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Spider-Man Mayham (AU) Chapter 338: Hulk of War (4)
🕑 Added 2025-07-27 15:20:01 +0000 UTC[Third person POV]
Just as Aria was prepared to back up and phase through the reinforced wall behind her, she froze. Betty had lifted her head, locking eyes with Aria. The contact wasn’t physical, but it was more than enough to stop her in her tracks. Her breath hitched.
The Leader abruptly halted mid-speech. His head snapped toward Aria with an eerie precision, and his expression darkened into an ominous frown.
Aria lowered her gaze and sighed heavily, a touch of weariness in her voice. “Figures... not even I get a break from the tired clichés.”
Without hesitation, the Leader raised his hand and fired a violent blast of psychic energy toward her. The sheer force of the impact obliterated the wall behind her. Stone shattered, metal warped, and debris scattered like shrapnel from a grenade.
Dust filled the corridor like thick smoke, and the wall was left gaping open—large holes and craters carving a straight path from the Leader’s position through where Aria had stood. For a moment, silence.
Then the dust began to settle, swirling away to reveal Aria levitating several feet off the ground. She was completely untouched, hovering within a shimmering force field of purple psychic energy that pulsed like a heartbeat.
The Leader’s frown deepened, and his voice carried a scathing authority. “You were warned. I gave you a choice, and now—now you will suffer the consequences of insubordination.”
“...”
Aria didn’t flinch. Her hand rested calmly at her side, her posture relaxed as she waited for a few seconds. She tilted her head, raising an unimpressed brow behind her glowing lenses. “What’s wrong? Experiencing a bit of network connectivity problems?”
“You,” the Leader growled, his voice thick with fury and disbelief. “What have you done?!”
She smirked, her voice laced with sarcasm and confidence. “What I do best. Hacking, of course. Although this time it wasn’t machinery I broke into... it was the minds of other.”
Aria raised her other hand slightly, fingers twitching with restrained energy. She had been preparing to fire a focused gemstone beam, but the Leader was standing directly in front of Bruce. If he dodged—and he would—Bruce would be vaporized.
Before she could plan another move, a sharp tingle ran down her spine. Her spider-senses flared like a fire alarm in her mind. From every direction, pink-skinned humanoid soldiers surged into the room. Tall and imposing, each one stood two meters high with a single red eye glowing like a laser sight in the center of their faces. They moved with a speed that defied human comprehension, charging straight at her with murderous intent.
They opened fire from the single red dot. Each blast was like a grenade, detonating violently wherever it landed. Explosions thundered around her, tearing apart the base inch by inch.
Aria moved like liquid light. She danced through the chaos, phasing through walls and humanoid torsos alike. She retaliated with precise blasts of energy from her mindstone, targeting their exposed backs. Each movement was seamless, fluid, elegant—a deadly ballet of destruction.
At one point, she phased her arm through one of their mechanical bodies, her hand reaching inside its chest. With a vicious yank, she pulled out the core—a glowing sphere the size of a heart—and crushed it in her bare hand like an overripe fruit.
With a flick of her wrist, she lit up the air with telekinetic power, grabbing half a dozen of them mid-air and flinging them in different directions. They slammed into the walls with such force that they bounced back like rubber balls, ricocheting all over the place.
A deafening explosion shook the room as a section of the facility wall blew apart. Through the gaping hole, the outside world spilled in. The Leader’s hidden research base was now partially exposed to the elements, and so was Aria’s raging battle.
Using the distraction, the Leader recalled his chair to the room, climbing into it and connecting himself to the machine. As soon as he sat, the chair lit up, enhancing his psychic powers tenfold.
“Ross,” he barked with chilling finality, “it's time to make yourself useful.”
He looked down with disdain at the motionless figure slumped in the back of the lab—Red Hulk. “Wake up.”
There was a faint pause in the air as the Red Hulk submerged in liquid remained still, suddenly Ross’s eyes snapped open, twin golden orbs that radiated raw fury and unrestrained power. His pupils shrank to pinpricks, and a low growl rumbled from deep within his chest.
Meanwhile, Aria was starting to become overwhelmed with all the humanoids pursuing her. The endless stream of humanoids was wearing her down, their numbers seemingly infinite. Dozens of them lunged at her simultaneously, their bodies piling on like a small hill of bodies.
Aria let out a sharp breath and unleashed a massive psychic shockwave from her body. A vibrant pulse exploded outward, sending all the humanoids flying in every direction.
