.
The thought made something cold and sharp settle behind Carl's sternum.
In this timeline, Wanda was his wife. Pietro was his brother-in-law. Neither of them had been anywhere near HYDRA's experiments, because Carl had spent three years ensuring they had no reason to volunteer for anything — no grief-fueled desperation, no burning need for power to avenge their parents.
He'd changed their story simply by being present. By loving Wanda. By giving Pietro purpose. By providing the stability that the original timeline had denied them.
But HYDRA was still there. Still experimenting. Still accumulating power in the shadows.
And now they'd reached into his world and taken his people.
Carl had monitored the facility passively for three years. Not aggressively — he hadn't sent operatives to infiltrate or attempted to hack their systems. That kind of direct action would have been detected, and in his first year, Carl hadn't been strong enough to survive HYDRA's retaliation.
Instead, he'd done what any patient predator did: he'd watched. Noted patrol patterns from a distance. Tracked the supply vehicles that came and went. Identified the faces of personnel who entered and exited the facility. Cross-referenced those faces with publicly available databases.
The picture that emerged was exactly what he'd expected.
A military facility staffed by people who didn't appear in any military records. Supply shipments that didn't match any government procurement contracts. Security protocols far exceeding anything a legitimate research station would require.
HYDRA, hiding in plain sight, exactly as they'd done for seventy years.
The reason everyone thought HYDRA was dead was elegantly simple: HYDRA had told them it was dead. Captain America had destroyed the Red Skull's organization during World War II, and the world had accepted that the story was over. No one looked for what they believed no longer existed.
Meanwhile, HYDRA had burrowed into SHIELD like a parasitic vine — growing alongside its host, feeding on the same resources, hiding behind the same authority. Every SHIELD base potentially harbored HYDRA operatives. Every SHIELD database was potentially compromised.
The genius of it was breathtaking. The most powerful intelligence organization on Earth had been infiltrated so thoroughly that the infiltrators were the organization.
Carl had left them alone because the mathematics demanded it. In his first year, he was a wealthy civilian with no combat capabilities beyond what his restored martial arts could provide. Poking HYDRA would have been suicide — not a dramatic death in battle, but a quiet disappearance. An "accident." A car crash, a fall, a sudden illness. The kind of ending that HYDRA specialized in.
In his second year, he'd been stronger — rebuilding Hudson Industries, establishing his security apparatus, training his body — but still not strong enough to take on a military installation protected by trained operatives with modern weapons.
Now, after three months in the Naruto world, the equation had changed.
Carl wasn't a normal human anymore.
He had chakra. He had ninjutsu. He had the physical enhancement of sennin training layered over a peak-condition martial artist's body. He could transform his appearance, create diversionary clones, substitute himself out of lethal situations, and generate fireballs capable of destroying armoured vehicles.
Was it enough to destroy an entire base? To kill every operative, dismantle every system, and erase HYDRA's presence from Sokovia?
Maybe, Carl thought. Maybe not. But there's only one way to find out.
And the alternative — leaving HYDRA intact, leaving Dr. Smith in their hands, leaving the Shadow Clone Technique on the table — was unacceptable.
Carl sat down at his desk and began to plan.
---
Forty-seven kilometres east of Novi Grad, in the mountains that formed the natural border between Sokovia and its eastern neighbour, the facility that the Sokovian government called a research station hummed with quiet activity.
From the outside, it looked appropriately mundane. Concrete buildings arranged in a loose cluster on a mountain plateau, surrounded by chain-link fencing topped with razor wire. Guard towers at each corner, manned by soldiers in Sokovian military uniforms. A motor pool with armoured personnel carriers that bore Sokovian Army markings. A helipad, currently empty.
It looked like what it claimed to be: a modestly funded military installation in a country that couldn't afford extravagance.
The interior told a different story.
Below the surface buildings, carved into the mountain's granite heart, three subterranean levels extended downward. The upper level housed barracks, armouries, and communications equipment far more sophisticated than anything the Sokovian military officially possessed. The middle level contained laboratories — clean rooms and containment chambers where experiments were conducted under protocols that no civilian ethics board would have approved.
The lowest level was locked behind blast doors that required three separate authorization codes to open. What lay behind those doors was known to fewer than a dozen people on Earth.
In a conference room on the upper subterranean level, Baron Wolfgang von Strucker sat at the head of a steel table, listening to a report with the patient attention of a man accustomed to receiving information about terrible things.
Strucker was a man designed by nature to be underestimated. Medium height, lean build, thinning hair combed back with meticulous precision. A monocle perched on his left eye — an affectation that made him look like a banker from a period drama rather than the commander of one of HYDRA's most strategically important installations. His black overcoat, trimmed with fur at the collar, was the most overtly dramatic element of his appearance, and even that could be dismissed as the vanity of a European aristocrat.
The agent standing before him was a different matter entirely. Broad-shouldered, thick-necked, with the scarred knuckles and flat expression of a man who solved problems with his hands rather than his mind. He stood at parade rest, but his weight was distributed on the balls of his feet — ready to move, even here, even in his own commander's presence.
