Chapter Summaries

Evenson warned the Eredar Twins that powerful beings like the Great Old Ones existed in the world, but they already knew because flesh-and-blood life itself revealed their influence. He realized that the being sleeping beneath R’lyeh might have shaped all life on Earth, and called it the Primordial of Life.

• Evenson told Aurelles and Saloras he had discovered powerful beings like the Great Old Ones and asked them not to flee.
• The Eredar Twins admitted they had known such beings were present since arriving in the world.
• Saloras explained that Evenson’s flesh-and-blood body made the Great Old Ones’ influence obvious.
• Evenson recalled the Great Old Ones’ title as Progenitor of Flesh and connected the origin of life to the being sleeping beneath R’lyeh.
• Evenson called the sleeping being the Primordial of Life.

Evenson learned that Cthulhu had profoundly influenced the origins of life on Earth, and the Eredar Twins advised him to leave the sealed Great Old One undisturbed. He nevertheless proposed sending fishing boats to find Deep Ones for research.

• The Eredar Twins told Evenson that Cthulhu was the Primordial of Life and had influenced Earth's lifeforms.
• Evenson and the Twins discussed humanity's irrationality, and they agreed that Cthulhu's influence had not shaped human thoughts.
• Aurelles advised Evenson to leave Cthulhu sealed, explaining that the Burning Legion had encountered Great Old Ones on countless worlds.
• Evenson said he wanted samples of Cthulhu's flesh to advance his company's enhancement research, and Aurelles scolded him for courting death.
• Evenson clarified that he only wanted to send fishing boats to the South Pacific to dredge up Deep Ones for research.

Evenson and the Eredar Twins shelved their plan to build an offshore station for Deep Ones research because Umbrella Corporation could not afford it. At the Black Badge Division command center, Evenson learned that a group of Ninja had triggered a magical trap while trying to reach Saloras’s office, and Moira hinted that she had taken their bodies for research.

• Evenson proposed using fishing boats and an offshore research station to search for Deep Ones, but Saloras and Aurelles pointed out the risks, inefficiency, and expense.
• Evenson shelved the Deep Ones project because the company’s funds could not cover construction and upkeep, though he remained interested in finding a land-dwelling Deep One.
• Evenson arrived at the Black Badge Division command center, where he met McNair and Moira, who asked him to call her by her new name.
• McNair told Evenson that several Ninja had left a handprint on the outside of Saloras’s top-floor office window and had been swallowed by its Spatial Maze Lock.
• Moira produced a scalpel and suggested she had taken the Ninja’s bodies for scientific practice, prompting Evenson to ask where she had gotten it.

Evenson learned that The Hand had approached his company to launder money, and the Eredar Twins agreed in exchange for a thirty percent cut. At Fisk’s villa, Madam Gao explained that she and Wesley had offered the unusually large share because they feared the company would kill them; the chapter then cut to Hammond and Junkrat in Junkertown.

• The Eredar Twins identified the captured Ninjas as members of The Hand and explained the organization’s history and influence to Evenson.
• Saloras credited Dottie’s intelligence work, while Aurelles revealed that The Hand had contacted the company through Madam Gao and Wesley, Wilson Fisk’s assistant.
• Evenson learned that the visitors had requested money laundering and that the company had agreed to do it for a thirty percent cut.
• Aurelles assured Evenson that Fisk’s influence and the company’s legal arrangements made the deal safe, and said Fisk did not dare betray them.
• At Fisk’s villa, Madam Gao told him she offered the thirty percent cut because she and Wesley feared the Eredar Twins would kill them otherwise.
• In Junkertown, Hammond warned Junkrat to turn back, but Junkrat said he was beyond redemption.

Evenson learned that Old Lady Gao was a weak warrior monk whose Qi had made her fear the Eredar Twins, while Fisk accepted that he should avoid provoking them and pay their protection fee. The Twins assigned Fisk to deal with both legitimate doctors and quack doctors in Hell’s Kitchen.

• Saloras and Aurelles told Evenson that Old Lady Gao had sensed their power and was only a weak warrior monk, not an Inhuman or sorcerer.
• Fisk apologized to Old Lady Gao for targeting the Umbrella Corporation, and she explained that the Eredar Twins’ power made her feel only ruin and destruction.
• Old Lady Gao warned Fisk that the Hand’s combined killings could not compare to the lives the Twins had taken, and Fisk resolved to pay them on time and avoid trouble.
• Old Lady Gao told Fisk that the Twins had given him a task, and he confirmed Wesley had already informed him.
• The Eredar Twins told Evenson that they had asked Fisk to handle doctors and quack doctors in Hell’s Kitchen.

