POV: Nick Fury
The steel door hissed shut behind him, and the faint echo of his steps disappeared down the hall.
For a few moments, none of us spoke.
Keller finally exhaled and took off her glasses, folding them neatly onto the table like a ritual she performed after every high-risk evaluation. Not out of habit—but out of caution. The silence wasn't casual. It was the kind you felt in your spine.
"Well?" I asked.
Keller didn't answer right away. She rubbed her temples, glanced at Hill, then back at me. "He's not psychotic. Let's make that clear first."
Hill raised an eyebrow. "You're sure?"
"If he were psychotic, he'd show signs of delusion or detachment from reality. Gerald Weston is painfully self-aware. He knows who he is, what he's done, and why he did it. There's no break in his perception. He doesn't lack morality—he's just built his own version of it."
"Which is worse," I muttered.
"Precisely," Keller said.
Hill pulled up the data on her tablet. "His baseline vitals didn't spike once. Not during the childhood recount, not even when he admitted to killing his father. Either he's mastered physiological control on a level we've never documented, or… he genuinely feels nothing."
Keller tapped her finger against the table. "He's not a sociopath. Don't mistake the lack of guilt for a lack of understanding. He knows what remorse is. He just… doesn't experience it the way most people do."
"Or doesn't let himself," I offered.
Keller nodded. "Could be. That father figure clearly instilled a worldview where weakness meant death. And love? Compassion? Those were liabilities. Gerald survived by erasing what made him vulnerable. The wish just codified that survival instinct into power."
Hill looked up from her tablet. "So the wish isn't just reacting to threats. It's amplifying his trauma response?"
"In a way," Keller said. "It's an echo chamber. A survival engine that interprets threats through Gerald's learned logic. If he's convinced betrayal is inevitable, the wish doesn't question that. It prepares for it. It acts before emotion can override."
"Which means if he ever feels too much," I said slowly, "the wish could view that as a weakness to eliminate."
Keller met my eyes. "Exactly."
Hill leaned back, arms crossed. "And you're saying he's not unstable?"
Keller gave a weary smile. "Unstable implies volatility. Gerald's the opposite. He's terrifyingly consistent. Logical. Cold. He's the kind of stable you'd expect from a gun—only as dangerous as where you aim it."
I stayed quiet, watching the mirrored glass even though Gerald was long gone.
"We have contingencies," Hill said, almost as if trying to reassure herself.
Keller didn't respond.
I finally spoke. "Can he be trusted?"
Keller didn't hesitate. "Not fully. Not blindly. But he can be used—if you manage him correctly."
"And how do you manage a man whose power is instinctual, and whose instincts are built on violence?" Hill asked.
Keller stood and picked up her tablet. "You don't. You influence. You provide structures, parameters, incentives. You give him purpose. A mission that feels like survival—because the second you take that away, the wish will create its own."
She paused at the door, then glanced over her shoulder.
"But make no mistake. You're not handling a man."
"You're babysitting a concept wrapped in skin."
Then she left.
Hill glanced at me. "What do we do, Director?"
I stared at the door for a long moment.
"…We keep him close. We keep him fed. We point him at enemies we need erased."
"And when we run out of enemies?" Hill asked quietly.
I sighed. "Then we better hope the wish is merciful."
Because Gerald Weston wasn't.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Gerald tilted his head. "Combat sim?"
I nodded. "Hardcore. Live feedback. You'll face elite opponents in a controlled arena. No killing. No maiming. Prove you can fight without going full apocalyptic."
He smirked. "You're asking a volcano not to erupt. Ballsy."
"You're not a volcano," I said flatly. "You're a weapon that needs calibration."
Hill handed him a sleek black uniform—a reinforced adaptive-polymer suit designed to endure superhuman impacts and nullify energy surges. "Put this on. Five-minute prep. Simulation begins when the lights drop."
Gerald caught the suit with a casual flick of the wrist, examining it with a faint look of amusement. "You know, in some cultures, giving someone new clothes is a sign of trust."
"In this one," Hill muttered, "it's a sign we don't want you exploding out of your jeans mid-battle."
He chuckled low, shaking his head as he turned toward the prep room.
