leaning back in her chair, agatha smiled as her cat let out a low meow and lept up into her lap. sighing agatha closed her eyes and began to pet the cat. the signs were true...he was coming. and when he arrived...no one would be safe. no hero would be able to stand up to him; no spell would be strong enough to send him back or seal him away. no deal they could make with any demon wold have enough strength behind it...they were doomed. agatha looked up as a noise in the next room watching the doorway agatha smiled as she watched a figure stand in the doorway. "have you come to kill me?"
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CHAPTER 14
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Peter sat there stunned. All around him hero's were yelling, shouting, questioning what they had just seen. Next to him peter felt venom touch his hand slightly; looking for some sign of comprehension from his face. But peter gave none. He couldn't not with the words on the TV staring back at him. Those big red bold words.
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SPIDERMAN MURDERED BY IRON MAN!
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EARLIER THAT DAY
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From his spot on the wall spiderman looked down at the hastily assembled war room. Just under him stood moonknight, his arms folded in front of him like always. Next to moonknight stood mystique; busy sharpening a rather large knife, next to her Havoc who was busy popping his knuckles. On the other side of the map table, iron fist, luke cage, and captain America, who leaned forward and spoke. "alright. Here's what's happened so far. It's been almost a week since the registration act passed. The registration forces have been busy busting heros and forcing them to sign. But now they're starting to look at us more seriously; As they should have from the beginning. In the last week our numbers have swelled from a few dozen to a few thousand. Most of us aren't heroes, their mutants or magic users who just want to be left alone; but are willing to lend us their support. But now it's time to go on the offensive. Several heros were recently captured and detained in a temporary SHIELD holding facility. We're going to hit that facility rescue the heros inside and see if we can find any dirt on SHIELD while we're at it."
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Mystique shrugged and put her knife in its holster. "how do we hit them? Hard with lots of damage? Or stealthily and try not to be seen? My personal preference…hard with lots of damage." A general mutter of agreement passed over the group. But captain calmed them with a wave of his hand. "I think a demonstration of power is in order, so yes, we'll be hitting them hard. But understand this. Public opinion is half a war, we need to fight back while still maintaining the appearance of heroes. Understand?" again wave of agreement passed through the room. Captain America nodded. "good. We'll split up into teams and hit the facility from different sides, with any luck we can overwhelm the forces inside and take the facility with ease. Then we activate the defense system and use it to take out any registration forces that try and provide backup. And trust me they will call for back up. Which brings me to my second bit of news."
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Spiderman watched as the captain sighed and then spoke. "SHIELD is offering complete amnesty to any and all super villains who join them in bringing down unregistered heroes." A general mutter of anger swept through the chamber, making it seem as though it were filled with angry bees. But captain silenced them again by raising his hand. "I know. It's distressful, but it's their choice to make; even if it is the wrong one." From his pot on the wall spiderman spoke. "you want a group of 6 heroes to assault a base that is not only crawling with SHIELD guards but also super villains?" captain shook his head. "no spiderman. There will be other groups assisting you. Thor and storm have been hard at work creating an almost constant thunderstorm around the base. It's amazing how hard it is to get accurate information from radar that keeps getting struck my lighting. They will assist you along with venom and the invisible women; who are both already on site, and are scouting the area. Does anyone have an questions?" moonknight spoke. "what is our mode of transportation?" captain chuckled.
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"I had some of the more tech savvy heroes sweep over an old quinjet. It's now clear of any bugs or tracers. We can use that. If nothing else it's a final 'fuck you' to stark. Now if you're ready meet in the hanger." As the others filed out spiderman stayed here he was. "is something wrong spiderman?" he sighed and ran his hand over his masked face. "this is wrong. We shouldn't be fighting each other. We should be protecting the world, not fighting over who's our boss." Captain America nodded. "I know. I know it's hard but you just have to remember, we have the moral high ground. We know what we're doing is right." Spiderman nodded. "I know. But still…..how did it come to this? How did we go from fighting together to fighting against each other?" the captain shrugged. "the same way it always happens. Someone becomes afraid and thinks they have to do something so they won't feel afraid anymore." Again spiderman nodded. "I know but…..still. this? Us? How could anyone be scared of us?"
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Again captain shrugged. "they look at us and they see what we are and they aren't. we're stronger, faster, smarting, longer living. To put it simply we're more powerful than they are. And they're scared of that. So they want to control us." Spiderman dropped down from the wall and landed on the floor. "still. It's wrong." He felt captain America put his hand on his shoulder. "I know."
