Author's Note:
Combat scenes are not my strong suit; it's easy to imagine things in your head like an episode of a cartoon, but it's hard to write them down and make them make sense.
Honestly, I think I'm better at writing conversations.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter.
XXX
Story Arc: Out-of-Town Visitors
Episode 3: A day full of dates and surprises (V)
Chapter 13: Quasimodo
Plot: A new supervillain has broken loose in the police station, and the two superheroes in town, Black Warlock and Spider-Man, go to face him.
XXX
POV Narrator
The NCPD police station suddenly finds itself facing a big, bulky, and monstrously red problem.
When Scar-eye pressed the needle of the glass pen into his neck, injecting Lady V's thick yellowish substance, her serum generated an extreme chemical reaction upon contact with the latent residues of the drug Venom. For years, the smuggler had made regular and massive use of Gotham City's infamous steroid to keep himself artificially strong. Even though he had reduced the administrations to the form of patches to avoid the devastating long-term side effects, the toxins had settled deep within his organism, binding permanently to the muscle tissues without his liver ever having a real chance to fully eliminate them.
Vanessa Vipère's fluorescent mixture acted as a molecular biological detonator, awakening every last drop of Venom present in Scar-eye's body, amplifying its potency and stabilizing its destructive effects.
The result is a violent and malformed metamorphosis:
• The Skin: The cutaneous tissue has thickened immensely, turning into a wrinkled red shade, identical to a pour of living bricks.
• The Stature: The skeleton stretched with frightening creaks, transforming him into an asymmetrical colossus three meters tall, but lacking the athletic harmony of a mythological hero like Heracles.
• The Lower Limbs: The thighs exploded in volume, individually becoming larger than an adult man's head, while remaining disproportionately short compared to the massive torso.
• The Left Arm: It elongated unnaturally, flexible and thin, swinging a gnarled hand that now abundantly passes the knee line.
• The Right Arm: It is the most grotesque and deformed part of his new appearance; it has changed into a hypertrophic and mammoth mass of striated muscles, a mallet of red flesh weighing several hundred pounds on its own.
• The Face: The sclerae and irises drowned in a jaundiced, luminescent yellow, while his old eye scar began to glow faintly with a chemical light.
The sudden increase in mass literally disintegrated his jacket and shirt, but by pure miracle, the sturdy tactical pants in reinforced canvas held the pressure of the growth just enough to cover the essentials. Due to his conspicuously hunched back and the slouching gait dictated by the weight of his right arm, Scar-eye now resembles a titanic gorilla straight out of a failed laboratory experiment.
The first thing the monster did was lift his colossal arm, throwing a devastating punch against the wall of the isolation cell. The reinforced concrete instantly pulverized under the kinetic impact, opening a gigantic breach that looks out directly onto the second floor of the police station.
Taking advantage of the reach of his long and flexible left arm, Scar-eye extended his hand toward the corner of the latrine, grabbing the unconscious and battered Garrett Bobby Ferguson by a leg to use him as a potential hostage. Immediately after, the red giant threw himself into the empty space through the hole, plunging straight into the inner courtyard used as the NCPD parking lot.
The impact with the asphalt below did not cause him the slightest damage, but his enormous gravitational size cracked the tar, kicked up a thick cloud of road debris. Perhaps out of pure spite, or to test his terrifying new brute strength, Scar-eye extended his monstrous arm toward one of the patrol cars parked nearby, fortunately empty: he jammed his fingers into the sheet metal of the frame, lifted the entire car over his head, and hurled it into the air across the courtyard as if it were a light beach ball.
XXX
Meanwhile, Black Warlock and Spider-Man are perched atop the clock tower, the highest point in the Blackwood district. From that privileged position, their gaze can embrace the entire chessboard of Gothic roofs and illuminated streets of the historic center, which looks almost motionless under the midday light.
"This is one of my favorite vantage points, not just for the atmosphere produced by a cloaked figure atop a clock tower," Warlock said. He leaned forward slightly, savoring the breeze whipping his face and fully enjoying the exquisitely theatrical aesthetic that the position offered to his alter ego.
"You like theatricality," Spider-Man commented. The New York hero was crouching motionless on a protruding stone gargoyle, knees close to his chest and fingertips anchored to the rock; an unnatural posture for anyone else, but one that made him breathe the air of home.
"Half the fun comes from wearing a cape and showing it off with style," Black Warlock replied. With a fluid and calculated movement of his arm, he gave a sharp flick to the dark blue fabric of his short Speaker poncho, making it float mid-air in a perfect drape.
"Finally, someone else with a sense of humor," Spider-Man exclaimed, the white lenses on his mask narrowing slightly in approval. Beneath the red fabric, Peter was genuinely beginning to enjoy the bizarre but refreshing company of the small-town mage.
"I want to ask you a question, but it might be a bit intrusive," Black Warlock began, turning his horned head toward his colleague. His tone had suddenly grown more serious: Welt wished to draw upon the field experience of a veteran who had been fighting crime for several years.
"What do you want to know, young Padawan?" Spider-Man asked, tilting his neck ironically to the side. That movie quote had rested in his mental archive of jokes for years, but in New York, among grim heroes and hyper-serious street vigilants, he had never found the right occasion to unleash it.
"Number one: I prefer the Sith, or at least the Gray Jedi. They have decidedly more interesting powers and greater freedom of action," Warlock immediately pointed out with the composure of a true nerd, before focusing on the real core of his doubt.
"Here's the question: how do you deal with a Femme Fatale dressed in tight clothes and potentially themed after a cat burglar?" Black Warlock asked, betraying genuine curiosity.
"Why the hell do you want to know that?" Spider-Man asked, raising an invisible eyebrow beneath his mask while his lenses widened in surprise.
"From what I gather, if I'm going to keep being the resident superhero of Nightfall City, sooner or later I'll have to face the big clichés of the trade," Warlock explained methodically, counting on his fingers. "I'll have my own Rogues Gallery, an Evil Twin, a laboratory-cloned son or daughter, a teenage Sidekick, and inevitably, a Femme Fatale thief who will try to mess with my mind. In short, I'm getting ahead of the work and preparing for the future," he concluded with disarming lucidity, well aware of how absurd life under a mask could become.
"I've honestly lost count of how many times I've been cloned," Spider-Man confessed, letting out a resigned sigh that made the fabric of his mask vibrate. "But fortunately, at least so far, I've never had to worry about managing a Spider-Boy or a Spider-Girl," he added, considering himself miraculously blessed by luck for not having run into complex, Superboy- or X-23-style dynastic scenarios yet.
"As for the cat-themed thieves... frankly, I advise you to plug your ears, keep your distance, and fight them from afar," Spider-Man recommended, his tone that of someone speaking from painful personal experience. "If you don't, you'll end up trapped in an endless web of problems, misunderstandings, and total ambiguity," he added, shuddering as he thought back to his reckless adventures with Black Cat.
"Maybe I should have just kept my mouth shut," Warlock stated, sensing the imperceptible note of regret in his companion's voice and realizing he had touched a very sore spot. To lighten the mood, the local hero quickly spun his wrists and abruptly changed the subject: "So... Star Trek or Star Wars? Which do you think is better?"
"I am absolutely on the side of Star Wars!" Spider-Man exclaimed with enthusiasm, raising a clenched fist and cheering for that timely and highly welcome return to healthy pop culture debates.
