Only a few years younger than I was.
As she reaches me and swings down the sword in a powerful strike, I simply put my hand in the path of her blade. My greater strength combined with my durability means that the sword nearly goes flying when she strikes my unorthodox defence, and just for a few moments, I can see she's taken off guard, her stance unbalanced.
"Olivia, NO!" Bakuto roars out, his trained eye catching the same thing that I did, but he's powerless as my hand shoots out, slapping her hands to the side, wrenching the blade out of her grip.
Unarmed, she tries to back off, but she's too slow as my hand darts forwards and closes around her throat. Reeling her in, I raise her high above the ground, noticing that all the other students are frozen in position, even as more security forces are approaching.
Tilting my head downwards, until the faceplate is gazing at the writhing Bakuto, I speak my first words since my arrival, the modulator making my voice unrecognisable.
"Where is Alexandra Reid, Bakuto?"
"W-what…?"
"Wrong answer."
And with that, I break Olivia's neck.
"NO!" Bakuto screams out in real anguish, as he tries to reach out to her, but both his legs are broken, one hand is busted and the other arm is useless below the shattered shoulder.
Carelessly I toss the body to the side, before I lift my gauntleted arm at the crowd of ninja-in-training and the dozen new security guards. As I loosely aim in their direction, some of the students let out screams of fear, even as the older ones stand tall with the security forces, gripping their weapons a bit tighter.
"Tell me where Reid is, and I'll let your people live, Bakuto."
"D-don't…" he starts, murder in his eyes even as blood dribbles down his chin, but I just give a slow shake of my head as I ignore the bullets fruitlessly flattening themselves on my form.
"Wrong answer."
"NOOO!"
And I open fire, taking down the security guards and many of the students. Quite a lot of them take off running, but a surprising number stays behind, dashing towards the machine guns of the fallen guards.
Bakuto is screaming at me now, cursing my out in several dozen languages at once, but I ignore it, simply upping the pressure of my foot on his chest until I cut off his air supply. I keep it up until he goes blue in the face, before I lift my foot a bit, allowing Bakuto to take a couple of coughing gasps of precious air.
"You obviously care about these people. You care about this place. Do you care as much about Alexandra?"
With that, the backplate of my armour, which I wear over my duster, and which is connected to the breastplate of my armour by two thick metal clamps going over my shoulders, and two more going under my arms, shifts some panels, before a dozen red tips become visible.
"Where is Alexandra Reid?"
"I… I c-can… p-please, d-don't…" Bakuto tries to gasp out, but I just slowly shake my helmet in a ponderous gesture.
"Wrong answer."
And even as Bakuto's face shifts from a pained expression to a horrified one, the missiles in my backplate shoot upwards, thin trails of smoke behind them, before they angle downwards and slam into the largest building with enormous explosions, throwing people in the vicinity to the ground.
"NO!" Bakuto screams yet again, but this time it's different from the previous times.
This time it's more broken.
Lifting my boot off his chest, I kneel in the mud next to his head, leaning downwards a bit (ignoring as one very brave and stupid young man tries to perform a flying knee on me, shattering his leg in the process, while I barely even budge).
"Come on Bakuto. What do you owe Alexandra? What has she sacrificed for you, that would force you to sacrifice everything here? And make no mistake Bakuto, I won't stop until I've destroyed everything you even vaguely value. I'll rip apart every building here, I'll kill every student present. And if that's not enough pain you're willing to endure for some conceited woman who never even remotely cared about you, then I'll start tracking down everyone else. I'll kill everyone you have ever trained, and everyone that even shares a drop of blood with them. Every place you have ever enjoyed visiting, I'll reduce to dust and ash, and all the while Alexandra Reid sits on her throne, laughing at your misguided loyalty, at your useless sacrifices. Because in the end? I'll kill her too." I threaten, and the only thing I don't mean in that whole evil monologue is that I'll kill the bloodrelations of his former students, as they are innocent in all of this mess.
Still, it gets the job done, as his feverish eyes finally settle on my blank faceplate.
He's clearly struggling, his pride warring against his survival instincts, but eventually the screams of the dying around us tips him over the edge, this whole attack too sudden, too powerful for him to formulate a direct response to.
"M-mansion… M-miami… K-K-Killian…" he manages to wheeze out, and the blood in my veins feels as if it's turned to ice.
"Wrong answer." I bit out harshly, before I straighten, aiming both arms at the people running around the burning main building.
"NO! No, I s-swear!" Bakuto coughs, and it's only the desperation in his voice that makes me hesitate.
"You're lying. He's dead." I hiss at him, picking him up from the ground by a fistful of his hair, prompting another pained cry from the broken immortal.
"Yes… b-but A.I.M…. the… the projects… M-mandarin… works for… us.." Bakuto haltingly says in between rattling breaths of air.
"No, Hydra backs A.I.M." I say with a growl, but doubt starts to settle in the back of my mind.
I killed Killian, yes, but Killian gone didn't mean that the think tank just… stopped working or something. I just hadn't paid them any thought, because Sterns' genius managed to use Killians stable body to already give me Extremis, meaning that A.I.M. was pretty much useless to me.
"Yes… Hydra b-backs A.I.M…. b-but… but Mandarin… works… for us…" Bakuto manages to gasp out with a grin on his bloodied face.
"I told you, the Mandarin is dead! I should know, I killed him!" I snarl as I bring Bakuto closer to me, but all he does is weakly chuckle at my visible anger.
