[Natasha Romanoff POV]

"Are you sure about this?" She smiled at that question.

It was only twenty guards inside, she was sure she could take them without breaking a sweat.

At the signal from Steve, she flipped through the open window stealthily. She got behind a guard there who was alarmed at the ruckus Steve was causing outside. She swiped a blade through his throat and set him down softly while making her way deeper into the base.

The information Draul had given them had been pretty shabby but it was not enough to hinder her work. It took her only two days to get the required information, make a plan with Steve on which base to attack, and call their cleanup crew and delivery guy – S.H.I.E.L.D.

She had to admit that while her body hadn't gotten rusty due to the constant daily exercise, her skills had, and she was looking to rectify that.

Even Bucky had been jumpy and even took to training like a maniac even with one arm. It had to say something about the man's skill when even with his handicap, she still found it hard to defeat him after their first spar, which she won. But apart from that time, the man was like another person entire when it came to fighting.

If she had to chose who was the better between the two super soldiers, she'd chose Bucky.

Natasha hissed as someone spotted her, a slight mistake on her part but one she was quick to neutralize with a slide to his position, a kick to the crouch, followed by the snapping of the soldier's neck.

The rest part after that was her taking some files which contained shipments of gold, drugs, some exotic cars and also data of different possessions and Dummy accounts of whoever owned this place.

With a two pronged attack, the hideout fell in under an hour before agents of S.H.I.E.L.D pulled up. It was weird how a year ago, she would have shook in her boots if she came face to face with S.H.I.E.L.D like this but now?

"You're late boys." She had already gotten the specifics Draul had wanted which mostly was just bank accounts and some few landed assets overseas. Stuffs like drugs, trafficking and evidence of political backroom deals were stuff she would be happy to dump on S.H.I.E.L.D's hands.

"Miss Romanoff, remind me again why you are raiding a base of an Albanian druglord?" Nick Fury came out a car and walked towards the coyly smiling Russian spy. "I thought you said you were giving up that life to… settle down if I remember correctly."

"Someone I couldn't refuse called in a favor." She said as Steve walked up to them with his black cowl still on his face.

"Captain."

"Director."

"Any idea where the cause of all this rage is?" Fury asked.

"He should still be in Africa, I think. We haven't heard from him for the last three days. Why are you asking?" Natasha said.

"There has been a reports of a bathrobe wearing man with the head of a fox mascot on flip flops, killing over 700 people in the last three days in two different countries. The power vacuum in the underworld is like nothing we've ever seen since the 1800's. And I believe a person of interest between us is responsible."

"Wow.. That's quite a kill count for just three days. I don't believe I could rake one so high, but then again his abilities are bullshit." She said with a slight frown on her face.

"670 of those people died from headshot wounds, while the remaining 30 all had shattered joints… plus headshot wounds." The Director clarified while sounding unimpressed.

"Well he could have done worse." The silence was broken by Steve's voice which was met with a bewildered gaze from Natasha.

"I don't understand…. How… how could he have done worse?"

"The Captain meant that it's only 700 people in three days. Draul once did a thousand in less than 48 hours…. That brings his kill count to over 5 thousand confirmed kills in less than a year. Although not as dangerous as he his with his abilities, Draul can prove more lethal with a gun. Oh and that reminds me, tell him he owes me fifty bucks when he calls." With that the Director walked away to direct some of his agents leaving the spy and the soldier alone.

"Let's go Nat. Our work here is done." Steve tapped the still bewildered Natasha and gestured ahead.

With that they left another ruined base.

…

[Draul St. Cross POV]

I need a private plane.

I mean, that was to be obvious when I am to be carrying a whole shipload of Vibranium and over a ton of Adamantium. And not to mention what else I might pick up in this journey.

I was not posing to be putting my spoils of Vibranium inside a S.H.I.E.L.D carriage. That was just announcing it the American parliament that 'Look! He's holding weapons of mass destruction! We must take it from him at all cost!'. I knew that Vibranium and Adamantium gave off specific signals and I would be a fool to let that register with S.H.I.E.L.D's satellite when I haven't fully secured it.

