Hunter of Marvel - Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Warning

The Midtown Science High School cafeteria was a sensory battleground. To a normal teenager, it was simply a loud, chaotic mess of clattering trays, overlapping conversations, and the distinctive smell of institutional floor wax mixed with burnt cheese. To Veer, whose Perception stat was now sitting at an elevated three, it was a near-overwhelming flood of data.

He deliberately focused his mind, dialing back the sensitivity of his hearing just as he had practiced that morning. The roar of the cafeteria receded to a manageable, low hum.

Across the small, circular table, Mark was still talking. He had seamlessly transitioned from the dynamic water physics of his new video game to a highly technical breakdown of why the cafeteria’s premium pizza was scientifically inferior to the slice they had ordered earlier.

Veer nodded occasionally, offering a grunt of agreement to keep Mark fueled, but his mind was entirely elsewhere.

He kept his eyes downcast, staring at the grease soaking into the paper plate, and mentally reached out to the invisible interface tethered to his consciousness.

‘System,’ Veer thought, focusing his intent. ‘Open the Quest tab.’

The familiar, semi-transparent blue panel flickered into existence just above his pizza, invisible to everyone in the room but him.

The instructions he had absorbed yesterday stated that he could create his own quests. The System would evaluate the parameters and assign a difficulty and reward. So far, he had been relying entirely on the brutal, repetitive grind of physical exercise. But if he was truly residing in a universe populated by super-soldiers, Norse gods, and alien warlords, doing pushups in an abandoned park wasn’t going to cut it.

He needed to test the limits of the System’s reality manipulation. He needed a high-stakes goal.

‘Create Quest,’ Veer thought, carefully forming the words in his mind. ‘Objective: Rescue Tony Stark from captivity in Afghanistan.’

The blue panel shimmered. For a few long, agonizing seconds, nothing happened. Veer wondered if the System possessed a geographical limit, or if interfering with major timeline events was restricted.

Then, the text rapidly unspooled across the screen.

—

[Quest Created: The Iron Genesis]
Objective: Rescue or ensure the survival of Anthony Edward Stark.
Time Limit: 60 Days.
Reward: Calculating based on Host Contribution…
Failure: Undetermined.

—

Veer’s breath hitched in his throat. He stopped chewing.

The System hadn’t just accepted the quest; it had quantified the timeline. ‘Sixty days.’ Two months.

A cold, heavy knot of anxiety formed in the pit of his stomach. He stared at the blue text, his analytical mind rapidly spinning through the implications. Why was there a time limit? Did that mean if he didn’t intervene within sixty days, Tony Stark was going to die in that cave?

In his previous life, he had watched the movies. He knew that Tony Stark eventually built the Mark I armor, fought his way out of the Ten Rings’ camp, and survived. But this wasn’t a movie anymore. This was a living, breathing reality, and reality was inherently fragile.

If this world was truly a blend of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ universe—as evidenced by Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy sitting just a few tables away—the timeline was already fundamentally altered.

What if, in this specific merged universe, Tony Stark didn’t make it out?

Veer’s grip on his pizza slice tightened. If Tony Stark died in Afghanistan, Iron Man would never be born. Without Iron Man, who would fund and organize the Avengers? When Loki arrived with the Chitauri army, who would carry the nuclear missile through the portal? When Thanos eventually came looking for the Infinity Stones, who would be there to stop him?

A terrifying realization washed over him. Was this the exact reason why the Avengers didn’t exist in the ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ universe? Was it because, in that specific timeline, Tony Stark had simply bled out in a dark cave, leaving the world completely defenseless against cosmic threats?

This was no longer just a hypothetical thought experiment. It was a massive, apocalyptic problem.

“I’m going to do it.”

Mark’s voice, suddenly dropping an octave and adopting an uncharacteristic tone of grim determination, snapped Veer out of his spiraling panic.

Veer blinked, closing the System interface with a thought. He looked up at his roommate. Mark had pushed his food away and was staring fixedly across the cafeteria.

Veer followed his gaze. A few tables away, sitting with a group of cheerleaders and athletes, was Mary Jane Watson. Her vibrant red hair stood out like a beacon against the drab gray walls of the cafeteria. She was laughing at something the girl next to her had said, her posture relaxed and confident.

