As Hive was observing the giant stones, Coulson looked at Mike with a helpless expression. Though he couldn't speak, his eyes conveyed his thoughts.
'Why did you come without Youyou? Speedster would find it easier to deal with the Hive, no?'
That's basically what it meant; it was a question from the depths of Coulson's soul.
But Mike's black face showed a pair of innocent eyes looking at Coulson, revealing a cluelessness that may or may not be real.
'She couldn't get out of bed, but it wasn't like I tried too hard. It's a racial talent plus being gifted, can you blame me?'
This was the response in Mike's eyes, which unsurprisingly made Coulson roll his eyes. He didn't want to hear about his subordinates' private matters, but from now on, he must set a new rule: no matter if the combat mission has ended, field agents are not allowed to hit the sheets within a few hours after a mission.
The lack of combat power at crucial moments is a real bummer for the team.
'Forget about that, you know it's Hive, yet can't you stop daydreaming? Why yell before shooting? What if intel got leaked now?'
Coulson sent another glance over, full of bitterness and helplessness. The team atmosphere was warm, but team members often caused problems, not professional at all.
The psychic ability of the Hive, though much weaker compared to telepathy masters like Professor X or White Queen, could be resisted with simple methods accessible to all, yet one careless moment could spell a trap.
And now, with Mike's intrusion, Hive clearly noticed those three giant stones. If those things fell into his hands, the consequences would be unimaginable.
Especially the third stone with circles, no one knew what special function it had.
Jemma believed it might lead to another dimension, as the Evil Spirit Knight once took the "Darkhold" book to the Hell Dimension, proving the multi-dimensional nature of the cosmos.
Fitz, on the other hand, thought it represented mass, also known as the existence of matter, as from the physics point of view, the world's structure consists of space, time, and mass.
Now the scientific duo's views were not unified, and no one dared to experiment with the stones casually, so they had to put it on hold. Unexpectedly, when they returned to the past, they bumped into Hive back then.
Mike felt somewhat guilty. It wasn't his fault about Youyou, but leaking the intel, he couldn't shake off that blame.
He was silent for a moment before rolling his eyes as an idea struck. Since Hive broke through from his side, then let him get an eyeful...
After watching the stones for a long time, Hive turned his attention back to the people present, clearly considering Mike as the breakthrough point.
After all, this Black Man's previous performance was the worst, with very weak willpower, and now all he thought about was his long-dead daughter, more sentimental than the women present.
This made Hive look down on him even more, although Hive wasn't a racist and never believed in the Nazi's plays, but the situation at present made him reconsider, as if the former supreme leader's sayings had some sense after all.
'Black people are indeed the lowest race, practically the dregs of humanity.'
Hive shook his head; soon he will abandon all humans, leading the Inhumans to conquer the stars and the ocean; Earth's humans will eventually head towards extinction.
Hive saw human self-destructiveness very clearly.
Almost everyone, even Hydra's top, Red Skull and Stryker, had such flaws. Sometimes, just for the sake of short-term benefits, they'd do things with terrifying consequences they were well aware of—this is self-destruction.
He moved closer to Mike, releasing numerous insects crawling over Mike's face, poised as if to bore into the Black Man's body through his seven orifices, with the emergency red lights casting a potentially brutal event.
But before he really made a move, it seemed the Black Man's mental defenses had collapsed, and Hive read the intel from his mind.
It turned out that the entirely black stone was a ladder leading beyond the cosmos.
His long-standing dream finally realized today, Hive hurriedly retrieved all the insects, happily marching toward the glass cabinet.
He had neither the time nor the need to waste time with a lesser race.
Full of beautiful expectations for the future, he opened the glass cabinet door and walked inside, groping the pure black stone, as if searching for a way to turn it on.
But before he found a way, Daisy broke free from the Mind Freeze, and seeing the golden opportunity, she directly activated the stone with a shock wave, turning the once indestructible stone into liquid in an instant.
The black water wrapped Hive like a tsunami, pulling him inside.
Hive tried to split his insect swarm to escape, but the liquid seemed alive, not missing a single insect, swallowing him whole.
Seeing the black wave with the intent to expand and consume everyone, Daisy hurriedly stopped her powers, the stone promptly flowed back, returning to its original solid state, as if nothing had ever happened.
Daisy quickly took a few steps forward, closing the glass cabinet door, leaning against it, panting heavily while slowly sliding down to sit on the floor, as if relieved, she relaxed her wrists, injured once more.
While the others regained their ability to move, stumbling like they had been fixed in place too long with poor blood circulation, Coulson still gritted his teeth and walked over to check if the door was securely locked.
"We temporarily got rid of him. Pretty impressive, Mike." Bobbi moved her neck, putting away the baton in her hand.
The Black Man was wiping his face, the feeling of those dense insects crawling over it was unforgettable for a while, and he said dejectedly, "I just hypnotized myself, giving him false intel, defeating him was all thanks to Daisy's superpower."
That black stone wasn't the mysterious-effect third stone at all, but the one with spatial ability, and Hive has now been thrown to a remote planet in the cosmos.
Melinda then helped Daisy up, patting her back concernedly, looking thoughtfully at the stone, saying, "So the one who threw Hive onto an alien planet was actually us?"
Coulson took a deep breath in and then slowly exhaled. He clapped his hands to signal those outside without enough clearance to disperse before he spoke, "Seems that's the case; the time logic holds."
Fitz was carrying a plastic bag of Gravityium, excited as he seemed to faintly touch the threshold of the concept of time, "We sent Hive to an alien planet in 1956, while on the normal timeline, an unaware version of us released Hive in 2012. That's why he's so interested in Daisy and Inhumans! This is a time loop! We've succeeded!"
He completely forgot that a masked Mage had previously taken samples of the three small stones.
"Quick, put the stuff away, then hurry to fix the plane." Jemma stomped on his foot, pointing to the container by the wall, wondering if waving around with Gravityium wasn't enough to get it out of your system?
"Oh." Fitz then remembered he still had a bomb in his hands, cautiously moving toward the wall.
Daisy was surrounded by Bobbi and Melinda, giving a bitter smile, "Seems I've been targeted by Hive, no wonder he tortures me so in the future. He must hate me to death."
Bobbi bumped her head against Daisy's, smiling as she said, "Up till now, we're not even sure insects have the concept of hate. Besides, we all know how things turn out, right?"
"Let's hope nothing changes..." Daisy opened her little mouth and let out a long sigh.
Coulson's smile returned to his face, his squad could always resolve crises, and he was very satisfied.
Yet just when everyone thought he'd order them to disband and rest, Coulson said, "Everyone to the meeting room, I thought of some new Shield Squad regulations just now, let's discuss them."
Somehow, watching Coulson's brisk figure walking out of the chamber, Mike felt as if a fulfilling life was drifting away from him.