Chapter 56
My reflexes, honed to a razor's edge and enhanced by cognitive stimulants, triggered before my conscious mind could register the threat. The sting in my neck was followed by something worse: poison.
Before I could tear the dart free, I sent a mental command and it vanished into my inventory. Simultaneously, I turned my awareness inward. I felt the foreign substance spreading through my carotid artery, bringing icy numbness with it. The "Iron Blood" skill activated flawlessly. A metallic taste flooded my mouth, and the blood beneath the skin of my neck instantly condensed into a solid, inert metal clot, trapping the poison within. With another command, this toxic mass also went into my inventory.
The world, which had blurred for a split second, snapped back into focus. But I knew... this was only a reprieve. I bolted into the nearest alley, into the protective shadow between two buildings. No one followed me. The predator was cautious.
With a thought, the Chimera's protective garment enveloped my body. The suit and mask locked into place, cutting off the city's noise. Meanwhile, I assessed my condition, hoping I'd expelled all of the crap from my system. It was relatively normal given the circumstances: my pulse was elevated, and my adrenaline levels were off the charts. I inhaled a double dose from the respirator: a muscle stimulant and the "Apex Predator" serum. An icy surge tore through my veins, burning away the remnants of numbness and bringing my thoughts to their absolute peak. Inside the Chimera's protective shell, I finally felt safe.
The plasma wings unfolded silently, and I rose smoothly, without a jerk, to the roof of the nearest ten-story building. There, they immediately folded behind my back into a protective shield, and I dropped to one knee, scanning the street below.
My mind, enhanced by the amulet, worked like a supercomputer. I searched for anomalies. A passerby showing abnormal physical signs of an adrenaline spike. An unnatural vehicle trajectory. A person on a neighboring roof.
Nothing.
The street bustled with ordinary life. No one stood out from the crowd. No one even looked up. Whoever the attacker was, he was operating under ghost protocols: he had struck and then immediately vanished.
The question was: who?
The CIA? Probably. After two failed attempts at 'soft' contact by Elena, they might have moved on to more decisive measures. Kingpin? That was unlikely; it was too crude for his current status in the shadows. A third party? Competitors who had my Proteus trapped in their grasp? There were too many options, but one thing was clear: they didn't want to kill me. They wanted to capture me.
I pulled the dart from my inventory. It had no unique markings. It was a standard, mass-produced model available at any weapons market. Useless. Then I extracted the chunk of solidified blood. It was warm, and I could still sense it by instinct; I could change its form. There were no strange impurities or nanoparticles. So the poison wasn't anything exotic. It was most likely a lethal dose of a fast-acting neuroparalytic sedative.
Enough of this. Passive waiting was the path to the grave. Standing on a roof meant being a convenient target.
I returned the evidence to my inventory and shot into the sky. I needed to get to the Base. There was a lab there, and equipment. There, I could study both the dart and the poison's composition in my blood. Maybe it would give me some kind of lead.
Flying turned out to be... unexpectedly pleasant. The suit eliminated every source of discomfort. No roaring wind in my ears, no resistance against my body. Just smooth, controlled gliding on wings of pure plasma, the daytime city rushing by beneath me. I was a black comet streaking across the Manhattan skyline. Sure, I'd probably lit up every radar in the tri-state area, but that didn't matter now. Let S.H.I.E.L.D. cover me. Time to see how committed they were to this "partnership."
After ten minutes, the familiar outline of the shipyard appeared on the horizon. There was the unremarkable warehouse hiding my only truly safe place. My sanctuary.
Camouflage. I needed it badly.
I zigzagged among the warehouse buildings, making sure I'd shaken off any possible tail, then landed smoothly on the platform in front of my shelter.
Silence. Only the wind chased dust across the abandoned shipyard.
I looked around, confirmed no onlookers, and was about to give the mental command to retract the suit and stash it in my inventory.
But something inside me screamed in warning. Instinct, paranoia, the predator serum.
Instead of deactivating, I gave a different command. Maximum thrust. Now.
It was just in time.
My warehouse exploded. My base. My fortress. It didn't just explode; it atomized, a fireball roaring skyward with eardrum-shattering force.
Despite the distance, the shockwave slammed into my back like an invisible train. The suit's systems screamed. Static flooded my nerves, and I coughed blood into my mask, losing control of my flight for several agonizing seconds.
That instant was enough.
Out of nowhere, a heavy steel net crashed down on me. Thousands of volts pierced the armor, sending my whole body into one painful convulsion.
My consciousness shifted to autopilot as the combat protocol engaged: Stimulants. Inhale. Blood. Accelerate, burn the pain. Glove. Inventory. Net. Touch. Ignore the shocks. Inventory. Glove. Return.