“Do what?” Veer asked, already knowing the answer.

“I’m going to ask her out,” Mark declared, his hands trembling slightly as he wiped them on a paper napkin. “I’ve been crushing on her since we were in the third grade, Veer. Third grade! I can’t just sit here in the shadows forever. I have to make a move.”

Veer looked at Mark. It was a tragic, beautiful, utterly doomed declaration. Mark possessed a deeply contradictory psychology. In the safety of their apartment, behind a keyboard, Mark was loud, brash, and openly talked about his bizarre, heavily heavily-researched dream of becoming a famous adult film star.

But the moment he was placed in the actual physical presence of a living, breathing female, his vocal cords seized up and his confidence evaporated into thin air. He had never spoken a single word to Mary Jane Watson in 8 years of shared schooling.

“Mark,” Veer started gently, trying to find a way to let his friend down without destroying his ego. “Maybe you should start by, I don’t know, saying hello to her in the hallway first? Jumping straight to a date might be—”

“I wouldn’t even think about it, if I were you.”

The voice was smooth, velvety, and laced with a casual, mocking amusement.

Veer stiffened. Mark practically jumped out of his chair.

Felicia Hardy slid effortlessly into the empty plastic chair beside Veer. The familiar, expensive scent of vanilla immediately masked the smell of the cafeteria food. She rested her elbows on the table, interlacing her manicured fingers, and looked directly at Mark with a pitying smile.

“Think about what?” Mark squeaked, his face instantly turning a violent shade of crimson.

“Asking MJ out,” Felicia said casually, leaning closer. “She already has a boyfriend. Flash Thompson.”

Mark looked as if he had just been shot in the chest. “Flash? The… the quarterback?”

“The very same,” Felicia nodded, her eyes gleaming with a touch of malice. “They’ve been quietly seeing each other for a few weeks. And let me tell you a little secret about Flash, Mark. He is incredibly, violently territorial. If he finds out you even looked at her the wrong way, let alone asked her out, you will not have a good day in this school ever again. He will fold you in half and stuff you in a locker until graduation.”

All the color drained from Mark’s face, leaving him a sickly, pale white. The sheer, terrifying reality of Flash Thompson—a kid who was built like a brick wall and possessed the temperament of a cornered badger—crushed Mark’s romantic ambitions into fine dust.

Mark slumped forward, resting his forehead against the cool plastic of the cafeteria table in complete, silent depression.

Veer watched the exchange, his brows furrowing in genuine confusion. He turned to look at Felicia.

Based on the rules of their unspoken arrangement—an arrangement she had explicitly enforced just an hour ago in AP Physics—they were supposed to pretend they didn’t know each other. They were from two entirely different stratospheres of the high school social ecosystem. By sitting at the Nerd Table, Felicia was actively breaking her own rules and drawing the eyes of half the cafeteria.

“Why are you here?” Veer asked, his voice low and carefully neutral.

Felicia shifted her gaze from the devastated Mark to Veer. Her eyes, a striking, piercing blue, dragged slowly over his face, lingering on the broad line of his shoulders hidden beneath the oversized green hoodie.

“I was just curious,” Felicia said, her tone shifting from mocking to genuinely inquisitive. She tilted her head slightly. “Why do you look different?”

Veer kept his expression perfectly flat. “I changed my hoodie.”

“Don’t play dumb, Veer,” Felicia scoffed softly. “I have a very good memory for details. Yesterday morning, you were… well, you were you. Skinny. Slouching. Today, you’re sitting up straight. Your shoulders look wider. Your jaw looks sharper. How does someone change their entire physical presence in twenty-four hours?”

Veer had to give her credit. Black Cat or not, her observational skills were razor-sharp. Most people would have just chalked it up to a trick of the light or a good night’s sleep. Felicia noticed the structural changes the System’s Vitality and Strength points had forced upon his body.

Veer forced a small, self-deprecating smile. “It’s nothing much. I decided to join a gym. Started lifting a bit. Guess the posture correction is finally kicking in.”

It was a flimsy lie, but it was the most grounded excuse he could offer.

