Shocker

At a small street-side restaurant, Wei Xiuming wore a modified gas mask and focused intently on the anatomy book in his hands. As a basic introductory reference, it was detailed and concise, with color illustrations. At $81.40, it was excellent value for money.

Apart from Wei Xiuming, the restaurant was empty. Men in black suits and sunglasses guarded both the front and back doors. Their "keep away" demeanor made it obvious from a distance that the place was temporarily off-limits.

Even the waiters and cooks had been ushered into the kitchen, where someone kept an eye on them to make sure they didn't hear anything they shouldn't. Their minder was a mild-mannered middle-aged man. Unlike the intimidating guards at the doors, he was so affable that a few words were enough to put everyone at ease. Soon they were chatting and laughing with him, and the chef even made him breakfast.

"Ding-a-ling."

The door swung open, setting off the bell above it. A tall, bald Black man walked in. He was an absolute devotee of black, wearing a black skintight combat suit under a black leather coat. Even the eyepatch over his left eye was black.

The man walked straight over and sat opposite Wei Xiuming. Glancing at the book's cover, he said, "Reading a book like that before a meal? You have a very unusual hobby."

"My brain contains knowledge that's far too advanced. I need to start with the basics to organize it. Besides, the atmosphere in my era is very different from that of this one, and that has changed human physiology. Even I need a specially made respirator to breathe normally." Wei Xiuming closed the book and held out his hand to the man. "My name is Clark Kent, test subject code X-03-01B. I came to this era as part of Project X, which aims to save the universe and humanity."

"I'm a Gene-Modded Human. I developed in an Artificial Amniotic Membrane and was forcibly accelerated to adulthood with drugs. I have a stronger body and greater capacity for learning than ordinary people. After mastering the necessary technology and information, I was sent by Time Machine to various points in time to save Humanity's Reason through my own abilities or knowledge..."

After arriving on Earth, Wei Xiuming used his advanced technology to uncover traces of S.H.I.E.L.D. online. Following the hidden trail, he made contact with Nick Fury, the S.H.I.E.L.D. director at the time.

After all, he was an outsider with no tax or medical records whatsoever. His demonstrated expertise in computer science, communications, human genetics, weapons, and product development and manufacturing meant he couldn't possibly be a nobody. If he wanted to make a name for himself, he needed the support of a reliable organization.

He had the original's origins and that ship full of Skrulls to thank for this. The original's superpowers had let him capture the ship, and he'd also swiped a USB Drive from the Infinite Flow Male Protagonist.

The USB Drive contained a wealth of information. Besides the X Gene research data stolen from the base, it also held things the other party had collected from various time periods, such as the Mechanical Exoskeleton and Nanobots technology from G.I. Joe. Most of it couldn't be used because the universe's rules were different, but it offered plenty of useful ideas.

And with his neural responses enhanced, Wei Xiuming's ability to learn and understand had improved several times over. In this state, he could master in a single day what would have taken him a year of university study before he'd traveled through time.

With this cheat, all the Skrulls' own technology, along with what they had looted from other civilizations, was his for the taking. He applied their research into higher dimensions to the Skrulls, which led to the creation of the bugs.

The Skrulls' shapeshifting talent was astonishing. Though they had only one spaceship, its database contained technology from multiple civilizations. That was the foundation they relied on to survive and develop as interstellar refugees.

Different civilizations followed different paths of technological development. Differences in their starting points in fundamental physics led to wildly divergent results, sometimes so much so that people from different civilizations couldn't understand one another. The Skrulls had survived by relying on their racial talent to learn from the strengths of different civilizations and develop their own technology. One especially powerful faction had even developed a weapon capable of defeating Galactus in his weakened state.

As for his own identity, as long as his story was logically consistent, he could bluff as much as he liked. Nick Fury had no way to travel to the future and verify it, anyway.

Nick Fury ignored Wei Xiuming's outstretched hand. "I'll admit your computer and network skills are exceptional. You broke through our network defenses and made the word 'HELLO' appear on a computer in my office. But that doesn't prove anything else you've told me. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s duty is to protect the world. If an organization inheriting the Third Reich's legacy really existed, there's no way we wouldn't have found traces of it."

Actually, Nick Fury had kept a few things to himself. When Wei Xiuming had contacted him, he'd sent more than just the greeting and the message hinting at Hydra. He'd also sent another passage:

"In the S.H.I.E.L.D. files from my era, there are two accounts of how Nick Fury lost his left eye. The first says he was a Vietnam War soldier, wounded by a grenade. He lost 95 percent of his vision in that eye, which was surgically removed and replaced with a bionic eye. The second says a cat scratched it out while he was playing with it."

That passage was what had led to this meeting. Otherwise, why would the mighty King of Agents deign to meet some nobody without even a legal identity? The idea that a protagonist in a fanfic would reveal a little superpower and immediately attract Coulson, Black Widow, or, less likely, Agent May was nothing but a fantasy.

Would a global organization send an eighth-level agent just because an unknown nobody had acquired abilities he shouldn't have?

"Shocker is short for Shocker Empire: the Divine Hegemony of Evolution." Wei Xiuming withdrew his hand. "You can think of them as Shocker, just as the National Land Defense Counterattack and Logistics Support Bureau can be shortened to S.H.I.E.L.D."

Wei Xiuming picked up the pencil and order pad the waiter had left on the table and quickly sketched an emblem. It depicted a great eagle with outstretched wings, its talons clutching the Earth.

This was Shocker's emblem, and a variation on the Third Reich's national insignia. The symbolism was so blatant that Nick Fury's expression turned grim—though the emblem itself was rather crudely done, like something a villain in a low-budget movie would use.

The Führer had failed to get into the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts twice, but he had at least been an art student. If anyone inheriting his legacy adopted something like this, it would be enough to make him rise from the dead in fury.

"Shocker was founded as an organization that inherited the Third Reich's legacy. It specializes in human modification—in a sense, creating Super Soldiers," Wei Xiuming said. "Using technology that was practically godlike by the standards of the time, they could mix the traits of animals and plants into human cells, then brainwash and control the results. That let them create monsters with the firepower of tanks."

"But the Führer was an obsessive man. Just as he would only accept an assault rifle if it was called a 'submachine gun,' rather than an assault rifle, he never adopted Super Soldiers that would lose their human form—not even as his empire headed for its doom. That left them for those who came after."

"That's extremely unlikely!" Nick Fury interrupted. As someone with more contact with the secret world than most, he knew more than the public imagined.

The most advanced human enhancement technology in the world was the Super Soldier Serum. Captain America was the only successful test subject, with Red Skull barely counting as another. But the technology used to enhance them had all come from Dr. Erskine. There was no possibility of a second method with a higher success rate.

And Nick Fury put himself in Hitler's shoes. If this technology had really existed, Hitler wouldn't have hesitated to mass-produce Super Soldiers after the defeat at Stalingrad. Even if they couldn't turn the tide, they could at least make life miserable for the enemy.