'As soon as I have a free moment this week, I absolutely must buy him an apology gift. Maybe a collectible Star Wars LEGO set? The UCS Death Star (#75419) or the UCS Millennium Falcon (#75192)?' Black Warlock calculated mentally, evaluating the financial investment within his budget with absolute seriousness to make up for his indiscretion.
However, the two vigilantes' moment of leisure was brutally murdered. A dull, violent roar shook the foundations of the district and, a few hundred meters away, a colossal cloud of dust and smoke rose into the sky. An instant later, Spider-Man's superhuman senses and Warlock's sharpened vision focused on a surreal detail: a police patrol car, gutted and crumpled, had been hurled into the air past the roofline as if it were a light beach ball.
"A peaceful day for Spider-Man just isn't possible," the wall-crawler muttered through gritted teeth, his muscles instantly tensing against the stone of the gargoyle.
"That chaos is coming directly from the central police station!" Black Warlock exclaimed, his encyclopedic knowledge of the urban geography allowing him to identify the epicenter of the disaster in the blink of an eye.
'Laura!' Peter thought, hit by a jolt of pure adrenaline at the thought that his reckless new colleague from the Bugle was right inside that building under attack.
'Origami! Motoko!' Welt's mind screamed, while his heart literally stopped in his chest out of terror. He imagined the various dramatic scenarios that could happen to the three women important to Welt, including the single, fundamental figure for Warlock.
Without losing a single moment, the hero dressed in red and blue launched himself into the empty space from the tower with an acrobatic leap. He extended his arm forward and flicked his wrist, firing a taut web line against the nearest ledge to begin swinging at breakneck speed toward the station.
"We don't have a single second to lose!" Warlock thundered.
With a feline reflex, the D&D-themed hero spurred his magic scepter, intercepting Spider-Man's falling trajectory mid-air. He extended his left hand, firmly grabbed the fabric on the back of the spider costume, and with a vigorous tug, pulled him over, positioning him directly onto the back of his floating staff.
"Put your hands on my shoulders and hold on tight, I'm turning on the Turbo!" Warlock ordered at the top of his lungs. With his free right hand, he quickly drew an immense ring of blue light mid-air right in front of their trajectory.
Peter Parker's Spider-Sense buzzed loudly, confirming that cooperating was the only way to arrive in time. Obeying instantly, Spider-Man planted his hands on Black Warlock's sturdy shoulders and, to guarantee the maximum structural stability of the crew, activated his arachnid adhesion power, anchoring himself to the mage's body as if he were clinging to a concrete wall.
As soon as the magic staff penetrated through the circle of glowing runes, the spell activated, instantly tripling their speed.
If a moment before they were moving with the swiftness of a sports car, a millisecond later the scepter bolted forward with the brutal acceleration of a runaway bullet train. The impact with the air was so violent that Spider-Man seriously thought he would turn into a fabric flag whipped by a hurricane.
"I originally designed the Turbo for long stratospheric travel, in case I had to reach distant metropolises like Metropolis or New York! But I discovered it also works divinely for short sprints in the city!" Black Warlock shouted to overcome the roar of the wind, while the heroic pair covered exactly half the distance in the blink of an eye.
XXX
Despite the hellish chaos devastating the outside, Commissioner Itami is demonstrating steady nerves and excellent crisis management skills.
Assisted by Captain Ch'en, he has managed to firmly immobilize and handcuff Detective Rodrigo, who is in a state of total and violent chemical delirium. Once the internal threat was isolated, the Commissioner's directives were immediate and unwavering: Captain Motoko Kusanagi, supported by Sergeant Wu and a squad of elite officers, took command of the evacuation operations, safely channeling civilians and all administrative and technical staff out of the building through the rear emergency exits.
Meanwhile, the operational department's reaction is relentless. Captain Ch'en and her sharpshooters are rapidly equipping themselves with heavy SWAT gear: ballistic armor, tactical shields, and assault rifles; no one can think of unleashing panic inside an NCPD station without risking the immediate and destructive wrath of the entire police force. At the command center, Itami is coordinating unit movements with the support of Captain LaGuerta, who is proving to be a fundamental resource thanks to logistical orders that are precise, clear, and incredibly useful for managing the perimeter.
In the midst of this armed mobilization, inside the second-floor administrative offices, two women of diametrically opposed character have just crossed paths.
Origami Tobiichi marched through the deserted corridors, deciding to burst into Captain Motoko's private office. Without losing her composure, the female forensic scientist positioned herself straight in front of the room's large window—a strategic position that offers a geometric, perfect view of the monstrous Scar-eye intent on devastating the parking lot below.
However, Origami is by no means alone inside the room. In fact, Laura Lane is underneath the massive wooden desk. The daring Bugle reporter, determined not to be cut out of the investigation, had managed to evade Sergeant Wu's patrol during the evacuation sweep, slipping into the shadows under the table to stay at the beating heart of the action. Her sole objective is to gather exclusive information and, if luck favors her, take memorable photographs of the ongoing disaster.
Origami looked down icily past the edge of the desk, immediately spotting the journalist's silhouette. Staring at her with her completely expressionless blue eyes, she addressed her with a frosty, concise warning: "Don't do anything stupid, and see to it that you don't interfere with my work."
XXX
In the NCPD parking lot, Scar-eye—who at this exact moment is in desperate need of a new, terrifying nickname—is continuing to sow total destruction. However, the unconscious Garrett Bobby Ferguson is no longer clenched in his unnaturally elongated left hand: the red colossus hurled him onto the asphalt of the courtyard as if he were an insignificant pile of rags.
Apparently, the creature has chosen to completely ignore Lady V's orders: instead of reaching the Red House directly within an hour, he prefers to do as he pleases, blinded by a primal fury.
"Black Warlock! Spider-Man! Come out and face me! This time things will be completely different!" Scar-eye roared at the top of his lungs, his cavernous voice making the sheet metal of the surrounding cars vibrate, eager only to wash away the previous night's humiliation with blood. Clearly, the smuggler is an incredibly spiteful guy.
"Shield!" a thundering voice bellowed from above.
The red giant snapped his gaze upward, his yellow irises focusing on Black Warlock and Spider-Man riding the magic staff. The weapon was cutting through the air in a vertical and ruthless dive, entirely enveloped by an impenetrable shield of translucent purple energy.
"■■■!" Scar-eye chewed out, letting slip a heavy curse a millisecond before impact.
CRUNCH!
The kinetic wedge of the magic staff struck the red giant square in the chest. The defensive barrier shattered into a thousand shards of silvery light due to the immense force of the impact; the two heroes remained completely unharmed, but the collision hurled the criminal into a brief flight of a few meters, sending him crashing ruinously onto his solid back.
"I've always wanted to ram someone with the scepter! I think I'm going to use this move a lot more often from now on!" Black Warlock exclaimed with a bright, sly smile, convinced for a moment that he had resolved the dispute in a single blow.
"I'll give you a full five stars for speed, but only two stars for the comfort and safety of the ride," Spider-Man commented, leaping off the rear of the staff with a feline flip, vastly preferring to move using the stability of his own legs.
"Give me at most three months in my labs, and I swear I will leave you completely speechless once I finish constructing my trusty W-ship!" Warlock retorted, touching the ground in turn and planting his feet on the asphalt while wielding the scepter like a solid combat lance.
