Annoyed didn't even begin to cover it.
Hitler.The Red Skull.Hydra.
They were digging where they had no right to dig—ripping anomalies out of the world like scavengers, twisting things that should have been contained, understood, or left alone. That crossed a line the Foundation did not forgive.
So we responded.
Quietly, at first.
Funding funneled into Allied channels through shell corporations, black budgets, and economic ghosts. Better weapons. Better logistics. Faster mobilization. Nothing obvious—just enough to tilt the scales. A small retaliation, measured and deniable.
This, though?
This was personal.
I stood in the depths of a Hydra facility so large it felt like a buried city. Several football fields wide, carved straight into the earth, reinforced with steel and concrete layered over stolen science. Floodlights cast long shadows across gantries and railings. Below us, Foundation personnel moved with brutal efficiency.
The Red Right Hand secured the perimeter.Scientists catalogued everything that wasn't nailed down.Crates marked ANOMALOUS—HANDLE WITH EXTREME CARE were being sealed and prepared for transport.
They weren't SCPs yet.
They would be.
Cages lined the lower levels—some empty, some broken, some still occupied by things that should never have been touched. Strange devices hummed weakly where Hydra technicians had died mid‑experiment. Tables were overturned. Equipment lay shattered. Blood stained the floors in dark, drying patterns.
Nazi and Hydra corpses were everywhere.
Some slumped where they fell during the initial firefight.Others lay near containment cells, expressions frozen in terror, as if they had finally understood what they were meddling with a second too late.
Julius stood beside me at the railing, arms resting on cold metal, eyes scanning the vast underground complex.
"Do you know what bothers me the most?" he said calmly.
I didn't look away. "They think they're pioneers."
He gave a humorless laugh. "They think finding something first gives them ownership."
Below us, a team carefully extracted a sealed artifact—its surface etched with symbols that made reality itch just looking at them. Another squad escorted a sedated entity into reinforced transport restraints. Hydra had cages. We had containment.
I clenched the railing slightly.
"They're not just stealing anomalies," I said. "They're weaponizing ignorance. They don't understand containment. They don't respect consequence."
"And Red Skull," Julius added, voice cold, "understands just enough to be dangerous."
A distant explosion echoed through the facility as demolition teams began collapsing unused sections. No reason to leave Hydra anything they could come back for.
"This keeps escalating," Julius said. "They won't stop."
"No," I agreed. "So we escalate smarter."
The Red Right Hand moved past us, armor scuffed, weapons still warm. Commander Cody nodded once—mission successful. Losses minimal. Recovery substantial.
Hydra had lost a facility.Dozens of operatives.Years of research.
And they hadn't even realized how much worse it could have been.
As transports began lifting anomalies toward the surface and into Foundation custody, I allowed myself a thin smile.
Let Hitler dig.Let the Red Skull scheme.
Every time they reached into the dark, the Foundation would be there first—or right behind them, ready to take everything they touched.
This war wasn't just being fought with tanks and planes anymore.
It was being fought in the shadows.
And down here, beneath the earth, the shadows belonged to us.