A career operative. The kind HYDRA produced in abundance: loyal, efficient, and unburdened by moral complexity.
"My lord," the agent said, his voice carrying the clipped cadence of a military briefing, "the interrogation of Dr. Smith has been completed. The subject was cooperative after standard pharmaceutical facilitation."
Pharmaceutical facilitation. The euphemism covered everything from truth serums to more creative chemical persuasions.
"Continue," Strucker said. He hadn't moved since the briefing began — hadn't shifted his weight, hadn't adjusted his monocle, hadn't so much as tapped a finger on the steel table. Stillness was a weapon in its own right, and Strucker wielded it expertly.
"Subject confirmed that the product marketed as 'Fortis' was not developed from original research. It is a derivative — a commercially viable analogue of a compound Dr. Smith refers to as 'the enhancement ointment.'"
"Enhancement ointment," Strucker repeated, tasting the words.
"Yes, my lord. According to Smith, the original compound was provided directly by Carl Hudson, CEO of Hudson Industries. Smith was tasked with analysing its molecular structure and producing a replicable version."
"And his success rate?"
"Partial. The commercial product — Fortis — achieves approximately thirty percent of the original compound's efficacy. Smith described the original as..." the agent consulted a tablet, "...'unlike anything in my experience. The molecular architecture suggests a synthesis process that doesn't correspond to any known pharmaceutical methodology. I couldn't replicate it because I couldn't understand how it was made.'"
Strucker's fingers moved for the first time — a slow, deliberate drumming against the table's surface. Three taps. Then stillness again.
"Fascinating," he said quietly. "And the source of this original compound? Where did Hudson acquire it?"
"Unknown, my lord. Smith states that Hudson provided a single sample — approximately forty millilitres — and instructed him to reverse-engineer it. When the sample was exhausted, Smith requested additional material for further analysis. Hudson refused. Or rather, indicated that no further supply existed."
"No further supply," Strucker murmured. Something shifted behind his monocle — the subtle recalibration of a man revising his assumptions. "Either Hudson is protecting a source he doesn't want revealed, or the compound was genuinely finite. A one-time acquisition."
The agent remained at parade rest, waiting.
"My lord," he said carefully, "with your permission, I could assemble a team to acquire Hudson himself. If the original compound's source is—"
"No."
The word fell like a blade. Not angry — Strucker rarely displayed anger. Simply absolute.
"Carl Hudson is not Dr. Smith," Strucker continued, his tone carrying the patient condescension of a teacher correcting a slow student. "Smith is a foreignerl with no political protection, no security apparatus, and no public profile that would generate investigation if he disappeared. Kidnapping him was a scalpel operation — clean, deniable, forgettable."
He leaned forward slightly.
"Hudson is the wealthiest man in Sokovia. His face is on magazine covers. His company employs twelve thousand people. His charitable foundation has made him a national icon. If he disappears, the entire country notices. Government inquiries. Media investigations. International attention."
The agent nodded, understanding.
"Moreover," Strucker added, "our arrangement was specific. Garrett wanted Smith and the Fortis formula. That is what we delivered. The strengthening compound — whatever it is — was not part of the transaction."
He stood, turning toward the reinforced window that overlooked the facility's middle level — the laboratories where his own research continued, separate and apart from Garrett's interests.
"Secure Dr. Smith in long-term holding," he ordered. "Compile the intelligence package — formula, interview transcripts, molecular analysis — and prepare it for transfer to Garrett's courier. Standard dead-drop protocol."
"Yes, my lord."
"And increase perimeter security by twenty percent. If Hudson notices his scientist is missing and decides to investigate, I don't want any surprises."
The agent saluted — the sharp, angular gesture that HYDRA had inherited from its founders — and withdrew.
Alone in the conference room, Strucker removed his monocle and polished it thoughtfully.
John Garrett. The name carried weight even within HYDRA's fragmented hierarchy.
Level Eight SHIELD agent. One of the original Insight candidates — names on Alexander Pierce's list of individuals too dangerous to leave alive when Project Insight finally launched. But also, paradoxically, one of HYDRA's most senior operatives, a man who'd infiltrated SHIELD so thoroughly that the organization's own systems flagged him as a threat without realizing they were flagging one of their own people's allies.
Garrett's obsession was singular: physical enhancement. His body was failing — a wound sustained years ago that no conventional medicine could fully repair — and his desperation to find a solution had made him HYDRA's foremost expert on super-soldier research. Project Centipede. The Deathlok program. Extremis derivatives. Every avenue of human enhancement that SHIELD's databases revealed, Garrett pursued with the fervour of a dying man grasping at immortality.
The Fortis formula was simply the latest thread he'd pulled.
Strucker's own interests were different. Where Garrett sought to enhance existing biology, Strucker sought to transcend it. His research focused on abilities — powers that couldn't be explained through biochemistry alone. Telekinesis. Energy manipulation. Genetic anomalies that defied classification.
