Vanessa flew outside the meatpacking plant and landed hard with her back into the hull of a rusty machine. The metal beneath her sagged, forming a depression. Fisk's eyes were wide with confusion. Why had Augustus thrown her here? The answer to her question came a few seconds later.
Having been blown up twice, the unprepared structure of the building had failed and the brick walls had cracked. The heavy roof took some of the impact and collapsed. Large debris of the roof covered the inner room of the plant. Part of the walls crumbled and also joined the debris of the roof.
Thanks to the first explosion, more like the explosion of a couple of petrol tankers, all the fallen debris was engulfed in fire. Surviving the explosion and its aftermath, inside the meatpacking factory was unrealistic. Only Kingpin could calmly withstand such a blow and in her opinion, August didn't stand a chance.
Surprisingly, after getting out of the bent carcass of the car, Vanessa felt regret and a number of other gloomy emotions. These negative emotions were affecting her. Her legs were buckling, her fingers on her hands were shaking involuntarily, and her eyes were full of rage and hatred. This rage and hatred was directed at the people who dared to do such a thing in her city, in her country. The perpetrators who had died in the factory were just pawns, the main organisers lurking in the shadows.
"I will find them and strangle them with my own hands," Kingpin gritted her teeth. She tried to control her emotions.
She considered August as her target, a nice trophy she wanted to carefully acquire. She knew he might not like her persistence, so she proceeded slowly. Back then in the car showroom Vanessa had realised and accepted her feelings for the man.
Previously, she didn't understand women who were so desperate to chase men, Fisk thought they were shortsighted and stupid people. How could one devote themselves to another man? Why did those girls put their husbands before themselves? Well, once she fell in love, she found the answers to her questions.
Love, such a pleasant and pure feeling that had arisen in her long-dead black soul. It energised her and raised her already high ambitions even higher. She as a little immature girl wanted to prove something to someone, to stand out before her chosen other half, to show herself in all her glory. It stirred Vanessa's rational mind.
Her mind told her that these desires to show off and prove something to someone made no sense. She didn't even need to say anything to signify her superiority over others. But the feelings, this mingled cocktail of love, told her otherwise. It was as if she was back in her childhood, a battered and weak-willed girl, desperate to get her father's attention, hoping to find in him protection from her sisters' beatings and her stepmother's threats. Only it didn't work out with her father. He was indifferent to her for the rest of his miserable life. It wasn't until she had massacred her sisters and pulled a gun on him that he paid attention to her. There was hatred and rage in his eyes, at the time those emotions seemed amusing to Vanessa. She grinningly fired a dozen bullets into her father's stomach and afterwards watched then as the life slowly left his eyes. Until his very last breath, the former Kingpin, expressed only those two emotions. There was no fear or regret.
Amazing, thought young Vanessa at the time. Now, standing in front of the burning wreckage of the meatpacking plant, Fisk was like her father. Instead of fear for her lover, she was seething with hatred. The dead black soul, fuelled by the pain of losing a loved one, was slowly turning into an all-consuming black hole. Red tentacles, more like pulsating veins, were slowly stretching from the centre of the hole. What was going on inside Vanessa's soul, no one knew, not even she herself.
"We have to dig him up," an emotionless dead voice, more like a machine's voice than a human's. A few dozen seconds had passed since the explosion and the order Vanessa had given, but it was enough to fully feel the pain of losing a human being and to trigger a process of uncharted transformation.
...
"NO! - Hera tearfully rushed towards the ruined mill, but was intercepted by Petra and a recovering Gwen. - We have to help him!
"Calm down, you see those people have already started digging! We'll just be in the way. Don't worry, August should be fine! - tried to calm Peter Hera.
"Yes, you can not help there! Remember, August is not an ordinary man, he's a real hero! Ordinary explosion could not do him any harm! - Gwen kept repeating in time with Petra. But somehow Stacy didn't feel confident in her words. A burning sensation coursed through her from the inside out. Her eyes and nose were painfully watery, but Gwen tried to keep it all inside her. One Hera full of tears was already enough.
...
With hateful scarlet eyes glistening, more like bloodshot moons now, standing right in the epicentre of the fire, Kingpin lifted and tossed aside huge rocks, searching for Augustus. Her subordinates helped her, but they didn't do it particularly effectively. They couldn't follow their mistress into the fire as fearlessly, or it would burn them in minutes. Only Swordswoman alone, somehow, was able to stay close to her older sister.
