Chapter 641: Theft


    "Uh-oh!" Tony''s figure flew into the sky, leaving a trail of glow formed by the thrusters installed within the palms and the calves with a pack of killer armors,pletely robotic without any controller within, rushing towards him with their missileunchers and guns zing. Well, all beside one suit of armor, to be precise. Tony''s only friend, well, from childhood, Colonel Rhodes now shouted bloody mary while his body flew, and armor hijacked.


    "I always knew you wanted to kill me," Tony''s voicemunicated with Rhodey''s as the man in the controlled armor shouted, "Look out, one mean st iing!!" With that, War Machine''s suitunched a mini-missile capable of ruining a building easily as it flew towards Tony''s suit. The sudden assault of Hammer Industries'' armors took everyone by surprise, even Shield units surrounding Stark Industries personnel but then again, most opponents would aim to surprise and strike ruthlessly in a given period.


    "Holy..." Mary mumbled as she saw sts stretching across the sky when her surroundings erupted in stunned screeches, making Mary look back at one titan of a monster, pale white suit with patches of ck to denote the eyes and the wildest smile and jagged teeth stretched across his face. "That''s... Vanish!" One of the men shouted, his social standing clearly high for Vanish''s appearance wasn''t known to everybody and yet once the words echoed, chants of praise followed only for Mary to smile gleefully and gesture her cameraman to make way towards Vanish.


    "Vanish! Vanish!" Mary shouted, her voice reaching the loveable monster as he grunted in surprise with a mic trying to be shoved in front of him but the height of his woman acted as an obstruction to the task. "Are you here to save all of us? What are your superpowers? How did you defeat those viins that hijacked the mall?!" She stated all her ''queries'' and back at their apartment, Anna felt her cheeks burn at her mother''s shamelessness. Before he could answer, however, Nik''s gaze shed as he found Harry in the crowd, panicked and afraid while being led away with his security detail.


    Bolder ones, however, stuck with Vanish as he grasped the microphone from Mary''s hands, inquiring with her through their mental connection, however, no reply came from her as the mischievous smirk on her face made Vanish''s eyelids twitch. Sure, if she wished to y and catch Vanish on the act then he was sure to get his names across everybody''s lips.


    "Sweetheart, your channel a national broadcast?" Vanish''s voice echoed for the first time as mary nodded hurriedly, "Yes! One of the best! Now please answer our questions!" Before other channel teams could flock Vanish, he tossed the microphone back to Mary and stretched his arm right above, the white material consisting of Pickle stretched forward without a hint of surprise and caught a drone passing overhead, the camera''s angle raised alongside the stretch and caught the live-action.


    "Reed, this guy''s ability... works like your mutation," back in their Baxter Building, Benjamin pointed at the television while the attack had caused the recently mutated group to feel grim. Even a young blonde wrapped by a robe with his hair steaming due to the wetness getting evaporated at a breakneck pace. "I can see that," Reed pointed out. Vanish had saved Benjamin and showed a form of spatial ability that screamed of teleportation but this was the first time they were seeing Pickle in action and the moment the fleshy appendage crushed the drone into a small, skull-sized ball of metal with circuits buzzing about, everybody''s pupils contracted for a moment.


    Still, now that Nik had decided to propel Mary''s career with her officially being the first reporter to convince a superhero in action, he threw the ball of metal and it struck one of the many flying bots, causing it to fall down with internal damage to its structure, however, jumping from his position and causing a wild gust to pick up in his wake, Vanish intercepted the fallen with an uppercut, causing the bot to fly high and striking another one.


    "Whoooaaaa! That''s a monster right there! Look at that smile!" Meanwhile, Tony''s voice within War Machine''s armor didn''t help. "Just focus on getting the control of my suit!" His friend begged while the billionaire snickered, "Priorities, brotha! I got to focus on dodging the attacks. And then counterattacking."


    "Then what about fighting off the hijack?"


    "That''s Jarvis'' business!"


    "On it, Colonel," the calming voice of Jarvis interjected while Nik''s actions weren''t only affecting the general popce. Aside from Shield and Strange, nobody actually knew that Vanish was capable of superhuman athletic feats but his limits were not tested even by the Shield. This provided them the opportunity to find out a symbiote''s true abilities but much to their shock, they found that all it took Vanish was one attack against a falling bot and it would bring the other down. From jumping to the side of a building and crashing a bot into the ground, creating a crater for that matter, Vanish''s physical strength stunned them all.


