Spider-Man SI

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***

There was still a solid wall of purple mist around me, but it receded. It spread apart, revealing a small area. Right in front of me was a very unusual chair. One might even say an entire throne. Its back was made in the form of a large web of rusty metal. On the throne sat a woman. She was wearing a long dress that had a high collar and a long slit on one side. It completely concealed her legs and seemed to be lost somewhere in the mist. Her outfit was dark purple in colour, and on her chest was the image of a white spider. The woman's eyes were hidden by red glasses.

- Who are you? - I asked warily, though I had some guesses.

- We haven't met yet, Spider-Man,' she said majestically, and then fogged up. - Not in this timeline at least.

- That doesn't answer my question.

- My name is Madame Spiderweb,' she said with a slight upturn of her head. - And I contacted you to warn you.

- Obviously not to say hello,' I frowned. - You never answered. You gave me your name, but nothing more. So I have to ask you again. Who are you?

- You've always been difficult to deal with,' she said gravely. - You can think of me as your guardian angel. I've been watching you for a long time, and I've helped you whenever possible.

- Really? - She seemed like a more affable lady in the show.

- My actions are implicit, but they're always for the greater good. I'm the bit of luck that keeps you from stumbling through the world.

- Let's say,' I say carefully. - But why would you do that?

- It's too early to say. But the time will come, and then you will get the answer to your question.

There's more fog in her words than there is in this whole place. And it irritates me beyond belief.

- I certainly hope so. So, what was it you wanted to warn me about today?

- William Stryker. I can see that your areas of interest have become entangled. But that shouldn't be happening. This is wrong. Your meeting wasn't meant to happen.

- Wait, how do you know about these things? What are you, some kind of fortune teller?

- I know what's coming. That's true. My abilities aren't as accurate as I'd like them to be, but I'm trying to achieve a better future.

- And why is Stryker important to that future? I take it you're trying to talk me out of attacking him, right?

- I doubt I can change your mind, Spider-Man. You're all very stubborn. All I'm asking is that you keep your interference to a minimum. Stryker isn't the best person in the world, but if something happens to him, the future could be in jeopardy. Many futures. If he doesn't commit his heinous acts, there could be a time paradox.

- I can't promise anything,' I said with a frown.

- Of course you can't,' she whispered, and the purple mist began to swirl around me again. - I'll see you around, Spider.

Another bout of disorientation and I found myself on the roof of some building.

The encounter with Madame Spiderweb gave me a debatable impression. She was apparently trying to present herself as a wise and mysterious counsellor. Directly stated that my luck is her merit and all that. But I had a hard time believing her image. My spider sense was silent, but still something was bothering me. She was acting too much like an actress. I don't know, maybe if I didn't know about the possibility of her appearance at all, and about the fact of her existence as a character, I would have been surprised and would have been penetrated by her mystery. But with my memories, the impression was a little different.

And she was talking rubbish about Stryker and time paradoxes. Why should I let him keep doing whatever he wants? How can he be important to the future if there's no future? She confirmed it herself. It's not predetermined, which means we and only we create it in the present. That's ridiculous. Or is she implying that I shouldn't have been the guy to deal with Stryker? Hmm... well, no problem, we'll find the right person.

The woman had stirred my brain, but she didn't shake my confidence in what I was going to do next.

Soon I reached Stark's tower, which I'm using as my temporary shelter for now. He seemed fine with it, and the possibilities from this place were amazing. There are three dozen Sharkovians waiting for me. Excellent fighters on permanent pay and equipment you won't find anywhere else. In fact, I haven't equipped them with anything super cool yet, except for the disposable teleporters. Anyway, my man's life is more valuable than any technology.

I've also decided to bring in elite fighters with superpowers. After all, Stryker was controlling some mutants, and I needed something to counter them. Of course Cat was waiting for me, her tail whipping lightly across the tiled floor, as if to indicate her impatience. A black, bald man stood beside her, looking thoughtfully at his hands, which were clad in the analogue of my taser.