Sure I could say another fuck you to the government, but greed sometimes made the most wisest of men foolish.

Klaue's hiding ground was going nowhere for the time being so that would get the me time to ship everything together once I procured the plane.

Some of the guys I killed had private planes but I wasn't about to use them. No need to draw too much attention to the importance of my current mission than I had already done.

One of the perks of having a lot of money was that you could easily skip through a lot of bullshit when it comes to buying shit.

It took me less than three days to get the fucking plane, the necessary papers, a trip to South Africa, nice place by the way, definitely in my top five countries to visit for vacation in Africa, two hours to fully learn how to fly the thing just in case, because there was no way I was buying a plane and not learning how to fly it.

So with that procured, I was set to hit up Klaue's vault.

Like I said, greed sometimes made the most wisest of men foolish.

Klaue's crew, who I think might have gotten news of their boss's disappearance tried to make off with parts of his spoil. It would have been fine it was the higher ups that only did so, but some of the underlings were emboldened by the head huncho's death and took arms against the higher ups.

No one knew how to access Klaue's Vibranium vault except for the man himself who had set the Goddamned thing to blow up if the vault was tampered with.

What I arrived at was a gun fight which could be attributed to the late arrival of the news.

I wasted no time in killing all those who remained in minutes, all with a spear to their hearts or decapitated heads.

Klaue's vault from what I could feel, had some kind of explosives that was set to go off against a certain level of vibrations. It was a genius workmanship.

I sawed off the door of the vault with my laser beams, which had the incendiary device, and then dragged the entire thing away. I loaded the entire thing inside a truck and then drove to the hangar I had purchased in Cairo. Just this trip alone had taken almost two-thirds of my net worth.

I didn't think about much about it as this trip alone already has made me more than 3 billion dollars and that was not counting whatever Nat and Steve managed to dig up.

The Adamantium was in Dubai, so all I needed to do was have my newly hired pilot fly me there for a day and then back to the States the next. And that was what I did.

It was finally time to kit everyone up.

…

I went back to the States after ten days of raiding a few of the safes that I could, not gaining anything much other than some gold, diamonds, paintings. I did get a few millions in hard cash though.

Was getting rich always this easy? I mean, all I did was spend ten days abroad and now I'm returning home a billionaire. All I did was just rob some old fuckers and that's it. Why couldn't everyone just do what I did?

Oh, that's right! They would die before got their first dollar.

I immediately got to work after settling down and looking through all the earnings we made while also recounting to them everything that happened.

I had gold, diamonds, Adamantium and Vibranium – I would have to be pretty dull witted if I could come up with a cool working aesthetics for Bucky's arm.

I already had everything I needed; from the codes to the biological knowledge and finally to the main materials and some other questionable ones, like the melting chemical stuff. There was absolutely no way I wasn't taking some of that, which was everything.

I had some working theories about the Super Soldier Serum. Like everyone knows, it functions as the best base multiplier out there. What I wanted to do was tweak the multiplying factors of the Serum to 500 from the initial 100.

It wasn't just a simple times five multiplier but a time five peak human multiplier for every hallmark.

A times five base strength was something they could get from a 200% increase in serum potency and that was what they would get as a base with more rooms for improvement. After that point would be vast increase in potential.

I didn't know yet how to draft in an ability as I haven't experimented on mutants to figure that out, but that would be for later as the strength they would get from that would boost them way above the super soldier level buy that serum would only work for them as it was designed to meld on with someone who already had a version of the serum.

If I were to give someone like Natasha that serum, then what would happen would either having a horrendous form of a female body builder of the likes of Ronnie Coleman or her strength would start bleeding out and she would die in a month's time as the serum would be able to properly meld with every part of her body.

