Even with Hulk suppressed by Li Yunlong, the surrounding personnel continued their frantic tasks with an air of detached indifference. Black Widows spirits had lifted briefly during Hulks violent outburst, but as time dragged on, the sheer torture of Li Yunlongs relentless chatting proved unexpectedly agony-inducing once again.
An agent-a female agent deployed in the field-underwent training that stripped away much of her fundamental humanity. For an operative like Black Widow, whose specialty lay in weaponizing her beauty and innate feminine advantages to achieve her mission objectives, a quiet, ordinary romance was a luxury virtually denied to her kind. Even hardened soldiers returning from the front lines often suffered from battle-induced PTSD, and field operatives faced circumstances far more insidious; many found it utterly impossible to reintegrate into civilian existence after completing their assignments. Black Widow herself was a living testament to this truth. It was not that she lacked the opportunity to lead a normal life, but rather that her scarred psyche could no longer endure its quiet simplicity, driving her to seek refuge within S.H.I.E.L.D. Otherwise, given her vast life experience, settling down as a glamorous author to live out peaceful, comfortable days would hardly have been a challenge.
When the five minutes finally ticked to an agonizing close, Li Yunlongs chatter ground to a temporary halt. Seizing the tiny window of opportunity, Black Widow rushed to speak up.
«I am willing to apologize for my actions.»
«I accept your apology,» Li Yunlong replied with an impassive expression, turning on his heel to walk back toward his small house. Since their departure times had been virtually identical, the remaining sixteen instances of Li Yunlong likewise retreated to their respective dwellings in succession.
Watching Li Yunlong vanish indoors, Black Widow let out a heartfelt sigh of relief. She noticed the other team members who had been subjected to the forced conversations looking equally shattered, their faces bearing the raw, visceral relief of survivors who had cheated death. The experience of chatting with Li Yunlong was abominable beyond measure. She had once felt nothing but disdain for that unfortunate detective at the Los Angeles Police Department, bewildered as to how a seasoned Robbery-Homicide detective could be driven utterly insane merely by small talk. Having experienced it firsthand, however, she now held a newfound respect for the man; after enduring a conversation with Li Yunlong once, he had somehow summoned the sheer nerve to provoke the entity four more times. Black Widow was certain that if she were forced to endure twenty-five consecutive minutes of that chatter, she would be haunted by nightmarish visions for the rest of her days. Fortunately, this encounter had been capped at the shortest duration of five minutes, and with advance preparation, everyone had managed to scrape through. The psychological support team, standing by, immediately moved in to debrief the team. Black Widow, meanwhile, had to return to the mobile command vehicle to contact Director Nick during this precious lull in activity.
«Sir,» she reported into her comms, «the initial attempt was an absolute failure. Even Doctor Banner has been trapped inside Mr. Ghosts Haunted House.»
«You don't need to worry about Doctor Banner,» Director Nick replied, his tone entirely unbothered. «I assure you he is perfectly safe right now.»
Black Widow remained silent, though her mind screamed the unuttered truth: You don't give a damn whether Banner lives or dies!
«How did you feel after talking to him?» Director Nick asked.
«It was downright dreadful,» Black Widow said. «I finally understand why those LAPD officers were so terrified of him. Talking to him is pure mental torture. I only faced the shortest five-minute duration, and I was already fighting the overwhelming urge to pull out my sidearm and blow his head off. Yet reason kept telling me I couldn't touch him, that my only choice was to force myself to endure it. For that Robbery-Homicide agent to hold out through twenty-five straight minutes of conversation before finally losing his mind… his psychological fortitude was nothing short of miraculous.»