"This time it won't end at all like last night!" Scar-eye yelled, struggling back to his feet. However, his spine, conspicuously hunched by the weight of the Venom, prevented him from maintaining an erect posture: the monster planted his mammoth right arm on the ground in front of him, swinging sideways on his center of gravity just like an infuriated gorilla.
"Say, spider-guy... is this one by any chance one of your historic enemies from New York?" Warlock asked, partially turning his head toward his companion. Clearly, the local hero was struggling to recognize Scar-eye under that tide of red, asymmetrical muscles—a more than understandable reaction.
"Who knows? I've stopped so many Class F wannabe supervillains over the years that I don't even try to remember their names anymore," Spider-Man replied, shrugging with resigned composure. "If a criminal doesn't come back to hunt me down at least three or four times, I determine they aren't worthy of occupying space in my memory," he added with a touch of sharp sarcasm.
"Don't you dare ignore me! I will avenge myself for what you did to me yesterday with that pathetic sneak attack!" the red monster shouted. With a violent surge of anger, he slammed his hypertrophic pusto against the ground of the parking area, cracking the tar and causing the earth to shudder beneath the boots of those present.
"Big, ugly, short-tempered, and endowed with superhuman brute strength... a terrible genealogical combination," Spider-Man commented, sensing the foreboding feeling that this time he would have to work quite hard to restrain the mutated smuggler.
"Wait a minute... So you are Scar-eye?! The leader of the port's weapons smuggling gang?!" Black Warlock asked, finally connecting the investigative dots thanks to the giant's recriminations.
"Yikes, pal... the slammer has definitely changed your facial features, and for the worse!" Spider-Man joked, though his scientific mind was seriously wondering what biochemical cocktail the man had ingested to trigger such a grotesque cellular mutation.
"That is not my name!" the red monster exclaimed, his face turning an even darker shade of crimson. His brain chemistry, altered by Lady V's serum, was by now saturated with adrenaline and violent hormonal imbalances.
"You're absolutely right! Scar-eye doesn't suit that deformed body in the slightest... from now on, your official name will be Quasimodo!" Black Warlock exclaimed, devising the perfect epithet for the criminal on the spot.
"Quasimodo, the king of horrible, failed smugglers! An impeccable title and a name that is a whole art program!" Spider-Man continued, having a blast adding fuel to the fire to destabilize the enemy's nerves.
"I will break every single bone in your body!" the newly christened Quasimodo roared, charging head-down and swinging his mallet of red flesh forward.
Black Warlock executed a clean, coordinated side leap to avoid the path of impact, while Spider-Man performed a very long, spectacular backward flip, covering several meters mid-air before landing in perfect geometric balance on the soles of his feet.
"As far as I'm concerned, I much prefer pasting things into place!" Spider-Man exclaimed, coining on the fly the worst, most overused pun of his entire career as an urban hero. A millisecond later...
THWIP!
From his mechanical wrist attachments sprouted two taut streams of web-fluid, which simultaneously hit Quasimodo's face and ankles in an attempt to immobilize him on the concrete.
However, the red giant's force of inertia was unstoppable: the muscles of his thighs contracted, instantly tearing the white strands around his legs. With a supple reflex, Quasimodo raised his left arm—the thin and disproportionately long one—and with a violent lash, ripped the webbing off his face, breaking free from the grip.
"What are you trying to do, a bad imitation of Rhino?" Spider-Man asked. Using his proportional agility, he deftly ducked his center of gravity to let a huge fist whiz over his head, then bolted forward and delivered a devastating right hook straight to the monster's jaw.
PUNCH!
"I felt absolutely nothing!" the red giant exclaimed. A prominent purple bruise surfaced on the wrinkled skin of his cheekbone, but Quasimodo showed no sign of pain whatsoever, as his sensory perception was completely anesthetized by the substances coursing through his system.
"A thick-headed brute lacking pain receptors, fantastic," Spider-Man declared with heavy sarcasm, sharply bending his back backward to dodge a heavy slash.
"Quasimodo, make sure you take this gift!" Black Warlock shouted.
With a millimeter-precise movement of his fingers, the local hero slipped a cylindrical device resembling a tactical grenade from his utility belt and hurled it in a parabolic arc right at the criminal's face.
SPLACK!
Upon impact, the device explodes, releasing a massive wave of a thick, viscous lavender slime, entirely dusted with a shower of glittering glitter. The compound instantly seals Quasimodo's eyes and nose; the monster instinctively raises his hands to clean his face, but his gnarled fingers remain glued to the skin due to the incredible tenacity of the magic glue.
"What the... Are you telling me you plagiarized and copied my lab-made webbing?!" Spider-Man asked aloud, widening the white lenses of his mask in surprise while he continued to pelt the temporarily blinded opponent's torso with punches and kicks.
"Last night I took a small sample of your webbing and analyzed it under the microscope in my lab! Let me tell you, you are without a shadow of a doubt the greatest expert in chemistry and biochemistry I have ever met in my life!" Black Warlock exclaimed. With a second sleight of hand, he extracts a second sticky grenade from his belt and hurls it at the colossus's lower limbs.
SPLACK!
The second device opens instantly, firmly gluing one of Quasimodo's massive feet to the parking lot concrete in a grip of lavender latex and glitter.
"Thank you very much for the encouragement and the academic compliment, but what on earth did you change in my original formula to make it so monstrously adhesive?!" Spider-Man asked. Exploiting the target's blindness, he unleashes a devastating flurry of straight punches in rapid succession against Quasimodo's stomach, forcing the red giant to bend his knees and collapse onto the asphalt.
"I wasn't able to entirely decipher your structural formula, it was definitely too complex for my knowledge! But it gave me the right inspiration to give life to a biological variant based entirely on plant elements! I mixed it with a jar of simple industrial glitter and enriched it with some components not present in this world, first and foremost the resin extracted from the witch-eating trees of the forest!" Black Warlock explained in detail. Meanwhile, the young mage positions himself a few meters away, wielding the scepter with both hands and concentrating arcane energy into the gem, preparing to channel a far more useful spell.
"But why the hell did you want to put glitter inside it?!" Spider-Man asked, dodging a blind swipe of the monster's left arm, genuinely bewildered by that aesthetic touch.
"Simple: it serves to distinguish our sticky stuff between us! Plus, glitter makes every capture infinitely cuter and more pop! You should know that as a child my parents bought me a whole set of glitter tempera paints, and I was absolutely the best in my entire class during art lessons!" Black Warlock exclaimed, letting himself be carried away by the enthusiasm of his own nerdy narration and making the grave mistake of underestimating the residual capabilities of his mammoth opponent.
Quasimodo's ears, however, are perfectly functional. Hearing the academic and mocking account that Black Warlock is giving, the monster is overcome by a blind rage, a savage fury he has never felt in all his existence.
"Haaaaaa!" the red giant roared, completely crazed with anger. His arms move with such violence as to make an extreme gesture.
SHLUCK!
Just to free his limbs from the viscous grip, he gives a ruthless yank, tearing the skin of his face that had remained glued to his hands.
"The nickname Quasimodo definitely suits you much better now," Spider-Man joked. To his immense fortune, the fabric mask hides the grimace of genuine disgust that has just contorted his facial features before that macabre biological spectacle.
"I'll kill you, Spider-Man!" Quasimodo screamed. With joints invigorated by adrenaline, he throws a deadly punch, launching his mallet of red flesh at an infinitely higher speed than before.