The lowest level of this facility housed the fruits of that research. And eventually, when the right catalyst arrived — when Garrett or Pierce or one of HYDRA's many arms delivered the tool Strucker needed — his experiments would produce results that made Fortis look like children's vitamins.
But that was future planning.
For now, the immediate concern was simple: deliver the intelligence, collect the payment, and ensure that nothing disrupted operations before he was ready.
Strucker replaced his monocle and turned from the window.
He didn't know that the lion was already sharpening its claws.
---
Back in Novi Grad, the files arrived exactly fifty-seven minutes after Carl's request.
Luka placed them on the desk — a thick folder of surveillance photographs, satellite imagery, and handwritten observation logs — then stood back, his expression professionally neutral but his eyes asking questions.
"That will be all," Carl said.
Luka hesitated for a fraction of a second — long enough to convey concern, short enough to remain respectful — then nodded and withdrew.
Carl opened the folder.
Three years of passive surveillance, compiled by Jack Morrison's security team under Carl's standing orders. The operatives hadn't known why they were watching a government facility in the mountains. Carl had framed it as standard competitive intelligence — monitoring potential threats to Hudson Industries' operations in the region.
They'd done good work.
Satellite imagery showed the surface layout in detail: building positions, guard tower sightlines, the motor pool, the helipad, the single access road that switchbacked up the mountain from the valley below. The resolution was commercial-grade — not military quality, but sufficient for planning purposes.
Patrol schedules had been observed over eighteen months. Four exterior patrols in daylight, three at night. Eight-man teams, rotating on six-hour shifts. Armed with standard military rifles, body armour, radio communications. The guards wore Sokovian military uniforms, but their discipline — the spacing, the communication protocols, the way they handled their weapons — suggested training that exceeded anything the Sokovian army provided.
Supply deliveries occurred twice weekly, arriving in unmarked trucks that entered through the main gate and departed within ninety minutes. The cargo was never visible — enclosed in sealed containers that prevented identification.
Personnel counts were harder to establish, but Morrison's team estimated between eighty and one hundred twenty individuals stationed at the facility at any given time. A mix of security, technical staff, and support personnel.
Carl studied the photographs, committing the layout to memory.
One hundred operatives. Armed. Trained. In a fortified facility with limited access points.
Against one man.
One man with chakra, Carl corrected himself. One man who can transform his appearance, create distractions with clones, teleport out of kill zones, and generate fire hot enough to melt steel.
The question wasn't whether he could win. The question was whether he could win without dying in the process.
He pulled a fresh sheet of paper from his desk and began sketching.
Access points. Blind spots. Timing windows. Chokepoints where numbers would work against the defenders rather than for them.
The underground levels were a concern — his surveillance data didn't cover what lay beneath the surface. But every military installation followed similar design principles: ventilation shafts required external access points. Emergency exits couldn't be completely concealed. Power and water infrastructure created vulnerabilities that no amount of armour plating could fully protect.
He worked for two hours, filling pages with tactical analysis, discarding plans that relied on luck, refining approaches that leveraged his specific capabilities.
By midnight, he had something that wasn't quite a plan. It was more like a framework — a set of decision points and contingencies that would adapt as he gathered more information.
The first phase would be reconnaissance. Tomorrow night, under cover of darkness, he'd approach the facility and observe it firsthand. His current surveillance data was useful but incomplete — it couldn't tell him about underground access points, chakra-detectable security systems (if any existed in this world), or the specific layout of interior spaces.
The second phase would be infiltration. Using Transformation to bypass exterior security, he'd enter the facility and locate Dr. Smith. Rescue was the priority — everything else was secondary until the scientist was safe.
The third phase — if the first two went well enough to justify it — would be escalation. Strucker. The base itself. The full destruction the System's quest demanded.
If, Carl emphasized to himself. Not when. If. I'm not committing to the full assault until I've seen the ground with my own eyes.
Discipline. Not recklessness. Calculated aggression, not blind fury.
He closed the folder, locked it in his desk safe alongside the soldier pill, and stood.
The office was dark now — only the city's ambient glow filtering through the windows. Carl caught his reflection in the glass: a young man in an expensive suit, standing in the executive office of a billion-dollar company, looking out over a city that didn't know what lived in its mountains.
Three years of patience, he thought. Three months of training. And now, finally, the capacity to act.
He'd been reactive for too long. Responding to threats, managing risks, building strength in secret while the world's dangers grew unchecked. Playing defence, always defence, because offence required a level of power he hadn't possessed.
That had changed.
HYDRA had forced his hand by taking Dr. Smith. But in doing so, they'd given him something more valuable than the scientist they'd stolen.
They'd given him permission.
Permission to stop watching. Permission to stop waiting. Permission to take the fight to an enemy that deserved everything he was about to deliver.
Carl turned from the window and headed for the door.
He had a base to destroy.
---
[END CHAPTER 7]
---
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