January 12th, 2014

Wolfgang von Strucker listened on a SHIELD channel with a neutral look on his face as Steve Rogers continued to give his speech.

“They could be standing right next to you. They almost have what they want with the help of the Insight Helicarriers: absolute control.”

“This is bad,” Doctor List, an older man with dark skin and white hair, hissed to von Strucker.

von Strucker sighed at the words of his second-in-command. “Doctor, I hired you for your intelligence. Please, do not state the obvious.”

He looked towards the two cells in the back of the room. The Maximoff Twins were testing their powers again. The boy, Pietro, was rushing back and forth in his cell, a mere white blur whenever he wasn't simply staring out at them. The girl, Wanda, was calmer. She sat on the floor, constantly spinning the energy in her hands around until there seemed to be an orb of red light in her lap.

Frankly, both twins worried him. Their intensity, the strength of their powers, the clear instability of the children, was all a cause for concern.

“As of now, all loyal SHIELD agents should be getting a program on their phones,” Rogers said on the channel. List took out his phone, Strucker, and several others in the lab doing the same. That's when Strucker began to realize how bad things had truly gotten.

His cell phone was dead. Looking around, so were all the other ones. The computers had also been disconnected from any internet connection.

“What is happening?” Doctor List asked.

“Standard tactics, Doctor List. Remove your enemies communications, take their information, identify them to your allies,” Strucker clenched a fist. “We need to move, now.”

“Where?” Doctor List asked. “Where should we go?”

“Anywhere,” Strucker shook his head. “This... Hercules app,” Strucker had to admire the name. “It will be our downfall if we let it. We must stop using any bases that have ever been in a SHIELD database.”

Strucker looked around. “Pack, now! I want the entire base empty of anything useful in one hour! Kill all SHIELD members, the ones we kept to stave off suspicion.”

The soldiers and technicians around him began moving immediately

“Do you really believe we are in any danger?” Doctor List asked.

“More danger than we have ever been in,” Strucker scowled. “First, we must-”

“Sir!” A soldier came down a hall, running towards Strucker. He held a smartphone that was glowing green. “Sir, we need to-”

A red beeping came from the phone. The soldier, a young man with dark black skin and well-cut hair, had time to stare at the phone in horror. Then Strucker shot him in the face.

“Damn,” Strucker watched the body fall, the Glock 19 in his hand lowering. “He was a good soldier...”

Strucker kept walking. “First, we must kill any other SHIELD members on base. Luckily we are mostly HYDRA, but we can't allow our enemies to know about the twins, the Chitauri armor, or the scepter. Then we destroy the base.”

List nodded sadly. “Yes, I see what you're saying.”

“From there, we must establish communications with the other cells,” Strucker scowled. “SHIELD was somehow able to hack my phone, a device of my own design, despite all of my defenses against hackers. This is despite all of our experimentation into AI. Which means that Stark's own must be involved. We need allies, we need resources, and we need information.”

Some of his soldiers ran around the pair as they walked, saluting briefly. They ran into a hall as Strucker continued, and soon the sound of gunshots echoed through the area as SHIELD personnel died.

“Understood,” List said.

------

Three hours later, flying over his base in a Quinjet, von Strucker stared down at the place that had once been his home, a large mansion in the middle of the German countryside, surrounded by beautiful grasslands. He stood in the back of the Quinjet with the door open, the wind rushing around him as he watched his people float nearby in their own aircraft, tanks and Humvees driving away. With some sadness in his heart, he raised the detonator in his hand.

“Pity, I'd just decorated my office to my specifications.”

Stucker flipped the switch.

BOOM

Explosions rocked throughout the mansion. As Strucker watched, the Quinjet rocked gently from the shockwaves of the controlled destruction. He turned away, looking at those in the Quinjet. “We will not let this stop us. I refuse to let it. Fly to America, and let us start this war in earnest.”

“Hail, HYDRA!” the men in the Quinjet said in unison.

With that, Strucker's fleet took to the skies as his vehicles headed to the coast.

