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*****
Fini manifested several *Sumire Fried Chicken Rolls* and handed them to Helen Cho, saying, "Call those few over and have them eat this. They should be fine afterward."
The Sumire Fried Chicken Roll possessed the attributes of 'Joy' and 'Recovery.' These people were merely being affected by the subconscious ripples of Wanda's energy, so it wasn't particularly severe.
As long as one didn't get too close to Wanda, or if their mental fortitude was slightly stronger, they wouldn't even be affected. For instance, Helen Cho, who stood right by his side, was experiencing a much smaller impact.
"By the way, is Shuri not around?"
After Helen Cho dismissed the research staff—who left looking utterly bewildered while holding their chicken rolls—Fini scanned the surroundings and noticed the absence of the Wakandan princess.
"She went back about a month ago when the experiment was nearing completion. Apparently, a laboratory in her own country required her presence to finish a project."
Hearing Helen Cho's explanation, Fini merely nodded. Shuri was Wakanda's chief scientist; it already hadn't been easy for her to assist him for this long.
"I'm going inside to check on them!"
Fini took another look at Pietro and Wanda, leaving a brief word for Helen Cho before walking toward the isolation ward.
"Wait..."
Helen Cho opened her mouth as if to say something but hesitated. Over the past two days, she had summoned immense courage to enter the ward and try talking to the siblings, but she had nearly been harmed by their volatile abilities.
"What's wrong?" Fini turned back, looking confused.
Helen Cho hesitated for a moment before finally saying, "Just be careful. They are a bit dangerous right now."
"Don't worry!"
Fini offered a reassuring smile and said, "They just haven't mastered their abilities yet. They'll be fine very soon."
The moment Fini entered the room, the siblings instantly fixed their gazes upon him. Pietro stopped his high-frequency trembling, while Wanda stood up from her bed. Her eyes locked squarely onto Fini as she began walking toward him, step by step.
"Trying to mind-control me!?"
Sensing a strange, probing force attempting to burrow into his mind, Fini questioned Wanda, who had walked right up to him and was practically pressing against his chest.
"You're not like the others."
Wanda tilted her head slightly. She was wearing a rather thin hospital gown—designed by goodness knows who—that exposed a fair amount of flesh, a sight Fini found a bit hard to look at directly. With a hint of genuine surprise, she murmured, "I can't sense what you're thinking at all!"
"Did the experiment make you stupid!?"
Fini rolled his eyes dramatically, taking a swift step backward as he replied testily, "If I were just like the others, do you honestly think I could have helped you two acquire these powers in the first place?"
"He's the Knight of Divine Punishment, after all!"
Pietro chimed in from the side. Standing up, he intended to walk over as well, but his super-speed triggered entirely out of control. In the blink of an eye, he crashed directly into Fini.
It had to be said that Pietro's speed was truly astronomical. Since Fini wasn't currently equipped with Incursio, he actually failed to fully react in his baseline, ordinary state.
However, relying on the immense physical conditioning he had built up through his constant Breathing Techniques, his body instinctively braced and held its ground the exact millisecond Pietro collided with him. Consequently, he wasn't knocked flying backward.
"Sorry! My bad, my bad!"
Pietro, who had used Fini as a human brake pad to come to a halt, immediately plonked himself down onto the floor, not daring to move another muscle. While blurting out his apologies, his heart was simultaneously reeling in sheer shock at Fini's terrifying reaction capacity.
Fini shook his head to signal that he didn't mind, but internally, he was equally taken aback by Pietro's raw velocity. In truth, even if he had been given a moment of advance preparation, he might not have been able to completely evade that sudden collision.
Meanwhile, Wanda glanced down at the motionless Pietro on the floor. A dense cluster of crimson energy coalesced within her hand. Manipulating her telekinesis, she picked him up and tossed him right back onto his hospital bed like a piece of garbage.
"Not bad. It looks like you're already nearing the point of controlling your power."
Witnessing Wanda's seamless manipulation, Fini offered another praise, a touch of surprise visible in his eyes.
Judging by their performance just now, Wanda was undeniably far stronger than Pietro. Not only could she actively probe the minds of others on her own whim, but she could also consciously harness her energy to manipulate physical objects.
"Did you know all along that we would turn out like this?"
Pietro, now resting safely back on his hospital bed, threw a question toward Fini.
"Yeah, pretty much!"
Fini nodded smoothly. Although this hadn't been achieved through the twisted research of Hydra, the specific powers the siblings manifested were identical to their original paths.
