Chapter 611 - Spirit Magic

"You came," Coulson looked at Nik as he strolled into the safe house while shaking Coulson's hand, "That's what she said," Nik smiled. Today was the day where the super-villains challenged the Captain in a manner. Captain's intervention with the current operators of the underworld had really landed him on a tough spot. "Ugh," unknown to Phil, Gwen sitting on Nik's shoulder rolled her eyes as Nik looked around. "I'm the punctual one out of the group, huh?" Mumbling to himself, he crouched and shifted onto the couch, making a perfect transition to sit. It was the little things that enticed Nik to use his powers on. "This never gets old," Phil shook his head.

"Ae! That's what she said!" Nik snickered as Phil walked up to the seat in front of Nik and took his seat. "Yeah, you're the first one. I just go off the phone with Danny, said that he ran into some thugs."

"All he had to do was come in here on time." Nik shrugged. "What about others? Cindy?"

"Right here!" A chime echoed as a black-haired woman jumped down from the first floor. Her body covered in a black bodysuit with the shoulder-region matted with grey material, tough-looking, with red streaks running through it in a spider's web pattern. A red mask covering the lower region of her face as Gwen gasped, "She's Silk!"

From her tone, it looked like Gwen's encounter with Cindy of her life was anything but pleasant. "And you're not in your suit!" Cindy stated smugly, "Maybe that's why you were quicker than me."

"We can always change here. Instead of risking anyone tracking you down here due to your suit after all." Shrugging and easily deflating the steadily growing ego, Nik smiled, "But you look good, Cindy. Way better."

"T-thanks," Cindy awkwardly staggered over to Coulson's side and took her seat. "And you look normal. You really don't have a suit prepared? After so much time? I ran into some normies and even they wore suits just to look different and stand out of masses."

"Normies?" Nik inquired.

"Ordinary thugs or the Daredevil and... the other Captain America," Cindy scratched the back of her head.

"Oh, them," Nik recalled the man in a blood-red suit. A blind man with extraordinary senses and an old man with a gun and anger issues. "I've met them. They are not ordinary. I mean, both physically and mentally but why didn't you contact them?" Nik gazed at Phil who leaned back. "Rejected me," Coulson whispered, "Those two have teamed up under wrong assumptions and circ.u.mstances." He didn't say anything else as Cindy grew silent for a moment. "What does the real one thinks?" Nik continued.

"Nothing, in fact, I did inform Captain Rogers about the fake one's past and he... decided not to interfere, temporarily," Coulson smiled sadly.

"Did I miss something?" Dan entered the house from the front door in his civilian clothes as Nik mumbled, "Well, look at that, only you came with your suit on," Nik enjoyed giving Cindy a hard time. of course, he knew it was due to their accidental connection but that was the end of it. "Oh, I get it!" Cindy rolled her eyes as Spider continued to observe Cindy for some unknown reasons. "Nothing," Phil shook his head. At that moment, Ava and Captain entered the house with tacos in their hands as Ava grunted, "Someone please talk some sense into him. The man says that the tangy tacos are the best. I say its beef."

"What kind of Tacos do you even eat?" Dan inquired, "the flavor itself is one of the vices of mankind. But I love pizza, if that's what you are asking."

"Korean," Cindy spoke up.

"Get ready already!" Phil groaned.

---

Rick Enterprises.

Entering the multi-entertainment establishment, despite its name, the group waited inside a van within the parking area. "It's official, we need a bus." Nik hissed, feeling congested with everyone stuffed in the back, "Anyway, what do you even call this team?" he inquired Coulson as the man monitored the security feedback of the building. "Our initiative is termed Avengers. The Director named it himself," the man's gaze flickered for a moment while Cindy chortled, feeling her heart throb with the side of her thighs pressed against Nik's thighs, "Then the Avengers Bus?"

"An idea to bring a group of remarkable people, the Director stated," Coulson continued to whisper before shaking his head. Ava was driving the van with Dan, surprisingly, calling the shotgun. "Sounds fascinating," Steve chuckled.

"With that settled," Nik mumbled, "Check line six. and change the channel by three. Someone is interfering with our connection. Emphasis on someone." Nik stood up, opening the back of the van as Cindy called out, "Wear your mask!"

