Upon receiving the orders, all of S.H.I.E.L.D. sprang into action. The elite agent squads Nick Fury had long since deployed began apprehending targets according to the lists.
The purge started with S.H.I.E.L.D. and then rapidly expanded as major nations launched their own direct crackdowns.
This operation wasn't confined to S.H.I.E.L.D. alone; the major powers had all coordinated their efforts.
The leaders of these nations were furious to learn that Hydra had been operating secretly within their borders. They had quietly collaborated, waiting until today, when the lists of Hydra operatives were largely secured, to launch a synchronized cleanup.
While the lists weren't completely comprehensive, they were sufficient to make every nation realize that Hydra could never be fully eradicated. Naturally, this only heightened their vigilance.
Hydra, meanwhile, was caught completely off guard. They had only planned to eliminate Nick Fury, not to overthrow the entire world.
"What is happening?!" Alexander Pierce roared, half-dead with rage. He had just received word that his subordinates were being rounded up in droves, and numerous Hydra strike teams were being completely annihilated.
Hydra's American faction had already suffered devastating losses during the Battle of New York, and now, they were facing an even more catastrophic blow.
Before Pierce could even process what was happening, his office door was kicked open. Nick Fury stormed in, flanked by a tactical team.
"Nick Fury..." Pierce said, forcing a calm tone. "What is the meaning of this?"
"You're probably surprised I'm still alive, aren't you?" Fury sneered. "As for why I'm here? I'm here to hunt down the remnants of Hydra, Pierce."
"What did you say?" Pierce's voice turned cold.
"What else could I possibly say?" Fury scoffed. "At this stage, did you really think I was completely in the dark?"
"Nick Fury, what nonsense are you spouting? What Hydra?"
Seeing this, Pierce knew his cover was blown, though he had no idea how.
"You think I wouldn't know?" Fury said. "I've been watching your every move all these years."
"What? Then you mean..." Alexander Pierce finally realized the gravity of the situation.
If this entire affair had been Nick Fury's handiwork from the start, then everything made sense—including why Fury hadn't died and why he had managed to fight his way to Pierce's side.
Suddenly, Pierce recalled the past two years. Fury had been acting more and more mysterious, his movements increasingly frequent. In contrast, Hydra's forces had suffered devastating losses.
Though it seemed insignificant at the time, Hydra squads were consistently taking heavy casualties during various missions. But Alexander Pierce had personally investigated, and everything seemed fine.
After all, the number of super-criminals had been skyrocketing over the last two years. Especially after the Chitauri invasion, all sorts of alien high-tech weapons had flooded the black market. Not just governments, but even organizations with the right connections could acquire them. Numerous weapons and suits of armor had been reverse-engineered from this technology.
This had led to the rise of many criminals worldwide who, while not yet at the level of superheroes, had undoubtedly surpassed ordinary humans in power.
They were even appearing in batches. Recently, some of these weapons had trickled down into the hands of powerful gangs, who now possessed alien weapon replicas.
After all, in America, if you have money, buying light weapons is quite easy—it's not like buying fighter jets or cannons.
These were just guns, albeit energy weapons far more powerful than ordinary firearms. Combined with some counterfeit or modified alien armor, the combat effectiveness of ordinary criminals had drastically increased.
A single ordinary terrorist could now rival a Hydra agent who had undergone years of training and invested countless man-hours and resources.
Consequently, the Hydra agent teams deployed in the field suffered devastating casualties.
Yet, Hydra's leadership could say nothing. These losses were all too common, and Nick Fury's own teams were also taking casualties.
The situations were similar. The only difference was that Nick Fury had the Avengers—a crucial branch under his command. In critical moments, he could call upon these superheroes, which significantly reduced the casualties among his elite teams.
After all, the Avengers were a force under Nick Fury's command, so Pierce had no choice but to accept it. He could only tighten his control over Hydra's elite squads, reducing their deployments and covertly ramping up recruitment to counter the losses.
Even so, the casualties Hydra had suffered over the years remained severe. He hadn't given it much thought before, but a rough estimate now revealed that Hydra had lost at least half of its official strength.