"You… Y-you know… n-nothing…"
At his mocking tone, I see RED, and with a roar I draw back my hand holding onto his head, and throw him as hard as I can at the nearest building, sending him through the solid brickwork. I'm flying right on his heels, smashing through the outerwall with ease, as I look down on Bakuto's broken body.
Broken… but still alive.
Floating over towards him, easily crossing the debris, I point one of my gauntlets right as his head, and as I see his eyes twitch in my direction I give out a low growl.
"This is the end for you Bakuto. You, and everything you have worked so hard to build. And there won't be any coming back from the dead this time, asshole. I'll make sure of it."
And with those words I open fire for a full fifteen seconds, until all that remains of Bakuto's head is a smear on the ground. I hear a roar of anger coming from outside the building, and looking over my shoulder, I see an adult rip the pin out of a grenade, before throwing the thing at me (I suddenly realize that the reason they stuck to those machine guns instead of bringing out something with more power, was because they didn't want to get Bakuto caught in their attack, something that now of course isn't an issue anymore).
Shooting forwards, snatching the grenade out of the air as I go, I come to a stop in front of the man just as he straightens form his throw. I can see his eyes open wide in shock at my sudden closeness, before that is replaced with fear as my free hand grabs the back of his head.
I ram the grenade in his mouth, knocking out a few teeth as I do, and keep both my hands in place, easily ignoring his frantic struggles.
A few seconds and a gory explosion later, and his struggles have ceased altogether.
I shoot upwards into the sky again, before I hover a couple of hundred feet above the compound. Once again, the panels on the backplate of my armour shift, revealing two dozen missiles this time.
The remainder of my entire payload.
Targeting every single building below, I unleash hell from above, ignoring the screams coming from the mortals as they die in droves.
As Bakuto's life's work goes up in flames and comes crumbling apart under an onslaught of explosions, I angle myself towards New York, and blast off with enough speed to push back the low hanging cloud cover.
December 31st, 2011 14:30
Sitting in my hotel room (after profusely apologizing to the owner of the hotel for the damages I did to both the wall and the toilet) I wait until Jeri texts me the end results of her meeting with Harold Meachum.
Ward had given up his father pretty easily, especially when Hogarth subtly hinted that it was unlikely that Harold would live through the night. At first she had been unsure about telling the man that his father would die, but the hopeful look in Ward's eyes told her that I had been right in advising that action all along.
As I knocked back a bottle of complementary vodka (not that it would really have any effect on me, but I hardly cared at the moment), I sat on the couch, staring at the laptop in front of me, Bakuto's words haunting me.
The screen showed a satellite image of Killian's mansion.
"He's lying. I killed the Mandarin when I killed Killian." I muse out loud, though only in a barely audible whisper, because I don't trust S.H.I.E.L.D. (or anyone else, for that matter) to not have bugged my room.
Was my meta-knowledge wrong somehow? When I saw Banner a year ago, I saw Mark Ruffalo, instead of Edward Norton, and had concluded that reality retroactively edited itself. Was this something similar? Had a new movie come out in my home universe that changed the rules of the game somehow? If so, why didn't know about the change, like I did with changes like Rhodey's or Banner's appearance?
Had I been here too long?
It was an endless loop of questions, with no end in sight, until I was thankfully snapped from my musings by my telephone giving out an alert. Looking over, I saw it was a text from Hogarth.
-F. is in. His place, 57th Street 19:00. Be there. JH.-
I don't know what Harold plans to do in order to piss off Gao to such a point that she's willing to come to his place to smack him down personally, and frankly, I don't quite care.
At this point, while a total bastard, Harold is still pretty stable (for as much as you can call a guy who murdered his best friend stable, that is) so I trust him enough to find something that'll work, like undermining Gao's infrastructure for her heroin trade within Rand.
Every option Gao takes at this point will end badly for her. Either she does nothing, and Harold gets away with his subordination, quite probably damaging her drug smuggling operation.
Or she sends her goons, in which cases I'll just get her location out of them.
Or she comes in person, in which case I'll get confirmation on whether what Bakuto told me was a lie or not, and Alexandra's location either way.
The moment I think that, my phone goes off, and taking the call, I can hear Sterns on the other end.
"Hello, Michael, this is Sterns. How's things going over there? Burstein told me the procedure was a success, but that you and Hogarth have begun your counterattack against the Hand?" the scientist asks, completely unbothered about discussing such things over the phone.
Then again, this is Sterns, I wouldn't be surprised if he somehow managed to triple encrypt our line, or something similar.
If he thinks we're secure, then I trust that we're secure.
"Hi Sam. Yeah, the procedure is a full success. Once we got a new base, we can run tests on my body and use the data to give Jessica more powers, if she wants them. How's Radcliffe coming along?"
I can tell that my friend picked up on the fact that I omitted anything about the Hand counterattack, but after a soft sigh he lets it go.
"Yeah, Radcliffe is extremely excited to come work for us. You should've seen his face when I told him about the Brain Booster… the man is brilliant Michael, I can only image what he'll be capable of once he's working for us."
"That's good. That's very good. You find anything on Reid?"
"Uhh, yeah, her name popped up a couple of times during my searches. Mainly in relation to philanthropy, or awards or big events, stuff like that. Nothing private, and I do mean nothing. No home address, no nothing. But I did find one thing."
"Yeah? What?"
