Sorcerer in the Marvel Universe

After spending the entire night flying search missions, Phil Coulson returned to the base and slept straight through until noon the following day.

He had just woken up.

The plan was simple.

Wash up.

Eat a decent lunch.

Then prepare for the next sortie.

Instead, an urgent knock rattled his door.

Coulson frowned and checked the time.

It was still well before his next scheduled mission.

As the S.H.I.E.L.D. liaison assigned exclusively to the search for Tony Stark, he wasn’t responsible for the base’s day-to-day operations. If someone was pounding on his door like this, something serious had happened.

He pulled on his jacket and opened the door.

A military runner stood outside.

The young soldier snapped off a crisp salute.

"Agent Coulson."

"The commanding officer requests your presence at headquarters immediately."

Immediately.

That single word tightened Coulson’s stomach.

As he buttoned his coat, he found himself hoping against reason that this was good news.

Maybe they’d found Tony Stark.

Please...

Just don’t let it be a body.

The command center was already in chaos by the time Coulson arrived.

Officers hurried between workstations.

Radio operators shouted into headsets.

Phones rang without pause.

Technicians stared at glowing monitors while others tried to coordinate incoming reports.

The room buzzed with barely controlled urgency.

Standing at the center of it all was Colonel Hark.

The broad-shouldered, bald officer barked orders in every direction until he noticed Coulson approaching.

"Colonel."

Coulson studied the man’s grim expression.

"I’m guessing this isn’t good news."

"No."

Hark’s voice was equally grim.

"Agent Coulson, something significant has happened."

"I believe S.H.I.E.L.D. needs to know."

Although Coulson had been assigned by S.H.I.E.L.D. rather than the U.S. military, officers usually referred to him simply as Agent.

"What happened?"

Hark didn’t answer immediately.

"While you were asleep..."

"We lost contact with one of our ground search teams."

Coulson’s eyes narrowed.

"Communications failure?"

Hark slowly shook his head.

That answer was worse.

Which meant...

"They were attacked."

Given Tony Stark’s kidnapping despite traveling under military escort, the search effort had already been dramatically reinforced.

Each search team consisted of twenty veteran special operations soldiers rather than regular infantry.

Their convoy included four Humvees equipped with heavy machine guns.

Destroying a force like that wasn’t something ordinary insurgents could accomplish.

"We recovered their final transmission."

Hark picked up a remote control and activated the speakers mounted throughout the command center.

Static crackled.

Then a soldier’s voice came over the recording.

"Five contacts approaching from five hundred meters on the convoy’s left flank."

"All units stay alert."

A second voice followed.

"Halt and submit to inspection."

"I repeat, halt immediately or deadly force will be authorized."

Several tense seconds passed.

Then...

"What the hell is that?"

"I said stop!"

"God damn it!"

"Open fire!"

The room filled with automatic gunfire.

Heavy machine guns thundered.

Explosions echoed through the recording.

Then came screaming.

"My God..."

"What are those things?!"

"Retreat!"

"Fall back!"

The final cry dissolved into a bloodcurdling scream before the recording abruptly ended.

Silence settled over the command center.

Hark switched off the speakers.

"We believe they were attacked by an unidentified hostile force."

He hesitated.

"...Possibly something that wasn’t human."

Even saying the words sounded absurd.

Not human?

Then what?

Mutant animals?

Some horrific biological experiment?

The soldiers on that recording had repeatedly referred to the attackers as monsters.

Experienced special operators didn’t mistake ordinary men for monsters.

Not while bullets were flying.

"What do you think, Agent Coulson?"

Coulson remained quiet for a moment.

Then he spoke.

"Did you notice something strange about the recording?"

Hark frowned.

"What?"

"I never heard anyone warn about RPGs."

He looked around the room.

"Or grenades."

"Not once."

Several officers exchanged puzzled glances.

"The only weapons I heard," Coulson continued, "were our own M4 carbines and the Humvees’ M2 heavy machine guns."

Hark’s expression slowly changed.

He understood immediately.

A convoy with twenty special operators and four armed Humvees couldn’t be wiped out by five attackers carrying only assault rifles.

Any force trying would need anti-armor weapons.

Rocket launchers.

Improvised explosives.

Something.

Yet none of the soldiers had shouted the warnings that came instinctively under those circumstances.

"RPG!"

"Grenade!"

"Incoming!"

Nothing.

Not a single warning.

That wasn’t normal.

"And there’s something else," Coulson added.

"If the attackers were within visual range..."

"...why can’t we hear their weapons?"

The convoy had ordered them to stop.

That meant they couldn’t have been more than a hundred meters away.

Gunfire traveled much farther than that.

If the attackers had been firing AK-47s, everyone would have heard them.

Unless...

"They weren’t using firearms at all," Coulson concluded.

"Or any conventional weapon we’re familiar with."

He looked toward Hark.

"So yes..."

"It’s entirely possible those soldiers really were fighting something they considered monsters."

Coulson’s first thought wasn’t aliens or mythical creatures.

It was mutants.

Enhanced humans weren’t unique to the United States.

Mutations occurred everywhere.

The difference was that the Middle East lacked organizations capable of identifying and monitoring them.

In regions torn apart by constant war, someone born with extraordinary abilities could easily be recruited by extremist groups and worshipped as a divine messenger.

That explanation, at least, fit reality.

Colonel Hark, meanwhile, had reached a very different conclusion.

Perhaps some neighboring nation had secretly dumped radioactive waste into the desert.

Maybe it had created giant mutated reptiles.

Reptiles that reproduced rapidly...

Could survive on land and in water...

And, if his increasingly ridiculous imagination continued, probably fired laser beams from their mouths.

Before either man could continue the discussion, one of the communications officers suddenly leaped to his feet.

"Sir!"

Everyone turned.

"We’ve picked up a Special Forces emergency beacon."

He looked back at his monitor in disbelief.

"They’re identifying themselves as survivors from the missing search team."

...

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