Marvelous Mutations

Wanda and Sharon both blinked, momentarily caught off guard by Luke's words.

Now that he mentioned it…

Neither of them had really thought about it before, but yes, the walls of the grocery store were completely untouched.

No bullet holes.

No cracks.

Just a few hours earlier, Hydra soldiers had unleashed a barrage of bullets inside this very space. The air had been thick with gunfire, and yet, not a single bullet had struck the walls or the rolling door. Not even a dent.

That... Definitely wasn't normal.

But then again, nothing about this grocery store was ever truly normal.

Wanda and Sharon exchanged a glance, then gave a slight shrug. At this point, they were more or less used to it.

"Boss," Sharon asked cautiously, "are we just gonna... watch from here?"

Unconsciously, she'd lifted Mjölnir again. A faint spark of lightning danced across the hammer's surface. Her stance had shifted, firmer, more assertive. Since gaining the power of thunder and the legendary weapon, she had grown noticeably more combative.

Whether it was the system's influence or Mjölnir's, no one knew for sure.

Luke glanced at her and smirked.

"These guys are just a bunch of amateurs," he said casually. "Once they realize they can't even put a dent in the grocery store, they'll retreat. Then we'll just quietly follow them back to wherever they crawled out from."

A mischievous glint flickered in his eye.

Wanda and Sharon both smiled knowingly.

With the helicarrier cloaked in stealth mode, tracking them would be no problem at all.

From high above, aboard the invisible flying fortress, the view below resembled something out of a god's perspective, clear, detached, powerful.

There was even something vaguely voyeuristic about it. Morbid, almost.

Down on the street, two muscular figures squared their shoulders and charged at the grocery store wall.

Excited murmurs rose from the crowd of enhanced humans behind them. Until now, they'd always hidden their strength. Killian had forbidden them from revealing their powers to the public.

But the time for secrecy was over.

The plan had begun.

And this grocery store, along with its inhabitants, would become their first public demonstration of dominance.

In a moving vehicle, Killian watched the scene unfold through a screen. When he saw his two enhanced soldiers preparing to strike, a grin curved across his lips.

Yes. This was the kind of power the Extremis should produce. This was an unstoppable force.

He was already imagining the look on Luke's face when a hundred glowing superhumans stood before him, ready to level his precious little shop.

"The fear you made me feel back then..." Killian murmured, "...I'll return it to you a hundredfold today."

Then…

BOOM! BOOM!

Two thunderous impacts shook the air.

Both men crashed into the wall with everything they had.

The ground seemed to tremble.

Dust lifted from the street.

And then... silence.

Everyone looked up.

The wall hadn't budged an inch.

No cracks at all.

Not even a scratch.

It was the exact same as it had been when they'd fired bullets at the rolling door moments earlier.

But this time, the attackers hadn't escaped unscathed.

Both men were now sprawled on the pavement, unconscious.

They'd hit the wall with such force that they'd knocked themselves out cold. Even Extremis couldn't keep their brains from shutting off after that kind of impact.

The high heat glowing from their skin began to fade.

They looked like two burnt-out corpses slumped under either side of the doorway.

Silence fell across the enhanced crowd.

Dozens of genetically modified super-soldiers stood dumbfounded, staring at a plain old brick wall like it had just defeated two tanks.

Confusion rippled through their ranks.

What kind of wall is this?

They'd shattered reinforced concrete before. They'd leveled bunkers.

But this?

This was just an old grocery store wall, made from hollow red bricks from decades ago. The kind of bricks that crumble if you breathe on them too hard.

And yet... nothing.

Not even a dent.

Even with over a hundred people present, the atmosphere turned eerily quiet.

In his car, Killian's jaw tightened. His brow furrowed. The confident smile had long vanished from his face.

This… wasn't part of the plan.

He'd anticipated resistance, yes, but they hadn't even made it inside the damn store.

And worse, Luke and the women hadn't even lifted a finger yet.

The situation was quickly turning bizarre.

A voice crackled through his communicator.

"Boss…" The voice was nervous, shaky. "This grocery store… it's too weird. We can't even damage the walls."

Killian's hand twitched. For a moment, he wanted to lash out, scream at them for their failure.

But he stopped himself.

He had been watching the whole time. He saw it with his own eyes.

This wasn't their fault. It wasn't that his soldiers were weak.

The grocery store itself was… unnatural.

Still, he couldn't afford to back down.

No matter what tricks Luke had up his sleeve, today he would fall.

"Fine. Stay there and hold the perimeter. Nobody gets in or out. Understood?"

"Understood, boss."

Killian switched channels.

He opened comms with the two armed helicopters he'd deployed earlier.

"Where are you? How close to target No. 3's location?"

"About five minutes out, boss," came the reply. "We're en route now."

A slow, sinister smile returned to Killian's face.

"Good. Support Team 3 and obliterate the grocery store. Use missiles if you have to."

"Copy that, boss."

Inside one of the choppers, the squad leader hung up and frowned.

Something didn't add up.

Third Team had been the strongest, hundreds of them, hand-picked, reinforced, trained.

And they couldn't take out a corner store?

What the hell is going on down there?

Still, orders were orders.

"Change course," the leader said. "58th Avenue, Manhattan. Target No. 3."

The two helicopters adjusted course and flew toward the grocery store.

…

Back on the helicarrier, Bumblebee detected the choppers' change in direction immediately.

Now linked with the carrier's advanced surveillance systems, his detection abilities had become extraordinary, even without a network connection.

He pinged Luke's comm.

"Boss," Bumblebee said, "we've got two armed helicopters inbound. They're heading for the grocery store."

Luke's eyebrows lifted.

"They also came from Tony Stark's place," Bumblebee continued. "And… it looks like his house was destroyed. The president's also been kidnapped."

Luke's eyes flicked to the dual screens in front of him as Bumblebee pulled up video feeds.

On one screen, pieces of Tony Stark's mansion crumbled into the ocean, smoke billowing from where it once stood.

On the other, a breaking news report flashed across the screen: "U.S. PRESIDENT ABDUCTED BY UNKNOWN FORCES."

Luke stared at the reports, stunned.

Wait a second…

In the original timeline, these two events didn't happen at the same time.

But now, Killian had accelerated everything. The missile strike, the abduction, the enhanced army, he'd launched it all at once.

No.

Three events this time.

He'd launched three operations simultaneously, including this massive attack on his shop.

Luke leaned back slightly, then chuckled.

"Well," he murmured, "he's crazier than I thought." 'Way crazier than the Killian I saw in the movie.'

Then his expression shifted, just slightly.

A glint in his eye.

A slow, dangerous smile spreading across his face.

The crazier, the better.

Because that just meant the climax was coming sooner than expected, and with that came his plot points.

…