Respawned in Marvel: The Ultimate Hunter System - Chapter 18

Chapter 18 — Collateral Truths

The morning news anchors looked exhausted.

Their immaculate hair and heavy makeup couldn’t hide the dark circles under their eyes or the slight tremble in their voices as they repeated the same horrific statistics on a continuous loop. I sat on my newly purchased sofa in Astoria, a cold, illegally purchased bottle of beer resting against my knee, watching the chaos unfold on the small television Chloe had dragged out of a thrift store.

Mid-Town High School was officially a crime scene. The district superintendent, flanked by a dozen pale-faced politicians, had just announced a mandatory thirty-day closure. A month-long holiday.

In any other context, a month off from AP Calculus would have been a teenager’s dream. But there was no joy in Queens today. The broadcast kept cutting to footage of weeping parents, makeshift memorials covered in flowers outside the police barricades, and lines of students wrapped in shock blankets waiting to speak to grief counselors. The psychological toll on the student body was catastrophic. The national media was in an absolute frenzy, demanding accountability from the mayor, the governor, and the federal government for the deaths of seventeen children on a high school lawn.

I took a slow sip of my beer. The bitter taste grounded me.

Behind the scenes, the shadow war was already in full swing. According to the faint, encrypted radio chatter I had managed to pick up by concentrating my aura into my ears earlier that morning, SHIELD had successfully secured the four incapacitated Lizard minions. The men in black suits were currently tearing the creatures apart at a molecular level in some underground black site, desperately trying to synthesize a cure for the reptilian mutagen before it destabilized further.

But they didn’t have Dr. Curt Connors.

…

Connors had exhausted his supply of the serum during the attack. His attempt to mutate the school had been a beta test, a twisted proof of concept. But to achieve his grand, psychotic vision of forcefully “evolving” the entire population of Manhattan into a reptilian utopia, he couldn’t just brew the mutagen in a dirty sewer pipe. He needed industrial-scale synthesis. He needed highly calibrated dispersal systems.

He needed OsCorp.

And somewhere out there in the sprawling concrete canyons of the city, Peter Parker was tearing himself apart trying to find the monster he had inadvertently helped create.

I leaned back against the cushions, letting the cold glass of the bottle press against my forehead. The composite universe was moving exactly as it was meant to, entirely independent of my existence. I had my money. My aura nodes were stable. I had a month of free time to meditate and grind my ‘Ten’ proficiency. I was perfectly content to sit on the sidelines and enjoy the holiday.

Then, the doorbell rang.

I didn’t flinch, but my Perception instantly painted a picture of the person standing on the other side of the wood.

It wasn’t Chloe; she was out attending another supposed casting call.

I stood up, walking silently across the hardwood floor, and pulled the door open.

Gwen Stacy stood in the hallway.

She looked terrible. The usually immaculate, composed class president was gone. She was wearing a crumpled jacket over a plain t-shirt, her blonde hair pulled into a messy, frayed knot. Her eyes were bloodshot, rimmed with dark, heavy shadows that spoke of sleepless nights and constant crying. She looked like she had aged five years in the last forty-eight hours.

“Gwen,” I said, my voice quiet, keeping my expression carefully neutral. “It’s early. Are you alright?”

She didn’t say hello. She didn’t offer a polite smile. She simply pushed past me, stepping directly into my living room.

I closed the door slowly, turning to face her. “I’m assuming this isn’t a social call. Can I get you some water?”

Gwen stopped in the center of the room. She reached into the pocket of her jacket, her hand trembling slightly. Without a word, she pulled out a piece of fabric and threw it onto the coffee table.

It was a cheap, grey handkerchief. The fabric was stained with a faint dusting of white plaster from the cafeteria wall.

It was the makeshift mask I had tied around my face during the fight.

I stared at the piece of cloth for a long moment, my heartbeat remaining completely steady. I reached out, picked up my beer from the side table, and took a casual sip.

“You seem to have dropped a handkerchief, Gwen,” I said smoothly, my tone utterly deadpan. “Though I have to admit, it doesn’t really match your jacket.”

Gwen’s jaw tightened. She spun around to face me, her blue eyes flashing with a sudden, brilliant anger that cut through her exhaustion.

“Stop it,” she snapped, her voice cracking. “Just stop playing dumb, Veer. It’s insulting.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You didn’t even change your clothes!” Gwen practically yelled, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “Do you think I’m blind? Do you think I’m stupid? The whole school was running for their lives, and I was hiding behind the bleachers. I watched Spider-Man getting beaten to death by that… that thing. And then someone stepped in. Someone wearing the exact same oversized grey hoodie that you wear every single day.”

I remained silent, taking another measured sip of my beer.

“It wasn’t just the clothes,” she continued, stepping closer, her voice dropping into a fierce, intense whisper. “It was the way you stood. The way you didn’t flinch. You’re the only person I’ve ever met who looks at a nightmare and just… does the math. You folded that handkerchief in front of your locker three days ago. I saw the fraying on the corner. It’s you, Veer. You punched a hole through a brick wall.”

