Twilight
Chapter 4
"Twilight"
[Manhattan, New York. Mid 2028]
[Chinatown, 0944 AM]
‘As good a place as any, I guess.’ Logan mulled to himself under the disguise of a greyish tweed hat covering his distinct hairstyle, and a pair of glasses on the bridge of his nose; Bobby Drake once commented that he can almost pass as McCoy’s twin when he dresses like this. The atmosphere and surrounding commotions reminded him of the trip to Hong Kong after the disbandment of Team-X, trying to live off-the-grid for a while away from all the clandestine services and super-soldiery world.
At first, it was just a whiff of cologne that reached his nostrils, but then the intensity climbed a scale as he whipped his head sideways, and faintly caught the rumble of a car engine. A moment later, a suited man with a fake smile turned the corner into his vision range. “Mister Montgomery?” the suit inquired with his eyes squinted, cautiously taking a step forward towards where he stood.
“Yes?” Logan answered with a tight greeting smile; his ducktail and mustache were shaved to increase the element of surprise, leaving him feeling a bit naked at the moment. “You’re Mister Johnson?” He offered a hand for the suit and tie to shake with an upward curl of his lips, straining his throat to deliver the most convincing American as he ever could. There’s a sense of reluctant presence when their hands touch. “Thank you for considering my request.”
Johnson replied with a soft chuckle and a corporate smile as he retracted his hand from Logan’s. “Don’t mention it, Mister Montgomery. Mister Essex was very keen on providing aides to the needed.” Then the representative gestured for Logan to follow him to the alleyway, possibly where the low rumbling engine of a car is located. “Pardon our ceremonious procedures; many wishes to sabotage the good work that Mister Essex has done, it had become the priority concern as of late.” Johnson opened the door of the GMC for him, and Logan complied.
“I understand,” The Wolverine replied as he settled into his seat, enjoying the refreshing air from the A/C rather than the spiced humid of Chinatown outside, “Are there going to be some kinda payment?”
“Of course, but that shall come after your talk with Mister Essex.” Johnson took his spot across from his and signaled the driver to start their journey. “Relax and enjoy the ride, Mister Montgomery, it will be but an hour's ride.” Logan looked out the tinted window and watched the scenery slowly change according to the vehicle’s speed and direction, taking in the busy people outside going with their lives.
[Manhattan, New York. Mid 2028]
[The Mercier Hotel, 1015 AM]
“Is that?” Peter whipped his head at a pair of newcomers from the entrance, two faces that he recognized immediately—one from that distinct goatee and the other by her flowing auburn hair. There’s a sense of familiarity in the way that Doctor Strange and Wanda Maximoff behaved around themselves as they made their way into the main area and greeted some of the doctors and medical personnel invited. Gwen followed his indication and quirked her brows up at the two superheroes walking arm in arm.
Gwen had her golden mane done into a braid and dressed in her favorite dark green cocktail with mono strap, the hem of the skirt cut just above the knees, a golden shawl clung around her waist making a bowtie just at the left side of her hip and balancing herself on a pair of ivory heels; she felt much more confident wearing this ridiculous type of footwear since she got Spider powers. Peter relayed to her that one of his abilities is Enhanced Equilibrium which allowed him -and essentially her- to orient their bodies automatically on any surface without repercussion; meaning even with a stiletto on, acrobatics are no problems.
Gwen scoffed internally at the mental image of Peter in a pair of stilettos doing his usual Spider-Man stuff.
“I mean they had a history together, Doctor Palmer and Doctor Strange; the Stange-Palmer method was a revolutionary technique in the medical world if Howard can be trusted,” Gwen offered with a sip of the champagne, relishing the enhanced metabolism by the fleeting sense of alcoholic beverage settled into her stomach, absorbed, and dissipated in a matter of seconds. “I guess it’s normal to invite your ex and former colleagues to a wedding, even if that ex/colleague is a magician.”
“Sorcerer,” Peter corrected her as he stuffed another snack into his mouth, “there’s a very distinct difference between the two; one is mainly illusionists and entertainers, while the other protects our reality.” He elaborated and observed the odd pair with keen eyes, his hand lay flat comfortably on the small of Gwen’s back enjoying the contrast of the silky fabric and the tender flesh underneath. “You know, after the battle, I saw how lost and lonely she was,” Peter indicated towards the lively Wanda Maximoff who was engaging in a small conversation with one of the guests as Doctor Strange excused himself to the side to chat with one of his old colleagues from Metro-General, “Now I know where she’d been all these years.” He finished with a ghost of a smile plastered on his glazed lips. He quirked his brow playfully at Gwen when the petite blonde’s thumb grazed his lower lip and dipped the glazed finger inside her lovely ones.
“You are so messy when you eat,” The sunflower blonde chided him playfully, enjoying the sway of the Cello serenading the guests from the band on the stage. “You coming this weekend?” she diverted her attention to him and scoffed amusedly when witnessing the Spider vigilante devouring another piece of sugary sweetness.
“Yeah. We need to have a talk with your family about this.” Peter replied with a thoughtful expression, knitting his brows together as he went over the explanation for Gwen’s parents in his mind. “Can I have your mom’s special stew?”
“I’ll check,”
“Stephen! Glad you came.” Christine exclaimed with a smile at her former colleague and his taller frame gathering her into a firm hug, his hand flattened on her upper back. “I thought you’d have some dimensional businesses to tend to.” She retreated from the hug and observed the sorcerer in front of her, noting the wrinkles of joy on his face that were borne from a genuine happiness that lightened her subconscious concern.
“I do need some respite from time to time,” Strange replied with a throaty chuckle as he let go of Christine to admire her contended glow in the pristine dress, a silver band on her ring finger caught his eyes so easily as well as the fulfilled smile on her lips, “and I wouldn’t miss this. I’m happy for you, Christine. Charlie’s a lucky man.” The sorcerer fidgets with the middle button of his suit jacket as Christine Palmer gestured for him to follow her to the small bar at the end of the hall. The former lovers settled into their respective stools and ordered their preferred drinks, an Apple Martini for the bride and a neat whiskey for the sorcerer.
“Thanks, Stephen.” She downed half of the glass in one swig, eliciting a high brow from the man beside her. “How are you these days? we saw each other last in…” Christine sipped her cocktail and recalled the past as the sorcerer cut in to complete it for her.
“2023, just after Stark’s funeral,” Stephen said with a bit of a solemn smile, thinking back to the things he left unsaid back then and now will never be able to. “I think we were talking about your days in the union?” He shifted a little to give her full attention as an etiquette, nursing a glass of the amber liquid in his hand. “By the way; calling it like that still gives me a weird vibe, like you’d been coaxing me to join a socialist government or something.” His jest met with Christine’s snort, those minute details about her still managed to squeeze his being a bit.
“I know I should’ve packed my brochure for you before this,” The bride retorted in kind, before taking another satisfying sip of her Martini. “It is called the Global Relief Union, we did so much during that catastrophe.” She trailed off a bit, reminiscing about the trying times for everybody as their loved ones were dusted following the defeat of the Avengers, still surreal when looking back at it after all this time. “Some new inventions were made. New elements were found. Revolutionary discoveries. Places I never thought I’d have a chance to go to.”
Stephen listened attentively, but his eyes occasionally glanced at where Wanda was, chattering away with some of the guests and enjoying her time away from the strict confine of the Temple.
