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***
-OUT OF THE WAY!
-A-r-r-r-r!
Duplicating the movements of my arm, I throw my hand forward, squeezing the claw of the manipulator. Without a crumb of resistance, the lab table collapsed into rubble with a rumble and crack. The splinters and shards splattered to the sides, but there was no time to be distracted. Danny was the first to react, proudly stepping forward, my teacher taking the manipulator's blow with crossed arms. His body blazed with a golden glow, his eyes shining like beacons in the night.
Iron Fist's teeth gnashed. His bones slowly sagged and the first wounds bled as the dragon slayer held back one of his manipulators. His arms ballooned, showing off steel muscles, the veins that protruded swelled painfully, and Rand himself screamed at one point.
-GIVE UP, POW!
The familiar charges of webbing were sent in my direction. But if they thought my only weapon was my tentacles, they were sorely mistaken.
My hand easily and effortlessly cut through the first bundle, only to immediately fall upon the next. Somewhere out of the corner of my eye, a girl was running around, deftly dodging the occasional throws of furniture and other debris my new limbs sent flying.
Spider-Man was flying through the ceiling. Circling on his white bullshit, swaying from side to side, this inexperienced superhero repeated the same motion, giving away the trajectory of his flight path.
One of the couches in the far corner of the lab creaked painfully, tearing in two. Trying to keep Rand in sight, expecting him to be in more trouble than anything else, I sent the pieces of furniture flying, so that one piece would cover the other.... And it worked.
The spider got distracted, intercepted the first charge with a web to use the inertia to spin on its axis and send it back at me, but the second piece of sofa quickly brought him to his senses.
The colourful jerk's shout was music to my ears. And now I could finally focus on Rand. All I could see was his light coming from his eye sockets and mouth. He was being swallowed up by the shadows, my eyes slowly losing sight of him, so it was worth hurrying.
A veritable windmill rained down on Danny and his lackeys. Tentacles stretching a good twenty metres out were tearing through the building, punching holes in the compacted walls. The claws snapped, echoing the panicked screams of my former friends, threatening to tear them to pieces.
-Pretty pathetic...
My premonition warned me at the last moment. I turned round behind me and managed to cover my body with a pair of tentacles, sacrificing mobility and height. When I landed on my own feet, I looked down at the tight ass in the tight outfit.
-Sluts, liberals, and liars ... The whole package.
Spinning round my axis, I let my tentacles loose, allowing my weight to destroy the entire interior. Expensive equipment, research, Otto's personal effects. Everything went flying, breaking and turning to dust for the pleasure of the cursed city.
The battle continued. Somewhere beneath the rubble, a girl was moaning, but I couldn't finish what I'd started, I had to deal with Rand first.
The manipulators were coming at him from all sides, leaving tiny but deep scars on his body. His body is covered in blood, dust, and dirt. The remnants of his suit flutter around his waist, and his mask has long since slid off his head and is lying somewhere in the middle of the rubble.
"Time to call it a day."
With a pair of tentacles against the floor, I thrust myself forward at bolide speed, crashing straight into Rand, one hand clutched by a manipulator.
We scream. Roaring like animals, tearing each other to pieces. Like two rabid dogs from the same pack, where the new leader is retiring the old one. Shreds of "hair" flying all over the place. What is it? Our clothes or blood? I can't see anything. I can't see anything but the bright light from his eyes, burning me to the core, irritating me and making me want to fight with renewed vigour.
The blows are getting weaker. I can feel his body failing. A martial artist. Qi. Dragon slayer. Teacher... Friend.
My claws are pounding him from all sides, preventing him from breaking free. But even so, he can still keep fighting. Fucking cheaters from a fucking comic book world.
The hat's long gone, knocked off by his haphazard blows. There's such a swirl of flashes and limbs around us that it's getting hard to make out what's going on.
And then he opens up. His throat is right in front of me. This is a chance to end it all in one blow. I could knock him out...
But instead of thinking the right thing, my body chooses another option. The claw snaps forward, it comes straight at him, folding into a sharp stake with a blade sticking out of the end.
Time has slowed to a crawl. I want to stop, but the arm only twitches a little. My hands, they're not mine anymore... Darkness is everywhere, the colours are gone, leaving only darkness, and Danny's light no longer illuminates my world.
"Damn it... How did it come to this?!".
The last ray of white in reality. It disappears, slowly disintegrating as Danny's eyes cover....
A sudden flood of colours and noise burst into my world.
