Nothing is more dangerous than people getting serious.
The Templar Order's organizational structure had grown increasingly loose over the years, plagued by internal factions, historical grievances, and petty fiefdoms where no one deferred to anyone else. But these people commanded staggering resources and wielded genuine influence. Their reach had long since penetrated every corner of the globe.
Money opened every door. Intelligence on M.A.R.S. Industries was soon laid before the seven remaining Inner Sanctum knights.
The world held many secrets, but much like Weyland's attempt to build a spaceship, the more people involved, the harder any secret was to keep. If you looked hard enough, you could always find a trail.
M.A.R.S. Industries held certain patents and possessed the complete manufacturing technology for Nanomite warheads. None of this surprised the Templars. M.A.R.S. had secretly built a military force called Cobra Command. Also unsurprising—standard practice, really.
But the discovery that M.A.R.S. Industries had constructed a massive military base beneath the Arctic ice sheet? That was genuinely shocking.
Conservative estimates placed the technology at least thirty years ahead of anything on Earth.
The Inner Sanctum knights passed the stolen intelligence from hand to hand, studying the blueprints of the secret base hidden beneath thick layers of polar ice, examining missile launch racks and fighter jets, poring over design specifications and Pulse Cannon schematics. The same question surfaced in every mind: If we pooled every resource the Order commands, could we have built this?
"The Arctic? An ordinary weapons manufacturer built a secret base under Arctic ice?" A woman named Mitsuko Nakamura, one of the Inner Sanctum knights, voiced her unease. "There must be deeper reasons behind this. We should exercise caution."
She advocated continued observation.
The old man seated diagonally across from her—Alfred Stearns—erupted immediately. Stearns had been retired, but with two Inner Sanctum knights killed in rapid succession, the Order had hastily recalled him. He was technically a rehired consultant: allowed to participate in meetings but stripped of voting rights.
"Ignorant woman! You Japanese never had any strategic vision—always fixated on petty gains. Do you even remember the Order's founding purpose? We bring order to the world! And what is order? Do you consider these rats skulking in the shadows to be part of that order? It's time we taught them a lesson! I move for military action!"
He swept his gaze across the room, eyes blazing.
Say what you will about the Templar Order's capitalists—they were capitalists with conviction. M.A.R.S. Industries looked every bit like a venomous snake coiled in a dark corner. The stronger it grew, the more urgently the Order needed to crush it before it could threaten their vision of a well-ordered world.
What had begun as a targeted retaliation—a decapitation strike—transformed into a military strike the moment they saw the arsenal M.A.R.S. had been hiding.
Nakamura's caution was dismissed by her colleagues as a lack of strategic vision and courage. Five of the seven Inner Sanctum knights voted in favor of military action.
The Templar Order had always maintained that brute violence was unbecoming in the modern era, but an organization of this magnitude naturally possessed its own armed forces.
Juhani Otso Berg—a Finnish Special Forces veteran who had not yet attained the rank of Black Cross—received the Inner Sanctum's orders and led five hundred elite soldiers north to the Arctic in staggered deployments, tasked with destroying M.A.R.S.'s underwater base.
Fearing their force was insufficient, the Order urgently contacted their longtime ally and enforcer: Trinity.
Trinity had committed too many atrocities to count. They depended on the Templar Order for funding and political cover, and although they saw no reason why this fight was any of their business, they dispatched over a thousand elite troops to assist the Arctic assault.
Still not satisfied, the Templar capitalists pulled strings. Within twelve hours, the Royal Navy was underway.
The official justification: combating terrorism and avenging the people of Paris.
Since World War II, the Royal Navy had ceded its title as the world's most powerful fleet to the Americans. Its glory days were long past. But it remained a first-rate naval power.
The task force consisted of a single-carrier battle group: one aircraft carrier, two air-defense missile cruisers, two anti-submarine missile escorts, and four submarines, all steaming toward the North Sea en route to the Arctic Ocean.
Upon learning that M.A.R.S. Industries had built a military base beneath the Arctic ice, Royal Navy command was equally astonished. It sounded impossible. How had a private company pulled this off? The fleet's deployment was partly due to the Templars' influence, but the Navy also harbored ambitions of seizing the technology for itself.
They didn't expect to lose. A P5 nation deploying its military against a corporation—it was like an adult swatting a child.
A mobilization of this scale was impossible to conceal. Neighboring nations panicked immediately. The French Navy and German Navy sortied as well. When word spread that the British were citing vengeance for Paris, Germany echoed the rallying cry.
France needed no excuse. You're absolutely right—we're here for revenge.
Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway lacked significant military assets but sent ships anyway, if only to observe. Even if they couldn't share the spoils, they at least wanted a front-row seat.
The American response was considerably slower. The president's relationship with the military had been deteriorating, and with the budget stretched thin, the best they could manage was a diplomatic envoy to make inquiries, plus a few dozen CIA agents dispatched to investigate. International military organizations like S.H.I.E.L.D. also embedded agents aboard various nations' warships, looking to gather intelligence.
If S.H.I.E.L.D. knew, then Hydra knew.
A round of digging turned up a surprising connection: the secret army M.A.R.S. was building—Cobra Command—had ties to Hydra. Those particular operatives didn't belong to Hydra's S.H.I.E.L.D. division, but Hydra was Hydra, one big family. Without much deliberation, Hydra agents mobilized as well.
The Templar Order's massive troop movements immediately alerted the Assassin Brotherhood, which dispatched its own people to join the fray.
The battle lines crystallized:
Cobra Command plus Hydra's European division versus the Royal Navy, the French Navy, the German Navy, the Templar Order, and Trinity.
S.H.I.E.L.D., Hydra's S.H.I.E.L.D. division, the CIA, assorted national intelligence agencies, and a contingent from the Assassin Brotherhood tagged along to spectate.
The affair had spiraled wildly out of control. As for why things had escalated to this degree—never mind the bewildered participants; even Bella, the one who had started it all, thought it had gone well beyond anything she'd anticipated.
She and Natasha had spent two days scouring Paris for the remaining Nanomite warhead and come up empty. With half the world's navies converging on the Arctic, nobody cared about a missing warhead anymore.
Bella acted as if none of it had anything to do with her, blended into the French fleet alongside Natasha, and sailed north to the Arctic.