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LATER
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Spiderman looked down at the street blow. They had landed on a building top so they could meet up with thor, storm, and venom. He watched as venom clambered up the side of the wall before pulling himself up onto the roof and grinning widely at him. Against his will he shuddered. Venom's smile was still unnerving. "we're so glad to see our spider again. We were missing him." Under his mask spiderman blushed. "I missed you too." Behind him mystique spoke. "skip the part where you make out. Venom what are we looking at inside the base?" venom grinned at him for a moment longer before turning to mystique. "the bass is well fortified. We counted dozens of soldiers posted at each door, as well as several large blast doors that they can clamp shut at the first sign of danger." Behind them thor landed and spoke. "don't concern yourselves with those doors. I can easily break through them. There is something entirely different we have to worry about." Every turned to thor who paused as storm landed next to him. After a moment venom rolled his head; the equivalent of rolling his eyes. "so nice that you two stopped making courtship advances long enough to help us."
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No one spoke for a moment. Then storm broke the silence. "Over the past 2 days we've noticed that several villains are using the base as a head quarters. We've confirmed that shocker, scorpion, quicksilver, and several members of the brotherhood. But we have several others that we haven't confirmed. So we could be walking into a powder keg. I think it would be best if mystique and venom snuck into the base and disabled some of the internal security before opening the doors and allowing us inside." Mystique nodded and spiderman watched as he skin began to crawl and warp into the form of a shield soldier; next to her venom's skin bubbled like hot wax as it to morphed into a shield soldier. "we'll be back."
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LATER
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The waiting was the worst part. Any second now spiderman expected the base's alarms to start blaring and for explosions to rip through it; but they never did. Instead an eerie kind of silence had spread over the group and they watched from their spot on the rooftop across the street. It had been also a half hour since venom and mystique had vanished into the shield base. The waiting was….excruciating. then…spiderman's head snapped up as the base below shook.
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Thing had changed rapidly from that point. They had made their way into the base and as they had expected they encountered heavy resistance. It had taken them almost 15 minutes to fight their way through the main facility and another 45 minutes of fighting in cramped tight hallways before they found themselves in the detention section of the facility. Once there they had to wait for mystique and venom to join them, before they released the captive heroes and made their escape. This however proved to be much harder than they had thought. While they had been making their way through the facility, SHEILD had been busy setting up a massive blockade of soldiers, robots, and pro-registration heroes. The battle had gone….well easy had not been the right word. He had swung, punched, kicked, and webbed up dozens of soldier and yet more still seemed to appear. Landing on a wall spiderman looked down att he scene below. Thor was busy battling several SHEILD tanks; batting their shells like baseballs. Storm was in the air; even as he watched dozens of bolts of lightning, arced down from the sky and struck several SHEILD robots. Mystique was busy rampaging around as a massive T-rex, and venom….he watched as venom picked up a man by his face and threw him at a group of still more incoming soldiers.
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But he had no time to look around at the other hero's the feeling of hot wires pressing against his neck blasted through his brain. Pushing off of the wall he turned just in time to watch a green and white blur flash over where he had been clinging moments ago. Angrily he bit his lip; "quicksilver." Touching the ground he had spun around to try and find quicksilver, only to be shoved at an incredibly high speed by the fast mutant. He groaned and grunted as he tumbled across the ground only to roll back to his feet over 100 feet away. Looking up he had been about to ready himself for another attack, only to find a plasma rifle aimed at him at almost point blank range. The soldier holding the rifle grinned. He was starting to feel wires on the back of his neck; but before the feeling become to strong….he watched as the soldier jerked and then dropped face first into the ground. His eyes widened behind him stood quicksilver. "traitor!" he lunged at the mutant only to have him effortlessly dodge the attack. A second later quicksilver grabbed his arm and began to run, causing him to crash into several soldier and structures before being let go and skidding along the ground for several feet. Staggering to hid feet he watched as quicksilver readied to attack again.
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Only to have venom grab him from behind and bring him crashing face first against the concrete ground. "NO ONE TOUCHES MY SPIDER!" he blushed slightly at that; but ignored it as more soldier attacked. "venom what's the plan here?! How are we supposed to get out of here?!" landing on a soldier's shoulder peter bent backwards and threw the soldier off balance before jumping off and webbing him to the ground. Wind began to pick up around him. Looking up he could just make out the form of a modified SHIELD transport nearing them. The SHEILD symbol had been scratched out and the symbol for resistance had been spray painted over it. behind the transport he could just make out thor, who was using his hammer to bring down multiple helicopters and other transports with ease. Using his webbing his swung up to the transport landing on the underside. From there he was able to use his webs even more to stick dozens of soldiers to the ground and walls. Soon the transport had landed and every piled into it. as began to take off again the pilot; a random resistance soldier spoke to him. "Spiderman when we get back to base captain America wants to speak to you. Says it's important." He only nodded and settled in for the ride back.
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LATER
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The moment he stepped into the room he could tell something big had happened. Half a dozen heroes were sitting around, talking but they all went quite as he stepped into the room. From his spot in front of the hollotable captain America looked up at him, for a moment before speaking. "I'll be blunt spiderman. What the hell is going on? Who was that guy in the suit? I mean…for Christ sakes…he's dead." Peter's eyes widened. "I don't know what you're talking about." From his spot hanging from one of the walls nightcrawler spoke. "you haven't heard…..hawkeye turn on the tv." Peter's attention was drawn to the small Tv that had been set up in the room.
