Chapter 222: Show of Force
The moment Matthew's declaration went out, announcing what amounted to Umbrella's takeover of Earth's security, every major power in the world was thrown into a state of tension.
The White House, United States.
At that moment, the phones inside the White House were ringing off the hook.
President Ellis stared at the phone beside him, still ringing shrilly, his expression somewhere between exhausted and thoroughly unpleasant.
He didn't even need to guess. It had to be another one of those useless clowns in Congress.
Listening to the piercing ring, Ellis finally picked up the receiver.
"Hello? This is—"
Before he could finish, the voice on the other end cut in.
"President Ellis, have you seen what Matthew Lawrence, owner of Umbrella Corporation, just announced to the entire world?" A booming, forceful male voice came through the line.
Ellis listened to the voice and answered flatly. "I saw it."
"Does Congress have any thoughts on the matter?"
"Of course we have thoughts!" The man on the other end slammed his hand on a table and shot up out of his seat.
"This has escalated to an extremely serious situation, Mr. President!"
The man's voice climbed sharply.
"Did you not listen to the entirety of the statement Matthew Lawrence just released to the entire world a few minutes ago?"
"He didn't just refuse to submit to federal law. He openly declared that Umbrella Corporation is taking over global security operations!"
"This isn't a question of resisting arrest anymore. This is a direct provocation against one nation... no, against multiple nations. This is an open assault on international order!"
With that, the man on the other end drew a slow breath, his voice dropping slightly.
There was something unmistakably certain in his tone. "Mr. President, I'm speaking on behalf of the Congressional Armed Services Committee to formally state our position."
"This is a provocation on the level of an act of war."
"This isn't a street riot. This isn't a dispute over superpowers. This is a single individual, commanding a private military force, openly declaring war on the United States, and on the United Nations."
Listening to the venomous certainty in the voice, Ellis's grip on the receiver tightened, his knuckles going pale.
He was quiet for a moment, then spoke with a calm that caught even himself off guard.
"Toby, so what you're telling me is... Congress is planning to unite with other nations and go to war, directly, against Matthew Lawrence and Umbrella Corporation?"
"Toby?"
"...Toby?" Ellis frowned and shifted the receiver to his other ear. "Are you there? Toby?"
"Hello, Toby? Have you all already decided you're going to declare all-out war on Matthew Lawrence?"
Ellis's brow furrowed as he pressed the question toward the other end of the line.
But the line stayed dead silent.
The man who'd been shouting about a "war-level provocation" just a moment ago now sounded as if something had closed around his throat, cutting off even the sound of his breathing.
Only the faint static on the line proved the call hadn't actually dropped.
"What's going on?" Ellis glanced at the phone on his desk.
It had been working perfectly fine a second ago. Why had the line suddenly gone quiet?
Just as he was starting to wonder, a voice came through the receiver again.
Except this time, it wasn't Toby's voice answering him. It was an entirely unfamiliar sound.
"Mr. President."
A deep, heavy voice came through the line.
"I'm afraid he's temporarily unable to answer your question."
Hearing the voice, Ellis's expression went rigid.
He knew for certain that wasn't Toby.
It wasn't any member of Congress, either.
Having this private, secure channel interrupted without any warning at all sent Ellis's heart straight up into his throat.
"Who is this?"
Ellis's voice turned suddenly cold, the full authority of the presidency overriding whatever alarm he felt.
"I'm warning you, this is an encrypted White House line. Whoever you are, you've just committed a serious federal crime," Ellis snapped.
But in response to the President's fury, all that came through was a faint scrape of metal, and then that same deep, heavy voice spoke again. "Mr. President, we belong to Umbrella Corporation's Astartes Legion, codename... Grey Knight."
"My apologies for interrupting your conversation, but trust me... you won't come to regret my presence here."
"...What exactly does that mean?" Ellis's brow furrowed tighter.
"It's simple enough."
"You don't actually want a war." The Grey Knight's voice was remarkably flat.
"We've come with genuine goodwill, to have a conversation with you, and to warn you against issuing an order to declare war on your own."
"Doing so would be a profound failure of responsibility toward human life."
"Of course, if you're determined to light that fire regardless, the Astartes have no intention of flinching from it either."
"But a great many people would die."
"And eventually, the entire world would be consumed by the flames of that war."
Listening to the flat, quietly threatening words on the line, Ellis's hand, resting on his desk, clenched white with anger.
