Summary:
When help arrives from the most unexpected sources…
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Chapter:
While Hive, in all his awful appearance, was wandering around in search of a body to inhabit, Ward's spoils captured Simmons' attention.
She was bowed and kneeled on the ground, in an adoring position, but was attracted by a series of small… movements… in Ward's belly.
Wait…
Movements?
Movements in a dead body?
How peculiar!
She realized that the gash was healing itself, quickly… very quickly indeed… until it completely disappeared, returning Ward's body to its primeval integrity!
Bloody hell!
It wasn't possible!
She couldn't believe her eyes and tried to convince herself that she must be having hallucinations…
… until, at a certain point, a deep breath made Ward's chest rise!
His chest continued moving imperceptibly up and down, filling and emptying with air…
He was breathing, indeed!
Simmons almost started laughing at the absurdity of the situation!
Was there something in the whole world that could defeat that filthy bastard?
How many times should they have to kill him… to actually kill him?
Ward pulled slowly himself up on his elbows, blinked two or three times and shook his head as to clear his mind.
His eyes finally focused and he started passing his hands on his belly, caressing slowly and carefully it, like in search of something… he went up and down, examining, touching, inspecting… but he couldn't find anything. There wasn't any trace of the wound Hive inflicted him so far...
Then, suddenly, he jerked his head up, like he had been stroke by an unexpected illumination, and whispered softly:
"Thank you…"
Then stronger and stronger and stronger, using his own voice, after so many months:
"Thank you.
Thank you!
Thank you!
You broke me free!"
He was almost shouting, and his lips were curved in a wonderful, beatific smile.
His eyes were shining and Simmons never, ever before saw him so happy!
He continued looking up, like contemplating something beautiful, probably the source of that unexpected help…
After some instants he shacked himself out from that bliss, rolling on one side, and looked to one of his hands... that instantaneously caught fire! He jolted and looked at it in awe, approaching it to his face, as if to get a better look... turning it front and back, as if he could not believe his eyes...
The flames lit up his face softening his features.
("Surely all those months of possession had not reduced his beauty! Damn him!" Simmons mentally slapped herself just for having been able to make such a thought! But it was useless: she had always had a weakness for male beauty, and Ward, despite all his dark sides, certainly was a fine specimen of a male...)
He leveraged on the other hand to stand and looked around, while Simmons, in the meanwhile, couldn't do anything else than glossing her eyes at the sight... Luckily, Fitz was passed out somewhere else and therefore could not see her!
Ward's piercing stare found Hive bowed near a corpse, evaluating it, and It, as feeling to be observed, straightened Itself and stared back.
The two looked at each other, silently.
Hive was attempting to penetrate Ward's mind... but It was finding some difficulty in doing that...
Like with Lash...
But here it was different: in Lash's case, his mind was actually impenetrable, like a stone.
Instead, with Ward, it was like Hive could, yes, penetrate his mind, but only to be grabbed, crushed, mashed and thrown out weak and battered immediately after...
It was like a battle of minds... a battle Hive was losing.
Tired of the stalemate, Hive spoke first:
"How can you do that?
How can you resist me?
How is it even possible?
I never found anybody that could resist me so thoroughly, in thousands of years!"
Ward finally answered:
"I was tempered all my life for this exact moment.
I find the strength to resist you from years and years of pain and exertion.
I learnt the horror of letting others control me and make me do things I didn't wanna do, convinced that I was bound to do them.
Not anymore.
You will not transform me in a puppet of yours.
I'm done being controlled!
I'm finally free, and what I want is to serve the Greater Good.
To do that, I will send you back to the Hell you belong to, after thousand of years of you sneaking around.
Down there Satan expects you to bring Him the whole humanity, but you will go there alone.
And He will not be pleased!"
Ward was deadly serious.
Hive started arguing back, flaunting a self confidence It didn't really feel:
"You are a poor deluded son of a bitch!
My powers are immense and I'll destroy you!
I get now that you already managed to escape from Hell, but it won't happen again!