Previously, this hadn't mattered. Hydra was parasitically attached to S.H.I.E.L.D., meaning S.H.I.E.L.D.'s resources were essentially Hydra's resources. Even heavy losses were acceptable, as he could simply use official channels to make S.H.I.E.L.D. serve his interests.
So, it hadn't been an issue before.
But all of this relied on one crucial premise: Nick Fury and his people had to remain unaware of Hydra's existence. Their strategic maneuvers couldn't be specifically targeted at Hydra; otherwise, the consequences would have been unthinkable.
"So you've known for years?" Alexander Pierce finally grasped the core of the problem. He finally understood exactly where things had gone wrong.
If Nick Fury had known about Hydra's existence years ago but had chosen to wait, then given his personality and methods, he must have been investigating their scale in secret, which is why he hadn't acted rashly.
In other words, the situation he had always assumed—that he was in the shadows and Nick Fury was in the light—had long since been reversed.
"That's right. I found out about Hydra years ago. You know how I am. For the past two years, I've been hunting for Hydra's trail, seeing just how far you vermin in the sewers have managed to infiltrate!" Nick Fury sighed. "I just never expected that *you* would be Hydra too."
When he first learned the news, he also found it unbelievable. After all, Alexander Pierce was the one who had promoted him. How could he possibly be Hydra?
But he also knew Pierce's personality well. If he had a choice, he would have definitely chosen someone from Hydra. However, his faction's influence within S.H.I.E.L.D. was clearly too great.
His influence had grown so vast that it was drawing the scrutiny of the Permanent Five. If he continued to elevate Hydra, S.H.I.E.L.D. would inevitably face a crackdown. This was a certainty, and the cost would far outweigh the benefit.
No one in power could allow such a situation to occur. This was precisely why Alexander Pierce had chosen to support him.
Regardless, Pierce's support had been genuine, and he had even been a mentor of sorts.
But now, he would have to personally arrest this mentor.
"So that's how it is!"
Alexander Pierce finally understood. He had been played from the very beginning, manipulated like a puppet by his own disciple.
Nick Fury had already figured everything out.
Realizing there was no escape, Alexander Pierce couldn't help but laugh. "You can't kill us all! Hail Hydra! Cut off one head, two more shall take its place!"
"Two heads? I think you won't even grow one!" Nick Fury sneered.
Indeed, even with the list in his hands, Nick Fury couldn't guarantee that every last Hydra agent would be caught. But Hydra's infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D. this time was enough to put all major powers on high alert.
They would be extremely vigilant against Hydra. With its current strength, it would be impossible for the organization to recover for at least a hundred or two hundred years.
In twenty years, the best it could hope for was to become a minor regional faction.
As for what would happen in a hundred or two hundred years, that was beyond his control. Although trusting future generations' wisdom seemed like passing the buck, he had no choice—after all, he wouldn't live that long.
Now, he could only trust the wisdom of those who came after him.
"Men, take him away!" Nick Fury ordered. Alexander Pierce was seized. Like Nick Fury, he was a civilian official with no combat skills, so he offered no resistance.
"Men, take him away!" Nick Fury commanded.
As Alexander Pierce, the leader of Hydra, was taken away, a global crackdown on Hydra immediately erupted across the world.
Governments around the world, armed with the detailed lists, joined the crackdown. Using the internal rosters provided by S.H.I.E.L.D., they launched a massive purge.
Even within the Permanent Five, some Hydra agents had climbed to incredibly high positions. This sent a chill down the spines of every nation, leaving them numb with horror. For smaller countries, the situation was even worse; some, like Sokovia, had been completely infiltrated from top to bottom.
Faced with such a crisis, the Permanent Five did not hesitate to intervene. They directly intervened, even deploying troops into the capitals of smaller nations to wipe out Hydra's cells in one fell swoop.
Only then did the rest of the world truly grasp the terrifying power of the Permanent Five. While many had joked that the Permanent Five were in decline, their military might no longer as formidable as it once was—with China the only one growing stronger while the others weakened to varying degrees—they still possessed an overwhelming military advantage over any other nation. Though they were still far from a match for extraterrestrial threats, they could utterly crush any other country on Earth without breaking a sweat.
The global chaos raged for a full month, only subsiding when every nation had either killed or captured every Hydra agent on the list.
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