The influx of biological data from the insect assimilation was profound, a deep restructuring rather than a simple overlay. For a moment, a primal part of Aaron's brain conjured a visceral, unsettling image: his human form grotesquely overlaid with chitinous plates, multi-faceted eyes, and jointed, bristled appendages. A nightmare of fused biology.
The Furnace wouldn't… it can't just graft parts on, can it? The thought was a spike of cold dread. Enhancement was one thing; losing his fundamental humanity was an unacceptable cost.
The response from the Furnace was not in words, but as a grounding, conceptual understanding that flowed into his consciousness. [Integration is conceptual, not cosmetic. The host's self-image is the primary template. Synthesized traits are optimized for seamless biological and functional compatibility. Alterations are sub-dermal, systemic. No external morphology will conflict with your identity.]
A pause, then a flicker of dry, almost teasing potential. [Should you ever desire a different aesthetic template, the option is available.]
"Hard pass," Aaron thought emphatically, the mental image dissolving. He would leave the dramatic physical transformations to the Mutants or the aliens.
The integration finalized. New threads of energy, cooler and more substantial than the light from the phone, wove into the fabric of his being. He felt a profound settling, a densification, as if his very molecules were locking into a more resilient configuration. Information cascaded through his enhanced cognition.
[Structural Reinforcement Matrix (Ironclad Beetle): Cellular and skeletal structure has been reconfigured with interlocking, layered durability. Can withstand compressive forces approximately 39,000 times host body weight without critical failure. Provides extreme resistance to penetrating, concussive, and shearing forces.]**
[Superior Musculature & Density (Scarab Synthesis): Synergistic enhancement detected. Lifting capacity increased to 600x host mass. Dragging capacity exceeds 2,000x host mass.]**
[Precognitive Sensory Array (Spider/Arthropod Fusion): Ability merged and upgraded. Now provides a low-grade, persistent awareness of ambient danger—a 'tingle' that scales with threat level. Acutely perceives environmental anomalies, air pressure shifts, and maintains all previous pheromonal/EM signal detection.]**
[Biochemical Silk Generation & Projection: Glands synthesize a rapidly polymerizing fluid. Upon exposure to air, it forms strands with high tensile strength, elasticity, adhesion, and environmental resilience. Capable of supporting multi-ton weights.]**
[Advanced Toxin Processing: Immune system now neutralizes a broad spectrum of organic venoms and inorganic poisons. Subsidiary glands can synthesize and secrete a potent neurotoxin capable of inducing rapid paralysis in large mammals.]**
[Hyper-Spectrum Vision: Optical receptors expanded. Can perceive into near-ultraviolet and infrared spectra. Dynamic vision and motion tracking enhanced.]**
[Electrostatic Adhesion & Manipulation: Can generate and control localized electrostatic fields, allowing for adhesion to most surfaces and minor manipulation of conductive objects.]**
[Structural Weaving Instinct: Possesses an innate, non-conscious proficiency for creating tensile structures, nets, and layered composites from generated or available materials.]**
The power surge was immense. Aaron clenched a fist, not striking anything, but simply compressing the air in his grip until it created a miniature shockwave—a soft thump that vibrated in his chest.
He took a cautious step, his body a projectile of contained energy, covering twenty meters in a blur and leaving faint, web-like cracks in the pavement where he'd pushed off. The world around him felt different—not fragile, but… malleable. He perceived the stress points in the concrete, the groan of steel in the buildings around him. He existed now with a constant, gentle pressure against reality, requiring conscious dampening to avoid leaving a wake of minor destruction.
The most significant upgrade was the Structural Reinforcement Matrix. He was, for all practical purposes, invulnerable to conventional forces on Earth. A tank round might feel like a firm shove. He could sleep through a building collapse. It was a foundational kind of safety he hadn't realized he craved.
Steve Rogers is going to have a very bad day if he ever tries to punch me, he mused, a wry thought. He'd probably just feel bad for the vibranium shield.
With deliberate focus, he used his Kinetic Refinement and Superior Cognitive Matrix to recalibrate his movements. The terrifying strength was brought under exquisite control. He could, he realized, pluck a flying insect from the air without harming its wings. Mastery followed acquisition with terrifying speed.
A glance at a mirrored storefront showed half an hour had passed. Time to collect his charge.
He found Kate in the café, slumped over her phone with dramatic boredom. The moment he entered, her posture snapped to attention. She slid off her chair and took two eager steps forward before stopping, assuming a mask of casual composure that her darting eyes completely betrayed.
