Chapter 52: Ch 51: Lemurian Star Hijack XI
"You are weirdly obsessed with hurting my face, aren’t you?" Veritas said, dodging her knee with a casual burst of explosion that sent him skimming sideways through the air.
’And you’re obsessed with my waist!’ Gwen thought with irritation as she recalled the times he had grabbed it in both of her previous fights with him. But she didn’t voice the thought, knowing this was being broadcast to the whole of America.
Seeing Veritas dodge away, Gwen quickly shot another web to the deck, using it as an anchor to whip herself backward. With a flawless backflip, she landed in a crouched, ready stance a safe distance away from him.
And to his words, Gwen was ready with a quip, "I mean, I could kick you at other places. But then it’d end your family line. Maybe I’ll do just that... humanity would be better off without more creeps like you..."
Veritas drifted backward, idly leaning against the white metal railing of the small observation deck. He rested his palms on the grillwork.
"Calling me a creep again? And here I thought we’d made some progress."
The painted black lips on his mask seemed to droop into a sad, dramatic pout.
"You’re giving off some seriously mixed signals here. One minute you’re traveling halfway across the world just to see me, the next you’re calling me names again. Why are women so impossibly hard to understand?"
Gwen straightened up from her crouch. She stretched her arms above her head, then interlocked her fingers and pushed her palms outward with a satisfying series of pops from her knuckles.
"Don’t worry, creepy clown," she said. "I’ll teach you a lesson. Free of charge."
Thwip! Thwip!
She shot dual weblines from her wrists, slingshotting herself directly toward him.
Veritas simply lifted off the ground, hovering in the air with continuous, controlled micro-blasts from the soles of his boots.
He raised both palms forward and unleashed a blinding barrage of AP Shots. A rapid-fire volley of concentrated, laser-like explosive blasts. A move that now came to him as easily as breathing.
According to the lecture Maria Hill had given her, the absolute highest temperature Veritas had ever achieved was due to this same attack. And it was roughly 14,500 degrees Fahrenheit. Hill had also assured her that the advanced S.H.I.E.L.D. polymer woven into Gwen’s new suit could withstand nearly 5 times that amount of heat.
But Gwen wasn’t about to just tank it and find out. She twisted her body, letting the outer edge of the roaring explosion wash over her. Every burst of orange laser blasts missed her by inches. She was dancing through the storm of explosions with impossible grace.
But Luke didn’t let up. He thrust both hands forward and unleashed a massive, roaring fireball directly at her
BOOM!
She emerged from the massive fireball completely unharmed, while the steel floor beneath her melted into glowing orange slag. The shockwave was a pain but with her strength she could just tank it when the hit was sure.
Flipping rapidly forward, she planted her palms onto a non-melted section of the deck for a fraction of a second. Using her immense, superhuman strength, she pushed off the floor like a coiled spring, driving her boots squarely toward Veritas’s mask once again.
Luke saw her coming. At the very last instant, he snatched her by the ankle.
"Gotcha," he said.
With a small burst of explosion from his feet, he ascended a few feet higher, pulling her up with him like a ragdoll. He swung her in a wide arc, her body whipping through the air.
"Woaah!" Gwen yelped, genuinely caught off guard.
With her suspended vertically above his head for a moment, Veritas ruthlessly swung her downward, yanking her toward the solid steel deck with the exact same violent motion one would use to smash a beer bottle in a roadside bar brawl.
Gwen’s Spider-Sense screamed. A split second before impact, she shot two web strands at his knees and yanked them forward with all her strength.
Luke’s legs buckled. He lost his aerial balance, his grip on her ankle loosening. He instinctively fired a massive blast at the webs on his knees, vaporizing them instantly, and simultaneously launched a concussive burst at the spider to push her away before she could aim her heavy punches or kicks at him.
The blast on her suit once again did nothing.
Free from his iron grip, Gwen twisted in the air, shot a web to a nearby pole, and yanked herself to safety.
She stuck to the vertical surface, crouching low. Her mind was racing, cataloguing every new detail.
’Three things,’ she noted grimly. ’Three new things since our last fight.’
First: his explosions. Before, they only came from his palms. That weakness was gone. Now he could fire from his feet, his elbows, his back— his entire body seemed to be a weapon.
Second: his speed. In their previous fights, he’d never managed to actually counterattack her. He could block, dodge, and run, but his counters were slow and clumsy. Futile. This time.. he’d grabbed her ankle mid-strike. He’d nearly slammed her into the deck. Attacking him now actually felt dangerous.
And third: the teleportation. Earlier, he had vanished from the gallery and reappeared near the doorway. She wasn’t sure if it was his own power or some external ally.
[Patron Comments]
[urANUS]: Okay that ankle grab was sick. He’s definitely improved since the bridge fight.
