Jean popped out of a portal beside me with a look that mirrored mine, but I could tell there was more on her mind. "What did you find out?"

As I suspected, Jean interrogated the Widows on a hunch and learned some interesting information. Dreykov and Hydra were working against each other.

One of Dreykov's girls had been watching Carl Creel in Madrapoor learned the oafish man was stepping up to the plate. He was holding a candle for Daniel Whitehall, his creator, and wanted to complete his mission by becoming the perfect soldier for Hydra's ultimate mission--whatever that was.

I was stumped that Creel bought into Hydra's propaganda so intensely, but no one was immune to brainwashing, I guess.

The news, which I looked up on my phone, confirmed as much. There was a team of mercenaries shooting up a street in Downtown New York while the police scrambled to stop them. Apparently, Tony Stark was also stuck in the traffic jam that ensued after the death of the General.

"What do you want to do?" Jean asked me, and I contemplated my answer for several seconds before deciding.

"Go to the base and get the team here, pronto. Call the X-Men and get them on standby if we need them. Lastly, I'm going to need a portal to that street. We're fucked if Hydra gets their hands on Tony Stark or the Hulk Formula. I need to retrieve both."

"You should take Kurt with you at least," Jean urged. "I can open portals. I don't need him here."

"Not true," I said. "You'll need all your concentration in case Hydra or Dreykov come prepared. You cannot be distracted."

"And what about you? Who'll look out for you?"

"I can read minds, have an arsenal of self-made weapons, start fires that can melt stone, and am faster than the fastest supercar on the planet right now," I said. "I think I can handle some Hydra agents. Besides, the X-Men team is on standby, and there is no doubt Fury is already assembling a secondary team. I'll be fine."

"You've said that before," Jean frowned, and I set my jaw.

"I'm not sure I could handle you or anyone else getting hurt on my watch," I said. I saw the surprise in her eyes. My words stunned her a little. "I'll call in if something goes wrong, and I'll likely need you or Kurt for exfil when I find Tony. I promise I'll be fine."

Jean reluctantly nodded and opened a portal. Before I stepped through, I pulled my Siren's Mask, switching for a metal half-mask. I also wore leather and metal armor and a set of pauldrons, greaves, and vambraces—all reddish infernal metal inscribed with runes that were 50% more powerful than they'd otherwise been.

I also had a more comprehensive armor set in my Weapon's vault and a few new weapons I was eager to test.

I stepped out in the thick of it. Police and Hydra agents traded bullets behind car barricades. Screams, gun smoke, and rising smoke from car fires intermingled to create what I imagined a warzone would feel like.

The firefight stopped immediately as all guns swiveled to me.

"Identify yourself!" a twitchy police officer demanded, but before I could get a word out, the Hydra agents opened fire.

"Kill him," he said. "It doesn't matter."

His was the first head I took off when I started moving. Angel Evade turned me intangible. I materialized in front of him long enough to behead him with a sweep of my two new infernal shortswords. They were ideal for short-range encounters where there wasn't quite enough space to pull Rebellion out. Besides, I was still operating under the assumption that Shin could somehow manage to take Rebellion from me.

"Oh shit!" Somebody on the police side screamed. It melded with the cries of the Hydra agents as I cut through them at startling speeds. In seconds, all 14 shooters were either beheaded or stabbed.

Screams filled the air, and explosions followed after, sending shrapnel, cars, and body parts all over the place. Amidst the chaos, I saw a team of enhanced soldiers zipping through at supernatural speeds. A mercenary dressed in all black stood atop a black capsized car, taking potshot after potshot at the fleeing masses.

Noticing me, he pointed it in my direction but didn't get the chance to fire before an energy bullet ripped through his forehead, killing him instantly.

I went intangible again, zipping after the soldiers. I helped whenever I could, pulling people out of cars and ferrying them away from the fires, but I kept chasing the soldiers, even if I was falling behind trying to play the hero.

When they saw this, they communicated via their mics about setting bombs to slow me down so that they could move on Stark.

Stolen novel; please report.

I heard all this because I was tapped into one of their heads.

Fuck that.

My speed doubled as I used into my full Dexterity.

"Psst," I mentally whispered to the last man in the formation, startling him. He had a hole in his gut before he even realized it. I sped over to a car, bounded in the direction they were moving, and pulled Ebony and Ivory. Two of the ten advancing soldiers saw my shadow and reacted in time. I killed six out of ten of them before they realized it, and the other two did not escape unscathed, but their wounds didn't seem to bother them either.

They stopped bleeding when they started moving from behind the cars where they had taken refuge, which confirmed that they weren't standard Super soldiers.

They tried to change tactics by returning fire to keep me at bay while advancing toward their target, but that didn't help them. A Burst threw me in the direction of the closest soldier, and he surprised me by grabbing a lady hiding underneath her car and holding her in front of me.