Luke Cage, and it was he, had agreed to work for me pretty quickly. The man with the impenetrable skin had some financial problems. As I found out, he seemed to come out of nowhere, had good but fake credentials, and was in desperate need of a place to live. I didn't dig any deeper, it was enough that he'd stood up to the bloody Jotuns and helped take back the city. Therefore, whatever trouble he had with the law was of little interest to me. I might even be willing to help him settle them. But then again, I don't want to stick my nose in other people's business. If he asks, I'll help. Right now we're at the stage of mutually beneficial co-operation. I pay him, he swings at me.

Plus I redesigned and donated his tasers. He had excellent defence, and even some superpowers. But the latter was sorely lacking. The enemy could hardly hurt him, but there was little he could do against some armoured forehead. The tasers were electric, and were specially weighted to add weight to each of his blows.

So that's the little squad I've assembled.

Gwen was understandably reluctant to be pulled. Stark was busy, he'd found a classic opponent and was having fun with him. Jarvis, with an audible scepticism, labelled this daredevil as a wizard named Mandarin. The AI apparently didn't believe much in magic, but what could be done, let him kick his own arse.

I wasn't going to involve Laura or any of the other kids. They may be perky kids, but I wasn't going to a friendly tea party with my best friend. Deliberately put them in danger? No way.

The last of my superhero assets, in the form of Daredevil and Deadpool, have left town for some undoubtedly crazy purpose of their own. So be it. I can do without them.

My minions crowded into the helicopters I'd rented from Stark. The automatic assembler put heavy armour on me. And I soared through the air, easily catching up to the choppers. It was time to try out the Richard in person.

The first small stop we made in the city limits. One of the helicopters landed on the roof of a skyscraper and picked up Emma Frost. The second time the choppers hovered outside the city limits, we had to make an extra detour, but our team was replenished with two good fighters. To be honest, I was hoping for one, but together with Wolverine, Cyclops was waiting at the agreed place. I don't know how this incompatible pair could come together, but whatever. An extra fighter on your side never hurts. As long as it's not a telepath.

I contacted Wolverine after I'd spoken to Madame Web. Logan, as soon as he heard the reverend's name, he froze. Something must have jogged his memory. After digesting his memories, he wanted to know the details. He agreed to Stryker's offer to pay him a visit. He'd even brought a friend along, as it turned out.

It was late at night when we arrived at the ex-military base under one of the alkaline lakes. How to the base? The choppers landed some distance from it. To be honest, I was beginning to think about building myself some kind of air transport. My heavy suit did a good job, but it was only designed for one passenger. I was thinking of something more spacious. Something between an invisible X-Men plane and a S.H.I.E.L.D. aircraft carrier. A stealth cloaking system would come in handy right now. We would not have landed thirty kilometres from the enemy base, and could get closer.

We had to make a big march. And if Sharkovtsy, Cat, and mutants, and Cage, it was given easily, Emma Frost by the end of the journey through the forest barely moved her legs.

- You shouldn't have worn such high heels,' I said teasingly.

The pretty young woman in the white robes gave me an angry glare, but didn't say anything. It is understandable, breathlessness did not allow to answer with a barb.

While people and not only people dispersed on the territory and rested from the transition, I put on the ground a large metal box with the volume of a cubic metre. I opened the lid and released several hundred miniature robots. Most of them were replicas of ants. The small insect-like creatures were ideal for spying and scouting territory. I planned to use similar robots in New York, but they would have to look like small spiders. But they were clearly meant to be associated with my figure. The spiders were bigger than ants, and had rather conspicuous colouring. They were ill-suited for stealthy espionage, and were more meant to act as the flame in which the truth would be hidden.

The robots swarmed and poured out of the box in a single wave. My little helpers scattered around and began to hastily search for entrances and exits. Their small size and permeability helped to penetrate almost any place. And so it was here. No matter how well this hideout was hidden, the ants quickly found the vent. Somehow, almost magically, it was perched on top of one of the pine trees that grew on the shore of the lake. The ants got inside and I realised it was an artificial tree. That's funny. Somebody's imagination!

