Chapter 213: Burning of Alexandria

16th March 2012, New York City

(Jasmine Sayre POV)

The man looked terrified out of his mind now, “What do you want?”

I chuckled, finally, we’re getting somewhere, “What I want is quite simple. Stay away from my family, stay away from my company, and I won’t crush you and your organization like a bug. And believe me, I see you, who you truly are and how you truly act. This has never been about Order or Peace; this was about power. That’s what Hydra seeks, no matter how nicely you try to put it when you recruit people. And as a show of power, I have taken your little asset, your Winter Soldier as restitution for your act against my family. Like I said, this is your first and only warning. We’re done here.”

I stood up from the room and walked out grinning like a loon. This really was fun.

(Alexander Pierce POV)

Alexander Pierce was one of the most powerful men on the planet, be it in his public persona, or in his role as the current leader of Hydra. He was recruited when he was younger, and even now, he marveled at the scale to which Hydra influences the world. The phrase, ‘cut off one head and another shall take its place’, isn’t an exaggeration; the way Hydra is set up, every leader has assistants or subordinates that could take over their post should something happen to them and they perished.

They had so many people under their influence, going from normal grunts in various police forces, to mob bosses and international terrorists, to even the Vice President himself. It was mostly done though bribery and blackmail. In the case of the Vice President, they had influence over him through AIM, an organization that they acquired through SHIELD, that is developing a Healing Serum capable of regenerating even limbs, that’s not to mention that it’s even more impressive than Roger’s Super Soldier Serum in terms of enhancements. It was easy to dangle the serum in front of the Vice President of the United States and watch him dance to their tune.

Everything was going according to plan, Super Soldier Serums were in development, Hydra had quite literally a finger in every major pie in the world. Nothing happened without them knowing. Almost every opposition was being eliminated before they could become a problem, and they had Zola’s mind on retainer in case something happens.

It was their time, their moment. Hydra was soon going to reveal itself to the public and they would be applauded for it. But unfortunately, the invasion happened, and with it, the Avengers were formed. It was a team of mismatched enhanced people that shouldn’t have worked, and yet it did, somehow. Stark’s ego, Roger’s uncompromising morality, Romanoff’s past, Barton’s brainwashing, and that’s not even talking about the fucking Norse god and the Hulk. This team was a legitimate threat, and so, Hydra started working on countermeasures to deal with them, should they become a problem.

But that’s not the main issue, the problem was that no one expected them to halt the invasion let alone repel it. A nuke, powered by the Tesseract was the only option they had on at least repelling the invasion force before it would spread. A nuke would have bought them enough time for the Air Force and the military to fight the aliens properly. It was the tactical decision. Unfortunately, some weird goddess from the Celtic mythology, the Morrigan, ensured that the invasion force was stopped, and they were even able to close the portal. Unfortunately, the order to send the nuke was already sent when the portal was closed, meaning that he and his fellow World Security Council members had authorized the deaths of every person in New York for no reason. Fortunately, the bomb was stopped by the Morrigan who apparently perished from the attack.

At least, it looked like she did. There was no body, but no one, not even a goddess, should be able to survive a point blank nuclear explosion. She was probably vaporized by the blast.

Still, by now, the media was incensed by SHIELD’s decision. They had a point; the organization had almost blown up New York city, with a nuclear weapon that they shouldn’t have. Now, SHIELD was being audited by the UN, and soon, they would demand access to the organization’s files, which means that Pierce now had to remove every sensitive file and Hydra project that is being developed in SHIELD.

For now, they had two choices in front of them. They could either double down on SHIELD and then fully take over the organization. The spy agency would then become a front for Hydra, and it will just serve their interests fully. This meant that they needed to protect SHIELD from the coming investigations. Or they could just remove themselves from SHIELD and let it sink on its own.

Considering that SHIELD was one of Hydra’s biggest assets, even if unknowingly, they chose to save it and take over the organization later. To start, they needed the public’s support, which meant control over the media; the general population was really gullible at times.

Unfortunately, most of the people chose to watch the news from Marvel channels, which is known for being as impartial as possible when releasing any news. This was one of the companies that they were never able to get spies inside. Somehow, the CEO, Selene Gallio, was able to find any spy or even informant in the company.

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But, right now, they were desperate. This was the only way to save SHIELD, so he chose to take over the company. To do so, he needed the majority shareholder, Morgan Evanshade, to die. She was a pretty popular author, one that built herself up from poverty with her remarkable stories for various audiences. Alexander would admit that he enjoyed reading her book series ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’, he was impressed with how much emphasis she put on the politics in the story.

But needs must, and thus Alexander Pierce sent the Winter Soldier out to kill the popular author. And everything seemed to work perfectly, except for the fact that their asset didn’t seem to return and that they had no visual on the fight whatsoever. Still, Pierce assigned the mission of finding and apprehending the Winter Soldier to Sitwell, and decided to proceed with his plan of taking over the Marvel Media Company.