“…and then there was this site where we…” Christine trailed off with a curious face, following the sorcerer’s sight towards an unfamiliar face of an auburn-haired woman in a distinct red dress, looking quite exotically beautiful in her European allure and timid composure. “Stephen?”
“Huh? What?”
“Friend of yours?” Christine inquired with a hint of a smirk, pointing her glass at the observed auburn in the mix of guests.
“Maybe,” Stephen replied truthfully with an uncertain smirk, “I took her to Kamar-Taj after we talked. Thought the quiet and serenity of Nepal would help her process her grief.” He let out a steeled tight-lipped smile, reverting his eyes towards Wanda again.
“Oh?” her tease died down and was replaced by worried concerns, searching the sorcerer’s passive expression for an explanation.
“She lost someone, and I thought that leaving her alone would be a cruel neglect on my part; both as a sorcerer and a human.”
“Does Kamar-Taj take in everyone who’s experiencing tragedy in their lives?” Christine pressed.
“The Temple does, but not the Sanctum.” Stephen then returned his eyes to Christine with a solemn smile, “Wanda is…special.” Christine harbored a high brow and a little smirk on her lips, which elicited a scoff from the sorcerer at the unspoken implication, which roused him to clarify “Don’t give me that look; it’s not like that.” He took another gulp of his whiskey and downed the remaining golden brew, “She’s too powerful to be left unattended. Sorcerers’ business.”
“Sure.” Christine pursed her lips playfully and nodded her head as if she were accepting his words. “Anyways; would you mind waiting here a bit? Charlie’s dying to meet you, he’s a huge fan.” The bride retreated from the bar as she inquired to him and quickly went searching for her husband-to-be after the sorcerer nodded in affirmation.
“Vodka Martini. Lemon zest.” Stephen ordered another as he turned back to the bartender, awaiting as instructed/pleaded by Christine. Soon, as he was about to take the first sip of the stronger beverage, a clicking of heels interrupted him from the side accompanied by the sweet scent of winter fruit announcing the person who was there. “Care to join me, Miss Maximoff?”
“I’m not big on drinks,” The auburn-haired Avenger replied with a mischievous smirk but ultimately took a seat beside him.
“Any preference? I can introduce you to some options that might surprise you.” Stephen harbored an encouraging smile, turning towards her partially to hold a conversation properly.
“Something refreshing and fizzy? There’s nothing but water and local wines back at the Temple.”
“Hmm…AperolSpritz for the lovely lady, please?” He ordered at the bartender with a polite tone.
“Thank you for the compliment,” Wanda said with a reserved smile, leaning her elbow on the marble countertop as she watched the bartender preparing her drink. “How are you?” she diverted her eyes to her side, looking at the inattentive sorcerer who seemed to be enjoying the upbeat notes judging from the movement of his feet. He turned his stormy-blue eyes to her.
“About what?”
“Attending her wedding, talking to her again? I imagine it shouldn’t be as easy as you made it out to be.”
“Observant, are we?”
“I dated a Synthezoid for a year or so,” Wanda lightheartedly giggled, thanking the bartender for her iced glass before returning to Strange “Looking for unexpressive emotions is quite a specialty for me there, Doctor.” She jested with him in a light tone, doing better whenever her mind reverted to Vision than years ago. She heard him sigh under his breath, witnessing a look of nostalgia crossing his angular-shaped face with a resigned tug at the corner of his mouth.
“Honestly? I still have some stupid notion left within that things were supposed to play out in my favor.” Admitted Strange with a heavy heart, a part of him was contented with the life that Christine chose for herself; away and safe from the things that follow the life of a sorcerer and the reality safeguard that he was entrusted by the Ancient One in her final moment, but another selfish voice still berating him for giving up and not utilizing the powers he’s possessing to take all that he wants. “But I’m truly happy for her, nonetheless.” His answer prompted a toast from Wanda which he reciprocated immediately, and they felt the burn of alcohol down their throats.
“You? Enjoy returning to the civilized world?” Stephen started with half of the cocktail settled on the countertop as well as Wanda’s, signaling to the bartender for another for both of them in advance. He watched the illumination of lights and the morning Sun play a tale on her joyous yet distraught face.
“I don’t miss it as much as curious about the changes after years of isolation,” Wanda replied in a thoughtful tone, tentatively sipping the fizzy alcoholic drink while doing so as she enjoyed the refreshment brought by the mixture. “I used to live a quiet life back when I was a child, not in the crux of the bustling city and surrounded by a sea of people like this,” She gestured to their surroundings and implied towards the outside world. A nostalgically sad smile graces her crimson lips, drawing a curtain of darkness over her eyes as well as emanating a pleading chill that he could sense in such proximity. “We used to lay down and watch TV all night, me and Pietro, he always whined though, because I like the sitcoms so much.” A faint sound of joyous laughs manifested through the veil of glum covering her, momentarily shining a light on the unstably powerful woman.
“Excuse me, miss?” A man approached Susan as she was in a conversation with another of her GRU friends. The conversation stopped as the fair-haired beauty turned around towards the interrupter with a quirked eyebrow, rousing him to clarify the reason.
She was dressed in a modestly elegant sapphire-blue dress with a slit running from half of her thigh down to the end of the skirt that hovered above her calves. The entirety of her back is exposed with a loop of pearls from her mother’s collection around her slender neck accentuating her sapphire-blue irises. “Yes?” Now that she has a visual on him, he appears to be one of the catering services that Christine and Charlie hired for the event.
“A complimentary drink, from a gentleman at the bar.” He handed her a flute of rosé and gestured for the mentioned area with an unfamiliar face standing there, toasting his own as a form of greeting. He got a well-kempt beard, wearing a pair of glasses, and looking around thirty—a stranger whom she did not know.
“Please give him my gratitude, then.” Susan politely accepted the offering and watched as the caterer did what was told, before ignoring the confident smirk that her admirer had on his face. Nursing the flute in her hand, Susan returned to the conversation with Francisca and Velma; two of her teammates back when she was deployed in Syria with humanitarian aides. “Any of you knew who that is?”
“Not familiar in the slightest. Francisca?” the Norwegian woman inquired her friend but only got a shake of the head as an answer. “Can’t blame him, though; you looked quite delectable in that dress, Sue, it’s a shame for these admirers that you’d already taken a boyfriend,” Velma commented with a smug, looking at the far corner where a pair that accompanied Susan Storm located. “But in all honesty, I thought that you would end up with Reed Richards or Victor Von Doom. Not that young gentleman there.”
“Why?”
“Just from the way both of them look at you whenever you attend an event with any, they are very smitten with you, and it doesn’t hurt that both are filthy rich. One even is a literal king of his country.” Velma commented.
“And don’t give me that disinterested reasoning, I knew for a fact that their brains attract you like a moth to a flame.” Francisca added, looking at the brunet man in a cheap suit, “Pardon me, I do see some qualities that might attract anyone to him, but you are not nearly as easily swayed as others by physical traits. So, what gives?”
“I thought we were reminiscing our adventurous days!” Susan complained a bit, but a smile betrayed her.
“The fact that you are sharing your boyfriend with another woman is quite adventurous in itself!” Francisca pressed on.
“I’m with her.” Velma shrugged her shoulders.
