Marvelous Meditations

The warehouse was silent now.

No more gunfire. No more screams.

Just the cold scent of blood, gunpowder, and death lingering in the air like a ghost.

Eric Brooks—Blade—stepped through the open entrance, his long coat shifting as a gust of wind stirred the debris littering the ground. His boots crunched softly against broken glass and spent shell casings, but his movements were otherwise silent.

Too late.

The battle had ended hours ago.

But he already knew that.

Blade had been on Baron Blood's trail for weeks, tracking the vampire's movements across the old-world circles—the kind of covens that didn't play well with others. The kind that whispered in dead languages and kept their secrets buried under centuries of blood-soaked history.

Lately, those whispers had changed. Something was happening.

Baron Blood had been moving differently, operating outside his usual hunting patterns. No pointless slaughter, no theatrical displays of power. He was searching for something—something important enough to make him desperate.

And that desperation had led him here.

Blade's sharp eyes swept the warehouse. The bodies of Hydra operatives lay sprawled across the concrete in twisted, unnatural angles. Bullet wounds, broken necks, crushed ribcages. A few were slumped against crates, others were scattered near overturned tables, their weapons lying useless at their sides.

"Not your style, Baron," Blade muttered under his breath.

He crouched beside one of the corpses, studying the precise way the body had been taken down. No throat tearing, no excessive feeding—just clean, efficient kills.

Not a vampire's work.

Whoever had done this had training.

And they weren't sloppy.

Blade reached into his coat, pulling out a small UV flashlight and flicking it on. The violet glow illuminated a single piece of debris, lying on the concrete. He picked it up, turning it over in his gloved fingers.

It was stained dark.

He lifted it to his nose, inhaling deeply.

And there it was, a scent older than rot.

"Baron Blood."

Blade's lips curled into a sharp grin. He pocketed the piece of debris and kept moving, his senses expanding beyond human limits. His ears picked up the faintest disturbances—the echoes of the fight still imprinted on the space around him.

His nose caught something else. Two distinct scents.

One carried gunpowder, steel, and something sharp—like ozone before a storm. The other was lighter, less sharp, but still dangerous.

Neither belonged to Baron Blood.

But both had been here.

Blade's gaze landed on two shriveled remains one near a stack of crates, the other in a dark corner; hands.

Or what was left of them.

One looked normal, as for the other... its fingers were curled inward, the skin blackened and dried, like leather left in the sun for centuries. Even now, it still decayed, as if something unnatural had poisoned the very essence of the flesh.

Blade picked it up, rolling it between his fingers.

"Well, damn."

Even with his experience, he'd never seen a vampire suffer this much.

This was something else entirely.

Something had cut the baron deep.

Something he couldn't heal from.

Blade exhaled through his nose, already reconstructing the fight in his mind. The movements, the patterns, the scent trails left behind.

Baron Blood had been here.

He'd fought someone. And he'd lost.

That didn't happen often.

Blade ran his tongue across his teeth, considering his next move.

Whoever these two were, they'd managed to wound a monster. That meant they either got damn lucky… or they were dangerous in their own right.

Either way—he needed to find them.

He adjusted his sunglasses, glancing around one last time before turning toward the exit.

"Guess I got some hunting to do."

...

Nathan stepped into the hidden laboratory, his boots echoing lightly against the cold metal floor. The facility was a masterpiece of clandestine engineering—tucked away where no prying eyes could reach, humming with the energy of cutting-edge science. Banks of monitors displayed streams of data, flickering holograms hovered above workstations, and the air carried the sterile tang of chemicals and ozone.

At the center of it all, two oversized craniums bobbed in animated debate. Elihas Starr and Samuel Sterns, two of the most brilliant yet unstable minds on the planet, were too engrossed in their argument to properly acknowledge Nathan's arrival.

"That's absurd!" Elihas snapped, waving a hand toward a floating model of a double-helix structure. "The human genome can't accommodate such an aggressive rewrite without catastrophic rejection. You're talking about spontaneous combustion!"

Sterns, ever smug, merely smirked. "That's only if you lack the appropriate stabilizing factor. You keep thinking in two dimensions, Starr. There are ways to bypass the natural limitations of the body—you just refuse to see them."

Nathan barely spared them a glance. He'd long since learned that interrupting two ego-fueled scientists mid-debate was a waste of time. Instead, his gaze swept across the lab, taking in the other occupants.

Calvin Zabo stood by one of the workbenches, sleeves rolled up, deep in his own research. His movements were precise, methodical, his focus unwavering. The man was a genius in biochemistry, but his obsession with transformation always had an edge of madness to it.

And then there was Maya Hansen.

She stood off to the side, arms crossed, watching the chaos with an unimpressed glare. Her discontent was obvious—she didn't want to be here. Nathan noted the stiffness in her posture, the way her fingers tapped impatiently against her arm, and the slight narrowing of her eyes as she surveyed the room.

Amused, he stepped toward her and cleared his throat.

Maya's gaze snapped to him, and her expression darkened. She didn't bother to mask her irritation. "You must be the one in charge here," she said coolly. "You've got some nerve—kidnapping me and bringing me to this freak show."

Nathan smirked, unfazed. "I wouldn't call it kidnapping," he said easily. "More like a strongly worded invitation." He gestured toward the exit. "You're free to leave… once you've heard what I have to say."

Maya's frown deepened, skepticism creeping into her sharp features. She folded her arms tighter but tilted her head slightly, signaling reluctant curiosity. "Fine. Say your piece."

Nathan didn't waste time. He leaned in slightly, lowering his voice just enough to keep their conversation private. "I want the same thing you want, Dr. Hansen—a perfected Extremis serum."

A flicker of surprise crossed her face before she quickly masked it with suspicion. "And why exactly would you want that?"