SIMULATION CHAMBER – INITIATED
The arena's walls sealed, locking the simulation into place. Steel corridors transformed into ruined alleyways, cracked asphalt, and flickering lights. A perfect urban combat setting.
Above, the lights dimmed.My voice echoed overhead:
"Simulation Start. Code Black. Opponents incoming."
From the far ends of the arena, three figures emerged—combat androids, each mimicking a specific threat type:
Vega-1: Hyperspeed unit. Dual plasma blades. Velocity output comparable to a speedster at Mach 2.
Rho-7: Density manipulator. Able to shift body mass to absorb, redirect, or nullify kinetic force.
Mirror-G: A high-tier mimic modeled after Gerald himself—mirroring his raw combat style, power outputs, and past behavioral patterns.
Gerald stood motionless, dressed in his matte-black adaptive suit. No weapons. No enhancements.
Just him.
And what he knew.
PHASE ONE: HYPERSPEED
Vega-1 vanished in a blink, a sonic pop trailing behind as it closed the distance.
Most would've missed it.
Gerald didn't.
His body didn't brace—he shifted. One foot pivoted 11° counterclockwise, and his center of gravity dropped precisely 2.4 inches. A micro-adjustment to his spine, knees slightly bent, arms loose.
He let the enemy arrive.
The moment Vega-1's plasma blade came into range, Gerald's left hand shot out—not at the weapon, but at the wrist tendons.
Precision.
Two fingers struck the palmaris longus—a thin muscle in the forearm responsible for hand flexion.
The android's grip failed mid-swing.
In one smooth motion, Gerald stepped inside the bot's guard, rotating on the ball of his foot, twisting his core—striking the sternocleidomastoid muscle in the android's neck with an open-palm heel strike.
The servo-mimicked joint overloaded. Its head spun 130° the wrong way.
Vega-1 dropped.
Not unconscious. Disabled.
He didn't even glance down at it.
PHASE TWO: DENSITY UNIT – RHO-7
This one lumbered forward with mass surging through its limbs, body weight shifting into the thousands of pounds.
A mistake.
Gerald didn't try to overpower it—he redirected.
He let it swing. Absorbed the momentum. Slipped under a haymaker with a jūjutsu pivot—then slammed an elbow directly under the android's armpit.
Right into the brachial plexus region.
Where motor neurons converged.
The android froze for half a second. That's all he needed.
He grabbed its arm, rotated the shoulder outward at an unnatural 130° using leverage and the weight of its own mass against it. The torque folded the arm back until the synthetic ligaments began to pop.
Then he dropped and swept its leg at the fibular head—right behind the knee.
Snap.
The bot collapsed under its own weight.
Two down.
PHASE THREE: MIRROR-G
Mirror-G's movements were a perfect mimicry of Gerald's own combat style, a brutal and savage reflection of everything he had learned, honed, and perfected. It wasn't just the strength or the speed—it was the precision. The calculated, deliberate destruction of the human body, laid out in methods both elegant and violent.
Gerald's eyes narrowed, watching the Mirror unit move with fluidity, a deadly dance of strikes and counters. The fight was no longer just about winning—it was a battle for control, dominance, and understanding of the body's most fragile points.
Mirror-G lunged first, a right hook aimed directly at Gerald's jaw, followed by a left cross to his ribs. The strike was textbook, vicious, and clean—Gerald's own fist wouldn't have been far behind.
Gerald ducked, slipping under the hook. Instead of dodging the cross, he let it come closer, just enough for the radius of the strike to skim across his side. With a shift of his body, his core twisted, absorbing the impact rather than resisting it.
He flowed into it.
As the mimic pulled back for a second blow, Gerald stepped in—closing the distance with a sudden Silat shuffle. His right elbow moved with surgical precision, not just aiming at the opponent's head, but at the cervical spine, just beneath the occipital bone.
The hit was calculated. Gerald's elbow connected with the right cervical vertebrae, sending a burst of force that disrupted the mimic's balance. Mirror-G stumbled, its head snapping to the side, the servo-driven joints struggling to reorient.
Gerald didn't waste time. He shifted his weight to his rear leg, preparing for the next attack as the mimic recoiled.