«I'm afraid it isn't merely a matter of psychological fortitude,» Director Nick countered. «Take a look at these readings.» He brought up a portion of the data analyzed by S.H.I.E.L.D. Specialists on the display screen for Black Widow to see. «The cameras and audio arrays on your suit captured Brook Lee's data, and the infrared sensors recorded his physical image. But look at the metrics here, here, and here. They all indicate that there was absolutely no physical entity standing in front of you. In other words, Brook Lee exists only within the boundaries of human perception and the devices built to mimic those human senses. On external tracking equipment like radar, which operates beyond human sensory capabilities, Brook Lee simply does not exist.»
«I don't follow, Director.»
«I'm afraid we have no choice for now but to tentatively accept the conclusion reached by the Los Angeles Police Department-that Brook Lee, as an actual human being, does not exist at all.»
To combat Li Yunlong's inescapable chatter, the LAPD had exhausted every conceivable avenue. They had gone so far as to bring in psychics, exorcists, bishops, and priests in droves. Though they had never managed to resolve the problem, they had formulated a working theory: they believed Li Yunlong did not exist as a physical person and that no real conversation was taking place. The interactions were merely collective hallucinations triggered by a malignant curse. At his core, Li Yunlong was the physical manifestation of sheer evil and chaos in the mortal realm. What he actually said was irrelevant; the true threat lay in the phenomenon of his very presence appearing before a victim. The innate evil and chaos radiating from his existence would corrupt the subject's mind, which was the underlying reason why these conversations were so terrifyingly destructive.
Black Widow pondered this for a moment. «Then what about Mr. Ghosts Haunted House?»
Director Nicks expression grew darker still. «On every piece of detection equipment we have, the house is verifiably real. Our personnel attempted to gather physical samples from the scene, but the moment any sample crosses the boundary of the property, it vanishes into thin air. The experts have yet to offer a rational explanation for it.»
«What about from an occult perspective?» Black Widow asked. «After all, Brook Lee claims to be a scholar of occultism.»
«Even though Brook Lee refers to himself as an occult researcher, he also stated that his primary focus is ancient Eastern occultism. The experts retained by our agency specialize almost exclusively in Western esoteric traditions; they know next to nothing about the ancient Eastern occult.»
In other words, their expertise is completely irrelevant here. I knew those so-called experts would be useless when it actually mattered! Black Widow instantly snuffed out the thought of seeking external esoteric aid.
«The military forces have arrived,» Director Nick added. «Colonel Stryker is leading the detachment, and his reputation leaves much to be desired. Keep a close eye on him.»
«Understood, sir.»
Black Widow was well aware of Colonel Strykers notorious reputation. The American military had collaborated with mutants as far back as World War II, and ever since, they had kept a hyper-vigilant eye on mutant capabilities, engaging in an endless string of covert operations. Colonel Stryker was the man in charge of a specific military research project, though his poor reputation didn't stem merely from leading it-human experimentation and the horrific deaths of innocent civilians were hardly unprecedented in military research, after all. The real issue was Stryker's deep-seated hatred for mutants. Yet, despite his malice, he was utterly powerless against radical organizations like the Hellfire Club or the Brotherhood of Mutants. Instead, he made the moderate X-Men his primary target, suffering repeated, embarrassing defeats that turned him into a laughingstock. That was the true reason he had lost all standing within military circles. His participation in this operation was almost certainly at his own desperate request. Whatever his underlying motive, as the on-site representative for S.H.I.E.L.D., Black Widow had to keep him on a tight leash to prevent him from causing a disaster that no one could cover up.
The military's main column pulled up to the staging area. This was no modest deployment of a few troop carriers hauling a handful of squads; they had brought out heavy, war-grade ordinance, including main battle tanks, mobile artillery units, and rocket launcher trucks. According to military dispatches, armed attack helicopters and fighter jets would soon be in position as well. Black Widow was already starting to worry that these military warmongers were planning to use this opportunity to blow the entire city of Burbank sky-high.