The monster's devastating blow strikes the wall-crawler square in the chest, but the latter... instantly explodes into a dense cloud of purple smoke and luminescent glitter.
"I didn't just stand around as a simple spectator! In the time you were talking, I prepared a series of excellent stage tricks!" Black Warlock exclaimed with a triumphant smile. Exploiting the distraction and the presence of an ally on the field, the young mage was finally able to channel formulas and magic of visual alteration that he could never have employed while being alone.
A millisecond later, the space around Quasimodo becomes saturated: twelve identical Spider-Men appear out of nowhere, surrounding the red giant and looking around with perfectly coordinated postures.
"So this is what my life would be like if Mysterio finally decided to become a good guy," the twelve Spider-Men declared in unison, their voices echoing in perfect and disorienting acoustic synchronicity.
"This is a nightmare..." Quasimodo stated, his yellow irises darting wildly, unable to isolate the real target within that chessboard of illusions.
Driven by a beastly instinct, the monster looks down at his right foot, still glued to the tar by the magic latex. He charges his left arm—the long, thin one—and throws a brutal punch straight downward. With a dull crash, the ground around the footwear shatters and crumbles under the impact; the flesh of his foot suffers deep lacerations and structural damage due to the sharp debris, but the chemical anesthesia of the Venom allows him to completely ignore the pain, freeing his limb from captivity.
"I love the theatrical delivery of my tricks! And now, let the show begin!" Warlock exclaimed, firmly striking the base of his scepter on the parking lot concrete, as if to give the starting signal to an invisible orchestra.
The twelve Spider-Men simultaneously leap upon Quasimodo. Eleven of them are mere phantasmal projections devoid of substance, but one is the true hero of New York. Thanks to Warlock's magical direction, the copies move through space smoothly, crossing paths without ever hindering each other or stepping on each other's feet.
Quasimodo begins to react like a wounded beast or a heavily drugged street fighter. He throws wild, violent punches blindly at any shape that approaches him; unfortunately for him, his fists impact almost exclusively against the illusory clones. Upon each impact, the projections dissolve into conspicuous flashes of smoke and glitter, creating a dense stroboscopic curtain that further obstructs and limits his field of vision.
In that shiny chaos, the real Spider-Man has it easy. Moving like a lightning shadow among the reflections of the glitter, he begins to pepper Quasimodo with targeted punches and kicks, concentrating his proportional arachnid strength exclusively on the colossus's joints and exposed articulation points. Even if the monster is biologically incapable of perceiving suffering, his body still suffers the structural damage of the blows: by dint of taking trauma close to the tendons and ligaments, eventually his muscles will give out, forcing him to collapse onto the asphalt, defeated.
"Enough with this cursed spider! Now it's the dog's turn!" Quasimodo roared. The smuggler has a sudden and brilliant tactical insight: he turns his head toward Black Warlock, convinced that the mage is forced to remain perfectly motionless and focused to keep the visual tricks stable on the field.
THWIP!
The twelve Spider-Men positioned behind his back simultaneously fire twelve taut web lines against the red giant's back, grabbing his shoulders to slow his run.
"Has anyone ever taught you that you should never, ever turn your back on the enemy?" the real Spider-Man asked, pivoting on his legs and pulling the strands with all his muscular strength to halt the colossus.
Quasimodo, however, makes a lightning-fast movement with his long arm: he grabs the web lines and tears them with a sharp yank, then launches himself at full speed toward the motionless figure of Black Warlock. Spider-Man's illusions vanish instantly.
Once the distance is covered, the red monster charges his hypertrophic fist and throws it with destructive fury right at the hero's face. But...
BA-BUM!
Upon contact, Warlock's body explodes as if it were a common inflatable balloon, scattering a spectacular shower of colored confetti into the parking lot air.
"Quasimodo, you will end up being fooled and mocked for your entire existence if you don't learn to use your head before your muscles," Black Warlock's calm voice stated. The local hero appears out of nowhere a few meters away, right next to the real Spider-Man; it seems the young mage projected a flawless illusion of himself as well, and not just of his New York colleague.
"I have to admit, this is exactly the kind of dirty trick Mysterio would use against me during a fight," Spider-Man commented, empathizing for a brief moment with the monster's frustration, as he knows very well how it feels to be deceived by visual projections.
"You dirty cheater!" Quasimodo exclaimed, foaming at the mouth and nearly seething with pent-up rage. Without thinking for a single second longer, the giant rushes once more toward the two heroes standing shoulder-to-shoulder, fully intending to literally tear them to pieces with his bare hands.
"The time has come to apply an excellent temporary buff to my precious ally on the field," Black Warlock declared in a solemn tone. He raises his scepter and points its crystal gem straight toward Spider-Man's hands, then pronounces the formula: "Reinforcement of the Steel Fist!"
Instantly, Spider-Man's knuckles and right hand are entirely enveloped by a vibrant, blue flame of ghostly allure.
"Holy cow... I feel absolutely incredible!" Spider-Man exclaimed, clenching his fist and feeling a thrill of thermal energy race through his veins, but in a completely positive and empowering way. "I'm sure if Iron Fist were here right now, he'd start feeling terribly jealous of my hand," he added enthusiastically.
"This is absolutely the very first time I've tested this support spell on a flesh-and-blood human being! The effect will fade in no time, so see to it that you use it here and now!" Black Warlock warned him. On paper, he possesses immense theoretical and academic knowledge regarding empowerment magic for adventuring parties, but on a purely practical level on the field, he remains, for all intents and purposes, a novice.
"Don't worry, I'll know how to make the most of your precious help, Black Warlock!" Spider-Man exclaimed, bursting with confidence.
Moving as fast as a blue lightning bolt, the wall-crawler closes the distance separating him from the red monster and delivers his definitive blow.
BAMM!
The kinetic impact of the empowered punch is devastating. Quasimodo is lifted bodily off the ground and hurled flying straight against one of the police station's massive reinforced concrete walls, impacting with a frightening roar that opens a deep web of cracks in the structure.
"We definitely overdid it with that last combo!" Spider-Man exclaimed, widening the lenses of his mask as soon as he realized the error in judgment. At that exact moment, the ghostly blue flare vanishes from his knuckles, signaling the end of the magical buff.
XXX
The awareness of the mistake grows exponentially in the two heroes when a web of prominent fissures begins to branch along the concrete wall. Quasimodo staggers away from the point of impact and, without his massive stature acting as a "plug" for the structural masonry, a deep crack extends vertically upward with a sinister creak. The split rips through the facade until it reaches the large window of Motoko's office on the second floor—the exact windowsill from which Laura was frantically taking her photographs.
The reporter's foothold suddenly becomes unstable: the window frame and an entire block of bricks underneath give way entirely, collapsing toward the ground.
"Haaaaaa!" Laura screamed, losing her balance and plunging into the empty space along with the debris.
"Foolish girl!" Origami exclaimed.
Maintaining a totally icy and impassive tone, the female forensic scientist springs into action with the geometric coldness of an elite soldier. She throws herself forward past the edge of the ruptured floor: with her left hand, she catches Laura on the fly by the fabric of her pants, while with her right, she anchors herself firmly to a rebar rod protruding from the newly damaged wall, halting the fall of both women.
"How on earth did my Aunt Lois manage to never die so far?!" Laura screamed at the top of her lungs, her terrified gaze fixed on the empty space below, but still holding her reflex camera tenaciously in her hands so as not to break it.
