A second after Morbius' command, a storm of emotions from everyone watching the fight crashed down on me. I saw my enemy as vampires see humans — a grey silhouette with pulsing veins. I could feel all the metal in the room, but none of it could save me. Ice crystals hissed into my eyes, and my vision blurred — vampires don't need organs that react to light. I felt a nasty, wet vapour settling on my face, but it dried almost immediately.
Frost plunged all the ice he had prepared into my eye sockets and continued to lower his fingers, and then I understood what Morbius had meant when she asked if I used fire in battle. When Frost's fingers touched me, they melted, and my blood turned a brownish, abnormal colour and gave off a disgusting smell. Acting on a hunch, I directed the fire outwards, and the gladiator-assassin was thrown against the wall with terrible burns. I tried to stand up, and it was very easy, no wonder, with all the superpowers I now possessed... I took a step and fell into a black void, falling endlessly until I woke up on the bed.
Next to me sat a succubus demoness — a woman with horns, wings, and a tail, dressed in some leather strips that did little to conceal her body.
"Where am I?
"Awake? Good." The demoness disappeared, and a few minutes later my girls came in.
"Alive!
"And your eyes are still there!" Snezhana exclaimed in surprise.
"What happened? "That lunatic almost killed you!
"I figured it out, Mary. More specifically.
"They sent a mutant with a split personality after you.
"I know for sure that someone is going to die today. I know where, I know how. I'm not a fortune teller, I'm a maniac," I recited.
"That's all true, but who cares if people like watching that cold, emotionless Frost? I've never liked him personally, but lately he's got a fan club almost like Chingachgook from BTS." – Snezhana replied.
"Do you watch that show often?
"Actually, you were great. Watch the recording later," she said. "You'll understand. Maybe you'll even want to come back. It's really cool to be part of it all. I'd love to be on the show myself, but they already have a cat girl..."
"Okay, that's all for now. What about Magna?
"She apologised profusely and agreed to all your conditions. Within reason, of course," said the succubus, reappearing in the room.
"Who are you?
"My name is Devil, and I work as a logistics specialist for the mutant clan. I transport cargo through a parallel world, quickly, cheaply, but not very safely. I have been tasked with bringing you back home and inviting your man to the testing ground in two days. There, you and Magna will be able to take the necessary measurements to create a combat mechanism specifically tailored to your abilities.
"Snezhana, show her where to pick up the car. How's Wendy doing?
"She ate all the goodies in the fridge and is sitting watching TV. She watched your fight five times.
"I see. Check on her, warn her about the teleportation...
"Oh, just tell her you want to be alone with Mary." – The cat snorted and left.
"Get out of here!" Mary called after her.
Demones pretended to disappear, but I didn't notice any change in her emotions, so she just hid from view and continued to stare at me.
Mary came over, and we started kissing. The long, sensual kiss was interrupted only to free ourselves from our clothes, and we continued. Mary was lying on top of me, but I didn't notice her weight, only the pleasant firmness of her girlish body. Mary straddled me and began to ride me. This excited our voyeur so much that the room disappeared and we found ourselves in hell. Well, or in a dimension that looked exactly like hell. More accurately, lava.
Mary looked around, but the only thing that interested her was the succubus standing next to her. She waved invitingly and focused on sex again.
"Hey! It wasn't me! How did we get here?
"What does it matter, are you just going to stand there doing nothing?" I couldn't think of a better answer. I couldn't explain to her how my abilities worked, could I?
She approached, and suddenly demons of various shapes and sizes began flying at us from all sides. Our succubus simply waved her hands, and they froze in midair.
"Time flows differently here. If we don't need to move, I'll just stop it, and no one will be able to stop us!
And no one did. Eight hours, with a few breaks to rest.
We returned before our disappearance was noticed; apparently, time had stopped not only in that world. We walked slowly to the car, and Chert just teleported herself onto the roof of the cat's house. I didn't pass out for very long, but it was already late, and fatigue was taking its toll. It had been a long day, and it ended with a warm dinner and a peaceful night's sleep.