[PrettyInRed]: The way he swung her like a ragdoll... I shouldn’t laugh but I did.
[Yeageristo]: She’s analyzing him now. You can see the gears turning. Smart girl.
[enemies_to_Lovers_enjoyer]: If I were a clanker. Id say the tension in this fight is PALPABLE. The banter! The grab! I am LIVING.
[PPPPOTAH]: What’s he gonna do though? We heard in their call during the QnA stream that she’s got an explosion-proof suit. And it seems tough. Are exploding Jester’s explosions too weak now?
[The Fool Fan]: You guys should be more worried about your so-called fml. Veritas is finally going to begin now... I think.
[The Fool Fan donated 2 TP]
[PPPPOTAH]: @The Fool Fan’s such a ridah and providaah!
Well, Gwen’s surprise was entirely valid.
After his first explosive Q&A stream, Luke had invested a solid chunk of his earnings (50 TP) into upgrading his Flying Thunder God mastery, bumping it from a mere 25% to a much more respectable 50%. (Each 1% upgrade cost him exactly 2 TP).
He was currently saving the rest of his Terror Points to buy a completely new ability that would synergize well with his explosions and teleportation, but the FTG upgrade had been a necessary expenditure.
The upgraded Flying Thunder God had passively increased his raw reaction speed by a massive margin.
It meant that now, he could actually observe Gwen’s superhuman movements without them just looking like a blur. His brain could process the high-speed visual inputs and actually formulate a counter-strategy in real time. And more importantly, his muscles were finally fast enough to execute those instructions.
When Spider-Woman had first burst into the hostage room earlier, Luke had actually managed to catch her arm and attempted to smash her face into the floor.
Of course, Gwen had countered his counter with that annoying backward heel-kick to the side of his face, but the fact remained: he had successfully intercepted her.
During that brief exchange, Luke realized something very unique about Gwen’s fighting style. When she was on the offensive, she held back. But when she was defending herself or counter-attacking, she tapped into a much higher percentage of her actual reaction speed.
Which meant her peak reaction time was still significantly better than his.
’I don’t know much about this universe’s Spider-Woman, but didn’t Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man have a scene where he could literally see a housefly’s wings fluttering in slow motion?’
Luke wondered as he hovered.
’That might be the base reaction speed she’s working with. Or perhaps even greater. I had read somewhere that said the female Spider-heroes were generally faster and more agile than the males... anyway, let’s resume the fight.’
Gwen’s eye-lenses narrowed and fixed on Veritas as he hovered on the far side of the white railing he had leaned his back on a few moments earlier.
With a soft chuckle, he tilted his head. "You look surprised, Miss Spider. Want more?"
Gwen snorted, "Surprised? Quit flattering yourself, Clowny Creep. Your attacks have no effect on me."
Veritas paused...
"My attacks have no effect on you?" He said as he raised his chin, as small sparks of orange drifted all over his body, "Who decided that?"
Without warning, he launched himself toward her, propelled by continuous blasts from his legs, and fired another blinding barrage of AP Shots.
Gwen instantly leaped off the pole. Relying entirely on her Spider-Sense, she twisted, flipped, and contorted through the air, effortlessly weaving between the laser-like explosive bolts.
Then Veritas disappeared from in front of her.
Her eyes widened. Her Spider-Sense blared at maximum volume - not from the front, but from directly below.
She looked down.
Veritas had reappeared just above the white railing he’d been leaning on moments ago. They both were in the air, horizontally... and his palms were pressed together at the wrists, fingers splayed outward, aimed directly at her abdomen.
"Hame... Ha..." He whispered something to himself as a brilliant orange pillar of concentrated explosive energy erupted from his palms, slamming into her torso from below. There was no time to dodge, no time to block. The attack was instantaneous.
SHHHWWWWW-BOOM!
Thanks to the suit, she didn’t feel a single degree of the blistering heat, but the sheer, concussive kinetic force of the explosion hit her like a speeding truck.
She gritted her teeth, riding out the pain as she tumbled skyward.
Below, Luke smirked. The jagged teeth of his cracked mask peeked out from behind the painted grin.
He lowered his palms beneath him.
BOOOOOM!
He broke the sound barrier in an instant, a thunderclap echoing across the ocean. He caught up to the tumbling Spider-Woman in less than a second, appearing just above her through sheer explosive propulsion.
Another massive attack was already charging in his palms, the orange glow intensifying to something almost blinding.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMM!!!
On the deck below, Captain America and Batroc both paused mid-swing. They looked up in unison as a massive orange fireball blossomed in the dark sky.
For a brief, terrifying second, it looked as if a miniature sun had just risen at midnight.
===================
Thanks for reading!
Support me on Pat reon!
pa t reon.com/c/Marveller
Right now 3 advanced Chapters.
Comments