abcnovels
Chapter 586
Chapter 586: Birthday Pound
{A/N: In marvel, Mary Jane's actual birthday is on 18 August and by 2020, she should have been 27 years old but I'll keep on making slight changes just to continue the story~
Ps. It might be slightly gruesome and I just wrote it back then, don't regret it though.}
Patron shout-out to Zack Munson and Gabriel Diniz @
Patre on.com/Fanharem
***
18th June, The first day of Summer Vacation.
'Well...' Mj had the most disappointing morning as usual. Her father more than willing to brag his ability to abuse her mother physically and she would have understood if her mother had strange needs but that wasn't it. Just like Mj, her mother and sister suffered under the hands of a raging man blaming everyone but himself for his own failures. Gazing at Nik, her previously reignited 'birthday charm' started to lose its l.u.s.ter, too, even if she enjoyed the attention due to Nik in the first place. "Still, thank you for before. The guy wouldn't stop," Mary remarked as Nik shrugged, feeling a little unnerved for some reason. He couldn't smell, hear, or see anything strange. He even spread his senses to the extreme alongside his energy transformed into spatial elements to find any spy that may have strange enhancements all for naught.
Unwilling to take any chances, Nik kept his senses to the max and began filtering the information his brain received. "Oh, it's fine," Nik looked back and smiled. "Do you have some plans?" Nik inquired as Mj gazed at him with a slightly surprised expression. "You don't know?" Taking out her cellphone, she presented it to Nik, displaying a poster of Tony Stark's convention regarding the most basic technological enhancements that would change the regular life of the citizens as they knew it. Honestly, Nik wasn't the least bit interested with Mary on the duty to report on the scene. That's why she left so quickly this morning in the first place.
"Cinthia and Marsha are waiting for me there," Mj smiled and inquired just out of politeness, "Would you like to join?" Gazing at Mj for a while, finding the conflict in her green pupils, Nik shook his head. Why would he want to enter a convention with an ex-girlfriend on her birthday? For all he knew, she might actually have a date that she refrained from telling him, after all, even if their break-up had been quite the impassive one, it didn't change the fact that it would be awkward for Mj to deal with all this crap on her birthday. "Nah, enjoy yourself, Mj," Nik grinned and stopped in front of a food truck, "But at least let me buy you a meal," Nik pointed at the picture of the hotdogs, making Mj shake her head as Nik looked towards the relatively free owner and ordered a meal for both of them.
"Relax, you have plenty of time to get to the convention, and who knows, after breakfast, you might even enjoy it." Nik pointed out, making Mj's lips twitch.
"How did you—"
"We never talked about our families... well, I have nothing to talk but you usually didn't when we were together," Nik replied, "But you did say that breakfast is never prepared in your house. So... I hope you haven't had your fill already."
"To think you remember that one time..." Mj mumbled with an impressed expression. "Of course I do. I remember all the times," Nik smiled gleefully as Mj's expression turned a little embarrassed as she hushed Nik down, "Stop thinking about that!" She glared at Nik with her mind now turning into a disarray as he snickered, "Oh, I am trying."
After having their fill, Nik paid for the meal, as he promised before Mj bade her farewell hurriedly, now, too ashamed to stay with Nik until her head cooled off. In fact, she did feel a little bad for not even being sincere while inviting Nik. After all, he just showed her appreciation and respect in a short period of time just by showing that he actually knew everything she told him about herself, no matter how little the information may have been. 'Although... when did Nik actually even start to listen to others... now that I think of it, he has shown strange changes for months now...' Mary continued to think when her phone rang, revealing the caller to be her sister.
Biting her lips, Mary picked up the call when she heard her sister's panicked shout as something heavy fell on the floor accompanied by a scream all too familiar to Mj. Her mother!
---
"Oh, I am trying," Nik's face was revealed in a translucent, head-sized globe as a middle-aged man with grey sideburns and relatively moderate gaze continued to observe the youth. Instead of sitting on a chair, the man floated midair with his legs crossed and the red cape waving behind him aimlessly. "His body is strange," the man muttered to himself, "A human capable if storing energy within itself and contain it without any repercussions. Not to mention that his ability to mold space almost revealed the mirror dimension to the civilians. But his actions... weren't unfounded. His method was." The man concluded with a deep furrow. Closing his eyes, the man began to meditate once again as wisps of purple emanated out of his body. josei
"Note to self, add Nik Minion in the observation directory. The fact that I only found him due to his actions and am still unable to follow his existence without my vision on him makes him a greater variable. If I can't see him, there's a chance that others, too, cannot."
---
Nik's exit from the apartment had been an easy one but return, not so much. From his successful infiltration into the Hydra and barring of robbers who might also be rapists, Nik was now held by the show in front of him. A dreadful show for the citizens if he might add. Checking his mobile phone and seeing the top news being the recent arrest of robbers after learning of their description from the girl who almost became a victim, Nik turned his attention towards the group of men and women engaging in a brutal battle of fists n.a.k.e.d. Entirely so. A large crowd had already formed around but everything changed when the people from the crowd themselves began to take off their clothes and battle against each other with mindless rage.