***
Wendy woke me up early in the morning and told me that a stranger had come here, he wasn't hiding and was walking alone. I offered to watch him while I tidied myself up. An elderly woman walked down the pavement straight to the house where Mary Jane and I were staying and rang the doorbell. She was dressed in a strict business suit and looked quite harmless, but I knew how deceptive appearances could be. I went downstairs and opened the door.
"What, has the city recovered so much that there are real estate agents now?" I asked the uninvited guest.
"The last four houses in the entire neighbourhood are worth a pretty penny, if that's how you want to start the conversation, young man.
"My point is that no one likes estate agents.
"Because they always want to cheat you. I'm not such an evil and unprincipled woman that I would work as a real estate agent. That's why I'm just the chairwoman of the board of directors of Queenpin Incorporated.
"Mary, that's for you! Don't forget to get dressed!" I shouted into the house.
"I wouldn't advise you to let Scorpio loose on me.
"Really? I thought you decided to end your life in such an original way.
"No. It may be difficult for you to understand, but I am truly willing to give my life for my work. However, I don't want to die right now, so I am protected by two strategic bombers. In the event of a mortal danger to me, ten tons of concrete-piercing bombs will fall here.
"I was joking, actually. You can't wake Mary up at this hour.
"And I was joking, the planes are at the airfield, not hovering above us. But, as you can see, there's a grain of truth in every joke, young man. We really could destroy each other, and yet I believe it makes sense to try to negotiate. For example, how much would you be willing to sell this land for? Any amount, in any currency.
"A billion dollars in vibranium.
"That's all? Shall I bring it here, or straight to Magna's forge?
"Um... I just said that to make you throw your hands up in despair and back down.
"I understand. Otherwise, I would have started haggling. But in reality, we are willing to pay that price. There is something incomparably greater at stake here than just money.
"Surprise me.
"The fate of humanity.
"Oh no, do we have to save the world again? How do you say it here, 'Avengers Assemble'? And I have to lick Fisk's crotch as a sign of reconciliation in the face of a global threat?
"Boy, who do you think you are? I can call the Avengers a bunch of clowns, but you stole one truck and think the whole world should be afraid of you? Join Quinnpin, my foot! No, we don't need you. The only thing you're required to do is stay out of the way." – The mask of calmness left the face of the important boss for a second.
"Superheroes aren't needed," you said? We need a supercorporation! And we can live in peace, knowing that we are protected by the Iron Lady... I mean, Captain America... I mean, Queenpin Incorporated!
"That's basically correct.
"And I thought you were going to offer me a double dose of ThisDrug.
"No, we're actually going to develop the Avengers concept to the point where it becomes viable. In fact, we're almost there.
"Nonsense.
"I can offer you a tour of the corporation so you can see for yourself what you're about to disrupt.
"And the first stop would probably be the deepest of your basements, with a very cosy cell for long-term imprisonment.
"If you can convince your girls to join the tour, that's exactly what will happen. But Mary Jane and Ghost won't get in the same car with me under any circumstances.
"They are smart enough to know who their friends are and who their enemies are.
"And you have enough sense not to jump to conclusions. So, if you prefer direct and precise wording, this is how I see the situation: you understand the importance of my corporation's business and help me solve two small problems with inadequate mutants, solely for the purpose of saving our irreplaceable resource" – time. Because one day, very soon, we will rebuild the city to its former glory, and then nothing will save you.
"A bold plan... So bold that I'm really curious to see how you're going to pull it off.
"Warn the pride that we're leaving while I organise transport.
