51 The Butterfly Effect
Peter's Danger Sense continued to dance in the back of his mind as he stood before the now familiar abandoned building. Given his destruction of an entire floor during his first transformation into Form II, the building was labelled unstable and was set to be demolished in a few days.
'A shame really', he thought morosely as he deftly made his way through the rubble, sticking to the walls to better leap from the ledges formed from the collapse. Eventually, after a few seconds of Spider-manning it, he climbed up to the topmost floor, carefully ripping open a door to a dusty office - at least what he believed was one.
'Van Der Waal's forces for the win', he smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. His Danger Sense continued to irritate the back of his head, refusing to let him relax. He'd thought that it had begun when he finished his conversation with Dr Connors, but in reality, it had been acting up the moment he had that large spike of Danger Sense before he attacked Kingpin's warehouse.
'Something is up', Peter frowned. 'The Danger Sense pointing to something happening in the city back then was suspicious too. Just what's going on?'
He sighed and his sombre eyes took in his environment. A half-rotten desk with a few pieces of metal on top sat at the dead centre while a few similarly decayed cupboards stood to sides, wearily standing despite their age. A thin layer of dust covered everything - from the cracked walls to the furniture and the partially cracked clock on the ground.
He carefully placed the door back in its place before taking a deep breath, snorting at the dust particles. Unslinging the backpack, he quickly brought out the vial shimmering with clear liquid. His hands trembled slightly as his fingers wrapped around its cool surface. It seemed to pulse with a life of its own, as if aware of the power it held.
The Silver Samurai had taught him that power without skill and control was power wasted -that control could be achieved with blood, sweat and hard work. With practice. With unwavering determination, and with talent.
CLICK!
The tiny sound of the syringe entering the vial was deafening to him as his eyes reflected the clear liquid being transferred from one container to another.
Sure, skill had to be earned, but control?
Why bother mastering control when he could inject it into his very DNA?
SHINK!
The needle pierced his skin and his hazel pupils narrowed into vertical slits.
***
"This is bad...", Charles muttered as he read the report on his messy desk. His hands were in his hair and his eyes bloodshot, as though he'd put away sleeping for a long while.
"How bad?", Logan asked gruffly, downing a glass of bourbon as he reclined on a chair.
Charles frowned at him.
"Really Logan? Drinking already? It's not even noon"
"Happy hour is anytime, Bub", the infamous mutant shrugged. "Now, you look rattled. Spill it, take a load off, and hit the sack."
Charles merely let out another groan as he sat back in his chair.
"It's Emma. She's truly lost it", he muttered, rubbing his eyes.
Logan immediately perked up.
"Knew it was coming. She was already a wild card, and Shaw kickin' it probably pushed her right over the edge", he nodded. "What'd she do? Wreck a couple of blocks? Take out a few peeps?"
Charles snorted, "How I wish it was only that. I've seen her mad before...but this..this is different. She's going at it full throttle and there's no stopping her. The world is going to change in a couple of days."
Logan's eyes narrowed and his demeanour turned completely serious.
"She's the White Queen of the HellFire Club and with it comes considerable power over the World Economy", Charles continued. "You see, they have the most shares in the world's biggest companies and the sheer amount of wealth they can move is incredible. Salt, cotton, silk, gold, coal, gaming, food, natural gas, oil - they have their fingers dipped in everything."
"I've got a feeling where this is heading", Logan scratched his mutton chops.
"Emma has begun selling everything they have their hands on", Charles confirmed. "The Hellfire Club is trying to slow her down, but she got her position for a reason. When she's this driven, there is no stopping her. I suspect the Black King is supporting her too."
Logen's brow furrowed. "This sounds bad. When those big groups start stockpiling, they're gearing up for a fight."
"A war", Charles corrected Logan. "And I don't think you've grasped the sheer destruction this would cause."
"Just with her selling everything?", Logan frowned.
"Yes!", Charles nodded, standing up and running his hands through his hair in a panic. "Listen, it's not just about stocks tanking. Investor wealth nosedives, companies start bleeding cash, and banks? They're in a panic. Loans tighten up faster than you can blink."
"I can imagine that....", Logan sighed.
"Picture this: industries shrink, trade sputters, and don't forget about the commodities. Prices? They drop like a rock, hitting countries that rely on them. We're talking recession, my friend."
"Fuck! I do not want to live through one more of those", Logan's eyes widened before he searched the room for more alcohol. "We're gonna need to start stockpiling."
"But wait, there's more", Charles snickered in helplessness as Logan whimpered as he went through numerous flashbacks.
"Governments dive in, tossing out cash, cutting rates, anything to stop the bleeding. And what about the people? Anxiety spikes, and boom! Wealth inequality skyrockets and jobs vanish. In a week or so, this would make the Great Recession look like a blip in the radar."
"Can we do anything to stop it", Logan asked. "There has to be!"