The Eredar Twins explained Umbrella Corporation’s plan to use doctors in Hell’s Kitchen to promote its prosthetics and potions, then expand into the national and global medical markets. Their plans were interrupted when a little girl appeared and called Aurelles her godmother, leaving Evenson stunned.

• Aurelles said doctors in Hell’s Kitchen would recommend Umbrella prosthetics and medicines, with commissions offered to encourage sales.
• The Eredar Twins revealed that they had made basic Healing Potions and Disease Curing Potions from herbs available on Earth.
• Saloras said Umbrella had found a way to get its products approved, and Aurelles outlined plans to collect clinical data, join medical insurance, and expand overseas.
• Evenson urged the Twins to develop potions that could cure terminal illnesses, while they privately imagined using medical breakthroughs to make the world depend on them.
• A little girl ran in and called Aurelles her godmother, and Aurelles said she had converted to fit into high society; Evenson asked whose daughter the girl was.

Evenson learned that the Eredar Twins had adopted a little girl whose family died in the Park Massacre. They explained that she survived because she clung to Aurelles, and they intended to let her memories return someday, even if the trauma destroyed her.

• The Eredar Twins welcomed the little girl and introduced Alice as her nanny, while Evenson wondered about the child's identity.
• The Twins revealed that they had picked up the girl after her parents and brother were killed in the Park Massacre.
• Aurelles explained that the girl had been shot but survived because she was beside the Twins and held onto Aurelles's clothes as they prepared to leave.
• The Twins said the girl had Reactive Memory Disorder and that they wanted her traumatic memories to return in the future.
• The Twins declared that they would accept the girl being destroyed by her memories if she proved too weak, and warned Evenson that the same standard applied to him.

Evenson learned the Eredar Twins’ elaborate full names and reviewed a backlog of suspected supernatural reports. Moira reported that only three cases proved genuine, beginning with a Harlem man whose strength and durability resembled a Low-tier Hulk.

• Saloras and Aurelles named their goddaughter Angelica Saceris von Makerei Einhwaltzberen Crimson Rose Cassel, though they said she could usually be called Angelica Cassel.
• The Eredar Twins wrote their own lengthy full names for Evenson to memorize, and he discovered the paper was a Black Badge Division report.
• Saloras explained that the New York Police Department had been sending the Black Badge Division a massive backlog of unverified superpower claims.
• Evenson asked whether any reports were genuine, and Aurelles contacted Moira to have her team return and report their findings.
• Moira said her team had confirmed only three real cases and described a Harlem man whose strength exceeded human limits and whose skin resisted blades and bullets.
• Moira reported that Luther was preparing to contact the man and test his abilities, which she compared to those of a Low-tier Hulk.

Evenson and Moira reviewed several cases involving unusual abilities, including Luke Cage, a blindfolded vigilante, and a missing girl who killed her parents after being found. They ordered an investigation into the suspected mental controller and planned to execute him once his identity and powers were confirmed.

• Moira reported that Luther had gone to Harlem to test Luke Cage’s invulnerable body, and Evenson approved collecting data and a blood sample without bringing him back.
• Moira described a blindfolded vigilante in Hell’s Kitchen, and Evenson ordered Agent 47 to identify him and monitor him without making contact.
• Moira reported that Hope had shot her parents after Jessica Jones found and returned her, while claiming a superpowered person had controlled her mind.
• Moira revealed that Jessica Jones seemed unusually convinced by Hope’s claim and proposed leading an investigation with McNair.
• Evenson approved a search for the suspected mental controller and ordered his execution once the investigation confirmed the situation.

Evenson ordered Moira’s team to secretly investigate a mind controller while allowing fear of mind controllers to spread in ways that would strengthen the Black Badge Division and Umbrella Corporation. Moira revealed the extensive self-modifications that had made her exceptionally powerful, then recommended her former classmate Helen Zhao to the company.

• Evenson told Moira and the others to deny knowing the mind controller while discreetly reporting the threat and leaking information about mind controllers to the public.
• Evenson and the Eredar Twins discussed how public fear of mind controllers could spread into hostility toward all Inhumans and increase Umbrella Corporation’s influence.
• Moira showed that she had installed Centipede devices throughout her limbs and spine, gaining great strength and awakening the ability to create an orange energy sphere.
• Evenson assigned Moira to lead the mission against the mind controller, and Moira and McNair left to prepare.
• Moira recommended her former junior classmate Helen Zhao, an expert in artificial biological tissue, for a position at the company.

