The silence after the takedown was unnerving. You stood in front of the stasis pod, surrounded by unconscious HYDRA agents sprawled across the concrete floor. The hiss of cooling metal, the faint crackle of old halogen lights, and the faint sound of your breath were the only signs that time still moved.
Inside the pod, the captive man stirred.
Thick, reinforced glass separated you. Cables fed into the sides of the tank—each marked with a different warning: biohazard, high voltage, neural tether.
You met his eyes. Dull green. Alert. Watchful.
He pressed a hand against the glass. His voice came through a tiny vent above the pod's control panel.
"You gonna let me out, or just stare at me all night?"
You hesitated.
"What's your name?"
He grinned—feral and tired at the same time. "Doesn't matter. I barely remember it. Been locked in this thing too long. I answer to Raze now."
That name sent a ripple through your memory.
Raze — a failed HYDRA weapon project. Subject #113. Said to be capable of absorbing kinetic trauma and redistributing it with triple the force. Supposedly unstable.
Supposedly dead.
You studied the cables. Your fingers twitched involuntarily, already mapping out the feedback patterns. The room was rigged with a failsafe—any wrong move and the entire facility could blow sky-high.
Typical HYDRA contingency.
"Why should I let you out?" you asked, stepping back slightly. "For all I know, you're worse than they are."
"I might be," he said, honest. "But they locked me up because they couldn't control me. I don't follow orders. I break 'em."
Something about his tone didn't ring like a lie. And besides—you didn't have time to interrogate a corpse if you left him in there. The extraction team will be here soon. You'd be surrounded.
You activated your scanning sense—bioelectric feedback, pulse regulation, ambient threat response—all heightened now, feeding you more than before.
No deception in his vitals.
But something deep in his body thrummed with volatile force. A living reactor.
You made your choice.
A flash of energy bursts from your palm, mimicking the control panel's clearance code. A soft whir. Then a hiss.
The pod unlocked with a slow, mechanical groan.
Raze staggered out like a freed animal. Taller than you expected. Muscular. Covered in faded scars and strange black tech embedded along his spine.
He stretched once. The ground beneath his feet cracked.
"…Thanks," he said, rolling his shoulders. "Hope you don't regret that."
"I will," you said. "If you screw with me."
He smirked. "Fair."
Then a new alarm blared overhead.
WARNING: PRIMARY CORE COMPROMISED30 SECONDS TO CORE DETONATION
Your eyes widened. "They wired the stasis pod to a kill switch."
Raze snarled. "Cheap HYDRA trick."
You looked around — too many sealed corridors and the elevator shaft was collapsed. You had two options: straight up through the ceiling, or fight through the lowest level and pray for an escape route.
"I'll handle the bottom," Raze growled. "You move up. You're faster."
He didn't wait for a reply. He charged through a steel wall with nothing but raw momentum.
You turned and bolted for the stairwell, absorbing the vibrations of the explosion in your legs. The blast from the control centre rocked the floor beneath you. Concrete shattered, flame licked through a broken duct, and an overhead beam snapped and fell.
Instinct took over.
Your body tensed and responded—not consciously, but automatically.
Your skin thickened, deflecting the falling debris. Lungs adapted, filtering smoke. Your reflexes cut reaction time in half.
You were learning faster now—reacting before the danger even registered. No commands. No cooldown. Just response.
You reached the main floor just as a squad of HYDRA reinforcements poured in from the far entrance, rifles raised.
They didn't hesitate.
Neither did you.
The first burst of gunfire bounced off your body like pebbles. You surged forward, mimicking Raze's brute-force momentum—but refining it, improving the balance and acceleration.
One soldier went flying through a wall. Another crumpled from a redirected strike that turned his kinetic charge back into him like a slingshot.
Two more tried to flank you. You slid beneath one's aim, disarmed him, and used his rifle to take down the second.
Raze exploded up through the floor behind them like a human wrecking ball, covered in flames but laughing.
"Love the chaos!" he shouted, backhanding a soldier into a server rack.
You grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the exit. "No time to play! This whole building is coming down!"
He didn't argue. You both ran, dodging collapsing girders and ruptured gas lines.
A final hallway.
Five feet from freedom.
Then the blast hit.
The core below imploded, and a shockwave hurled both of you into the street as fire shot out of every vent and crack in the warehouse.
You hit the ground hard and rolled.
When you looked up, half the block was ablaze.
Raze lay ten feet away, laughing and coughing. "That's the most fun I've had in months."
You staggered to your feet. Body sore. Skin burnt in some spots—but healing. Already adapting.
Raze stood and looked around, as fire engines wailed in the distance.
"You know," he said, glancing your way, "we made a hell of a first impression."
You didn't smile.
"Too many more of those, and we won't survive long enough to make a second."
He nodded.
"But if you're half as smart as I think you are, we won't just survive."
He grinned wider.
"We'll evolve."
You didn't reply — but your eyes said enough.
This wasn't the end of something.
It was the start of a new alliance.
An unstable one.
But the only kind that ever changed the world.