This was one of those weird Marvel realities where superhumans were actually a thing.
In any normal world, ninety-nine percent of people exposed to that kind of genetic upheaval would either die when their bodies collapsed or live on in a state worse than death.
Drex Valen did not worry about the Fantastic Four failing to grow into their roles just because he had frozen Doom in place.
They could still tangle with small-ti criminals. That was enough to sharpen them.
As for Ben Grimm, well... Reed Richards really was a first-class friend-ruiner. He was about on par with Constantine in that regard, except Reed did it passively, while Constantine did it both passively and on purpose.
So Ben breaking away from them was completely understandable.
And, as it turned out, he did eventually use Reed's machine to turn himself back into a human.
Drex kept an eye on them for a while, but once the Fantastic Three started gaining more and more public attention, he stopped caring.
Black Knight Drex's little act had always been about earning a bit of public approval anyway.
He was not especially invested in superheroism as a career.
anwhile, another superhero trainee was having a much harder ti.
Jessica Campbell's daily routine was brutal.
She was dragged out of bed before six every morning, and then had to wash up, brush her teeth, and make breakfast herself. All of it had to be finished before six, because training could not be delayed.
"Why do you have to make do this?" Jessica had demanded at first, clearly annoyed.
"This is a basic superhero requirent: punctuality," Drex had replied. "If you are one second late, soone can die."
Jessica had absolutely nothing to say to that.
She was just a high school student, and not even one from a strict private academy. She went to a public school built on the doctrine of freedom and self-expression.
How was she supposed to argue with Drex Valen?
Especially since he had only bent the aning of the concept a little.
Then ca the training itself.
Jessica had questioned why she still needed it when she was already this strong.
"Training is there so you can understand and control your own power," Drex said. "And do you really think you are strong enough already? If you had to land a plane in a crash, could you bring it down safely? If a flood hit the city, could you hold it back?"
Jessica was shut down completely.
That... actually did make her seem a little weak.
So, grudgingly, she gritted her teeth and kept going for the sake of her dream of becoming a cri-fighting hero.
That surprised Drex.
He had honestly expected her to be crying and begging to go back to school after a few days.
Instead, she showed real endurance. Real stubbornness.
He had underestimated her.
After a month of training, Drex finally took her out for field practice.
"First," he said, "your body can already stop bullets, but I still recomnd wearing a suit of armor."
That was simply Drex's style.
He never fought battles he could not control. He liked Batman's approach: lose the first encounter, then co back and crush the enemy the second ti.
Of course, Batman only did that because he rarely had complete information the first ti around.
Drex could not claim to know every single character in the Marvel universe, but he knew most of them. He knew the comic versions, the movie versions, their weaknesses, flaws, personalities, abilities, all of it.
That made first-contact kills very easy.
To everyone else, it looked like the power gap was absurd.
Really, it was just information.
"Can I wear one of those too?" Jessica asked in surprise.
She had assud the armored suit was Drex's exclusive gear.
"This is a test," Drex said. "If you pass, it will be your gift."
He opened a nearby storage cabinet.
Inside a cylindrical glass case was a skintight suit.
"A vibranium-fiber weave," Drex explained. "It's flexible, it won't interfere with movent, and it can defend against most attacks."
A full suit of armor would not suit Jessica.
For her, a classic superhero-style bodysuit was better.
After she changed, the suit outlined her figure neatly. Drex looked at her and muttered internally that, yes, this was definitely what you got with an Arican high school student.
Then he took her to Hell's Kitchen in New York.
There were plenty of thugs and lowlifes there. Even if they were not actively committing cris, punching them did not cause any moral discomfort.
If Drex's vitamins and fiber supplents had not already been cloned from human-derived material, a few of those guys might have ended up as raw ingredients too.
"Don't be nervous," he said.
A short while later, they ran into a robbery in progress.
"Go on," Drex said. "Just do not hit too hard and accidentally kill the guy."
Jessica stepped forward uneasily.
When she turned back, Drex was gone.
Her stomach dropped.
She had no idea he was floating directly above her.
In truth, Drex had deliberately made her the bait to draw out the Purple Man.
Black Queen had not found him yet, and Drex still did not know where he was hiding. Since he already had Jessica in hand, it was the perfect chance to lure him out.
But by then, the robber had noticed her too, and it was too late to back out.
"Stop!" Jessica called.
"What the hell are you supposed to be?" the robber sneered.
This was still before the age where everyone and their cousin in a mask claid to be a superhero.
To him, Jessica's skintight outfit looked bizarre. She was even hiding her face. Was this so kind of weird costu fetish?
Jessica took a deep breath.
She did not waste any more words.
From the best angle for force generation, and with perfect acceleration, she exploded forward.
In an instant, she closed the distance.
The robber's stunned expression barely had ti to form before Jessica's fist smashed the gun out of his hand.
Unfortunately, the move she had learned from a movie was too much for her own strength and speed.
The man's hand shattered.
Four fingers snapped outright, and his wrist bent at an ugly angle. There was a wet series of cracks as bone gave way.
By the ti Jessica stopped, his arm had twisted several tis over.
He stared at it in disbelief for a few seconds, his brain lagging behind the sudden disaster.
Then the pain hit.
"AAAAAAAH!"
He collapsed to the ground clutching his arm, drenched in cold sweat, his lips gone white.
Jessica froze.
That was not supposed to happen.
Her punch had also destroyed the gun completely, blasting it apart like a fragntation grenade. A search from three hundred ters away might still turn up pieces of the pistol.
As for the robbery victim, he had already bolted.
The scene was too bloody. He wanted nothing to do with it.
Then Drex appeared.
A nozzle opened in his arm and released a burst of freezing mist.
The mist rolled out in a white plu, swallowing the injured man's arm and locking the spreading damage in place.
User Comments
0 comments from readers