Chapter 7: Chapter 7 I like my weapons how I like my music: Heavy and Metal
Something I hadn't expected: apparently Extremis can't cure me of my sea sickness.
Combined with the fact that my innards were comfortably resting at a temperature hot enough to melt steel, 'projectile vomit' suddenly becomes a far more dangerous expression.
Still, at least Extremis kept me from feeling like absolute shit, and the journey towards South-Africa was progressing relatively quickly.
However, as there is virtually nothing to do inside the hold of a cargo ship, I was mostly stuck with either eating, sleeping or getting prodded and poked by Stein, who took the opportunity of having me in a position where I had nowhere to run to in order to perform a whole battery of tests.
While uncomfortable (Stein has seemed to have developed quite a fondness for the pike he claims is a syringe. He keeps stabbing me with it), the test were very informative.
Turns out that the Hulk-blood and the Extremis serum not only played nice with each other, they apparently worked on top of each other, due to the different ways they used to enhance me. The effect was a multiplication instead of a sum.
Extremis basically supercharged my muscles and organs, raising the temperature of my body to ridiculous extremes, while giving me super strength and regeneration (it was why the lithe Extremis woman had been able to match me blow for blow, despite the fact that I was twice her size and wearing power armour).
Hulk-blood enhanced me in a different way, as it made my muscles and bones not only larger, but immensely denser as well (the Hulk and Abomination had become so durable that bullets simply bounced of their skin).
So, baseline human with Hulk-blood = Big, though human who is strong enough to bend steel.
Baseline human with Extremis virus = Strong, regenerating human running quite a fever.
With me, things were somewhat different.
Extremis didn't have to work with ordinary, puny human muscles, but with muscles enhanced by Hulk-blood to be larger and denser than normal, which on their own made them plenty strong already.
The result?
Supercharged, superheated Hulk-enhanced muscles. Basically, I was stronger than any human injected with Hulk-blood, and I was capable of reaching higher temperatures than any human enhanced by Extremis.
As was made clear to me when I started bench-pressing one of the shipping containers, the veins in my arms glowing brightly in the dim belly of the hull as my bulging muscles exerted themselves in lifting multiple tons of steel and cargo.
It wasn't effortless, but considering the container weighed in at somewhere around 3 tonnes, I should either be wearing power armour for this or be squashed flat like a bug. Instead, I had been lifting the container for half an hour now, the massive regeneration keeping my muscles from tiring, though probably not indefinitely.
Briefly, the urge to find someone to test my strength against overwhelmed me when I lifted the container with the ease that I did, the haze that came over me right after injecting myself with Hulk-blood rushing back with some familiarity, but I was quickly snapped out of it when I realized that the heavy hitters on the Avengers can probably lift 10 times that.
And there are beings out there who are even stronger than they are.
That quickly cooled my enthusiasm (figuratively of course, considering the Extremis-fuelled volcano that now seemed to live inside of me), but I quickly came out of my funk by experimenting with my new powers.
I had never realized that breathing fire could be so fucking awesome!
I felt like a dragon or something, and (much to Stein's annoyance) I kept the rest of the journey randomly spouting great bursts of flame, then grinning like a loon at my newfound status as living flamethrower (which are awesome on their own. Having one in your throat only multiplies the amount of awesome to critical levels).
Sadly (sarcasm much?) our wonderful sea-trip had to come to an end as we made port in Cape Town, South-Africa (and no matter what Stein tells you, I did not end up on my knees kissing the ground, tearfully thanking it for not moving so damn much. I already destroyed the pictures so there's no proof).
Still, we had finally made landfall, on the 16th of August, 2011, which gave me around half a year to finish Step 5: get money, while also completing Step 7: take Ulysses Klaue's stuff.
Unfortunately, I still had to actually find Gollum. Fortunately, I had Google Maps, and I knew that Hulk fought the Hulkbuster-armor in Johannesburg, so I could just find the nearest beach and start looking there for Klaue's derelict ship. Unfortunately, it's a fourteen hour drive from Cape Town to Johannesburg, and taking a plane there was out of the question.
Most unfortunately though?
Johannesburg is an inland town: there are no shores anywhere near it.
When I discovered that I spent a good twenty minutes roaring in anger, fire literally spewing from my mouth as I cursed the producers of Marvel Studios for not doing their goddamned research before making their movies (then again, I only discovered the problem just now, so was being a tad hypocritical, but at the moment I didn't care).
