"Holy—! No! NOOOO!"
"Stop it!"
"MY BLADES!!"
On the deserted stretch of road, Deadpool's anguished shrieks tore through the air. To him, Aaron's hands had transformed into the maw of some reality-devouring demon, and right before his eyes, they were consuming his most prized possessions.
No, not him. His blades.
Deadpool watched in helpless horror as the indestructible adamantium katanas dissolved from the tips upward, inch by inch, into streams of inert, gray particulate matter that scattered on the wind. Was it his imagination, or did he hear a faint, cosmic crunching? Tastes like chicken. Crispy. Want more?
OH, GOD, NO—MY BLADES!!!
His heart ached with a tangible, financial pain. Beaten to pulp, mission a spectacular failure, and now his custom-forged, obscenely expensive weapons were gone. This contract wasn't just a loss; it was bankruptcy. For the foreseeable future, he'd be surviving on microwave burritos and regret.
Tears of genuine misery welled behind his mask, his screams a mix of vocal and purely internal anguish.
Aaron, however, was on high alert, anticipating a berserker's retaliation. Deadpool's eyes burned with fury behind the lenses. His legs, already fully regenerated, coiled beneath him, muscles tensing like springs in a predator's haunches.
But in the next instant, the mercenary did the unexpected.
He twisted his body in a fluid, acrobatic roll—not toward Aaron, but directly into a nearby storm drain grate he must have scoped out earlier. With a wet plop, he vanished into the malodorous darkness below.
Aaron, momentarily startled by the sudden retreat, rushed to the grate. He leaned over, peering down.
A concentrated blast of methane, decay, and a thousand other unspeakable odors hit his enhanced senses like a physical wave.
"Gah! There really is shit down there!" He recoiled, quickly dialing down his super-olfaction. That single, unfiltered whiff had been nearly incapacitating.
His gaze fell to the pavement, where a few smears of Deadpool's blood, shed during the 'slam,' glistened darkly. A slow smile spread across Aaron's face.
"I can't let such a prime sample go to waste."
Muttering to himself, he placed a palm flat on the stained asphalt. The command was silent, internal.
Assimilate.
The bloodstains vanished, absorbed into the substrate of his being, processed by the Primal Furnace.
A cascade of notifications flooded his awareness:
[Super Healing (Wade Wilson): Similar ability detected. Fusion complete. Your regenerative capabilities are now significantly enhanced. Recovery is possible from a single remaining cell fragment, dependent on available energy reserves.]
[Dual-Blade Mastery: You have integrated Deadpool's lifetime of bladed combat expertise. Techniques include bullet-deflection, precision disarming, and fluid dual-wielding.]
[Pseudo-Fourth Wall Awareness (Deadpool's Quirk): You can occasionally perceive narrative echoes from adjacent realities or meta-contextual fragments from beyond the perceptual barrier. Information gleaned is inconsistent and often abstract.]
[Adamantium Resilience (Adapted): Your physical structure has incorporated adamantium-level durability. You are now highly resistant to extreme temperatures (up to ~500,000 Kelvin) and conventional physical trauma. Note: Vulnerability persists to certain exotic energies, molecular disruptors, and reality-altering forces.]
It was a windfall.
Aaron's heart surged with triumph. His hypothesis was correct! Even a biological sample like blood was enough for the Furnace to isolate and integrate key genetic and memetic concepts from the donor. The potential was staggering.
His body, already a bastion of enhanced biology, now boasted a resilience approaching that of the legendary indestructible alloy. Conventional human weaponry—tanks, missiles, even low-yield tactical nukes—would likely just scratch the paint, so to speak. Standing at ground zero of a standard nuclear detonation might be… uncomfortable, but probably not fatal. A dip in the sun's chromosphere? Theoretically survivable, for a short while.
The Furnace's cautionary note was well-heeded. He was under no illusion of absolute invincibility. In the vast tapestry of the Marvel Universe, there was always a bigger gun, a sharper edge, a weirder science. True omnipotence belonged to abstract cosmic entities, not to men, no matter how enhanced.
But this was a monumental leap. If Wolverine came slashing now, those adamantium claws might finally meet their match, skittering off his skin with a shower of sparks, unable to bite deep without Logan's own superior strength behind them. A confrontation with someone like Thanos… would remain a brutal contest of power, but being casually bisected? Far less likely.
Coupled with Deadpool's supercharged healing factor—now his own—his survivability had skyrocketed. The trade-off was scale: regenerating his entire form from a single cell would require a catastrophic amount of energy, vastly more than Deadpool or Wolverine would need. His cells now constantly siphoned ambient light and energy; perhaps each one was becoming a tiny capacitor. In a worst-case scenario, that last remaining cell might need to bask in a star's heart for a century to regrow. Not ideal, but it beat actual death.
Finally, he pondered the Pseudo-Fourth Wall Awareness. So that was the source of Deadpool's bizarre, out-of-context knowledge and his tendency to address an unseen audience. It explained the mercenary's meta-commentary and his occasional flashes of improbable foresight. According to the description, it seemed… unreliable. Glitchy. More of a tantalizing, static-filled broadcast than a clear window.
Aaron gave a mental shrug. He'd explore its quirks later. For now, the solid, physical upgrades were prize enough.
"Boss!"
Felicia rushed to his side, her hands fluttering over him, checking for wounds. In the car, she'd been too preoccupied to fully register the imminent threat, and by the time she might have reacted, Aaron had already swept her to safety. The subsequent fight had happened while she was… otherwise engaged, leaving her feeling frustrated and redundant.
Seeing the splatters of someone else's blood on Aaron's clothes only deepened her chagrin.
"I'm sorry," she murmured, head bowed. "I was useless. I should have been able to help, not just be a… distraction."
Aaron didn't rebuke her. Her unique… attentions were a preference, not a battlefield liability. He had no desire to flaunt that particular dynamic in front of an audience, especially one as crass as Deadpool. There were certain insecurities best not provoked.
He lifted her chin with a finger. "Since you recognize your… limited utility in a straight fight," he said, his tone leaving no doubt about the kind of 'utility' he valued, "then focus on excelling in your proper role. Understood?"
Felicia nodded, a flush on her cheeks that wasn't entirely from shame. Her eyes swept the debris-strewn street—the bisected Rolls-Royce, the scored asphalt—and a new resolve hardened within her.
Aaron turned his attention to the wrecked car. With a thought, he composed a quick encrypted message to Norman, attaching a photo of the scene. Cleanup needed. Also, find everything you can on a mercenary named Wade Wilson. He owes me.
The priceless adamantium katanas as compensation? Please. Those were trophies, reparations for the car and the audacity. If he didn't have a prior engagement with Kate and Barbara, he'd be down that sewer himself, teaching Deadpool the meaning of inescapable retribution.
Satisfied for the moment, he looked back at Felicia, a different kind of spark in his eyes. "I recall you're quite the accomplished yogi. Knowledgeable in many… advanced positions."
"Hmm?" Felicia blinked, following his train of thought.
"The 'Flying Car' pose, for instance," Aaron continued, his voice dropping to a suggestive murmur as he guided her toward the relative privacy of a nearby service alley. "Given the state of our actual vehicle, it seems a fitting… alternative mode of transportation to practice."
"Oh! I— Ah! That's…! Too much! Oh~!"