I went into the house and thought about it. On the one hand, we could easily go deep enough to survive even a nuclear explosion and get far enough away from here, to a place where no one would be waiting for us. On the other hand, we can't run forever. Or we could, if we settled outside Vella Fisk's sphere of influence. But what's the point of running now, if I didn't run before? And Mary... Or, more importantly, Wendy. All I could do was give her hope for happiness, pull her out of her cocoon, but if I force her to break with her past now, she won't survive. And me? I've been dead for a long time, what's the point of starting a new life in a new place? That's exactly what I'm doing right now!
The only option was to postpone the decision, and to do that, I would have to take a risk and go on the trip.
I approached the cat girl curled up on the sofa, stroked her between her ears and whispered, leaning closer to the fluffy triangle:
"I'll be gone for a little while, but when I come back, I'll pet you again.
"You may, ny... Stroke me." Snezhana replied.
I ran my hand over her hair and shoulder again, and when my hand began to slip, she pressed it down with her paw, her claws barely extended. I pulled my hand away gently but firmly and received three deep scratches.
The headmistress was moving around on a flying machine that used the same thrust as Iron Lady's suit. A similar mechanism was used in the combat suits of the guards, but this flying platform was much quieter, similar to modern petrol engines. But the most important thing about her transport was its design...
In fact, it was an enlarged copy of Tony Stark in a suit without a helmet, but with a ball gag in his mouth, and the steering wheel was styled like horse reins. The owner of the flying platform did not even touch it, giving commands with her voice. She treated it like a slave, and the machine responded to the name Stark. Another thing that caught the eye was that Iron Lady's suit was extremely sexualised. Unlike the slanted armour plates on the vigilantes' chests, here two voluminous breasts and a thin waist stood out, and the stomach was completely flat.
Probably, hitting Iron Lady in the stomach is as forbidden as shooting Captain America in the legs, because the suit's protection in the stomach must be not just zero, but negative: a serious blow would not only break the armour, but also add its fragments to the carcass. However, it is generally not customary for superheroes to aim at the most vulnerable places. For example, after Decimation, Thor's name became a household word, and is now almost a swear word for people who make efforts in the wrong direction.We moved quickly, freshly cleared construction sites whizzed by below us and tower cranes bustled about.
"Almost all the construction equipment is automated; people just supervise it and do the interior finishing. Under our guidance, they are building their own homes, and the first buildings have already been commissioned.
"Should I be impressed by your organisational skills? The communists also built a lot of things, but it's not customary to praise them in this country.
"No, you should be impressed by the fact that all the houses, even those that haven't been renovated, have electricity.
"Have you restored the underwater cables?
"They installed cold thermonuclear reactors. Cheap and environmentally friendly electricity, but no country would dare to use them for fear of collapsing the energy market. However, we are the only authority on the islands, and no absurd restrictions apply to us.
We sat on the roof of an office building and took the lift down to a fenced-off courtyard, where a group of sixty women were practising hand-to-hand combat under the supervision of several instructors.
"Recruits of the First Legion, future super hunters," the tour guide pointed to the trainees.
"You don't just have a private army, you have several private legions?
"Legion" is just a name, and the numbers are for organisational purposes. The First Legion is a group of vigilantes known throughout the wasteland who fought to take these islands from the authorities and the Osborn Corporation, as well as the countless mutants in their service. Remember, Peter, this is what real heroes look like.
"But if one legion has already solved all your problems, why do you need the rest?
"At first, it was much easier for us to supply the cataphracts as a separate unit, so the second legion and serial numbers appeared. But the most interesting thing is the third legion.
We walked around the square and approached a small two-story building, which for some reason they were in no hurry to take me to.
"Are those the guards from the truck? Not as bulky as the cataphracts, but dangerous even to me?
"Those guards were from the third legion, but what sets them apart is not their armour, but what's inside them." She opened the door and stepped aside, gesturing politely for me to go in.
The building smelled like a hospital and served as a medical unit for the first legion. As we walked silently deeper into the building, I looked left and right without waiting for instructions from the guide and saw people with broken bones, bandages, and other consequences of basic combat training. In a separate room, a large woman was doing therapeutic exercises in front of a transparent mirror. We stopped near it.
