The spray froze the man's arm solid and stopped the bleeding, but the limb was ruined.
"All right," Drex Valen said. "I already called him an ambulance."
Given how Arican ambulances worked, that thug was probably going to wish he were dead anyway.
Jessica followed Drex ho in a daze and sat on the sofa without saying a word.
"Relax," Drex told her. "You did the right thing. No one is going to bla you."
"No, I just..." Jessica swallowed hard. "I feel sick."
The bloody scene had shaken her badly.
"Your strength is basically starting at thirty tons now," Drex said. "That is the impact force of a loaded truck. It would be weirder if it did not end like that."
There was no way a guy could take a punch like that, fly back, and then just get up like nothing happened. Then he would not have been a thug anymore.
"Drex... what if I accidentally kill soone?" Jessica asked quietly.
Drex considered it for a mont.
"If it is not intentional, stay where you are and call Urd. She will handle it. If it is intentional..." He shrugged. "Then it depends on Arican law."
He had killed his share of people already, so he did not have a particularly clean or romantic view of good and evil. This world was not black and white. The gray between light and shadow was far bigger than either side.
Jessica suddenly threw her arms around him.
Drex felt the impact, but the bio-field and magnetic field around him dispersed it cleanly.
"I am not your father. Is this really the right thing to do?" he asked flatly.
Then he noticed Jessica trying to kiss him.
He laughed, reached out, and tapped her on the forehead, pushing her back.
"Try that again when you are twenty," he said. "Right now it just makes want to laugh."
Jessica clutched her forehead and glared at him as he turned to leave.
Was I really that bad?
Plenty of guys at school wanted to go to their parties. Even that dumb giant on the football team wanted to ask out...
Of course, a lot of people also asked Wanda.
Drex was not in any hurry to drag the Purple Man out into the open. Besides, today in Hell's Kitchen, he had sensed soone else.
Daredevil.
Also known as the Man Without Fear.
Matthew Murdock.
By day, he was a lawyer who fought for poor clients. By night, he was the vigilante known as the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. In simpler terms, he was Daredevil.
For the record, Daredevil was one of Black Widow's many ex-boyfriends, and he had a fair number of exes himself.
Daredevil, according to his own logic: everyone knows I am blind, so the fact that I have a lot of girlfriends has nothing to do with their looks. As for why we broke up, it was only because we realized after a while that we were not right for each other, so we parted on good terms.
After a childhood accident where he had stepped in to help soone and got splashed with radioactive material, Murdock lost his sight. But in return, he gained extraordinary abilities.
Aside from vision, every one of his senses had reached superhuman levels.
Through brutal training, Murdock had developed a radar-like power. Even sitting quietly at ho, he could "see" any corner of New York City.
That was a little exaggerated, but scanning Hell's Kitchen was easy enough. Objects and living beings appeared in his mind as blurred outlines, almost like a 3D projection.
In the Marvel universe, plenty of heroes had powerful senses.
Spider-Man's spider-sense warned him before danger struck. Wolverine's animal instincts did not exactly help him seek opportunities, but they were excellent for avoiding them.
Murdock's perception worked differently from either of them. It was more like electromagnetic energy emitted by an altered brain, sweeping a full 360 degrees around him and gathering information in a way that produced a visual impression.
Unfortunately, Daredevil's ability was too ordinary for Drex to care about.
"Drex..."
Urd, his little secretary, pushed the door open and walked in, only to find Drex standing in front of a human model and doing sothing she could not quite make out.
"What is it?" Drex asked.
He noticed that she had not called him Boss.
Drex knew Urd very well, so he imdiately understood that whatever she wanted to discuss was personal. More than personal, probably important. Otherwise, she would never bring it up at work during company hours.
"Today is my birthday, so..." Urd said, looking at him.
"Oh. I didn't know it was your birthday." Drex pulled out a bank card. "Pick whatever gift you want."
He was not Tony Stark, who needed Pepper to rember even his own bank card password. Besides, this card was from Drex's own bank.
Yes, he had opened a bank himself.
It made serving his own interests much more convenient.
That said, being a banker was not nearly as exciting as people imagined.
"That's not what I ant," Urd said quickly, shaking her head. "I an... can you have dinner with tonight?"
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, the gesture revealing a delicate, attractive curve to her face.
Drex understood the subtext imdiately.
Just the two of them, then.
"Sure," he said.
He was already planning to buy the best restaurant in Los Angeles for the al and prepare a proper birthday gift while he was at it.
As for the gift itself, it was a little cliché, but Drex thought a gemstone would be nice.
Urd left happily.
Drex watched her go, then shook his head.
A second later, the human model in front of him cracked apart.
"Damn. I was so close," he muttered.
Just then, he had been attempting sothing forbidden.
Human transmutation.
Of course, that was the alchemists' term for it. What Drex was really doing was using atoms like building blocks to assemble a human body.
Still, it was already an act that trespassed into the realm that defied the gods.
And without a soul, Drex's attempt at human transmutation was ant to trigger brainwaves and see whether he could create an actual person.
If it worked, that would be Human Replica Number One.
"The forbidden act that defies the gods... the ultimate blasphemy..." Drex murmured as he began rebuilding the body from scratch.
He bound the atoms with magnetic force and controlled them as they assembled, one piece at a ti.
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