A bright black and white figure, gaining speed, crashed into the manipulator, taking it out of its trajectory. Tightening the bundles of webbing clutched in her fists, she yanked them towards herself, flipping me in mid-air so that the Spider came crashing down on top of my body with both feet.
Iron Fist's eyes widened with renewed vigour, piercing the darkness and dispersing brazen shadows into the corners. Wrapping his legs around the manipulator, he begins to tear the claw away. His body glows with energy and power. Blood rams more vigorously across the floor, clusters of it piling at our feet.
Whiplash wraps around our throats, and stun charges pierce our bare skin, causing us to convulse.
Bones crunch under the blows. Can't breathe. Everything spasms. It hurts so much...
"... But sobering."
Another turn of the body. Three more tentacles intact, and that should be more than enough.
A veritable hurricane swirls around me. The web is wrapped around my manipulators, but there's enough strength in the mechanisms to tear it to shreds.
There are more of them now. They're attacking me from all sides. Constantly. Non-stop. Spider webs spreading across the ruins of the lab. Non-stop jumping. Acrobatics mixed with an insane, incomprehensible style that makes no sense whatsoever. Chaos and improvisation.
-That's enough of these games!Throwing the team of heroes away, I dig my tentacles into the floor and walls, naturally storming the building, stitching it through. My leg, which is stuck to the ceiling, is filled with Qi in a split second, only to collapse downwards a moment later, blasting the floor with shards and piercing the concrete.
The rumble of an entire floor falling shakes the university building. Somewhere the first screams of panic are heard. Just a moment's distraction.... Damn old habits.
The spider pulls a pair of my manipulators together. Not sparing his cartridges and native web, he floods them with several dozen centimetres of layer and continues to do so while Rand, not thinking long, chops his hand like a fire axe, threatening to sever a couple more of my artificial limbs.
Someone else's body jumps onto my back. Closing in on me, the woman in the slut suit grabs my chin, pulling me back against her, pulling my head up toward the ceiling. Her feet are against my back, and I have to work hard to keep the sick maiden from breaking my neck.
Qi is leaving in a torrent. But there's still a chance to break free.
"Wait, where's the other one?".
A female figure in tight spandex pounces on top of me, slamming her fists into my face without pity.
You can feel the power in them. She's screaming something, talking incessantly, piercing my head with pain like piles, hammering her own words into my tired brain.
Wrapping her legs around me around my chest - and how only she manages to hold on... She hooks her fingers into the blood-soaked mask. There's so much scarlet liquid that it doesn't have time to absorb.
The girl's intentions reach me. She wants it off. She wants to kill Rorschach. She wants to kill me.
-NO! MY FACE! DON'T TOUCH IT!
I shake my head, panicking, forgetting everything in the world. My hands no longer try to unhook the sitter from my back. The last manipulator scrambles to his twins and rushes to the rescue.
The mask half slides off his head.
-GIVE ME MY FACE!
My hands fumble with the body in front of me. I can't see anything, can't hear anything because of my own voice, but my hands, remembering what to do, do their job well.
I hear the cracking of bones. My blows break and tear her flesh, sprinkling my palms with hot blood, and then a tentacle slams into the insolent upstart's torso, shooting her like a cannonball.
-Gwen...
A shriek rushed through my ears like water. A familiar name. So appealing, so warm in my heart. It makes me feel good, and the shadows recede a little, letting me see part of what's happening.
"Can't breathe!"
A hand strikes back, hooking the other girl by the legs. Twirling her around, sending the grinning fool flying. But unfortunately, Peter catches her with no problem, bringing her to her feet, right in front of me....
-Peter.
I feel terrible. The shadows slowly blur, leaving only an eerie picture of reality. No longer is there that lopsided spectrum, just flames, devastation and blood running down my arms, body and face...
Pain pierced through my body. My back was torn in agony and my ribs howled painfully, reminding me with every breath.
-He's already insane, we'll do what we have to do.
They're talking about something. Is that Danny? It's definitely him. Peter's shouting something back, and the girl--
A name popped into my head. Despite the cheap disguise, I recognised her. Of course I did, because my brain had memorised her figure almost to the millimetre, though maybe it was the old cloak given to the frightened rich girl.
My legs shake. I fall on shards of glass and concrete, but it's nothing compared to what I feel in the rest of my body and soul.
My eyes race over my friends, and the drawings on my mask finally slow their run. A cold shiver of realisation pierces through my mind.
-Shawn?
They're asking questions. Arguing amongst themselves and yet afraid of me at the same time. How could I let this happen? My head explodes with pain and memories. Blurred images of a smiling woman. The same encounter, repeated time after time....