"Because she regularly betrays her husband with the most powerful superhero in the world," Origami replied, her voice flat and cutting. The young woman is proudly part of that large circle of cynical scientists and academics convinced that Lois Lane built her entire, glorious international journalistic career solely by opening her legs to Superman.
SHRRRIPP!
A sharp, sinister sound of tearing fabric makes Laura's blood run cold, despite the sweltering summer heat.
"Why the hell did I have to buy these pants in a second-hand shop?!" Laura exclaimed, bitterly regretting her life choices driven by maximum financial savings.
"The more you keep flailing and moving your legs in the empty space, the faster the fabric will tear completely and you will fall," Origami stated with absolute logical detachment, genuinely trying to be helpful, even though empathy and emotional support are definitely not the strong suits of her repertoire.
XXX
Meanwhile, at ground level, Quasimodo has charged back into action, running toward the two heroes with the blind fury of a crazed bull or the primal brutality of an infuriated gorilla. His heavy footsteps shatter the asphalt, kicking up new fragments of tar.
The two vigilantes find themselves caught in a tactical pincer, with the monster closing the distance and the two women in imminent danger of death above them.
"I'll handle him! You go save the girl!" Black Warlock exclaimed with firmness, spinning his magic scepter and pointing its crystal gem straight at the red colossus.
"Lightning Bolt!" Warlock shouted at the top of his voice, channeling a massive arcane discharge.
ZZZWAM!
A colossal bolt, a lightning flash of pure blue-white energy, erupts from the tip of the scepter, streaking through the air and striking the monster square in the chest. The devastating kinetic and electrical discharge fries the giant's superficial tissues, forcing him to abruptly halt his charge and paralyzing him on the spot for a few, precious seconds.
"You've become a three-meter-tall deformed monster, and that means I can finally stop holding back! Get ready to become the favorite target of spells above level 3!" Black Warlock proclaimed in an exquisitely theatrical tone. Until that moment, the local hero had rigorously limited and reduced the destructive power of his mystical repertoire to avoid seriously injuring or killing normal criminals; a wise restriction that, obviously, no longer has any value against the mutated Quasimodo.
"I'm counting on you, pal!" Spider-Man exclaimed.
Exploiting the momentum, the wall-crawler executes a monumental leap mid-air, vaulting with a perfect acrobatics over the red monster's smoking silhouette.
Exactly in that tenth of a second, Laura's second-hand pants tear completely under her body weight. The fabric gives way all at once and the reporter loses her grip, beginning to plunge at breakneck speed toward the ground.
THWIP!
With a lightning reflex delivered by his mechanical web-shooters, Spider-Man fires a line of webbing to give himself a boost, intercepting the girl's falling trajectory. He extends his arm and firmly clasps her waist with one hand, holding her tight to himself to absorb the kinetic impact.
A sudden and intense blush surfaces on Laura's face, whose thoughts shift in a flash from the terror of death to the most complete and utter embarrassment of finding herself undressed and trapped in the arms of New York's superhero.
THWIP!
Without losing a single moment of momentum, Spider-Man fires a second taut strand against the ledge of an adjacent building. Utilizing gravity, he instantly forces a semicircular trajectory, drawing a large curve across the daytime sky that allows both of them to safely fly over the parking lot area, keeping well away from the violent clash in progress.
In a matter of seconds, the wall-crawler lands with millimeter precision on the safe sidewalk located beyond the perimeter of the disaster.
XXX
Simultaneously, at asphalt level, Black Warlock is dodging Quasimodo's furious onslaught with feline agility. Avoiding his blows is turning out to be a rather easy feat: the red colossus is beginning to visibly slow down. The accumulation of kinetic trauma previously inflicted by Spider-Man and the devastating Lightning Bolt taken square in the chest are leaving a deep mark on his biological structure.
With a clean leap backward, Warlock dodges a frightening slash that impacts against the parking lot ground, kicking up a shower of debris and cracking the concrete. Exploiting the temporary opening in the enemy's guard, the mage counterattacks instantly with a second, identical formula: "Lightning Bolt!"
A new, mammoth blue bolt springs from the tip of the scepter, hitting the red monster square on. With his three-meter stature, Quasimodo is such an immense target that he has no physical chance of dodging the blow at that distance. The electrical discharge courses through his hypertrophic muscles, locking him on the spot and preventing him from moving for a very few seconds. His glassy, angry gaze remains frozen in a single direction, allowing him to notice a familiar figure in the distance: Charlotte Gagnepetit, the pink-haired journalist who, heedless of the danger, is continuing to take photographs in rapid succession with her reflex camera.
"Let's see if you're fast enough to save the damsel now!" Quasimodo roared at the top of his lungs.
Exploiting the frightening reach of his left arm—the thin one, unnaturally elongated—the monster rips off the door of a nearby police patrol car with a single yank and, performing a brutal twist of his torso, hurls it at incredibly high speed toward the reporter like a death frisbee.
Understanding the absolute gravity of the situation, Black Warlock decides to set aside all hesitation and unleash his heavy artillery.
'Speed Reinforcement!' Welt's mind commanded.
Instantly, thin geometric lines, like vibrating fluorescent blue circuits, light up along his tunic and on the skin of his arms, while his blue irises also gain a blinding artificial glow.
Exploiting this buff, the local hero slips his fingers into his magic belt at the speed of thought, extracts two sticky grenades, and hurls them with surgical precision at Quasimodo.
SPLACK!
Without losing a single millisecond, Warlock launches his magic staff forward like a javelin. The scepter speeds, swift and whistling, toward the second floor of the building and, once it reaches the height of the breach, abruptly changes trajectory mid-air, positioning itself exactly beneath Origami Tobiichi's feet to provide her with a stable surface.
Under the hero's control, the weapon slowly rises like a lift platform, allowing the girl to pivot and return in total safety onto solid ground inside Motoko's damaged office.
The white-haired female doctor, immediately understanding that she is in a structurally unstable and perilous section of the police station, quickly runs away from the room to actively participate in the civilian evacuation procedures.
During the throw, the heavy Speaker cape unclasps from Warlock's shoulders, unfurling and flying away in the wind.
The car door is cutting through the air like a rotating blade directed straight at the female journalist; attempting to block it at that distance by resorting to a standard spell represents a risk that Warlock has no intention of taking.
"Beast Magic! Wild Wolf!" Black Warlock shouted at the top of his voice, tapping into one of the most primal and physical branches of his mystical repertoire.
The biological metamorphosis is immediate and astounding: the black fur around his wrists and ankles becomes incredibly thicker and denser. His purple hair stretches into long, wild strands, completely covering his back like a lion's mane, while his body structure gains an additional ten centimeters in height. Atop his head emerge two taut canine ears, while a thick wolf tail pops out from the back of his pants. To conclude the mutation, both his fangs and the bone claws on his hands grow a few centimeters, sharpening like razors.
Black Warlock has just become a Second-Level Furry!
Thanks to that beastly enhancement, his physical performance undergoes a frightening increase, allowing him to outpace the trajectory of the death frisbee in pure speed. Exploiting a conversational advantage of a very few tenths of a second, Warlock clasps Charlotte in his arms, lifting her in perfect bridal style and carrying her away a millisecond before the door's sheet metal slams into the wall behind, gutting it.