Eventually I calmed down enough to realize that whatever I was going to end up doing, I couldn't stay hidden inside the cargo ship forever (especially since they had begun unloading it), so my best bet was to simply make my way to Johannesburg, and then use a outwards spiralling search-pattern to find Klaue.
But first, I had to get off this ship.
Getting on the ship had been surprisingly easy: in the dead of night, when the only people present were exhausted firemen trying to contain the hellish nightmare the pier I had fought on had turned into, I came in with sealed boxes with our equipment inside from underneath the water (I had almost forgotten that since I had salvaged most of my armour from the Navy model drone, it also doubled as a submarine), then put those boxes inside the containers that I knew where meant for Cape Town (which were easy enough to find, as most shipping manifests were shockingly easy to get to if you had a motivated, hyper-intelligent genius on your side). Then, when they were scheduled to be shipped out, me and Stein simply hid ourselves inside one of them and presto, we were on board a trans-Atlantic voyage.
Now, we simply did the same but in reverse.
During the day, the containers (and therefore, us as well) were offloaded from the ship and stacked onto the harbour, waiting for their further distribution by train or truck or whatever other mode of vehicular transportation.
When night fell, I kicked open the door of the container I had hid in, and started ripping open the doors of the units in which I had stuffed Stein and the rest of our stuff. While I began loading everything in a single container, Stein went off to find us a truck which we could borrow for an unspecified amount of time, without asking (stealing is just such a harmful word, you know?).
While Stein went off to procure our transportation, I kept on working as fast as I could, trying to get everything done before someone (dockworkers, drugdealers, hell, maybe even a few spies. In this universe, anything was possible) could show up and notice us.
Which is of course, the exact moment someone did show up.
It was a group of four men, and judging by their shifty expressions, lack of protective gear, and the way too fancy suitcase the guy in front was carrying, cuffs linking his wrist to the handle, I could tell they had just as much right being here as I had.
Which meant, none at all.
Thankfully, I was standing in the shadows cast by the container I was currently stuffing to the brim with advanced scientific equipment, so the dealers (of what exactly I didn't bother to think about) could only see a giant silhouette.
Turning towards them (making sure my features stayed hidden in the shadows) I focused on willing the heat in my eyes to increase, which as Stein had told me, made them glow up like a pair of overheated coals.
"You saw nothing. Keep moving." I growled, trying to do the Christian Bale version of Batman while I spoke (which meant that I sounded like I sprinkled gravel over my cereal every morning).
However, when combined with their already existing nervousness, it appeared that my deep rumbling voice, glowing hellish eyes and massive shadowed frame sufficed to get my meaning across, and resolutely not looking my way, they hurriedly walked onwards, towards whatever nefarious meeting they had planned.
I paused in my work long enough to keep an eye on them until they turned a corner and were out of my sight, before I hurriedly finished my work, trying to get all of it done until either they regained their courage or until someone else showed up who proved to be less easy to scare off.
Thankfully, I was almost done when those dealers showed up, and within three minutes everything was packed up and ready to go. It took another two minutes for Stein to show up (as he had never driven a truck before, his arrival was heralded by the sound of an engine and gearbox, slowly being tortured to death).
Hitching up the container to the truck was somewhat of a hassle, but between my super strength and Stein's intellect (not to mention several Google-searches and YouTube instructional videos) we got it done right as the dawn hesitantly shone its first lights upon the shore of South-Africa, as we drove off into the remains of the night.
Like I said, it's a fourteen hour drive from Cape Town to Johannesburg, and every time it was Stein's shift to drive again (which always made me feel slightly guilty towards the engine of our truck) I spend pouring over maps we had liberated from whatever tourist info centre we came across.
During those long sweltering hours on the road (or at least, Stein kept complaining that they were sweltering. I barely even registered temperature anymore, always feeling comfortably warm) my mood kept getting worse and worse as I realized how truly fucked I am due to the MCU-producers not knowing their topography.
Because there is no such thing as a shore near Johannesburg, I now had no idea where to go look for Gollum other than in an ever widening search pattern. Finding Ulysses by just going around and looking for him would take ages, and while I had some time before Loki showed up, I wanted to be back in America well beforehand.