He had planned on faking some paperwork, trying to deceive the new heir or heiress that a sale was already in progress. And in their grief, and with the threat of a large penalty when cancelling the contract, they would sell their shares to him.

Everything was going according to plan, until he stepped in the meeting room, a couple of days ago, and saw the supposed heir or heiress. It was a face that terrified the hell out of him, Jasmine Sayre.

He had thought her to be dead, perishing in Magneto’s mad attack, or even being killed by the man beforehand. There hadn’t been any trace of her for over five years. But here she was, sitting in front of him, looking at him with obvious amusement on her face.

It wasn’t her supposed power that frightened him. He had sat in front of far more powerful mutants without breaking a sweat. It was the fact that there was so little information about her. They had no idea what her capabilities were, except that she knew things that she shouldn’t have known, had some sort of physical enhancement, and that she’s able to make illusions.

Other than that, the most terrifying thing he ever knew, was the fact that she erased information from the face of the planet. When she got Wanda Maximoff out of her imprisonment, she erased every scrap of information about her, from physical files, from servers, even from the memories of thousands of people. She was one of the biggest security risks on the planet, and she was just sitting in front of him opposing him in his mission to save SHIELD, and thus, strengthening Hydra.

It was terrifying, sitting across from her. And he almost wet himself when she revealed her knowledge of Hydra. She didn’t even seem to care, that was the scariest part. She just kept smiling at him, like a cat watching a fish in a tank. And he had killed her aunt. He didn’t even know that Morgan Evanshade and Jasmine Sayre were related.

When he returned from the meeting, he researched the relations between the two. They weren’t physically related, which is how they missed it, but the Sayre family had been the ones to invest in the publications of her first few books, meaning that the family was close.

Still, the woman had decided to warn them, by simply taking the Winter Soldier as retribution. Hydra’s prized soldier was probably dead by now, but the most terrifying thing was her threat. She alluded to being capable of erasing Hydra. To do to his organization, what she did to Wanda Maximoff’s identity. She would remove Hydra from history, from the minds of their own agents. It was a frightening prospect, to just have your memories altered.

He had thought her to be a telepath, but his own anti telepathy device should have protected him against her, and yet she still knew about Alexander’s role in Hydra. She had to have a spy network of sorts. Had she infiltrated Hydra like Hydra did to SHIELD.

The woman was an enemy, there’s no doubt about it, but is she worth the risk of angering her?

No, he would not submit to the whims of some harlot. He was the leader of Hydra, the biggest organization on the planet. He was the most powerful man in the world. He would not be threatened. He would find the woman’s weakness and lie in wait until she least expects it, and then strike like a snake hiding in the grass. Sayre would serve as a reminder to those who threaten Hydra, threaten their ideals.

For now, he needed to find a way to take over the damn media company before things become too much. Perhaps, he could arrange for a hostile take over. He could talk with Selene Gallio, the new CEO, into buying her own shares. They could do it slowly, and keep buying out the shareholders, and then find a way to bankrupt Sayre, forcing her to sell a few shares which he will purchase and gain control over the company. This seemed like a nice first draft, he’ll need to have a nice long conversation with his lawyers to iron out the details.

Marvel Media company would be his, no matter what. It was for the greater good after all, for Hydra’s order.

With that decided, he opened his phone to set up a meeting with is lawyers. Instead, he got a message from Fury, telling him to take a look at something urgently. He opened the link and found an article from the company he was just planning on taking over.

It read in large bold letters, ‘SHIELD, PROTECTORS OF THE WORLD OR ITS INVADERS?’

A pit formed in the man’s stomach, as he slowly read the article. Inside was a plethora of leaked files, and mission reports. The situation would be salvageable, until he saw the plans for project Insight leaked on the article. This was Hydra’s endgame, their ultimate weapon, their coup de grâce. It was presented as a weapon by SHIELD to enforce its laws. Funnily enough, the idea of a massive gun pointed at the head of the entire world wasn’t appealing.

This was bad, this was really bad. He could understand why Fury was freaking out. There was no way that SHIELD was getting out of that one, no way in hell. Who could have done this? And the answer came to him immediately, Sayre. She had arranged for this, for SHIELD’s inevitable destruction. This was her company, after all.

He suddenly felt his chest getting tighter, it was a subtle pain that grew suddenly. His left arm started becoming numb. Suddenly, the pain became intense. His phone slipped from his arm, and Pierce’s body followed. Alexander’s last thought was of despair, to having watched his legacy unravel in front of him, to having seen his ambitions be destroyed. He knew, that with Sayre hunting them down that Hydra wouldn’t survive, especially since they wouldn’t see it coming. He muttered a few insults to the woman who ruined his life’s work before the darkness claimed him.