"Well, she was supposed to go to this fancy New Year's Eve party? And by fancy I mean, Tony Stark levels of fancy. But here's the thing, she called it off just an hour ago, and she hasn't been seen since. Weird huh?"
"Yeah. Weird." I reply absently, my eyes fixed on the Miami mansion on my laptop.
"And Murakami?"
"The same deal, except his name pops up even less. There are people and corporations that are tied to him, but the man himself is a ghost. I got a bit more luck with tracking down his second in command, that Nobu guy? Yeah, from what I can tell, he's just a regular business man, nothing about him or his accounts really screams 'ninja' if you know what I mean. But he did get checked into a private hospital yesterday. I managed to hack their files, but his charts only state severe trauma."
"Right. Murakami is out of our reach then, for now. I've got an idea where Reid is, I'll have confirmation tonight. As for Nobu, I guess this confirms that Jeri fought him off. We'll see how he can be dealt with discreetly, but for now he's not going anywhere, so he's not a priority. When can you get back to New York?" I ask, my mind on the meeting tonight.
"Tomorrow morning, at the earliest. We might make it there very late tonight. It's only about a five hour drive, since Harper wants us to stick to the inroads as much as possible, but Radcliffe does have business he needs to take care of first, before we can leave. So we all just kind of settled on sticking it out here for New Year's and then make it back tomorrow." Sterns explained.
"That's fine, Sterns. Don't worry about it, take your time, and stay safe. I got things covered over on my end."
"Do you. Michael, do you really?" I hear my friend ask earnestly, and had it been anybody else, I would've turned off the phone right there and then.
But this was Sterns.
The first real friend I made in this universe.
The guy I dragged to another continent with me, who has kept me alive to this point, who made me what I am.
"I'm being honest, Sam. I know what I'm doing. I don't like it. I don't like any of what I've done, or what I'm still going to do. But I am doing it Sam. The Hand won't live to see 2012." I say with utter conviction, getting another sigh from my friend.
"Alright. Alright fine. Just… just don't forget who you are, alright Michael? You aren't exactly a saint, but you're not a monster. Don't let those ninja-maniacs turn you into one, you got it?" Sterns asks seriously, prompting a small smile from me.
"Yeah. Yeah I got it Sam. Thanks."
"Don't mention it. We'll see you… next year." Sterns says with a laugh, and I can't help but join in at the bad pun.
"That's the lamest joke in history, and you know it." I reprimand him, and I can just imagine his shrug, even over the telephone.
"Eh, it made you laugh so I'll take it. Take care Michael."
"Yeah, you too."
And with that I hang up, gazing out the windows at the skyline of New York. Glancing at the time, I notice that I've still got a couple of hours until the meeting with Gao, and since I don't want to be stuck with any more mental dilemmas, I set an alarm for 18:30 and go to bed.
Sleep does not come to me.
December 31st, 2011 19:06
Gao is late.
Of course she is, it's the oldest powerplay in the book, but I still can't stop the irritation rising within me.
Glancing to my side, I can tell that Hogarth is feeling the same thing, her new youth combined with her shades (she learned her lesson about eyes being a weak spot after the botched assassination) making me feel as if I'm standing next to Trinity.
Looking to my other side, I can see Harold Meachum almost successfully hiding his nerves as he stares at the door at the other end of the hall, a big revolver in one hand, the other rubbing his chin.
Looking back ahead again, I can't quite contain a slight sense of amusement from coming over me.
'Here I am, standing in a penthouse, waiting for an ancient ninja, with Trinity on one side, and Faramir on the other. My life is so, so weird.'
As I finish that strange thought, there's a ding coming from the hallway, before the door is slowly pushed open, both my companions tensing besides me.
Briefly I wonder whether I should've brought in any more of my people, but I quickly decide that leaving them to guard the salvage from HQ and a recovering Susan was the better option, considering that I alone should be enough to face anything the Hand could throw at me.
And then there's no time for any further thinking, since the door has opened fully and inside strides the hunched over from of Madame Gao.
I'm surprised that she's showed up in person, and I'm immediately on my guard.
If she's confident enough in her safety to come here herself, then she's got some kind of ace up her sleeve, especially if what I did to Bakuto made its way back to her somehow.
My wariness increases when she doesn't seem surprised to see me and Jeri standing next to Harold, merely giving out a condescending smile and a shake of her head.
"Come now. Surely you couldn't believe that I wouldn't see this trap for what it is? Young Harold, threatening me as he did? He does not have the spine for it." Gao says slowly, smirking at the man beside me.
I see his jaw clench and his fingers tighten on the gun in his hand, but he doesn't raise it in her direction, though he doesn't avert his eyes either.
"You seem rather unbothered by our trap, Gao." I rumble, bringing Gao's rheumy stare back my way.
"It is because I did not see merely a trap. I saw, and opportunity. When you become as old as I am, you learn how to turn situations, into an advantage. All you need for that, is some friends."
And with that, ninja burst through the door behind her, around thirty or something judging from a quick glance. It's not the ninja that bother me though.
It's not even the six people that burst in after the ninja, wielding Wakandan weaponry and wearing the Amber Armor that I sold to the police, only painted a uniform black.
No, it's the three people slowly walking in behind them, clad in civilian clothing and appearing unarmed.
Their eyes are glowing.
Looking from the three Extremis enhanced to Gao again, I scowl in anger at her smirking expression.
"So Bakuto was telling the truth. You do have an in with A.I.M. somehow."
