The romantic warmth of the car evaporated in a heartbeat, replaced by a jagged tension. Aryan's phone simply pulsed against the leather armrest like a quickened heartbeat. He glanced down, his eyes scanning the scrolling text from the Red Queen.
> CRITICAL ANOMALY DETECTED.
> SEISMIC VIBRATIONS EXCEEDING 4.2 MAGNITUDE.
> BIO-ORGANIC CONTACTS ENGAGED ON HARLEM CORRIDOR.
Aryan's expression shifted, the playful executive replaced by a man calculating the variables of a disaster. He looked up, his voice cutting through the soft jazz. "Take the next exit," he told the driver, "Now. Slowly. Do not draw attention."
Sharon, whose hand had been inches from his, pulled back, her brow furrowed in professional alarm. "Problem?"
"A structural collapse ahead, or something far worse," Aryan replied smoothly, his gaze fixed on the windshield as the first distant boom echoed through the chassis of the car. "I'd rather not have our evening interrupted by a falling skyscraper."
A violent tremor rolled through the asphalt, tilting the car. Wanda gripped the door handle, her eyes wide. "That didn't sound like construction, Aryan."
As the driver diverted into the labyrinth of side streets, the tremors faded into rhythmic roars that shook the glass. Only when they reached a quiet block did Aryan exhale.
"Alright," Sharon whispered, her hand moving instinctively toward the small of her back where her weapon was holstered. "Now I'm curious. That wasn't an earthquake."
Aryan unlocked his phone, his thumb hovering over a hidden interface. "Red Queen. Status update. Patch through the visual uplink."
Across the screen, a chaotic mosaic of satellite imagery and shaky drone footage bloomed. Two titans were tearing the heart out of Harlem. One was a mountain of emerald rage; the other, a bony nightmare of exposed vertebrae and twisted muscle.
Wanda inhaled sharply, leaning over his shoulder. "What… what are they?"
Aryan stared at the screen, his mind already moving into the System Shop. In the silent theater of his mind, he made his move.
> PURCHASE CONFIRMED: Clone Authority ($1,000,000,000)
> PURCHASE CONFIRMED: Absolute Stealth - (Cipher's version) ($100,000,000)
Far away, on a fractured rooftop overlooking the carnage, a shadow coalesced. A clone, invisible to every sensor on the planet, stood amidst the falling ash, watching the Hulk and the Abomination clash.
"Identify them," Aryan murmured into the phone.
"Subject One: Dr. Bruce Banner," the Red Queen's voice came through, cold and clinical. "Codename: Hulk. Result of a catastrophic gamma-mutagenic accident.
Subject Two: Emil Blonsky. Codename: Abomination. A deliberate, unstable fusion of Super Soldier serum military variants and gamma exposure."
Sharon's jaw tightened. "Military experiments? Again? They never learn."
"Yes," the Red Queen replied. "Both subjects originated from classified human enhancement programs. Banner's exposure was accidental. Blonsky's was deliberate."
Wanda hugged her arms. "So they did this… on purpose?"
"Confirmed," the Red Queen said. "Current data suggests multiple unauthorized or semi-authorized enhancement attempts during this period. However, large-scale replication remains unstable."
Through the eyes of his invisible clone, Aryan watched the Hulk charge. He saw the way the green giant's muscle density spiked, the neural firing patterns in his brain glowing with a white-hot intensity. The Hulk relied on a perfect synchronization of mind and body.
Let's introduce some friction, Aryan thought. Working through his clone, Aryan reached out with his Magnetism, subtly twisting the local magnetic flux in a tight radius around the Hulk's head.
Human neural activity—even the Hulk's—is an electrochemical process. By inducing a minute, high-frequency oscillation in the ambient magnetic field, Aryan triggered a vestibular mismatch. To the Hulk, the world just fractured.
The Hulk surged forward for a killing blow, but his foot slipped a fraction of an inch. His equilibrium faltered. His motor lag spiked by a mere half-second.
The Abomination didn't miss. He landed a bone-shattering uppercut that sent the Hulk flying through a brick facade.
The pattern repeated. Every time the Hulk tried to lock into his rage, Aryan's invisible hand nudged his inner ear. The green giant staggered, his roars turning from fury to a confused frustration. He couldn't find his footing. The world refused to sharpen.
For the first time, the Hulk felt a sensation he hadn't known since the desert: vulnerability. Confused and disoriented, the Hulk took a step back. Then another. He let out one final, weary growl before leaping away, vanishing into the dark treeline of the northern parks.
The Abomination stood alone in the wreckage, his chest heaving, letting out a victorious howl that echoed off the broken glass of Harlem. He had won. Satisfied and sensing the approach of military gunships, the Abomination leaped away toward the industrial outskirts, disappearing into the night.
Aryan exhaled, releasing the magnetic grip. The world's field snapped back to baseline, leaving no trace of his interference.
Back in the car, Sharon and Wanda were staring at the screen in stunned silence. The "Gods" had fought, and the battle had ended as abruptly as it began.
"They're gone," Wanda whispered. "Just like that."
Aryan tucked the phone away, his expression once again that of the calm, "The city is safe for now."
Sharon looked at him, her eyes searching for a truth she couldn't quite grasp. "You seem… remarkably unsurprised, Aryan."
The car glided forward once more, leaving the distant echoes of Harlem's destruction behind. The interior hummed with the quiet luxury of the leather and the lingering scent of wine, but the atmosphere had shifted. The romantic playfulness of the evening had been tempered by the primal violence they had just witnessed on a four-inch screen.
Aryan leaned back, the cool glow of the streetlights dancing across his features as they moved toward the residential quiet of the city. He noticed the way Sharon was still tense, her hand hovering near her lap, and how Wanda's breath was still coming in shallow hitches.
"I've always told you, Sharon," he said, his voice dropping into that smooth register that seemed to anchor the air around them. "I prefer efficiency. Even in a riot, there is a rhythm—a pulse you can predict if you're watching closely enough."
Sharon turned her head, her eyes searching his. The adrenaline was still buzzing in her veins, but the unbothered calm in Aryan's gaze acted like a sedative. "You talk about monsters like they're just another line in a quarterly report, Aryan. That wasn't a rhythm; that was a massacre."
"And yet, it ended," Aryan replied softly. He reached out, his hand resting briefly over hers on the armrest—a touch that was both a reassurance and a subtle redirection. "The chaos has passed. I believe I promised you both an evening where the world didn't intrude, and while the city tried its best to break that promise, I intend to see you both safely home in peace."
Wanda leaned her head back against the headrest, her eyes fluttering shut as she let out a long exhale. The images of the green giant and the boney nightmare were still burned into her mind, but sitting here, inches away from Aryan, the fear felt distant.
She opened her eyes and looked at his profile—shadowed, sharp, and utterly immovable. It was a terrifying thought, in a way—that a man could watch the world tear itself apart and not blink—but it provided a sense of security so absolute it made her heart ache.
"You're a very strange man, Aryan Spencer," Wanda whispered, a small smile tugging at her lips.
"I've been called worse," he murmured, the car turning onto the tree-lined street of their destination. "But for tonight, let's just stick with 'good company.'"
Sharon let out a breathy laugh, finally relaxing her grip on the door handle. "Fine. Good company it is. But tomorrow? Tomorrow you're explaining how you stayed so calm while Harlem was being leveled."
"Tomorrow," Aryan agreed, his voice a low promise in the dark.
The night was beautiful—but sorry, if you want to read what happened next, premium moments require premium payment. Haha.
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