Chapter 33
[48]
A guard stood outside Kaoru Iwai’s room, unbeknownst to him, he was the last conscious guard in the building. Also unbeknownst to him, a costumed hero was stuck to the ceiling 2 feet above him and was about to knock him out as well.
Ren dropped from the ceiling above, hitting the guard with just enough force to incapacitate him, something Ren had practiced out of fear of killing someone with his enhanced strength.
With the final guard down, Ren entered the hotel room to find a young boy sitting on the bed watching TV. Having heard the door open, the boy turned to Ren.
The vigilante awkwardly stood in the doorway. “Umm, hi. Are you Kaoru? I’m-”
“Spider-Man!” The boy jumped off the bed and ran up to the masked hero.
“Uh, yeah. Nice to meet you. I’m here to bring you back to your dad.”
The boy’s excitement turned to disappointment at the mention of his father. “Pfft, yeah right. My dad doesn’t want me around. If he did, I’d have seen him at least once in the past few years.”
Ren was startled. Did the boy not understand his predicament? That he was a hostage for the most dangerous gang in Tokyo?
The hero got down on one knee to be face to face with him. “Listen Kaoru, your dad asked me personally to find you. He cares about you more than you will ever know. And right now, he’s risking his life to save you.”
The boy looked confused. “How? Did he come here to rescue me?”
“Well no, but that’s because he’s doing a top secret, more dangerous job. He’s deep behind enemy lines, fighting in the shadows to help everyone he can. But more than anything, he wants you to be safe. And that’s why he sent me here, since I’m the best in the business!”
“Cool!”
“Alright, now how about we get outta here and go find your dad?”
“Okay.”
Spider-Man allowed the boy to climb onto his back and hurriedly carried him out of the hotel.
Meanwhile, across the city, Kaneshiro stood in front of the Shinjuku police department, a handful of officers outside the station already had their weapons trained on him. A small army of thugs armed with the Tinkerer’s weapons stood behind Kaneshiro, ready to cause chaos across all the streets of Tokyo.
The superhuman enforcer grabbed a megaphone from one of his men, taking a confident stride forward before he spoke.
“Attention police pigs! This is your new boss speaking! As you may have heard, there’s gonna be an...exchange of power starting tonight! Come out and lay down your arms peacefully and we promise minimal casualties. You’ve got 5 minutes!”
With that, Kaneshiro tossed aside the megaphone and turned to one of his subordinates. “That was 5 minutes right?” The subordinate nodded with a rotten grin.
“ALRIGHT BOYS! OPEN FIRE!”
Elsewhere, in an underground facility, Mitsuru Kirijo had just been informed of the origins of the monster in Okumura Enterprises’ basement.
“You want me to do what now?” She questioned.
“Please,” He held out a hand and dropped a key into her palm. “I need another person to activate the purge protocol. I was on my way to attempt this by myself when those men attacked me. I can only guess that they were trying to release him to use him for their own ends.”
Mitsuru considered the situation, if Okumura Enterprises were to lose their prized energy source, it would deal a major blow to their bottom line. As a major reason that the Kirijo group went under, Okumura Enterprises was near the top of Mitsuru’s list of targets.
“Okay. How do we do this?”
The doctor was visibly relieved. “Just enter your key into the slot on that console,” He pointed to a nearby desk. “And turn the key on my mark.”
Both of them got into position, Mitsuru looked up at the molten monster contained in the large tube. “Sorry about this big guy.”
“Now!”
The two turned their keys simultaneously and a red light began flashing overhead.
“Purge protocol initiated. Subject termination in progress.” An artificial female voice sounded throughout the facility.
Mitsuru watched the container expectantly, only to see nothing happen. “What’s going to happen?” She turned to the scientist.
“It’s already happening.” The scientist responded, not taking his eyes off the container. “As we speak, all of the air in the container is being sucked out and the temperature is being lowered rapidly. Molten Man can’t burn in a vacuum.”
As the scientist finished speaking, as if on cue, the creature began to thrash wildly, knowing that its end was approaching. The ends of its extremities began to solidify into volcanic glass. It then began beating on its containment with the hardened appendages to no effect, the glass was simply too thick to break.