You will be a wonderful gift for my Master and while you will be rotting down there, I will get a free pass on Earth.
I've got total control over three billion people already!
I'm holding tightly in my fist most of the rulers and leaders of the world, too.
Soon I will unleash wars, and with all the nuclear, bacteriological and chemical weapons scattered around after the end of the Cold War, the time left to humanity is quickly running out!"
Ward smiled menacing:
"Oh, yeah.
But first you have to defeat me.
And I guarantee you that I am a tough son of a bitch!"
Without a hold on Ward's mind, Hive had no other choice but to start a hand to hand fight with him.
And the fight was ferocious, but spectacular to see!
Hive revealed to be extremely strong and agile, despite all Its tentacles which should have hindered Its movements: instead they allowed It to sprint and jump extremely high, to catch firmly whatever thing It reached and to throw it potently.
Ward was having serious troubles in dodging and escaping the monster's blows and was at a loss of ideas about how to defeat It…
Hive was trying also to use Its parasites to sway him, but they seemed not to work: they reached Ward, but then they were somehow rejected…
Extremely worrying to Hive was also Ward's incredible speed, in general, and in foreseeing all Its movements and tactics, in particular: it was like he could read Its mind!
And Hive couldn't do the same thing the other way round!
Moreover, whatever wound Hive managed to inflict on Ward, this healed itself at the speed of light!
What the hell had him become?
It seemed to have inherited some of Hive's characteristics: speed, strength, but also healing powers and telepathy!
He had become, undoubtedly, a fearsome enemy!
On the other hand, Ward was extremely tired, due to the possession lasted for months and all the pain endured during it, so he stumbled against the step that led to an open containment module, falling down inside the module itself.
Hive, of course, grasped the opportunity on the fly and threw Itself on him holding him in a death grip with all Its tentacles wrapping his naked body.
But apparently Ward was just waiting for this and, with a superhuman effort, he managed to close the door of the containment module!
"And now, to the two us!" he shouted, grinning widely and almost shooting sparks from his eyes.
"Ha! I will crush you like a bag of chips!" the monster replied.
"Really?
What a cute little tentacled monster!
How can I reciprocate such a kind threat?
Let me think!
…
Oh, yeah!
I will carbonize you like an eel over a charcoal!" he smiled amiably.
"What?"
"Now it is time for you to experience the one thing that eluded you for thousand of years"
Ward's voice was now terribly low and menacing, his smile vanishing.
"And what is it?" Hive spitted out.
"Death."
Ward strengthened his grip around the monster with his arms and legs and started bursting fire over his whole body.
Coulson, May and Simmons could hear Hive's cries of pain from outside, even if the containment module was soundproof!
But Hive was a tough cookie and started struggling violently to get free, so Ward forced himself to increase the temperature, passing from a red to a blue and finally a white – unbearable – heat!
He didn't know how he managed to do that: it was all purely instinctual.
He didn't know how his body could survive something like that, but it was like he had become fire itself!
From the outside it wasn't possible to look at the windows of the module, because the light unleashed from inside was comparable to the light of the sun!
After a few moments also the module's walls, ceiling and floor started melting down: they first became soft like jelly; then started folding on themselves; then they became properly liquid, falling down in pieces and forming little rivers of white hot metal spreading on the floor.
If Ward hadn't stopped soon, the whole base would have melted down, due to that terrifying otherwordly heat!
Coulson and May started shouting:
"Ward, stop!
Stop!
You are burning down everything!
Stop, please!" from a safety distance, because otherwise all of them would have been incinerated on the spot.
Their pleadings seemed not to have fallen on deaf ears, because, immediately after, the heat started to cease and dispersing in the great hangar, the light softening and progressively fading down, leaving only a sea of melted metal and one human form laying on it, apparently dead.
It was him.
His body was lying down, finally resting after that tremendous effort.
(He was of an astounding beauty... he overall resembled nothing less than a Greek God statue...)
No traces could be found of Hive.
It was because It was dead, burned to ashes, returned to the hellfire which It belonged to.
It had been destroyed by... the most unexpected help!
Finally.