42 Chapter: 42

Chapter: 42

I quickly used 200 MP and rapidly threw up a Lightshield in front and behind us. It was just in time as an instant later, grenades slammed into one shield, and Aldrich hit the other. The latter let out some choice expletives as his sneak attack on tony was thwarted.

"What the fuck?" Tony exclaimed in shock at seeing Aldrich turn into a flaming humanoid and try to jump him. "What the hell did you do to yourself, Killian? Did you turn yourself into a mutant!?"

Tony's confusion was justifiable. Seeing it up close, Extremis made Aldrich look like a flaming zombie. I should have briefed Tony on the full capabilities of Extremis beforehand, but I had no reasonable explanation as to how I knew about it in the first place.

"This is the future of warfare, Tony! This is the power of Extremis and the results of my genius!" Aldrich replied even as he never stopped slamming his fists into my Lightshield. He wasn't strong enough to break it anytime soon though. I also only needed to hold it a few more seconds. Just enough time for Tony's Iron Man armor to have fully finished forming around him.

Aldrich, seeing that he had lost the moment of surprise, chose to take a step backward on the other end of the room. The Winter Soldier hadn't made any other moves after emptying the clip of grenades at us.

With our momentary pause in combat, I turned to Iron Man. "Which one do you want?" I asked.

"I'll take Killian. I guess there's been a personal vendetta between us all this time, so I might as well settle it." With that said, his repulsors launched him toward his flaming opponent.

"Don't kill him! We need him alive for his formula!" I exclaimed before Iron Man ended up blasting Killian into the floor and right through it!

I turned to my own opponent, the Winter Soldier. "Well then, I guess it's just you and me, huh?" I honestly wasn't worried; at most, he was just slightly stronger than Captain. And now he was out of grenade launcher ammo as well. Not that those would have even taken that much HP off me if they hit. I started slowly walking toward Hydra's greatest assassin as he took a fighting stance.

[Your confidence is great and all, but you might want to check again with your observe skill.]

The system notification gave me a slight pause, and I did just that.

[Winter Soldier - Level 15 → Hydra's greatest assassin has recently received a powerful upgrade as the latent super serum inside him combined with an added Extremis formula.]

Oh... well, isn't that something? He's still only level 15 though. I can take him– "Holy shit!" I exclaimed in surprise as the Winter Soldier apparently grew tired of waiting for my slow approach and charged forward. He was fast! His strength stat must be at least double my own! His metallic fist came rushing towards my face, and I quickly ducked down to avoid it. A small Lightspear formed in my right hand, and I tried to stab him as his fist went wide.

With some insane Muay Thai move, he used his opposite knee and elbow and caught my lightspear between them! The sizzling heat the Light weapon emitted didn't seem to bother him at all. The Extremis formula made him largely immune, it seemed.

"...Okay, that was pretty cool" I admitted out loud as he locked down my conjured weapon. 

He rapidly spun around and delivered a powerful kick to my sternum that sent me flying backward.

[-30 HP]

I ended up slamming into and right through the flimsy drywall. Dust and drywall flew everywhere as I was flung all the way back into the reception room.

"Kyyaaaaahh!" Killian's secretary screamed. She was crouched down, hiding behind one of the couches. "What the fuck is going on!?" She screamed at me. "I heard explosions!"

"...Your boss is a Nazi sympathizer and a secret supervillain. You should probably find a new job," I said plainly as I stood up and brushed the chunks of drywall out of my wings and hair.

"I knew I should have listened to my parents and gotten that safe insurance job!" She exclaimed as she ran away down the hallway. That was good timing too because a few seconds later, I had to jump out of the way as an actual fireball flew into the reception room. There was a fiery explosion and all the nearby furniture immediately caught fire. The smoke alarms went off a second later and water started spraying down and soaking me as the fire alarms went off…

"Well this is just perfect." I said as I glanced down at my soaked outfit. Of course I had chosen to wear a white business shirt for this meeting that was now completely see through… at least I was wearing a bra underneath despite not needing it with my physiology.

From the recently created large hole in the wall, the Winter Soldier emerged. His body was glowing red. A clear sign of Extremis and that he had thrown that fireball. Because of course he could also do that… Good thing it was me fighting him... Captain America would have been so screwed with this guy's upgrades.

[You never know, stats aren't everything after all. All gamer's know that skill plays just as big a role.]

"Fallen Angel, Layla. I have orders to either capture or kill you. Come quietly and serve Hydra as our weapon." The Winter Soldier spoke for the first time. His voice was lacking emotion and almost monotone. 