They spun through the air and as if controlled by a hive mind, the humanoids flipped and spun through the air in eerie synchronization. All turned toward her again, their glowing red eyes locking onto her position. With a surge of light, they all fired simultaneously.
The beams converged on Aria.
She closed her eyes.
Inhale. Exhale.
She leaned her head back, hands glowing with psychic power as she began to weave them slowly in the air. Her telekinesis reached out—not to shield her—but to guide the energy. One by one, she pulled every incoming blast toward her gemstone.
The mindstone on her forehead gleamed, pulsing violently as it drank in the raw energy.
Brighter.
Hotter.
The light reached a blinding level, and Aria’s eyes snapped open, now glowing like miniature stars.
“AHHHHHHHHHH!!!” she screamed as an overwhelming beam of pure energy erupted from the gemstone like a laser cannon from a dying star. The blast tore across the battlefield, vaporizing any humanoid it touched. They didn’t fall—they disintegrated into ash.
The ground beneath the beam turned molten, melting into lava from the intensity. A wide groove of searing magma carved a path across the destroyed lab floor, leaving behind nothing but liquified stone and scorched earth.
And then—silence.
Aria started panting heavily. Steam rose from her mindstone. She lifted her hand to her forehead, touching the gemstone gently, as if trying to stop the burning from within.
She muttered with a dry chuckle, “Is this what a migraine feels like? ‘Cause I swear my skull’s about to split in half.”
Suddenly, Aria’s senses screamed in warning. A pulse of dread shot down her spine as the world around her seemed to slow, every detail sharpening into crystal clarity. Her breath hitched. Time crawled.
She turned—slowly, cautiously—and looked up.
Her pupils dilated.
Descending from the sky like a meteor of rage was the Red Hulk, his body a furnace of raw fury. Flames ignited along his crimson skin, dancing across his arms and shoulders like living fire. His monstrous roar split the air like thunder, shaking the very foundation beneath Aria’s feet. Both of his massive fists were raised above his head, ready to slam down with the force of a missile strike. His shadow expanded across the battlefield, swallowing her in its looming presence.
But Aria didn’t flinch.
Instead, she grinned.
The reflection of Red Hulk’s charging form grew larger in the mirror-like surface of her lenses. The wind howled, debris danced around her feet, and the high-pitched sound of the sound barrier breaking shrieked through the air.
She tilted her head ever so slightly and muttered with the smirk of a comic book reader meeting the panel in real life—
“Pow…”
In that exact heartbeat, a streak of electricity cut through the sky like a luminous thunderbolt. With a blast of crackling lightning and searing static, Spider-Man shot across the battlefield in a blur of black and blue.
He was flying, both arms behind him, one knee extended forward like a guided missile.
The impact was perfect—Peter’s knee slammed directly into Red Hulk’s jaw, the sound of the hit like a gunshot cracking the heavens. The air exploded with kinetic energy. Streams of energy flew from Peter’s lenses, which glowed blue-hot with discharging volts.
Red Hulk’s head jerked sideways violently, teeth flying, as his entire body was launched through the air like a ragdoll.
Aria’s eyes sparkled. For a moment, she forgot how to breathe.
She stared up at her father, wide-eyed with admiration and awe, her heart thudding in her chest. It was like watching a superhero leap out of the very pages of a comic book. Behind Peter, in her mind’s eye, she could almost see the exaggerated impact panel—bright background lines radiating behind him with a bold, stylized “POW!” filling the air in golden-yellow font.
It was surreal.
Peter spun through the air with flawless control and twisted into a slide as he landed. One hand grazed the ground, his fingers carving a shallow trench through dirt and grass. His body skidded to a halt with a trail of scattered debris behind him. His hood was ruffling from the force, fluttering before settling on his head.
He stood up slowly, calmly.
With that trademark confidence, he pulled down his hood, a warm smile beneath his mask.
“Sorry for the wait,” Peter said, his voice casual despite the storm he just punched through. “We had to make sure all the military personnel were clear. Didn’t want anyone caught in this mess before the fireworks started.”
He looked her up and down and gave a small nod of approval.
“You held your own. Better than great.”
Aria just stood there, stunned. Her mind buzzed and ached, but none of that mattered.
She stared at him—her father—and all she could think, heart swelling with pride, was:
‘Is this what little girls mean when they say their dad’s their superhero? Because they ain’t got nothing on me.’
Comments
Vrati
Aria really is daddy’s girl. Peter would be so sad when she grows up and enter rebellious age. 🤣