Not only my robots were scouting, but also Emma Frost. Her abilities proved to be just the right fit for the job. It had enough range to cover the entire base. Thankfully, Alkali Lake wasn't that deep.

- By my calculations, we're down to ninety-four people. Six of the guards are awake, probably the night shift. The rest are asleep. The minds of most of them resemble the fanatics we interrogated today. There are a few who are stressed and are having bad dreams. I haven't dug deep, but it's possible they're being held here against their will. I also found five people whose minds are strangely clouded. I'm assuming they're the mutants that Stryker has subjugated to his will.

- Are you sure you got the total number of people right?

- Are you doubting my abilities? - The girl folded her arms under her breasts.

- It's not that, it's just that something doesn't add up. My robots counted a hundred and seven people, and they couldn't get into some of the rooms, so maybe there's more.

- That's impossible,' she frowned. - 'Unless some of them escaped by telepathy.

- How could they have done that? I mean, could someone with a similar gift be present among them?

- No, I'd sense if there was another telepath there. Even if there wasn't, how could he hide the others? No, that's definitely not our case.

- All right, let's leave it at that for now. We need to work on a plan of attack. You know what? Make sure Stryker's definitely at the base right now, and I'll think about our next move.

After considering my options, checking with the information coming from the robot ants, and consulting with one of Shark's guys, who was the best tactician of them all, I knew what I had to do.

Emma couldn't find Stryker specifically. Apparently he's somewhere else right now. It's a shame, but he's not going anywhere on this planet. The first priority is getting Kurt out. The telepath found my friend. He was now unconscious and probably under the influence of some kind of narcotic.

Handing a dozen ants a device similar in size to a telephone, I ordered them to carry it to the enemy base. Together they managed to get it there, and dragged it into an inconspicuous corner. The way this device worked was simple. It served as a beacon for my teleport. It was essentially a prototype, and so far it wasn't working very well. I mean, it only signalled for short distances. In order to get into the zone of this signal I entered the water of the alkaline lake and trying to stomp and lift the silt, walked along the bottom. I was glad that I had decided to wear a heavy suit today. In it I could easily stay in an airless environment for some time. I could have been in space!

Once in range of the beacon, I teleport to it. Great, now we need to act as stealthily as possible, and most importantly synchronised. It's a pity that none of my people can get here. Their teleport design is not only disposable, but also as simplified as possible. But I've got an excellent assistant. The armoured plates on my back begin to slide to the side, and I get out of the Richard, sorry, but I still have the Mary. Control of the heavy suit is immediately taken over by Cee.

- I'm in, boss,' the synthetic voice says quietly. Why? I mean, we're mentally communicating. But she likes to use voiced human speech.

- You know what to do.

We went our separate ways. There were two independent monitoring stations on the base. They monitored the inside and outside of the base. I'd say the security here is top-notch, but they couldn't track the little robot ants. Nothing is perfect.

Once we reached the observation rooms, we acted in sync. Cee blew the door with a repulsor shot, I used an explosive device. We made a lot of noise and probably woke up everyone we could. But at least we had two major control points for the entire base. I knocked out the guards, and sat down at the computer and blocked all the backup exits. Cee opened the doors for my men. She said it was going to look epic. A large cargo lift rose from the bottom of the lake and opened its flaps welcomingly. It was also accessed by a platform that surfaced above the surface.

Cee hooked Jarvis up to her computer, and he hacked into the local system easily enough. Locked out the people who hadn't managed to get out of their rooms inside, and changed the access codes so that no one could open them on the spot. After that, Cee found exactly where Night Snake was being held and I headed in his direction.

I basically had no choice but to wander around the base and swaddle those sectarians who had managed to wake up and get out of their rooms in cocoons of spider webs. They were basically just regular people, except they had some variant of energy weapons. Funny, but not enough to shoot me.