Turning its attention elsewhere, the creature began beating on the ceiling above it, attempting to break through the metal ceiling instead. To both Mitsuru and the scientist’s surprise, it succeeded. Part of the metal ceiling above it caved in, and even though the gap was tiny, it was enough for the monster to send a small part of itself through the tube and escape, leaving the rest of its body behind to harden into glass.
“Oh god! Nonononono this is bad! This is really bad!” The scientist fell into a panic.
Mitsuru grabbed the man and tried to bring him to his senses. “What just happened? Where does that tube go?”
“I-It goes straight up to an on-site garbage dump! He’ll have direct access to the outside, not to mention plenty of material to regain his mass along the way! OhgodwhathaveIdone!?” The man began to panic once more.
“What can we do to stop it!?” Mitsuru asked desperately.
The scientist however, didn’t seem to hear her, only mumbling to himself with his head in his hands.
“HEY!” She grabbed him by the collar. “How do we stop it!”
The scientist’s mumbling fit ceased as he looked up at her, his expression dead and his eyes wide.
“You can’t.”
[49]
Detective Naoto Shirogane leaned against a wall, using it for cover against the storm of lasers and shockwaves that bombarded the police station. The army of criminals outside were using weapons that Naoto didn’t even think possible, technology that seemed to be lightyears ahead of modern science and far outclassed the police’s own weapons.
Naoto peaked from behind her cover and fired off several rounds from her revolver before ducking once more behind safety. Luckily, the detective was ambidextrous, so she was able to wield her firearm with her left hand while her right was still in a sling. This however, did make reloading nearly impossible.
The situation was terrible and, according to the reports she was getting on her radio, it was just as bad at every other police station in the city. If things continued on like this, by tomorrow morning the gangs would own the city.
“Ren where the hell are you!?” Naoto thought out loud as she tried contacting him for the third time in the past 10 minutes. If this damn teenager was ignoring her calls over their petty argument the other day, superpowers or not, she would kick his ass.
Suddenly, the wall next to Naoto was destroyed, when the dust cleared, a man with what looked to be a glowing purple club in his hand and a hockey mask over his face stood atop the rubble. Raising his bat at Naoto, he shouted a proclamation.
“I’m the-” He was cut off by a gunshot to the chest.
“Don’t care.” Naoto said, lowering her smoking revolver.
On the other side of the battle, Kaneshiro strode slowly and confidently to the police station. Any bullets that made contact with him bounced off harmlessly. He smiled at the police’s helplessness.
As the battle for control of the city continued, he couldn’t help but wonder why Kingpin had never done this. Maybe the old boss was too careful for his own good. And maybe it was time that he stepped up as the new leader of Tokyo’s underworld.
His thoughts were interrupted as his head was rocked from the side, leaving his right ear ringing. Kaneshiro turned to the source and saw an officer aiming a shotgun at his head. Realizing his mistake, the officer dropped his weapon in a sign of surrender. Kaneshiro smiled his rotten teeth before lifting the man by the throat and breaking his neck with one hand.
Honestly, Kaneshiro was surprised by the fight the police were putting up, it was in vain of course but still commendable. Though, he supposed, trained officers of the law would naturally be more skilled than crooks off the street wielding untested and highly dangerous weapons.
Nevertheless, his army was advancing and the police were losing ground as their sheer force overwhelmed them. The criminals were about to break through the police’s line when a booming inhuman roar sounded over the chaos.
The battle slowly came to a halt as both sides turned to the source of the noise. An orange glow lit up the nearby buildings and everyone suddenly felt a wave of heat blast through the cold night air.
Suddenly, a glowing orange glob in roughly the shape of a hand grabbed the side of a brick wall. Shortly following that, the beast it was connected to stepped into view, shocking everyone who saw it.
Standing over 20 feet tall, the creature seemed entirely composed of liquid magma and radiated intense heat all around it, setting fires with each step it took. Its form was fluid, constantly shifting as it moved and it dripped parts of itself onto the street below constantly. The street echoed with the sound of its feet slamming against the asphalt beneath it.
Staring up at the creature, Kaneshiro felt fear for the first time in years.
“What. The fuck. Is that?”