"Later... All later. Now, I have to...".
My eyes look round my friends, slowly approaching the frail figure standing behind everyone.
"Gwen...."
She pulls the mask off her face, looking directly at me with pleading in her eyes. Her lips whisper my name, repeating the same thing over and over, but I can't hear... I need help, but I can't say a word, my lead-filled body refusing to move, letting the shadows slowly creep up on me again.
"But my mind is still mine."
A single manipulator approaches my face. It moves around me as if alive. So amazing, obedient and unemotional. A true miracle, the genius of Otto Octavius..... And how did I use it? He was supposed to be the hope for thousands, millions of people....
A wheeze escapes from his throat. Sharp claws dig into my head, hooking the mask around the edges. I act brutally, without pity or precision, giving a single order. Repeating it, screaming and begging for the ruthless obedient machine to do my bidding.
"Take it off!"
Pain pierces my face. The sharp edges of the claws crawl through my left eye, along my right ear and the back of my head, pulling the mask behind it. The pain helps me focus, push away the voices growing in my head.
With a final tug, the shaking manipulator pulls the Rorschach mask off my head, leaving gruesome new scars.
"TAKE IT OFF!"
***
Folding her palms into the sleeves of her dressing gown, a frail figure froze on a nearby building. Her head was covered by a hood, from underneath which shone eyes full of mystical energies.
Every now and then she tilted her head to one side or the other, as if listening to what was happening inside Columbia University, where the police had already begun to converge.
The people who had been frightened by the shaking and rumbling had immediately called law enforcement, remembering well how that had ended last time.
The figure was about to turn around and leave, when a new spectator of the unfolding tragedy stood beside him, his armour rattling. Folding his arms across his chest, he stared down contemptuously.
The couple spent long minutes of silence on the roof, gazing at the devastation.
But soon the second had had enough of all this, and without saying goodbye he strode back along the roof, muttering in a low voice, barely audible, but so that he could be heard by his only interlocutor.
-Stupid games...
Hearing his words, the fragile figure threw its head back to the sky, showing the world a light and affectionate smile.
Bringing his palm to his face, slowly unclenching his fingers, the figure whispered the words, gazing into the mystical dance of energies.
Only a couple of seconds and right in the palm of her hand was a bloody rag, smeared with dirt and torn in many places.
For a moment, the smile grew wider.
A few bystanders noticed the figure standing on the edge of the roof and were about to alert the police, but as soon as they blinked once, the man disappeared from the roof, vanishing into the night without a trace.
***
-The investigation into the terrorist attack at Columbia University continues. This is the second in a row, just yesterday a similar scare was carried out at Stark Industries. As our analysts suspect, this was clearly the work of terrorists, from whose captivity the head of the firm of the same name, Tony Stark, recently escaped.
The camera zoomed out a couple of metres away to focus on a huge high-rise building, around which crowds of firefighters, rescue workers and police were scurrying.
-Fortunately, Mr Stark has agreed to hold an open press conference this morning to answer a lot of questions.
In a random poll, we were able to determine that most viewers are concerned about what's happening in New York City today. Is Mr Stark himself to blame? And what will he do next? What are his future plans for his company... And does he have a lady in his life? - The presenter looked at the cameraman with a reproachful look, -Seriously, is this question of interest on a par with the current events?
The camera bobbed awkwardly as the presenters in the studio exchanged jokes, trying to lighten the atmosphere. The next minutes of the broadcast were devoted to lengthy theories, in which "experts" put forward one version better than another, going so far as to say that mutants and their accomplices among "normal" people were to blame for everything.
But now the live broadcast came to the most important part of the programme, taking the audience into the Stark Industries building, into a room filled with journalists, with cameramen, assistants, security guards and many other personalities scurrying around.
Among those seated in the room were many prominent journalists, professionals and even representatives of other companies competing with Stark Industries, but most of all, of course, most attention was given to the main star of tonight's show.
Anthony Edward "Tony" Stark stood at a small podium, reading the papers, repeating his speech, while amusingly moving his lips and strikingly playing with his facial expressions. His face occasionally gave out cartoonish expressions when Stark found particularly amusing phrases in the leaflet given to him.
But now the last few minutes had passed and everyone was seated, paying particular attention to a couple of people in suits frozen at the edges of the room.
People were getting ready to ask questions and many would later say that someone even managed to say something. But everything was drowned in homogeny, hype and a real information boom, as soon as the head of the corporation spoke.
-I am Iron Man.
***
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