"What are we supposed to do next?"
Wanda questioned as well, all while meticulously using her telepathic energy to slyly poke at Fini's mind. However, a dense network of energy—shimmering with an intricate mixture of orange and gold—consistently blocked her advance, ensuring she could perceive absolutely nothing.
Looking at the stubbornly persistent Wanda, Fini briefly considered whether he should teach her a small lesson. However, considering she had literally just awakened her abilities, crushing her confidence so thoroughly right off the bat probably wasn't the best idea. He decided to let it slide, stating casually:
"Learn to properly master your powers, and then go about your regular lives. I've never had any intention of keeping you locked up here!"
Hearing Fini's words, both Pietro and Wanda fell into a collective silence.
Having left the impoverished, war-torn confines of Sokovia, witnessed the glittering opulence of New York and Seoul, and interacted with a vastly broader spectrum of people and ideas, the two of them had matured significantly.
They had come to understand that relying merely on the two of them was fundamentally insufficient to rescue an entire nation—at least, the current versions of them couldn't manage it, even if they now possessed this miraculous power.
Wanda turned her head to cast a brief glance at Pietro. The deep-seated tacit understanding they had shared since childhood allowed them to instantly decipher each other's thoughts with a single look.
Seeing Pietro offer a firm nod of approval, Wanda turned back to Fini and spoke up: "We want to restore Sokovia to normal. Help us just one more time, and we will follow your orders from now on."
"Are you two trying to permanently sponge off me!?"
Fini cracked a lighthearted joke. However, when his eyes met the dead-pan, profoundly solemn expressions on both Pietro and Wanda's faces, he couldn't help but let out a soft sigh. "There's really no need for you two to act like this. Furthermore, what exactly do you mean when you say 'restore it to normal'?"
"To keep the people there entirely away from the horrors of war, so they can experience genuine, lasting peace."
Fini found himself momentarily at a loss for words. Although he had personally obliterated a massive portion of the local Hydra base in Sokovia, that action hadn't magically caused the region to stabilize.
On the contrary, to thoroughly investigate his identity, Baron Strucker's faction of Hydra had covertly flooded Sokovia with a massive influx of field agents, resulting in even greater systemic chaos. At the very least, that was the explicit data he had obtained from Jasper Sitwell prior to his departure from Earth.
"Sigh!"
Fini let out a heavy sigh. In a way, this could technically be classified as a messy cleanup operation that he had failed to fully tie off. Looking at the deeply serious Wanda, he slightly elevated his gaze—which had been involuntarily drifting downward toward her hospital gown—and spoke:
"I don't need you to follow my orders. However, once you have completely mastered your abilities, I can recommend a specific individual to you. He possesses the means to genuinely help you."
The primary, overriding problem plaguing Sokovia was the presence of Hydra. As long as Hydra was fully purged from the equation, letting any random local warlord unify the territory would rapidly bring about a baseline of peace.
However, as his personal strength continued to scale and his cosmic horizons broadened—paired with the fact that he had just wrapped up a string of actual wars—Fini was genuinely disinclined to entangle himself in the petty factional infighting of Hydra.
No matter how elite a Hydra agent might be, they were still ultimately regular humans. The experience points they yielded were bound to be painfully mediocre. Furthermore, his system still maintained a strict kill-cap limit of one thousand targets. Consequently, his current pursuit of experience points prioritized absolute quality over raw quantity—exactly like the massive haul he got from Surtur.
Therefore, he intended to temporarily pass Pietro and Wanda off to the resident one-eyed director.
Given the inherent nature of the siblings' volatile powers, hiding their capabilities forever was bound to be a logical impossibility anyway. Having him serve as their formal introduction would save them an immense amount of systemic trouble down the line.
Moreover, Nick Fury was easily the most qualified and uniquely suited individual to handle their specific grievances—after all, managing anomalous assets was literally his entire profession. Simultaneously, considering the specific conversation he had shared with Fury prior to leaving Earth, this move could be considered an absolute masterstroke that killed two birds with one stone.
With the overwhelming assistance of these two powered individuals, if Nick Fury still managed to fail at uprooting Hydra, then he fundamentally didn't deserve to hold the title of Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.
However, executing this strategy brought about a massive glaring flaw: it was highly likely to leave S.H.I.E.L.D. as an entirely unchecked, monolithic superpower. If S.H.I.E.L.D. could be completely and cleanly controlled by Nick Fury, that would be acceptable—but unfortunately, the man was visibly incapable of achieving that reality.
(End of Chapter)