Felicia stared at him for a long, calculating moment. Then, a look of profound, almost pitying understanding washed over her beautiful features. The narcissistic gears in her head turned, arriving at the most self-centered conclusion possible.

She leaned in, lowering her voice so only Veer could hear.

“Listen to me, Veer,” she whispered, her tone carrying a heavy, condescending weight. “Don’t think about it. Whatever this is—the gym, the new posture—don’t do it for me.”

Veer blinked.

“We are not compatible,” Felicia continued, brutally honest and entirely convinced of her own logic. “What happened last night was a mistake. A moment of weakness. It’s never going to happen again. You’re a sweet guy, but you’re not in my league. Changing yourself to try and impress me is just going to break your heart. Stop before you embarrass yourself.”

Veer stared at her. For a split second, he wanted to laugh out loud. The sheer, unadulterated ego required to assume that he had magically transformed his body overnight solely to win her affection was staggering. She truly believed the world revolved around her gravity.

Instead of laughing, Veer just nodded slowly, playing the part of the rejected, heartbroken teenager to perfection.

“Right,” Veer said quietly, looking down at his hands. “Got it.”

Satisfied that she had crushed his hopes and established her dominance, Felicia leaned back, a smug little smile playing on her lips.

Before she could stand up and leave, a heavy, suffocating shadow fell over the table.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

The voice was loud, aggressive, and dripping with absolute disdain.

Veer didn’t need his enhanced Perception to know who it was. He looked up.

Standing behind Felicia was her boyfriend. Philip Stacy. He was tall, sporting perfectly styled blonde hair, a designer letterman jacket, and the kind of handsome, arrogant face that belonged on a billboard for expensive cologne. He was Gwen Stacy’s twin brother, and he made sure everyone in the tri-state area knew that his father was George Stacy, a high-ranking Captain in the NYPD.

Philip glared down at the table, his eyes flicking from the depressed, hunched form of Mark to Veer’s impassive face.

“What are you doing here on the loser’s table, Felicia?” Philip demanded, his voice carrying across the cafeteria, turning dozens of heads in their direction.

For a fraction of a second, Veer saw it. The mask slipped. A sharp, terrifyingly cold glint flashed in Felicia’s blue eyes—a look of pure, concentrated hatred that promised violence. It was the look of the Black Cat.

But it vanished just as quickly as it appeared, buried beneath a flawlessly executed, sweet smile.

Felicia stood up smoothly, reaching out to rest a placating hand on Philip’s chest. “It’s nothing, babe,” she purred, her voice entirely devoid of the cold edge she had used on Veer. “I was just asking Singh here about the Chemistry notes from last week. I missed a class, remember? Come on, let’s go over there.”

She tried to turn him away, but Philip planted his feet. He wasn’t done performing. He needed to reassert his territory.

He shrugged off Felicia’s hand and leaned across the table, getting directly into Veer’s personal space. The smell of strong, expensive cologne washed over Veer.

“Listen to me, you little bastard,” Philip snarled, his voice dropping into a menacing register. “Stay away from my girlfriend. You’re a creep. If I catch you looking at her, talking to her, or even breathing the same air as her again, I’m going to make you regret it. You want to visit the inside of a jail cell? Because I don’t mind asking my dad to give you a special, behind-the-bars tour. I can ruin your life with one phone call. Understand?”

The threat hung heavily in the air.

Veer sat perfectly still. He was analyzing the boy in front of him. Philip was a classic bully riding his father’s badge. He had no real power of his own, just the borrowed authority of nepotism. In his past life, Veer had arrested half a dozen rich kids exactly like Philip—kids who thought their parents’ money or connections made them bulletproof, right up until the handcuffs clicked shut.

It would take exactly two seconds for Veer to reach across the table, grab Philip by the collar of his expensive jacket, and introduce his arrogant face to the hard plastic of the cafeteria table. With his Strength sitting at three, he could probably shatter the kid’s nose without breaking a sweat.

But he couldn’t.

Drawing attention was a death sentence. Starting a fight with the Police Captain’s son would put a massive, flashing spotlight on him. It would jeopardize his scholarship, his living situation.