------

Upon reaching the United States, Strucker found only frustration.

“All communications are still shut down,” List told him as they flew over the country. They were staring at a screen in the Quinjet, trying to find help. “Fuel will become an issue soon as well. We need to land. We need to find our people.”

“Doctor List, you've gained a habit of saying the obvious that I can't seem to appreciate,” Strucker said with a growl. “Show them to me again.”

List tapped at the screen. “Luckily we can still watch the news, even if we can't talk to anyone. According to what I've managed to compile, they're called 'Dial' and 'Falcon', as far as can be told. A human who can turn into aliens, and a soldier who flies with an experimental jetpack,” on the screen, Falcon was diving out of a crystal mountain to fly past enemy Quinjets. The video changed to show him outmaneuvering gunships with acrobatic ease, twisting and flipping through the air with more maneuverability than any aircraft could match, his wings letting him change direction in ways even the Iron Men could not. Then a series of photos showing several alien creatures, the most prominent being the image of a helicarrier glowing black with green circuitry.

Strucker shook his head. “Fascinating, both of them. The skill of that flier gives me several ideas for our own forces. That alien, however... the fact the Avengers are now chasing us is bad enough without the addition of other heroes coming out of the shadows and aiding them.”

If anything, these revelations helped Strucker with any doubts over his current course of action. They needed muscle. And he knew just where to get it. Strucker turned towards the pilot. “Are we almost there?”

“Yes sir,” the pilot said. “We're twenty minutes out.”

“Are you sure about this, von Strucker?” List asked. “They were captured for a reason.”

“I am grasping at straws, Dr. List. The entire world is chasing us, and I must gather tools to fight against them. I thought this to be an age of miracles... but I was wrong. This is an age of monsters. I should have realized that,” Strucker sighed. “Prepare the twins.”

List and the HYDRA soldiers around them stared at him. “Sir,” List said, shocked. “Are you-”

“No, I am not,” Strucker spat out, his eyes flashing. “But I will survive this. No matter the cost.”

------

In a military base in Alaska, a US Army soldier stood to watch at his station. Things had been routine that day. Get up, eat, guard, eat, guard. He stood inside his guard tower in his uniform, watching the icy tundra around him as he worked at the computers around him, checking radar, sensors, and listening to his headset. For a moment, he enjoyed the calm monotony of the work.

Then he saw the aircraft on his radar. The soldier reached for his headset and sent a signal. “Unidentified aircraft, identify yourselves.”

The soldier listened to static for a moment. When no response came, he switched channels to contact the base commander. “Sir, this is Guard Tower 2, we have incoming unidentified aircraft, Quinjets.”

“One second!” an unfamiliar voice responded in a strange accent. “I'll be right with you!” Russian, maybe? Some sort of Eastern European.

“This is a secure line, who is this?” the soldier said, now immensely worried.

A sudden explosion drew his attention. He spun in his chair and got up, quickly crossing to the other side of the guard tower to see where the commotion was coming from. The explosion had been from one of the hangers blowing up within the confines of the base. The soldier, now understanding they were under attack, took a moment to watch in horror as a woman in a red dress threw waves of some sort of scarlet energy at an incoming Humvee, tearing the vehicle to pieces.

“Shit!” the soldier cried, running back to his station. He picked up his headset to contact to the mainland, only for the back of his jacket to get snatched in between rough hands. He was pulled back and tossed through the window “Aaagh!”

The last things he saw as he fell was a blue blur running to join the woman in red as a fleet of Quinjet's flew over the fences to head towards the base in the distance. Just before he landed, the blue blur ran back to him, kicking him in the chest, breaking his ribs but ironically also saving his life, words on a sign flashed before him.

Barrow, Alaska. The Vault.

------

“von Strucker,” Pietro Maximoff, the fastest mortal in the world, said the words with a flippancy that bothered the HYDRA commander. “Welcome to the base. Want us to show you around?”

“No need,” Strucker looked around. “Your first battle with your powers, Pietro. How does it feel?”

