Lynn hurried back to the car, grabbed most of the money Natasha had given him that morning, and left.
When he returned, he was carrying several large bags.
Natasha looked at them curiously. "Are these what you need to make that magic potion?"
She leaned closer, her expression full of interest. "What are all these things? Are secret potion makers always using such strange ingredients?"
In response to her curiosity, Lynn pressed down on the accelerator and drove straight toward the Hudson River.
Along the way, Natasha chatted nonstop, though her words were clearly meant to probe into Lynn's background.
He eventually stopped at an abandoned house by the river.
When Natasha tried to follow him inside, Lynn stopped her.
"The next part is the potion-making process. It's not suitable for you to come in."
Leaning lazily against the car, Natasha removed her electronic mask and looked at him with a teasing smile. "What, are you afraid I'll steal your secret techniques, oh mysterious potion maker?~~"
"That's not it."
Balancing the bags in his hands, Lynn replied calmly, "It's just that what comes next is a bit too magical—and I'd rather not end up being filmed and dissected for study later... That would attract too much attention."
Pointing to his eyes, Lynn said this before stepping into the building.
Realizing that he knew about her contact lenses' recording function, Natasha immediately removed them.
After a brief moment of thought, she deleted all the footage they had captured, then took an earpiece from her pocket and said, "You heard that, Steve. I told you Lynn isn't simple."
From the moment she'd met Lynn, Steve had been monitoring their conversation the entire time.
Hearing her report, Steve Rogers replied, "I've told you before, Agent—Lynn may have his secrets, but that's his privacy. Besides, he saved our lives, and he hasn't done anything to harm innocent people."
"But Cap.."
"Natasha, I don't know if it's S.H.I.E.L.D. rubbing off on you, but this isn't how you treat friends."
Hearing the seriousness in his tone, Natasha paused, then said quietly, "Alright, maybe you're right. I'll apologize when he comes out."
"But that's also why I haven't reported him to S.H.I.E.L.D."
Ending the transmission, Natasha leaned back in the car seat, adjusted it, and stretched out lazily to rest.
Even so, her mind kept drifting back to the visions the resonator had shown her of the future.
...
Inside the abandoned house,
Lynn entered the renovated laboratory and pulled a pouch of fluorescent powder from his pocket, sprinkling it carefully onto the floor.
Soon, a circular formation appeared, a hexagram glowing faintly at its center.
After completing the setup, he began placing the ingredients for the secret potion into the crucible one by one.
Once everything was prepared, Lynn sat cross-legged before the hexagram.
The Power of Death coiled around his fingertips, and the once-still air in front of him was forcibly torn open by that eerie energy.
From the rift, an ancient-looking book fell out of the Death Dimension.
As soon as it did, the space behind it mended itself, returning to normal.
The book—Mephisto's stolen Necromancer's notebook—floated silently in midair.
When Lynn channeled more of the Power of Death into it, the tome glowed with shifting colors, streams of light wrapping around the crucible.
The materials inside began to transform, their physical forms breaking down and reforming.
Lynn never needed to painstakingly brew potions like wizards, necromancers, or alchemists.
After he completed the initial setup, Mephisto's notebook automatically created the corresponding potion based on his Secret Potion Creation level.
Watching the fully automated process unfold before him, Lynn lay back on the carpet, casually scrolling through videos on his phone.
...
At the same time, in the charred remains of a villa on the outskirts of New York—
"This is it."
Watching the fluctuating readings on her detector, Skye—known in the future as Quake, though she hadn't yet changed her name to Daisy Johnson—was filled with excitement.
It was her first time uncovering something truly extraordinary.
As a member of the Rising Tide organization, Skye believed that the public had a right to know. That was the very principle Rising Tide stood for.
They believed that the truth about most major events was being hidden by official organizations like S.H.I.E.L.D. and the FBI, depriving the public of their right to transparency.
If not for the Battle of New York—an alien invasion impossible to cover up—ordinary citizens would likely still be unaware that other intelligent life existed beyond Earth.
As the readings on her detector began to fade, Skye cautiously stepped closer to the ruins, her long legs crunching over the debris.
Reaching the wreckage, she noticed signs that the site had already been searched—most of the contents were gone.
Still, she combed through the debris carefully until her hand brushed against a small, finger-sized iron tube lying beside the ruins.
Holding the small metal tube, Skye returned to her van, snapped a photo of it, and sent it to her partner, asking them to identify what it was.
When her partner replied that it was a connector used in a precision instrument, Skye's excitement grew.
So, her suspicions were right—some kind of supernatural or experimental incident had taken place here, followed by an explosion.
With that thought, she immediately hacked into the CIA's satellite system.
Using the satellite surveillance data, she reconstructed the footage from the time of the explosion.
As the video played, Skye frowned.
"Fully armed S.H.I.E.L.D. agents… Natasha Romanoff and Steve Rogers from the Avengers? Huh? And who's this guy?"
Spotting Lynn in the footage, she began digging into his background.
After uncovering his identity, she continued watching the feed—only to find that the remaining footage was missing. It hadn't been deleted; rather, the satellite signal seemed to have been disrupted by some kind of magnetic interference, leaving that segment blank.
Unwilling to give up, Skye hacked into the Pentagon's satellite network next—but the results were the same.
Closing her laptop, she leaned back in her seat, lost in thought.
The Avengers were clearly out of her reach, and those S.H.I.E.L.D. agents would love nothing more than to arrest the entire Rising Tide organization.
Maybe she could uncover the truth through this detective named Lynn.
With that thought, Skye started up her van and drove off.
By the Hudson River—
When Lynn stepped out holding a glass bottle, Natasha lazily got up from her seat. "Already done refining? I thought it'd take you all night."
She glanced at her watch—barely two hours had passed.
Smiling, Natasha said, "You work fast."
"Here," Lynn said, handing her a package-wrapped bottle. "This is what you and Captain Rogers wanted."
Then, with his usual calm tone, he added, "And don't forget the rest of my payment."
_____
Note: In the MCU television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Skye was initially a hacktivist affiliated with the organization called the Rising Tide. Later revealed to be the Marvel Comics superheroine Daisy Johnson, who later adopts the public moniker of Quake.
(づ￣ 3￣)づ
Read 12 Advance Chapters—Patreon.com/Captain69