Imagine the consequence of it melding with her heart and not the arteries around it. Or parts of her brain? Or strengthening her bones but not her spine?

The result would be catastrophic and that was saying the least.

I could make some sort of basic Super Soldier Serum but only Natasha would be qualified to take it. Yelena was too young for me to be completely sure about the success of it and me giving her the Serum would give her ideas.

Why were teenage girls this had to deal with?

It wasn't just me. No one in this household was comfortable with letting a girl like her out there regardless of if she could slit a man's throat and walk away fine.

There was a reason the Avengers wasn't that keen on Iron Man's decision of bringing in a young Peter Parker regardless of how easily he stopped Bucky and Falcon.

I had managed to dodge that particular conversation with her for the time being but I wouldn't be able to stall forever, not when she sees me giving the rest of the household Super Soldier Serums.

Another part I didn't understand was why Nat was making me do this. She was Yelena's sister for crying out loud, why should the total, or rather, not-so-total stranger, be the one giving the adolescent teen sister explanations on why she should be patient.

Maybe giving her the Serum wouldn't be a bad idea after all.

I shoved those thoughts to the back of my mind and concentrated on what I was doing.

The Serum only needed a slight tweak to it and that was all. All it needed was for me to tweak the energy absorption ration of the Serum to the cells and since the two subjects in mind already had the most stable version of the Serum, it would make it easier for their body to absorb the excess amount of energy this Serum would give them and also aid in its circulation.

The first Super Soldier Serum only gave peak human physique along with rejuvenating dead or deteriorating cells and slight increase in average life expectancy. My 'Crack-em-up' Serum just multiplied that base by a few and then the potential by multitudes.

The part that gave me a lot of headaches were their suits. They still needed them. While my Serum would give them bolstered durability, I still didn't know to what extent and could only wait for them to take it before we could run those tests.

Which brought me to another point: I still haven't told them about my plans for them and the Serum. Hopefully that would take care of itself in due time.

Back to their uniforms, since I have tons of Vibranium just sitting around. I could afford to splurge quite a bit.

With the schematics for Bucky's arm and the Serum done, along with the design for their suit which was the same as the one they were using right now, I focused on the hardest part of the pet project.

Experimenting with Adamantium and Vibranium.

This was entirely new territory for me and even with things I remembered and could read on this two materials, with nary a bit of information on the latter, calculations I've ran and also speculations, experimenting with these ores would give me new insights which would do more than just pay for the troubles I went through to get them, not that it would make it any easier.

The first problem I had in regards to the ores was a machine that would allow me to freely use the processed materials form the ores as I was 100% sure that a simple smithy won't be cut out for the job.

Adamantium was easier to handle since all I needed to do was form it into the shape I wanted it to work with and then done.

Vibranium on the other hand I needed to be woven into fabrics and also for different weapons, and I also needed to understand how its abilities affected the ore in its processing method.

The antidote to this query was that I had a lot of Vibranium to work with, so that meant I could afford a lot of trial and error.

Aside from the projects I was about to dive into, I also needed to install new securities inside the house. I already had multitudes in place to monitor any alien signals that were not registered in my cloud.

The reason I opted for one was due to the amount of stuff inside the house. Some of Doom's things were in here and even though I combed through everything during these past three months to be sure that none of his books, gold, energy devices and tomes were bugged, I now had over two tons of Adamantium, if I added what I found in Doom's cache, and also the most bountiful harvest of Vibranium on the planet sans the Wakandans.

I would talk to Fury about getting a satellite into outer space, maybe three, to fully set up my digital autonomy.

I had Fmail, Facebook, ViewTube and the local WhatsApp, all gaining traction and popularity as the day went by. ViewTube was already on its way to becoming the most used media platform in the world due to strange occurrences happening every fucking where on the planet.

To make it even more appealing to users, I even reduced the stipulations on censorship to almost zero, anyone could post the shit that they wanted, 60% of the fault lies with the viewers anyway, 10% for the company and 30% for the ViewTuber if their content was ever called into question.