The sequence took two seconds. I came to, breaking free of the paralyzing grip. But the bastard, whoever he was, wasn't slowing down. Smoke grenades exploded around me, blinding me, followed by flashbangs. Another net dropped from above. The enemy was above. I had to get to him.
Decision made. Ignoring the sensory overload and the ache in every cell, I shot straight up. I had to get out of this smokescreen. Assess the situation. See the enemy.
I burst into the clear sky and immediately spotted him.
He was sitting on a silent flying platform fifty meters above the explosion's epicenter. He was muscular, with dark hair, clad in wild animal hides. His body was covered in strange, ornate tattoos, and a wild, insane grin played across his face. Despite my helmet, I felt our eyes met. He felt it too. His grin widened, transforming into a predatory snarl.
Then he stood up and casually stepped off the platform.
He fell toward me, and I had a split second to react. I jerked left, getting clear of his path. But then the patterns on his legs flashed with bright emerald light. He pushed off from the air itself, like he'd stepped on an invisible platform. He changed trajectory and slammed into me like a meteor.
We tangled midair, twisting into a knot. His grip was inhuman. I could hear the protective plates of my suit groaning. The tattoos on his arms flashed crimson, and with a guttural roar, he began shredding my armor with his bare fingers.
"Bastard!" I snarled, pouring all my fury into the strike.
Kraven, and it could only be this bastard, only grew more excited. With a sickening crunch, he tore an entire plate from the Proteus.
I regrouped, accelerating my blood to the limit, reinforcing my body beneath the armor. I grabbed his arm and activated the vibro-glove at maximum power. It was a concentrated sonic strike, capable of turning steel to dust, and I directed it straight at him. I expected his arm to explode into a bloody mist.
But the damn tattoos flashed molten gold, absorbing all the power from my attack. It went nowhere. There wasn't even a scratch on his skin. How the hell was this possible?!
I struck again. And again. I changed modes, frequencies. The result was the same: a flash of light and total absorption of the damage. In response came unrestrained, booming laughter. He was enjoying this. He was reveling in my helplessness. In his eyes burned the primal ecstasy of a hunter who'd cornered another interesting piece of prey.
Kraven's fingers were like steel hooks. Gripping my glove, he hauled it toward him with an animal roar, tearing it loose. The screech of metal grated on my ears. To keep it safe, I dematerialized the glove into my inventory and countered immediately. Three Iron Blood blades burst from the skin of my hands and forearms. I struck.
A vile, squealing sound rang out as metal slid against something indestructible.
I slashed at his arms, his body, his neck. With every useless blow, every spark struck from my own metal, my burning rage gave way to icy helplessness.
What could I do?! Use my wings to attack? That would be suicide in close aerial combat. I'd risk losing maneuverability and plummeting to the ground with this maniac. That was unacceptable. The stimulants? They were already burning through my blood, searing my nervous system. The inventory? Throw Rhino's suit at him? That would be too slow and impractical. The car with the vampires? Maybe that would break his grip, but this bastard was too dangerous to give even the slightest chance to escape. He needed to be finished. Here and now.
The Iron Blood didn't work. From my active skills... I had Strange Science. Damn it! I should have created not a scalpel and a dragonfly, but a five-foot cudgel of pure spiritual energy!
But I did have a scalpel. And this was my only chance.
A crude, desperate plan formed instantly in my head. Doubling over again from Kraven's crushing blow to my torso, I materialized the Iron Blood scalpel in my hand. And I began my game.
I slashed at his neck, desperation in my eyes. Useless. The scalpel in my hand flowed, transforming into a broad knife. I struck. Failed again. The blade elongated into a curved kukri, then shrank to a short dagger, then reverted to a scalpel. I was a cornered animal, frantically cycling through weapons in a final, hopeless attempt.
I was drowning in despair. I knew Kraven could feel it. Like an experienced predator, he read my body language, analyzed my chemical signals. And thanks to the NZT, I played the role perfectly. Come on, you bastard. Look at me. I'm scared. I'm broken. Swallow the bait.
His next blow landed harder. I felt a rib crack with a sickening crunch. Hellish pain tore through me. But with the agony came an opening, a split-second gap between his strikes.
I took it.
At the very moment the Iron Blood scalpel still touched his neck, I materialized its exact copy from the "blueprint" in my soul: the Spirit Scalpel. It appeared precisely beneath the physical blade, hidden behind it like a weapon in its sheath. I sent a mental command, and the Iron Blood blade retracted a few millimeters, exposing the bluish, otherworldly glow of the spiritual edge. I made a light, almost weightless movement of my wrist.
