"You!"
Wanda finally reacted, but she stayed perfectly still.
"Wanda!"
Pietro, who had just pushed himself up from the ground, saw Nolan's blade poised above his sister and froze as well.
Nolan's speed had been overwhelming.
Even Pietro, gifted with superhuman reflexes, knew he couldn't guarantee saving her.
"Do you still want to fight?"
Nolan's voice sounded almost gentle, warm enough to reach both siblings despite the chaos.
"If you can convince everyone else to stop, this war ends right now."
Wanda turned her head.
The battlefield was still burning on every side.
Hydra soldiers with rifles.
The enhanced youths who had suffered the same experiments she had.
People falling every minute, some consumed by desperation and blind rage.
For the first time, she felt the true meaning of war.
Nolan spoke again.
"We are not your enemies. If you are willing to hear my side rather than the lies told by the people who experimented on you, you might finally understand the truth."
After a moment of hesitation, Wanda nodded.
She lifted her hand. Chaos energy rippled outward.
"Everyone, stop!"
Her voice echoed across the entire battlefield like a bell struck from above.
Inside the base, Ophelia Sarkissian frowned.
The gunfire had gone quiet.
Was it over?
Those enhanced subjects had given her confidence, but this ending felt far too abrupt.
And Strucker had vanished.
Of course Ophelia understood what that meant.
She wasn't stupid.
In his position, she wouldn't have risked her life either.
No. This place was no longer safe.
Her instincts had saved her countless times, and they were screaming now.
She turned and ran without hesitation.
Nolan didn't bother chasing her.
He didn't need to.
Dozens of tiny drones drifted silently through the sky above, each no larger than a grain of sand.
The Hover Threads nano-scale surveillance devices originally from A Certain Magical Index.
Their technological value alone was astronomical, and their fabrication cost even higher.
But their results were extraordinary.
Ophelia would never believe she had been watched continuously by something she couldn't even see.
After Nolan finished explaining everything to the enhanced teens, the battlefield fell into a heavy silence.
Their expressions dimmed as the truth sank in.
Nolan knew this wouldn't be resolved with a few sentences.
These children had been indoctrinated since childhood.
Without his overwhelming firepower, at least one of them would probably have attacked him the moment he spoke.
He had done what he could.
He never hesitated to let the Red Queen command the Terminators.
As long as it was war, he would treat it as war.
But now it was over.
Seeing their conflicted faces, Nolan finally said:
"It's fine if you don't believe me. You can leave. Go explore the world outside Sokovia. What's happening here is far more complicated than you think."
Wanda looked at Pietro, then at the remaining survivors.
Of the dozen youths they had once lived with, only five or six were still alive.
She clenched her jaw.
"Will you really let us go?"
"Of course."
Nolan didn't hesitate.
He would have liked to recruit Wanda, Pietro, maybe even a few others into Locke Technologies.
But forcing anyone was pointless.
There would be opportunities in the future.
Besides the twins, the others' potential was limited. Dangerous to normal people, but not particularly useful to him.
Wanda turned to Pietro.
"Let's go."
Pietro nodded, then faced Nolan seriously.
"We will investigate everything. If we find out you lied to us… I'll come back for you one day."
Nolan smiled.
"Good. I'll be waiting."
With the twins leading the way, the other enhanced youths slowly drifted into the forest and disappeared.
Watching them leave, Nolan felt a brief sense of accomplishment.
For once, he had done something that fit the heroic persona he occasionally pretended to have.
A moment later, his expression hardened.
"Red Queen. Where's Ophelia Sarkissian? I'm getting impatient. And Baron Strucker should be nearby. I came all the way here, might as well greet Hydra's commander."
In the rear mountains, Ophelia moved quickly.
She was no fragile woman.
Her ability to slip through wilderness terrain had become instinct after years of training.
But the more she ran, the more uneasy she felt.
"Damn you, Nolan Locke. There will come a day when I settle this."
The past month had been exhausting.
She thought escaping the United States would bring her relief, but Nolan had pursued her across continents.
And she still had no idea how he had tracked her.
Just as she began to feel lucky to have escaped again, she stopped abruptly.
Her face drained of color.
