Ethan Hunt had once been an elite agent in an IMF unit under the CIA, but because he had failed to report the earlier nuclear attack on San Francisco in time, his team was disbanded and he was forced into retirement.
The CIA worried that he might turn traitor in a fit of anger, so they even sent agents to monitor him in secret for more than half a year.
Ethan Hunt did not have much to complain about. His mission was over, so he might as well return to an ordinary life.
Before, because he had to hide his identity, he had been forced to live apart from his wife and family. Now that he was no longer an agent, he could naturally return to their side.
For more than a year now, Ethan Hunt had been operating a crane at the docks. When there was nothing to do, he shot the breeze with his coworkers, and after work he went home to spend time with his wife and children. He no longer had to risk his life in a hail of bullets. This life was not bad at all.
His wife had gone to Boston for the past couple of days, leaving him at home with their son and daughter.
He was good at dealing with terrorists, but communicating with a fifteen-year-old boy and an eight-year-old girl? He still had not figured out the trick. This mission was a little difficult for him.
It was the same for the children. Ethan Hunt was more like someone who had appeared out of thin air. He was obviously their biological father, yet somehow he felt like a stepfather. Worse, he could not tell them about his past, so getting along with the children had remained awkward and bumpy.
"Hey, kids! Both of you, come out!" He suddenly received a call from his former colleague, Clint Barton. He hurriedly knocked on both children's doors and called the quietly grumbling pair outside.
Many pedestrians on the street were looking up at the sky. Dark clouds covered everything, completely blocking the sunlight. There was a powerful suction in the cloud bank. Fallen leaves in the yard were being pulled toward the sky, and clothes hanging outside many homes were whipping wildly through the air. Strangers and acquaintances alike gathered together to discuss it. No one knew what this strange phenomenon meant.
"Ethan! Get in!" Clint Barton roared out of an alley in a Ford Mustang and waved hard at Ethan Hunt.
Realizing that something was seriously wrong, Ethan Hunt had no time to explain much to his children. He forcibly pulled the older and younger child into Clint Barton's car.
Their car had barely left the neighborhood when a bolt of lightning descended from the dark clouds. Completely unlike ordinary lightning, these bolts connected heaven and earth without stopping, continuously pounding the ground, and every strike somehow hit the exact same spot.
"Clint, what the hell is going on?" Ethan Hunt asked.
Hawkeye was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, but he had been working with the CIA lately. He kept swerving around obstacles in the road, splitting his attention between driving and explaining.
"Twelve minutes ago, the Pentagon received a warning from Weyland Corporation saying that unidentified objects were approaching Earth's orbit. The CIA told me to inform you that you've been drafted back into the Central Intelligence Agency. Your recall papers are being printed right now. If you're not in a hurry, we can mail them to you in five days. Our address is in Virginia..."
Ignoring the astonishment of his two children, Ethan Hunt cut off Hawkeye's procedural nonsense. "Don't feed me that crap! I know all this better than you do!... I just want to know what the hell is happening. Another alien invasion?"
"Yes. Hold on!" As he spoke, a huge crack split open in the middle of the highway and kept widening. Hawkeye drove onto the service road while countless civilians fled into the distance as though they had gone mad.
"It's okay, it's okay. I'll protect you!" Ethan Hunt reassured his two children while repeatedly looking back. The lightning strikes behind them had stopped, but less than three seconds later, the crowd's screams merged into a single roar. The ground shook, dust filled the air, and a mechanical object more than thirty meters (about 98 feet) tall, with three mechanical limbs and the shape of an octopus, slowly emerged from underground.
There were also two smaller appendages on either side of its torso. The large limbs were used for walking, while the small ones fired lasers. This octopus-shaped machine was not an isolated case. In less than a minute, three identical Tripods had appeared behind Ethan Hunt.
They made no attempt to communicate with humanity. Their objective was simple: slaughter.
The appendages on either side of their torsos fired laser beams again and again. Every civilian they struck was vaporized instantly.
With a deafening boom, a church was hit by a laser. The upper third of the building collapsed toward the roadside, and Hawkeye drove across the open ground in front of the church.
"Let me drive!" Ethan Hunt had some doubts about his companion's driving skills. He preferred to keep both the steering wheel and his fate in his own hands.
Hawkeye refused. "Buddy, you should think about how we're going to deal with that big monster behind us!"
Ethan Hunt pointed at his own nose. "You want me to think of something?"
Hawkeye looked as if that were perfectly obvious. "Yeah. Don't forget, we're the Impossible Missions Force. Come on, I believe in you! Besides, that's the director's order. Our esteemed director personally promised the White House that the CIA could solve this."
What the hell? Ethan Hunt looked at Hawkeye, then at the enormous Tripod behind them.
"I think this is a job for scientists! Not agents, and not those politicians! Now let me drive!"
Hawkeye refused again and again. "I've got the advantage in eyesight, so it's better if I drive! Look, my car is the fastest one around here..."
Before he could finish, a yellow Chevrolet Camaro shot past them with a whoosh.
The Camaro was incredibly fast. On the maze-like streets, facing countless fissures and collapsed buildings, it did not slow down in the slightest. Instead, it floored the accelerator and sped onward, both fast and steady.
Hawkeye's dynamic vision was far better than an ordinary person's. He could see things Ethan Hunt could not make out at all.
He saw the Camaro's window roll down. A delicate-looking baby girl with a calm expression sat in the passenger seat, staring outside. The Camaro's driver was even more shocking: a girl who looked only two years older than the baby. She was pouting, apparently a little unhappy, but she still gripped the steering wheel nervously. Then she drove at breakneck speed and left Hawkeye's Ford far behind.
Hawkeye was stunned. That car! What a fast car!
For a moment, he wondered whether his eyes had gone bad. Did those two kids even add up to five years old? They were street racing at this age?! Didn't the adults in their family care? Was he getting old, or were kids these days just completely out of control?
Unaware of Hawkeye's inner rant, Little Kitty and Little Elsa, who were not even five years old combined, were fleeing for their lives!
A three-year-old obviously could not drive. It was all an illusion! A disguise that Bumblebee and the Divine Dragon had come up with.