Chapter Fifty — A Path of Life on the Sheer Cliff
"We're… we're dead…"
The radio operator Jones was crying now, his voice shaking.
No one argued.
Ahead was a bottomless abyss—fall down there and you wouldn't even have enough bones left to piece together.
Behind them were HYDRA's pursuers and their hounds—getting caught would be worse than death.
A dead end.
"Dum-Dum" Dugan clenched his submachine gun. At some point, the cigar in his mouth had fallen away.
Logan's reaction was even more direct.
"Hrrr…"
A low growl rolled out of his throat as three bone claws snikted out. He hunched forward, eyes locked on the lights in the forest. Surrender? He didn't understand the concept. He only knew how to fight to the death.
Steve tightened his grip on the shield, the rim biting into his leather gloves. He could hold back an entire battalion—but he couldn't lead his brothers out of a dead end.
"Prepare to fight!" His voice was hoarse. "If we die, we make damn sure HYDRA knows who killed them!"
"Oof!"
Levi slipped and pitched toward the cliff.
"Levi!"
Steve reached out—but he was too late.
Levi stumbled at the edge. The M1 rifle slipped from his hands, spinning as it vanished into the darkness below.
"My gun!" Levi screamed, crawling to the edge and peering down.
"Are you insane?! Get back!" Falsworth grabbed Levi by the collar and yanked him back.
"Wait!"
Levi suddenly shouted, his voice filled with shock—and wild joy.
"Below! Look below!" He pointed into the abyss. "There's a platform! I see it!"
A platform?
In a stormy night like this, the abyss was pitch-black. How could anyone see anything?
But the instinct to survive drove everyone to the edge. Steve leaned out first.
He saw nothing.
"You're mistaken. There's nothing there," Dugan said, disappointment thick in his voice.
"There is! I swear!" Levi insisted. "About fifty meters down! There's a rock ledge big enough to stand on! And to the left—there's a cave!"
His description was unnervingly precise.
Steve stared into Levi's eyes.
What he saw there wasn't panic.
It was pure, unfiltered joy.
Steve chose to believe him.
"Everyone! Get your ropes out! Now!" he roared, snapping the team out of their daze.
"Falsworth, tie them together—every knot secure!"
"Logan! Use your claws—dig anchor pits!"
"Dugan, Jones, cover us! Open fire the moment they enter range!"
Orders rained down.
The deathly stillness in their eyes was replaced by the fire of survival.
Soon, several military ropes were knotted into one long line and firmly anchored in the pits Logan had gouged into the ground.
"Woof! Woof woof woof!"
Dogs barked furiously as dozens of flashlight beams swept through the trees.
"They're here!" Jones screamed.
"Fire!" Steve shouted.
"Rat-a-tat-tat-tat!"
Dugan and the others opened up, cutting down the front ranks of HYDRA soldiers and hounds. But more enemies poured in, blue energy bolts blasting chunks of rock into the air.
"Wounded first!" Steve grabbed an injured soldier, looping the rope around him. "Hold tight!"
He exchanged a glance with Falsworth, who immediately began lowering people down with another man.
"Levi! You're second!" Steve turned and seized him.
"Captain, I'll bring up the rear—"
"Shut up! That's an order!" Steve barked. "You're more important than me right now. Get down!"
He roughly tied the rope around Levi.
And so, Levi began his first-ever cliff descent.
An energy bolt skimmed past his ear, his cheek burning with pain.
"Damn it."
Levi cursed silently and pushed his mental power outward, forming an invisible layer around his body.
Ability: Spatial Barrier (Prototype)
It was an application he'd developed after copying residual energy from the Tesseract—one that drained his mental strength at a terrifying rate.
Then something strange happened.
Several bullets struck his body—and rebounded, as if they'd hit an invisible wall.
From above, Falsworth and the others could only think one thing:
This Eastern "lucky charm" had terrifyingly good luck.
Only Levi knew the truth.
Keeping up this act was pushing him to his limit.
Damn it… acting is exhausting, he cursed inwardly.
Fifty meters passed in the blink of an eye.
Thud.
Levi landed solidly on the platform. He untied the rope and waved upward.
Seeing the signal, the men above surged with relief and sped up.
One by one, the team slid down.
Steve was the last. He drew his knife and cut the rope.
Above them came furious HYDRA curses and gunfire.
"Move! Into the cave!" Steve shouted, charging into the opening behind the platform.
Everyone followed.
The cave blocked out the wind, snow, and enemy sightlines. The men collapsed onto the ground, gasping for breath.
They had survived.
All eyes turned to the corner, where Levi sat with eyes closed, face pale as paper.
"This kid…" Dugan panted. "God sent him or something?"
"That luck isn't natural," Falsworth agreed.
Logan said nothing. He simply glanced at Levi.
This man had secrets—but no malice.
From detecting ambushes, to finding this refuge, to surviving the descent…
This kid was far more than just lucky.
---
That night became a legend of the Howling Commandos.
Over the following months, they became HYDRA's nightmare.
Railways blown up in France.
V-2 rocket factories wiped out in Germany.
Concentration camp rescues alongside resistance forces in Poland.
The name Howling Commandos became a symbol of hope in Allied war reports—and within HYDRA, they were called the Ghost Unit.
And Levi was no longer just a mascot.
Deep behind enemy lines, guided by his instincts, the team always avoided patrols and hidden sentries.
Once, he even "misremembered" the timing—and accidentally led them to avoid a deadly trap.
Levi himself didn't waste the time.
He drank with Dugan and quietly copied his weapon maintenance skills. He watched Falsworth modify explosives and picked up an "Explosive Affinity" talent.
He learned French, stealth tactics—and even accidentally copied a German sausage recipe from a HYDRA cook.
His ability archive expanded in silence.
Steve had begun treating him as a strategic advisor.
And Logan saw him as a kindred spirit—one who hid deep, but whose danger was aimed squarely at their enemies.
---
Early spring, 1945.
London — Strategic Scientific Reserve (SSR), British Headquarters.
Colonel Phillips and Peggy Carter cut short the Commandos' leave.
"Gentlemen," Phillips said coldly, "vacation's over."
Carter slammed a classified folder and a reel of film onto the table.
"We've intercepted HYDRA intelligence. The Red Skull has activated his final plan—Valkyrie."
The projector flickered to life, revealing schematics of a massive black aircraft.
"A super bomber with a wingspan over two hundred meters," Carter said. "Armed with bombs powered by the Tesseract. Its target—"
The image switched to a map of the U.S. East Coast. Red circles marked New York, Boston, Washington.
"—the American mainland."
Silence filled the room.
"Our mission," Phillips said, "is to locate the Red Skull's final base and destroy Valkyrie before it launches."
Steve stepped forward and picked up the file.
"We accept the mission."
At the back of the room, Levi stared at the word Valkyrie… at the location of HYDRA's final base on the map.
His heartbeat quickened.
Finally.
The Tesseract he'd dreamed of—was there.
If he could copy its energy, the spatial power within him would undergo a qualitative leap. At that point, not just barriers—even short-range teleportation might be possible.
Saving America? Destroying HYDRA?
Those were just bonuses.
The real objective was it.
"High risk, high reward…" Levi licked his dry lips.
"Red Skull, my dear friend," he murmured inwardly,
"make sure you take good care of my ability."
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