Free Web NovelChapter 14: Ch 14: The Daily Bugle Incident V
Power stone bonus chap! You guys are terrorisingly amazing!
Can we achieve 700 power stones?
Btw, some of you guys have been curious to know about getting featured as a viewer comment in the novel.
Let me explain. In the novel there will be two categories of viewer comments public (marvel citizens) and patrons (multiversal beings).
Right now, I’m making up some comments myself and picking up some from yours. Your name and comments can be featured on any category based on my liking. I might edit your comments a bit to fit better in the story as well but will mention your names for sure.
The criteria to get featured is nothing much really, mostly my whim, and comments that are interesting or hilarious and maybe related to his actions during the stream.
Enough info now, enjoy the bonus chap! Another one will be dropped in a few hours. :D
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They crashed into the floor below, the cafeteria, slamming onto a long plastic table that snapped like a toothpick.
Unlike the meeting room, this floor was a wide-open chamber surrounded by massive floor-to-ceiling glass windows.
Luke groaned internally, ’Damn! That hurt!’
But no time to groan.
Ignoring the slight sting in his head, Luke rolled to his feet, palms already sparking. "Nice of you to join me in cafeteria , Spider! How about a light snack?"
He cupped his hands together, concentrating the nitroglycerin-like sweat on his palms. He didn’t create a shockwave this time. Instead, he triggered a rapid-fire series of tiny, high-frequency sparks.
’Stun Grenade!’
A blinding, yellow flash filled the room. The sheer intensity of the light was enough to sear the retinas of anyone looking.
Gwen’s eyes squeezed shut instantly, her head snapping to the side. But she didn’t stop.
Her spider-sense screamed in her mind. Even without sight, she could sense the danger from his next move.
She flipped backward over a soda refrigerator just as a blast charred the air where her head had been.
Luke clicked his tongue. ’Of course. The spider-sense is a cheat code.’
He knew he couldn’t sneak up on her. He had to overwhelm the damn danger sense entirely. If she could feel every danger, he would simply make everything dangerous.
"Let’s see you dodge this!" Luke roared.
Luke channeled every bit of energy into his palms. He didn’t focus on heat; he focused on displacement. A massive, high-volume propulsion blast erupted from his hands.
Boo00OOOM!
The blast was titanic, it flowed low and towards Gwen.
She crossed her arms, bracing for the impact, but the force was relentless. Heat was somewhat bearable though.
Before she could recover, Luke was already there, riding the recoil of another blast from his palm. He lunged through the smoke, his arms wrapping around her waist in a tight tackle from behind.
"Let’s go down!" he yelled, carrying her off the floor using the momentum, they both went straight through the already shattered floor-to-ceiling glass.
They were free-falling, twelve stories above the New York pavement.
The wind roared past them, whipping Gwen’s hood and Luke’s suit jacket into a frenzy.
Luke didn’t let go. He locked her neck between his elbow, his palms beginning to glow with a dangerous yellow light. "You’re not stopping me today, girl!"
"Get off me! Pervert!" Gwen grunted. She drove her elbow back with controlled but superhuman strength, the blow forced Luke to release his grip.
They drifted apart in the open air, two specks of black and white falling against the backdrop of the skyscraper.
Luke quickly flipped himself upright, using small pops from his hands to stabilize his descent.
He looked down at Gwen, his gloved palms turning bright yellow as he prepared another huge blast.
But Spider-Woman was faster.
While falling, she fired two strands of high-tensile web upward, anchoring them to the side of the building.
Zip-Thwak!
With a powerful tug, she turned herself into a human catapult.
She shot upward like a pink-and-white missile. Luke barely had time to blink before her knee connected squarely with his jaw.
CRACK.
That was the mask cracking...
Luke’s head snapped back.
’Fuck, she hits really hard!’ he thought, his vision swimming for a second. But he could bear it.
The purchased 50% mastery didn’t just increased his quirk output and manipulation, it also made his body appropriately strong to use it to that potential.
