The New S.H.I.E.L.D. Director (Monthly Ticket Bonus Chapter 3)

Nick had planned everything out perfectly, but plans could never keep up with change.

He had been dismissed from his position!

During the Battle of New York, he had suggested evacuating the citizens of New York and then luring Magneto there so that he could fight Zhan Liu.

But the plan was later canceled due to the united opposition of all the various powers.

Then, while seriously injured, Carol had come over with Magneto.

New York was destroyed!

Although everyone knew that New York was a city plagued by disaster, it had already been attacked by Namor, and now it had suffered the calamity of Magneto. Who knew how many more disasters awaited it in the future?

But New York was still New York!

The city was teeming with powerful figures, and every time disaster struck, several of them had to die.

When powerful figures died, someone had to take responsibility!

Although there definitely would not have been so many casualties if Nick’s proposal had been approved at the time, what reason was there to argue with a bunch of politicians?

Politics had never been about reason!

Everyone had clearly rejected S.H.I.E.L.D.’s suggestion, so how had S.H.I.E.L.D. dared to lure Magneto to New York?

Who had given him the authority?

This was S.H.I.E.L.D.’s unauthorized abuse of power, and it had to bear responsibility!

Amid the unanimous accusations, the blame had been pinned on S.H.I.E.L.D.

Nick had intended to shift the responsibility onto Captain Marvel. After all, Carol was already dead and could not come out to refute him, so she might as well make one final contribution to the world.

Under normal circumstances, with the Security Council protecting him, there would have been no problem. A symbolic punishment would have been enough for everyone to save face.

But the situation had changed. S.H.I.E.L.D. had become a highly coveted prize.

After all, Zhan Liu nominally held the title of consultant at S.H.I.E.L.D. With Magneto threatening the world, this consultant—the only person capable of standing against Magneto—was an extremely important bargaining chip.

So this time, someone wanted to bring him down and take better control of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s power.

Thus, Nick had honorably joined the ranks of the unemployed, being sent out into society as a highly qualified talent.

But Nick was not worried in the slightest. Although he had stepped down, his successor was his old friend, John Garrett.

The two had a rock-solid relationship. They were close friends who could take bullets for each other when necessary.

Nick had originally recommended Maria Hill to Alexander Pierce, but Alexander had made a convincing argument. John’s adopted son, Grant Ward, was Zhan Liu’s disciple, and with that connection, he was more suitable to become director.

What could Nick say?

However, Nick had been director for so many years and still had plenty of personal assets that he had not handed over.

He also had many loyal subordinates, such as Coulson and Natasha. So although he was no longer S.H.I.E.L.D.’s director, he could still obtain substantial support and resources from within the organization.

But he could no longer conceal certain public resources, and he had handed them all over to John.

Much intelligence was too important for anyone but the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. to know. If Nick did not tell Alexander, then even this former director of S.H.I.E.L.D. would remain unaware.

But once John became the new director of S.H.I.E.L.D., all that intelligence was laid open before Alexander.

Then Alexander and John began sweating all over.

They saw two recordings stored in the top-secret archives. They were videos of Earth exploding twice, sent from the alien warship.

Only then did the two of them realize that Earth had actually been blown up twice, while they had known absolutely nothing about it.

Moreover, there was actually a powerful sorcerer in this world capable of reversing time!

Nick had once been tempted by the Sorcerer Supreme’s power, and of course Alexander and the others were tempted as well.

Among Hydra’s leaders, quite a few Hydra heads had already achieved immortality, such as Baron Strucker, Whitehall, and Arnim Zola. Alexander naturally wanted it too.

However, he lacked the scientific abilities of those three and had never found a chance to achieve immortality. Now that he knew of the Sorcerer Supreme’s existence, his desire burned even hotter.

If one asked which organization in the world had the strongest ability to infiltrate, the answer was undoubtedly Hydra.

Compared with Nick, who still had to consider the Sorcerer Supreme’s opinion and exercise some restraint, Hydra acted without scruples, with everything oriented toward the result.

They both knew the location of the New York Sanctum. Nick’s methods involved observation, probing, and enticement, while Hydra’s approach was far more ruthless.

They drove several seriously injured members to the vicinity of the New York Sanctum and then left them there.

If the sorcerers did not want the person to die on their doorstep, they had to save him. Hydra could then use that opportunity to climb the pole and establish a connection.

If the sorcerers refused to save him, then they could simply let him die and send someone else over after a while.

It had to be said that this method was simple and crude, but more effective.

What Nick had spent a long time failing to accomplish, Hydra achieved in less than a month. The price was that three elite Hydra agents had wasted their lives on that street, which was only two hundred meters long.

But those sacrifices were worthwhile. The fourth Hydra agent had successfully infiltrated the New York Sanctum and taken a powerful sorcerer as his master.

That sorcerer’s name was Kaecilius!

While plotting against the Sorcerer Supreme, Hydra had also raised Zhan Liu’s importance even higher. In both videos, Zhan Liu had been involved when Earth exploded.

There were already many S.H.I.E.L.D. members around Zhan Liu: his secretary Natasha, his disciple Peter, Sharon Carter, Grant Ward, and others were all with S.H.I.E.L.D.

Tony Stark was excluded because of his special status.

But among these people, there were many from S.H.I.E.L.D. and too few from Snake S.H.I.E.L.D., which was very bad.

Hydra decided to draw closer to Zhan Liu. According to their analysis, Zhan Liu’s personality was a better fit for Hydra!

Getting Zhan Liu to join Hydra might be difficult, because someone like him was definitely not the type to submit to others. But having him become one of Hydra’s heads should not be too difficult.

Although Nick was no longer the director, he still worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. and retained high-level authority. But his authority only allowed him to see S.H.I.E.L.D.’s internal information, not Snake S.H.I.E.L.D.’s confidential intelligence.

Snake S.H.I.E.L.D. was currently busy salvaging Captain America, and that information had been classified as top secret, accessible only to the director.

In this era of explosive military power, Captain America’s strength had fallen behind, but his reputation still resounded.

In particular, the world was currently in turmoil. Europe had already lost several countries and suffered severe damage, leaving the entire world in a state of panic.

At a time when public morale was wavering, an icon of the people like Captain America was exactly what was needed to boost everyone’s spirits.