"There she is, the only one who fought Scorpia twice and survived.
The woman behind the glass moved on to stretching her legs, and I noticed one unusual detail.
"Partially survived.
"Scorpia's poison is very strong, and yet she would have saved her leg if she had been here earlier.
"Was she the one who attacked us at sea?
"On her own initiative. It's not just you mutants who want revenge for the death of loved ones. When you attacked the convoy, you killed her sister.
"Superpowers tear us away from normal life, often at a young age. But your legionnaires are professional soldiers; they knew what they were getting into.
"You can go in and tell her that. But first, I'll tell you about her. She is a genetically modified human, although it would be more accurate to say an enhanced hybrid of a human and an Asgardian. She has two hearts, skin resistant to tears and punctures, metal-reinforced bones, and many other anatomical differences from her ancestors. In battle, she was first scratched by a scorpion's sting, then her armour lost power, but she managed to get ashore, where she survived the explosion of the Statue of Liberty and was brought here in critical condition just over a day ago. Here, the poison was extracted from her blood and her dead leg was replaced with a prosthesis, and tomorrow she will be back in action. That's what a legionnaire of the Third Legion is.
"You have super hunters there, and here you have artificially created superhumans?
"Exactly. Humans should have left Asgard's protection long ago and found ways to counter threats from space. Now our cosmic protectors live on Earth and fish to keep from starving, while we're still not ready for the arrival of new conquerors... The Third Legion will change that.
"If you didn't execute the legionnaire who disobeyed orders, then you have very few of them, and producing new ones is extremely expensive. You won't solve any problems that way, you'll just add new ones.
"There are few of them now, and the modification process is very dangerous, but we have a solution. How old do you think this woman is?
"Thirty" – thirty-five.
"She's sixteen, and she's been in the third for almost a year.
"You're making super soldiers out of children?
"No, we WILL make super soldiers out of children. Experiments on adults have too high a failure rate, but girls between the ages of five and fifteen only die in one out of ten cases.
"That's inhumane!
"Young man, you were wrong to ignore your school history lessons. Humanity willingly makes any sacrifice if necessary. And even if you think that no one will attack us after Thanos, we still need more legions of superhumans." She paused, letting me finish my thought.
"To attack ourselves.
"We'll leave world domination to the supervillains. A couple of islands on Earth are enough for the cradle of humanity to trade with the first and only space corporation.
The unease that had been nagging at the edges of my consciousness came to the fore, and I felt real horror as I imagined girls six or seven years old, taller than me, marching in shiny purple and pink armour with an eagle's clawed paw transitioning into a wing on their shoulder pads. It was like a vision of the future, and I listened to the emotions around me. The girls were very excited and worried about me, but I also felt a strange aura consisting of the emotions of one person. Sadness and powerless rage.
When a siren wailed in the building, I shuddered and covered my head with my hands as if I were about to be beaten. The alarm I felt all around me spread to me, and it took a great effort to stop shaking with fear. What surprised the tour guide even more — the alarm or my reaction to it, I never understood. Her face was almost expressionless, and I couldn't hear any emotions. Outside, automatic gunfire rang out, and the wounded super-soldier came out into the corridor. Meanwhile, the headmistress was immersed in a telephone conversation, yelling at her subordinates into her wireless headset so loudly that the former security guard could hear her. She quickly approached me and asked her boss:
"Problems?
She ignored the question, so the legionnaire decided to sort things out herself. She turned me to face her and punched me hard in the stomach. She recognised me. Almost immediately, I received a second blow, a kick to the stomach, so powerful that I flew back and broke the glass. It hurt, but just enough to bring me to my senses. The security guard jumped after me and tried to trample me, but I rolled over and jumped to my feet.
"I'll help you see your sister," I said, trying to provoke an attack.
***
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