Nathan's smirk didn't falter. "Why wouldn't I?"

Maya Hansen let out a weary sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose. "That was a stupid question," she muttered before crossing her arms and fixing Nathan with a sharp gaze. "Let me rephrase—why the hell should I help you when I'm already working with A.I.M.? I'm this close to perfecting Extremis. I don't need you."

Nathan tilted his head, unimpressed. "Because what you want and what Killian wants are two very different things." He paused, letting the words sink in before continuing. "You want a legacy. A cure for the incurable. The next step in human evolution." He gave a knowing smirk. "Killian? He just wants power. A tool to reshape the world in his image and stroke his fragile ego."

Maya frowned, suspicion flickering in her eyes. "What are you talking about?"

Nathan folded his arms, watching her reaction. "The Mandarin. You can't seriously be naïve enough to think Killian isn't connected to him."

She stiffened, lips pressing into a thin line. She didn't respond, but the deepening furrow of her brow told him she was thinking—hard.

Nathan chuckled darkly. "Yeah, I figured. You've had doubts, haven't you?" He leaned in slightly, lowering his voice. "I hate to break it to you, Doctor, but you've been fed a load of bullshit. Killian isn't working for the Mandarin." His smirk widened. "He is the Mandarin. The bombings, the attacks—they're all orchestrated by him."

Maya scoffed, but there was hesitation in her voice. "That doesn't make any sense. Why would he—?"

"He needed a scapegoat," Nathan cut in smoothly. "A convenient boogeyman to keep the world distracted while he builds his empire. The Mandarin? He's just a drunken British actor playing a role, a disposable mask to take the fall when the time comes."

Maya's breath hitched slightly. She didn't speak, but her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

'She's putting the pieces together,' Nathan thought. 'Good.'

Maya Hansen folded her arms as she leveled Nathan with a skeptical stare. "And I suppose you have proof of these claims?"

Nathan gave a nonchalant shrug. "Other than the name of the so-called 'Mandarin'? Trevor Slattery—some washed-up British actor playing pretend? Yeah, I've got plenty."

Without missing a beat, he reached into his coat and pulled out a worn manila folder, the edges slightly frayed. He tossed it onto the table beside her. "Take a look. That's a classified report from one of the bombings your 'Mandarin' took credit for."

Maya hesitated for a moment before flipping it open. Inside were forensic reports, autopsy results, and surveillance images. As her eyes skimmed over the pages, her frown deepened.

Nathan watched her closely, his voice measured. "Like every other attack Killian orchestrated, the explosion didn't come from an actual bomb—it originated from a person. No devices, no timers, just a human being going up in flames. That sound familiar?"

Maya's grip on the folder tightened. Her breath hitched for just a fraction of a second, but she said nothing.

Nathan smirked. "Yeah, thought so."

She continued reading, flipping through photos of the aftermath—charred pavement, bodies burned beyond recognition, metal melted into pools from the sheer heat. Eventually, her gaze landed on a single, seemingly insignificant detail—a dog tag.

She raised her head, her voice more composed than her expression. "There was a dog tag found at the scene without an identified owner. What name was on it?"

Nathan didn't answer right away. Instead, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a small plastic evidence bag, and casually tossed it toward her. She caught it on reflex and turned it over.

Her eyes widened.

The name etched into the worn metal was painfully familiar—one of their test subjects. A former soldier. A man who had lost his arm.

Maya's face paled slightly, her fingers tightening around the tag. Her mind raced through the implications, the connections she had either ignored or been too blinded by her work to see.

Nathan leaned in slightly, his voice quiet but firm. "Killian isn't giving people a second chance, Hansen. He's turning them into ticking time bombs. And when they go off? He just covers it up and moves on to the next experiment."

Maya Hansen exhaled sharply, her fingers tightening around the laminated ID badge she'd been absently toying with. Her gaze flickered down to it, as if searching for answers in the sterile white letters spelling out her name. Then she shook her head.

"This doesn't make any sense," she muttered, more to herself than to Nathan. "If Killian needed a cover-up, there were safer ways—smarter ways—than parading a fake terrorist around like a circus act."

Nathan leaned against a nearby counter, arms crossed. His posture was casual, but his eyes were sharp, measuring her reaction.

"That's because this isn't just about covering up mistakes. Killian's thinking bigger. He wants to carve out his own piece of the world, and what better way than by hijacking the anti-terrorist hysteria he's been brewing?" He let that sink in before adding, "And wouldn't you know it? Vice President Rodriguez has been one of the loudest voices backing that movement."

Maya frowned, her expression darkening with realization, but Nathan wasn't done.

"Convenient, isn't it? Rodriguez also happens to have a disabled daughter. And what's the one thing that could cure her?" He let the question hang for a second before answering it himself. "Extremis."

Reaching into his jacket, Nathan retrieved a photograph and slid it onto the counter in front of her. The image was grainy, taken from a distance, but the subjects were unmistakable—Aldrich Killian, standing in a dimly lit parking garage, shaking hands with Vice President Rodriguez.

"A perfect man to turn into a puppet," Nathan said, his voice edged with meaning.

Maya stared at the photo, her lips pressing into a tight line. There was something unsettling about seeing the pieces laid out so clearly, a puzzle she hadn't realized she was part of.

"You're asking me to betray A.I.M.," she said finally, her voice quieter now, more measured.

Nathan tilted his head. "I'm asking you to open your damn eyes, lady. Killian is going to get you and himself killed. I've already tipped the right people to what he's up to, and soon enough they'll have the full truth. So now, you have a choice, go down with Killian in his sinking ship, or work for me to save yourself and your life's work... "

For the first time since their conversation started, Maya didn't have a response.

...

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