Three days had passed since the yellow sponge abruptly appeared along the West Coast. Over those few days, both S.H.I.E.L.D. and the various powers in the United States had entered a period of calm.
The United States began urgently pulling back its military forces and stopped throwing its weight around abroad. Blue Star enjoyed a rare measure of peace.
Pretty much every major country had learned what happened along the West Coast.
There were many reasons for this turn of events.
The yellow sponge was one of the major reasons. A firefight had broken out between the sponge and a military fleet.
Or rather, the United States Navy had unilaterally challenged the sponge.
But all the ammunition they fired had been turned into various foods, then eaten.
Ships that approached those waters had also been turned into food and eaten.
The military had tried launching attacks from long range.
All they produced was smoke, without any damage.
Even when they hit the sponge head-on, he would reappear before long.
The West Coast was still their own territory, after all.
So far, the sponge had shown no aggression or destructive tendencies.
They couldn't just drop a Tsar Bomba on their own soil, could they?
Neither Congress nor the public would ever agree to that.
After several brief meetings, the military decided to suspend operations against the sponge.
Meanwhile, a problem had arisen within S.H.I.E.L.D.
After Coulson reported the casualties to Nick Fury.
Nick Fury's instincts told him something was wrong.
The people they had selected were younger personnel drawn from various frontline departments.
And they had specifically chosen people who believed in Nick Fury's ideals.
Apart from one agent who had just graduated from the Academy, the others, including Victor, were all seasoned agents with at least several years of experience.