Colonel Phillips gave a long-suffering sigh and rolled his eyes. The look on his face said it all: Of course he'd say that.
Across the table, Steve and Peggy snapped to their feet in unison.
"Yes, Commander!" they answered crisply.
Chen Mo didn't bother explaining further. He simply turned and strode out of the room. As far as he was concerned, sitting around discussing tactical frameworks was a waste of time. He'd always preferred the battlefield to the boardroom — and battle plans could wait until the moment they were needed.
Steve and Peggy followed immediately after, leaving behind a room full of stunned Allied officers staring at one another.
"Colonel… what—?" one of them finally managed to ask.
Phillips exhaled heavily and rubbed his temple. He'd been expecting this.
"Commander Chen always operates that way," he explained. "Fast, decisive, straight to action. The Special Forces act entirely under his command — and his battle plans are usually improvised on-site, based on real-time conditions."
He glanced around the table, voice steady and confident.
"His strength and leadership aren't in question. You've all seen the record. The only thing we need to do now… is wait for his good news."
The officers exchanged looks, then nodded one after another. They'd all heard the stories — and unlike the grunts on the front lines, they knew just how much truth there was behind the legend.
No one doubted him.
And sure enough, once again, Chen Mo delivered.
Under his command, the Special Forces tore through the Hydra defenses with surgical precision. The outer perimeter was obliterated, hundreds of civilians and Allied prisoners were freed, and the massive weapons factory was reduced to rubble.
For Chen Mo, it had been routine. Once upon a time, he'd taken down entire Hydra bases alone. Now, with Steve and Peggy at his side, the fight was hardly even a challenge.
They followed his familiar formula — infiltrate first, destroy key defenses, disrupt enemy coordination, then launch a full frontal strike.
Peggy and Steve moved like a single mind — she striking from afar with impossible precision, he crashing into the enemy lines like a living tank. Their rhythm was seamless, their results devastating. Between the three of them, resistance didn't last long.
Meanwhile, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s intelligence network was growing stronger by the day. As Hydra rushed to relocate its remaining assets and manpower, they left behind traces — trails that Carter's agents swiftly picked up. Base after base was exposed.
The Special Forces barely had time to rest. Each time they finished one operation, they were already en route to the next. One Hydra stronghold after another fell in flames, with thousands of captives liberated.
Months passed in a blur of relentless victories.
By now, nearly every Hydra installation in Europe had been destroyed — save for one. The headquarters.
The largest, deepest, and most well-hidden base of them all — the one Chen Mo had intentionally left untouched.
The man in charge there: Baron Strucker. The same foe Chen Mo had once clashed blades with at the Klausburg facility.
The Valkyrie bomber project had been moved there, its construction nearly complete. The defeat of Red Skull had reignited Strucker's old ambition, and that was exactly what Chen Mo wanted. Everything was unfolding according to plan.
But he wasn't ready to strike. Not yet.
According to the original history — or, rather, the film's timeline — Dr. Zola had been captured after a failed counter-attack. Facing Red Skull's wrath, he'd confessed to S.H.I.E.L.D. the details of Hydra's super-weapon program and the location of their Alpine headquarters.
In this new reality, however, things had shifted. Strucker was being cautious, shielding his last fortress with layers of secrecy. Even Peggy's expanding intelligence division couldn't pinpoint its exact coordinates.
Of course, Chen Mo didn't need them to. Through his control over Hydra's internal channels, he already knew everything — the layout, the progress, the personnel. He simply hadn't given the order to reveal it yet.
When the time was right, he would.
For now, he waited.
With most of Hydra eradicated, the Special Forces finally had some breathing room. The large-scale battles raging across Europe no longer needed them — not even Chen Mo could turn the tide in the face of entire armies and armored divisions.
In small-scale skirmishes, he was unstoppable. But against thousands of soldiers and hundreds of tanks, even he couldn't dodge artillery barrages forever. On such a massive front, even a superhuman could only protect himself — not change the outcome.
So, for the first time in months, the Special Forces were put on reserve. They now focused on special operations — infiltration, assassinations, rescues.
And they didn't always need Chen Mo anymore. Steve and Peggy, leading their respective teams, had grown into formidable commanders in their own right.
Chen Mo called it "training."
And in truth, it was. He'd sheltered them long enough; it was time they proved themselves.
Out from under his shadow, new heroes began to emerge.
Bucky Barnes, Steve's steadfast brother-in-arms, now served as the deputy leader of the Howling Commandos. On missions he led alone, his leadership and tactical instincts shone — calm under fire, decisive in chaos.
Then there were the trio of Huang Quan, Han Qing, and Luo Zhen — once members of Chen Mo's own personal squad. Unenhanced, but more than human in skill and courage.
Trained by Chen Mo himself, versed in both modern warfare and classical Chinese strategy, their battlefield performance had been nothing short of exceptional.
Before long, all four men — Bucky, Huang Quan, Han Qing, and Luo Zhen — were appointed as squad leaders, commanding their own specialized units.
Under Chen Mo's structure, the Special Forces now consisted of six teams, each led by one of the six captains: Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter, Bucky Barnes, Huang Quan, Han Qing, and Luo Zhen.
At the top stood Chen Mo — commander-in-chief of the entire Special Forces.
Steve and Peggy held higher ranks than the others, serving as deputy commanders in Chen Mo's absence. They were his right and left hands — his successors.
Because Chen Mo was already preparing for what came next.
He could feel it — the pull that signaled his time in this world was drawing to a close.
And before he left, he intended to leave everything in perfect order.