Super soldier system in Marvel

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The drug Stark had injected did its job and the girl began to awaken. August checked her pulse and made sure she was okay. Anita's first request was simple water, the man poured boiled water into his glass and gave it to the girl. After the water after a while she opened her eyes and there was the first contact between the mercenary and the rescued multi-billionaire.

August tried to show himself in front of the girl as an independent, stale mercenary in order to limit himself from premature contact with the superhero world of Marvel. Right now he needed to accumulate as much power as he could to protect himself from the insanity of what was going on in the world. Afghanistan was the perfect platform for his growth, it was dangerous to go anywhere else.

Not denying himself a little prank, Augustus taunted the future superheroine while she was feeding. It was a hilarious sight for a man to watch a girl accustomed to a life of luxury choking on fried meat.

- I can't take it anymore," the red-haired beauty turned her greasy face away. - Stop putting meat in my mouth.

- You've eaten five pieces of meat, each piece about three hundred grams. That'll be ten thousand dollars.

- That's robbery! Stop it already, you'll get your money," Anita said calmly. She did not like it very much that some man dared to mock her in her moments of weakness.

August didn't say anything back to the woman and stepped aside to eat as well. He planned to sit in that cave for a couple more hours, then load Stark into the car and turn her over to the base. Let the US Army deal with her from here on out, the man had done everything he needed to do, all he cared about was the money he would get from Anita for the rescue.

The assignment from the system was fulfilled as soon as the girl opened her eyes for the first time. The system counted stopping the internal bleeding as completing the task. A new skill was added to his skill scale, and the system decided to give the suit via coordinates. The note on the coordinates said that he needed to dig in the right place and receive his reward. At times like this, August regretted a bit that he didn't have the bottomless inventory typical of all games. If he had, he wouldn't have had to lug around a huge number of bins and drive a big pickup truck.

- Why can't I feel my legs! - Anita said excitedly, distracting August from eating. The girl's words made the man break out in a cold sweat.

Throwing the unfinished meat on the ground, he quickly approached Stark, who was worried about her legs. Pulling the blanket off the girl, Augustus carefully positioned himself over her. Anita looked away from her feet and stared at the man in surprise.

- Wha...

- Don't distract me, I need to check your condition, - August interrupted Anita and ran his gloved hands under the girl's T-shirt, gently touching her back. - Can you feel my touch?

- Why did you start this in the first place, if you want to seduce me, you won't succeed.

- Stark, don't mess with me, tell me, can you feel my touch? - Gently groping the girl's back, the man moved down from her upper back to her lower back.

- Can you feel anything here?

- No.

August's face hardened beneath the mask, and he spent some more time groping the girl's back. Trying to look calm, the man returned to the fire and sat down on a rock. Stark looked suspiciously at the man who had moved away from her and began to guess something.

"Where-are they, for I remember taking them as an amulet a while ago. Aha, I found them!"

Frantically rummaging through the front pouches of his unloading, August pulled out a crumpled packet of cigarettes. He had stopped smoking and drinking after getting immunity, his body no longer felt the former effects of those two things. The unsmoked packet of cigarettes remained something like a talisman to him, which, however, he now decided to use.

"Stark hurt her spine in the fall, I didn't think Iron Man would be so unlucky in this Marvel universe. Have I really fallen into a dystopian version of the Marvel universe?"

Turning away from the sedated woman, the man smoked a cigarette while in some sort of prostration. If her spine had been damaged in the fall, the mercenary had damaged Anita's spine even more with his less than careful actions. Stark's partially appearing disability was on his hands. The injector stuck into the girl afterwards only slightly healed all her wounds, taking her out of the critical situation. She needs medical attention as soon as possible, otherwise this could take a bad turn, her spine's a mess.

- Hey, you're a mercenary, right? - Anita turned to the man who was left alone. - Get me to the US Army base and I'll pay you five million, and I'll pay you extra if I have to.

- Twenty million," August came to life and threw his cigarette into the fire, "and we'll sign a six-month contract with you. That way I'll be sure I'll get my money, and you'll be sure I won't just screw you over.

- I agree, do you have anything to draw up a contract on?

The man got up from his seat and rummaged through his rucksack. He took out two folders with sheets of paper, which turned out to be contracts for hire, written in English. Augustus wrote the price of hire himself and signed at the end of the document. Stark took a long look at the documents, leafing through them and reading the clauses.

- If I sign this, will you get me out of here?

- I'll at least give it my best shot.

Stark put signatures at the end of the documents. August left one copy with her, and tucked the other back into his travelling bag. As much as the man wanted to stay in Afghanistan, it seemed the world itself was pushing him to go to the United States. To the epicentre of all the chaos and violence. He felt a small twinge of guilt for not properly administering first aid to the would-be superheroine. Perhaps it was because of his careless actions that Anita had lost the ability to walk.