Some of them, however, didn't do anything of the sorts and simply fell on their knees while clutching their heads, their expression pained. 'Is this some sort of carnival... oh, that girl bit his nuts, so probably not,' Nik thought silently and gazed at the situation before taking a different route to the apartment. There was no one within the crowd that Nik knew of and he had already realized the cause of the problem. It was actually a large whirlpool of pheromones as if someone had been collecting them and used it all at the same time. The pheromones themselves contained the command of getting n.a.k.e.d and enter into a battle, after all, Nik could interact through pheromones, too and it could resist the same. In essence, he had nothing to do with the situation, and with his self-restraint on not using anything else besides his spatial abilities, it wasn't wise to engage with already corrupted citizens.
---
"Hmm? He is leaving. A wise decision. Spatial Manipulation might endanger innocents if not used under precise control. Maybe he understands this," The strange figure commented as he gazed at the situation through the sphere of glass and then sighed. "The effects would only last for minutes without the source so my interference is not necessary," deciding to be a spectator, too, the man continued to observe all of the variables present on Earth that he could find of.
---
"I'm back," Nik called out as he watched Ann waving the remote without looking back, her gaze attracted to the show being played on the television. "Nik, will you drop me off to the Summer Institute this evening... well, every evening?" Anna inquired as she naturally scooched closer to Nik after he sat beside her and snuggled against him. "Sure thing. Oh, and did you know that today's Mj's birthday?"
"Yeah, I sent her a message the moment I woke up, why?" Anna inquired curiously while lowering the volume of the tv. "I ran into her today after I accidentally stopped a burglary."
"How do you even stop these kinds of things accidentally?" Ann giggled as Nik explained the situation about the girl and how the ruining of the burglary was merely a collateral. "That's... not how you should start your vacation," she mumbled, "It's good that we can communicate through your mind," Ann whispered and hugged Nik tightly, "Cause I really don't feel like being a victim to any form of crime."
"Don't worry, you won't," Nik smiled, "And Mary's there to protect you, too."
"What do you mean?" Anna snorted, "She has left her profession for years. Sure, mum can whip up great Italian dishes but I don't wanna see her fight and accidentally trip. That'd be shameful." She grumbled. Her reaction had grown tame compared to the first few days after Mary revealed her past to the kids. Anna had turned into the channels sponsoring today's convention and showing the set live as Nik stated, "Mj is actually in the convention," Nik spoke up with Anna now trying to locate Mj in the crowd herself.
---
"God! No!" Mj screamed the moment she found her mother lying in a puddle of blood with her father, too, collapsed near her. Her scream seemed to have woken up the man as he m.o.a.ned softly and struggled to stand up, his clothes disheveled and the moment he turned his head, the man revealed his disastrous injury with the left eye bleeding profusely and tears streaming down through the right. "You!" He groaned, gazing at his daughter with his eye fueled in hatred and vengeance. "It's all your fault... all of you!" He emphasized with a growl as he slowly stood up, his shirt soaked in blood as Mj took a step back, tripping down and collapsing in fear. Her green eyes seemed to have enraged her father even further as he took a struggling step forward, keeping himself from collapsing.
"Happy... birthday," he gave off a dirty grin as he stepped on his wife's body right over the back of her neck but strangely, the woman didn't utter a single syllable in pain and remained on the ground lifelessly. "Don't worry. After you meet your mother, I will follow. I will ruin the three of you again." He cackled as Mj realized in horror that her sister had not received any of her calls and she now refused to believe that the only deranged man of the house might have gotten to Gayle.
Slowly pushing herself back, still unable to pull enough strength from her legs to even stand, Mj made her way towards the open exit silently. "No, you won't!" He shouted and instantly propelled himself forward, falling upon Mj before grasping her by the neck and supporting himself on his body with his blood dripping on Mj's face while she tried to breathe under the cruel chokehold. "P-please... s-stop, dad!" She pleaded softly, her heart turning cold in terror as she felt her senses leaving her body.
She didn't want to die! Not yet!
But her reasonable request was met with a maddened snicker of her father as Mj started to recall every event in her life. Her first slap on the cheeks. Her first award of the play. Her first kiss during middle school. Her first experience with Nik. Her bitterness towards every man that had ever failed her, which flashed all the men she knew in the first place. Finally, she saw her mother's crying expression, her lost dream of being an actress which drove Mj towards success in the first place.
"I s-said—" Mj almost lost her breath there, "Let me g..." her voice fading alongside the light in her emerald pupils when they suddenly shimmered with crimson red as a glow covered her body. "Aaaghhhh!" The assaulter of a father shouted in pain the moment he gazed at the light with his remaining eye, finally blinding him and leaving a burnt hole in his head when the light receded and finally revealed an unconscious Mj.
"May your life remain unfettered by weaklings," a strange melody continued to whisper into Mj's ears as she could only lay on the ground alongside her dead family. Truly, birthdays weren't the best things in the Watson Family.
---
"Hmm? Divine force?" The man shifted his attention and conjured yet another sphere that now revealed an unconscious Mary Jane Watson. "Hmm, not a protection but charm, this does not violate the treaty with the gods," The man sighed to himself, adding Mary Jane's orb alongside multiple others in the same spot.