Hunter of Marvel - Chapter 11

Chapter 11: Preparing

More than a month passed.

In the span of a single month, the frail, unassuming teenager who had taken a beating in the park was completely gone.

Veer stood in front of the cracked mirror in the boys’ locker room, splashing cold water over his face. He gripped the edges of the ceramic sink, the cheap metal groaning under his fingers. He had to consciously pull his strength back to avoid shattering the basin.

When he looked up, the reflection staring back was entirely alien to the Midtown Science High School ecosystem. He had shot up to a towering six feet. His shoulders had broadened dramatically, stretching the fabric of his dark green hoodie to its absolute limit. His back was wide, tapering down to a lean, carved waist. Every inch of his musculature had grown dense and hyper-defined, a physique forged through a month of agonizing, relentless muscle failure and System restorations. He looked less like a high school student and more like a seasoned, professional fitness model.

He pulled the oversized hoodie tighter around himself, hunching his shoulders in a futile attempt to swallow his own mass. It wasn’t working as well as it used to. The baggy clothes could no longer hide the sheer physical space he occupied.

Just that morning, a junior from his AP Calculus class had intercepted him by the library. She had stepped into his path, nervously twisting a strand of hair, her eyes darting across the broad expanse of his chest before meeting his gaze. She had asked if he wanted to get coffee. It wasn’t the first time it had happened this week.

Veer had looked at her, his expression utterly blank. “I don’t have the time,” he had replied, stepping around her without breaking his stride.

It wasn’t arrogance; it was a simple, exhausting truth. His life was a suffocating cycle. Every morning began in the bitter cold of the abandoned handball court, breaking his body down to 100% fatigue, over and over, until he could taste blood in the back of his throat. Then came the grueling hours at school, where he didn’t listen to lectures, but instead ruthlessly cycled his aura beneath his desk, practicing the fine control of his Nen. Finally, the day ended with the mind-numbing grind of his part-time convenience store job, stocking shelves while actively managing his AP drain.

There was no room for anything else.

The social hierarchy of Midtown High had become a distant, irrelevant hum. The people who had once dictated his reality were now ghosts. Mary Jane Watson ignored him, fully content in her belief that he was nursing a tragic, silent heartbreak over her. Flash Thompson went out of his way to walk on the opposite side of the hallway, a primal terror still lingering in his eyes whenever Veer caught his gaze. Felicia Hardy was a phantom, walking past him as if he were completely invisible, her chin tilted up in aristocratic dismissal. He didn’t speak to them. They didn’t speak to him. The isolation was perfect.

But not everything in the school was quiet.

Veer had been walking past the cafeteria when it hit him. It wasn’t a sound or a movement. It was a suffocating, crushing weight in the air.

He froze, his breath catching in his throat. To a normal person, the hallway was just a hallway. But to a Nen user, life-force was a tangible, heavy thing. And the aura bleeding through the cafeteria doors was monstrous. It was wild, buzzing with a frantic, radioactive energy that made the hair on Veer’s arms stand straight up.

He shifted his stance, instantly channeling his aura toward his eyes.

Gyo.

The world shifted. The mundane colors of the lockers and the linoleum floor bled away, replaced by the brilliant, swirling currents of life-force. Veer turned his head, his enhanced vision cutting through the cafeteria walls.

Sitting alone at a table, absentmindedly picking at a salad, was Gwen Stacy.

She was glowing. A roaring, untamed inferno of blue and red aura violently lashed out from her body, cracking the air around her. Above her head, the System interface flickered, decoding the sheer density of her life-force into cold, hard numbers.

[Level: 32]

Veer exhaled slowly, letting the ‘Gyo’ fade from his eyes. The numbers were staggering. A standard, healthy adult registered at Level 0. Even the peak of human potential, the legendary Super Soldier Serum running through Captain America’s veins, capped out at Level 1.

Gwen Stacy was Level 32.

The Oscorp spider hadn’t bitten Peter Parker. It had bitten her. The raw, terrifying strength of a predator was now trapped inside the body of a high school student. She hadn’t put on a mask yet. There was no Spider-Woman swinging through the New York skyline on the evening news. But feeling that chaotic, suppressing aura, Veer knew it was only a matter of days before she cracked.

He turned away, walking down the hall without looking back. It wasn’t his problem. The city had its street-level protector now. If Gwen wanted to spend her nights breaking her bones against petty criminals and supervillains, she could. Veer had a billionaire in a desert to save.

By the time lunch ended, a different kind of chaos had swept the school.

Mark dropped into the seat next to Veer in the courtyard, practically vibrating with nervous excitement. “Did you hear?” Mark whispered, adjusting his smudged glasses. “The parking lot. Total meltdown.”

Veer didn’t look up from his notebook. “Who.”

“Felicia and Philip,” Mark said, his voice dropping an octave. “It’s everywhere. Felicia caught him hooking up with a college girl from NYU. They had a screaming match right next to his Audi. Felicia keyed the entire side of his door. It’s over. They’re done.”

Veer stopped writing. He stared at the blank lines on the paper for a moment, a dry, humorless breath escaping his nose.

It was almost poetic. Felicia had used Veer for a spiteful, destructive night of revenge-sex while she was still dating Philip. Philip had been sleeping around behind her back the entire time. They were both narcissistic, toxic, and utterly self-serving. It was impossible to tell who to blame, and entirely pointless to try. They had destroyed each other, exactly as two unstable elements should.

“Tragic,” Veer muttered flatly, returning his pencil to the paper.

Mark blinked. “That’s it? The guy threatened to have you arrested, and Felicia totally humiliated you, and you just don’t care?”

“I don’t,” Veer said simply.