For himself, he made a decision to help Stark get out of the terrorist-controlled region of Afghanistan and take her to the base of American soldiers. Then after returning the girl back home, he contracted with her immediately receive twenty million and can spin an expensive roulette with comic book characters. Having gained renewed vigour from the roulette, Augustus will deal with Obadiah and spend the remaining months quietly as the rich lady's bodyguard. Once his contract is up, he'll be back here in no time and continue to build up his strength.

He'll spend six months, but he'll get twenty million dollars for it. Stark's help could be considered a high-paying assignment. In the six months he spent in Afghanistan, August only managed to earn two million dollars.

"I guess it wasn't my conscience that kicked in after all, but my lust for profit. It would be a simple matter for me to deal with Obadiah, if anything. But for some reason, I have a strong feeling that the plot will unfold in a different way than it did in the canon."

- Get some sleep, Stark. We leave in a couple of hours. I'll keep you safe," Augustus said to the woman. It was clear from her clouded gaze and the large bruises under her eyes that she hadn't been sleeping much lately and had been working most of the time. She was trying to get that damn suit together as soon as possible so she could get out of the terrorist base. So much for not getting a good night's sleep.

- I'm cold," Anita complained. August thought of nothing better than to pull the sleeping bag with the girl closer to the fire.

The man and the girl were next to each other near the fire, and somehow, after the degree of tension had subsided, a conversation started between them. Stark was not going to sleep, she was curious about her saviour. She asked Augustus questions and received answers. The man told her everything she wanted to know, there was no point in withholding information. Of course, he didn't say a word about his system, but Stark didn't ask about it.

Two hours came to an end and August dragged his things back into the car and together with Stark went towards the mercenary base. All American mercenary bases cooperated with the U.S. Army, through them it was easy to get to the military. They even sometimes came to the mercenary bases to hire a few locals for their own purposes.

- The roads are blocked, they want to take us in pincers," August came upon the third terrorist patrol. All the roads that led to American-controlled territory were blocked by huge groups of terrorists. If August had been alone, he might have tried to break through, but he was with the incapacitated Stark, and he couldn't risk it. - So we'd have to take a detour, a journey that would take about a month.Chapter 9 Fuel, Food and Water

The terrorist territory was unregulated in Afghanistan. It was completely chaotic and lawless. The U.S. military tried not to enter territories beyond their control for no particular reason. The Americans on the borders noticed the road blockade, but did not do anything about it. They merely relayed the information to the main headquarters.

This was not the first time terrorists had engaged in road blockades, usually to seize customs duties from trade caravans. The Americans were aware of the terrorists' trade with European arms suppliers, but could do nothing about it. It was forbidden to attack European traders or to restrict their movements in any way, otherwise a political conflict could arise because of it. After which all superior officers of the border troops would be removed from their posts. American officers did not want to risk their ranks, so they did not pay attention to trade caravans co-operating with terrorists.

August was aware of this policy of the military and guessed that the terrorists would not lift the blockade until they caught Stark. Taking a detour was the only true solution to the situation. A couple of weeks across the vast latitudes of Afghanistan and crossing the high mountains, so they can safely be in the territories controlled by the U.S. military.

The only problem is August hasn't prepared enough resources. There was only enough food, water and fuel for a week. He didn't think rescuing Stark would be such a problem. In canon, she was rescued by an incoming American helicopter that was attracted by the noise of the terrorist camp exploding. Here, however, as usual, everything went through the roof. The military would not help them and they had to get out of the terrorists' territories themselves.

Food and water could be bought in settlements along the way. Not all villages and settlements in terrorist territory in Afghanistan were under the control of the terrorists themselves. It would be possible to negotiate with some of the inhabitants, but the price of food would be very high. Fuel will be the hardest resource to find, no one will sell it for nothing. August will have to find a way to get petrol for his transport.

The first village was encountered three days later. It was destroyed and burned. The pickup pulled carefully into the centre of the village and August stepped outside, asking Stark to be quiet. Little could happen, the future heroine must not be harmed.

The village the man had driven into was marked on local maps. According to rough estimates, its population must have reached a thousand or two thousand people. As he walked down the street, the mercenary looked around. Every now and then his gaze strayed to the huge pits of bomb blasts and the mountains of spent shell casings. Here and there bodies or parts of human bodies were lying near the deep craters. They gave off a suffocating odour of decomposition and putrefaction.

- The village had been destroyed recently, and the bodies had not yet had time to rot," August concluded, looking at the corpses beneath his feet.

The mercenary was not interested in who was responsible for killing the civilians. The destruction of this village had nothing to do with him. All he wanted now was to get the resources, food and petrol he needed. The attackers couldn't have looted such a huge village, something had to be left.