Swordswoman had cursed Augustus several hundred times in her head and hoped that this explosion had killed him. She didn't like the mercenary right away, even aside from their first meeting at the construction site. He'd been too brash with her older sister. Sword was also very jealous of Vanessa and August. After all, the mercenary was a man, there could be feelings between him and her sister. Then her older sister might get infatuated with this man and forget about her altogether. She refused to share with anyone, much less lose her sister's attention. It was like death to her.
"Sister, are you all right? - Sword turned to Vanessa quietly. Fisk didn't even turn in her direction, continuing her monotonous digging of the rubble. This upset the latter greatly.
Suddenly, a huge boulder about three metres away from the Kingpin shook. Vanessa immediately noticed it, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. She took a couple of steps as the shaking rock lifted and flew aside. There was a small rift beneath the stone, from which first one hand peeked out, and then the other, finding a foothold. Tensing slightly, the arm pulled the body behind it. At the sight of the man who had appeared, resentment and anger immediately sprang from Sword, while no emotion emanated from Vanessa. She just stared at August's tired face with her fierce eyes.
The mercenary had lost his helmet under the rubble. His face was open, he exhaled with relief. Barely making it out, only luck was to blame for his survival. He had managed to find a secluded spot seconds before the explosion and hid there. The ensuing fire and collapses didn't hurt him much and he was lucky to get out.
As he looked around at the fiery landscape, August felt like rolling his eyes for some reason. Getting out was half the battle. Now he had to drag his wounded body to safety. Otherwise the fire would roast him to a crisp. Fortunately, during his inspection, he found his bipedal transport to take him to the promised land.
"Did you survive? - For some reason August felt that Kingpin's lips were not a question, but a complaint against him.
"Of course, if I die, no one will pay me any money," the man joked. - Please do a good deed, give a hand to a wounded man.
Vanessa looked at the man's outstretched hand with a complicated look. All the rage and hatred that had swelled in her was gone. The transformation in her soul had stopped as well.
Taking the mercenary's hand, with a slight effort, the girl slowly pulled him upwards. The man's body gradually climbed out of the crevice, here appeared the full body, followed by the bird and... nothing further. Instead of legs from the pelvis there were some stumps of thick blood pouring out of them, flaps of skin and bones sticking out.
Vanessa's hands shook with rage again.
"Hey, watch it! Are you trying to break my arm? - August felt a serious squeeze on his arm and warned Kingpin about it. As if coming out of a trance, she shifted her gaze from the severed legs to his face. The tight grip loosened and the mercenary breathed out a sigh of relief. Her behaviour seemed abnormal to August.
"Sister, let me help you! - Swordwoman ran up to them. August recognised her by her rather firm, set voice. The mask hid almost her entire face, only her eyes remained open. The mercenary could easily tell from those eyes how upset the girl was when she saw him successfully escape from the rubble.
Well, how fortunate, the legs were gone, and also this unpleasant phantom feeling inspired by the mind. Like you've got all your missing limbs back. As the two girls dragged him over the mountains of burning stones, leaving a trail of blood, his mind constantly conjured up images that made him want to stand on his own feet. Augustus overcame them easily, but the nasty residue remained.
"Now I will put you in a lorry and take you to my private laboratory. The people working there are real experts, they will help you regrow your severed legs, - Vanessa said with a serious face. Looking at her expression, the mercenary realised that Fisk was serious.- Look, thank you Vanessa for your help, but it's enough for you to pull me out and stop the blood pouring out of my wounds.
"No, you need to be fully examined and your body checked out. Don't worry about money, I won't need anything in return. You can think of it as a friendly favour.
"A friend?" August asked in surprise, but his question was not followed up. Kingpin simply turned away from him and remained silent.
The result of the dialogue made the mercenary understand the following. Fisk's help would not be refused. It was clear from her eyes that she could use force if need be. Maybe before, August might have tried to play the bad guy who brazenly refused to help. But with his missing legs, that wasn't an option. He should follow Vanessa's words and silently accept her help, if she really wanted to help him.
It was also possible that she just wanted to put him in her lab to use his body to try to create a physical enhancement serum. Like Captain America's serum, which is wetly dreamed of by half of all the villains in the world.