So, Veer did what the original, eighteen-year-old Veer would have done.

He kept his face angled downward. He let his shoulders slump forward slightly, breaking his perfect posture. He didn’t make eye contact. He simply picked up his slice of pizza and took a bite, looking entirely thoroughly cowed and submissive.

Philip sneered in absolute disgust. “Pathetic,” he spat.

He turned away, grabbing Felicia roughly by the hand, and pulled her toward the other side of the cafeteria. Felicia didn’t look back.

Veer chewed his pizza methodically. It seemed the explosive breakup in the alleyway had been short-lived. The toxic cycle of high school relationships had righted itself, and Felicia and Philip had patched things up. It didn’t matter to Veer. They were distractions.

Mark finally lifted his head off the table, looking at the retreating backs of the couple.

“I hate this school,” Mark whispered, his voice thick with misery. “I hate it so much.”

“Eat your pizza, Mark,” Veer said calmly, taking another bite. “It builds character.”

—

The second half of the school day dragged on with agonizing slowness, culminating in the one period Veer had actually been looking forward to: Physical Education.

The Midtown High gymnasium was a massive, echoing chamber smelling heavily of floor wax and generations of accumulated teenage sweat. Coach Wilson, a barrel-chested man with a permanent scowl and a whistle glued to his lips, stood at the center of the hardwood floor.

“Alright, listen up!” Coach Wilson barked, the sound echoing off the high ceilings. “Today is conditioning! I don’t care if you’re on the football team or the math team. You’re going to sweat. Line up on the baseline!”

Veer took his place near the back of the pack, dressed in the standard-issue gray t-shirt and blue shorts. Mark stood next to him, already looking out of breath just from changing in the locker room.

“We’re starting with suicide sprints!” Wilson yelled. “Then fifty pushups, fifty situps, and we repeat until I get tired of looking at you! Go!”

The whistle shrieked.

The class took off. For ninety percent of the students, it was pure torture. For Veer, it was an opportunity.

He launched himself forward, letting the momentum carry him. He didn’t sprint at his absolute maximum speed—his enhanced Dexterity would have made him suspiciously fast—but he pushed himself hard enough to ensure his heart rate spiked.

He hit the lines, pivoted sharply, and sprinted back.

When they dropped for pushups, Veer maintained perfect form. He engaged his core, lowered his chest to the floor, and pushed up smoothly.

[Action Registered. +0.01 EXP]

The notification chimed in his mind. The System was recognizing the effort, classifying the gym class as valid training.

However, as the period wore on, a frustrating reality set in.

Veer moved through the situps, the burpees, and the endless laps around the gymnasium. Around him, his classmates were dropping like flies. Mark had collapsed into a wheezing puddle near the bleachers twenty minutes ago. Even Flash Thompson, the star quarterback, was leaning heavily on his knees, his face flushed and dripping with sweat.

But Veer wasn’t struggling.

He felt a light sheen of sweat on his forehead, and his breathing was slightly elevated, but the profound, agonizing burn of muscular failure was nowhere to be found.

He opened his interface briefly as he jogged another lap.

Fatigue: 18%

Veer frowned. His Vitality stat was ten. That meant it took ten maximum-effort actions to drain a single percent of his fatigue. To reach one hundred percent and earn the EXP required to level up, he needed to perform one thousand perfect repetitions.

Coach Wilson’s high school conditioning class, while brutal for normal teenagers, was a casual warmup for a Level 4 system host. By the time the whistle blew to signal the end of the period, Veer had only managed to drain twenty-two percent of his fatigue, netting him a measly 5.2 EXP.

He needed fifteen EXP to reach Level 5.

As he walked toward the locker room, barely breathing hard while his classmates groaned and limped around him, Veer realized a crucial truth. The physical education system of the normal world was entirely obsolete for him now. He couldn’t rely on school, or casual gym memberships, to get stronger.

If he wanted to survive the sixty-day countdown to Tony Stark’s fate, he was going to have to find a way to break his body in absolute secret, far away from prying eyes.

The final bell of the day rang shrilly, cutting through the heavy air of the gymnasium.

The first day of school for Veer Pratap Singh had officially ended.