He didn’t have the luxury of caring. His mind was thousands of miles away, locked on the ticking countdown of the ‘Iron Genesis’ Quest. With a subtle pulse of his will, he summoned his status screen.

—

Name: Veer Pratap Singh

Level: 19 (49/210)

Affinity: Specialisation

…

HP: 220/220 [Recover 0.2% per minute]

AP: 2968/22,000 [Recover 0.2% per minute]

Fatigue: 0%

…

STR: 14

DEX: 19

VIT: 20

INT: 23

PER: 21

…

Skill: Ten Lv3(16%), Zetsu Lv3(9%), Ren Lv2(15%), Gyo Lv1(79%), Silent Gait Lv2(35%), En Lv1(35%), In Lv1(96%), Shu Lv1(34%), Ken Lv2(15%), Ko Lv1(34%), Ryu Lv1(65%)

…

[Quest]

[Inventory]

—

Level 19.

He was staring at the precipice. Just one more level, and he would break the Level 20 threshold. He would unlock his Hatsu. He would finally have a weapon that wasn’t just a basic application of aura, but a unique, devastating technique tied directly to his soul.

His progression over the month had been absolute agony, but the mastery he now held over his Nen was undeniable.

He had found an old, abandoned subway maintenance tunnel stretching beneath Queens. In that absolute darkness, he had ruthlessly drilled ‘Silent Gait”. Reaching Level 2 was a revelation. By perfectly shifting his weight and utilizing his aura to mask his footfalls, his physical speed spiked by 20% of his total Dexterity. He moved like a phantom. It only drained 8 AP per second, though it devoured his physical stamina. He could clear the length of the tunnel in seconds, completely soundless.

‘Ten’ at Level 3 had fundamentally altered his existence. The aura shroud no longer required conscious thought; it clung to his skin permanently, a living armor. But the System was brutal. Passive activation offered zero experience. Sitting in meditation for fifty minutes now yielded a miserable 1% proficiency. If he wanted to grow, he had to take damage.

He had spent three consecutive nights standing on the roof of his apartment building, stepping off the ledge, and letting gravity drag him down into the alley. He would force his ‘Ten’ to absorb the bone-shattering impact of the concrete. It was terrifying, agonizing work, but it forced the skill to evolve. At Level 3, a standard handgun bullet would flatten against his aura like a pebble hitting a tank. But the reality of his mortality remained; a high-powered rifle round would still punch clean through his defenses and tear his head off.

‘Zetsu’ had evolved from a simple stealth technique into something entirely unnerving. At Level 3, the erasure of his presence was almost magical. He could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with someone in a crowded room, and their brain would simply refuse to register him. They would look right through him, treating him as a blind spot in reality. Only someone actively hunting him, scanning the environment with intent, could pierce the veil.

His combat buffs had deepened. ‘Ren’ at Level 2 still provided the same explosive 2x multiplier to his physical attributes, but his endurance had skyrocketed. He could sustain the violent surge of power for two continuous hours before his reserves ran dry. And with ‘Ken’ at Level 2, his defense had become a tactical fluid. If he anticipated a strike to his chest, he could instantly command the aura from his limbs to flood his torso, reinforcing his vital organs while sacrificing his extremities.

He closed the translucent blue panel.

He was ready. He was waiting only for the final push to Level 20 to secure his Hatsu before he stepped into a warzone.

The final bell echoed through the school. Veer stood, slinging his worn canvas bag over his broad shoulders. Mark scrambled to keep up as they exited the building and stepped out into the humid afternoon air.

“So,” Mark said, his voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper as they walked toward the street. “You’re really doing it? You’re actually flying to the Middle East?”

Veer kept his eyes fixed on the pavement. He had planted the seeds of this conversation days ago.

“I have to,” Veer said. He injected just the right amount of heavy exhaustion into his voice, letting his shoulders slump slightly. “My aunt in the UAE called again. Her daughter’s cancer is aggressive. The doctors over there are giving up. If I go, I can get her medical records, meet with the specialists, and see if I can arrange a transfer to a facility in the US. It’s… it’s bad, Mark.”

Mark winced, entirely hooked by the lie. “God, Veer. That’s awful. I’m so sorry. But, wait—how are you paying for a last-minute flight to the UAE? Those tickets are insane right now.”

Veer stopped on the sidewalk. He looked at Mark, perfectly calculating the angle. “I’m short. I drained what I had from the inheritance, but I need a loan for the rest of the ticket. I didn’t want to ask. I’ll pay you back with my shifts from the store.”

Mark violently shook his head, holding his hands up. “Stop. Dude, seriously, stop. I got it.”

Mark’s mother secretly funneled a massive allowance into a private account to keep her son comfortable in his rebellious phase. Mark had thousands just sitting there. Combined with the lingering guilt over the MJ text message and Veer’s supposedly shattered reputation, Mark’s loyalty was absolute.

“I’ll wire it to your account tonight,” Mark said firmly. “Don’t even stress about it. Go help your cousin.”

“Thank you,” Veer said quietly.

He had secured the funding. That morning, he had also visited the principal’s office, submitting a flawless leave of absence letter citing a severe family medical emergency. The administration, eager to accommodate the quiet, bullied student, had approved it instantly.

Hours later, the apartment in Queens was dark.

The only sound in Veer’s bedroom was the heavy, metallic rasp of a zipper.

The canvas duffel bag lay open on his bed. He didn’t pack civilian clothes. He packed high-grade tourniquets, rolls of gauze, water purification tablets, and a heavy compass. He folded dense, dark cargo clothing that wouldn’t tear in the desert brush. He moved with cold, predatory efficiency, his heart beating in a slow, unnatural rhythm.

When Veer is packing his luggage.