Without replying to her, a layer of white covered Nik as the pure white slime squirmed, inflating in size until it overlapped Nik's head. Vanishing from their view, Nik appeared within the security room of the 'mall' and found the security guards dead with claw marks in their chest. "Hmm, I didn't see this one," muttering to himself, Nik tore away the bug inserted within the system and instantly, the view within the van changed as hostages and a sum total of five people, one on each floor, appeared. "They are already here!" Coulson shouted as Nik's voice boomed through the mall and in return could be heard from the van's speakers. "Knock knock, Vanish here. You guys have got your fun but I am taking away the sweet, tax-payers. They are income, after all," his ghastly cackle only served to increase the panic within the mall but Nik's motive was never to settle and calm the hostages numbering in thousands in the first place.

"I suppose its a first time try everything, right?" Individual violet portals appeared above every single civilian cowering in fear and in a snapping motion, it passed through all the men and women. Turning the entire mall into that of a ghost one as Nik whispered through the microphone of the security room. "Now that I have made this the honorable battle performed on equal grounds, you five, just wait. And guys, the ground floor is mine."

Closing the security cameras which in return cut off the stunned group within the van, Nik crossed his arms as he inquired, "So, Sky? What do you think? 1028 portals created perfectly without a single hair lost." Nik felt proud. This wasn't just Sky's teaching but a fruit of his own hard work. An action produced from his own system based on spiritual energy. "A magic of my own," Nik smiled, shifting onto the ground floor and casually sitting on top of an ice-cream booth, the patches of black covering his eyes gazed at the bald man in a green leather outfit.

"Come on, you can control lightning, right? I can feel it," Nik whispered, making the masked man with yellow streaks on his face jerk his head towards Nik directions and seeing the hulking man in a suit of white with a wide grin guarded with an equally terrifying set of jagged teeth gazing at him shook the man to his core.

"What do I call you?" the monster whispered as the man named Maxwell clenched his jaws. "This was your doing!" he shouted, "Or somebody else's?" he then inquired. "You've got some swings in your mood and is that sparkles I see on your chin. Hmm, I can even sniff out a rather expensive perfume... strip club? Wow, now here's a super-villain of the century. Hey, at least you got to enjoy the buffet and before I destroy you completely, please, o' please, tell me the name of the strip club that opens in the mor—"

"Shut up!" Blue lightning covered Electro's body as his open palms created a horrifying arc of electricity as it zapped towards Nik and it struck Pickle but Nik then only lied down and rested his head over his palm. "Oh, you guys can go up. As you can see, I have the most technical guy wrapped about here quite easily."

Nik waved at the group that hurried up. His words making Electro look back. And the sight of four equally costumed heroes didn't overly please him. "N— Vanish," White Tiger hissed, "We'll talk about this later. Go!" she looked at the group and jumped up, her claws elongating from her suit as she easily climbed up the wall. Silk gave Nik one last look before she, too, webbed on the edges of the upper floors and pulled herself up.

"I'll be taking the stairs..." Dan mumbled. carefully eyeing Electro as he ran up the escalator. "What? There was an elevator right there? Am I the odd one out to use it?" Captain scratched the back of his head as Nik shouted, "No, you're not! Not this time!" With a thumbs-up to the boot.

The group of four heroes had randomly decided on their floors and as Electro looked back at Nik, the monstrosity sighed, "Just sleep, will you? I would rather watch the show and get paid," and with that, Electro's eyelids trembled as he fell to his knees.

"I shouldn't manipulate minds too much... but this guy was plain boring," Sighing to himself as Nik used his newest form of strength, an entirely new system of energy based on spirit energy and runes, voiding his own word of not using his other powers through a technicality, Nik jumped onto the first floor. That's where Ava was, after all.

Why he didn't fly?

Simple, really.

He could just reach his destination by the minimal action of springing up instead of mobilizing spirit energy and then converting it into an acceptable form of energy through runes and then flying, which would have taken the same amount of time but more processes. This is what Nik was currently trying to solve in his system. To keep it organized by using runic language but also keeping it flexible enough to match his whims as he sees fit.