"So? Where's the… cargo?" she asked, trying for nonchalance and landing on intense curiosity.
Aaron, seized by a mischievous impulse, reached a hand into his jacket pocket. Kate's eyes went wide and she skittered back a step. "Ew! You didn't put them in your pocket! That's so gross!"
He paused, his expression blank. Then he followed her horrified gaze not to his pocket, but lower. The implication dawned on him, and he sighed, the sound heavy with exasperation. He was acutely aware of the other café patrons' glances—some wary, some amused, one old man giving him a suspicious frown.
"For the love of…" He theatrically turned out his empty jacket pocket. "The specimens were delivered. I am not carrying a menagerie on my person." He gestured vaguely downward. "And that is just the unfortunate bunching of fabric. Let's go."
Kate looked skeptical, her eyes still flickering with morbid curiosity. "But it looks so…"
"It's a shadow. Let's. Go." He gently but firmly steered her toward the exit before the situation could deteriorate further.
Outside, the sky had darkened further, the strange atmospheric pressure lingering. Needing to definitively redirect her attention, Aaron looked up at the forest of skyscrapers. "I have another ability. Ever wanted to go web-swinging?"
Kate blinked, following his gaze up the sheer glass cliffs. "Here? Now? But there's no…"
"Get ready."
Before she could protest, a strand of milky-white webbing shot from a discreet gland on his wrist, adhering to her midsection and bonding to his side in a secure harness. Another strand fired from his other wrist, a perfect parabolic arc that anchored with a solid thwip to a gargoyle fifty stories up.
With a mental command, he sent a pre-written text to the bodyguards' phones via Network Interface Protocol—"Taking scenic route. ETA 20 min. Do not pursue."
Then, with a powerful contraction of his legs, he launched them both into the air.
"WHOOOOAAAA—!!"
Kate's scream was a blend of sheer terror and unadulterated euphoria as the ground fell away with stomach-lurching speed. The wind roared in their ears, buildings blurring into streaks of grey and glass. For a moment, they were weightless at the arc's peak, the whole of Manhattan spread below like a detailed model, before the thrilling plunge and the next web-line's catch sent them hurtling forward again.
"I'M FLYING!! AARON, THIS IS AMAZING!!" she shrieked, clinging to him, her earlier preoccupations utterly forgotten in the visceral, city-spanning rush.
Two blocks away, the two bodyguards stood shoulder-to-shoulder on the sidewalk, staring dumbfounded at the shrinking figures arcing between skyscrapers. One looked at his phone, then back at the sky.
"Did he… text us mid-air? Without using his hands?"
"Do we… follow?" the other asked, her voice faint.
They both looked up again. Their target was now a speck nearing the Chrysler Building. The idea was ludicrous.
One guard numbly raised his phone. "Boss. Um. A situation update. The principal… has achieved airborne transit. With the asset. We have visual but are… geographically disadvantaged."
In her corner office, Eleanor Bishop was in the middle of a quarterly earnings review.
"Airborne? Clarify." Her tone was sharp, professional.
"Sir, Mr. Aaron appears to be… web-swinging. With Miss Kate. They are currently approximately eight hundred feet above 5th Avenue, heading northeast at a high rate of speed."
The line was silent for a long moment. Eleanor's meticulous, boardroom-calibrated mind tried and failed to process the statement. She stood up, mechanically walking to her floor-to-ceiling window. As if on cue, two figures—one small and blond, one tall and dark—arced through her field of view, framed against the brooding sky, before vanishing behind a neighboring tower.
She saw it. The impossible, graceful, terrifying flight.
"I… see," she finally said, her voice strangely hollow. "Stand down. Return to base." She ended the call.
Slowly, she turned back to the room of waiting executives. The spreadsheets, the projections, the corporate rivalries—it all seemed suddenly, profoundly trivial. A man was swinging through the canyons of New York with her daughter, using biological webs. The rules of the world she operated in had just been quietly, definitively rewritten.
"Meeting adjourned," she stated, her voice allowing no argument.
As the room cleared, she remained at the window, staring at the empty sky where they'd been. A complex cocktail of emotions churned within her: maternal anxiety, sharp professional calculation about the asset named Aaron, and beneath it all, a fierce, unexpected, and utterly human pang of envy.
What must that feel like? To be so free, so unbound by the gravity of ordinary life. Little Kate was experiencing something she, with all her wealth and power, could never buy.