Pietro smiled darkly. “Brilliant. We're unstoppable.”

Quinjets landed in the courtyard of the base, and soldiers spilled out of them. HYDRA men wearing Chitauri armor flew out of the vessels and took to the skies. List walked out to join Strucker, and Wanda walked over to join her brother.

“Now, let us see our spoils, shall we?” Strucker asked, walking with the pair to enter the large cement encased base through the massive steel doors that had been blown apart. Soldiers both mundane and wearing Chitauri armor followed.

“You said this would help us kill the Avengers,” Wanda said, giving Strucker a look. “What is it? A weapon?”

“In a sense,” Strucker admitted as they strode through the stone walls of the base. “They were both locked away here in 2010. One was even suggested as an Avengers candidate.”

“What? We're here for a person?” Pietro asked.

“Yes, we are. Two of them, though I would be hard-pressed to call them people at this point,” Strucker took a right, his soldiers, List, and the twins following.

“You said one was an Avenger?” Wanda asked, saying the word 'Avenger' with disgust. “Why would he help us?”

“Only a candidate, never an actual Avenger,” Strucker admitted. “And, in the end, he will help us for the same reason we are helping each other. We have the same goals.”

They went into a heavy duty steel reinforced elevator and Strucker hit the button to go down. “Now, how are you both feeling?”

Pietro and Wanda looked at each other, confused. Strucker rolled his eyes. “This is, as I said, your first actual battle. How are you functioning? Have there been any issues with control?”

“No,” Wanda said softly, the Sokovian native raising a hand to let a small curl of red power float around her palm. Pietro eyed the soldiers when a couple clenched their weapons at the casual display. “It feels... natural.”

Strucker nodded and looked at Pietro. The young man scoffed. “I'm fine.”

“Good,” the elevator doors opened, and Strucker stepped out. “We may need you soon.”

Walking down the concrete hallways, they soon came to a door. Strucker gestured, and one of the soldiers kicked it in, striding in with his gun raised. Two more went in, one of them wearing the glowing modified Chitauri armor. Several shots rang out, followed by screams. After a moment of waiting, one of them called out.

“Clear!”

Strucker nodded and walked inside, followed by the twins. Pietro and Wanda stopped in surprise when they saw the object in the center of the room.

The entire room was surrounded by computers and whiteboards with formulas written on them. Scientist lay dead on the floor, and they stepped over their corpses. Strucker gazed at the equations for a moment, ignoring the object that dominated the center of the room. “Doctor List. Can you understand this?”

“Let me see,” List strode over and looked at the mathematics on the board. “This is... what is this?” List stared at the numbers before him. “It's... brilliant! But mad as well. How can someone even comprehend this? I'll have to go over it for months!”

“Or we ask him,” Pietro said in his accented voice.

Strucker finally looked at the object in the center of the room. A large oblong tube, filled with green glowing fluid. A Geiger counter rested on the side of it, gently ticking and indicating low levels of Gamma radiation. Inside, was a figure. He was unconscious, floating gently in the green liquid of his tube. A man, rather short, and skinny. Unremarkable in his features, until one noted his head.

A head which had grown outwards, extending his forehead to give him a misshapen appearance.

“Project Mr. Blue,” Pietro read off a clipboard nearby.

“Samuel Sterns,” Strucker said. “If the Hulk is the pinnacle of strength, then this man is the pinnacle of brilliance... What an unnatural creature.”

“Why is he in there?” Wanda asked.

“Because SHIELD feared his intelligence,” Strucker said softly. “As do I. But I must take all the resources I can find,” Strucker turned to his men. “Take six of your men and prepare him to be moved. We have someone else to take with us.”

“Someone like Sterns?” Wanda asked.

“Not exactly.”

Strucker led his group to another door, and they went down several flights of stairs. He stopped when they came to a door way and looked at Pietro. “Mr. Maximoff? Please remove the weapons of the men behind the door. Miss Maximoff, you will be needed for the turrets.”