Gao gave a small, unconcerned laugh as she takes in my words, the ninja fanning out further in Harold's penthouse, the Extremis guards walking up towards her, while the paramilitary looking guys take up position by the door.
"Of course we do. We have an in, everywhere. That foolish young Mandarin. He has wanted to be a part of the five Fingers for so long now, ever since he was a little boy. He's one of Alexandra's little pet projects, I believe. It's even in the name of his organization: Ten Rings, a gift, to the Five Fingers. Such a sweet, naive little boy."
"So the Mandarin is real." I growl out, the realization that my meta-knowledge was wrong a punch to the gut, not helped at all when Gao starts laughing again.
"How little you truly know of the world, young McCole! Yes, I know who you are, no helmet can hide the rage in your heart, the fury in your eyes. It doesn't matter. After tonight, your interference in the business of the Hand shall be put to a stop." The old lady says with an air of certainty, though she's taken off guard when it's my turn to laugh.
"Yes. Yes it is. But not because of the reason you're thinking of. No, after tonight, my business with the Hand shall be at an end… because after tonight, there will be no more Hand."
And without warning, I raise my arms, and start gunning down the ninja closest to me, while Jeri immediately starts shooting her pistols as well. Harold is visibly startled by the sudden violence, and it takes him a few moments to gather his wits, but the he too starts firing.
The counteraction of the ninja is immediate, as they start swarming us, but that is where they run into a glaring problem.
Bringing a knife to a gun fight is just a plain bad idea.
My fully automatic fire cuts them down in droves, and while they do manage to close the distance to Jeri due to her slower firing rate, it does exactly shit for them, considering they can't even cut her.
The moment her clips are empty, she snatches one of her attackers' swords straight out of his hands by the blade, and starts butchering those that get too close to her.
Harold, meanwhile, is nearly dying of fright.
Apart from a rather nice headshot on a ninja that was about to run at him, splattering the assassin's brain all over the wall and floor, he has made only two more kills, and the ninja are almost upon him.
I can feel his hand tugging on my trenchcoat, and as I look over my shoulder at him (getting a brace of shuriken against my breastplate as I take my attention of the ninja in front of me) I can see the desperation in the man's eyes.
"You have to protect me! That was the deal!" he almost screams as he frantically looks between the approaching ninja and me.
With a growl, I stop firing with my right arm, instead grabbing him by his head.
"This one is for Wendell and Heather." I growl out, making Harold's eyes widen in fear, before I hurl him down at the ninja with enough speed, I manage to crush the body of at least six of them.
All of this took place in the span of only a couple of seconds, and we've only taken out about half of Gao's ninja forces. The more dangerous threat are the Extremis people surrounding her and judging by her scowl, she knows it too.
"Well?! What are you waiting for?! Kill him!"
All three of them give out arrogant grins at that, cracking their necks, and one of them even punches his open palm.
What a douche.
As I prepare myself for an entirely different kind of fight, I finally notice something.
The paramilitary types haven't fired a single shot yet.
Gao realizes it as well the same moment that I do, as she turns around with a shout already forming on her face, but it's too late.
As one, the six paramilitary guys step forwards, each aiming at the back of the three Extremis people in pairs, and open fire.
The one on the left is dead instantly, as his head simply… disappears.
The other two survive a bit longer, though one is missing a fairly large part of his skull. The one in the middle is still fairly intact, having turned at the last moment, meaning he only misses part of his face and throat (which while extremely painful, weren't lethal to an Extremis user).
However, the pair that killed their target on the first go add their fire to the pair that's still shooting at the Extremis user that they force to the ground, reducing the upper part of the man's torso into one giant gaping hole, even as the last pair keeps on shooting at their own target, forcing him back with each shot.
As all six people focus their fire on a single target, he too dies, his head and torso simply gone.
The ninja react immediately, however, and half of their remaining forces break off from me and Jeri in order to attack the betrayers. Again the slaughter began as the ninja fell before my machineguns, though Jeri was having difficulty killing her own attackers.
They couldn't hurt her, but neither could she hit them.
Giving a wide swing with her stolen swords, she forced one of the ninja to back away a bit too closely to me, and before he can dodge, I've grabbed him by the back of his loose shirt, lifted him over my head, and thrown him into a ninja that was about to behead one of the attackers, making the two slam into each other with a series of wet snaps.
The paramilitary guy gives me quick nod before moving back into formation with his team, their superior weapons and indestructible armour making sure that they're dealing quickly with their own share of ninja.
Quickly looking over at Jeri's side, I simply aim my machine gun in her direction and open fire, killing her attackers in a spray of bullets, though Jeri gives me an annoyed glare when one impacts her in the side of the head, knocking her glasses of.
Because there's no such thing as friendly fire when you're immune to bullets.
Gao quickly realizes that with her heavy hitters taken out by her other heavy hitters, she doesn't stand a chance against me, and turns around to quickly make her way out, though the paramilitary guys bar the way.
I'm about to intervene, before I can sense that she's doing… something.
Then without warning, her hand shoots out, and all six grown men are thrown clear off their feet, some of them impacting harshly against the wall behind them. It's clear that the chi attack took a lot out of her, but Gao still tries to run towards the exit.
'Oh no you don't.'
And with that, I fly forwards, catching Gao by the back of her head. Not stopping, I angle downwards, and before the old lady can even shout in alarm, I've ploughed her head into the floor.
Lifting her in the air by her head, I turn her towards my, before I can feel that weird thing she did just before-
WHAM!