Susan harbored a joyous smile on her lips with a roll of her eyes, looking back towards Peter and Gwen to be met with the Spider vigilante greeting her with his dorky grin, feeling a spread of warmth inside her chest. “He lacks none of the intelligence compared to those men, I assure you. The only distinct is his worldview.” Thinking of all the things she knew about him before their relationship started and after with his shortcomings and heroics mixing in, she can only describe it with one word “It’s beautiful.” In a way, despite the losses and suffering, he always strived to do good for others, even if sometimes those weren’t the logical or the right choices.
Someone as powerful and smart as Peter Parker could have easily become one of the most successful tyrants, but he didn’t. The integrity of his mind and conviction are the reasons she was intrigued by him and even fell hard for him by witnessing the torturous ordeal he went through just to save her and the others from Doctor Octopus’s grasp, almost losing his very life by doing so and keep on without a second thought. The world harbored myriads of superpowered individuals, but very few resemble the true value of a hero. It saddened her a little that she could not honestly elaborate the reasoning like this outside her mind without exposing his identity, so, she resorted to one of the earliest convictions she gave herself.
“He’s essentially an unknown name in the scientific circle, for now, and that’s why I don’t have to put up with the accusing stares and doubting rumors behind my back whenever we were seen together.”
“Ah, got it.”
“Yeah. The discredits were unbearable at times.”
Peter excused himself from Gwen’s side as the sunflower-blonde made a beeline to the bar and approached Susan with his silent steps; years of patrolling the city and warehouses ingrained an instinct of sorts. He reached her side and gently placed his hand on the small of her back, surprised her a little with an adorable yelp.
“Sorry,” His apology was betrayed by a smirk on his lips, and Peter comfortably supported Susan’s body weight as she leaned into him a little, seeking the familiar inhuman warmth his body provided. “Nice to meet you, ladies. My name’s Peter.” He bowed a little at the two women in front of them, “Can I steal Sue for a bit?” he broached the question towards them, eliciting a curious look on the fair-haired beauty in his arm and the other two.
“Of course,” Francisca replied with a nod of her head at him, then turned to Susan with a smile “We’ll be at the tables if you want to continue, Sue.”
“Keep her away from Tequila, Peter.” Velma winked at him playfully and followed Francisca while Sue exclaimed cutely at the exposed secret.
“What’s that about?” Peter inquired as his hand snaked its way around to the crook of her waist, tendering the soft flesh underneath the fabric with caresses, while Susan urged him to follow her towards the soon-to-be-married couple at the center of a small dance floor gliding along one another in their loving embrace, sharing a heartwarming smile and a quietly intimate conversation.
“Believe it or not, Peter, I was once just a young woman,” Susan teased as they drew near to the couple.
“Ooh, intriguing! I would love to hear all about it.”
“You are banned from joining the table with Velma and Francisca,” Susan chided him with her eyes squinted but a smirk betraying the façade, lightly tapping his shoulder as a signal when they reached the proximity of the couple. “Christine?”
“Hmm? Oh! Susan!” The surgeon and her groom-to-be turned toward the fair-haired beauty and her beau, “You look great in this one.” Complimented her friend and then diverted her attention to the young man “I believe we didn’t have the pleasure yet, Mister…?”
“Parker, Doctor Palmer, Mister Charlie. Congratulations.” Peter shot his hand forward for Charlie to take, and the groom shook it firmly while he nodded politely at the bride. “The food is amazing, by the way. And the music!”
“Glad to hear it,” Charlie replied with a chuckle.
“Glad to finally meet you, Mister Parker; I’ve always been curious about what kind of man managed to swoon Sue Storm of all people.” Christine teased her former colleague a bit while analyzing the brunet man with keen eyes, “I’ve never heard of you before, in her usual circles, I mean, but you looked kind of familiar…”
“Maybe we ran into each other at the hospital?” The last time they met was with him fully in Spidey suit, better not risk it; Christine Palmer wasn’t that oblivious to the superhero world, she might be Stephen Strange’s preferred choice of medical practitioner for surgery involving the Avengers, but she’s not Claire Temple when it comes to vigilantes like him and the Defenders, and that dictates some limitations of exposure.
“Might be.” Christine accepted the reasoning after a moment of consideration, “Anyways, Mister Parker, can I interrogate you for a bit?”
“Um, yeah?” He shared a confused expression as Charlie does.
“What did you do now?”
“Like…professionally?” Peter inquired and met with Christine’s enthusiastic nod. “I’m an engineer at RAC.”
“A coworker?” There’s a tinge of disapproval in her tone directed at Susan.
“Yeah, I took an internship there last year.”
“Interesting,” The bride commented, still retaining her disapproval. “You must be one hell of an addition to the team, considering Reed Richards wanted to keep you around after that.” The double meaning was lost on Peter but not the fair-haired biochemist.
“Mister Richards values revolutionary thinking and ideas. Peter was just full of odd solutions.” Susan chimed in.
“Mostly because I had to improvise all the time in college; some equipment or devices are always lacking in the campus laboratory.” Peter humbly added with a sheepish grin.
“MIT?” Charlie chimed in curiously, taking interest as well.
“ESU, actually.”
“Impressive. They rarely consider students outside of Ivy League institutes.” Christine added with an increase in impression upon the two, “Based on what Julia said, anyway.”
“I’m very persuasive.” Peter joked lightheartedly at the memory of Julia hitting on him back in the day. A vibration from his phone startled him and he quickly fished it out and went rigid for a heartbeat, which Susan noticed as she was casting a curious glance at him. “I’m sorry to be impolite, but I gotta take care of something.” He informed the couple vaguely and exchanged a knowing look with Susan, it took the fair-haired lady a minute for it to dawn on her, and soon she gave his bicep a firm squeeze as affirmation. “Save a song for me, okay?” He smiled apologetically at Susan’s worried face and planted a chaste kiss on the woman’s lips before departing for the bar.
“Is everything all right?” Christine inquired.
“Urgent business, the fusion generator at RAC needs some immediate maintenance.” The biochemist offers the cover story fluidly.
“It’s still weird to know that something that dangerous is in the middle of the city,” Christine commented.
“Hey, Gwen?” Peter came up behind her and whispered to her ears as the sunflower-blonde woman was sipping her third serving of Mai-Tai.
“Hmm?” She diverted her eyes to him. “What is it, Pete?”
“Something’s happening in Harlem, I gotta go.” Gwen reluctantly nodded her head to his statement, and then his eyes landed on Doctor Strange and Wanda Maximoff, and he felt a sliver of a plan dawning on him. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, okay?”
“Be careful.” Gwen nodded along and reeled him in for a deep kiss, letting him have a little taste of her drink. Then she quirked her brows at the way he approached Doctor Strange while fishing out her phone from her clutch and promptly linking the device into the Spider-Surveillance system, just in case.
“Excuse me, sir?” Peter politely, yet urgently, acquiring attention from the sorcerer in a suit, “I need your help.”
“Who are you?” Stephen asked with uncertainty, his sharp eyes squinted quizzically at the younger man. “And with what, exactly?”
“…superhero thing?” Peter whispered with a flat smile and widened eyes, urging the sorcerer to comply with his plea. “I know you can read minds, so please be quick.” He offered to the baffled sorcerer, and it took around half a minute of hesitation before Doctor Strange cast a spell on him to establish a telepathic connection, as Wanda closely watched them. A short exchange elicited a hum from the former famous surgeon as he abruptly stood up from his seat and gestured for the younger man to follow into a more secluded area.