A few moments later, Spider-Man lands on the very same safe sidewalk beside them, having just deposited his own female journalist in safety.
'Well... if we women of the Lane family are biologically destined to have to pair up with a costumed superhero just to avoid dying on the field and to make a career, I must admit that Spider-Man represents one of the best possible options on the market,' Laura thought to herself, her chest rising and falling visibly with heavy breathing, still slightly shaken by that near-death experience.
"Listen... if this mid-air rescue business becomes a regular habit between the two of us, I guarantee you I won't complain at all," Charlotte said with a big, radiant smile, enthusiastically locking her hands around Black Warlock's fur-covered neck.
"See to it that you don't joke about these things, Charlotte. You would end up breaking the hearts of all your fans on the web if something serious happened to you during your reporting," Warlock rebuked her with a firm tone. The bookseller is definitely too pragmatic and focused on the mission to let himself be distracted or embarrassed by the girl's excessive closeness.
"You know what? I really can't understand why many modern women on social media complain so much about the damsel in distress cliché... all things considered, experienced up close, it is an infinitely more pleasant and romantic role than people think," Charlotte continued at full speed, leaning her head with total confidence against Black Warlock's solid chest.
"I, on the contrary, find it a monstrously embarrassing role," Laura muttered under her breath, her face entirely dyed in a scarlet shade of blushing. Her humiliation is dictated not only by the danger she just faced, but above all by the fact that the total loss of her second-hand pants forces her to show herself in public wearing only her T-shirt and underwear.
"Are you alright, Miss?" Spider-Man asked, moving with practiced professional skill to pretend he didn't know his Bugle colleague at all. To guarantee the total safety of his secret identity, Peter modified the extension of his vocal cords slightly, making his voice noticeably deeper and thicker, and disguising his speech with a much more marked accent than usual.
"Yes, I'm fine... but I think tonight I'll be forced to make a very long phone call to my Aunt Lois to ask her for some professional advice," Laura replied, beginning to realize how the work of an assault reporter close to superhumans was infinitely harder, more nerve-wracking, and more reckless than she had idealized while reading old family clippings.
"Spider-Man, since you're the experienced veteran of the pair... what on earth is a hero supposed to do when he ends up saving a pretty female journalist multiple consecutive times?" Black Warlock asked in all seriousness, sincerely hoping he wouldn't have to take charge of Charlotte's safety once a week until retirement day.
"Frankly, I haven't the slightest idea; this is a completely unprecedented situation even by my New York standards! Maybe we should try to drop by Metropolis and ask Superman directly for clarification?" Spider-Man replied ironically with an invisible half-grin.
"Maybe you could simply decide to put us down on the sidewalk and go stop that raging monster before he destroys the entire district!" Laura suggested in a peremptory tone, wishing only to stand back up on her own two legs.
The two vigilantes comply with the request, gently depositing the two female reporters on the ground, although Charlotte displays a visibly displeased expression at the interruption of that intimate contact. Once her feet touch the concrete, the pink-haired reporter swiftly raises her reflex camera, focuses the lens, and snaps a very sharp, close-up photograph of Welt's mutated face.
"I will publish this splendid shot on my blog, announcing your Were-Warlock mode! I guarantee you that all the furry and werewolf fans on the web will absolutely adore you! And as an extra reward, I make you a solemn promise: from today on, I will categorically stop watching vampire movies," Charlotte exclaimed, overflowing with enthusiasm for the exclusive material she collected.
"Say, neighborhood mage... where on earth did those taut ears, thick tail, and all this extra fur on your body come from?" Spider-Man asked, sizing him up with genuine curiosity.
"You should know that at Hexside School of Magic and Demonics, students have the opportunity to choose from nine individual and differentiated tracks of study! The Beast Keeping faculty allows you to master Beast Magic, a discipline that simply makes you more animalistic and in tune with fauna!" Black Warlock explained in detail, laying out the magical lore with his usual composure of a role-playing game enthusiast.
"That's fantastic! Tell me right away where I can sign up to attend the lessons! And an even more important question: can I by any chance touch your ears or pet your tail?" Charlotte asked in rapid succession, her eyes shining with strong aesthetic interest in Warlock's dog-boy appearance.
"Find a working dimensional portal hidden somewhere and hope with all your heart that it leads you straight to the Boiling Isles! As for your hands, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I never kiss on the first date and I don't let anyone touch my fur before the seventh formal meeting," Black Warlock replied with an amused smile.
"Say... do these emergency field rescues count as official dates on your list? Because if the answer is yes, I calculate I'd only need another five encounters to reach the goal!" Charlotte countered, flashing a small, mischievous smile of defiance.
"Warlock, let me remind you that we still have a raging monster to neutralize in the courtyard! See to it that you postpone these parlor chats with your journalist until later!" Spider-Man interrupted him, crossing his arms over his chest and determining that this verbal theater was lasting decidedly too long for the tactical needs of the perimeter.
"Wait, Warlock! Before you go off to fight... do you by any chance have a spare pair of pants inside that magic bag of yours, or do you know some trick to help me cover myself up?" Laura asked in a thin voice, her cheeks catching fire with embarrassment as she continued to desperately pull downward on the hem of her T-shirt in an attempt to hide her underwear.
"Actually, I possess a domestic trick that might be exactly what you need," Black Warlock replied.
With a fluid movement of his index finger, he draws a small, perfect circle in the air in front of the girl. Upon completion of the glyph, a thick puddle of fluorescent purple slime materializes out of nowhere on the sidewalk and, with a dynamic leap, splashes onto Laura's bare legs. The viscous compound instantly expands over all available skin surface, solidifying within a millisecond and shaping the structure of very tight purple pants, similar to sports leggings.
Laura makes an expression of pure and utter astonishment, looking down at her lower limbs and remaining completely speechless before that unexpected sartorial solution.
"Slime pants! But this is absolutely fantastic!" Charlotte exclaimed, seizing the opportunity to snap a second flurry of photographs of Laura's legs.
"I must give you a crucial technical warning: use simple running water to dissolve the slime and make it go away when you want to wear real pants. And remember: make sure to hold in your urine, as it does not dissolve the slime and you would only risk making a mess," Black Warlock explained in the smallest details, having conducted rigorous laboratory tests on the chemical stability of his slime.
"Okay... I accept the situation for what it is, thanks for the support," Laura commented, resigning herself to wearing the slime pants just to regain a portion of dignity.
"Haaaaaaa!"
A scream of pure, inhuman, and beastly ancestral rage echoes violently all along the block, hitting the two heroes and the two female journalists like an acoustic shockwave.
"This frightening din is the clear sign that Quasimodo has just managed to definitively break free from the grip of my plant-based glue," Black Warlock observed, his face instantly turning rigid and serious again.
With a sharp flick of his wrists, the mage summons his ultimate weapon for critical emergencies: the Heirloom Sword Familiar. The magnificent and very long silvery steel blade materializes in his right hand.
"This time I am going to cut his leg tendons directly, so he learns to stay quiet and sit like an obedient dog!" Black Warlock exclaimed. He bends his knees and launches himself forward in a lightning-fast run toward the parking lot entrance, fully intending to put an end to the fight before any civilian or police officer inside the perimeter can get seriously hurt.
"Ladies, see to it that you pay the utmost attention and don't you dare risk your physical safety just for the ambition of snagging a journalistic scoop!" Spider-Man exclaimed, dashing in pursuit of Black Warlock with an acrobatic leap, having no intention of letting his new ally face the red giant's destructive fury in complete solitude.