It came—Mirror-G executed a savage Muay Thai clinch—grabbing at Gerald's shoulders, looking to deliver devastating knee strikes. But Gerald's body was a whirlwind of controlled chaos. As Mirror-G's knee came up, Gerald's right arm shot out, catching the knee mid-flight with a perfect counter-grip on the knee joint—right below the patella.
In one fluid motion, he twisted, using the joint's own mobility against the mimic. With a vicious torque, he yanked the leg outward—snapping the lateral collateral ligament. The crack rang through the air like a whip.
Mirror-G faltered, its knee buckling under the sudden stress, but it fought back with a low-line kick aimed at Gerald's exposed ribs. The mimic was fast—too fast for most. But Gerald, with a slight shift of his center of gravity, bent his knees and sank, just enough to let the kick pass by. His arm shot out like a spear, an arm bar locked around Mirror-G's leg before it could retreat.
With an exaggerated twist, Gerald moved into the perfect submission. His other hand seized the mimic's thigh, pulling the bot's knee out of alignment—just shy of dislocation.
Mirror-G's body locked, unable to move. But it kept trying to fight. The mimic's eyes flashed with a knowing rage—Gerald had cornered it in the place where it could only fight or break. But Gerald wasn't just controlling the mimic physically—he was dissecting it with each movement.
He adjusted his position, positioning Mirror-G's knee at a 45-degree angle. His elbow drove into the lateral meniscus, shifting the bot's knee into an unnatural configuration, pressing the ligaments into a dangerous, destabilizing position. A burst of pressure would follow.
The mimic roared, unable to find any way out.
But Gerald didn't stop there.
The medial collateral ligament of Mirror-G's knee strained as he shifted the angle, and before the bot could react, Gerald's free leg shot up—sweeping it in an arc. His boot connected with the patella, the knee snapping outward with a sound that could only be compared to breaking a pencil in half.
Mirror-G collapsed to the floor.
But Gerald wasn't done yet. He didn't need to be.
With controlled calm, he stood, letting Mirror-G remain in a crumpled heap on the floor. The mimic struggled to rise, but its servos locked—too much damage, too much force. Mirror-G was done.
He'd turned its power, its aggression, into its own weakness.
SIMULATION END – VICTORY
The arena lights flickered, then surged to full brightness. The synthetic bodies lay shattered across the combat floor—limbs twisted at impossible angles, joints hyperextended, torsos split at their engineered seams. Silence reigned for a long moment.
Then came the soft hiss of the observation deck door sliding open.
No one said a word.
Gerald stood in the center of the chaos, spine straight, arms loose at his sides. His breathing was calm. Controlled. Almost meditative. There wasn't a scratch on him. Not a ripple of tension. It was as if his body had simply solved a math problem—like this had been an equation, not a battle.
Keller leaned slowly forward, eyes wide with disbelief. "...What in the hell did we just watch?"
Hill was already replaying the footage, fingers trembling ever so slightly on the console. "That wasn't just martial skill. That was... anatomical dismantling. Precision trauma. Like he's studied biomechanics and internal structures on a surgical level."
"He didn't fight like a man," Keller whispered. "He fought like he understood the human body on a macro-functional level. Tendons. Nerve clusters. Muscular thresholds. He wasn't aiming for damage—he was disabling, systematically, with zero waste."
"No wasted motion," Hill muttered. "None. Not a single one."
Even the technicians were quiet. One of them—a former military analyst—murmured, "I've seen Tier 1 operators fight. SpecForce black-ops. But this… this was clinical. Not brutal. Not wild. Like he'd studied how to end people and chose not to."
I watched the footage again. Frame by frame.
Mirror-G mimicked Gerald's moves perfectly, but that wasn't enough. Because Gerald wasn't just fighting. He was adjusting mid-strike, re-angling his pivots based on the exact millisecond of impact. He was calculating leverage, torque, and counterforce in real time. Exploiting servo resistance like it was second nature.
Like the body was just a machine—and he already had the manual memorized.
"He didn't just beat the Mirror," I said slowly. "He dismantled it. Dissected it. Like he knew where it was going to break before it even moved."
The room was still.
Then Keller exhaled through her nose, just once. "God help whoever thinks they can take him head-on."
Because Gerald Weston hadn't just passed the simulation.
He'd rewritten what it meant to fight.