Evenson and the Eredar Twins prepared to begin Hydra’s Demon Heart Warrior deal with Stephanie Malick, who delivered a deposit and arranged for five hundred candidates to arrive. Stephanie planned to oversee the candidates herself, leaving Evenson concerned that she would remain at Umbrella Corporation for some time.

• Moira introduced Helen Zhao as a young researcher with a doctoral degree, prompting Evenson to ask the Eredar Twins to certify him for one too.
• Sarolas received word that Hydra’s representative had arrived, and Evenson went with the Eredar Twins to meet Stephanie Malick in the secret reception room.
• Stephanie gave Evenson a piece of insect amber from Gideon Malick’s collection, and Evenson accepted it as part of the deal.
• Stephanie paid a one-hundred-million-dollar deposit and said five hundred candidates would begin arriving the next day in scattered groups.
• Aurelles asked whether the candidates would cooperate despite the high death rate, and Stephanie promised to manage them personally.
• Evenson questioned whether Stephanie was Hydra’s overall representative and intended to stay at Umbrella Corporation for a while.

Peggy Carter met Evenson to learn how much power Hydra had regained and discovered that Gideon Malick’s family had served Hydra for generations, shaking her faith in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s founding. Evenson asked her to train the Hydra recruits he planned to turn, and offered her armor to conceal her identity.

• Peggy Carter met Evenson, who showed her surveillance footage of Stephanie leading the Hydra group.
• Peggy recognized Stephanie as Gideon Malick’s daughter and learned that the Malick family had been Hydra nobility since Ancient Egypt.
• Peggy realized Gideon’s former place on the World Security Council could have let Hydra influence S.H.I.E.L.D.’s personnel and briefly despaired over her role in founding the agency.
• Evenson reassured Peggy that some genuine S.H.I.E.L.D. agents remained, and she regained her resolve to fight Hydra.
• Evenson asked Peggy to train the Hydra recruits he intended to turn, then showed her black armor that would disguise her.

Peggy Carter donned Evenson’s armor and adopted the identity of Katerina to infiltrate and control Hydra’s recruits. She introduced herself as their instructor, inspector, and executioner, leaving five hundred recruits terrified of her upcoming training.

• Peggy Carter practiced her new disguise and told Evenson she had explained her absence to Steve as a secret S.H.I.E.L.D. mission, without informing Nick Fury.
• Evenson described the armor’s Chitauri-metal alloy, reinforcement runes, and amplification device, then went to check on Hydra’s arriving recruits.
• Five hundred Hydra recruits gathered in the company’s underground facility, where Stephanie rallied them with a call to serve Hydra.
• Peggy Carter appeared beside Stephanie as Katerina, declared herself the recruits’ instructor, inspector, and executioner, and claimed she was stronger than Peggy Carter.
• Katerina lifted a recruit by the throat, threatened the assembled crowd, and warned them that they would face her training, modification, and assessment at the risk of their lives.

Peggy Carter put Hydra’s enhanced recruits through brutal sparring while Evenson and Stephanie discussed Hydra’s mission to retrieve The Hive and what it represented to the organization. Evenson left Stephanie with a challenge to seek power beyond serving as The Hive’s messenger.

• Peggy Carter trained Hydra’s recruits by making them spar in weighted gear, punishing entire groups whenever anyone held back.
• Evenson told Stephanie that Katerina had been the first to undergo the Chain of Ascension, and Stephanie hoped the recruits would soon travel to find The Hive.
• Evenson questioned whether The Hive’s ancient power could still matter in the modern world, and Stephanie explained that finding it would settle who had legitimate authority within Hydra.
• Stephanie said she had once worshipped The Hive but had reconsidered its role with her father, and Evenson asked whether she had truly abandoned that belief.
• Evenson told Stephanie that if she could become a god, she should not settle for being an angel.

Stephanie reconsidered Hydra’s devotion to The Hive and began to see power as something to seize rather than receive. Evenson left her at the training grounds, where Moira called to report that Hope showed signs of mental manipulation.

• Stephanie recalled how Gideon Malick had taught her that Hydra treated The Hive as a potential partner and political asset rather than a god.
• Stephanie reasoned that someone who could defeat The Hive could claim greater authority, and decided that a king had to fight for power himself.
• Evenson met Peggy Carter at the training grounds and told her he expected Stephanie to betray her master and kill her father.
• Moira called Evenson from the prison and reported that Hope had traces of mental manipulation, confirming that the mind controller existed.