I had eyes and ears everywhere that made Fury jealous, oh I knew he was. All I needed was a few numbers of satellites to make my network completely global without any fucking soul on the planet even knowing. Such were the beauty of viruses.

No one could come within 5 kilometers of my house with a gun without anyone at home knowing. I still hadn't gotten the time to study the Sentinel parts I had lying around that I snagged from Doom's home, nor have I delved into the inner workings of the cell in correspondence to the X-gene, if not I would have added that to my sensors.

I made sure to keep all the security devices in the basement since I still wasn't cool enough with those fancy techs lying around the house. Keeping the entire place old, plain and simple.

Back to the metals.

Everyone at home was having their entire wardrobe changed to Vibranium-made clothing. I had enough of the thing to outfit an army like Ultron did and there would still be tons of the stuff left to make whatever weapon I could think of.

I just needed to know how Vibranium worked on a cellular level and then maybe build some sort of fabric printing machine.

Maybe I could even try those ideas I had on nano-mechanics. Looks like I would have to postpone my trip by another month, max.

The Black Panther suit was a marvelous piece of technology that even dwarfed 9/10th of Tony's wardrobe.

It was all the hallmark of what science had accomplished so far all shoved inside a piece of jewelry.

…

I spent my next few days inside my lab, reviewing every piece of information I got from the synthesizing Serum and from the slab of glowing rock I was working with.

There was a component, or composition of Vibranium that I found that could blend into the Serum and even strengthen the cells that take in the Vita-particles that were present in abundance in my Serum.

I had to put the final experiment of the Serum on hold and then focused most of my time working on the slab of rock before me.

I had broken some parts of it and heated them before comparing the two different components to see the limit they reached and I easily found out that processing Vibranium made the bonds between its atoms more flexible and more conductive.

With a breakthrough in Vibranium, I focused on the fabric printer, something that I resolved to build with diamonds and Vibranium, not for a show of wealth but because I would need it to print a lot of hardcore materials like Adamantium in strands.

To do that I also had to melt the diamonds and other metals that could work well with whatever sort of printer I was making.

I never thought a day would come where I would be using my fists to flatten heated metals but apparently that was what I was doing now.

Hours turned to days, which extended into weeks as I worked on the machine and the Vibranium.

Sometimes, I wouldn't come out for five days in a row and would have to have someone personally come draw me out.

With the printer done, I then finally focused on processing the Adamantium for Bucky's arm.

Adamantium was easy compared to Vibranium. All it needed was to be heated to unholy temperatures and then start casting.

Using the printer to create some vein-like inlays on the surface of the Adamantium casting, I then started fitting the technological part into the arm-shaped metal.

This arm would be heavier than the one Bucky was used to, but with the application of my Serum, it'll offset any kind of negative effects Bucky might face when it comes to maneuverability.

The printer helped me out a lot in printing miniature parts of the technological facets for the arm that decreased its weight by a lot. Due to my preferred use of medieval weaponry, I'm pretty sure the only person who knows of my technical prowess is Bucky. Fury definitely has no idea what I'm capable of.

The completed form of the arm was something of a technological wonder in the present time.

It was a sleek black appendage, awfully reminiscent of the one Bucky wore in the Infinity Saga. At his knuckles were tiny imperceptible holes which functioned as a directing release for the expelled force, creating some kind of air tunnels.

The knuckles also had some kind of sharpened edge to them that could also be elongated for 5cm for more painful bruising.

Retractable claws that worked on intent like everything else on the arm along with every goodness that comes with Vibranium.

The Serum needed some revising but with this, apart from the satellite, I was done with any major project that I figured would be a must.

The fabric printer could run on input commands with it being mostly automatic as the only thing you needed to do manually was to have the materials ready and the design along any specific pattern you wanted and all those little touches and then viola! You'll have your printed fabric in minutes to hours depending on the materials.

With everything packaged in a box, I left my lab and called everyone to gather at the living room.

