HIATUS

Zero opted to stay for a night in Chronyca-2 and he used this time to talk with the commander of the 2 Xandarian Warships currently hovering above the Chronicom's capital. Since the person who negotiated the alliance with the Nova Prime was Ava, the Nova Empire had no idea who the Leader of Shadow was. In fact, the only reason why an alliance could happen was because of the good relationship Ava had accumulated through the years and her involvement in saving Xandar from Ronan.

Ava had built a strong enough relationship that the Nova Prime accepted the alliance agreement without meeting Zero in person, something he was sure won't likely happen if the circumstances were different. Upon knowing that Zero was in Chronyca-2, the Nova Prime had tasked her commander to evaluate what type of person the leader of Shadow was. Together with Atarah, the 3 of them spend the entire night solidifying their alliance. Atarah and the Nova Commander soon agreed to have an embassy and a military base build on each of their respective planets to help each other in times of need.

Atarah even gave the Nova Commander the specs and blueprints of the Chronicom's planetary defense system as a sign of good faith and to strengthen the alliance even further. It won't be a small thing to say that the Nova Commander was extremely happy about receiving such a gift.

The next day both Atarah and Zero said farewell to the Nova Commander and his troops. After seeing the two warships ascending to space, Zero soon bade farewell to Atarah and he soon teleported out of Chronyca-2 and return back to earth by virtue of the Tesseract.

The moment he appeared near the Lighthouse, Zero became shocked at what he saw. The lighthouse that the base got its namesake from was destroyed. As of right now rubbles of concrete and multiple holes could be seen littering in the area.

"Put your hands in the air!"

"Hands where I can see them!"

Aside from the Lighthouse being destroyed, S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents could be found in the area. The moment Zero appeared, the agents became surprised but immediately pointed their guns at the masked man. Only a few of the agents vaguely had an inkling on the identity of Zero based on the attire he was wearing.

But despite multiple guns pointed at him, Zero didn't give an ounce of his attention to the S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents in the area. He continued to scan his surroundings and saw in the sky that the invisible barrier protecting the base from supernatural attacks was partially destroyed. He saw a huge hole resulting in cracks spreading throughout the entire barrier.

Zero began to think about what could have happened when he was gone. He had left Erik in-charge of the base, and he was confident that Erik was powerful enough to defend the base from anyone who would dare attack it, something he thought was unlikely to happen. The location of the base was something only a few individuals knew and he trusted each of them. To have someone attack his base while also preventing Erik from calling help was something extremely hard to do.

His thoughts began to wonder about the inhabitants of the base, the summoning creatures that called him father, Howard, the few chronicoms that were inside, and Hela. Zero began to worry about their safety.

It didn't take long for Ward to arrive in the area, he could see his teacher, Zero, being surrounded by few agents who were happy to pull the trigger once an order was given.

"All agents stand down, if you want to live!", Ward shouted at the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.

"What happened here?", Zero said as he gazes at his student with his chakra flaring in the surroundings. If Ward's order couldn't stop the agents from holstering their gun then Zero's intimidating aura would no doubt have done the job. The chakra that he was flaring was so potent that all the agents immediately took multiple steps back. As of this moment, Zero's presence alone became that of a primal animal that would no doubt kill anyone easily as if he was stepping on a twig.

"What happened to Erik and everyone inside?", Zero added.

"Come with me. I'll explain what happened, or at least explain what we know", Ward said as he leads Zero to the Bus. Inside he could see Team Coulson and Agent Maria Hill staring at him.

"I believe you owe S.H.I.E.L.D. payment for using one of our bases", Agent Hill tease the moment he arrived.

S.H.I.E.L.D. had been trying to figure out the identity as well as the hideout of Zero for a long time now. For them to find out that he had been using one of their base that happens to be unrecorded in their database was keen to Zero insulting the agency. Both Fury and Hill became so annoyed at this that Fury immediately began an investigation of all S.H.I.E.L.D. bases around the globe. He wanted to figure out if there were more bases similar to the Lighthouse that was decommissioned but was not recorded in the database. He didn't want someone to use S.H.I.E.L.D. resources, even if S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn't using it themselves.

Zero did not respond instead Ward immediately began to explain what happened.

"We received a message from Alfred yesterday and he said that the base was attacked and that he had lost connection from it. He wanted to call Bucky, but unfortunately, he was off the grid along with Romanoff. He had no choice but to contact me while I was in the Triskelion. Due to the severity of the situation, I had asked Director Fury to assist. I didn't know if ----"

"It doesn't matter anymore, S.H.I.E.L.D. already knows where my base is. Continue your story", Zero added. He didn't care about S.H.I.E.L.D. knowing the location of his base, he was more concerned about the inhabitants of the base itself.

"uhm, okay. Team Coulson and I arrived first. We saw that the entire place was destroyed due to Hela and Erik fighting. Luckily or unluckily, they were fighting inside the base and had just recently begun fighting outside. The moment I saw this, I immediately jump in the middle of them to figure out what happened, but I soon concluded that Erik was under someone's control. He didn't recognize me and he was aiming to kill both me and Hela. He was stronger too, he was surrounded by a red foul energy I didn't recognize.  Together with Hela, we fought Erik but we couldn't do anything and he eventually escaped", Ward explained.

"Where is Hela now and the rest of the inhabitants?", Zero asked.

"They are currently staying with the Masters of the Mystic Arts", Ward replied.

Zero wonders if S.H.I.E.L.D. began to ask about the inhabitants of the base. If Team Coulson arrived first in the area together with Ward, then they surely saw Hela and Erik fighting. There was no doubt in Zero's mind that Ward had been questioned about it. He would need to privately talk with Ward about what he told them.

"Did Hela saw who placed Erik in a mind control?", Zero asked.

"She believes it to be a sorcerer. She said that the moment she arrived, she felt dimensional energy littering around the base"

Zero then became angry at this. The only person that Zero knows that would use dimensional energy and attack his base was Zhang Wei. To think that he knew that he would leave earth and use that opportunity to attack his base, the thought just made him angry...but why though? Why would Zhang Wei attack the Lighthouse? For as long as he could remember, Zhang Wei had never been inside the base. How did he even control Erik in the first place? Zero had been studying runes for a long time now and yet he hasn't known a spell or rune matrix that allows him to do such a thing?

More questions continue to appear in Zero's mind and the more of them that pop up the more it didn't make sense. He looks at Ward and asked, "Did Roose, Catherine, and George say anything?", Zero asked.

The moment Zero left for Chronyca-2 he knew that Hela was headed to Europe. She didn't told him why but he could already guess the reason for that. That would mean that his summons along with Howard was left in the base with Erik. He concluded that they know something about what happened.

"George said that they found the person who attacked the base in the storage room of the lighthouse", Ward replied.

Hearing Ward's answer, Zero immediately runs out of The Bus and returns back to the base. He then used the Tesseract to make his body intangible and used it to go underground. He didn't stop until he arrived on the floor where the storage room was. Even inside he could see multiple sword marks in the area, no doubt it was caused by Erik and Hela's fight.

He walks inside the room and he immediately spotted 3 empty spaces in the storage room. Zhang Wei had stolen the 3 monoliths that were stored in the Lighthouse, "Fucking hell", Zero muttered under his breath.