When Levi casually pinched that deep-blue energy cell between two fingers—like a Wall Street hawker selling counterfeit luxury watches—and waved it lightly in front of everyone, the Death Canyon of the Alps seemed to have its air sucked away by an invisible hand.
Silence.
A kind of silence smoother than Nick Fury's bald head—and just as suffocating.
Bucky, Dugan, Jones… the Howling Commandos—men who could pop champagne while bathing in gunfire—felt as though their cerebral cortexes had been completely carbonized by tonight's sequence of events, so surreal even In Search of the Supernatural wouldn't dare film it.
What was a worldview, anyway? Could you eat it?
First, they discovered that a glacier waterfall hanging there for thousands of years was actually a hologram. A door.
Fine. High-tech. HYDRA's insane. They could accept that.
But now came the truly outrageous part.
This guy had just pulled out—like some third-rate magician—a perfectly original, factory-sealed, no-returns-needed "key" from his pocket!
What the hell—
This wasn't war anymore! War at least followed logic, tactics, rules!
This was watching a man named Levi star in a one-man show titled
"My Script, My Rules—You Just Sit There and Spam 666."
And they—these elite, battle-hardened soldiers—were nothing more than slack-jawed background extras who didn't even know how to tip, just standing there drooling.
"No… no… impossible!"
Howard Stark's voice over the comm wasn't trembling anymore—it sounded like a late-stage Parkinson's patient riding a roller coaster. Every syllable carried the wail of a shattered worldview.
His scientific universe—built on physics and equations—had just been smashed into scrap metal by Levi's casual flick of the wrist.
"That's a standard HYDRA energy cell! MK-3 model! I swear I've studied its wreckage over a hundred times! The output curve, crystal lattice, shell alloy ratio—I can recite it backward in my sleep! How do you have one?! And a brand-new, intact one at that?! And why the hell are you carrying it around like a lighter?! This thing is standard issue! It's a HYDRA soldier's second life! Why do you have it?! For winter hand-warming?! Answer me! Levi!!"
Howard's roar exploded in everyone's ears like a string of firecrackers.
And yet—no one could answer him.
Because everyone present, including Steve Rogers, wanted to shout those exact same words at Levi.
The way they looked at him now—he wasn't a comrade, nor a freak.
He was an alien wearing human skin.
A bug sent back from the future.
A walking, breathing "Why?"
"Oh, this?"
Faced with questioning intense enough to make any polygraph self-destruct, Levi merely weighed the energy cell in his hand, utterly unfazed—like he was saying, "Oh, I found a penny on the street."
"It's nothing special. Remember that HYDRA base we took down last time? Things got messy. I grabbed it off a squad leader who'd just expired. Thought it looked nice—blue and shiny, like a glass marble. Way better craftsmanship than our canned rations, so I kept it as a souvenir."
Everyone: "..."
A souvenir?
You're calling an enemy high-tech core capable of powering an entire base… a souvenir?
Dugan instinctively touched the Iron Crosses hanging from his belt. Jones glanced at the treasured Luger in his pack.
Suddenly, their collections felt painfully low-class.
Normal people collect shell casings. Medals. Knives.
Levi collects enemy energy cores?!
Wasn't that hobby a little… ahead of its time? By about a century?!
"You… you're an… incomprehensible… freak!"
Howard finally spat out the only words his collapsing vocabulary could manage.
Levi felt nothing.
If anything, he felt amused.
[Ding! Shock value from Howard Stark +???]
[Ding! Confusion value from the Howling Commandos +999]
Sigh. Explaining things to natives was exhausting.
Better to just play the role of a lucky freak. It suited him fine.
Steve ignored the existential crisis behind him—and the genius on the verge of cardiac arrest on the comms. As captain, his mental fortitude was on a different level.
He stepped forward silently, took the energy cell from Levi, and studied it carefully. The blue glow reflected in his eyes as he checked its size, shape, even its cool, smooth surface—then compared it to the black slot.
Perfect. Like it was made for it.
Without a word, he handed it back to Levi and tilted his chin toward the recess.
The message was clear.
—Stop talking. Open the door.
"Roger that."
Levi shrugged and accepted the weighty trust from the future moral compass of mankind.
Under everyone's breath-held gaze, he walked forward unhurriedly, took a deep breath—purely for dramatic effect—and firmly slid the glowing blue energy cell into the dark slot.
Click.
A crisp, satisfying sound—like the gears of a Swiss watch locking into place.
Perfect.
The energy cell vanished inside, seamless.
Then—
Change.
The faintly red HYDRA emblem flared to life, blue light replacing crimson as it surged along arcane, rune-like circuits across the panel.
It looked like a city's power grid lighting up all at once—beautiful, mysterious, terrifying.
Hummm—
A low vibration rolled out, resonating deep in their chests. The massive metal panel began to tremble.
"It worked!" Dugan exclaimed.
"I knew Levi was a lucky charm!" Jones growled.
The waterfall—the flawless hologram—flickered violently like an old TV with bad reception, then vanished with a bzzt.
What lay behind it was revealed.
A gate.
A gate so enormous words failed.
Pitch-black. Mirror-smooth. Seamless. Like a single slab of obsidian torn from a god's realm.
It stood there, embodying the very definition of insignificance.
Slowly—inevitably—it began to open.
Steam blasted from hidden vents like the breath of ancient dragons, condensing instantly into thick white fog.
Beyond the door, colossal gears—each over ten meters wide—ground and rotated with brutal industrial beauty, hauling open a gate weighing untold millions of tons.
With every turn, the earth groaned.
Everyone felt like ants trembling before a god opening the gates of his kingdom.
An absurd thought crossed their minds.
This wasn't a HYDRA base.
It was the entrance to hell.
When the gate finally opened fully—revealing a passage wide enough for an armored division—shock struck again.
Beyond lay no dark corridor.
But a vast, brilliantly lit underground hangar.
Hundreds of meters high and wide, stretching beyond sight. Artificial suns blazed overhead, banishing all shadows.
Below stood rows upon rows of aircraft unlike anything they'd ever seen—single-soldier flight wings, bat-like fighters, massive bombers like flying fortresses.
Thousands of HYDRA soldiers in black uniforms and gas masks swarmed like lethal ants, loading weapons, fueling engines, maintaining machines. Engines roared. Metal clanged. German commands echoed.
At the far end—
A super aircraft dwarfing all others rested like a slumbering steel beast.
Blood-red HYDRA insignia gleamed on its wings.
The Valkyrie.
Levi's eyes narrowed slightly.
As expected. This is where it ends.
"My God…" Jones whispered, legs shaking. "We didn't kick a hornet's nest… we jumped into it naked."
Steve's face hardened. He tightened his grip on the shield and issued quiet orders.
"All units, stay to the shadows."
"Our objective is the aircraft."
"Do not expose yourselves until the job is done."
Then, like a panther slipping into the night, Captain America was the first to step into HYDRA's underground kingdom.
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