βYou mistake proliferation for strength.
I watched a fledgling empire do the same. You spread your borders until they become meaningless, your blood diluted beyond recognition, and your descendants began mistaking inheritance for achievement.β
Hive would listen to what the red skull said until reverting into his host body form. The face of former shield and hydra agent Grant Ward.
"The fact that you been busy and the rest of Hydra leaders have been working overtime says alot. But I assure you Skull, that we are
The transmission had been disseminated through a network that should have died with its architects.
It had not.
And now, The Winter Soldier had been given his first name.
The rest belonged to him.
The faint illumination of a dial cast its colour across the black leather, across brass fittings, across the dust which had gathered upon everything but the instruments themselves. ββ
βIt has survived, certainly. But in its survival it has learned to mistake longevity for legitimacy. Its blood has changed. Its ideology has diluted. You have allowed it to grow beyond the hand that conceived it, until it no longer remembers the purpose for which it was born.β
βPresent? Nothing.
I reveal. The frailties beneath civility; blood beneath skin; instinct beneath law; rot beneath the ornamentation of civilisation.
You are a machine, Megatron.
You understand what happens when a system mistakes function for virtue.β
Her hands hung open. Her fingers were dark where her nails had been. But, strangely, her mouth had been left intact. Perhaps deliberately; the final indignity of a mouth left parted upon the silence of someone who had spent her final hours screaming. ββ