For 30+ Advance/Early chapters :p
atreon.com/ScoldeyJod
There was no time to think. No time to plan. There was only the scream.
The crystalline cylinder didn't just break; it exploded. A concussive wave of super-cooled, bio-luminescent fluid and razor-sharp crystal shards erupted outwards. The A.I.M. soldiers, who seconds before had been a firing squad, were now just bodies, tossed like dolls by the force of the blast.
Wonder Woman was a bronze and golden bulwark against the storm. She moved in front of Spider-Man, her vambraces crossed, absorbing the brunt of the shrapnel and the shockwave. The impact was immense, a physical blow that sent a tremor through the concrete floor, but she held her ground, an unshakeable fortress protecting him.
When the initial chaos subsided, a profound, terrifying silence fell, broken only by the frantic, useless blare of the klaxons. And then, the true attack began. The psychic scream, which had been a wave of unfocused agony, now became a focused, razor-sharp weapon. It lanced into their minds, a telepathic assault of pure, undiluted rage.
For Wonder Woman, it was a battering ram against the ancient, disciplined walls of her mind. It was the roar of a thousand dying stars, a cacophony of pure malevolence that sought to shatter her composure. She gritted her teeth, a low growl rumbling in her chest, her millennia of mental training a shield against the psychic onslaught. It was painful, but it was manageable.
For Spider-Man, it was annihilation.
His spider-sense, already screaming from the ambient danger, was hijacked, turned against him. The psychic scream poured into the open, hypersensitive channels of his mind, not as a sound, but as a billion points of stabbing, ice-cold data. He saw flashes of complex equations that made his brain ache, felt the phantom agony of the creature's birth, heard a symphony of screaming, hateful thoughts that threatened to unravel his very identity. He collapsed to his knees, his hands clamped to the sides of his head, a choked, agonized cry tearing from his throat.
"Get... out... of... my... HEAD!" he roared, though the sound was barely a whisper.
From the smoking, fluid-drenched crater of the cylinder, the creature rose. M.O.D.O.K. It was a grotesque parody of life, a withered, atrophied body attached to a head so massive it was a biological impossibility. It was seated in a rudimentary, sparking hover-chair, the last vestiges of its incubator, and its eyes, two pinpricks of cold, purple light, glowed with an ancient, terrifying intelligence.
Its gaze fell first on the lead scientist, who was trying to crawl away, his face a mask of terror. A low, psychic hum emanated from M.O.D.O.K., and the scientist's body went rigid. He screamed, a high, thin sound that was cut off abruptly as his head twisted at an impossible angle. He collapsed, a broken puppet.
M.O.D.O.K.'s massive head swiveled, its gaze falling upon the two heroes.
"Spider-Man! Get up!" Wonder Woman yelled, her voice a lifeline in the psychic storm. She charged, not at M.O.D.O.K. itself, but at the remaining A.I.M. soldiers, who were beginning to regroup. She moved like a thunderbolt, a blur of motion, disarming them with brutal, non-lethal efficiency. She was buying him time.
Peter fought against the psychic assault. He felt his thoughts fragmenting, his memories being torn apart. He saw flashes of Uncle Ben's death, of the fight with the Rhino, of Diana's face, all twisted into monstrous, mocking parodies. He was losing.
My quiet, a voice echoed in his memory. Diana's voice. It is my honor to be your quiet.
He clung to the thought, to her. He focused on the memory of her hand on his knee in the lecture hall, a grounding, steadying pressure. He used it as an anchor, a single, clear signal in the overwhelming noise. Slowly, painstakingly, he began to build a wall in his mind, a desperate, patched-together shield against the psychic onslaught. The scream was still there, a thousand shards of glass grinding behind his eyes, but it was no longer consuming him. He could think.
He looked up, his vision swimming. He saw Wonder Woman, a whirlwind of righteous fury, finishing with the last of the soldiers. He saw M.O.D.O.K., its attention now fully on her, a shimmering field of psionic energy gathering around its massive head.
He couldn't fight it mind to mind. But he could fight the machine.
His gaze darted around the room, his tactical mind, though battered, coming back online. The main control panel was fried. But the emergency power lever the scientist had pulled was still engaged, feeding raw, unfiltered power from the subterranean lines directly into M.O.D.O.K.'s hover-chair. That was its lifeline.
M.O.D.O.K. unleashed a focused psionic blast at Wonder Woman. It was a visible wave of distorted air, a shimmering lance of pure mental force. She met it head-on, her bracelets crossed. The impact was immense, a silent explosion of psychic energy that sent a wave of force washing over the entire warehouse. She was driven back a step, her boots carving grooves in the concrete, a grunt of pure effort escaping her lips.
"Hey, giant head!" Spider-Man yelled, his voice strained. "Your face! Is it supposed to look like that?"
The pain was blinding, but it was the opening he needed. While its attention was on him, Wonder Woman charged. She leaped high into the air, her fist raised, not to strike the creature, but to strike the ground in front of it. She brought her fist down with the force of a bomb, and the concrete floor erupted, a massive shockwave and a cloud of dust and debris momentarily obscuring M.O.D.O.K.'s vision and disrupting its psychic field.
"NOW!" she roared.
That was his chance. Fighting through the wave of agony, Spider-Man fired two web lines. They were not aimed at the creature. One slapped onto the emergency power lever, yanking it upwards with a shower of sparks, cutting off the main surge. The other, a thick, heavy glob of his most conductive web fluid, shot past M.O.D.O.K. and struck the exposed, sparking power conduit where the lever had been connected, creating a massive, uncontrolled short circuit.
The effect was instantaneous. The flow of power to M.O.D.O.K.'s chair was severed. The purple glow in its eyes flickered and died. The hover-chair sputtered, sparks flying from its undercarriage, and then crashed to the floor with a heavy, metallic thud. The creature, its life support gone, slumped forward, its massive head slumping against its withered chest. It was unconscious. Deactivated.
The psychic scream ceased. The silence that rushed in was the most beautiful sound Peter had ever heard.
He collapsed onto his hands and knees, his body trembling, his head feeling like a cracked and ringing bell. A moment later, Wonder Woman was at his side, her hand a steady, grounding pressure on his back.
"It is over," she said, her voice soft.
"Yeah," he breathed, looking at the slumped, silent form of the newborn monster. "For now."
The distant, rising wail of sirens signaled the approach of the authorities. They had to go. They exchanged a single, weary look, a universe of shared experience passing between them. They had faced a god of war and, together, they had won.
Without another word, Wonder Woman leaped into the air, disappearing through a hole in the roof. Spider-Man, with the last of his strength, fired a web-line and swung out into the cold, quiet night, the profound, ringing silence in his own head a welcome and hard-won peace.
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