After managing to swaddle a dozen people, I casually stumbled into a spacious room. It was hot, and there were strange gurgling sounds somewhere. Guided by them, I walked straight to a small, thick-walled container of bubbling, boiling metal.

I gulped.

No, no, don't tell me it's...

It can't be him, can it? It can't be him, can it?

I think I was sweating, out of breath, and dizzy. I felt uncomfortable for a moment, and that's why I reacted to the spider sense that had kicked in before it was too late. I leapt forward, jumping over the tank of fucking adamantium, but someone had managed to slash my back. That hurt!

Where I had just stood was a tall Asian woman. Her eyes were strangely hazy, and long, sharp nails were growing out of her fingers. I wasn't sure, but in the dim light they seemed to have a faint metallic sheen. Adamantium claws? Right she was in the film too, and had regeneration like Logan's. Not good.

The woman didn't wait and rushed at me at a pretty good speed. We spun around each other a bit, and I realised that she could really make me sweat. The woman easily cut through my webbing and kept herself from being taken in a tackle. She was incredibly agile. Managing to sensitively lay her right on her face, I became convinced that she did indeed have enhanced regeneration. Perhaps her nose didn't fall back into place as quickly as Wolverine's would have, but not bad either.

After playing around and getting another five cuts on my side in one fell swoop, I stopped fooling around and activated the tasers at maximum power. Lightning flashed across my arms, and I tasered the woman in the face again. I know you can't do that, but I wanted to live more at that moment. She flew off to the other end of the room. It smelled like fried meat, but she was already starting to get to her feet. Frowning, I teleported over to her, dropped to the floor, and pinned her arms, gripping them so that her fingers rested against her own body. And now a layer of spiderwebs over the top and it's done. No way out now. And just to be sure, I injected her with two shots of sleeping pills.

After drooling over the boiling adamantium for a while longer, I was distracted by Felicia.

- Spider, we have a little problem here, - she contacted me with the help of the radio.

- Where?

- Outside.

- I'll be right there.

Cee's voice in my head completed the picture by informing me that the main battle had indeed moved to the street. There are still a few sectarians in the underground base, but the Sharkovians are successfully crushing them without help.

Unable to teleport back, I was forced to make my way to the front entrance through the entire base. There was no point in calling for a lift. Someone had broken the booth during the battle. So I opened the curtains and climbed into the lift shaft. Somewhere from above, a thin stream of water was pouring down, apparently the walls had been punctured. Jumping on the wall, I quickly ran to the breach, and shot a projectile of spiderweb into the breach. The synthetic silk patched the damage better than any welding, and I ran on. I considered the adamantium I had found at the base to be my property, and I couldn't let the water from the Alkaline Lake flood my indestructible treasure.

As it turned out, the lift cabin had been ripped out of the shaft with roots and thrown somewhere to the side. And who did this? Only Cyclops could do something like that with his scarlet beams shooting out of his eyes. But I think if it was him, the lift would have been melted by the laser. The overall impact would have been different. And here it looked like the Hulk had tried to get into the shaft, but couldn't squeeze through.

Pushing my anxious thoughts aside, I ran out to the top of the shaft and looked around.

Night was slowly changing to early morning. It was quite cool. Fresh I might even say. Quiet predawn hour, light mist over the surface of the lake, clean air full of oxygen. It's a lovely place. I'd like to camp there on the shore and have a rest for a couple of days from the bustle of the big city. But first we have to defeat the bad guys. They're too angry. Strange, maybe someone woke them up in the middle of the night?

I looked around the shore, where the main scuffle was taking place, and hesitated for a few seconds, looking for where my help would be needed most of all.

Despite the fact that Frost had promised to try to incapacitate some of the enemy mutants by putting them to sleep or something like that, but apparently she hadn't succeeded. There were even more enemies than we had originally thought. Five people with superpowers were facing off against four of my comrades. If you include Lady Deathstroke, there were originally six.