So, after getting rid of the map in frustration (it burned up in my hands after my realization that it was absolutely useless in helping me find Klaue, which annoyed Stein to no end as he now had no idea where we were going), I spent the rest of the trip to Johannesburg (a full six hours of either staring out the window, or trying to keep the old truck going after the abuse it suffered under Stein's inexperienced driving) sulking about my problem, plotting and dismissing hundreds of idea's as how to get my hands on that shiny Vibranium.
It was only due to the efforts of some misguided idiots that I finally found my answer: we were carjacked.
Or at least, that was the intention of our would-be robbers. We were still about an hour out from Johannesburg, finally hitting asphalt again, when out of the underbrush on either side of the road sprang three beat-up cars. They quickly sped up, two riding in front of us, two on either side of the cabin, and two behind us.
There was a lot of shouting involved, and guns being waved, and while Stein was clearly panicked by the violent demands for us to stop the truck, I couldn't help but grin.
"Stein. Stay down. I'll handle it."
Taking a good look at the thuggish looking brutes waving around pistols and machine guns, the scientist simply gives a jerky nod, before slamming on the brakes, killing the engine and diving underneath the dashboard (in the process almost making the cars behind us slam into the container, and given the fact none of them wore seatbelts I could see the criminals getting thrown around their cars when the drivers were forced to slam on the brakes as well. That should teach you: always wear your seatbelt).
As we all come to a stop in a great cloud of dust, a lean guy jumps out of the car on my side of the cabin, waving around a machine gun while yelling at me to open the door or else get my brains splattered across the ceiling.
I make no reaction to show I had even heard him, sinking a little further down in my seat instead. This clearly infuriates the car thief, as he runs up to the cabin, hand outstretched to the door handle, ready to rip it open-
BLAM!
-right as I kick it straight off its hinges, sending it (and with it, the would-be mugger) crashing back into the car with enough force that it completely crumples around the impact, killing both the thug and the driver, and at the least knocking out the occupants on the other side of the car.
In the shocked silence that follows, I jump out of the truck, sprinting towards the two cars at the front of us with a speed that would put a cheetah to shame. Heat is starting to build up inside me, and even though I couldn't see it, I just knew my eyes are lighting up like gateways to Mephisto's bedroom.
Within seconds, I reach the car on the right, and in a beautifully executed Spartan kick, slam my booted foot at the top of the frame where the front and back door meet. The car nearly tips over from the force of my blow, and before it can settle back down, I reach into its belly and lift it straight from the ground.
By now, the four thugs in the other car have gotten out, two on either side of it, but they have yet to open fire, a mistake for which they pay for with their lives. I throw the car at the two guys on the left side of the other vehicle, with enough speed that it catches them both and then keeps on flying for about 10 feet, before it comes crashing down and slides along another 5 feet, reducing them to paste.
While this is happening, I have already ran towards the remaining two car thieves, vaulting over the boot of their car before nailing the guy in the front with a sweeping kick that slams into his chest, which blasts him into his accomplice with enough force it shatters both their bodies.
RATTATTATATA!
And now the rest have caught on, opening fire with their machine guns and pistols, the truck completely forgotten in their rage and panic.
I quickly duck behind the car, before grabbing the underside and with a heave, throwing it on its side. Then, I pick it up by the axels and using it as a battering ram, charge for the guys on Stein's side of the truck.
However, between the larger distance between this group and the one I had just disposed of and the way dragging the car slowed me down, I don't manage to actually catch any of the guys (three this time), instead ploughing into their car with my makeshift shield, totalling both vehicles with an ear-deafening crash.
They had to jump out of the way from my charge though, and were more disoriented than me from their sudden tumble in the dust and the bang that had just gone off right next to their ears, so I still have the initiative.
I turn towards the two guys on the right, and before they can point their guns at me, I leap towards them, grasping each head in one of my hands, before I bring them together like I'm trying crack a couple eggs for my omelette.
Though I prefer my omelettes with a bit less brains, thankyouverymuch.
As I straighten however, a gunshot rings out behind me, and pain explodes in my lower back.
Intellectually, I knew that apart from a headshot (and maybe even then) I had nothing to fear from small-arms gunfire, as I could survive it. Still, knowing that you're going to be fine after getting shot, and actually getting shot I discovered are two vastly different things.