“Stay here, Miss Maximoff,” Stephen firmly demanded, and Wanda reluctantly gave him a nod of her head, settling down again but keeping her eyes trained on their retreating forms.
“Picture the suit, as clearly as possible,” Stephen informed the vigilante, or Peter Parker as he now can temporarily remember while gritting his teeth lightly against the constant searing sensation that his precautious mind put into place years ago. With a flick of his hand and a ring of magic symbols, Stephen replaced the formal attire with the iconic red and black skin-tight outfit with a big white spider at the center of the younger man’s torso.
“Thank you so much, Stephen,” Peter complained a little and rechecked the essential system, booting the HUD and rechecking his web-shooters for good measure. A moment after his suit finished its calibration, Peter backflipped onto the railing behind him and perched, “Now for a portal, open it to here,” With a quick search, Spider-Man provided a Google Map image of the general vicinity he got from Luke Cage. The sorcerer complied and quickly conjured up the intra-dimensional gate just below the balcony, depicting an overhead scenery of the area like looking through a hole. “Quick question; where’s the suit?”
“Wherever you stashed this one earlier,” Stephen answered with a matter-of-fact tone. “Any other questions?”
“Nope.” Simply answered, and he spun his whole body using his hand to face the direction of the portal, looking back a little at the sorcerer behind him with his lenses squinted. “Thank you again.”
“Don’t mention it, Parker.” And with that, the Spider-Man somersaulted into the tear in space-time onto the air above Harlem.
[Manhattan, New York. Mid 2028]
[East Harlem, 1138 AM, same day]
“I thought sewer-gators were just myths!?” Peter twisted and corkscrewed his way through a barrage of whipping muscled tails of a pack of alligators as soon as he managed to pull Luke Cage out from the eye of the storm. Quickly, the Spider vigilante made his way out of the cluster of reptiles and gained a reasonable distance beside a half-naked Luke Cag, aside from the torn clothes and soaked appearance, the Power Man was relatively untouched. “Or were they some kind of Harlem’s mascots?”
“We promote finesse clothes and good music around here, Spidey, not underground lizards!” Luke stood his ground and tanked a tail whip at his side, looping his massive and muscular arm around the rotund appendage to interrupt the oversized reptilian’s thrashing, pulling it with all of his might and flinging it into a nearby modern art piece made out of rebars and cement.
“Herpetologically speaking—”
“Not the time to be lecturing!” Luke concentrated his effort on the one he got by the tail and knocked it around a few more times until it lessened its aggression from disorientation and damage. “Are you gonna deal with them or not!?”
“I’m thinking of something!” Peter replied with a yell, gracefully evading another whip of the muscled tail while countering the effort with a valley of webbing to incapacitate the destructive swings, webbed it to a nearby fountain, wishing upon a star that it would hold, the fountain, not his new formula webbing. The podcasters are going to have a field day if the gator manages to— “Oh, come on!” Peter exclaimed in frustration as the juiced-up reptile thoroughly decimated the public landmark with its gigantic being and overwhelming mass.
“That was a historical site, Webhead!” Luke Cage roared as he struggled to tame the gator in his arm, all the while evading its attempts to give him toothy kisses.
“It was due for a renovation, right?!” Spider-Man uses the force behind the powerful muscle of the tail to launch himself in an upward trajectory, twisting his body midair and unloading his right cartridge of webbing down onto the gator from its peculiarly long neck to the beginning of its massive tail, following the buzz from his Spider-Sense he managed to coil his upper torso and shot a line of webbing at the nearby tree to soften his fall. The gator still managed to swipe its tail side to side trying to find a purchase on its opposition and the source of the restraint. Peter waited for an opportune moment before launching a valley of webbings when the tail came close to a thick trunk of a tree nearby.
“They did it two months ago!” Luke struggled against the mass of muscle fueled by the pure instinct of the reptile, “A little help here?” His peripheral vision caught sight of the red vigilante leaping up in the air to find a perfect angle and deliver a barrage of webbing just like the other one. The gator still wants to retaliate after the majority of its rotund body is covered in a thick layer of the quick-dry chemical substance. “Damnit.” Luke Cage groaned after having a break to inspect his condition; his impenetrable skin was still intact with some visible bruises starting to manifest themselves at a rapid rate, and the tattered rag that was once a tailored mustard shirt; a very trademark palette of the local vigilante. “Thanks for coming, Spidey,”
“Don’t mention it, Mister Cage,” Peter replied with a tight smile under the layer of his mask and looked over to the two giant reptiles enveloped cozily in a mess of webbing with curiosity at its peak. “…do they really look like alligators to you?” Now that their mobility had been limited, Peter urged Luke Cage to take a look alongside him at the peculiar appearance these supposed sewer gators got. The Harlem protector crouched down a little, taking a closer look at the giant creature.
“I went on a gator hunt once or twice with my cousin in Florida, their necks and legs are too long.” The bald man concluded after a while of intensive inspection. “You see these bumps? And the eyes?” Luke pointed at each of the features that differentiate the subspecies from one another generally, “and the teeth formation?” Spider-Man nodded along as he closely inspected the reptile at a safe distance, fully confident in that sense of his. “Definitely a gator, but something’s not right…” His eyes caught the digits of the webbed paw and his curious expression turned surprised, “Look at this; it looks like a monkey’s hand or…”
“Humans…” Peter zoomed in with his lenses and used the integrated computer in his suit to cross-reference the imagery with the structure of a human’s hand skeletal, finding it to be around 97% match. “What the…” but when he was about to take a closer look, a distinct siren blared from behind as a duo of CRUD patrol cars pulled over and spilled out eight agents in their advanced OSCORP armor and weaponry, moving in tandem as they were well-trained in conducting military tactics. The first one who approached them removed his helmet to reveal a Black man underneath with a bushy goatee and a charming smile.
“This site is now under the control of OSCORP Security, Spider-Man, Cage,” He then signaled for his team to spread out and establish a territory, “We would have to ask both of you to clear out.”
“What are you going to do with them?” Peter inquired at the CRUD unit leader after Luke Cage started to head in the opposite direction from the scene, prompting the Harlem vigilante to pause in his steps, looking back at the exchange with attentive eyes.
“Why? What’s it to you?” The armor offers some benefits for convenience, and he hung the helmet off his chest with the built-in magnetic hook, his eyes squinted at the red mask with a webbing pattern in front of him; the vigilante was thinner and shorter than he was by three or four inches, but the footage and eyewitnesses of what the smaller man can do to a criminal twice his size gave him a slight of reverence towards him. “OSCORP Security was appointed to deal with these types of situations around the city, Spider-Man, I have my orders to get here and contain the site, but I don’t have anything to tell you further than that.”
“…The webs will dissolve in half an hour; I would put them in confinement before that if I were you.” Peter decided to drop it and waved at the CRUD agents before following Luke Cage with a heavy mind.
“Appreciate it.” The leader replied loudly with a nod of his head and returned to his task afterward. Spider-Man still half-turned toward the scene as he wanted to observe the agents in action. He saw them take out a container of contraptions from behind one of the armored vehicles produce a tranquilizer gun and quickly drug the two alligators.