-yep, there it is, that weird shoving motion again, though this time she does it against my chin, probably in an attempt to snap my neck or something. While she does manage to move my head a bit to the side, the chi blow doesn't really affect me any worse, though my HUD is shot to shit.
Removing the helmet (she knows my identity anyways) I fix Gao with a burning glare, though the old lady stares defiantly back at me, even as blood flows freely down her face.
"I will tell you nothing. You think you have won? That with just me and Bokuto, the Hand will fall? We have existed for centuries, we have people in every position in every society you ignorant child! The Hand will rebuild, and everything you own, and everything that you are will be reduced to ash! You will never win!" she hisses at me, though her speech is slurred and barely understandable.
A closer look tells me I've broken her jaw in multiple places and she's lost quite a few teeth.
"For someone who will tell me nothing, you sure talk a lot." I growl back at her, making her shut up, though she glares at me with murder in her eyes.
"I know that Reid is in the A.I.M. mansion in Miami right now. And as you've just told me, while A.I.M.'s research is funded by Hydra, the front that they intend to use, the Mandarin, is actually loyal to you. How close to the mark am I, Gao?" I rumble, and while the aged leader remains silent, the hatred in her eyes just increases.
"Given that you're not laughing and calling me ignorant, I'll just assume that I'm right on the money here, shall I?"
I can tell that the evil old bat wants to spit in my face, but with her broken jaw it's impossible.
"In that case, you are of no more use to me. Goodbye Gao. For good this time."
Amazingly, the immortal manages to lift her chin in defiance at me, her eyes sparking with determination.
"Do your worst, demon. Death has no hold on me: I will return." She spits, blood flowing from her lips.
Placing both of my hands on either side of her face, I bring her in a bit closer, until I'm looming over her, her body fixed in place as I gaze down at her.
"Not from this you won't."
And with that, I open my mouth wide, and unleash a tidal wave of fire on the old woman. Her shrieks persist only for a couple of moments, before they slowly start to die down, though her body keeps twitching.
I keep this up for a full three minutes (absentmindedly noting that I'm not even slightly out of breath) and as I stop and the glare slowly fades away, I see that all I'm holding is a charred skeleton.
With a disdainful sneer, I throw it to the ground, making it fall apart into ash.
A retching sound brings me back to reality, and I turn around to see Jeri throwing up in a potted plant. A shuffling from behind me brings my attention back towards the six people that betrayed Gao.
Their clearly nervous as I look at them, and at least two seem to be torn in between opening fire on me, or running away. After a few silent moments, in which I simply look at them and they nervously shuffle around, one of them (the leader, presumably) steps forwards, removing his helmet.
He's a harsh faced man, clearly a veteran of some sort, and when he looks at me, his expression is a mix of fear and respect.
"What the hell was your part in all this?" I ask tiredly, making the man swallow uncomfortably, before he straightens somewhat, and gives me a professional nod.
"Mr. Fisk sends his regards."
December 31st, 2011 23:13
Once again I'm hovering high up in the air, though this time I'm concealed by the cover of dark clouds. Below me is the mansion of the late Aldrich Killian in beautiful Miami.
And the front lawn is littered with bodies.
I can make out people in both tactical gear and in ninja garb.
Seems like Hydra didn't appreciate that a rival organization had gotten their claws into their private project.
Slowly floating downwards until I'm flying over the house itself, I can hear the sound of battle going on inside, and I spot yet more bodies, illuminated by the fire that's spread all over the mansion itself and the grounds around it.
Judging by several scorched parts where I can make out the shadows of skeletons, it seems that more than a few Extremis subjects went critical here.
Whose side they were fighting on is anyone's guess by now.
A roar and a high-pitched scream tear me from my examination of the ground, and quickly flying over to the other side of the mansion, I'm treated to a very unusual sight.
And considering the way my life's turned out, that's saying something.
Because running out of the mansion, bare feet slapping against stone, is a terrified woman I immediately recognize as Dr. Hansen. And running behind her, having just crashed through the front wall, is Alexandra Reid.
Or what's left of her, at least.
Clearly, something is wrong with the woman, considering she looks more like a…. like a…. honestly, she looks like someone took the corpse of a woman and a dragon, and then crudely stapled the two together, and then set the whole thing on fire.
Wreathed in flame, Alexandra was easily twelve feet tall, het arms were taloned, her legs digitigrade and she had an honest to God tail that was about as long as she was. Her human flesh was cracked in places along her body, with black, burning scales visibly pushing their way outwards, as if something deep inside the woman was clawing its way out, which was especially pronounced across her back (oh, god I can see her spine!) and her hands and feet.
As for her face…
It's only my long familiarity with Sigourney Weaver's face that allows me to recognize her, but fuck has she become ugly. Her nose is burned away completely, much like on a skull, her teeth are long and needle like, and her eyes…
Well, sometimes I describe my eyes as 'burning' as an analogy, meaning that they're just glowing very brightly with a reddish glow.
Her eyes are… actually burning.
I have a few theories as to what the fuck actually happened to the leader of the Hand, but the answer to all my questions is currently terrified out of her mind and running for her life, so I do the only logical thing in this weird scenario.
I rocket towards the dragon-Alexandra hybrid shoulder-first, slamming into her with a crash that produces a shockwave that cracks the tiles underneath us and throws Dr. Hansen clear off her feet.
As Alexandra is launched back into the mansion (taking out even more of the wall) I turn around and float over towards where Hansen is working herself to her bleeding knees.