Without the increased strength, durability, stamina, and pain tolerance due to the quirk mastery, he would have passed out long. Heck, that earlier fall from the 18 feet down a floor to cafeteria would have broken at least 4 bones. And this knee kick would have at least dislocated his jaw or worst broken it off.
However, Gwen didn’t give him a second to breathe.
She fired another web, sticking it firmly to the center of his chest. She spun in mid-air, using her superior agility to swing Luke’s body in a wide arc before letting go, hurling him upward toward the roof.
Luke gritted his teeth, burying the stinging pain. He was finally feeling the rush of the adrenaline...
He was starting to enjoy the fight...
He thrust his hands upward, unleashing an explosion that eased his momentum, then he propelled himself the rest of the way up. He did a rough somersault and slammed onto the gravel of the terrace.
A police chopper swung into the terrace view, rotors thundering.
’No... you’re not allowed here, bro.’
Luke fired a few blasts—close enough to rattle the pilot, far enough to miss.
Spider-Woman shot a web-line onto the chopper’s landing skid and yanked herself skyward. "Stay far! I’ll handle him!" she shouted.
The pilot, heart pounding due to the closeness of those blasts from the madman, remembered his squadmate’s chopper going down days ago (the crash near the Dunphy house). He didn’t need telling twice, he also hadn’t received any strict order to follow them here anyway. The helicopter banked hard and retreated.
’Nice,’ Luke thought, he won’t have to change the location again.
A second later, Gwen landed gracefully on a metal vent pipe, her knees bent, looking down at him.
Luke reached up to feel his face. His clown mask now had a long, jagged vertical crack running through the plastic.
Luke grumbled, his voice slightly muffled. "Where can I even get a sturdy clown mask these days? Any references?"
Spider-Gwen folded her arms, leaning back against a metal pole. "Don’t worry. I’ll send you to a place where you can get plenty of references from the other fellows like you."
"You mean jail?" Luke chuckled, his palms starting to spark again. "No thanks. I’m not really a ’behind bars’ kind of guy."
Luke stole a glance at his wrist.
Two minutes and forty-five seconds left on the bomb timer.
But that wasn’t the only clock running.
Luke knew how his ’quests’ worked now. The mission didn’t care when the hero showed up; or when the Hostages were bound and controlled. It cared when the terror began, the quest started the moment the hostages realised it was an attack from him. Today, it was the moment Luke announced himself to his hostages.
Nineteen minutes had passed since he first announced his presence to the terrified staff of the Daily Bugle.
’One more minute,’ Luke thought.
"Well, nobody thinks they’re the jail type," Gwen retorted, "But dangerous weirdos like you always end up there at the end of the day."
He let out a long, dramatic sigh, the phone hovering faithfully behind him.
"You’re right, Spider-Woman," he said, his voice again calm. "You always send the bad guys to jail. You always save the day. You’re strong—honestly, you’re stronger than even me. Each hit of yours still stings like hell."
He took a step forward, ignoring the way she tensed up.
"But what does all that effort get you? Have you ever stopped to look at the people you’re protecting? Why not save just those who deserve? The roaches downstairs? They hate you. They hate your powers. And you will end up in a cell right next to me the moment the police get their hands on you. Don’t you get it? Your efforts are for nothing. I want you to see the plain and white truth. This city doesn’t want a hero; they want a target."
He paused, letting the wind howl between them for a beat.
"For fuck’s sake, hero... they even got your own father against you."
The atmosphere on the rooftop shifted instantly. The air felt heavier, colder.
Gwen didn’t move. She didn’t crack a joke. Her white-lensed eyes seemed to darken as she stared at the man in the cracked clown mask. Her heart hammered against her ribs, but not from the fight. fɾeeweɓnѳveɭ.com
’How?’
The word echoed in her mind, loud and panicked. ’How does he know that?’
"What did you just say?" she whispered, her voice trembling with a mix of fear and fury.
Luke saw the reaction. He saw the way her shoulders dropped just an inch.
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