"Wanda, you're really beautiful. I bet you've got a whole fan club of admirers by now."
A group of young girls strolled through the bustling streets of New York City, chatting and teasing playfully. One of them shot a sly grin at Wanda as she spoke.
They were all Wanda's classmates.
Yes, you read that right—classmates.
When Gene first told her she was going to school, Wanda thought she'd misheard.
"I'm sixteen! Why on Earth do I still need to go to school?" she'd argued.
But the thigh beats the arm, as they say. She didn't really have a choice. In the end, she accepted the offer—her and her chronically unlucky brother, Pietro.
"Suitors, huh…" Wanda muttered to herself with a faint smirk.
Sure enough, ever since she'd shown up at school, a beautiful transfer student, she'd become the center of attention. Boys swarmed her like flies to honey, constantly trying to impress her.
If it wasn't for Gene's orders, she would've dropped out by now just to escape the daily torment.
But suddenly, her smile vanished.
Her eyes locked onto a group of suspicious individuals. They were carrying sleek black suitcases and moving nervously, constantly glancing over their shoulders.
One of them sat down on a nearby bench, popped open his case… and pulled out a syringe.
Without hesitation, he jammed it into his arm and injected the contents into his vein.
He didn't care about the people watching, their baffled stares. His expression was wild. Was it... drugs?
Wanda's heart skipped a beat. Something wasn't right.
And in the next moment, her instincts were proven terrifyingly correct.
One of the men's skin flushed an unnatural crimson. His body trembled like it was about to rupture.
Then—BOOM—an explosion rocked the street, the man detonating like a human bomb. A searing shockwave slammed into Wanda's face, the heat so intense it stung her skin.
Screams echoed around her. The girls nearby dove to the ground in panic. But Wanda didn't hesitate—she sprinted straight toward the blast zone.
"Wanda?! Wanda, what are you doing?!"
Ignoring their frantic cries, she dashed to the center of the devastation. A massive crater had opened where the man once stood. Everything nearby had been scorched or obliterated.
In a distant lab, Gene was testing his new armor when a voice echoed in his neural network.
"Sir," Skynet reported. "Explosion detected—Tenth Avenue, New York City."
Gene's mind was already linked with Skynet in real-time. When he saw the man's crimson transformation and final expression, Gene immediately pinpointed the source:
More specifically, their newest biotech innovation—the Extremis Virus.
A new-generation serum capable of rewriting DNA on the fly while vastly enhancing physical capabilities. The problem?
It was unstable. Dangerously unstable.
Recipients often became ticking time bombs.
"Can you infiltrate their systems?" Gene asked, pausing his work.
"Negative," Skynet replied. "Their data is physically isolated. Every researcher undergoes strict security screening before entering the labs."
"We can't transmit our signal inside."
Gene frowned. "Then use Hydra."
He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Contact them under Hydra's name and offer to partner—provide the Extremis Virus to Hydra in exchange for Keep reading on NovelHub - where stories come alive!"
Pioneer Technology wouldn't resist. No organization bent on 'advancing humanity through any means necessary' could ignore the name Hydra.
And news of Hydra being secretly absorbed by S.W.O.R.D. hadn't leaked yet.
So for now, Gene could still wear the Hydra mask.
Gene turned back to his work. Behind him, in a hidden vault deep within the Skynet base, two legendary artifacts hovered in perfect stillness—the Scepter of Loki and the Tesseract, reconstructed from pieces scavenged from S.H.I.E.L.D.
The yellow and blue Infinity Stones pulsed softly with immense power.
Now, Gene was building a new body—one strong enough to wield both stones at once.
His materials of choice: Uru alloy, Kree alloy, vibranium… and nestled inside the brain of this construct would be Gene's latest masterpiece—the optical quantum computing core.
A single core more powerful than every computing system humanity had ever created combined.
All his older servers? He could leave those to Red Queen and Skynet now.
But even with all this…
"Sir, it appears the latest test failed again," came the voice of the Red Queen as she materialized beside him, her tone teasing.
"Really, Red? Do you have to rub it in right now?" Gene groaned, looking miserable.
The truth was, his current mech could only handle one Infinity Stone.
The combined power of two stones? It short-circuited and destroyed the mech's delicate inner systems almost instantly.
Even with an energy-slowing device attached to each stone, their power couldn't be harmonized.
Gene clenched his jaw.
"…Maybe I need a completely different approach," he muttered, stroking his chin thoughtfully.
Back in the real world, Gene wasn't the only one watching.
In Avengers Tower, Tony Stark had also picked up the explosion in New York City.
"Jarvis," he commanded, pacing in his lab. "Pull up the heat signature of the explosion zone—real-time temperature control map. Give me the past week."
A holographic projection appeared in front of him, flickering into view with a detailed temperature chart.
"Huh," Stark narrowed his eyes. "Now that's interesting."
A hypothesis was already forming in his mind.
But he needed to see it for himself to be sure.
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