But he also knew perfectly well that the man wasn't exaggerating a single word of it.
Drawing a slow breath, Ellis pushed down his anger and spoke, even and measured. "Grey Knight... is that right?"
"That's correct."
"Mr. 'Grey Knight,' I'd like to ask something."
"If we do go ahead with war, what exactly would your next move be?"
Before the voice on the other end could answer, Ellis added, "And don't worry, I'm only asking out of curiosity."
"Please don't concern yourself, Mr. President. We won't be worried in the slightest." The Grey Knight's voice remained perfectly steady.
"If the President genuinely wishes to open a war, the first thing we would do... is carry out a decapitation strike against the President and the rest of America's senior political leadership."
"Much like right now."
"...Like right now?" Ellis raised an eyebrow, not quite following the meaning.
"Perhaps the President isn't aware of this yet, but the reason we're able to speak with you right now isn't simply because we intercepted a White House encrypted line."
"Then what is it?" Ellis's frown deepened further.
Something in the back of his mind was already starting to sense that this wasn't good.
"We've come directly inside the United States Capitol building..."
"Or, to put it more precisely—"
"We're already here."
The United States Capitol.
At that moment, nearly twenty Grey Knights stood inside the chamber.
Not far from them, a large number of congressmen were crouched beneath their desks, drenched in sweat.
And Congressman Toby, the man who'd just been speaking with Ellis, was now dangling in midair, gripped by the throat in the hand of a Grey Knight, saying nothing at all.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
How did these tin cans get in here?!
And what the hell are the security personnel outside even doing? Why haven't they reacted at all?!
Did these tin cans teleport in?! Toby raged silently in his own head.
Not that anyone could really blame him for the thought.
After all, who could have imagined that the U.S. Capitol, one of the most heavily secured buildings on the planet, could have a group of two-meter-tall tin cans slip inside without so much as a sound?
The entire process had gone unnoticed by every single person present, as if they'd simply materialized out of thin air.
"Mr. President, if we're able to appear inside the Capitol, then we're just as capable of appearing inside the White House... or even inside your own private residence."
"Given the current state of Earth's security, there is no location anywhere that could actually stop us."
"So, I sincerely hope that when you said 'if we go to war' a moment ago, that really was just a hypothetical."
"..."
"Please, think this through very carefully."
With that, the Grey Knight said nothing further and hung up the line.
Elsewhere.
Ellis listened to the dial tone buzzing on the other end and set the receiver down without a word.
Think it through... think it through...
Ellis turned toward the window.
Through the glass, he could clearly make out several iron-grey figures hovering roughly forty or fifty meters above the ground, not far off at all.
As his gaze settled on them, the nearest Astartes slowly turned its head, looking directly back at Ellis inside his office.
Their eyes met.
The scene Ellis had half-expected, of the figure raising a weapon and aiming it straight at him, never came.
In fact, the Astartes didn't do anything at all.
They simply hung there, as if they really were just temporarily overseeing security, quietly patrolling the streets below.
The same scene was playing out not just across the United States, but all around the world.
In response, the various villains hiding throughout the Marvel world took note of exactly what was happening.
Every one of them went quiet, choosing not to be the one who stuck their neck out.
Very few people who managed to survive as villains in this world were actually stupid. They understood perfectly well that Umbrella desperately needed a chicken to kill in order to scare the monkeys.
Making trouble right now would be no different than committing a crime in the middle of a nationwide crackdown.
Of course, where there were those wise enough to read the room, there were inevitably those who weren't.
A handful of small, politically unstable nations, mostly overrun by private militias and terrorist groups, became the first wave of targets to be cleaned out.
Under the watching eyes of the local population, hundreds of Astartes descended on these countries and began a full-scale purge of the disorder there.
Faced with the Astartes' arrival, the terrorists and militia forces attempted to fight back.
But even throwing everything they had, RPGs, tanks, explosives, at the Astartes all at once, none of it was enough to slow their advance.
Wherever they went, the Astartes didn't even need to bring out a grenade launcher. A single sandbag-sized fist was more than enough to burst a terrorist's skull open like a watermelon.
Given how thoroughly chaotic conditions were on the ground in these countries, the Astartes' arrival landed like a miracle out of nowhere.
Order was restored at a pace nobody could have anticipated.
And to help rebuild what had been lost, Umbrella went a step further, dispatching several Grey Knights to oversee local reconstruction efforts.