“I take it you are not satisfied with this?” Luke Cage started after he was done changing his outfit in Malcolm’s boutique; the owner had stated that he’d always get a discount, so Luke decided to collect on that front with a simple yellow shirt and a pair of sweatpants. It had been almost five minutes now after they left the site of the fight, and Spider-Man insisted on staying rather than going anywhere else.
“Where were they from?”
“The gators?”
“Yeah.”
“Hmm…I ran into them about two blocks to the North and got carried here inside one of their maws.” The bald invincible elaborated as both strides along the path leading to a club that he wanted to attend before the gators appeared. “You can trace their trails back to the source, I guess? It’s not like they are small or anything.”
“Not coming with, Mister Cage?”
“Nah, kid. I have something else to do than play detectives with you. Besides, they’d already been taken care of.” The Harlem vigilante shrugged his broad shoulders nonchalantly. “I mean, those men were paid to do their jobs, I say let them do it.”
“You’re no fun! This might be an opportunity for us to bond as a team, you know?” Peter groaned playfully as he noticed the waving hand of a little boy at his side, getting his attention.
“I’ll pass,” Luke chuckled and continued walking as Spider-Man stopped by a stall with his bootleg plushies some of the fans “Unless you wanna pay me my usual rate?” Spider-Man’s shoulders slumped a little dramatically with his lenses squinted as some of the kids giggled around trying to climb his legs like they were seeing a theme park mascot.
“How does a plate of Wheatcake sound?”
“I only take cash,” Luke cackled lightheartedly and waved his hand as a goodbye for the red vigilante without looking back, “There’s a giant hole where the gators burst out from, you can’t miss it.”
“Thanks!”
[Manhattan, New York. Mid 2028]
[The Mercier Hotel, 1211 PM, same day]
“Giant alligators?” Gwen inquired with disbelief and a sense of bewilderment. The gentle warm breeze of Bleecker Street caresses her exposed shoulder as she stands on the balcony, considerate of the nature of Peter’s call.
“Yep, they are about twenty-five feet long from snouts to the end of their tails.” His voice ranged through the linked communication channels between them. “But they look weird, though.” There’s a faint ‘thwip’ sound from his end and a ‘pop’ of something being pulled off its place.
“Aside from their unnatural sizes?”
“Yeah. Their necks are longer and their…fingers? Kinda resembled human fingers.”
Gwen was taken aback by that information a bit; indeed, they are not experts on reptilians, but someone like Peter shouldn’t mistake a detail like that. “You sure about that?”
“They can easily be employed as hand models,” Peter affirmed with a lilt of sarcasm and Gwen heard a deafening ‘clink’ like some kind of lid being put over an opening, “Anyways, I gotta look into this, just…wanna call to let you and Sue know in advance that I might not be back at the wedding anytime soon.”
“Where are you right now?” Gwen sighed heavily, torn between disappointment and understanding.
“Umm…just un--- the W 132nd, and the signals k--nda…w---ky al---dy.” His words came between statics and interferences, but she managed to deduce the meaning just fine. “Som---ing has been --ne to th-m, I need -- know -hy.”
“What? Pete, you are breaking up!” Gwen exclaimed as she waited for a response, but none came, “Pete?” Looking at the screen shows that the call was cut due to signal loss, eliciting a frustrated groan out of her. “Powerful satellite, my ass!” The sunflower-blonde petite looked up at the sky and scolded the advertised OSCORP communication network. “Now, he did say something about W 132nd…” Gwen mumbled to herself while using the limited options that she had without access to his laptop to find the general location and points of interest nearby, anything to indicate the scale of the matter and what he’ll be walking, or crawling, into on his end. “A Zion church, two hospitals, and a park nearby…what’s the connection?”
“Gwen?” Susan’s inquisitive voice brought her out of the whirlpool of thoughts and spun her around to be met with the biochemist’s curious face. “They’re going to take a vow now, when will Peter be back?” With a resigned shake of Gwen’s head, Susan let out a frustrated sigh. “This is not going to be a positive image for him,” Then she urged Gwen to follow her back inside with a bit of protest from the younger and smaller blonde. “What is he up to this time?”
“Sewer gators. Giant, sewer gators.” Gwen flatly delivered with a little exaggeration, eliciting a scoff from the older woman.
“Typical Tuesday, then?” Both are seated among Susan’s old colleagues and friends, while Howard is currently exchanging a lively conversation with another guest, and Wanda Maximoff is to their rights with a vacant seat, all awaiting the arrival of the bride for the start of the ceremony. “Fill me in?”
“Pete said that the gators looked weirder and gigantic, and they have human hands.” The sunflower-blonde geneticist whispered between the crook of Susan’s neck, breathing warm breaths over the perfumed porcelain skin, “He tracked them down under the W 132nd streets, and the signal was cut.”
“What’s your take on this?” Susan inquired similarly, enjoying a whiff of the younger blonde’s fragrance.
“Illegal gene-splicing experiment? You have to be in employment to a recognized firm or company, document everything, and present them to the committee regularly with this kind of conduct, then you will be monitored and inspected monthly at the very least by the officials.” Gwen elaborated on what she knows according to her educational and professional backgrounds. “Most of the time, their signature will be all over the test subject due to the personality of each mutagenic agent that the experimenter used in the process. So, it’s easier for the investigators in the case of an incident like this.”
“Hmm…we might continue this conversation at the lab after this; Peter’s suit packed a decent number of baubles, but none efficient enough to do field analysis of this caliber,” Susan concluded, as well as the door swung slowly to let the bride enter the small chapel.
“I wish we could haul all the equipment back to your apartment, I miss the bed when waiting for the results.” Both of them stood from their seat and turned towards Doctor Christine Palmer, who was holding onto the arm of Stephen Strange acting as her guardian and escorting the bride to the altar. The Sorcerer then claimed the vacant spot beside Wanda Maximoff with an uncertain smile on his face.
“Smile, Strange. For her.” Wanda whispered to him encouragingly amid the resounding echoes of the pipe organ, nudging his elbow lightly with hers, eliciting a short scoff from him but that smile turned sincere, nonetheless.
“Excuse me, Doctor Storm?” Stephen approached the stunning blonde, “Would you and your companion mind having a short conversation with me and Wanda here?” he gestured towards the beautiful auburn beside him. “It concerns Spider-Man.”
“Huh?” Susan was taken aback while Gwen was more understanding of the connection between Strange and their boyfriend. “Pardon me, Mister Strange, but I don’t quite understand.”
“He knows about us, Sue, it’s okay.” Then the sunflower-blonde petite woman turned back towards the two Avengers with an inquisitive gesture.
“You might not know this, but due to my position, I cannot offer any more help than I already have. Yet, I’d like you to keep in mind that the New York Sanctum operates outside of the Sokovia Accords as far as the property vicinity is concerned. Miss Maximoff and I will be spending the rest of the day there if Peter ever needs any help outside of public assistance.” Stephen firmly stated.
“Who’s Peter?” Wanda inquired whispery at the taller man.
‘Ah, the infamous Oblivion Curse strikes again,’ Gwen mused, contemplating between whether to tell the auburn-haired woman about her boyfriend's identity or not, but Doctor Strange had beaten her to it.