XXX
Back in the parking lot, Captain Ch'en emerges from the police station along with a small assault squad, all equipped with heavy SWAT ballistic gear.
"Cruz Ortiz, surrender peacefully or we will open fire!" Captain Ch'en exclaimed, firmly using Scar-eye's—now Quasimodo's—true legal name. The police Captain maintains a flawless posture, holding her assault rifle leveled and aimed directly at the chest of the three-meter-tall colossus.
"I don't have time to waste with you, dirty cops!" Quasimodo shouted, visibly more concerned with intercepting the two superheroes than facing the uniformed police officers.
At that exact instant, a lightning-fast black blur appears on the scene, closing the distance with the red monster.
SLASH!
A clean and ruthless sword slash rips through Quasimodo's flank, severing part of his muscle tendons and causing a thick flow of two-toned blood, red and chemical yellow, to pour out. The dark blur halts its run a millisecond later, stopping beside the SWAT team and revealing Black Warlock's beastly silhouette.
Immediately after, Spider-Man enters the scene with an acrobatic trajectory, delivering a side kick of devastating kinetic power straight to Quasimodo's face, making him stagger dangerously on his legs. The wall-crawling hero uses the giant's battered body as a perfect trampoline and executes a second leap that brings him to land deftly near the line of police officers.
THWIP!
Flexing his wrists, he fires two taut web lines directly onto Quasimodo's shoulders and pulls the strands with all his muscular strength, forcing the colossus to give way and fall heavily to his knees on the asphalt.
"This guy is incredibly stubborn!" Spider-Man exclaimed, genuinely amazed since many of his historic enemies in New York would have already surrendered after taking such an amount of damage.
"Open fire!" Ch'en ordered, seizing that tactical opportunity on the fly.
RAT-TAT-TAT!
The SWAT squad's rifles begin spitting lead in rapid succession, but the initial volley does not seem to produce any effect on the target: instead of penetrating the flesh, the bullets flatten against Quasimodo's hardened skin, falling inert onto the courtyard ground.
"Flame Weapons!" Black Warlock exclaimed.
Making a wide circular motion with his sword, he causes a trail of flames to flare up along his blade, but the exact same magical phenomenon instantly envelops the barrels of the SWAT officers' assault rifles.
RAT-TAT-TAT!
Now, the steel bullets exiting the police weapons are entirely enveloped by tongues of blue fire and, upon impact with the monster's skin, explode in small, concentrated detonations that make Quasimodo jolt, tearing through his defenses.
"It's almost over!" Black Warlock exclaimed, feeling the taste of victory just a step away.
"See to it that you don't celebrate until the target is completely on the ground and unconscious," Spider-Man warned him. With a quick reflex, he fires a fan-shaped web straight onto Quasimodo's face, aiming to seal his mouth and nose: the less oxygen his Venom-enhanced organism is able to take in, the more easily the giant will collapse.
Black Warlock launches his flaming sword forward like a silver javelin, embedding the blade straight into Quasimodo's left knee and definitively blocking any attempt to get back on his feet. Afterward, he makes a sharp gesture with his extended fingers, mimicking the movement of a Jedi summoning his lightsaber; but instead of bringing the sword back, Warlock telekinetically recalls his Magic Staff from above.
"Lightning Bolt!" the hero of Nightfall City shouted, releasing a massive discharge of energy from his scepter.
ZZZWAM!
The immense blue lightning bolt strikes Quasimodo, who seems to be officially down to his very last Hit Points for this complex match.
"Cease fire!" Ch'en ordered her subordinates, raising her hand to interrupt the armed barrage.
"Spider-Man, what do you say we finish him off together the old-fashioned, classic way?" Warlock asked. He lets the magic staff float lazily mid-air beside his flank and clenches his fur-covered fists, sporting a knowing smile.
"Let's finish him in grand style," Spider-Man stated, willingly playing along with Warlock's theatrical game.
The two heroes sprint forward in unison with coordinated acceleration. Executing a simultaneous leap into the courtyard, they deliver a devastating combined counter-punch that smashes square into Quasimodo's face.
At that precise instant, in the distance, partially concealed behind the bodywork of a police car whose windows have been punctured by ricocheting bullets, a lightning-fast flash of green light occurs. However, with the entire precinct's and the vigilantes' attention rigidly focused on the boss's collapse, no one notices that mysterious glow in the slightest.
BAM-BAM!
The combined impact of the two punches lifts Quasimodo, making him fly a brief distance of a few meters before sending him crashing ruinously onto his back. This time he gives in: the red giant completely loses his voice, his strength, and his senses, remaining motionless on the parking lot concrete.
"Did we win?" Warlock asked. With a fluid motion, he recalls the sword to himself, spinning it before resting it on the ground and crossing his hands over the pommel, assuming the proud, triumphant posture of a fantasy hero.
As if to confirm their definitive victory, Quasimodo's massive body undergoes a drastic biological collapse: the wrinkled skin begins to lose that bright shade to turn back pink, and the muscle mass starts to shrink rapidly. However, the organism does not regain its original proportions; drained by the Venom, the man becomes much shorter, thinner, and decidedly disfigured in appearance. Quasimodo is undoubtedly the perfect name for him now.
"Drugs really are bad for you," Black Warlock commented, turning his gaze away with a subtle grimace from the criminal, who lies on the concrete in conditions that are pitiful to say the least.
"Warlock! Spider!" Captain Ch'en shouted at the top of her voice, advancing with quick, decisive steps toward the two heroes in the courtyard.
"What do you say, do we do exactly what we did last night?" Spider-Man asked right next to his companion. He has no intention of staying there to face a furious woman with a tactical assault rifle in her hand.
"Don't worry, I'll handle the dragon lady. Shall we continue our patrol around eight in the evening, on top of the clock tower?" Black Warlock suggested in a whisper.
"Great idea, Black Warlock!" Spider-Man exclaimed. Without losing a single millisecond, the wall-crawler flexes his wrist, fires a web line toward the highest ledge, and swings away, vanishing into the rooftops.
The acrobatic escape occurs just in time, right as Captain Ch'en reaches Warlock's position.
"Hello, Captain Ch'en! The SWAT uniform suits you incredibly well! You look like the ultimate female protagonist of an action movie," Warlock declared, unleashing his best theatrical tone in an attempt to soften the precinct's famous and inflexible dragon lady.
"I see you're left alone again. Is Spider-Man shy or something?" Ch'en asked sternly, tightening her grip on the rifle and staring at the exact spot in the sky where New York City's hero had just disappeared.
"Women in uniform intimidate him quite a bit," Warlock declared with a playful smirk.
"And they don't intimidate you?" Ch'en asked in return. She takes a step forward, looking him up and down with a hint of provocation, fully intending to put him slightly on edge to test his verbal reflexes.
"Honestly, I recently had a real inner revelation: I discovered I have a weakness for women in uniform," Warlock confessed with total candor. Under his mask, his cheeks turn slightly red, and his canine attachments beneath the skin give an imperceptible twitch of agitation.
Captain Ch'en opens her mouth to reply, then snaps it shut. She opens it a second time, visibly caught off guard by that disarming honesty, and closes it again to regain her composure.
