Chapter 101: Chapter 101: SHIELD Disbands.
Warsaw, Poland – outskirts
Nick Fury sat on the grass beside the Quinjet, surrounded by a small group of trusted agents.
In front of them, a floating projection played a grainy video—Superman, emerging unharmed from the heart of a nuclear explosion.
It had already been an hour since the blast.
In the distance, the city of Warsaw was still erupting in joy. Its quiet streets had transformed into something closer to Rio's Carnival. Music echoed through the night. Flags waved. People danced.
But none of that touched Fury.
His expression was grim, shoulders tight, fingers idly rubbing the pager in his palm as if trying to polish away his frustration.
He had always believed he was a step ahead, that no major global shift could happen without his knowledge.
But today, the game had changed—and someone else had flipped the board.
He'd only found out about the Hydra incident through a trending video. Not from intelligence. Not from field agents. From the internet.
And worst of all, Hydra—his enemy, his burden—wasn't taken down by SHIELD, or even the Avengers.
It was Malrick.
A being so powerful, Fury couldn't even begin to measure the threat.
He had rewatched the footage dozens of times. The man had flown out of a nuclear fireball and dispersed the mushroom cloud like smoke. Even Captain Marvel, with her strength, might not have survived that.
The only sliver of comfort came from Tony Stark, who'd taken out a Helicarrier during the chaos. At least SHIELD had some kind of involvement.
Fury sighed, still seated on the grass, shadows draped across his face as dusk rolled in.
Hawkeye, sitting nearby, didn't share the mood.
"How many times have we seen this clip? A hundred? We looping it now?" he joked, leaning back on his elbows.
He gestured toward the city skyline, glowing with celebration. "Look at that. Hydra's gone, the people are alive. Crisis averted. Why not let loose a little?"
Coulson raised his hand from his spot in the grass. "I could go for a shot of Polish vodka."
Fury snapped to his feet. "No vodka. No carnival."
He slid the pager into his coat.
"We've still got a mess to clean up. Hill—gather people you trust. It's time to take SHIELD back."
He spoke as if preparing for war.
But Hill didn't stand. She remained seated, calm, and handed him a tablet.
"Fury, I didn't interrupt earlier because you were busy obsessing over Superman. But you should see this."
Her tone was too neutral for what came next.
"Half an hour ago, the Rising Tide group published the personnel files of every SHIELD agent. Names, backgrounds, operations. Everything."
"The public found out that not only were most of our people secretly Hydra... even the rest weren't exactly following protocol."
"There's chaos online. Massive outrage."
"And just now, the World Security Council issued a formal notice."
She looked him squarely in the eye.
"They're disbanding SHIELD. Effective immediately."
The silence that followed was heavy.
"What?" Fury choked.
He grabbed the tablet. "You can't even access the full agent registry without two Alpha-clearance codes and simultaneous iris scans."
Hill didn't flinch. "I know."
"But SHIELD is gone, Fury. How they got in doesn't really matter right now."
She stood now, brushing dirt from her coat.
"We'll have plenty of time to investigate. Right after they take us into custody."
Fury's grip tightened around the tablet.
His worst nightmare wasn't just real—it had already finished happening.
"Motherf…"
---
Three days passed.
Three days that turned the entire world upside down.
First, SHIELD was no more.
Then, the members of the World Security Council were quietly rotated out—every single one of them replaced.
Next, the U.S. military, under intense pressure, pulled the last of its remaining forces out of Asia.
They had previously tiptoed around a legal loophole, claiming withdrawal by only exiting Afghanistan.
But now, with Malrick's attention shifting back from the Men in Black to global affairs, they moved fast. Real fast.
Still, he hadn't forgotten what they'd done.
He sank one of their aircraft carriers just to make a point.
No one died, but the message was loud and clear.
The military, in response, scrambled for a cover-up. A press conference the next day labeled the sinking an "exercise malfunction." The incident was quietly buried.
But the world was wide awake.
A massive global manhunt for Hydra began. No more shadow operations. No more tolerance.
This time, the world was hunting monsters with nukes—and they weren't planning to miss.
During the pursuit, two forces dominated headlines.
First, Iron Man—flying constantly, tearing through Hydra bases with his iconic suit.
Second, a mysterious group dressed in sleek black suits—lethal, precise, and virtually untouchable.
The women in black had already captured Alexander Pierce, intercepted a Helicarrier mid-flight, and rescued representatives from multiple nations.
Since then, they'd struck Hydra strongholds across the globe, vanishing each time without a trace.
Even elite intelligence agencies failed to track them.
Some theorized they were Stark's personal "lace angels," because their gear resembled repurposed Iron Man tech.
Others thought they were victims of Hydra, banded together by trauma and vengeance.
But one thing was certain: They were efficient. Ruthless. And they only showed up to annihilate Hydra.
Some governments looked into their origins—then stopped just as quickly.
Perhaps they learned the truth.
Perhaps they decided it was better not to know.
Whatever the case, the world had new heroes now. And new myths.
Superman.
The Iron Men.
The Women in Black.
Another rising name was Tide—the activist group responsible for exposing SHIELD's files.
Once a fringe organization, they were now infamous. Some of their members were recruited. Others arrested.
The rest vanished.
Their moment in history would be brief, but unforgettable.
And yet, all these shockwaves were just ripples compared to the tidal force of one man.
Superman.
Since the Hydra incident, the internet had been flooded—hundreds of millions of new posts about him each day.
He wasn't just a hero anymore. He was a movement.
Ideologies formed in his name.
Dozens of online factions emerged, but two major forces dominated:
The Supporters and the Opponents.
Supporters praised Superman as a divine protector, many of them people he'd saved directly.
Opponents, however, ranged from paranoid conspiracy theorists to politicians terrified of his power.
The debates were endless. Toxic. Apocalyptic.
Over just three days, online forums turned into battlegrounds.
Trolls were vaporized. Threads wiped out. Entire platforms destabilized.
People started calling it the "Cyber Civil War."
Subfactions emerged too—Adventists, who believed he was a sign of the end times. Saviors, who worshipped him as messianic. The Supreme God cult, the Dictatorship Doomsayers, the Original Sin Society.
Chaos reigned.
But the Supporters were winning.
They had the numbers. They had the stories. And, apparently, they had the muscle.
Rumors spread that survivors of the Warsaw blast tracked down Opponents across borders, hacked their systems, even showed up at their doors for in-person "discussions."
The next day, those same Opponents would post a single sentence:
"I will always support Superman."
Posted from a hospital IP address.
And so, the Opposition went quiet—licking their wounds, waiting for a better day to resist.
But deep down, the world was beginning to understand something.
Superman hadn't just saved Warsaw.
He had rewritten the rules.
---
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