Ben was furious.
"You're all different from ," he snapped at Reed. "Your powers are cool. Mine is terrifying."
Reed Richards was famous for being brilliant to the point of absurdity, and equally terrible at reading the room.
"Ben, there's no such thing as cool powers and scary powers," he said earnestly. "We were given these abilities for a reason. We're supposed to use them to protect the world and do what we can."
He truly believed Ben would understand.
Instead, Ben punched him.
And that settled that.
At World Serpent's headquarters, Bronski and the others were gathered together.
"From today onward, I am World Serpent's White Queen," Esdeath declared with a wild, confident smile. "That ans I rank just below the boss."
She wore the real Esdeath's military uniform, tailored perfectly to her figure.
Drex had decided she should not be treated like Aka ga Kill's version of her. He wanted the original temperant restored.
Survival of the fittest. A love of torture. Absolute loyalty.
Nobody objected.
Nobody except Bronski.
To Bronski, a woman that beautiful rising to power was no different from climbing on her looks alone, and he was not having it.
He had been there first.
He had done the grunt work first. He had handled the dirty jobs first.
Black Queen was one thing. She was a powerful artificial intelligence, and even if she had her own emotions, her role was irreplaceable.
But a newcor becoming White Queen?
And not just that, but becoming White Queen while he was still just an ordinary mid-level officer?
Bronski did not dare openly defy Drex Valen. But if Drex had not issued the order himself, maybe he could push back a little.
After all, Drex had already made the hierarchy clear. At the highest level, besides him as ruler, there were the Black King, White King, Black Queen, and White Queen.
And Bronski had remained just another officer.
"You've got sothing to say?" Esdeath asked, visibly delighted.
She liked hotheads. Everyone else was far too obedient.
By comparison, Android 18 had no objection at all to being assigned as an ordinary mber of World Serpent. She was not interested in titles.
"Yes," Bronski said, stepping forward.
"Good," Esdeath replied, her eyes shining. "Then I'll fight you. If you win, I'll tell the boss to revoke my appointnt."
She looked genuinely eager.
She had Kryptonian genes, though only soldier-class genes. Still, because they were the genes best suited for combat, they let her grow rapidly stronger after exposure to sunlight, much like General Zod and the other military-bred Kryptonians.
On top of that, Drex had incorporated mutant genes similar to Iceman's into her body.
In other words, Esdeath was very, very dangerous.
"You?" Bronski frowned.
He half-wondered whether he would accidentally kill her. But after everything he had seen from Drex's human modification work, he decided to trust the setup.
Maybe this woman had received so kind of terrifying enhancent of her own.
Esdeath opened the headquarters' dueling chamber.
It was modeled after the arena from One-Punch Man, the one where Asura Kabuto fought Saitama. The room was enormous, and every surface was made of atomic alloy. Even Drex at full power would not have been able to deform it.
Bronski hesitated, and did not imdiately transform.
The rest of World Serpent decided to watch.
The Roaring Symbiote stared at them with hungry anticipation. Both of them were radiating extrely strong auras.
Luke Cage looked worriedly at Esdeath, wondering whether he should notify Drex about the situation. If Esdeath got hurt, would the boss bla them?
Android 18 stood with her arms folded, watching coldly. Drex Valen had plans to bring out Android 17 and Android 16 next, rounding out a manufactured trio.
A little nostalgia. A little tribute.
Bronski was preparing to test her out when Esdeath opened with a massive ice spear, two ters across, thrusting straight at him.
His pupils contracted.
The spear hit him head-on and drove him into the wall.
He was badly injured.
But only for a mont.
Then Bronski's rage flared, and his body rapidly expanded.
He transford into Super Abomination.
Esdeath remained calm.
Before coming here, she had already reviewed everyone's files through Black Queen, so she knew exactly what Super Abomination could do.
Its mouth-mounted heat beam. The spike-covered body. The molten blade-like protrusions all over him.
Bronski smashed the ice spear apart and charged.
Esdeath leapt straight up, dozens of ters into the air.
Bronski skidded to a stop and jumped after her.
Esdeath snapped her fingers.
A giant ice teor appeared behind her.
Bronski's eyes widened.
The thing was unimaginably huge.
It ca crashing down and pinned him flat.
Boom.
The ice teor slamd Bronski into the floor with crushing force.
Esdeath landed on top of it.
Then the teor began to glow red.
Bronski roared in fury and fired his mouth beam, lting a hole straight through the ice teor and punching through it completely.
Esdeath sensed the danger in ti and dodged the attack.
Bronski then punched his way out through the shattered hole with his bare hands.
At close range, he threw a fist at her.
To his surprise, Esdeath did not dodge.
She t his punch head-on, laughing like a woman who had been waiting for exactly this.
Boom!
The air detonated between them and slapped against the walls. A brief vacuum ford at the point of impact.
And then Bronski's expression changed.
He had been crushed.
Esdeath's punch shattered Bronski's arm on impact. The force ripped across his torso and tore open his outer flesh. Worse, the molten-blade spikes on his fist were smashed to pieces by her bare hand.
Then Esdeath brought up a long, white leg and kicked him away.
Bronski flew backward, hit the wall, bounced off it several tis, and finally collapsed to the floor.
He coughed blood.
But his horrifying regeneration kicked in almost imdiately, restoring him.
Still, by then, Bronski already understood.
He was no match for Esdeath.
He had thought she only controlled ice, only created it.
He had not expected her own body to be this strong.
"Looks like you have no objections anymore," Esdeath said, walking toward him in her white military boots.
"But I'm not done yet. You're not going to die, so entertain properly."
She smiled.
Bronski shuddered.
What followed was a rciless beating.
The spectators outside all winced through the entire thing, unable to watch without cringing.
But inside, they were all secretly cheering.
Bronski was arrogant to the point of being unbearable. He was not liked. At all.
Normally nobody could do anything about him, so everyone had to swallow their frustration.
Now, finally, soone was beating him to a pulp.
And that was deeply satisfying.
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