“Peter Parker, Spider-Man. You will forget his name again after an hour from this exact recollection, anyways.” Strange’s words acted as a reassurance towards Wanda and Susan Storm, as the blonde harbored a horrified expression about the exposé of Peter’s secret identity.
“Again? I never knew his name before you told me just now.” Wanda was bewildered about it, curiosity piqued in her mind.
“You were, back before November 2024.” Stephen clarified.
“What?” Susan was baffled but felt a firm grip on her arm by the petite blonde beside her.
“I’ll explain, later.” Then she turned towards the Sorcerer, “Thank you for your help, Mister Strange,”
Stephen then nodded his head firmly and quickly conjured up a portal to the hall of his sanctum before stepping in with Wanda Maximoff in tow. “Shall we?” Gwen inquired without looking at Susan, watching the tear of space-time gradually closing itself as if nothing’s happened; imagine living in this kind of world that challenges almost everything you believe in human biology and also as a scientist, headache-inducing at the very least. Even with now possessing powers of her own, Gwen is still perplexed about joining in following Peter’s suggestion, or even his offer to train her in ‘The Way of the Spider’-a fighting style that he developed with Daniel Rand and Daredevil-like he’s Jackie Chan and she’s Jaden Smith in Karate Kid.
Truth be told, she even dreads the web swing around the city in the high-speed pendulum of death that he’s excited about so much; the shock from G-force alone was scary enough. He did tell her about some special benefits that the Spider powers gifted him to deal with that, though.
Her dad would be so LIVID if she ever donned anything resembling Peter’s costume; The police attitude towards vigilantes, in general, has been quite positive since the Siege but the city still considered them to be criminals on papers, despite the collaboration being done now and then. Luke Cage decided to turn it into a business with his ‘Heroes for Hire’ schtick just to get around regulations set by Mayor Harris, even Johnny Storm became a firefighter recently to utilize his powers without the need to constantly avoid authorities.
It would be even harder on her father if he had to deal with his daughter swinging around in addition to her boyfriend, right? It’s not like she has to amass the roster of Manhattan’s already crowded superpowered do-gooders circle anyway.
This week’s family dinner is going to be fun.
[Manhattan, New York. Mid-2028]
[Sewers, 0142 PM, same day]
“Yep, definitely burning it,” Peter groaned into the cozy embrace of the underground humid environs enveloped by running sewage water and small vermin, looking down at the state of his dirtied and soiled Spider-Man Mk-IV suit; the red parts are dulled and darkened, while the blacks glisten with grimes and whatever that came down here from the city above. “Detergent won’t cut it,” he moaned hopelessly after another visual inspection. The smell didn’t bother him much; the trick was to inhale one gulp of air deeply, let it settle and your brain adjusted, and they wouldn’t be so intrusive and irritating anymore, like how one of the city maintenance workers told him once. “Should add some kind of filter mask into the next one, just in case.” He mumbled to himself as he kept on navigating the tubular corridor leading further into Upper Manhattan if he remembered the taken direction correctly. The tracks of the alligators were so clear that he didn’t have to seriously inspect the area due to their mass and sizes, tracing it cautiously in consideration of more similar specimens lurking down here.
The hardest part of dealing with them earlier was not the strength required nor the cunning of the reptiles, but the effort it took to subdue his own aggression and passing thoughts just to kill them off, and he knew well that it would be so easy to just indulge in the instinct; whatever this is, it starts to gain a stronger hold on him whenever he loses concentration in a fight, like a wolf lying in the bushes waiting for its prey.
“I have a stable job now, and maybe… Nah, too soon…maybe?” He talked to himself as his lenses scanned the environment and found many mixtures of chemicals and organics lining the slimy walls and ceilings. “Needa give it a bit more time…let it play out a little, I guess?” Distracted, he didn’t hear a shifting sound from above, “Yeah…that sounds good.” He nodded to himself before the Spider-Sense screamed at the back of his head, causing him to duck at the last possible moment to evade a swipe of elongated claws the size of a human’s thumb, cutting through the spot where his neck was instance ago.
Following the momentum of his movement, Peter shot a line of webbing at the ceiling as his Spider-Sense blared once again and swung a short distance away from the thing that managed to almost get a drop on him. Water splattered everywhere as the mass of reptilian muscles landed in it into a pouncing crouch, claws spread, jaw snapped opened, and bearing rows of hook fangs in its gaping maw. The bipedal height it displays now could easily dwarf-ed The Hulk Buster by a couple of inches, limbs filled with flexing muscles underneath scream a warning cry of its tremendous strength. In a way, it kinda looked like Curt Connors back from the Liberty Isle battle, except for the longer snout and devoid of intelligence the Lizard-man possesses; this one seems to be completely feral and instinctual, an animal turned hybrid rather than the opposite.
“Just to be sure; you are not Doctor Connors, right?” Peter inquired while shooting a couple of webbing glops aimed at the head and both of its spreading claws, wanting to immobilize it. The hybrid reptile screeches angrily at the sticky substance expanding and covering half of its face, trying to claw it away with great difficulty. “Yeah, good luck with…that…?” his taunt died down slowly as his lenses squinted at the dissolving webbing around the mouth of the giant bipedal reptile. “Corrosive saliva? Really?!” Peter continues with his webbing, utilizing varieties of web-combination to immobilize and restrain the creature, the HUD shows the depletion rate of both Web-Shooters' capacity of web fluids, leaving a modern art statue of a webbed supposed-to-be alligator of NYC sewers.
“The composition is lackluster, but I bet a good flash could make this work.” He mumbled to himself while mimicking the framing of a picture with his hands, “As far as I’m aware, Alligators don’t salivate that much.” He commented and watched the hybrid struggle. “But you don’t look like an alligator; how many species of reptilians were dumped down here?” Peter initiated a bio-scanner of his suit on the struggling hybrid, analyzing it slowly due to the bad connection with his piggybacked RAC satellites network. Visually, the head is blocky and rectangular, wider at the base of the skull and narrowing towards the snout, with beady eyes reflecting the dim lights in the sewer that gave off an eerily image. The ribcage resembled none of the primate’s characteristics and the narrowed hip with distinct formation of the skeletal structure indicated its reptilian origin than that of homo sapiens. Its muscle mass expanded tremendously in compensation to the newly adapted upright position, the legs thickened with powerful muscles and wider feet. The hunching elevated its upper torso and the arms, but the hands still reached just above the knees.
There are several marks of cuts and fangs all over the creature, as well.
“Great, there’s more of them.” Peter whined exaggeratedly, “Hope you guys are not a pack hunter.” He finished with a fake cheery voice and shot another glop of webbing to weld the creature’s maw shut.
Peter continued his investigation with a new attitude, cautious about a similar ambush or ambushes like earlier from the rest of the hybrids taking residences down here, and deployed the armguards just in case; since he got it, he’d been tinkering with the gauntlets to fine-tuned them and came up with a new combination for the nano-bots to form a set of metallic claws, better for rescuing stuck civilians in vehicles and more suited to his fighting style preference. After about half an hour of trekking through a knee-deep sludge of sewage, Peter leaped onto the ceiling and started crawling his way deeper and deeper still into the undercity maze.