Luke Cage was thoughtfully exchanging heavy blows with a large albino man dressed in a tattered, old-fashioned dinner jacket. Tombstone. I remember running into him before. Last time we saw him, he was under the command of a bald-headed ambo named Fisk. I haven't needed my help here yet. These two didn't seem to need company, they were having fun as it was.

Wolverine, Cyclops, and Cat were in a worse situation. They had no specific opponents. Their fight resembled more of a merciless and dangerous medley. The enemies were outnumbered and possessed a variety of unpleasant abilities. I didn't recognise any of them, except for a man in a converted priest's cassock, who was beginning to grey. The trademark sectarian uniform, damn it. I recognised his face. I'd never met him in person before, but I could find old war photos of him on the internet.

William Stryker.

It's a good thing he ended up here. I won't have to search the world for him.

Too bad he's probably got some kind of powers.

The reverend's right hand appears to be wearing an elbow-high glove. A high-tech glove like Iron Man's. It glowed with a glamorous pink light, and could emit the same colour, but not at all peaceful beams of energy. Or was it not a glove, but a prosthetic hand? The four-finger design instead of five spoke in favour of the latter. Or maybe Stryker just didn't have a pinky finger.

Giving up trying to get a good look at the man, I had to teleport to shore. I appeared right next to Cyclops, and immediately caught the giant hand of one of the opponents, which he intended to pound the confused mutant into the ground. The force of the blow wasn't bad, and I even got my feet stuck in the sand, but no more than that. I activate the tasers and the enemy pulls back the burnt limb, shrinking it as I go. Apparently his abilities are somehow similar to Ant-Man. Only he doesn't know how to shrink and instead enlarges individual body parts rather than all at once.

My spider sense signals an alarm, and I leap aside, snagging Cyclops' webbing as well. That's how we manage to miss a dozen small projectiles. They fly past us, and with an unpleasant sound make holes in the pine trees. I glance in the direction of a girl with blue hair standing in the distance. Around her, other similar projectiles - small metal balls - are slowly spinning in the air. Some kind of telekinesis?

Cyclops, finding himself in a new place, came to his senses rather quickly, touched his goggles, and released a stream of energy towards Stryker. But the reverend put his prosthesis in front of him, pink flashes of light sparkled around his arm and he was enveloped by an energy shield that easily took the entire blow.

The cat dodged the metallic projectiles of the blue-haired girl, and coming closer to the red-haired boy, who was growing in size, she wrapped her tail around his leg. She managed to give him a good smack on the ground before something caused her to naturally flatten herself to the ground. A man with a strange spiky helmet on his head was holding out his right arm in her direction.

Running up to him I tried to do something, but he turned his head in my direction and the slits in the place of his eyes lit up with a dangerous blue light. My gut shrieked again, and I bounced sideways to escape the incredibly hot stream of blue flame. He swung his hand in my direction, and I realised why Cat had been crouched on the ground a few seconds ago. This mutant somehow controls gravity. I activate the teleporter and move away from the place where his power is affecting me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice a C-rated Richard flying out of the lift shaft. The suit is holding an unconscious Night Snake in his arms.

'He's fine,' I'm reassured by the voice of my disembodied symbiote in my head. - 'Jarvis dug into the base's computers, turns out Stryker has a son. A mutant. His father did something to him, we found mentions of a lobotomy. Bottom line is the kid's barely conscious. William has learnt how to make a mixture based on his son's cerebrospinal fluid. It's what he uses to control the other mutants. The sectarians managed to inject Kurt with the drug, and I had to run around the base to catch up with him, but eventually Frost was able to get into his mind and reverse the effects of the drug. After taking control of his body for a couple of seconds the telepath asked me to tell him that it had exhausted her and there was nothing more she could do to help us.'

'Thank you, C,' I replied. - 'Get him to safety.'