"I'm going to have to pass on that one." I replied. I mean really… join us or die? Does that ever work?

[Quite a bit actually…]

'You're probably right about that system, but there's no way I'd ever consider joining Hydra.' I thought. Their plans for global domination were as ludicrous as they were cartoonishly evil.

"So be it." The Soldier's red glow intensified. His combat outfit, despite being military-grade, was starting to smoke and catch fire. He rushed at me again, but this time I was ready for his speed. I quickly cast a Lightshield in front of me that he slammed into. There was a burst of flames as his momentum was halted. He actually managed to put cracks in my Lightshield!

Before he could recover himself, I quickly dropped the shield before I stabbed forward with both my hands. Each one holding a freshly conjured Lightspear. He managed to dodge one of them, but the second caught him in his stomach. I'd have been hesitant to stab him before, knowing that he was basically a mind-controlled slave. With Extremis, however, I knew he could take the hit and still be fine. I was actually wondering how I was going to put him down for real without taking out his head or something.

My spear pierced through his stomach and plunged out the other side. He grunted in pain for an instant before reeling his arm back and smashing me in the head. My head whipped back with the blow as I stumbled backward and released my hold on the lightspear.

[-50 HP]

Fuck, that hurt! This was going to be annoying unless I could find a way to knock him out.

The Winter Soldier reached downwards and grabbed hold of my purple lightspear in his stomach. With another small grunt, he pulled it out of him before tossing it to the side. A few seconds later, the hole in his stomach had completely healed up. There was a small detail I noticed after he healed. He wasn't glowing as bright as before. Healing such a large blow clearly took a lot of his energy. If I could just land a few more of those he would be spent.

He raised his organic hand towards me as a fireball straight out of a video game materialized from it and blasted forward towards me! The water falling all around me vaporized as I flapped my wings and dodged to the side. I threw my remaining spear towards him. It sailed true and looked like it was going to hit him before his robotic arm reached forward and grabbed my Lightspear out of the air.

HIIIIIISSSSS

He realized his mistake too late as the burning heat from my spear started to melt away his metal hand. Tht arm was strong looking, but it wasn't Vibranium yet. He did basically just try and catch a Lightsaber after all. That Titanium arm was basically useless now with the melted hand. This was the first time I'd seen him display emotion so far as he glared at me with his eyes. 

"You appear to have been disarmed," I said with a small laugh. "I think round two is going to be a bit easier for me now."

"Think again, bitch!" I heard a muffled voice yell from… underneath me. Right below me, two burning red hands punched through the floor and grabbed onto my ankles.

"You've gotta be shitting me..." I mumbled before the hands grabbing me yanked downwards and pulled me through the floor! Some asshole just pulled a Naruto move on me!

I barely got a good look at the man who grabbed my legs before they rapidly spun around and flung me through a nearby wall. Once again I ended up covered in dust and drywall. Except this time I was still soaking wet so it was clinging to me… Was this going to be a thing today?

[Probably. Oh look, you've got some friends here! /s]

"Oh, hey there Layla. Nice shirt. You coming from a wet T-shirt contest?" Iron Man laughed at me. Apparently, I had been flung into the room that was directly underneath Aldrich's office.

"Nice armor." I snarked back. "You coming from a chop shop." His armor looked a bit banged up and was sporting numerous scorch marks. It still looked pretty functional though.

"To be honest, Killian has a lot more suped-up mercs working for him than I would have thought," Iron Man said. "Fighting off all these guys at once has been a bit difficult." There were about 20 ex-soldiers surrounding us, all giving off the Extremis red glow. I could see Aldrich standing in the middle of them all, glaring at the two of us. The sound of a loud thump in the next room over signaled that the Winter Soldier just jumped down to this floor. A moment later, he once again stepped through a hole in the wall as he moved to join all the soldiers.

"I told you, Stark!" Aldrich called out. "This is the future of warfare!" He spread his arms wide as all of the soldiers around him started glowing brighter at the same time… 

That's cute," Iron Man said, eyeing their display. "I wonder if they rehearsed that."

XXX

Layla's current stats:

[Name: Layla of the Fallen]

[Title: Angel of Hope]

[Level: 4]

[HP: 3020/3100]

[MP: 235/560]

[Vigor: 110]

[Strength: 20]

[Intelligence: 56]

[Luck: 20]

[Skills: Observe 1, Angelic Mastery 2, Acting 2, Light Manipulation 3]

[Perks: Never Tell Me the Odds, Mana Siphoner]

[Drawbacks: Sin of Lust]

[Available Free Stat Points: 0]

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