201. The Gospel of Fire. (Patreon)

Aldrich Killian POV:

Pepper finally stopped struggling.

The glow beneath her skin once erratic, violent, unstable settled into a steady, rhythmic pulse of molten orange. Like a living furnace that had learned how to breathe. The Extremis procedure had taken hold completely.

Success.

She slept now, exhaustion pulling her under. The transformation always did that. Rewriting the human body down to the cellular level demanded a terrible price in energy. But the reward?

I reached out and traced the back of my fingers along her cheek.

She was flawless.

So beautiful.

So perfect.

All thanks to Maya’s Extremis virus though calling it a virus was really just poetic convenience. Biological nanobots, shaped like viruses, designed to hijack and elevate human physiology but really, who cared about semantics when the results looked like this?

I straightened, my breath shaky with exhilaration and stepped outside into the cold night air.

The Iron Patriot armor descended in front of me with a thunderous impact, metal shrieking as it touched down. Slowly, theatrically, the faceplate lifted.

President Matthew Ellis stared out from inside the suit, pale and furious.

Then the armor ejected him.

Ellis hit the deck hard, scrambling backward as the suit powered down behind him.

I spread my arms wide, savoring the moment.

“Welcome to the Norco, Mr. President.”

He looked around wildly. The oil tanker, the armed guards, the distant flames of industry burning against the night sky.

“Who are you?” he demanded. “What do you want?”

I clasped my hands together, chuckling softly.

“Ah. Where are my manners?”

I stepped forward and extended my hand, smile stretching too wide.

“My name is Aldrich Killian. Founder of a private think tank called Advanced Idea Mechanics. A.I.M., if you like acronyms.”

I leaned closer, eyes gleaming.

“And I am also the man responsible for the Mandarin bombings.”

I could almost see his mind racing, pieces clicking together in horror.

“What the hell do you get from doing all this?” he demanded. “Why?”

I laughed out.

“The future,” I said. “The supply of terror and the war on the war on terror.”

His brow furrowed. “What do you mean… the future?”

“Oh, Mr. President,” I said, pacing slowly around him, “all my goals are connected.”

I gestured toward the tanker, the guards, the glowing lab beyond.

“My Extremis once perfected can give anyone superpowers. For a modest fee, of course. That creates terror. Supervillains. Monsters.”

I raised a finger.

“Terror demands heroes. Heroes demand war. And war?”

I smiled.

“War demands solutions.”

I stopped in front of him, crouching to his level.

“I sell the cure. Extremis nullification serums. Clean, legal. Marketed through shell corporations so deep even you won’t trace them.”

My voice dropped, almost tender.

“I control the world order and I get filthy rich doing it.”

Ellis swallowed hard.

“But my scientist,” I continued, almost conversationally, “says the kinks still need ironing out and for that, I need either Tony Stark… or Peter Parker.”

I scoffed. “Fortunately, I have Stark’s lover. Motivation is such a useful thing.”

I straightened again, eyes blazing.

“And when my soldiers start killing Spartans clad in MJOLNIR-powered assault armor? Oh, the headlines will be glorious. The world will learn that even Parker Industries bleeds.”

I leaned close enough for him to smell the heat rolling off my skin.

“Your death,” I declared, voice echoing across the deck, “will change global power dynamics forever.”

Ellis whispered, broken, “You’re crazy.”

“And you people,” I replied feverently, “are too stupid to notice that Parker Industries is already swallowing the world.”

Two of my men grabbed him by the arms and dragged him away.

To prepare him for his Viking funeral.

A single snowflake drifted down and melted against my burning skin.

Christmas Eve is at hand.

Perfect.

The Raft

The Raft floated five hundred miles off the coast of New York. A steel monstrosity designed to hold the worst humanity had to offer.

Dr. Otto Octavius, Adrian Toomes, Herman Schultz, Silvio Manfredi, Lonnie Lincoln, Batroc, Quentin Beck, Aleksei Sytsevich, Mac Gargan.

A rogues’ gallery in reinforced concrete and arrogance.

The newest addition?

Max Dillon. Electro.

He was housed in the I.C.E. Wing. Isolation and Containment for Enhanced Individuals. A government-built marvel of incompetence, riddled with flaws.

Not in technology.

In people.

Negligence cracked the system wide open.

Electro tore free from his dielectric coolant chamber, laughing as the Raft went dark. Power failed. Alarms died. The prison began its slow, inevitable descent toward the crushing depths of the Atlantic.

And yet...

At the request of their ultimate nemesis Spider-Woman.

Parker Industries intervened.

Against Peter Parker’s reluctant wishes, the Raft was stabilized, lifted, saved.

But Parker Industries made sure the inmates knew exactly who had spared them.

Their jailer and their saviour.

Would they stop trying to kill Spider-Woman?

Would they become upstanding citizens?

Probably not.

But hope, like madness, has a way of surviving where it shouldn’t.