Not long after, he happened upon a large open space where the pipes converged into a whirlpool at the center of the room in a Charybdis of wastes and other unpleasant liquids, the smell beat everything he’d ever smelled before, and it almost made him slip off the surface. Closer inspection tells a somewhat incomplete story judging from the small colony of hybrid lizards around the edges; their sizes ranged from a child to the one he faced before, with an addition of some similar giant alligators wading in the pool, with a beam of light as its sole illumine and also indicates an exit grate above. None of them seems to notice his presence inside their lair, and it would be better to keep it that way.
Fighting the urge to revere in disgust, Peter touches the black ridge of his right lens and initiates a photo mode, taking some pictures of the colony of hybrid lizards below to keep as evidence and zip up to the ceiling grate at the center, descending himself in his trademark upside-down hanging position, he stops just a couple of feet downward and looking around the open space in deep thought.
‘How did they become hybrids?’ His lenses scanned each of the pipes carefully, but the filthy mixtures of each masked any kind of contaminant to be identified without sample analysis, then his eyes caught a scattering of carcasses around the edge of the pool, and a solution came to his mind. He aimed his Web-Shooter carefully at one of the dead lizards and adjusted the feeding current of his spinneret before shooting a straight line that landed on the carcass and pulled. The contaminated carcass of what seems to be a domesticated iguana flung towards Spider-Man following his strength and then was covered in a cocoon of webbing for later inspection at the lab, slung the dead iguana across his back with a makeshift sling, then crawled his way upwards to the grating with some of the washed down trash from the street above. Peter pushed the grate up to ascend through the shaft and closed the opening again before pushing the metal lid above.
“See ya, Josh!” Peter waved to the manager of a car wash station while walking away after a deep-cleaning session of his suit and himself, soaked still but cleaner than when he emerged from the city’s underworld. The dead iguana pressed tightly into his back as he swung back towards the Baxtor building in the distance, looking around to the streets below and spied some patrol units of NYPD and CRUD roaming the city and alleyways, apprehending criminals left and right with non-lethal weaponry and advanced technologies. Jameson predicted that in about a year, the crime rate would drop to around 5% with consistent collaboration work, essentially making Norman Osborn’s popularity rise through the roof, and Mayor Harris might be expected to win another election.
“Maybe Mister Osborn will run for the office next time, who knows?” Peter mumbled to himself while his body was cutting through the air in a downward trajectory, and then shooting a line of webbing into a building at his right to execute a pendulum turn. About halfway there, he contacted Captain Tim Drake as the lair was in the triplet’s dad-cop’s region, with a collection of pictures that he took as an anonymous tip. “Be careful, Timmy, those lizards are dangerous.”
“We can’t use these to convince the higher-ups without giving ourselves out.” The police captain replied, “But I’ll think of something. Thanks a bunch, Spidey!” Captain Drake ended the call after Peter acknowledged it. Peter called Susan next.
“Peter?” There’s a sense of relief in her voice, which elicits a smile from him. “Are you well? Where are you now?” He turned at another tight angle and shot himself up into the air before answering.
“I’m okay, Sue, getting back to the Baxtor now; there’s a biosample I wanted to check.” Peter corkscrewed himself to gain more momentum and swung again after he had reached terminal velocity, feeling the pull of gravity and the clashing of air pressure. “How’s the wedding?” Released the line, he shot himself like a bullet in an arch and executed some acrobatic moves for the cheering crowd on the nearby rooftops.
“No one objected to the union, obviously,” Susan chuckled, “but it got quite dull without a dancing partner.” Her tone harbored a lilt of disappointment.
“Don’t pout,” He teased, “I’ll make it up to you.” Peter landed feet first into the side of a building and continued his trajectory with a short sprint before jumping off into another swing. “Where’s Gwen?”
“You’re on speaker,” Susan replied before a ‘beep’ was heard.
“Wassup, Squirt?” The tease in her tone elicited a chuckle out of him.
“The scenery was breathtaking down there, Short-Stack. Wish you’d tagged along. Would’ve been one hell of a field training.” Peter retorted playfully, twisting his body at the peak and swinging using another line of webbing. “Got a gift for you, it’s so cute!”
“Yeah? What is it?”
“Dead iguana. In dire need of dissection.” He landed twin lines of webbing to zip himself forward to cover the vast distance and the last stretch before reaching the took-over old Avengers tower. “And I might need a level-4 disinfection and cleaning.”
“You are officially banned from the apartment; I heard Central Park is lovely this time of year.” Gwen delivered it so seriously.
“I second that.” Susan chimed in, sharing a laugh with the other blonde.
[Manhattan, New York. Mid-2028]
[Roosevelt Island, 0314 PM, same day]
Logan pulled up in front of a marble mansion with decorative statues from the Victorian era, and an exquisite set of fountains at the center of the circle, he shifted the gear to park and sat silently for a minute, inhaling the iron tinge mixing into the A/C from Johnson’s and the driver’s corpses in the backseat, each got a set of three stab wounds on their chest and neck, respectively. His knuckles were smeared with crimson liquid and recently healed open wounds.
The Wolverine shut off the engine, breaking the key inside its slot, and got out of the car. He crouched down near the front tire on the right side and cut open the fuel tube with his adamantium talons, spilling the oil onto the pavement before getting up to light a cigar, nursing the smooth taste in his lungs waiting for the fuel to spread. “Sayonara, Mister Johnson.” Logan smirked a little as he dislodged the lit cigar from between his teeth and tossed it into the fuming pool of fuel, erupting a small fire that spread quickly following the source of the flammable liquidized gas. Watching the car burn for a little while, Logan then started walking towards the door of the mansion and taking off his coat to rack it on a nearby replica of the David, his stubble had already come back, and it was kinda itching his face and jaw. Underneath he wore the old yellow-dark blue sleeveless compression shirt he got from Xavier’s Institute back when it was first established in the 1980s, only himself and Hank McCoy still holding on to this style while the students and most of the staff members had already changed into the new collection since 2010s; Kitty and Anna-Marie always poking fun at him about it, even Ororo joined in on the teasing from time to time.
“Thought yourself so clever hiding on an island, huh?” Logan cackled to himself and inhaled a big gulp of air as a precaution, before kicking down the door with his enhanced strength and indestructible skeleton, sending the intricately carved white maple plank to fly across the hall into the grand piano at the center. “Essex!” Logan yelled at the top of his lungs to the two-story interior, echoing his coarse tone around like a banshee screech. “Raven!” he shouted Mystique’s name out next, eyes frantically scanning his surroundings while his nose inhaled and exhaled rapidly for a whiff of familiar scents. “Come on out!”
“Dear lord, hadn’t your parents taught you manners, Wolverine?!” A pale visage of a British man descends with his hands covering his ears and a look of displeased on his face, “I imagine a Canadian born in the 1850s should be reared with enough social etiquettes and politeness of a civilized world.” Nathaniel Essex, dressed in a grey shirt and crimson necktie then topped with a dark vest and jet-black jacket, stopped at the intersection of the stairways from the upper floor, one hand secured casually in his trousers’ pocket, and another picked a pocket watch to read the time. “You lots were friendly with the French, after all.”
Logan stood in place, flexing his arms while his ears and nose were ready to detect even a whiff of something similar to the clone ambusher back in the bloody lab under the Pinebank Arch. His talons coiled inside his forearms, ready to be sprung at the moment’s notice.