The silence stretched between us, heavy and absolute. The hum of the refrigerator suddenly seemed incredibly loud.

She had me. It wasn’t an interrogation; it was an execution of facts. My operational security had been compromised by a teenager with a good memory and a desperate need for answers.

I let out a long, slow sigh, the tension bleeding out of my shoulders. I walked over to the coffee table, picked up the handkerchief, and stuffed it into my pocket.

“I was entirely unaware that my wardrobe choices were the primary flaw in my concealment strategy,” I said dryly, dropping the facade completely. “I will have to invest in a cape. What do you want, Gwen?”

The confirmation seemed to hit her like a physical blow. She staggered back a half-step, her anger briefly giving way to sheer, unadulterated disbelief. “Oh my god. It really was you. You threw a monster into a crater.”

“I did,” I admitted. “It was heavy.”

Gwen shook her head, trying to process the impossibility of the boy standing in front of her. “How? How can you do that? And more importantly, why the hell are you sitting in your apartment drinking beer when Peter is out there fighting for his life?”

I raised an eyebrow. “So you know about Peter.”

“He dragged himself through my bedroom window bleeding to death,” Gwen said, her voice shaking as fresh tears threatened to spill over. “He’s out there right now, Veer. He’s looking for Dr. Connors. He thinks it’s his fault. He’s going to get himself killed, and my dad is out there leading the police straight into a bloodbath, and you… you have the power to stop it!”

She pointed an accusing finger at my chest. “You’re stronger than Peter. You hit that thing and it actually moved. Why aren’t you helping him? Why aren’t you searching for the Lizard to protect the civilians?”

I looked at her. I saw the desperate, terrifying helplessness of a girl who realized the people she loved were playing a game with a fatal margin of error. She wanted a savior. She wanted me to put on a mask and join the crusade.

I took another long pull from the beer bottle.

“I am not a hero, Gwen,” I said, my voice cold, hard, and entirely devoid of apology.

She flinched as if I had slapped her.

“I don’t have a tragic backstory that compels me to save the city,” I continued, walking past her to stand by the window, looking out over the quiet streets of Astoria. “I don’t have a moral obligation to fix Dr. Connors mistakes. When the Lizard attacked the school, I intervened because my friends might die directly in front of me, and it disrupted my lunch. But I am not going to prowl the sewers looking for a mutant.”

“People are going to die!” she yelled at my back.

“People die every day,” I replied callously. “Besides, obstructing police work is a crime. Captain Stacy would be very disappointed if I started interfering with his active investigations.”

Gwen gritted her teeth. I could hear the fabric of her jacket stretching as she clenched her fists. She crossed the room, grabbing my arm and forcing me to turn and look at her. Her eyes were burning.

“Don’t give me that cynical garbage,” she snarled, the pristine class president completely replaced by a furious survivor. “If you won’t help Peter… then tell me how you got your powers. If you won’t fight, then give me the ability to do it myself.”

I stared down at her, genuinely surprised by the sheer ferocity in her voice. “You want to fight?”

“I want to not be useless,” Gwen whispered, her anger suddenly fracturing, revealing the deep, agonizing fear beneath it. “I am so tired of sitting in my room, listening to police scanners, waiting for a phone call that tells me my dad or my boyfriend is dead. I can’t do it, Veer. Tell me how you got mutated. Was it Oscorp? Was it radiation?”

“It wasn’t a mutation,” I said quietly, gently pulling my arm out of her grip.

She blinked, confused. “What? Are you an alien? A government experiment?”

“I am a kid from India who needed to pay rent,” I said, leaning back against the windowsill. I ran a hand through my hair, weighing the consequences of pulling her into this reality.

In the normal Marvel universe, powers were a lottery of genetics or laboratory accidents. But this was a composite world. The Hunter Association existed. Heaven’s Arena existed in Dubai. Nen wasn’t a secret confined to my apartment; it was a martial art practiced by thousands of elites across the globe. Teaching her the basics wouldn’t break the rules of the universe, but it might break her.

“It’s not a power, Gwen,” I explained, keeping my tone measured and precise. “It is a martial art. A deeply guarded, incredibly dangerous discipline that focuses on the manipulation of life energy.”

“Life energy,” she repeated, her brow furrowing in skepticism. “Like… chi? Magic?”

“Like biology,” I corrected her. “Every living creature produces a finite amount of life energy. It bleeds off us like body heat into the atmosphere. The discipline I use allows me to close the pores—the aura nodes—on my body. I trap that energy inside. I condense it, I refine it, and I use it to amplify my physical limits to a superhuman degree. It’s called Nen.”

Gwen stared at me, her brilliant scientific mind rapidly trying to contextualize the information. “You’re saying anyone can do this? You just… trap your body heat and suddenly you can throw a bus?”

“I’m saying the theory is universal,” I said, my voice hardening. “The execution is a nightmare.”

“Teach me,” she demanded instantly, her chin jutting out in defiance. “If you can learn it, I can learn it. I’m smart, Veer. I pick things up fast.”

