For advance 40+ chapters patreon.com/TranslationGod?
After days of investigation, Fury had a problem.
Marcus Reed didn't exist.
Well, he existed—obviously, since they had footage of him punching a gamma-mutated supersoldier into next week—but his background was a ghost. No birth certificate, no school records, no credit history before six months ago. The only concrete information Fury could find was what Tony Stark had provided through his personal connections after the kidnapping incident.
The earliest documented appearance of Marcus Reed was in Afghanistan, kidnapped alongside Tony by the Ten Rings terrorist organization.
Before that? Nothing. Like he'd materialized out of thin air.
Fury sat in his office, scowling at the blank spots in the file. He'd considered reaching out to international contacts—SHIELD technically operated under oversight from several founding nations, after all, and their budget came from those same governments. But something about this felt... off. Delicate.
Marcus's appearance suggested Asian heritage, but that was hardly unusual in America. What was unusual was the complete absence of any paper trail. Either someone had scrubbed his records with extraordinary thoroughness, or Marcus had never been in any system to begin with.
After mulling it over, Fury made a decision. No international inquiries. Not yet. That would raise too many questions, create too much exposure.
Better to go direct.
He called Coulson into his office. "I need you to make contact with Marcus Reed."
Coulson nodded, professional as always. "Assessment or recruitment?"
"Both. Feel him out. If he's clean—or at least not actively hostile—we might have a spot for him on the Avengers roster."
"Understood, sir. When should I approach?"
"Yesterday." Fury's eye narrowed. "That Harlem footage is already circulating. If we don't move now, someone else will."
At home, Marcus was hunched over his laptop, fingers flying across the keyboard in a blur of motion.
"Goddammit," he muttered, watching lines of code scroll past. "Again? Seriously?"
Someone was hacking his computer. Again.
This was becoming a daily occurrence. Ever since he'd started his company—a small tech startup that was growing faster than expected—his systems had been under near-constant attack. Sometimes it was corporate espionage, script kiddies testing their skills, or opportunistic malware. But lately, the attacks had become more sophisticated. More targeted.
This one was particularly aggressive.
Marcus's hacking skills were top-tier, honed over years of practice across multiple realities. In terms of pure technical ability, he was probably in the top one percent globally.
But this was the Marvel universe. Here, "top one percent" meant you were competing against people who had artificial intelligence doing their hacking for them. Tony had Jarvis. God knew who else had similar systems. Against bleeding-edge AI, even Marcus's skills had limits.
He'd fortified his firewalls, implemented adaptive defense protocols, set up honeypots and decoys—but he could only defend. Tracing the attacks back to their source was proving impossible.
His fingers hammered the keyboard, executing a counter-intrusion routine he'd coded himself. The screen flashed through a dozen diagnostic windows before finally displaying a single result:
TRACE FAILED.
"Son of a—" Marcus leaned back, rubbing his eyes. "Don't let me catch you, whoever you are."
He made a mental note: improve hacking knowledge. Possibly develop his own AI assistant. Something Jarvis-adjacent but tailored to his needs.
Of course, the obvious solution would be asking Tony for help—or hell, just asking for Jarvis's source code. But that felt wrong. Jarvis was Tony's baby, the product of years of work. You didn't just ask for something like that, no matter how good friends you were.
Marcus glanced at the system interface hovering in his mind's eye—the thing only he could see.
The cooldown was done. Three months had passed since his return from the Chronicle world. He could jump again whenever he wanted.
He pulled up his stats:
[Movie Plundering System]
[Host: Marcus Reed]
[Age: 21]
[Inventory: 423x NZT-49 pills, miscellaneous items]
[Ability: Telekinesis]
[Origin Points: 5]
Five points. He'd had four after returning from Chronicle, but killing Abomination had netted him one more. Not exactly a fortune, but it was something.
"Origin points," Marcus muttered. "Always too few."
There were two ways to earn them: follow the original plot of a world and get modest rewards, or change the plot significantly and earn much more. Risk versus reward.
He'd been thinking about his next jump for a while now. After some consideration, he'd settled on a target: Resident Evil.