As she gazes up in wonder at me, I extend one of my enormous hands, a reassuring smile on my face.
"Come with me if you want to live."
'God I've always wanted to say that line!'
For a few moments, Hansen just stares at me completely gobsmacked, but a roar from inside the now thoroughly ruined mansion snaps us out of our respective reveries.
"Now, please!"
Giving a quick nod at my shout, Hansen claps my hand, and I immediately lift off high into the sky, ignoring Hansen's startled shriek. And not a moment too soon, since a black-scaled, clawed hand punched through the roof of the mansion, and Alexandra makes her way outside, a man in ninja gear hanging in her malformed maw.
His agonized screams are cut off with a nauseating crunch, before Alexandra drops her former subordinate as her flaming eyes track my flying form. The roar she lets out is a weird mix between the sounds Susan makes, only deeper, and a woman's shriek.
Then she opens that teeth-filled maw of her, and I can feel that same twisting of power that I sensed coming from Gao when she used her chi attack, as a gout of flame easily twenty feet long comes leaping from her throat, the edges tinted in colours that I didn't even know existed and can't quite remember afterwards.
I'm starkly reminded of the breath attacks of the Abilisk the Guardians fought in GotG Vol. 2 and I give out an annoyed growl as realization sets in.
"What?! What is it! What the fuck was that?!"
"She can channel chi."
"I don't know what that means!"
Swinging her upwards, I shift my grip so I'm holding her in the classic bride position as we both look down as Alexandra makes her way back into the burning mansion, gunfire and screams increasing in intensity as she does.
Something tells me that the Hand and Hydra aren't exactly bothering with fighting each other anymore.
"Chi. The energy force of life. A form of magic, though using an internal power, instead of channelling universal or interdimensional energy." I explain absentmindedly as I try to track the slaughter going on inside the ruin.
"What! That's… that's…"
"Nonsense? Look lady, I'm a flying dude with superstrength who literally just flew in to save your from a human-dragon abomination thing. Are you really going to argue with me about whether magic is real or not? Now?"
Conceding to my irrefutable logic, Hansen falls silent, before I give her a nudge.
"What the fuck happened?"
"Well, first A.I.M. was backed by the government, right? I didn't care at first, Killian always took care of that side, but after he died, people started contacting me. Demanding things I couldn't possibly deliver. Extremis was still unstable, but the people on the other end of the line, who actually controlled A.I.M., they didn't care. They wanted to use the faulty subjects as suicide bombers, or some sick shit like that, and they brought in this guy, this freak. Calls himself the Mandarin, he's a terrorist or something, but he also told me to call him Trevor, he plays up this whole terrorist act, and I had to just make more. And then today, this woman rings the doorbell out of nowhere, and when the Mandarin sees her, he gives this order in some strange language, and the people he brought in start shooting at the people the backers had brought in and people were dying, and then this lady had her ninja enter the building! She ordered me to enhance her with Extremis, but I told her that it would probably kill me, and she just hit me and started yelling about having freed herself of death or some shit like that, and then there was gunfire again, and she ordered the Mandarin, or Trevor, or whatever the fuck his name is to buy her enough time for her ascension, and that if he did he'd rise with her or some shit like that and he just bowed and went 'yes, mistress' and went off and started fighting whoever the fuck attacked us now and then the bitch started hitting me again, telling me she was running out of time so I injected her but something went wrong-"
"Dr. Hansen!"
My shout snaps her from her shocked babbling, and her wide eyes settle on mine as her breathing slowly starts to even out a bit.
"When you injected Alexandra, the woman, what happened? What turned her into… that?" I ask, my question punctuated by another roar/shriek coming from within the mansion.
At my question, Hansen's eyes widen even further, and she clings so desperately to me I can actually feel the pressure.
"There's… something… inside her already… and it wants out…" Hansen whispers in such a horrified voice I can't quite keep a shiver from travelling up my spine.
'So I was right. The Extremis had some sort of reaction with the Dragon substance already in her body. After centuries or even millennia, I imagine her body is completely infused with it… and considering Extremis', well, extremeregenerative abilities…'
"What are you going to do?" Hansen asks me in a worried tone, her eyes still filled with terror, while her hands are fisted into my duster in a deathgrip.
"I'm going to kill her."
As I say it, there's a terrified scream below, and we can clearly see a man thrown clear through the wall of the mansion. It's impossible to tell whether he was with the Hand or with Hydra, due to the fact that he was on fire.
And missing the upper part of his torso.
"Can you?" Hansen asks me in a soft whisper, and I briefly wondered the same thing, before I steeled myself.
I faced the Panther Goddess Bast. No mortal had managed to ever halt me in my tracks, not even when armed with futuristic technology and with the element of surprise. In one day I had done more damage to the Hand than they had experienced in centuries, and even now my allies were moving against Hydra. I had a fucking dinosaur as a pet and the man who made the Abomination as my best friend.
I could take a mutant dragon abomination any day of the week.
"Sure." I reply, before slowly descending down to Killian's private beach, which is thankfully only littered with a few bodies, in contrast to the slaughterhouse that the mansion itself is and the grounds surrounding it.
Setting her on her feet, I prepare to fly off again, but Hansen's hands on my arm keep me in place. Turning towards the scientist with a questioning look, Hansen holds onto me with a panicked expression.
"Don't just leave me here!"