After all, the Grey Knights were, at their core, weakened clone bodies derived from Apocalypse, and carried a portion of his abilities with them. Apocalypse's molecular restructuring ability happened to be one of the single most effective tools available for rebuilding housing and repairing the local environment.
In under half a day, several of these chaotic, war-torn nations had been rebuilt by the Grey Knights into clean, orderly cities, paved streets and modern high-rises where there'd been ruins before.
For a population that had endured decades of ongoing conflict, it left them deeply, genuinely grateful toward both the Astartes and Umbrella Corporation.
United Nations Headquarters, New York.
Half a day had now passed since Matthew's declaration.
Inside UN headquarters, representatives from every nation had gathered.
On the large screen at the front of the assembly hall, footage from an unknown source was playing.
The footage showed over a hundred Astartes engaged in the process of clearing out a group of terrorists.
Facing tank rounds fired by the terrorists, the Astartes didn't retreat a single step.
If anything, they charged straight into the incoming fire!
BOOM!!
As the Astartes advanced, the incoming shells slammed mercilessly into their bodies.
The force of the blast was enough to shake the person filming, the footage growing even shakier in response.
By the time the camera operator managed to steady their phone again—
The tank on screen had already had its turret ripped clean off by sheer Astartes brute strength, and been kicked over onto its side.
The footage cut.
This time, the camera's vantage point was from beside an indoor window, giving the whole thing the feel of a candid, hidden recording.
At the center of the frame, three Astartes were engaged in urban combat against a group of terrorists.
Except this urban combat looked nothing like what anyone would typically picture.
What the Astartes were doing looked less like combat and more like a one-sided slaughter.
In the footage, one of the terrorists had wrapped his body in high-powered blasting caps.
Seeing an Astartes pass by outside the window, he timed his move, vaulted through the frame, and lunged straight at it!
"@¥%*@¥%!!"
With a shout of what sounded like some kind of declaration in an unidentifiable language, the terrorist detonated the charges strapped to his body, reducing himself instantly to a cloud of blood mist.
Blood sprayed everywhere, staining the Astartes' iron-grey powered armor a deep red.
Aside from the color change, the suicide attack left no damage whatsoever on the Astartes or its armor.
Glancing briefly at the shredded remains on the ground, the Astartes simply walked straight over them without a trace of hesitation.
Watching something this brutal unfold, even the person filming let out an audible, sharp intake of breath.
But what came next was even more shocking.
The Astartes at the front of the group casually wiped a smear of blood off its visor, then turned its gaze toward another building in the distance.
And immediately charged.
Moving like a fully accelerated armored tank, it plowed straight through the wall of that building without the slightest hesitation, reducing the terrorists hiding behind it to a fine red mist on impact.
Seeing this, the remaining terrorists raised their weapons to fight back.
But before they could even get their guns up, a slab of concrete the size of a wardrobe came flying in from somewhere in the distance...
BOOM!
The footage ended.
There was plenty more footage just like it.
It came from all over the world, but every single clip showed the same thing: Astartes violently purging criminal and terrorist elements.
Counter-terrorism operations on this scale, in any other era, would have been considered an unambiguous good by every nation involved.
But under the current circumstances, an operation that bypassed the United Nations entirely to carry out this kind of killing was, without question, a show of force.
"...He's warning us." One representative spoke, his expression grim.
"He wants these examples to make it clear to us that Umbrella Corporation, as it stands now, is far more than just an ordinary company."
"They already possess the capability to wage war against the entire world."
"So what do we do about it, then?" another representative asked.
"We go to war! As long as we stand united, there's no enemy we can't defeat!"
"...Ha. That's easy enough to say."
"Then how about we make sure the battlefield ends up located in your country?"
"...! ...By what right—"
"By the right that you're the one who said we should declare war in the first place!"
"Enough! We came here to solve a problem, not to listen to the two of you argue!"
A representative known for his fair-mindedness, someone who carried himself with a kind of natural integrity, called out sharply.
The room, which had dissolved into shouting, went abruptly silent.
Seeing the chaos settle, the representative spoke again. "...I think, perhaps, we should consider setting up a time to bring Matthew Lawrence and the rest of the wanted superheroes to the table."
"To sit down and actually talk this through with them, face to face."
"After all, this entire situation started over a single document. There's no real need to let it escalate all the way to war."
"What does everyone think?"
If you're enjoying the story, toss a Power Stone or drop a review — it helps more than you'd think.
Advance chapters → patreon.com/Eatinpieces