It was perfect for multiple reasons. First, the Umbrella Corporation had the Red Queen—an advanced AI that could teach him everything he needed to know about hacking and artificial intelligence. Second, their biotech research could help him refine NZT-49, maybe even develop a permanent version that wouldn't require daily pills.
Third, and most importantly: Resident Evil was a world where he could earn serious origin points.
The T-virus had devastated Earth's population. By the sixth film, the Red Queen estimated only a few thousand survivors remained globally. Even accounting for blind spots in satellite coverage and isolated communities, the total was maybe tens of thousands.
Out of seven billion people.
That was genocide on an unfathomable scale. If Marcus could change that outcome—save even a fraction of those lives—the origin points would be substantial.
And morally? The Umbrella executives deserved what was coming to them. Mass extinction for profit? Yeah, no. Those bastards could rot in—
Marcus froze.
His telekinetic sense—something he kept active at a low level, constantly monitoring his surroundings—detected someone approaching his door.
A moment later: ding-dong.
Marcus extended his awareness, "looking" through the walls. A middle-aged man stood outside, wearing a suit that screamed "government agent" and sporting a hairline that had retreated in a very distinctive pattern.
Marcus's lips quirked into a smile. "Well. Took you long enough."
Phil Coulson. SHIELD agent extraordinaire. The man who could smile through an alien invasion and still ask if you'd signed your paperwork.
Marcus had been expecting this visit since Harlem. Actually, he'd been expecting it before Harlem—he and Coulson had met several times since Marcus arrived in New York. Back when Marcus was weaker, still building his powers, he'd kept his distance from SHIELD. Avoided meetings. Dodged contact.
They'd finally spoken face-to-face during the Iron Monger incident, but only briefly. Coulson had been keeping tabs on him ever since—probably because anyone who wore armor similar to Tony's automatically became a person of interest.
After Harlem, though? After footage of Marcus one-shotting Abomination made the rounds? Yeah, this conversation was inevitable.
Marcus reached out with his telekinesis, pressing the button on the remote control sitting on his coffee table.
The front door clicked open.
Outside, Coulson glanced at the security camera, smiled pleasantly at it, and walked inside. He knew what an open door meant: You may enter.
By the time Coulson reached the living room, Marcus was waiting, leaning casually against the back of his couch.
Coulson's smile was warm and professional. "Mr. Reed. We meet again."
Marcus nodded. "We do. Feels like you've been following me, Agent Coulson."
"Following is such a negative word. I prefer 'keeping track of interesting people.'" Coulson's tone was light, friendly. "You've been in New York for several months now. We've crossed paths quite a few times."
"Yeah, and I've been very good at being somewhere else when you wanted to talk."
"I noticed." Coulson didn't seem offended. "Though after the Iron Monger incident, I was hoping we'd have more opportunities to chat."
Marcus gestured to the couch. "Well, you're here now. Might as well sit."
Coulson settled into the offered seat, setting his briefcase on the coffee table. "I appreciate you seeing me. I know you've been... selective about your interactions with us."
"SHIELD makes people nervous," Marcus said. "Can you blame me?"
"Not at all. We have something of an intimidating reputation." Coulson folded his hands. "But we're not here to intimidate anyone, Mr. Reed. Quite the opposite."
They exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes—surface-level conversation about New York, Tony's press conference, how Marcus was settling in. Coulson was good at this, Marcus noted. The man could make small talk feel natural, disarming.
Then Coulson reached into his briefcase and withdrew several photographs.
He laid them on the table, one by one.
The first showed Marcus, arm extended, stopping Abomination's chain attack mid-swing. The second captured the moment his fist connected with Abomination's skull. The third showed the monster flying backward, Marcus standing calmly in the foreground.
The images were crystal clear, high-resolution. Probably pulled from military drones or SHIELD surveillance.
Coulson tapped the first photo. "Mr. Reed, you don't appear to be an ordinary person."
Marcus glanced at the photos, then back at Coulson. He shrugged. "So?"
Coulson's pleasant smile didn't waver. "So, we'd like to have a conversation about what that means. For you, and for us."
Marcus leaned back, arms crossed. "I'm listening."
(End of Chapter)