Logan meanwhile, snarling savagely, had thrown himself at Stryker. But the latter put his pink shield in front of him again, and Wolverine was thrown off him like a bouncy ball. Our clawed friend crashed into an albino running past. Despite his short stature, the adamantium-covered skeleton added a lot of weight, and Tombstone was swept away like a bowling pin. It rolled across the sand and landed next to me. Not to waste the chance, I fired a couple of web shells at the villain. The cocoon was a sight to behold. I think this enemy has been neutralised.

Luke Cage, realising he'd lost his opponent, chose a new one. Closest to him was a girl with blue hair. When he hit her, he was almost immediately thrown away by metal balls that moved at the speed of a bullet. But he didn't get far. The guy in the spiked helmet increased the gravity locally, but he caught not only Cage, but also the blue-haired mutant.

Hmm, what's that? Does he just dislike this girl, or what?

Felicia successfully tackled the red-haired guy who was smashing everything around with his giant hands. Logan and Cyclops kept Stryker busy fighting, but they couldn't hurt him somehow. Since they were more or less okay, I decided to concentrate on this weird gravity-driven, blue-flame shooting type. Since he proved to be quite agile, I simply teleported behind his back. Even so, he apparently sensed me, and immediately began to turn around. Mechanical spider legs extended from my back and toppled him to the ground. I already had a sedative injector in my hand, so I crouched down beside him and rolled up the sleeve of his jacket and injected it into his clean skin. I don't understand why he only needs armour on his head when the rest of his body is unprotected.

The mutant, even under a horse dose of strong and almost instantaneous sleeping pills, still showed astonishing activity, and so I tried to wrap him in a dense cocoon of spider webs. Only one head was left free. He wheezed something and tried to twist his neck from side to side, but I never let him turn on his back, so all he could see was the ground from different angles.

The mechanical paws lifted me up a little, and I almost immediately regretted writing the helmeted man off so quickly. He shrieked, a stream of blue glow poured out of the slits where his eyes were, and in the next instant his helmet seemed to melt under the unbearable heat that came from within. Spider-sense howled, so that I teleported out of there before I realised what I had done. My mechanical legs had disappeared to half their length, the edges red and smoking as if they'd recently been doused in lava.

I shifted my gaze to the mutant and was taken aback by its head... it was engulfed in flames. No. No, it wasn't. His head was on fire! It wasn't! In the place where a normal person's head shone with a blue light, a miniature star!

The body of the mutant as if following the unusual head rose into the air and hovered a metre above the ground.

- What the fuck is going on here? - A dumbfounded human voice sounded. It came from the side of the mutant hanging in the air. - What am I doing here?

- Have you come to your senses? - I asked cautiously.

He turned slightly in mid-air and stared at me. Well I think he was supposed to be staring at me. It's hard to make out emotions on the face of a living star with a human body!

- W-what? You're awake?

- Yeah. I'm sorry I don't know all the details, but that guy over there with the pink hand kind of brainwashed you into working for him.

The mutant's body turned towards Stryker and his head almost immediately erupted like a giant cosmic torch! The cocoon of webbing he was still wrapped in began to smoke and then burst into flames. The air around the mutant rippled as if over a massive bonfire. I teleported a decent distance away from him, but I had to move back another five metres. It was getting too hot.

- I-I remember! - came from his side. - He kidnapped me, injected me with something, and then ordered the guy in the wheelchair to get into my head. I fought back, but he was stronger! Shit!

The clothes on the mutant's body were also burned, but he didn't seem to be worried about it at all. The man hovered in the air for a few seconds, showing off his manhood, and then he swam towards Stryker. A stream of blue cosmic flame rained down on the pink shield, but it didn't even flinch! It was simply amazing! What kind of technology is used in this incredible prosthesis!?! It can withstand the attacks of Cyclops, Starhead, and even Wolverine's adamantium claws! And even manages to counterattack!

