POV Rio
I enchant the intruder to hopefully keep them asleep for a while and leave a golem to clean them up a bit. If the golem was destroyed, then oh well. I had more important things to do than deal with this intruder who seems to know my name. I didn't feel any hostility from them, which I found odd, but as long as they are in that room, I was confident they were handled for now.
I sent the all-clear signal to John and Helen and then started assessing the damage to the manor. Thankfully, it wasn't that bad. Any structural damage was already slowly repairing itself. The same couldn't be said for the defences. I had lost just about every golem I had built, with the only exceptions being the Snow Golems I made for fun. They are not useful for dealing with anything, unless we were in a snowball fight, in which case, it was actually really useful.
'Ugh. This is going to take a long time to rebuild.'
Honestly, I was thinking of abandoning the golem idea, as this was their first combat situation, and they all failed miserably. Maybe the intruder was an outlier, but it still felt greatly disappointing. Now I could make more powerful golems, but that requires higher-grade materials, a whole lotta magic, and way more programming. Arguably, the worst loss was the Mercenary Team. I spent a lot of time making them, and while they were more of a side project, they were still well-made, and I had put a lot of effort into them.
'Sigh. I'll leave it be for now. The magic traps weren't triggered, so I can rely on them for a bit longer while I consider what to do from here.'
I started to clean up the mess, and only when I was satisfied did I head out, as I had been planning something for a while, and today was the perfect chance, according to the Shield files I have been reading.
Shield keeps tabs on all sorts of people, but they aren't omnipresent; there are absolutely places they have little to no info on. And that is somewhat true for the place I am heading to now, Advanced Idea Mechanics, or AIM for short. Shield didn't have too much to go on, but what they did have was a plan to infiltrate the offices during a big employee party scheduled for today. Of course, those plans were scrapped due to budget cuts, but it didn't mean I couldn't use this opportunity to do some work.
AIM was still somewhat small at this time, but it did seem to be a bit larger than the MCU version. I would find out more after I got inside, which was easy enough, as security was quite lax today. Not that it would be that hard, even if security was really tight, as I was really hard to detect.
Now, the reason I was here was for a few reasons. I know AIM can be a dangerous organization if left unchecked, and with Shield out of the game for now, I figured I could at least investigate them. The other reason was that they have the Extremis Virus, which I felt Dr. Connors would find quite useful. If I happen across some other research while I was here, then what's the harm? And if it meant stopping some terrorist attacks before they could happen, then all the better.
Regardless, I was now inside and scouting around for what I was looking for. I tried using the compass, but I found out an unfortunate limitation: it's not very good at dealing with obstacles. So while it could point me in the direction of what I wanted, I still had to find the path that leads me there, which took me longer than I would have preferred, as this place was built like a maze.
Once I reached the server room, I started hacking into it and downloading everything it had. Just like when I did this in the NYC Shield office, I made sure to avoid tripping any alarms. While the devices did their job, I decided to start browsing the data myself, focusing on the Extremis Project, to see how far they had gotten.
'What in the...'
There were many files to go through, but one thing became horribly clear very quickly. This was far larger than I could have ever expected. Thousands of test subjects, most unwilling, were taken off the streets and used for experiments.
When I first came here, I had no plans on killing anyone, but after reading the files of what they had been doing here, I knew they had to go. There was basically not a single person in this building who didn't know or work on the human experiments. I was quite simply appalled by what I was reading.
'How has nobody noticed so many going missing?'
It was that thought that really annoyed me. Perhaps I can't blame Shield for this, but I could at least blame the system that allowed something like this to happen. And I could correct this mistake.
I started by casting a spell, nothing massive, just something to confirm my hunch.
"Cum Mortuus in Lingua Mortua," I chant.
A wisp of blue energy is released from my hand and starts to form into the form of a haggard woman.
"What? Where am I?" asks the woman.
"You're dead. But I wish to offer you a chance at revenge," I speak.
"Dead? Yes... I was murdered! THEY HURT ME! THEY HURT MY SON! I WILL KILL THEM!" the woman screeches, and I get a little nervous as she starts to evolve from a Spectre to a Wraith.