In prison, Moira reported Hope’s account of Kilgrave and her investigation into Jessica Jones to Evenson. Evenson ordered Moira to question Jessica and investigate her abilities, while learning that Luther’s Luke Cage case had become entangled with theirs.

• Moira told Evenson that Hope showed abnormal brain activity consistent with the aftereffects of mental control and identified the controller as Kilgrave, a British man in a purple suit.
• Evenson warned that Kilgrave could have made Hope perceive a false appearance, and Moira said Hope had provided no further information.
• Moira explained that Jessica Jones had found Hope, supported her publicly, and hired the company’s chief legal counsel, Jerry, to defend her.
• Moira suspected Jessica had also been controlled and wanted to learn more from Hope, so Evenson ordered her to question Jessica and investigate her abilities.
• Moira told Evenson that Luther had requested a merger because his investigation of Luke Cage had become entangled with Jessica Jones.

Evenson reassured Peggy Carter that he would use the Hydra trainees’ devotion to their ideals rather than try to break it, while warning that most of the five hundred trainees would die. He asked Peggy to find a volatile trainee who feared death and preferably had post-traumatic stress disorder, leaving his next move unstated.

• Evenson considered Moira's intel about Luke Cage and his entanglement with Jessica Jones.
• Peggy Carter questioned whether Evenson could turn the Hydra trainees into agents who would infiltrate Hydra.
• Evenson explained that the trainees’ loyalty came from their ideal belief and said he planned to give them a greater ideal instead of destroying their convictions.
• Evenson told Peggy that he did not intend to turn all five hundred trainees and that most would likely die.
• Evenson asked Peggy to sort the trainees and find someone fearful of death, irritable, volatile, and preferably suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Evenson stopped the Eredar Twins from destroying rare amber, then agreed to help them revive dinosaurs for profit. After S.H.I.E.L.D. called him to investigate a convoy attacked by an unknown force that manipulated gravity, he headed to the scene, eager to learn what caused it.

• Evenson rushed into the Science Department and shielded the amber from Gernos and the Eredar Twins, but Saloras dislocated and reset his arm before Aurelles explained their dinosaur business plans.
• Evenson joined the Twins’ plans to sell dinosaur hides, meat, bones, and possibly trained Velociraptors, and Gernos extracted the blood preserved in the amber’s mosquito.
• Coulson called Evenson about reports of invisibility and gravity-manipulating Magic, and Evenson agreed to investigate while explaining that such spells belonged to mages, not Sorcerers.
• Evenson learned that S.H.I.E.L.D.’s convoy had been attacked on Route 66 in southern Colorado, where its vehicles and cargo truck were lifted into the air by an unknown force that reversed gravity.

Evenson investigated the wrecked S.H.I.E.L.D. transport and wrongly accused Mack of being an insider while secretly taking a gravity-altering device. After demonstrating what the substance could do, he explained that science and Magic were equally grounded in truth, though science had far less history behind it.

• Evenson concluded that an insider had leaked the secret transport route and accused Mack, the injured truck driver, of being the traitor because he had survived.
• Mack explained that he had been hurt because his truck lacked the Jeeps’ safety features and was heavier, while Coulson pulled Evenson away and reprimanded him for his baseless accusations.
• Evenson revealed a ring-shaped substance he had secretly taken, then used fel energy to make it manipulate gravity and gather sand and stones.
• Evenson explained to Coulson that the substance could help cast gravity-altering spells or be stimulated by other forms of energy to affect gravity directly.
• Skye complained that Magic surpassed science, and Evenson argued that both were truths of the world while science had simply progressed for far less time.

Coulson and Ward traced the stolen excavator to a buyer who had paid with eight gold bars, while Skye learned that Ward’s supposed truth-serum confession had been a trick. Simmons analyzed the bars to identify their source, giving the team a new lead to pursue.

• Melinda mocked Evenson for wrongly suspecting Mack, while Mack decided to leave driving and seek work with Sitwell’s Special Squad.
• Coulson used excavator tire tracks and buyer profiles to narrow the suspects to three people, then went with Ward to question them.
• Skye confronted Evenson about Ward’s fake truth serum, and Evenson explained why S.H.I.E.L.D. had used it instead of the real thing.
• Coulson and Ward returned with eight gold bars paid to the excavator seller, and Simmons found that they were a 92-percent-gold alloy.
• Simmons began searching mine records using the bars’ mineral characteristics to identify where the gold had come from.