Aldrich Killian was unraveling.
His broken arm throbbed with pain, his plan was collapsing, and still, his pride wouldn't let him shut up.
"You sure you don't want to reconsider?" Luke asked. "This is your last chance."
He raised an eyebrow, his expression softening into something almost playful.
Just now, a mechanical chime echoed pleasantly in his mind.
[Ding! Aldrich Killian has insulted the host. His security safe, unwilling to associate with such rudeness, has reset itself to factory default. New password: 12345678.]
Luke's mood lifted instantly. This timing was too perfect.
Killian had designed a top-tier, dead-man's switch-style safe. Three wrong guesses and the whole thing would have incinerated its contents. Even Wanda's Chaos Magic couldn't disarm it, her control over her powers was still too primitive, like wielding a paintbrush as if it was a hammer.
But now? The safe itself had turned against its master.
What a helpful little guy, Luke thought with a grin.
Killian, still restrained midair by Wanda's scarlet tendrils, was sneering.
"You're going to regret this," he spat. "You think I haven't planned for this moment? You think I don't know how this ends?"
Luke walked to the safe without saying a word.
He crouched down, casually brushing off dust from the keypad, and began typing.
Killian's brows furrowed, then squinted.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four...
"What the hell are you doing?" he barked.
Luke kept going.
Five. Six. Seven. Eight.
"Are you guessing?!" Killian's voice cracked. "That's not the password! Do you have any idea what happens if you guess wrong?!"
"I do," Luke said calmly, his fingertip hovering above the "enter" key.
"You'll destroy everything!" Killian thrashed against the red energy holding him in the air. "You idiot, that is years of research! Three samples! You can't!"
Beep~.
Green light.
Click~.
And the safe unlocked itself.
Killian froze in place.
His jaw dropped.
For a full second, no one moved. Even Wanda blinked in surprise.
"That's impossible…" Killian whispered. "That's impossible. That's not the password.."
Luke gently opened the safe door, as if he had done it a hundred times before.
Inside, resting neatly in a foam-lined tray, were three small glass vials. Each held a faintly glowing, translucent blue fluid, smooth, luminous, and subtly shifting like liquid mercury.
Extremis.
Even in the dim light, the vials pulsed with potential, unstable, unfinished, but powerful nonetheless.
Luke leaned closer, eyes gleaming. "So this is what all the fuss was about."
He reached in.
Tap~.
A sound.
Faint. Soft. Barely audible, but it came from the far end of the warehouse.
All three of them turned at once.
Footsteps.
Unsteady. Sluggish. But gradually getting closer.
Luke frowned and stood. Wanda tilted her head, fingers still glowing red. Sharon raised a cautious brow, her hand already drifting toward the hammer strapped across her back.
Then a figure stepped into the doorway.
He was staggering, rifle clutched limply in both hands. His skin glistened with sweat, white foam crusting the corners of his mouth. His eyes were glazed and unfocused.
"Seven?" Maya whispered from the floor, stunned.
The bald-headed bodyguard groaned low in his throat, struggling to stay upright. His skin twitched, muscles spasming now and then from residual shock.
He shouldn't be conscious, Luke thought. Because even if she held back not to kill them, Sharon's lightning was no joke.
And yet here he was, wobbling, but standing. And holding a gun.
Killian saw him, and his entire face lit up like a madman's.
"YES!" he shouted. "SEVEN, SHOOT! KILL THEM!"
Luke turned slightly, body tensing.
Wanda's energy flickered as she shifted her grip, instinctively readying for defense.
"SHOOT NOW!" Killian screamed. "I DON'T CARE WHO! JUST SHOOT!!!"
Seven blinked, as if the words were fighting through a fog. His hands trembled violently, but he raised the rifle.
He looked through the sights.
A red glow lit up Wanda's silhouette.
"Crap," Luke muttered, stepping in front of the safe.
Sharon's grip tightened on the handle of her hammer.
"Now," Killian hissed, eyes wide. "NOW!"
Then suddenly, Wanda's grip on Killian faltered.
Her focus split for just a second, enough to let him fall from midair. He hit the ground hard, groaning, but ignored the pain.
All he cared about was watching.
He wanted to see his enemies fall.
But something blurred past his field of vision.
It moved so fast, it left a streak of blue-white light in the air.
Was that?
BOOM~.
A crash of thunder exploded through the warehouse as the hammer slammed into Seven's chest like a missile.
The rifle shattered instantly. Seven didn't even have time to scream before he was hurled backward into the night like a ragdoll, limbs flailing. His body disappeared into the darkness, crashing somewhere far beyond sight.
The thunderclap echoed for several seconds.
Killian gawked, breath caught in his throat.
Silence.
Then…
Whoosh~.
The hammer spun back, arcing through the air like a boomerang. Lightning trailed behind it.
Sharon caught it one-handed.
Not a scratch on her.
The glow on her skin flickered and calmed. Her hair, windswept from the static, fell neatly back into place.
She turned to Luke with a shrug. "Sorry. My hand slipped."
Luke exhaled slowly. "No complaints here."
Killian stared at her.
His mind refused to process what had just happened.
The quiet one, the woman who had barely spoken a sentence, had moved faster than he could track. And her weapon had just obliterated his last hope.
Lightning. Flight. Recall control. What the hell is she?!
"I, I don't…" he stammered, looking at Wanda, then Sharon, then Luke again. "What are you people?!"
Wanda floated beside Luke again, her red aura crackling softly. She didn't speak.
Luke glanced down at the safe, now wide open.
Three glowing vials. No more threats.
He casually plucked one from the tray and held it up, watching the way the light refracted through the blue liquid.
"Not much of a comeback," he said aloud.
Killian slumped backward onto the floor. His body trembled, his mouth dry.
All that work. All those years.
Gone in one night.
And now he stared up at three monsters, none of whom seemed to need Extremis to crush him.
He blinked slowly, eyes unfocused.
"…Why is the world like this?" he murmured, barely audible. He felt as if the world itself was conspiring against him.
…
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