Tony Stark's missiles were no joke.
They tore straight through the Centipede Elder's shell and detonated deep inside its body.
The blast ripped the monster into several enormous pieces.
And then Tony got a firsthand look at its regeneration.
How the hell was anyone supposed to kill sothing like this?
By that point, Reed had finished recharging thanks to the ti Tony had bought them.
"Susan!"
Reed shouted.
Susan understood imdiately. She slamd down an invisible force field and locked the Centipede Elder in place while Venom and Spider-Silk added their own webs to help bind the thing down.
Reed took aim at the monster's head.
Sensing lethal danger, the Centipede Elder chose to shed its skin and regenerate.
It abandoned the shell that had been pinned in place and sloughed it off at terrifying speed. Reed did not realize what had happened in ti and fired anyway, blasting apart what he thought was the head.
For one brief second, everyone relaxed.
They thought it was finally over.
Then the Centipede Elder erupted out of the ground beneath Susan's feet and swallowed her whole.
"Susan!"
Reed and the others went pale.
Tony's brows knit together.
This thing was absurd. Its life force was ridiculous.
But it still was not done.
After swallowing Susan, the Centipede Elder threw its head back and roared.
Then a massive figure ca charging in from a distance and slamd directly into its body.
The Centipede Elder's huge fra rolled away from the impact.
"Ben!"
Reed's face lit up with relief. He had known Ben would co.
Ben Grimm's expression was complicated.
At first, he had not intended to turn back into the Thing. But when he saw the news coverage, the Fantastic Four, Spider-Silk, and Venom all fighting the Centipede Elder, struggling for the sake of the civilians, he felt a heavy weight in his chest.
He was a normal man now.
But did that an he could just sit back, hide behind everyone else's protection, and feel good about it?
And if a monster that large kept rampaging unchecked, more people would die. The city would suffer. Innocent people who had not even been injured yet would still be affected. Reed and the others looked like they were already running out of answers.
Ben wrestled with the choice for a long ti.
In the end, he decided to beco the Thing again.
Not for glory.
Not for pride.
Just to protect the peaceful lives of everyone else.
"Ben, Susan got eaten!" Johnny shouted as he landed in front of him.
"I know," Ben said, nodding once. "What do you need to do?"
He turned toward Reed.
"Ben, can you hold it still? Once you do, I'll blow its head off."
Reed's voice was tense but controlled.
Tony fired another shot at the Centipede Elder to keep it busy, but all he had left was his energy cannon now.
"Gentlen, and big guy," Tony snapped, "can you move a little faster? I'm running out of options here."
Once they settled on a plan, they acted imdiately.
Ben charged the Centipede Elder.
The monster recognized him. That last hit had hurt.
So it focused on Ben first.
Just as it was about to lunge, its body suddenly went rigid. The middle section of its fra swelled and shifted.
"Susan!" Reed shouted, eyes widening.
Ben took the opening and grabbed the Centipede Elder's leg.
Even with hundreds of tons of strength, he could not lock it down completely. The thing dragged him along with it.
That was when Spider-Silk and Venom went crazy with their webbing, layering it over the Centipede Elder again and again until the monster was buried under webs on every side.
Reed raised his weapon and fired.
A deep blue energy bolt tore through the Centipede Elder's head and obliterated it.
The giant body collapsed lifelessly.
Everyone let out a breath at last.
Finally, it was over.
Though Manhattan was pretty much wrecked by this point.
Tony had beco very interested in these superheroes.
More importantly, they had all fought together just now.
Why not grab a al, talk things over, and maybe beco friends?
…
On the helicarrier, Nick Fury had been watching the whole thing.
He finally relaxed too.
Tony had looked like he only managed a few opening bombardnts before spending the rest of the battle on the sidelines, but that did not matter.
This ti, they had been able to bring down the monster, and Reed's weapon had played a huge part in that.
So Reed was a genius too.
The only question was how he stacked up against Drex Valen.
Drex: not even close.
Tony was fascinated by Reed's weapon as well. But after talking with him for a while, Tony realized he could not actually understand the weapon's operating principles.
That made no sense.
He was the smartest genius in the world. There was no way he should not be able to understand it.
The Centipede Elder's body was originally going to be taken over by S.H.I.E.L.D.
The U.S. military was not having it. They wanted a piece of the action too. Better yet, they wanted to haul the whole centipede back with them.
But while the two sides were still arguing, the Centipede Elder's corpse suddenly dissolved into nothingness.
Drex had accelerated the molecule movent inside the monster's body so thoroughly that not a single molecule was left behind.
"Natural decomposition?" Tony guessed.
"Could be," Reed said, already leaning in. "Maybe its bodily fluids reacted with the air and caused the breakdown."
Tony and Reed both rushed over to the spot where the Centipede Elder had vanished and started studying the remains, or rather, the lack of them.
Reed was so focused he forgot to comfort Susan, his girlfriend.
Susan just stood there, frozen, covered in the monster's digestive fluid.
Then it hit her.
Maybe she did not love Reed quite as much as she had thought.
Because this man loved science more than he loved her.
The next day, the events from yesterday exploded across the news.
The Fantastic Three had beco the Fantastic Four, and Tony Stark's na was suddenly everywhere too. The heroes who had saved New York were hailed across the city.
There was a downside, of course.
The U.S. military ca under heavy scrutiny again.
People started asking how the military could be worse than a handful of heroes.
Where exactly was all that taxpayer money going every year?
The United States was not about to let that kind of criticism stand.
So the governnt made a promise: it would begin large-scale purchases of Blade Tech Industries' Iron Monger War Machine series, to show its commitnt to protecting Arican taxpayers and citizens.
"Miss Urd," one military representative said, "please ask Drex Valen whether the Iron Monger can handle monsters as large as that giant centipede."
The military said they were placing a huge order, but in truth they were still hesitant.
After all, the giant centipede was way bigger than the Iron Monger.
The Iron Monger was barely three ters tall, a little giant at best. The centipede's visible body length alone was over a hundred ters.
If creatures that huge kept showing up, could the U.S. military really defend the country with Iron Mongers?
"Mr. Drex isn't omnipotent," Urd replied.
"The Iron Monger was designed to deal with the Deep Sea King. If you really want sothing for a giant centipede, Mr. Drex said he could build a giant ch."
That made the military representative roll his eyes.
A giant ch?
Never mind what that would cost to build.
How much would Drex charge after building it?
The Iron Monger already cost 1.5 billion.
A giant ch would probably cost the price of an aircraft carrier.
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