    "Whooo!" Anna and Ray cheered with Anna finally opening up to the extremely cute boy and sharing popcorns while Pickle was delighted by getting some of the action. It was about time she got to stretch a bit and she enjoyed every second of it. Not only that, with Nik giving her the control of his body, Pickle enjoyed the sensation of moving, jumping, and crushing. Her smile widened every second and the ck patches of eyes narrowed ever so slightly. Though terrifying many hidden organization from her expression and salivating grin alone, Nik only found thess a cutie as she continued to y.


    "Nice crush!" Nik cheered, waking Sky and the others to witness Pickle in action. After all, to them, a piece of metal, whether in the shape of armor or missile, was junk in the end. However, information about the killer bots brought by his [Psychic Aptitude: S-] allowed him to practically understand more than half the technology behind the Iron Man suits and also a bomb fixed within, inch in size but with a powerful bang which Nik would simply teleport away when Pickle would punch another one of the fallen victims. Soon, she cast her gaze upon the different bot rushing towards Iron Man and sharing sense with Nik, she inquired eagerly, "Nik, can I drench that man''s blood upon my skin and enjoy the taste of his body?"


    As if to answer to her queries, War Machine instantly diverted its flight and gunned down the nearest bot, making Pickle groan internally. "Damn, I wish that were a bad guy!"


    Feeling the subtle shift in Pickle''s mind, Nik reprimanded her harshly instantly. "There''s no good guys or bad guys!" his shout ringing loud within Pickle''s consciousness as he continued, "There are only good girls and bad girls. Sweet boys if I have sons and they can settle for some chums cause Tanya and other daughters are definitely getting the best side of the pizza, and rooms. So, if you feel hungry, eat the nearest delicious thing and only stop when I say. Or if you feel stuffed. Or if you feel pity for someone. Never ever think of bad and good or we may as well rule hell given our nature!" His self-righteous tone only earned a suppressed and admiring whimper from Pickle, who would have turned into wet goo if she actually felt physical l.u.s.t despite her bloodline and now she wished she could while Sky led the spirits with the roll of her eyes.


    However, the lecture proved useful to L, who smiled once again and kept her grim away from the senses of others. Maybe the rest of them still weren''t ready for her tendencies but it was good that Nik was bound by ''evil'' and ''ethics'' and ran with a high-powered fuel of hypocrisy. After all... she was, to quote Nik, a bad girl. A bad AI, technically.


    "So, we''ll go out for dinner," Nik continued, "I''ll even bring Ignit and let you feast on whatever you like... but yeah, we''ll strike a terrorist group." He coughed as Vanish seemed to gave regained his vigor suddenly and brought down the remaining bots quite elegantly. A broad grin touched Mary as she gestured the camera to be brought in front of her and closed off the deal with an epic statement while the surrounding civilians pped. Amongst these were prominent decision-makers who transmitted the data to the top brass which was interested in Tony Stark''s technology. Some of which turned out to be Nick Fury''s bosses.


    "Vanish!" Mary took to her ''lover'' whose action of being a hero she refuted but now shamelessly profited from, "That was amazing! You saved all of us!" She burst happily, stating the mind of everyone present as they looked at Vanish with unconcealed joy and appreciation. Looking around for a while, Nik''s eyes lit up the moment he saw a young kid with an iron man helmet on, making him question just what kind of groups did the convention allow but walking to the young boy with heavy steps, he knelt on one knee and still managed to tower over the boy.


    "Uh..." the kid looked around, unable to find his parents who were just a few steps behind him, and looking at the ice cream cone that had fallen near the kid, Vanish inquired softly, "That yours?" He pointed at the mint-vored choco-chip ice cream, making the boy nod.


    "Here you go," Nik managed to hold off from cringing and scaring away the boy as the same ice cream appeared in his hands. Somewhere in the city, a hard-working citizen paid for his ice cream and lost it to a sneaking teleportation circle but that was a story for a different time.


    Under the cheers and kind apuse of the crowd, Vanish disappeared once again but didn''t leave quite yet. He really... just vanished and stayed right there, making his way towards Mary to return the favor. She needed to provide adequatepensation after all and Nik knew just what he wanted.