For a moment, I debate what I should do with her. I already have Extremis, so I don't really need her. On the other hand, this woman laid the groundwork for one of the most powerful enhancements in the MCU setting, as a baseline human. If I had her working for me on the Brain Booster…
However, the thing that eventually made my decision for me where Sterns' words to me on the phone. While I didn't feel guilty about my actions today, I did feel like shit about them, mostly about what I did to Colleen, but the sound as I snapped Olivia's neck came to mind as well.
It would be nice to just do a good thing today.
"Don't worry, alright? Stay here, you'll be safe. I'm gonna kill the dragon, then come back and take you with me, alright? You know who I am right?"
"Y-yeah. Uh, yeah, you're McCole. You run Titan Solutions. Or, I mean, you used to, ehm-"
"Yeah, whatever, listen, after I kill the dragon, you'll come work for me, alright? No more shady backers, or terrorists, or ninja turning into dragons anymore, ok? If you want I can even keep you a secret, and tell the world that you died here, so those assholes that tried to control you won't go looking for you, alright?" I press her, getting a hesitant nod from the scientist.
"Fine. Yeah, fine. Just don't leave me here."
"I won't. Promise."
And with that, I bend at the knees, before I blast off into the night sky, blasting sand away in my take-off. I rise out high above the mansion, before I angle myself forwards, and rocket towards the burning building.
I crash through the roof, two floors and three walls before I find myself in the burning remains of what once was the main room of the mansion. Everywhere were I look I see bodies, bullet holes and even the occasional claw mark.
A burst of gunfire and an ear-splitting roar coming from the floor above me and to the my right clues me in on the location of my target, and I'm off like a rocket, smashing through the ceiling, coming up right underneath Alexandra. Wrapping my arms around her ripped-apart body I don't stop, carrying her through another two floors, before she manages to kick me in the stomach, sending me through a wall.
As I straighten from the mangled remains of the table I had crashed into, I can see Alexandra's misshapen face glare at me through the hole, and once again I sense her gathering something, before she unleashes yet another burst of chi-powered fire.
It's the first time since I've enhanced myself with Extremis that I feel heat crashing into me. As I open my eyes, I stare at my hands, which I had instinctively thrown up in front of my face.
They're burned.
Only slightly, like when you're accidentally brush against a hot frying pan or something, but still.
I'm supposed to be fireproof.
"So this is the power of chi, huh?" I muse to myself, and then I can't muse anymore, because Alexandra crashed into the room, making long swipes with her arm.
I dodge the first two, but as she comes with a swipe to my left side, I turn into her strike, balling my fist (already healed of course) as I tried to mimic what I felt Gao and Alexandra do, funnelling the power that I've felt since this morning into my attack.
Before her clawed hand can reach me, I punch outwards, hitting her in the crook of her elbow.
The blow is accompanied by a rush of wind, and it harshly twists Alexandra to the side as it nearly tears her arm off completely. Not wasting any time, I shoot forwards, punching her in the chest as hard as I can, sending her crashing through two walls and straight out of the mansion.
I briefly look at my fist, as I can tell that that one wasn't fuelled with power as the other one had been, this one using just using my raw strength. I didn't even know if the other punch had been fuelled by proper chi, or by the same energy field that gave Jessica her powers.
Or maybe the changes in her DNA allowed Jessica to naturally draw on her chi? But then where does the flight come from-
Once again I'm taken off guard because of all of these new questions when Alexandra bursts into the house again, this time managing to catch me in a bearhug as she sends us crashing to the floor below us.
Her head (a disgusting thing, it looks like someone cut off Sigourney Weaver's face, and tried to stretch it over a skull that was decidedly non-human) darts forwards on a neck that's far too long, and her jaws close around my shoulder.
She draws back almost immediately though, a mix of a rail and a roar tearing from her throat as she broke her teeth on my indestructible coat. As close as we are now, I can definitely see what Hansen meant: underneath what remains of her skin, something is clearly shifting and growing, and in some places, it rips apart the skin, showing lava-like blood and flesh that resembles fiery embers, though they have a yellowish glow.
I'm torn from my morbid stare as Alexandra's arm (completely healed, I notice) descends towards my head, impacting with an almighty shockwave and a sound like a thunderclap, snapping my head to the left.
Feeling a wetness inside my mind, I realize that the bitch made me bite my own tongue!
As she rears back for another strike (probably chi-fuelled like her fire is, considering the strength behind that last punch) I knee her in the side with enough force to throw her clear from me, something giving way with a wet snapping sound.
Quickly righting myself, I dash towards the abomination before it has a chance to recollect itself (which probably won't take long, since apparently it has a pretty decent healing factor, though thankfully nothing on my level) and I unleash a flurry of punches, each one hammering her deeper into the floor, and each one snapping something underneath her skin.
After a few moments of this, there's an enormous groan going through the entire house, before the floor gives way underneath us. I'm fine, as I just hover in place, but Alexandra starts falling with the rest of the debris, covered in glowing blood.
I almost chase after her, before her tail passes me, and acting on instinct, my hands lash out, grabbing the appendage hard enough that I'm tearing loose some scales, showing more of that burning flesh underneath.
With Alexandra shrieking below me, I rocket upwards, the floors of the mansion easily breaking on my body as I fly upwards in a straight line, before I finally smash through the roof, both me and Alexandra completely covered in flame.
As I keep climbing, a trail of fire following us in our wake, I can spot fireworks erratically dot the sky around us. Putting it out of my mind, I give an enormous heave, and throw Alexandra even further upwards.