A thin, scarlet line of blood appeared on Kraven's muscular neck.
He froze. Shock and bewilderment filled his bestial eyes. He didn't even have time to comprehend what had happened before I threw all my remaining strength into the movement and drove the scalpel into his neck up to the hilt. Then I dematerialized the iron blade and immediately created another spiritual one, driving it in nearby.
The hunter's grip faltered. His stunned expression twisted into a grimace of fury, and then... I saw it. Fear. Primal, animalistic fear, the kind that grips a predator who suddenly realizes he's become the prey.
He tried to pull away, desperate to break free, but I didn't let him. Who knew what kind of regeneration he was capable of? I grabbed his chin with my one remaining intact glove and cranked the vibration to max again, directing it straight into his skull.
The golden tattoos flashed, absorbing the impact. Not surprising. But that was exactly what I needed. I needed his defensive mechanism active, distracting him.
While his body instinctively fought the vibrations, my other hand continued its bloody work. I materialized scalpel after scalpel, turning his neck into a shredded mess. Muscles tore. Vertebrae crunched. Then came a deafening pop. The golden tattoos flashed one last time, then went dark for good.
Kraven's head, now stripped of its protection, exploded, showering me in hot, bloody mist, bone fragments, and brain matter. A vile, fetid stench penetrated even the respirator's filters.
I hovered in the air, drenched in his remains. The adrenaline receded, leaving behind ringing silence and deep, all-consuming fatigue.
"Finally," I breathed, relieved as I stashed Kraven's headless body in my inventory.
Hovering over the smoking ruins, I flew to Kraven's flying platform. The thing was a high-tech hybrid, part jetski, part combat glider, riding on a magnetic cushion. A valuable trophy. Important evidence, too. I sent it straight to my inventory.
Then I descended, found a deserted spot, and materialized the black Land Cruiser with the vampires inside. I didn't bother checking on them or dealing with them. It was long past time to ditch this baggage hogging a valuable inventory slot. I left the car there in the debris. If they escaped, good for them. If not... well, let city services deal with it.
I shot into the sky like a rocket, finally giving free rein to the fury boiling inside me. This wasn't a hot fury, but a cold, searing one. The Base. My only real sanctuary. A lab with equipment and reagents worth millions of dollars. The place Blade had entrusted to me. It was gone. It was just a crater now.
And who was responsible? Some global supervillain? No. Just Kraven the Hunter. A "minor villain" from the comics who, in reality, had turned out to be something immeasurably greater. He was a madman who hadn't been scared off by either the Daywalker's name or S.H.I.E.L.D.'s tacit dominance in this city.
And his powers... What the hell was that? Chi? Blood magic? Technology? The tattoos changed color, giving him different effects. Green meant supernatural mobility. Crimson meant monstrous attack power. Gold meant absolute defense. Were there other colors? A chill ran down my spine at the thought that I could have found out on my own skin. If his goal had been to kill rather than capture... I wouldn't be flying over this city anymore.
That was exactly what had saved my life. Every meta I'd encountered before, the Marked One, Tombstone, the clowns in costumes like Shocker and Rhino, they were all children compared to him. Kraven possessed the impenetrable skin of a Luke Cage and the strength of at least a mid-tier super-soldier, all multiplied by bestial instincts and decades of hunting experience.
How had he found the Base? That information doesn't just lie around. Obviously, his employer was someone very, very important.
I ran through the options in my head. The Soviets? Kraven, Sergei Kravinoff, was Russian. He was a colorful character, and this universe's paranoid KGB wouldn't have missed him. The motive: my Proteus. The probability: high.
S.H.I.E.L.D. or the CIA? I ruled them out. It contradicted their recent contact and their methods. Kingpin? Possible. But the style was too direct, too loud for a Fisk who was playing dead. The probability: medium. Shadow organizations? Hydra, the Hand, the Hellfire Club... They could easily have hired someone like Kraven. Unpredictable variables.
Guessing was pointless. It could have been anyone. The main thing was that the bastard was dead. But his employers weren't. And now that their hunter had fallen, would they act more subtly? Or would they escalate and send someone even stronger?
Then a cold, nauseating thought struck me. Now that I'd proven I could handle a direct attack, their next target wouldn't be me.
It would be the people I cared about.
I didn't have that many attachments. But the ones I did have were my Achilles' heel.
I pulled out my phone and dialed Peter's number. The phone rang. One. Two. Three. Four. The rings were long, agonizing, like hammer blows to my nerves. Five. Then the line went dead.
"Damn it!"
I stopped hovering. My body, clad in the suit, became a rocket aimed at one point on the city map. I was aimed toward the Parker household in Queens.
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