With a shake of my head, I temporarily put those thoughts out of my head and headed off to help Cage. Taking out his blue-haired opponent was much easier. The girl didn't have any super senses and didn't realise that someone was behind her. A dose of sleeping pills and she was in the realm of Morpheus. Almost at the same time Cat was able to defeat the mutant that was increasing the size of his body parts.

Almost all of the opponents were defeated. Except for Stryker.

Reverend under the pressure of three opponents almost went into a deep defence. But the situation was a stalemate. He couldn't fight back much, but my allies couldn't get through his energy shield.

- You devilish scum! You can't stop me! - he shouted. - You cannot defeat the Hand of God!

Oh, man. For some reason I thought Stryker was just pretending to be crazy. You know, most people who start religious sects don't have any psychological problems themselves. They just siphon money out of their members. They don't even believe in their twisted and made-up religion. But William must really think he's the ahem... Hand of God.

Oh, well. I'm not thinking about that. First I need to figure out how to get through the pink shield and knock out the enemy. We've made so much noise, I'm afraid it won't be long before all the interested parties arrive at our rendezvous point. And it's a good thing it'll be sectarian reserves and not government troops. I didn't want to go to war with the U.S. Army, but I wasn't going to give up my adamantium. Which meant we had to hurry.

'Mr Parker, sir,' Jarvis addressed me. - 'I've managed to completely hack into the base's computer system and scratch the surface of all the information stored here.'

'About time, Jarvis. Is there anything in there about Stryker's prosthetic? Any weaknesses?'

'I'm afraid to disappoint you, sir. His prosthetic, it's part of an unknown and apparently incredibly advanced robot. I have found no information as to where or how Stryker obtained his arm, but he has been researching its capabilities for quite some time. From this data, I can judge that this mechanism is sort of adaptive to a wide range of influences. It is capable of reorganising itself in short periods of time so as to resist specific negative influences as effectively as possible.'

'Is that why it resists Cyclops, adamantium and fire so easily?'

'That's correct, sir. On that basis, I don't know how that defence could be broken. It's perfect.'

'Jarvis, mate,' I said thoughtfully. - 'Nothing is perfect.'

'Whatever you say, sir,' the AI replied in a philosophical tone.

While the others distracted the mad reverend, I accelerated my search for clues. Called Cat over to me and tapped into her suit's systems and threw myself a video of the fight from her eyes. Quickly watched as they faced Stryker and his hand mutants, as the grey-haired man easily enough forced my men to retreat from the base to the street, and as he fought. I compared this to what I had been able to observe myself, made some complex calculations, and with a large percentage of percentage errors still established the likely weakness of the equipment that the ex-military man was using.

By now, my heavy suit had arrived on the battlefield. Good, just in time. I tinkered with it a bit and adjusted the repulsor settings. Contacted the helicopter pilots waiting in the distance to see how they were doing. After giving them instructions, I waited for them to get their equipment in the air and take Stryker in my sights. Called the starfaced mutant out of the thick of the battle and instructed him as well. I radioed the rest of the team.

At the right moment, my men moved away from Stryker in an orderly fashion. He obviously realised that we were up to something big, but there was nothing he could do. Cyclops managed to distract him long enough with his laser shots at maximum power. And then it was too late. A trio of my helicopters fired all their combat missiles at it, and the rest of them simultaneously used their long-range abilities. The starry-headed mutant simultaneously affected its captor with gravity and blue flames, the Cyclops did not stop emitting the full power of its lasers from its eyes. My heavy suit fired a powerful stream of particles from its main calibre.

It went boom. Unfortunately, even the combined firepower wasn't enough to destroy Stryker. But his prosthetic right arm couldn't withstand five different effects at once. We just overloaded it. The pink shield around the man flickered and went out. At the same moment, I teleported close to him and smacked him in the face.

Despite the prosthesis, William was a normal human being in every other respect, and my one punch was more than enough to knock him out. He fell to the sand, his neck twisted at an unnatural angle.

So much for the Blade.

A normal human with advanced technology.