August had never understood what was so special about that serum. Simple physical enhancement, no flying, no lasers out of his eyes, no bulletproof skin. After all, the original Rogers could have been killed with a simple headshot, and how had Captain America not run into a single skilled sniper or liquidator spy during the entire Second World War? Magic, indeed.
Meanwhile, it was already down to the van. Where Vanessa was going to drag the mercenary. August couldn't do anything, so he decided to just relax and enjoy himself. He raised his head up to the sky and looked up at the dark sky lined with stars.
"Be careful tying it up.
"Yes, ma'am!
A medic from the Kingpin squad was tending to the rest of his legs. He applied tourniquets, wrapped the wounds, nothing special. The usual first aid treatment for such wounds. When his legs were done, the body was slowly moved to the truck.
A bright light source was flying from the direction of the city. It was rapidly approaching the burning remains of the meat packing plant. Hovering over them and analysing the area, like a meteorite an iron suit landed next to the van. It landed in superhero style.
The fighters immediately became alarmed and drew their weapons to surround the newcomer. August took one look at the suit to realise that Anita had come for him. Apparently she woke up from a sweet slumber, did not find him next to her and decided to ask the artificial intelligence where he was? Artificial intelligence, of course, did not hide anything and immediately laid everything out, maybe even video and audio recordings to confirm.
"I'm Anita Stark, nice to meet you all," the red-haired billionaire raised her hand and waved it. Her current suit could fully protect her from ordinary bullets and withstand a dozen tank shots at point-blank range. Anita was more confident in her strength than ever. - Now get your hands off my mercenary.
"Don't bother Stark," Vanessa was wearing a helmet with a steel mask covering her face. Anita couldn't recognise her, so she decided to act defiantly. As long as they didn't show any open hostility towards her, she wouldn't act either.
Not going to listen to the words of the girl in the black suit, Stark smiled cheekily and walked towards the van. She did not pay any attention to the people around her, showing complete indifference to the possible threat.
Vanessa stared silently at the approaching Anita. When the distance between them was reduced to arm's length, Fisk grabbed Stark's shoulder with a firm grip.
"I'll say it again Stark, especially for you. Don't get in the way," Kingpin gritted through her teeth as she held back her fury.
"Who do you think has the better technological capabilities, you or me, masked stranger? I think the answer is obvious. So you get out of my way and don't stop me from saving August," Anita brushed the stranger's arm off her shoulder with a punch.
That was the last straw for Vanessa. She had already shown enough patience by asking Stark twice to stay out of her way. All she'd seen in response from her was disdain. Well, the good lady game is over.
"Halt, ladies! - shouted Augustus, half stuffed into the van. Stopping the conflict that was about to break out. He didn't need an epic comic book-style confrontation over some silly misunderstandings. - Anita's taking me in. It's not serious, it'll take me two or three weeks to regrow my legs.
"Are you sure about that? - Vanessa asked the question hard, literally tearing herself away.
"Don't worry about me. We're friends, and friends are supposed to trust each other," the mercenary gave the most dazzling smile he could muster.
Kingpin was silent for a few moments, pondering August's words. Then she frowned.- 'Okay,' Vanessa agreed after all, and then she turned to Anita and added in a sterner voice. - Stark keep an eye on him. If he gets worse, I'll be angry.
"You're the only one who could make him worse. I'm going to have the best of everything! - Anita was furious. That woman in the black suit had already got on her nerves. Who she was to August, why she was behaving like this to her. She had a lot of questions for her bodyguard, but that could be left for later. First we need to get him out of the wrong hands. - Let's go home, sweetie.
August's eyebrows arched at being treated like that. He couldn't contain his emotions at the lewd expression on Anita's face.
Stark had said that last sentence on purpose. She knew that her mercenary had some kind of relationship with the woman in the black suit. In order to check what type of relationship it was, she decided to throw a provocation. There was no response from the unknown woman. So it's not a romantic relationship, which is a good thing.
In fact, even though Kingpin didn't show it, she was furious at Stark's obvious provocation. She now had the strongest desire to clutch Anita's insolent head in her hands and crush it mercilessly, watching her eyes fill with horror and then slowly fall out of her orbits.
Taking Augustus in her arms, Stark took off into the sky and flew towards the villa.
***
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