Nolan was already standing in front of her, smiling.
"Dr. Green. We meet again."
He still remembered her old alias from Locke Technologies.
Her appearance, her voice, her allure he hadn't forgotten that day.
Too bad he never imagined that the seductive Dr. Green had been Hydra's infamous Viper all along.
Ophelia panicked for a heartbeat, then forced a sultry smile.
"My little boss. You were so eager to see me that you came all this way?"
She swayed toward him, confident in the weapon she trusted most herself.
Nolan didn't move.
"Yes. I've been waiting quite a while. Unfortunately, things were busy recently, so I couldn't make time."
"Then do you want to relive our little memory together?"
Her lips curved, her body brushing his.
This was her best chance, the only card she could still play.
"Of course," Nolan said smoothly.
Her eyes brightened.
She leaned closer.
A silver needle slid silently from her sleeve.
But before she could strike, Nolan's hand closed around her throat.
"What a pity. You're not the real Dr. Green."
With a sharp twist, he snapped her neck.
He glanced at the hidden needle and let out a soft laugh before walking away.
Luck was useful, but not absolute.
Elsewhere, Baron Strucker crouched inside a hidden bunker.
It was one of many secret shelters he had built.
No one knew about them.
He never hid in the same place twice.
He felt uneasy.
The gunfire had stopped too suddenly.
"Go check outside," he ordered one of his men.
The soldier nodded, opened the door, then froze.
"What is it?" Strucker snapped.
A cheerful voice answered instead.
"Just as I expected. The Mind Scepter."
"Nolan Locke!"
Strucker's heart lurched.
Nolan stepped inside with a smile.
"Looks like you already heard."
"Let me live. We can work together!" Strucker blurted.
Nolan chuckled.
"Work together?"
He shook his head.
"Red Queen. Kill him."
He had seen Strucker.
He had the Mind Scepter.
Strucker had no value left.
Gunfire echoed.
Moments later, a Terminator approached, carrying the scepter.
Nolan took it, exhaling softly.
After everything, the scepter was in his hands again.
A thought flashed through his mind.
The Mind Stone was crucial to Ultron's creation.
Now that the scepter was in his possession…
did that mean Ultron would never be born?
He laughed and tossed the scepter to a nearby Terminator.
For him, it wasn't particularly useful.
Once everything in Sokovia was settled, Nolan returned to New York the same day.
The moment he stepped into his office, Loki burst in.
"Mr. Locke, are you ready or not?"
Nolan gave him a leisurely look.
"What's the rush?"
Loki nearly coughed blood.
"Yondu is preparing for a war. Every day we delay makes things worse for him."
He was truly anxious.
Yondu's deadline was approaching fast.
Unless Loki planned to stay stranded in Asgard forever, he needed this done.
Nolan ignored him and asked the Red Queen:
"Has the last payment from S.H.I.E.L.D. arrived?"
"At twenty-two hundred hours last night. The final three billion was deposited," she replied.
"Mr. Locke!"
Loki was panicking.
How could Nolan still be talking about money?
Just as Loki feared Nolan might abandon him entirely, Nolan finally spoke:
"All right. Since the money's in, we can head out. This trip will take some time. I'll prepare a bit. We leave tonight."
Loki froze, then lit up with relief.
Nolan closed his eyes and opened his system interface.
SAR-01 Combat Robot, from Kill Command, worth 130 million tech points.
SAR-02 Combat Robot, Kill Command, worth 170 million tech points.
AMP MK-6 Amplified Mobile Platform, from Avatar, worth 350 million tech points.
Mechagodzilla, from Godzilla vs Kong, worth 13.7 billion tech points.
He paused at Mechagodzilla.
A beautiful strategic weapon…
but not what he needed now.
He scrolled further.
Ten billion.
Twenty billion.
Fifty billion.
One hundred billion…
Finally, he found it.
A small robot, human-sized, with no flashy appearance at all.
But its value exceeded a staggering one hundred billion.
Nolan converted all of the money he had just earned into tech points and tapped the screen gently.
The points vanished in an instant.
And in their place appeared his newest treasure, worth a trillion.
"Preparation complete," Nolan said with a smile.
He was ready to depart.