"So, if I were to put a pair of handcuffs on your wrists right now and lock you away somewhere inside the station, would you be happy?" Ch'en said. With a sharp movement, she pulls the steel handcuffs from her tactical belt, forcing herself to maintain a menacing and authoritative expression.
"Honestly, I don't know how to answer; the double meaning of this situation confuses me quite a bit," Black Warlock admitted, scratching his head behind his curved horns, entirely uncertain how to interpret the captain's words.
"How on earth does Motoko regularly deal with you?" Ch'en asked, letting her arms drop and beginning to understand how her usual tough methods completely lose efficacy against the mage's lightheartedness.
At that exact instant, Captain Motoko Kusanagi appears on the scene of the perimeter, having intercepted the radio communications announcing the definitive victory over the mutated monster.
"Thank the Titan, you are unharmed!" Black Warlock exclaimed.
He releases his grip on the sword—which remains floating lazily in place a few centimeters from the ground—and dashes forward, wrapping Motoko in a warm embrace.
"This is by no means the right place or time to be so friendly," the former SHIELD spy commented. Despite her formal rebuke, she maintains her millimeter-precise stoicism while being lifted bodily by the hero.
"Someone call an emergency ambulance for this guy immediately! We have a number of questions to ask him in the interrogation room," Ch'en ordered her subordinates, speaking firmly through the two-way radio connected to the precinct.
"I'm sorry, I was just incredibly happy to see that you are unhurt," Black Warlock said, gently putting the purple-haired woman back on the ground.
Once the Captain of the investigative team and the hero of Nightfall City find themselves face-to-face, the former cannot help but notice the sudden, asymmetrical physical changes of the latter.
"Are those canine ears on your head by any chance?" Motoko asked with an expression of genuine surprise. Yielding to a spontaneous impulse, she extends her gloved hand and gently strokes the soft fur of Warlock's canine attachments.
That close contact triggers an immediate and obvious physiological reaction.
"Wait... is your tail wagging?" Ch'en asked, widening her blue eyes as she noticed how the thick wolf tail sprouting from the back of Warlock's pants had begun to move rhythmically right and left, just like that of a happy dog.
'Damn it... this is absolutely the very first time in my life a woman has stroked me like this,' Warlock thought, discovering to his cost that those bestial anatomical parts are monstrously sensitive to the gentle touch of fingers.
Appealing to all his self-control, Warlock dissolves the spell and instantly returns to his standard form, losing the savage characteristics of the wolf within a millisecond.
"And now no more dog ears and no more tail. Convenient," Ch'en noted, studying the transition with her customary, cold analytical gaze.
The two female journalists finally join the perimeter of the meeting, with Charlotte Gagnepetit and Laura Lane advancing quickly through the debris of the courtyard.
"Captain Motoko, Captain Ch'en, could you issue an official archival statement for the press?" Charlotte asked. With agile fingers, she slips her smartphone from her pocket, activating the audio recorder app to capture every syllable.
"Are those pants entirely composed of slime that you're wearing?" Ch'en asked, interrupting the female reporter and staring with total bewilderment at Laura's unusual purplish attire.
"Unfortunately yes, Captain... I had no other practical alternatives available to cover myself," Laura replied, shrugging her shoulders with an expression steeped in monumental embarrassment.
"As far as I'm concerned, I believe the time has come to gather my things. I will return only when the waters in the district have calmed down, and rest assured I will use my alchemy to repair every single structural damage we caused to the station," Warlock interjected. The boy suddenly realized he was trapped in the middle of four women with extraordinarily strong and dominant personalities, two of whom legally possess service firearms and steel handcuffs.
"You are not going anywhere, Black Warlock. Stay right here and answer all my official questions," Ch'en decreed, reaching out and firmly grabbing the young hero's wrist with a decisive grip.
"Honestly, I haven't the slightest idea what exactly happened here! I was simply giving Spider-Man a tour of the city and we were talking about ordinary hero business; then we intercepted the trouble in the parking lot and stepped in to neutralize the threat," Warlock stated, telling the absolute truth and knowing nothing whatsoever about Lady V and the serum injected into the smuggler's neck.
"And let's hear it, what exactly were you talking about in your rooftop summit?" Ch'Ch'en asked, eager to dig deep into the costumed vigilantes' psychological mechanisms and private conversations.
"About what a hero is supposed to do when he encounters a Femme Fatale dressed in tight clothes and potentially themed after a cat burglar on his path," Warlock replied, bringing up the exact topic he had discussed with the wall-crawler with total candor.
"Men... always the same old story," Ch'en muttered, rolling her eyes to the sky and exhaling a long, resigned sigh at such a typically male focus.
"My technical advice is to always strike first, even before criminals can have the time to activate their advanced seduction and manipulation techniques," Motoko sentenced, knowing perfectly well how to proceed in these specific cases of espionage and infiltration.
"Spider-Man suggested pretty much the same thing to me," Warlock admitted, mentally taking note of the "shoot first and ask questions later" option for his future night campaigns.
"Ch'en, let me handle him. You know perfectly well that I am much better at making him talk during debriefings," Motoko interjected. She extends her arm and grabs Warlock's other wrist, squeezing it tightly.
"According to strict department protocol, since I was the operational SWAT officer on the scene, I must be the only one to collect and record the vigilante's formal statements," Ch'en insists, refusing to let go of her grip and claiming her bureaucratic authority on the field.
"Holy cow... Captain Ch'en versus Captain Motoko! Which of the two will manage to get the exclusive on Black Warlock's leash?" Charlotte asked with a radiant smile, clutching her reflex camera and already envisioning the perfect material to craft a decidedly spicy and guaranteed successful gossip article on the web.
"Let's make it clear that I do not possess any leash, I am not a pet, and I have never tried BDSM practices in my entire life!" Black Warlock replied with a flush of redness on his face. Exploiting the moment, he frees his hands from the grips of the two female captains before the situation can degenerate into something even more bizarre.
"But... would you by any chance be interested in experimenting with it in the future?" Charlotte asked, tilting her head to the side with an shamelessly mischievous and provocative smile.
"This is to all intents and purposes a crime scene, Charlotte. See to it that you leave the forensic area immediately if you don't want to face repercussions," Ch'en interrupts her with an incredibly severe and peremptory tone of voice.
"The exact same formal warning goes for you too, Miss Lane. If you don't clear the area instantly, I guarantee you that the exclusive interview agreed upon for tomorrow will be canceled with no possibility of appeal," Motoko adds, blocking the path of the new Bugle recruit so as not to have civilians or reporters in the way during the collection of evidence.
"But this is a downright dictatorial crime against freedom of speech and the press!" Charlotte exclaims, puffing out her chest and showing herself openly willing to argue with the entire police department just to defend her right to report.
Ch'en snaps the metal of the handcuffs again to intimidate her, while Motoko grabs Black Warlock by a hem of his tunic, discreetly pulling him aside to question him away from prying eyes.
"You are all completely crazy, you know that right?" Laura Lane asked, watching the spectacle of those surreal dynamics and feeling, for the first time since she landed in town, like the only person with a shred of common sense for miles around.
"Welcome to Nightfall City!" everyone present in the parking lot responds in unison, fully aware that in that Massachusetts town, ordinary normalcy is a concept that vanished into thin air quite a long time ago.
To be continued...
XXX
Author's Note: At the moment I'm having a blast watching Big Hero 6: The Series; I have currently reached the first season, specifically episode 21. I hope you enjoyed this clash at the police station!