"Patience, I will help you, but I wish to send everyone here off to the afterlife. Can you help me with that?" I ask.
My question causes her to freeze, and then her rage-filled visage starts to relax a bit.
"Yes, they must pass on. Give me your magic power," the Wraith demands.
I nod and start casting a spell.
"Surgite qui mortui sunt, ultionem a vivis vindicate, mea virtute vos surgere iubeo!" I chant, and I feel as if all my mana leaves me all at once, and I slump to the ground in exhaustion.
But it was worth it as I feel the mana enter the Wraith, who then screams, and I feel a surge of necromantic power envelop the entire facility. Then the following screams both from the living and the dead as they fight.
"Thank you, Mage, now stay here and don't come out until we are done, for your own safety," the Wraith demands.
I just weakly nod as I really didn't have the energy to do anything right now. She vanishes, and I soon hear the sounds of gunfire, not that it would do anything, as they are fighting incorporeal beings. You need magic weapons or spells to even have a chance at harming them, and even a very skilled mage would struggle to deal with a Wraith. Wraiths are one of the highest-tier incorporeal undead. I could beat her if I were in top condition, but that was because John had extensive experience dealing with troublesome beings like a Wraith.
Once I was finished downloading everything on the servers, I just spent time resting, as when a Wraith tells you to do something, it is probably best you listen to them. Eventually, after about an hour, the building was silent. Completely silent. It was as quiet as the grave and as dark as a crypt, with the only illumination coming from the few flickering lights on the server racks. The air was also quite cold at this point, with the servers being the main source of heat in the room, though that isn't too far from what a normal server room is like.
"It is done, we have had our revenge... Burn this place to the ground as you leave," the Wraith says as she returns.
"I will," I say firmly.
"Good, now go," the Wraith says before vanishing again.
I get up and leave the room, but not before taking all the various server equipment. As I leave the room, I immediately catch the spell of fresh blood and spot a security guard who was ripped in half.
"Play stupid games, get stupid prizes," I mutter before ignoring the corpse.
I had no sympathy for the monsters parading around in human flesh here, or rather, used to do so. They had what was coming to them, and nothing would change my mind. I did notice the severe lack of spirits.
'They must have moved on, and those killed likely didn't have a choice but to vacate this world.'
A small part of me wondered if letting Hell remain would have been so bad, but after a second of thought, it was clear it wouldn't be worth it. These monsters would face their punishment one way or another.
I make my way to the test subject storage to see if anyone was still alive, despite knowing it was likely pointless. The files clearly indicated that they were out of test subjects, and a new shipment wouldn't come in for a while due to transportation issues.
'At least something else good came from that item the Genie gave me.'
I arrive at the storage and find no test subjects, just a bunch of empty cells that looked to have been empty for a week or two at a minimum. Though I did find someone I was disappointed in. Maya Hansen. In the MCU, she was a morally grey character, but here she was just as bad as everyone else. She had been using human test subjects for over a year at this point and didn't raise any protests, nor did she try to avoid using live subjects. I left her body and went on my way.
I only took what medical supplies I felt like taking, as well as all the samples of Extremis I needed, then I poured some oil and some leftover Napalm all over the place, making a trail that led to the entrance. Once I was satisfied that no evidence was left behind that could lead to me, I took out one of John Constantine's cigarettes from the unlimited carton and lit it before tossing it into the oil.
FWOOOOSH
The fire was intense, but nothing I couldn't handle; still, I teleported away and watched from a distance as the fire destroyed the laboratory effectively.
POV Shift Wraith
As the fire spreads, the other spirits and I gather around and let the flames wash over us.
"Eddy... I'm coming home," I say softly as the fire envelops me.
I felt a warm light envelop me as if to carry me away, and as I open my eyes, I see a massive white fox with several tails who nods at me. I nod back and let go of the heavily damaged soul of Killian, the man behind this slaughter. As soon as I let go, his soul shatters, and I see his soul get torn away. I didn't know where he would go, but I did know that wherever he went, he would suffer. But for me and the others. It was time to move on.
To be Free.