Dragon Talisman

Hulk charged at him, and Fury instinctively sidestepped.

Hulk's fist struck where Fury had just been standing.

"Banner, have you lost your mind? Look carefully! Take a good look at who I am!" Fury roared from the side.

His punch having missed, Hulk did not hesitate. His fists rained down on Fury.

Faced with that barrage of fists, Fury could only keep dodging. At heart, he was still an ordinary man; even one hit from Hulk would leave him in bad shape.

"Banner! Have you lost your mind?" Fury continued shouting.

Fury's stamina was far inferior to Hulk's. Before long, he was gasping for breath as Hulk glared at him with bloodshot eyes, a green fist smashing down toward Fury's head.

He could not block this blow.

Just as Fury closed his eyes and raised both arms before his forehead, preparing to take the blow head-on, a thunderous clang of metal rang out.

Fury opened his eyes. Steve stood before him, his shield having blocked the attack.

"What's wrong with Banner?" Steve asked.

"I don't know. He went like this the moment he saw me," Fury explained.

"Banner, wake up!" Steve shouted.

Hulk did not respond. His fists continued pounding against the shield.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

The sound of arrows came from elsewhere. Special arrowheads sank into Hulk's body, and intense pain spread through him, making Hulk cry out.

Clint emerged from the direction the arrows had come from, with Natasha standing beside him.

Another four arrows flew out, striking Hulk's limbs with precision and pinning him to the ground. Seizing the moment, Steve raised his shield and leaped onto Hulk, slamming it hard against Hulk's forehead.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Several successive blows knocked Hulk unconscious.

Steve jumped down from atop Hulk, while Natasha and Clint came over to Fury.

"What happened? Why did Banner go crazy?" Natasha asked Fury.

Fury made a gesture indicating that he did not know either.

Clint looked at Hulk lying unconscious on the ground. "He should have calmed down after passing out. Why hasn't Banner changed back yet?"

Fury thought for a moment. "This should be Shendu's doing."

"Shendu? Who is that?" Clint asked.

"Valmont—the dragon who came from another world during the New York Battle," Fury explained. "We were all played by him. He should be the greatest enemy of the New York Battle."

"What do we do now? Do we have an operation plan?" Clint asked.

Fury looked at the people before him: Natasha, Steve, Clint, and Banner, who was under Shendu's control.

"Shendu and Tony have already fought. It looks like Shendu won. The only Avengers left now are you," Fury concluded.

"Shendu's current abilities are the power to control inanimate objects that he displayed during the New York Battle, and control of the Mind Stone."

Fury drew a dragon and a gem on the ground. "He has no means of reconnaissance. Right now, we are operating in the shadows."

"The Mind Stone? Wasn't it entrusted to you? How is it with Shendu now?" Clint seemed to have caught onto something important.

Fury coughed but did not explain. "There are some conflicts between Tony and us right now, but he is an important source of combat power. We have to rescue him."

"From Shendu's previous actions, he seems very afraid of nuclear weapons."

Fury paused and looked at Natasha. "The military's nuclear weapons are currently incapable of launching. Go work with the military to repair their weapons. We need nuclear deterrence."

"Clint, work with Steve and try to rescue Tony."

Seeing everyone agree, Fury seemed to sense something amiss. "Clint, don't you have any doubts about me?"

Clint shrugged. "Before Natasha found me, I was still hostile toward you. But Natasha has already explained everything."

Fury nodded at the answer. Any suspicion was potentially fatal now. He had to eliminate it, even if that suspicion came from himself.

"Set out now. I still have a superweapon. Go ahead without worry. If the operation fails, someone will step in." Fury rubbed the pager in his pocket.

Watching the three disappear into the darkness, Fury muttered to himself, "I hope everything goes smoothly."

Shendu stood on the top floor of Stark Tower. Natasha knelt behind him. "Fury doesn't really think his plan can succeed, does he?"

"Cooperate with them properly. I'm still not sure whether Tony will be able to launch the nuclear missile when the time comes, but at the very least, we must ensure that the military has one usable nuclear missile."

Shendu turned to the ninjas standing by nearby. "Find Pepper Potts. Capture her and hide her somewhere safe."

Shendu picked up a document retrieved from Stark's archives. It was an emergency encrypted file that only upper management could access.

[In Hydra's secret storage facility at an Eastern European base, an object of unknown energy has been confirmed. It bears a creature resembling a long-legged snake.]

[It can emit high temperatures in a directed blast and cause large-scale explosions.]

Shendu was certain that the item described in the document was the Dragon Talisman.

A few days later, Eastern Europe, one of Hydra's secret bases.

There were no soldiers' barracks here, nor any strategic conference rooms—only a tunnel descending deep underground, leading directly to a laboratory.

There were no markings on the laboratory door, no electronic lock, only a mechanical lock.

This was Hydra's most old-fashioned method: lock the most dangerous items away in the simplest way.

Shendu stood at the edge of a cliff by the base entrance, with two silent ninjas crouching behind him.

"Hydra."

Shendu murmured the name. At this point in the timeline, Wanda was still being experimented on by Hydra. The Mind Stone was with him now, and she had yet to gain superpowers and become the Scarlet Witch.

Shendu raised his hand. The Mind Stone's glow flickered in his palm, its light extending downward into the laboratory.

Shendu closed his eyes. Through the eyes of a guard in the laboratory, he saw something sleeping inside a sealed container.

That thing resonated faintly with what was inside him.

The Dragon Talisman.

Shendu withdrew his perception. Another fluctuation came from deeper within the base.

Chaos and explosive force writhed like a wild beast trapped in a cage.

"Interesting."

Shendu extended his hand. The Mouse Talisman, together with the Mind Stone's glow, seeped into the earth.

Steel reinforcement and concrete—these inanimate objects trembled beneath Shendu's will.

A crack split open in the ground.

Shendu leaped deep into the fissure, and the two ninjas silently followed behind him.

The lights in the underground laboratory flickered erratically.

Before the guards could react to what had happened, the walls began closing in, and the metal walls twisted out of shape.

Before they could utter a single scream, they were pierced through or crushed into pulp.

Shendu walked through the tunnel at an unhurried pace.

At the end of the tunnel, a passage with no door came into view.

Shendu glanced at it. The metal on the door began turning on its own, the lock cylinder snapping apart piece by piece as the door opened automatically.

"Such primitive security measures. They're not even half as strong as S.H.I.E.L.D.'s."