Coulson: (´ﾟωﾟ)?
Hydra: "(ºДº*)
Bro, seriously, you weren't even pretending anymore?
Hydra was an underground organization. What were you trying to accomplish by openly showing your hand?
Wasn't your mission to go undercover and earn Nick's and Coulson's trust?
If someone needed killing, they could do it themselves. Why would they need you undercover?
On the surface, they were all S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel now, so they couldn't just turn a blind eye to Su Zhou's actions!
"Put the gun down!"
"Hands up!"
The Hydra special operatives behind Coulson all raised their guns and aimed at Su Zhou.
Su Zhou pressed his gun straight against Coulson's high hairline.
He pinned the rope beneath his foot to keep Nick firmly under control.
With his free hand, he drew another pistol and aimed it at the agents, looking as though he had the entire battlefield under his control.
"Shoot! I can still kill you before they shoot me!"
Su Zhou gritted his teeth in frustration. If he could withstand gunfire,
he would have gone straight into a shootout with these Hydra agents. Would he have needed to let things turn out like this?!
Now he could only pin his hopes on the next draw. He was simply too squishy right now.
The shadow of having too short a health bar and too little defense always hung over him.
Having watched plenty of superhero movies, Su Zhou knew all too well what superheroes were like.
Never mind how hard they could hit; at the very least, they had to be able to take a beating!
Just like Black Widow, Natasha. After taking a punch from Hulk,
she could sit on the floor and breathe for a few minutes to recover her HP, then run off and knock Hawkeye flat.
Although that might also have been because Hawkeye sucked, Natasha's toughened muscles and bones were standard equipment for superheroes!
"Su Zhou, even if Director Nick has ties to aliens, or has even been working with them,
"you can't take justice into your own hands. You should hand him over to S.H.I.E.L.D. for interrogation.
"You're such an upright person. Why can't you understand even that?"
Even with Su Zhou's gun pointed at his head, Coulson remained completely unruffled.
Someone with a truly clear conscience wouldn't fear Su Zhou's gun!
Su Zhou might have been bloodthirsty, but he had never fired at an innocent person!
"Agent Coulson, I..."
Seeing someone offer him a way out, Su Zhou immediately took it and pulled the gun away from Coulson's head.
But his expression remained deeply conflicted, as though he were caught in endless indecision.
Seeing that his words had gotten through to Su Zhou, Coulson gently patted his shoulder.
"Su Zhou! You're a very upright person. Sometimes you even put me to shame.
"But this world isn't black and white. It's a delicate shade of gray.
"Rest assured, as long as you hand Nick Fury over to me, I'll get answers out of him."
"You can take him, but I need to keep my eyes on him the entire time!"
Su Zhou pointed his gun at Nick Fury, who had passed out again, and said,
"He's the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. There may be other compromised members within S.H.I.E.L.D.
"That alien could disguise himself as him, or as anyone else!
"If anyone tries to rescue Nick by force, you'll need me."
Coulson considered that in silence and found that Su Zhou had a point.
If not for Su Zhou's astonishing marksmanship, Director Nick wouldn't have singled him out for close observation.
Once Su Zhou passed the background and character checks, he would be brought into the [Avengers] Initiative
and become S.H.I.E.L.D.'s first [Avenger]!
There wasn't time to think things through carefully now, either. Nick Fury hadn't moved for almost a minute!
So Coulson nodded in agreement to Su Zhou's demands and spread his hands.
"I agree. Can you let go of the rope now? Nick looks like he's dying!"
"Of course!"
Su Zhou lifted his foot and released the rope. The suspended Nick Fury fell to the floor with a thud.
"Our Director Nick seems to have been modified by aliens. His physical condition is even better than a trained agent's!
"Before you arrived, he'd already suffocated and lost consciousness more than ten times.
"So there's no need to worry. Just give him a couple of kicks and he'll wake up!"
Coulson: (*ﾟﾛﾟ)!!
OMG!!! Was that something a human being would say?
Su Zhou's ruthlessness exceeded anything Coulson had imagined, but there really was something seriously wrong with Director Nick.
Even an agent who had undergone the most brutal training would have lost control of their bowels and bladder long before being suffocated more than ten times.
They would have started talking no matter what intel was at stake, yet Director Nick still acted as though none of it mattered.
He even had the strength to curse. Even if he was the so-called "king of agents,"
that kind of terrifying physical resilience wasn't something a normal human should possess!
So the director secretly upgraded his body behind my back?!
"Take Director Nick away. Put him in the full set of restraints!"
"Yes, sir!"
The Hydra agents behind Coulson swarmed forward and trussed Nick Fury up tightly.
Several of them carried him away together and tossed him into the black van they had arrived in.
Su Zhou returned his gun to his shoulder holster and climbed into the van without a word.
His gaze remained fixed on the unconscious Nick Fury. Seeing this, Coulson shook his head helplessly.
He took the front passenger seat of the black van, leaving just two agents behind to clean up.
The alien corpse with its head blown apart and the Land Rover were both important recovery targets.
"Drive. Head to Base X1 on Manhattan Island."
Coulson instructed the agent at the wheel, "With Director Nick in this condition, we can't go straight back to S.H.I.E.L.D."
"Yes, sir."
The vehicle slowly began moving. Seeing the puzzled looks from the Hydra agents inside,
Su Zhou discreetly signaled to them that someone was monitoring the van and that they shouldn't make any rash moves.
Through [Super Vision], Su Zhou clearly saw the surveillance equipment inside the van.
There were three listening devices and four hidden cameras in total.
Su Zhou couldn't yet be sure who had installed them, but whether it was Hydra or Nick,
he couldn't expose his identity as a Hydra member yet. After all, he hadn't fleeced them of much yet!
Seeing Su Zhou's signal, the Hydra agents understood that now wasn't the time to talk.
They simply adjusted their equipment in silence, looking fully focused and on guard.
Just then, the unconscious Nick Fury woke up again.
He discovered that he couldn't move a single part of his body and was lying in a moving vehicle.
A squad of S.H.I.E.L.D. field agents surrounded him, along with Su Zhou, who had fired directly at him.
"Have you all gone as crazy as Su Zhou?! Where are you taking me?"
Su Zhou was the first to notice Nick waking up. This time, he said nothing.
He simply stared straight at the furious Nick Fury before him, until even Fury began to feel unnerved.
"Motherfu-Aaah!!!"
Su Zhou promptly snapped Nick's other little finger, cutting off his curse.
"My warning never expires. If you don't believe me, keep going!"