POV Rio
BOOM
I watched the feed as the 115th base was destroyed. That left 12 bases to go. Operation Heracles, named after the Greek hero who slew the Hydra, had gone extremely smoothly, but given we had only destroyed the low-level and barely dangerous bases, that wasn't that surprising. That isn't to say there were losses. Shield had taken the brunt of the losses, partly due to infighting but also because they were simply the weakest overall. Most of the agents they had left were at best highly trained humans and at worst old men who should have retired a few years ago.
I destroyed a vast majority of the bases, as it was simply really easy to destroy a lot of them when you have a space laser and poison gas that can kill even through gas masks, and magic barriers to keep it all contained, and if that wasn't enough, I had deployed tens of thousands of golems to attack them as well.
Another report comes in about another base being destroyed, which meant it was time to deal with the last 11 bases. These 11 would be a pain to deal with. All of them have lots of hostages, and one of them in particular would require all our resources together, as it is filled with enhanced individuals.
"Phase two is a go, head to your targets now!" I ordered before leaving the watchtower and heading to my assigned base.
I chose Venice as I was a waterbender, and nearly the entire city had water to use. Combine that with my stealth skills, and I was confident I could clear out most of the city before anyone caught on.
Case in point, my first targets. I move my hands, and the water from the canal ripples. The movement catches their attention, and they look at the water, drawing their partner's attention. They both look over the ledge into the water.
"Maybe it was a fish or something?" says the first guard.
"Hmm, or a bug landing on the water, I think I recall that was something that could happen," says the second guard.
Whoosh
Suddenly, the water shoots up and around their necks before pulling them into the water. With precise control of the water, almost no sound is made, and they can't even struggle before their necks are snapped. I pull the bodies to the surface and move a device near their arms.
Bing
I capture the tracking device signal and then hack into the network they are using to make it seem like these signals use the previously established pattern they are supposed to move through before I store the corpses and continue.
I repeat this strategy and a few others a whole lot of times. To further prevent them from noticing something off, I even mimicked the voices of the agents when required to report in. I did so well, in fact, that they never even realised something was wrong until I was killing the leaders of this base.
The reason Venice would have been difficult to clear out for almost anyone else was that there were a lot of non-Hydra civilians spread throughout the city. Case in point, I did accidentally kill a few non-Hydra people as they had dark enough hearts that I just assumed they were Hydra; instead, they were just criminals or similar scum bags. Ultimately, not a big deal, but it was interesting. The other thing that made this base so unique was that it was an almost completely surface-level base. There was no massive underground complex; they had several buildings they were using as defensive structures, but none of them was that hard for me to sneak around, as I slowly wiped them out.
I signal that Venice was cleared and check to see what other bases were cleared.
Tony cleared out his assigned base. Lucy cleared out hers. Steve and Luke Cage cleared their assigned base. Selene and Jessica did the same. Natasha and Barton also managed to clear out their assigned base, though they, alongside Shield, had to back out due to injuries. Magneto took out a base by himself. The X-Men took out their assigned base.
"We've cleared out our assigned base," Optimus reports over the comms.
"That makes eight," I reply over the comms to everyone.
"The military has almost finished taking out their assigned base, but it may take another couple of hours before they do so," Magneto reports.
"I've just finished my base. We took some heavy hits, but no casualties," John Wick reports with a tired voice.
"Okay, that leaves the big one. Everyone still able to fight safely, activate your wristwatches and prepare to be teleported," I order.
The big one is the biggest and hardest to destroy base. It's the base that holds the Winter Soldiers, all their enhanced agents and experiments, as well as a stockpile of old Hydra weapons from WW2. Not to mention the massive number of test subjects that are being held there. With the sheer number of enemies being around 5k which would make this a slog to get through.
After a moment, I get teleported to Siberia just out of range of the base's ability to detect us. When I arrive, I see several people already there. Every member of the Guardians of the Globe was present. In terms of X-Men, there were only Wolverine and Colossus. Lastly was Natasha. Optimus and his group wouldn't be present, as I had warned them ahead of time that this base was too dangerous for them. There were far too few Cybertronians left in the universe for them to risk fighting against weapons that fire energy beams that once came from the Space Stone. It also doesn't help that they are massive targets similar to tanks on the battlefield.
"Is this everyone?" Selene asks with slight worry.
"Agent Barton was injured in the previous battle and is recovering. The rest of the agents wouldn't be of any help," Natasha comments.
"The other X-Men have exhausted themselves or aren't experienced enough to fight here," Wolverine adds while lighting a cigar.
"John Wick and the others with him can't be of much help here, so they won't be fighting," I explain.
"What about golems?" Selene asks.
"I've only got 17 left, but given how slow they are, they would be nothing but targets for them to waste ammo on them, so don't expect them to do anything else," I reply with a shake of my head.
"How are we supposed to clear out nearly 5 thousand enemies?" Natasha asks.
I don't answer verbally and instead pull out a batarang and throw it towards her. She dodges it, but I wasn't trying to hit her. I was aiming for the invisible creature behind her. The creature catches the batarang.
"Tsk tsk tsk, is that any way to treat an ally?" the Demoness says with a sultry gaze.
"Everyone, meet Satina, an unconventional ally for this operation," I introduce.
Everyone looks at her with suspicion.
"What would Lady Satina want that we could offer her?" Selene says with narrowed eyes.
"Relax, Vampire. I'm not here for any of your souls. I'm only here because John Constantine convinced me to help. I help you kill Hydra, and those guilty and in excnage and souls of those that are truly wicked are collected by me to be used as I see fit. It's a fair trade," Satina says with a calm tone.
"And you agreed, despite being on Earth being a risk that might draw the Sorcerer Supreme?" Selene questioned.
"Heh, that old hag? She's a bit preoccupied as of late. My rival, Belasco, is in conflict with the Sorcerers, and my money is on them winning," Satina says with a smirk.
"Enough, we're wasting time, we have a mission to complete," I interject as I didn't need everyone to start talking about such things in front of outsiders.
"Yes, yes of course. I'll handle the weaklings and their partially stronger weaklings so you can handle the strong ones," Satina says with a bored tone.
She would fight the stronger ones, but that wasn't possible as she couldn't truly manifest on Earth without my help, and I wasn't about to let her fully manifest. I have almost no trust in her. She is one of the major lords of Limbo after all.
Speaking of Limbo, getting there wasn't that hard, but once I got there, I found the place was at war and an overall massive mess. It was bad enough that I didn't stay longer than I had to. I only met Satina by accident as she was leading her armies to attack a stronghold city under Belasco. We didn't really fight so much as she tried to seduce me, as apparently, John Constantine just gives off that vibe. I ended up making a deal with her. She helps me clear out Hydra, and she gets to keep the souls of those who are killed during Operation Heracles as long as they are sinful souls and not just mind-controlled puppets. Since she was fighting a war, she needed all the souls she could get to both empower her and create more demons to fight for her.
Regardless of our unconventional alliance, it was time to start the attack and, with any luck, eradicate Hydra from the world. Though I felt that was unlikely, as I would likely have to clean up a few more survivors here and there.