As the flaming abomination hangs in the air, I rocket up past her, before I come to a halt myself. Quickly turning around, I start flying down to the falling Alexandra. Her flaming eyes settle on me, and she lets out an enormous wall of fire at me, but I just grit my teeth and come out the other side, slightly singed, but very pissed off.
And then I crash into her once again, slamming both my arms around her twisting form, and I pour on even more speed, the mansion below us rapidly growing in my view.
And then we're crashing through the roof again, though I just keep powering onwards. We slam through every floor as if it isn't even there, before we finally hit the ground floor, crashing hard enough that everything in the room is slammed into the walls (bodies, furniture, survivors), the fire is snuffed out, and the entire mansion is shaking on its foundations.
In the middle of the room, at the epicentre of our crash, lies the broken form of Alexandra Reid, but judging by the slight twitches her head is making and the hellish glow that's only growing stronger underneath her skin, along with that disgusting shifting, she's not dead yet.
I intend to rectify that.
Straightening the fingers on my right hand, I heat it up as hot as it can go, until it's emitting a glaring white glow, air shimmering around me. I then plunge my hand into the centre of Alexandra's chest, drawing an agonized shriek from her as I easily cut through her breastbone.
As she struggles to counterattack (and those twitches are definitely getting more pronounced, meaning that's she's rapidly healing) I repeat the process on my left hand, before I stab it down as well, right into the gaping wound my right hand is making.
Again she shrieks, and I'm fairly certain that she's busted both my eardrums, considering everything sounds muffled, dominated by an annoyingly high pitch, while I can feel something wet drip from my ears.
Still, I power through it, and with a roar that's even louder than hers, I rip my arms to the side with all of my strength, ripping apart Alexandra's chest, causing her to trash around in agony. The inside of her… it looks nothing like the insides of a human. Not even an Extremis-human. There's glowing cancerous looking growths everywhere, and everything burns with that yellowish glow, or is in fact, literally burning.
But there's one thing that's familiar.
Sitting a bit to the left of the hollow inside her chest I can spot her heart beating. It doesn't look human (for one it's glowing so brightly I have some difficulty looking at it) but it's definitely her heart.
Ignoring the trashing of the abomination beneath me, I pull back my right fist, once more heating it up as far as it can go, but now also fuelling all of the power inside of me into it, just like I felt Gao and Alexandra do. Everything I have inside of me, I push towards my fist, and I can tell it's working when it's suddenly covered in a flaming aura.
By now, Alexandra's spine has healed enough that she can lift her head and her right hand, and as she moves her head towards me in a flash, teeth filled maw opened wide, I roar again, punching down with all of my strength.
"THIS IS FOR PHINEAS, YOU BITCH!"
Once again, the mansion shakes down to its very foundations, while the room is filled by a flash of heat and blinding light.
As the light fades, I look down at what used to be Alexandra.
There's nothing but some charred ribs where her torso was, her legs, arms, and head completely disconnected from each other. Alexandra's decapitated head looks at me in a mix of hatred and shock, before slowly the taut skin of her face goes slack, those flaming eyes slowly dying out, revealing empty sockets.
Slowly, all of her remains lose that hellish glow, as her skin starts to grey into an ashy colour, flaking off here and there.
Alexandra Reid is well and truly dead.
As I stand up, I briefly think that the fighting has renewed itself as I hear something like gunfire, but as I tiredly let my head fall backwards, I realize it's just enormous amounts of firework going off.
January 1st, 2012 00:01
"Happy New Year…" I softly mumble to myself, before a glow from the corner of my eye catches my attention.
As I lift up my clenched fist, I gaze at it in wonder.
Now, ever since I enhanced myself with Extremis, I had gotten somewhat used to parts of my body glowing at times. But that was usually in a reddish-orange hue, unless I actively tried to burn as hot as I could, in which case it would be a blinding white.
But this yellow glow?
Yeah, that was new.
AN: Oof, this chapter was a bitch and a half! I had to rewrite it. 'How much of it?', I hear you ask. Well, my dear reader, here's the answer: ALL OF IT. See, I had this awesome showdown planned between all of the Hand and Michael at Midland Circle, but as I was almost finished with it, I realized a very important thing: Midland Circle doesn't exist at this point in the timeline. So instead of just Michael vs Hand, I had to split up the Hand in their individual parts, which is why this chapter is just way too long. But I didn't want to cut it, because I promised this would be the final chapter in the Hand Arc, and gosh darn it all to heck, I kept my promise! Not all too happy about certain parts (especially Gao's part feels rushed) but I've been writing non-stop for two days straight now and it's currently 1am, so if they feel rushed, it's because they kinda are. No worries, when my fingers stop hurting (and I'm not joking, they actually do hurt a bit, due to holding them in my cramped, weird-ass typing position for nine hours straight), I'll go back into the chapter and catch any spelling mistakes, and probably rewrite some parts of it. For now, enjoy!
Fun Fact: The X-men character Dazzler was actually created to serve as a multi-media cross-promotion between Casablanca Records and Marvel Comics. She was originally planned to have a real life equivalent with a record and a movie, but both ideas were dropped when disco started falling out of fashion, though the fictional character persists today as a part of the X-Men.
As always, all of my thanks to my wonderful Patrons, AndrewDC_MAC2, Thordur hrafn, Daniel Dorfman and ReaperScythe, with a very warm welcome to Miu! Welcome to the club and thank you all so much for your support, it really does mean a lot to me!