“Mind telling me the intention of this visit? Or were you inclined to suspect that I might have recently developed clairvoyance?” Nathaniel Essex snapped his fingers and half a dozen clones of himself appeared on the balcony with shotguns in his hands, cocked and ready to fire. “Apologies for the spectacle, but you did kick down my front door.” The Victorian Man gestured for the ferocious mutant to take a seat nearby, a request which got objected. “Suit yourself,” Then he signaled another one of the clones to bring a chair. “Now, I believe you’ve got something to ask of me, Mister Montgomery?” A smirk plastered on the pale lips as he sat garishly on the cushion chair that acted like a small throne.
“A pretty little thing named Anne, If I remember right?” A sultry and smooth voice came from the upper floor, fiery red hair contrasting the light blue skin and amber eyes, clutching her athletic and voluptuous body inside a skintight white leotard, revealing just enough amount of skin to entice and intrigue. “I appreciate the effort to get my attention, Logan, but it seemed a bit arrogant of you to do such a blatant thing, wouldn’t you say, honey?” Mystique purred playfully at the increasingly grumpy Logan. “How’s Scott nowadays? Getting back with Red yet? Or had she finally opened her legs for you this time?” a growl sounded from the Wolverine’s thick throat, delighting the blue-skinned shape-shifter with his frustration. “You know, I remember the first time we slept together all those years ago. Everybody has a type, I guess.” She raked her fingers through her red mane elaborately.
“What are you doing here this time, Raven?” Logan gritted it out, eyes focusing on the shape-shifter while his peripheral and hearing were still accounting for the armed clones.
“I have my reasons, as always. It’s none of your business, though.” She descended the stairs in sauntering steps and enticing sways of her shapely hip, stopped just a shine out of his reach, and turned towards him a little, “How’s Anna-Marie?” There’s a hint of curiosity and care in that perfect poker face and pupil-less eyes that can somehow show emotions; he can still recall the glint that plays on them under the moonlight.
“Better than when she was with you, that’s certain,” Logan grunted out, clenching his fists so tight it threatened to crumble. At the end of his peripheral, Logan catches a tug of her full lips at the corner, resembling a display of a bitter smile. A moment later she sauntered her way out of the building with another brief stop at the entrance, surely admiring the marble statues.
“I know everyone praises the David, Mister Essex, but this statue of Romulus Augustulus has incredible details!” Her tone sounded chirpy, but the almost unnoticeable emphasis while mentioning the obscure art piece tickles his brain; especially the first name of that person. “Crass as always, Logan.” Mystique commented with a tut in her scolding, “You just have to burn all of them down, haven’t you?”
“I hate cars, what can I say?” He shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly and unapologetically.
“Savagery at its finest.” She chided still and continued walking away from the mansion and the perimeter of his immediate senses. “Until Destiny deemed it again, James.” Her parting word harbored a nostalgic tone to it; reminded him of old times.
“Looks like she was not a connoisseur as she claimed to be,” Nathaniel Essex commented after the sound of a personal carrier helicopter whirled away from the mansion’s helipad. “I hope you weren’t going to stay for dinner. Number Five needs some time to prepare them and I don’t think you have the patience to wait.” Essex descends the stairs with a revolver firmly pointing at him, aiming at his head. “Your regenerative immortality was very famous, Wolverine, but as like the other mutations possessed by you lots; there are weaknesses to be exploited.” A shot rang out accompanied by a loud explosion of gas and a squelching sound of a metallic projectile piercing through flesh. Logan roared in pain as the bullet lodged into his right shoulder, but what perplexed him was the sudden vertigo that bombarded his senses immediately; normally it would’ve taken about a full magazine of lead to introduce just a pint of dizziness from the shock and toxication.
“Effective enough, I would say,” Essex pursed his lips proudly before continuing on his graceful retreat from the mansion following Mystique’s example. “Special and very rare minerals on this planet yield different results for certain types of the X-gene mutations; Mister Lehnsherr’s helmet, for example, and now just a trace amount of Carbonadium in your vascular system was enough to show results, fascinating.” A couple more of the treacherous metal has been fired into him in the back by the Victorian Man, rendering Logan in great pain and nauseating. “I’m afraid we must part ways, Wolverine; always a pleasure to see an old friend.” Another and last round lodged into his thigh as a parting gift. “Number Four, please proceed with the test run ALPHA.”
“Of course, Mister Essex.” The mentioned clone acknowledged and pulled a lever of some kind, opening up a floor under the grand piano to produce a glassy tank containing an alien specimen of light-green skin and ridged chin, pointy ears, and arms made out of rocks; similar to what he had seen on Ben Grimm before the supposed ‘cure’.
“It was my most creative invention yet, Wolverine! Have fun!”
A moment after another whirr of a helicopter engine went away, the tank opened with a hiss as Logan felt his body and muscles manage to force the foreign metals out and slowly close the wounds. The clones changed their aims and hurled a storm of buckshot at the recently awakened alien as a way to provoke it. The alien retaliated aggressively by shooting a torrent of flame out of its hand and burning half of the armed clones into cinders, effectively starting a fire to the whole mansion in the process.
Logan gritted through the dizziness and stood with his arms spread at the sides, talons sprung out of his hands, and roared like a blood-crazed animal before charging the green alien with a combination of powers, and he landed deep gashes into the mutated alien's back with the indestructible blades coating his bones. A punch came into his side with the rocky surface of Ben Grimm’s mutation and a surge of energy flung him across the hall into a bookshelf. His shirt was singed and the smell of burning flesh overwhelmed his nostrils, Logan spit out a glob of blood from the impact to his internal organs and gritted through his pain once again; it’s all he knows how to do best.
“Punch like a pussy is all ya can do?” The Wolverine growled out his taunt with spittle of blood and a newfound surge of rage; the level that he hadn’t felt for years. “Come on!” Logan roared again and charged with quick reflexes to avoid jets of flame trying to burn him again, wanting to find a way to kill something like this; as far as he knew, it might as well have some kind of healing factor depending on its purposes.
The stone skin bears no chance against his adamantium blades, but the added strength behind its blows is something to keep in mind.
The Pyrokinesis must be the most frustrating thing about this fight, as although he can heal back from the damage in mere seconds, being burned alive is no entertaining thing, and it is still a disadvantage.
Logan side-stepped to gain an opening, but a rush of elongated limb caught him by surprise with a knockout hook dead into his spleen, bringing him down to his knees after he’d been flung into the hardwood staircase. Another stretched punch landed on the side of his head, and although his dense skeleton retaliated, the squishy meat inside his skull was still getting rocked around, inducing a concussion.
Logan gained a chance as he timed a counter-attack to another straight punch with his talons, piercing through the hardened surface and cutting through the bones inside before twisting it forcefully to elicit a wail of pain from the aggressor. He quickly delivered another cut at the wrist with his other hand, and dark greenish blood spurted around accompanied by the alien’s tormenting scream. The alien instinctively retracted its injured limb back into itself as Logan plunged both of his talons into the flesh and flew into the proximity of the mutated abomination. The Wolverine delivered a collection of fatal stabs through the alien’s torso and sides in a primal frenzy, solely focused on killing his opponent at any cost, even if he still felt the intense heat encasing him and cooking his metallic skeleton up from the inside.
“Die! You motherfucker, di—” His voice was cut due to the sudden burst of fire from the alien’s body, engulfing the whole being of itself and the Wolverine in a blinding explosion of flame.