The twins nodded, Pietro smirking confidently as Wanda took a deep breath. Strucker opened the door, and Pietro disappeared, Wanda and the soldiers following. Army soldiers in green and SHIELD agents in black raised their weapons as they entered, four automated turrets spinning to aim at them.

A blue blur ran amongst the twenty men in front of the large white tank in the back of the room. In seconds, they had no weapons, allowing bullets and purple beams to kill the soldiers. When the automated turrets were about to fire, Wanda waved her hands in arcane motions, surrounding them in her power. The guns were covered in the same energy, and rose up with a tearing sound as they were separated from their base. With another wave, the turrets were torn apart. Like that, the room was clear. Leaving them all to stare at the white tank that dominated the room. Cold smoke drifted from pipes connected to the enormous tank, which was the size of a small truck at least. Through glass as thick as a forearm, they could see the being inside.

“Good lord,” List said moments later.

“He's... giant. And damn ugly,” Pietro added, awestruck.

“Emil Blonksy, the Abomination of Harlem,” Strucker said as they gazed upon the being before them. “The Council suggested him as a possible Avenger over the Hulk. Funny how blind they were.”

The resting face of Emil Blonsky was almost savage even as it slept. Green, covered in thick skin and bony growths. Hundreds of pounds of bone and muscle, covered in spikes. A disgusting combination of a bodybuilders muscle and a monster's body.

“We'll transport him on one of the Quinjets,” Strucker said firmly. “The Avengers have their Hulk, have their Iron Men and monsters. Now we will have ours.”

------

Strucker watched as the green-skinned man on the makeshift stretcher in the middle of the Quinjet slowly woke up. He'd been removed from his tube, but still had enough sedatives inside him that it had taken thirty minutes to wake him up. Pietro and Wanda stood by his side as they looked down at him.

Samuel Sterns blearily opened his eyes. After seeing those before him, he closed them again.

“HYDRA, hm? I thought you were still hiding... no, it seems Pierce's plan has failed,” all of this was said in a half-lucid murmer, Sterns sighing.

“So you did know,” Strucker said. “It was rumored that you were telepathic.”

“Hardly,” Sterns opened his eyes and looked around. “I'm simply observant. And very, very smart. Why have you taken me? Though I can make an obvious deduction, it is always good to be told directly.”

“Because I need advantages, Mr. Stern,” Strucker said firmly, slightly annoyed by the man's ego. “SHIELD has sent HYDRA scattering to the winds. I wish to offer you the chance to join us.”

“That desperate?” Sterns chuckled. “I can see how hesitant you are. Why come to find me, when you don't even truly want my help?” Strucker scowled. This only seemed to amuse Sterns further. His green eyes gazed around the room. “Well, I think I will join you.”

“Just like that?” Pietro asked.

“Not quite,” Sterns began to rise up. When soldiers raised their weapons, Strucker held out a hand to stop them. Sterns got into a sitting position on the bed and looked out the window. “Communications are dead, are they? Interesting.” Sterns looked at Strucker. “I haven't had true simulation in months. SHIELD would knock me out for weeks, having me do their equations in two-hour implements because they feared any longer would give me the chance to figure out means of escape, of course, they weren't wrong,” Sterns scowled. “I am not a calculator. I am a genius. The ideas in my mind, young man, are world changing. And I wish to implement them. I've always been more curious than cautious, and that's only increased. I don't care about SHIELD or HYDRA, I don't care about your petty games. I want to change this world. Now, will you let me do that?”

Strucker eyed him. “Possibly... but only if you help me, of course. Starting with my inability to communicate with my forces.”

Sterns laughed. “Deal. And I'll even help you convince Blonksy.”

Strucker glared at him. “How did you-”

“Oh please, like a man as desperate as you wouldn't take the Abomination with him,” Sterns frowned. “Abomination... you know what? I'd like a name like that, I think. Something very austere...” Sterns held out a hand. “Well, do we have a deal?”

For a tense moment, no one moved. Then Strucker shook Sterns' hand. As Sterns smiled, Strucker wondered if he was going to regret this.