He didn't get the chance to make whatever bullshit threat he had in mind before I phased through both of them, spun around, and backhanded the man at his nape, killing him instantly.

I grabbed the soldier so he didn't fall on the panicking woman as she pedaled forward, screaming for her life. I pulled away the balaclava covering the face of the dead soldier, and it confirmed my greatest fear.

He was Fleshwarped with thick veins running up and down his face and neck. I even saw hints of red in his irises.

That's just fucking peachy.

Domina was coming for me like she promised. I set the dead demon on fire by summoning demonic energy and my fire affinity, letting him drop to the floor with vague disgust. The woman flinched at the display and started crawling back to get some distance while I stalked toward her.

"Hide," I ordered. Two seconds later, two of the remaining surviving soldiers attacked me, moving at speeds I would've struggled with before my evolution. Domina certainly knew how to pick them.

They had tossed their guns aside, pulling out a set of glowing knives covered in blue demonic inscriptions. One look at them told me exactly what the knives did. They were hard-counters against my dimensional affinity, meant to strike at my real body in limbo while I was intangible.

Too bad I didn't need Angel Evade to rip them apart. I stepped to the side, dodging the first fighter as he landed, cracking the ground. I pulled Betsy, firing a shot into his chest. He took it in his folded arms instead.

The shot ripped him open, dislocating his arms and shattering bones, leaving him open for a follow-up shot that would've left me vulnerable to the sneak attack from the second guy.

I twisted, parrying the knife lunge coming at my back with my vambrace, and locked my assassin in a tight trip while I fired another shot at his second, killing him instantly. The offender tried kicking me to separate, but I grabbed his leg and hefted him in the air. He was in the middle of tossing the knife to his free hand when a Burst carrying Nether fire exploded from my chest, incinerating him. He screamed as I ripped him in half. I fetched his dagger, looked it over, and stored it. In the corner of my eyes, I spied the woman I saved looking at me.

She was shaking. "Keep your head down," I said. "This will be over soon enough."

The ground underneath me shattered as I surged forward with Burst and Gust. In the blink of an eye, I was standing in front of Tony's car. Four of his five bodyguards were dead, leaving only Happy Hogan to defend Tony, who was hiding in his car, yelling over to Happy to let him help.

The bodyguard flat-out refused.

A super soldier was closing in with his knife, ready to gut Happy. Just before his knife plunged downward, I materialized behind him and swiped off his head with Rebellion.

Happy let out a startled yelp and, fumbled for the gun to the side and pointed it at me. In my eyes, Happy and the rest of the world moved in slow motion.

"After everything you've seen, do you think that'll be enough?" I asked, but surprisingly, Happy grew even more determined, struggling to his feet.

"I'll do what it takes to protect Mr. Stark."

I smiled under my mask, dismissing Rebellion. "Good. There might be hope for you yet, Happy Hogan."

"How do you…."

"Know your name? Magic," I smiled. "How else is any of this possible? Now, get your boss out here. We need to move before backup arrives."

Happy didn't budge, however. Instead of calming him, my words seemed to have the opposite effect.

"I'm a government contractor," I said, loud enough for Tony Stark to hear. And frankly, I'm the only person in this city who can protect you from them."

"Who's this them?" Tony said, shoving the crushed side door of his car open while he hefted a laser rifle in his arm. It looked experimental and powered with a prototype of what I assumed was the arc reactor. I smiled at the sight.

"My father's people," I said to Tony. "Demons."

Tony made a face. "I can tell from your mask and armor that you're dedicated to your bit, but demons? Really?"

I could've lied and drip-fed him information, but Tony wasn't the type to stop digging till he learned the truth. And besides, I knew that when Fury approached him, he'd be more trusting of the mask-wearing demon than the one-eyed government spook.

I pumped demonic energy into my palm and let my fire affinity consume and warp it. My palm exploded in an unstable but intense burn of black and red fire. "I've got the Hellfire to prove it," I said casually. "And the people that attacked you are not human by any stretch of the imagination. That strength, speed, endurance… it's not natural."

"It could be an experimental Super soldier serum," Tony theorized. "The government like to pretend like they lost everything after the captain went into the water, but I know for a fact they didn't."

"You're right," I admitted, "but not about the soldiers. They're corrupted humans, not super soldiers. I will tell you everything you want to know in time, but this is hardly the place. I need to know which direction the man who stole from Ross ran, and I need to hide you somewhere where the demons will never find you."

Tony frowned. "Why do they want to kill me so badly."

"You're the merchant of death, Tony Stark—one of the largest Weapon designers and developers on the planet. You're one of the few people alive who can actually stop them."

I tapped my earpiece and placed a call to Jean. A second later, Kurt materialized beside me, dressed in a SHIELD Uniform. He seemed a bit surprised by my new get-up and nodded at me.

"I'd like you to meet my associate…"

"Nightcrawler," Kurt said.

"He'll get you both to safety. Now, which direction did the thieves go again?"