I shook my head, a dark, humorless chuckle escaping my throat. “This isn’t Chemistry, Gwen. You don’t just read a textbook and suddenly become bulletproof. The training required to manually open your aura nodes is agonizing. The mortality rate of people who try it and fail is uncomfortably high.”

“I don’t care.”

“You should,” I countered sharply. “Because even if you don’t accidentally rupture your own nervous system, the raw talent required to actually weaponize it is astronomical. In a hundred thousand people, maybe one person has the latent talent to achieve what I did. The rest just kill themselves.”

I didn’t tell her the truth. I didn’t tell her that I hadn’t spent decades meditating under waterfalls to achieve my power. I didn’t mention the translucent blue Ultimate Hunter System currently hovering in the back of my mind, the digital crutch that had brute-forced my awakening and healed my shattered nodes. Without the System, I was entirely certain I would have died of an aneurysm on my first attempt.

But Gwen Stacy was looking at me with a terrifying, unyielding resolve. She was a girl who was destined to fall from a clock tower. She was a girl who lived her life on the periphery of gods and monsters, constantly defined by her fragility.

Maybe, just maybe, giving her a weapon wasn’t the worst idea in this twisted universe.

“Please,” Gwen said, her voice softening, stripping away the anger until only the plea remained. “I just need a chance, Veer.”

I looked at the half-empty beer bottle in my hand, then set it down heavily on the windowsill.

“Fine,” I said.

Gwen’s eyes widened. “Really?”

“Don’t thank me yet,” I warned her, walking toward the center of the living room. “I am not going to force your nodes open. Doing that manually is a death sentence if your body isn’t prepared. You have to do it the slow way. The traditional way.”

I pointed to the hardwood floor. “Sit.”

Gwen immediately dropped her bag and sat cross-legged on the floor, looking up at me with intense focus.

“Close your eyes,” I instructed. “Keep your spine perfectly straight. Rest your hands on your knees.”

She mirrored my instructions perfectly.

“The first step is simply awareness,” I said, my voice dropping into a low, rhythmic cadence. “You cannot control something you cannot feel. I want you to focus entirely on your breathing. Inhale for four seconds. Hold for four. Exhale for four. I want you to push every thought of Peter, your father, and the Lizard completely out of your mind.”

I watched her chest rise and fall. Her breathing was jagged at first, betraying her anxiety, but her sheer willpower forced it into a steady rhythm within a minute.

“Now,” I continued softly, walking a slow circle around her. “I want you to focus on the space just beneath your skin. Try to feel the heat radiating off your collarbones. Try to visualize the electrical impulses moving from your spine to your fingertips. You are looking for a current. It will feel like a warm, heavy liquid.”

Gwen sat perfectly still. The afternoon light shifted across her face.

“How long do I have to do this?” she whispered, her eyes still closed.

“You do this for two hours a day,” I said, crossing my arms. “Every morning. Every night. If you are incredibly lucky, and if you actually possess the one-in-a-hundred-thousand talent, you might feel a faint tingling sensation within six months.”

Her eyes snapped open. The serene focus instantly shattered. “Six months? Veer, we don’t have six months! Connors is out there right now!”

“Then Peter will have to handle Connors,” I said bluntly, offering no sympathy. “I told you, Gwen. This is a discipline, not a radioactive shortcut. You cannot rush biology. If you try to force the energy out before your body is ready to contain it, your aura will leak out of you like a punctured tire, and you will fall into a coma from sheer exhaustion. Six months is the absolute minimum for a prodigy.”

Gwen stared at me, the harsh reality of the timeline crashing down on her. She had wanted a weapon she could wield tonight. I had handed her a seed that wouldn’t bloom for half a year.

She looked down at her hands, her shoulders slumping. For a second, I thought she was going to cry again. I thought she was going to quit.

Instead, she took a deep, shuddering breath, closed her eyes, and straightened her spine.

“Inhale for four,” she whispered to herself. “Hold for four. Exhale for four.”

I watched her in silence. She was terrifyingly stubborn. She was actually going to do it.

I stood there for another ten minutes, watching the quiet determination radiate from her small frame. When I was satisfied she had locked into the meditation cycle, I picked up my jacket from the sofa.

“Keep your shoulders relaxed,” I told her quietly. “If you feel a sharp pain in the center of your chest, stop immediately. I’m going to take a nap.”

Gwen didn’t open her eyes, but she gave a small, barely perceptible nod. “Thank you, Veer.”

“Don’t thank me,” I muttered, walking back toward my small bedroom. “If you actually manage to pull this off, your life is going to get significantly more complicated.”

I walked into my room, closed the door behind me, and collapsed face-first onto my mattress. The exhaustion of dealing with high school drama, shadow government agencies, and vigilante girlfriends was infinitely more draining than fighting a mutant lizard.

I closed my eyes, letting the quiet hum of the Astoria streets drift through the window. For now, the board was set. The pieces were moving. And I was going to enjoy my holiday, one violently earned nap at a time.