The looks they all gave me made me realize that somewhere along the days, my clothes got burnt as I was standing there shirtless with part of a burnt shirt hanging loosely around my shoulders. I telekinetically pulled a robe to me and wore it.

"Now that that's out of the way, let's get this started with." The first on the list was Bucky's arm.

"A technological wonder that can adapt to brain waves. This arm is made from the two most rarest metals on earth. For those of you who don't know, Steve's shield was also made from the product of the combination of these two metals and that thing wouldn't have a dent in it if a nuke dropped. But different from the basic ability of Steve's shield to absorb and redirect force simultaneously, Bucky's new arm would allow him to store the force so it can be used anytime he wants in battle and the amount of force it can absorb is way higher than that of Steve's shield."

"Woah. That IS cool." Yelena stared at the black beaut with star-spangled eyes.

"You know the government, not to mention the army, would kill for this right? You might face a lot of pressure if they find out you have, or had, any kind of amount of Vibranium. I know Howard definitely did." Steve folded his hands as he leaned his back against the wall.

"They can go suck a dick on that one." I huffed.

"Bucky?"

Bucky turned to look at me and then at everyone in the room, and the only thing he said was, "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why this? Everything? Why Vibranium? Why Adamantium? I'm not trying to be ungrateful, but why go to such lengths? Why are you preparing as if there's some sort of war coming?"

I sighed at that. I knew it wasn't going to be this simple. Heck, I haven't even opened the smaller boxes and I knew they knew something else was in there. Sure we were bros and friends but there had to be a reason for doing such a thing.

"I got gifts for everyone you know? For Christmas. But, you know, Doom and Magneto came and wrecked it all, turning everything to ash… That got me thinking, 'What if it happens again?', 'What if this time they decided to hold one of you hostage?', 'What if this time they decide to attack you instead of me?'… 'What if this time I'm not strong enough?'… It's a whole scenario of 'What ifs'."

"Draul, you know it's not your fault." Steve had a sympathetic frown on his face.

"It might as well be. I'm not saying I'm drowning in a sea of guilt or something like that, fuck no! All I'm trying to say is that it's going to happen again and the probability of it happening is 100%. I got out the last time due to some fuckers game but the next time? I'm afraid there won't be a re-do then. Doom is still out there and when he comes back, cause he definitely will, he will be exponentially stronger than he was before and I can't for the love of me play that one by ear. This is as much a power up as it is some form of assurance. There are a lot of people still stronger than me in this world and inevitably when I run afoul against one of them, I want the belief that you guys can protect yourself against them without too much trouble to help me focus."

"… You think we are weak?" Bucky asked with anger clearly evident in his tone.

"Yes you are, and that's a fact. You might not understand this clearly but someone raised the city of New York by its roots. With sufficient training, one of the kids from Xavier's could kick all your asses. The human war ended a long time ago, last year was a clear proof and reminder of that. I will not, with a good conscience, let you all out there when I know there's a high chance of dying if you went with your current strength."

"It might be insensitive of me to say this, but you lose people in war, Draul." Steve said.

"The war isn't here yet Steve, it's coming but it isn't here yet. Right now? What we are facing, like last year, is just opening night. The red lights and carpets are just to show off, to get a feel of who the real players are. Those who get wowed with just the prelude have no hope of making it to the end… So this may not be my call, but it sure as hell is an option I would present."

The entire living room fell silent as I finished my rant. This here was no joke. There were universes out there where the Avengers died or were never made. There might not be any Avengers here but I'll make sure they sure as hell ain't dead. At least those with me.

"You think we'll face more fights like last year?" Steve asked, his face mirroring the serious atmosphere of the room.

"It's only a matter of months or if we aren't lucky, weeks before one shows up." I told them.

"…"

"…"

"Kit me up, quack."

A smile blossomed on my face.

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Read up to 25 chapters ahead at pa*treon /Draul_TheOminous.