Turning back to Stark, who was sitting in the passenger seat, the man reported to her on the state of the village. The woman, immobilised due to her disability, regarded the ruined houses and the corpses rotting on the ground with a complicated expression. Previously such a sight would not have aroused any feelings in her, but now for some reason her heart clenched painfully. Perhaps her time in captivity had taken its toll on her.

August got behind the wheel and drove to the village's only petrol station. By some miracle, the village petrol station was intact. Not a single shell had hit it during the shelling of the settlement.

Leaving his car near the entrance to the building, the man went inside and looked for petrol cans. Or anything that might have petrol in it. The inside of the petrol station was a complete shambles, with signs of battle visible here and there. Apparently the owners of the petrol station had their own private armed guards and they had resisted the raiders.

There was no petrol anywhere on the ground floor, and the first floor served as office and sleeping quarters. The corpses, presumably the owners of the petrol station, ended up on the first floor in a bedroom. While they were alive they had been abused for a long time and then killed by slitting their necks. The mercenary did not go into the details of the deaths of the owners of the petrol station and simply closed the bedroom door.

- There must be a warehouse somewhere on the ground floor," August murmured thoughtfully as he walked back down to the ground floor. The only petrol station in the village couldn't do without a warehouse; somewhere to put the parts for fixing cars, right? In addition to their direct duties, Afghan village petrol stations were also car repair shops.

A basement, well covered from prying eyes, served as a fuel depot. The way down to the cellar was a stone staircase, poorly lit. As the man descended, he accidentally caught his foot on something in the darkness. Shining his torch under his feet, he found a dead body. Carefully stepping over it, the mercenary nonchalantly walked on.

The petrol station warehouse had been cleaned out, everything that could be taken from here had been taken away. Only rotting corpses remained.

- During the firefight, it looks like the petrol station guards retreated to the warehouse and were killed here. We should look outside the car, see if there's any petrol in the tank.

When August drove up to the petrol station, he found a jeep parked outside. It was a little battered from mortar fire, but it still looked powerful and dignified. It might have petrol in its fuel tank, which could be drained into an empty canister. To check if there was petrol in the parked car, the mercenary decided to rock it and determine the level of the fuel tank by ear.

August was eight times stronger than a normal man. The jeep weighed a ton and a half. With the mercenary's physical characteristics, rocking a one and a half ton jeep was a simple matter. If necessary, the man could lift the vehicle.

Anita Stark sat in the passenger seat of the pickup truck and watched from the sidelines as the man who had rescued her rocked the SUV parked near the petrol station with unusual ease. She had heard that in America there were mutants, people who had been born with superpowers. Was the mercenary who had saved her one of them? Anita had never heard of mutant men before. Either they didn't exist, or there were very few of them.

The rocking of the SUV brought results. August heard a splashing sound in the tank, which meant there was petrol in the SUV. Quickly running inside the petrol station, he took an empty petrol can and a hose through which he was going to pour the fuel. He had the knowledge of how to properly drain fuel from somewhere, so he got right to work.

- Are you a mutant? - Stark decided not to hesitate and asked her saviour in a direct manner about his extraordinary powers. - How did you swing that jeep so easily? Do you have a mutation related to physical strength or is it telekinesis or something more interesting?

August had just drained the petrol and returned to the car when he was immediately interrogated. Stark leaned on the armrest with interest looking through the slits of the black handkerchief, trying to see the man's eyes.

- You could say I'm a mutant, but that wouldn't be quite right," the mercenary started the pickup's engine. - Just think of me as a trained human.

Stark wasn't satisfied with that answer, but she decided to keep her curiosity at bay for now. Right now, the woman was in no position at all to be interrogating her mercenary. Until they reached America, Anita was completely dependent on the man beside her. She literally couldn't even go to the toilet without his help, let alone more complicated things.

Stark's disability didn't scare her, if she could get to her villa, she could solve the problem of her broken spine. All these days while they were travelling in the car, Anita had been going through different options in her head to solve the problem. The suit created for escaping from the terrorists' captivity gave the girl one thought, and this thought was to her liking.

- With petrol the question was solved, it would be easy to find food in such a large village. There is only one small problem left to solve, - August drew the girl's attention, continuing to drive the car and looking ahead. - You need a bath and clean clothes.

Stark did not react to the mercenary's words, she agreed with him. She could use some new clothes, and she had wanted to bathe for a long time. The fact that she would not be bathing alone, but would be bathed by an outsider, did not cause her any embarrassment. During the three days they had spent together, Anita had already had enough of the torture of going to the toilet together, when all her actions were controlled by the silent mercenary. It even seemed to the girl sometimes that he was not just silent, but thoughtful.

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