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"we'll continue to bring you information as we hear it but for now let's review what it is we know for certain. At 4:30PM this afternoon, spiderman was spotted in downtown New York. SHIELD agents including iron man were dispatched to arrest him. A battle ensued and in the fight…spiderman was killed. We'll replay the video we shot of that moment…but I will warn you. The scene you're about to see is very graphic."
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Peter watched as the video changed to a shot of a top floor of a building. A second after the video started the glass windows of the top floor exploded outwards as the bodies of iron man and….. peter felt his eyes widen again. Someone was wearing his spare suit. He watched as iron man and the mystery man fought in the air for a few seconds before the man in the spidersuit began to fall. Like a hero iron man tried to keep him from falling but….peter watched as the man in the suit punched iron man directly in the face and knocked him of course sending him crashing into the building side while the man continued to fall. The sound of the man's body hitting one of the cars parked was enough to make everyone in the room flinch. Peter fetl tears well up in his eyes as he watched the man slowly roll over and fall off the crushed car and onto the pavement. In front of him iron man landed and walked over to him. For a moment peter thought maybe stark would help the man. But that thought vanished when iron man reached down and grabbed the man by the shoulders before lifting him completely off the ground.
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The man let out a groan. Peter could see blood dripping from the man's hand s and feet. A moment later the camera's lens adjusted to the sudden zoom. Peter felt his eyes widen again. Hanging from stark's grip was James. He watched as iron man's grip tightened, making James gasp in pain. "tell me where they are! Tell me where the resistance is!" James just gasped in more pain for a moment. Peter could see blood beginning to drip from the sides of James's mouth. Each breath seemed to be causing James a great amount of pain; but somehow he still….started to laugh and then to speak. "you can't see it." iron man shook James which made him scream in pain. A small pool of blood was starting for under James's hanging body. "you can't see that you're being manipulated. Can't see that…..someone else is pulling the strings and make all of this happen. Someon-" but James was cut off as iron man shook his again. "WHERE ARE THEY!?" James laughing again, lots of blood was coming from his mouth and nose. "this is your legacy now stark. Not iron man, not tony stark, not even the registration act….." James's eyes fluttered; and peter could tell he was near death.
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"this is your legacy….death…." peter watched as James shakily reached up and put his hand on iron man's chest…..a second later he began coughing; each cough spraying blood onto the armor. A moment later James dropped his hand revealing a perfect hand print framed in blood. Slowly James tilted his head back to look at the sky, and after a moment spoke…but not to iron man. "I wish…..wish I could live to see it. to see you fail….to watch you being shoved back into the darkness that you created…but…it's not….you'll fail….." but iron man shook him again. "the fuck are you talking about?" James screamed in pain. "FUCK YOU STARK! YOU CAN'T EVEN SEE WHAT'S DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE! YOU WANNA KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON?! FIND A MAGIC USER! OH THAT'S RIGHT YOU CAN'T….THEY'RE ALL GONE. VANISHED INTO THIN AIR! THEY KNOW…..THEY SAW THE SIGNS BEFORE I DID….THEY….THEY….THEY HOLD…..the key….." a moment later James's head went slack and his arms dropped limply to his side….. a second later iron man shook him. "WHERE ARE THEY?!" James didn't respond; he just hung there limply. For a moment no one spoke or moved...then; iron man staggered as a glass bottle exploded over his face. People began shouting at him. "MURDERER!" it became a chant with people on either side of the streets shouting and throwing garbage at him. Iron man dropped James who crumbled to the ground.
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The video cut out; being replaced by the news anchor who was obviously shaken. "Obviously we here at channel 7 are shaken by today's events. And it bears a good question; just how far is too far for the government to go and try to force heroes to register?"
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AN: WELL FOLKS HERE YOU GO.
GOTTEN A LOT OF MESSAGES AND PLEAS TO FINISH THIS CHAPTER.
SO HERE YOU GO.
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THIS STORY IS STILL NOT MY MAIN STORY. BUT I'M SLOWLY WORKING ON IT. IT SEEMS I'VE BEEN STRETCHED A BIT THIN. I'M WORKING ON 3 STORIES HERE, 2 STORIES ON DA, AND ANOTHER STORY THAT'S EXCLUSIVELY FOR A FRIEND...
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OH WELL. HOPE YOU ALL ENJOYED THE STORY.
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SO WHO WAS JAMES TALKING TO BEFORE HE DIED, WHEN HE WASN;T TALKING TO IRON MAN?
AND WHERE ARE ALL THE MAGIC USERS?
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FEEL FREE TO GUESS.
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REVIEWS ARE WANTED AND NEEDED.
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THANKS FOR STICKING WITH ME THIS LONG. I KNOW I'M TAKING FOREVER TO WRITE THIS.