BEEP!
BEEP!
BEEP!
A phone on his table began to tremble, cutting the conversation short. Charles sighed and grabbed it, checking the notification.
"Shit! She's really lost it", he gasped.
"What now?!", Logan lamented.
"She's mounted attacks in Hong Kong and London", Charles exclaimed. "And there's one heading to New York this very moment!"
"Damn that wench!", Logan growled as he jumped to his feet. "Where?!"
"177A Bleecker Street."
***
SHINK!
Peter's pupils narrowed into vertical slits as the Transcription Factors diffused into his blood. He placed the empty syringe and vial back in his backpack before sitting on the dusty floor.
'Any moment now...', he thought as his heart rate slowly began to spike.
A few seconds passed with no discernable change, but he knew it was the calm before the storm. The last time he commented on the lack of change when taking the Lizard Serum, he was backhanded by the sheer pain that wracked his body.
"Here it comes...", he muttered as he began feeling heat accumulating in his core. It was as though somebody was in his chest, shovelling coal into the forge that was now his heart.
Droplets of sweat lined his skin as his body temperature continued to rise to dangerous levels, yet he remained calm. He removed his spectacles and continued to take deep breaths. He knew exactly what was going on in his body, after all.
Extremis was first accessing the body's recovery centre, the portion of the brain that has the complete mapping of his human, well not fully human, body and all his features, and was initially identifying possible future failures, such as cuts, injuries and varied stimuli.
It would then take control of this region of the brainstem and overwrite all of the previous mapping with information about how the body should truly be.
If Extremis were injected into an ordinary person, it would've then evaluated the entire human body as erroneous and injured, sending the information to the brain that the entire body, externally and internally, is wrong, completely transforming it into an open wound to be healed and changed by and for the Extremis' standards.
Unfortunately for him, he had Hyper-Regeneration. With it active, Extremis would not be able to impose itself without restriction.
The heat was slowly starting to become a problem as he began licking his dry lips.
"Any moment no-ARRGHH!!!", a guttural yell tore through his throat as his body spasmed, now so hot that it was emitting steam.
Heat continued to pulse through his veins, an internal inferno that seemed to want to melt his organs.
{GRRRRRRRRR!!!}, a reptilian snarl escaped his mouth as Form II threatened to burst forth.
'Hold it in, hold it in, hold in', he chanted as he refused to lose control. Changing to Form II would greatly diminish the effect of Extremis as the genes of the Lizard Serum would be fully expressed.
Glowing lines danced akin to fiery rivers beneath the surface of his skin, casting an otherworldly glow that illuminated the room. They travelled through his body, from his heart to his hands and legs, outlining beautiful patterns on his sculpted figure before forming a fiery crown on his forehead.
'Is it forming a new circulatory system?', he thought in confusion as he watched the glowing lines trace something exquisite on his body. Sadly, his attention was ripped away when another bout of searing pain exploded from his core, his skin now turning more and more red by the second.
"Arrrrggh!!!", he let out a muted scream as he writhed on the floor.
The fusion of the serums had triggered an intense turmoil within him. The Extremis, driven by its mandate to rewrite the body's mapping, collided with the inherent Hyper-Regenerative power of the Lizard Serum.
As it infiltrated the body's recovery centre, it sought to impose its standards, deeming the body as erroneous. But the Hyper-Regeneration refused to let it deem his body as flawed. It was a conflict that he had foreseen but could do nothing to prevent. If he choose to suppress one, then he'd never be able to get the true advantages of his serum.
"ARRrgghgh!!!"
It was a necessary pain.
The initial moments were chaotic—the body rejecting the foreign infusion violently, expelling the genetic code orally and causing a significant loss of blood.
"Blegh!!!", He coughed as blood poured out of his orfices with abandon. If it were not for GeneLock and Hyper-Regeneration, not only would he have died, he would've partially flooded the room with his blood. He gasped for air as his blood dissipated into microparticles, his consciousness slipping in and out of darkness.
His body's systems went into overdrive, forming low-grade scabs that expanded covering the body in a protective cocoon. But this cocoon wasn't just a shield; it was a convergence of two powerful serums, intertwining to reshape the body into something beyond comprehension.
Steam continued to billow out from his cocoon as his skin, muscle and skeletal system went through an overhaul, melting and burning before being reforged - stronger, more efficient and far, far deadlier.
It was a mix of pain and euphoria - so much so that he couldn't really distinguish one from the other. Hours passed in a blur of excruciating pain and change, as he popped in and out of consciousness, yet, the brownish-black organic cocoon that looked like the egg of a monster showed no change.
It was rooted into the floor, patterns of bulging veins digging into the concrete.
BZZZ!
BZZZZ!!
BZZZZZZ!!!
Suddenly, his backpack that was tucked into the corner began to buzz, and it was at that very moment, that the cocoon trembled.
CRACK!!!
***
