S.H.I.E.L.D.
Headquarters, the Triskelion.
Fury was handling some office documents when there was suddenly a knock on the door.
“Come in.”
Fury spoke without even raising his head.
The office door opened, and Hill hurried inside.
“Fury, something major has happened!”
“…Hmm?”
Fury paused, then looked up at Hill, his face filled with surprise.
Hill was one of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s few Level 10 agents.
She had access to many supernatural matters and was also a calm woman who rarely panicked when faced with trouble.
In all these years, this was the first time Fury had ever seen her this flustered.
While he was curious about what had happened, he also immediately sensed the seriousness of the situation.
He asked solemnly, “What happened?”
“There was a gang shootout in Harlem!”
As Hill spoke, she opened the file in her hands and began searching through it.
Fury quietly sat back in his chair and waited.
Hill was not only a Level 10 S.H.I.E.L.D.
agent but also his assistant.
She wouldn’t come running to him simply because a “gang shootout had happened in a place where gang shootouts happened all the time.”
There had to be something special about this incident.
Otherwise, Hill wouldn’t have rushed over to report it without even finishing her preparations.
“…Found it.”
After searching through the folder for a while, Hill pulled out a USB drive and inserted it directly into the projector on the desk.
She pressed the switch and began explaining while the machine started up.
“This happened half an hour ago.
A group of Mafia members whose origins are unknown appeared in Harlem.
They call themselves the Vongola Family and announced that they intended to rule all the gangs in Harlem.”
“They then clashed with the three largest local gangs.”
“This is the surveillance footage from the incident.”
“Hmm.”
Fury nodded slightly and looked at the footage projected onto the wall.
On an old, dilapidated street, two groups of people appeared.
There were roughly six hundred people in total, all carrying firearms as they advanced toward one another.
One side consisted primarily of muscular Black men, all dressed and behaving like hardened gangsters.
The other side was somewhat strange.
They wore black suits and fedora-style hats, dressed like stereotypical Mafia members from a movie.
Among them were people of all three major races.
Men and women.
Young and old.
The fact that there were people of different races wasn’t particularly strange.
Some gangs valued brotherhood and had a relatively harmonious atmosphere without racial discrimination.
The presence of women wasn’t particularly strange either.
Although female gang members were rare, they certainly existed.
There had even been female gang leaders.
But old men and children?
That was going too far.
Especially that baby who looked to be barely a year old.
The infant was wearing camouflage military clothing and carrying an anti-materiel sniper rifle several times taller than his own body.
What the hell?!
It was completely ridiculous!
It looked like something straight out of a fantasy.
Was that really a gun?
Was Fury sure it wasn’t a foam toy?
And then there was the old man leaning on a ceremonial cane who looked like some European aristocrat.
He appeared as though walking itself was difficult for him.
Was Fury sure these people weren’t heading to a banquet instead of a gang shootout?
And the observant Fury noticed something else.
Many members of this group weren’t carrying weapons at all.
Especially the people walking at the front who appeared to be the leaders.
They were all completely unarmed, with nothing but flashy rings on their fingers.
Were these people really here for a gunfight?
Fury desperately wanted to complain.
But there were simply too many things to complain about.
He didn’t even know where to start.
“The gang consisting primarily of Black men is the Savage Gang,” Hill explained.
“The other side is the Vongola Family.”
Hearing Hill’s explanation, Fury already knew there would probably be some kind of reversal later.
Even so, he couldn’t suppress his urge to complain.
“Are you sure this isn’t a movie?”
“I thought the same thing at first.”
Hill looked serious.
“But I can guarantee you, it isn’t.”
“Fine.”
Seeing how firmly Hill insisted, Fury was left speechless.
He could only turn his attention back to the projection.
At this moment, the firefight had already begun.
The Savage Gang took advantage of their superior firepower and launched an attack without hesitation.
They completely overwhelmed the other side.
In less than five minutes, they had wiped out the entire opposing force without suffering a single casualty.
That’s it?
Fury once again looked at Hill speechlessly.
Although a gang shootout in the middle of the street that left more than three hundred people dead was certainly an extremely serious and vicious incident, S.H.I.E.L.D.
was a United Nations organization established to deal with supernatural phenomena.
It wasn’t an American government agency.
Without an appropriate reason, there was no way the United States would hand an incident like this over to them.
“Keep watching.”
“Okay!”
Fury turned back toward the recording.
The Savage Gang leader stood in front of his men, loudly celebrating their victory.
At this moment, a blurry figure appeared behind him.
The silhouette gradually became clearer until its true form was revealed.
It was a sinister-looking young man with long hair tied into a ponytail, holding a trident.
Fury’s brows furrowed.
He picked up the remote control and rewound the footage, returning to the moments before the firefight.
He found the same young man holding the trident among the members of the Vongola Family.
The man was walking in the second row alongside six other people.
In front of them was a young man wearing a black cloak.
He had a calm expression, orange hair, and orange eyes, clearly appearing to be the leader.
A baby wearing a black suit was sitting on his shoulder.
“Are there at least eight people like him?”
Fury’s expression became solemn.
The Mafia was an organization that placed tremendous importance on strength and status.
Whenever they traveled or appeared publicly, members would appear strictly according to their position and strength.
If this group really was a Mafia family, then the person walking at the very front had to be their most prestigious, powerful, and influential leader.
The core members walking behind him side by side would naturally be those closest to the family leader.
If one of these core members had demonstrated supernatural abilities, then there was no reason for the other six not to possess them as well.
Otherwise, why would they stand at the same level?
Thinking of this, Fury carefully studied the appearances of the other six core members.
He committed their faces to memory before continuing the playback.
The young man materialized out of nowhere behind the gang leader.
Fury repeatedly replayed the footage, trying to find some kind of clue.
But after replaying it more than a dozen times, he found nothing.
With no other choice, he continued watching.
The young man appeared to say something.
Because the surveillance footage had no audio, and neither Fury nor Hill understood lip-reading, they had no idea what the young man had actually said.
But the gang leader clearly heard him.
He immediately turned around and opened fire, emptying an entire magazine.
The sinister young man dispersed like mist.
But the gang members standing behind him were hit instead, suffering heavy casualties.
The gang leader panicked.
The sinister young man appeared behind him again and said something.
But this time, the young man didn’t dissolve into mist.
The moment the gang leader turned around, the young man moved with incredible speed.
He thrust his trident through the man’s shoulder and brutally pinned him to the ground.
At the same time, the corpses of the Vongola Family members who had previously been killed gradually faded away.
Then they reappeared behind every single member of the Savage Gang, pressing guns against their vital points.
The situation instantly reversed.
“Could it be…
that every single one of them is a supernatural being?”
Fury shot to his feet with a bang, staring at the scene in disbelief.
“It’s that young man’s superpower.”
Hill explained at this moment.
“It’s an illusion!”
“How do you know?”