After a brief and cold hand-off with Black Widow, Colonel Stryker brushed past her and retreated to his personal command vehicle. Under the terms of the joint agreement, the military had no authority to expel S.H.I.E.L.D. Personnel; on the contrary, military assets were subject to S.H.I.E.L.D. Oversight. This was a strict boundary established by the top brass in Los Angeles, who had no desire to let military hawks run wild and leave them to clean up the catastrophic aftermath. Inside Strykers command vehicle stood several individuals who clearly lacked military bearing. He walked up to the most conspicuous among them to exchange a few quick words. Bound in a straitjacket and strapped to a wheelchair, the figure bore an expression that looked more like that of a catatonic fool than a functional human being. It was none other than Strykers son-the X-gene mutant known as the Master of Illusions.
The exchange did not go smoothly. Stryker stood up abruptly, his face flushed with rage, and slammed his officer's cap onto the table with violent force.
Stryker was currently in a miserable position within the military hierarchy. Driven by personal vendettas, he had clashed with the X-Men time and again, only to suffer humiliation after defeat. To make matters worse, the research project under his supervision had failed to yield any results capable of satisfying the high command, leading to his gradual marginalization. He had actively petitioned to join this operation the moment news of it broke. Given his rank, taking charge of a minor cleanup operation that was essentially equivalent to scrapping old weaponry was deeply humiliating. Yet he had swallowed his pride and come anyway, precisely because the operation had drawn so many eyes. He didn't care about S.H.I.E.L.D. Or the Los Angeles municipal leadership, but he desperately needed the attention of the military generals. He needed to showcase the terrifying potential of his Weapon X program before the world to carve out a glorious future for himself.
Under the protocol negotiated between the military and S.H.I.E.L.D., much of the data and intelligence gathered on site by S.H.I.E.L.D. Was required to be shared with the military. As the tactical commander on the ground, Stryker naturally possessed the authority to review these files. He had truly never anticipated that S.H.I.E.L.D. Would unleash a weapon of absolute destruction like Hulk right out of the gate. The Hulk was General Rosss flagship project, and as a fellow military officer, Stryker possessed a fair amount of insider knowledge regarding the beast. Cross-referencing that knowledge with the real-time telemetry from the site, even Stryker, with all his stubborn pride, had to admit that if his entire lineup of Weapon X subjects were deployed against Hulk, it would be a brutal, bloody battle with no more than a sixty or seventy percent chance of victory.
Yet Hulk had been effortlessly neutralized by Li Yunlong. If the Weapon X assets were deployed in his place, how much better could they possibly perform? Stryker found it impossible to maintain any optimism. The disparity in sheer combat capability was grim enough, but what was far worse was the fatal flaw inherent to the Weapon X assets themselves. The military required obedient weapons that followed orders without question, not free-thinking individuals with independent judgment. To achieve that level of absolute compliance, Stryker had resorted to ruthless, unprincipled methods, leaving every Weapon X asset psychologically fractured. Even after paying such a monstrous price, their mental stability still fell short of what the high command demanded. The terrifying effectiveness of Li Yunlongs chatter was laid bare in the S.H.I.E.L.D. Reports; if seasoned LAPD officers and elite agents could barely endure five minutes before breaking down, his unstable Weapon X subjects would lose complete control in under five.
Stryker slammed his fist onto the desk to vent his mounting rage. The Master of Illusions' fundamental inability to affect the entity effectively severed any opportunity for Weapon X, rendering all his scheming utterly pointless. Given his current precarious standing within the armed forces, opportunities were rapidly running out. If he walked away from this chance, who knew when the next one would come? But if he pushed forward and failed, the consequences would be catastrophic. Stryker closed his eyes in agony. Knowing the rational choice was one thing, but making it was a bitter pill to swallow. He summoned his adjutant.
«Proceed according to plan,» Stryker instructed, his voice strained. «You take command.»
With those words, he slumped heavily into his chair, consumed by misery. This crushing sense of helplessness was driving him to the brink of madness, but he had to force himself to endure it through sheer willpower. He was no longer young. He had to seize every opportunity he had left-he couldn't afford to make another mistake.