I might have screamed, but if I had, then the noise was drowned out by a further six gunshots barking across the battlefield, each shot hammering into my back with enough force it felt like I was getting punched by the berserker Extremis woman all over again.
The shots throw me towards the ground, as I land on my hands and knees in whatever remained of the ex-car thieves heads, pain and heat flaring all over my back, even as bits of grey matter stick to my pants and shirt.
But with the heat, comes rage.
That urge to let loose, to truly test my strength, that ever-present itch that had been at the back of my skull ever since I had taken part of the universe's most infamous rage-monster into myself flared back to life again, roaring to finally be unleashed.
And so I let it.
As the soon-to-be dead man hesitantly approaches my hunched form, I suddenly yell out in rage, the temperature inside me reaching extreme new heights, my shirt catching fire in a great ball of flame, revealing my ridged spine and raised ribcage.
Straightening myself, feeling the bullets stuck in my back being pushed out from their entry wounds while also slowly liquefying, I turn back towards the idiot who shot me, flames dancing around my torso, the air shimmering around my body as tarmac melts underneath my feet.
The guy has just enough time to swallow and lift the gun towards me, before I'm suddenly right there, my white-hot glowing hand shooting forwards, fingers outstretched, slamming through his ribcage and emerging through his back, though there is no blood as the massive wound was immediately cauterized.
Lifting the corpse stuck on my arm, I turn towards the two remaining cars at the back of the truck (I could see the muzzles of their guns flashing, I could hear the shots ringing out, I could feel their bullets impacting my flame-wreathed from. I just didn't care), before reaching back like a pitcher at a baseball game. Then I throw the guy I had turned into a shish-kebab at the car on the right, sending him straight through the front window and into the boot.
That was apparently too much for the guys in the remaining car, as they stopped shooting, jumped in and tore off without even looking back. The other criminals weren't so lucky, as I had just broken their car, so they were stuck with me.
With desperate eyes they glance at each other, before resuming their shooting at my flaming form, yelling as loud as they could to mask their own fear, all the while slowly backing away as I advance, trying to keep some distance between my white glowing fists and their vulnerable bodies.
It was useless.
The beast inside me was raging to its heart's content, but I was still there, and I subtly reminded it that we also had a ranged option. And with that, I stop, opened my mouth, and breathe the biggest flame I had ever seen in either life so far (and I between the two lives I've had, I've seen Rammstein in concert five times, so that's saying something).
With my massive body also came massive lungs, and I kept up my flame throwing for a full five minutes, long enough for all the screams to die out. When I ran out of breath (and enemies to fight) the inner beast (which I was surprised to find I even had, as I had chalked up my more aggressive impulses to my own changed personality, rather than an internal alter-ego) subsided and I got control over my body again.
And promptly threw up.
The smell of burned flesh is horrible, yet was everywhere around me. The feeling of a human being dying underneath your hands is somehow worse, yet I kept picturing the man I had shoved my arm straight through, over and over again.
I fell to my knees on the ruined road (some small, numb part of me noticing I was naked again) simply staring at the vision of hell that was before me.
That I had created.
Dimly, I heard the remaining door of the truck open, before hesitant footsteps approached me.
"Michael? Michael, what's going- oh Jesus!"
I could hear the scientist retch behind me, but still I didn't move from my kneeling position, noticing that I'm not crying. Whether that is because my tears keep evaporating, or because I'm still in shock I don't know, and frankly, at the moment I don't care.
"Michael? What the hell happened?"
It takes a monumental effort before I managed to work my jaw enough to from words, and when I finally manage to, they surprise both Stein and me as well.
"I lost control."
Because that's what all this was. This was what happened when a superhuman (a category which as of this year, suddenly includes me) loses control: others die.
I had never been a fan of DC's 'no killing rule', especially when it came to irredeemable psychopaths like the Joker, nor did I ever really buy into the whole 'humans hate/fear mutants' that the mutant storylines were based on (people somehow cheer for the Avengers, but hate mutants, while some Avengers aren't even human at all? Where's the logic in that?) but looking at the devastation around me, which I caused because I became angry enough to lose control?
I got it now. When people could do things like this, especially when they get angry, you cannot help but be afraid. Because even without superpowers, humans were capable of doing horrible things after just one, really bad day. Throw in superpowers, and the damage people could do to each other would monumentally increase.
This wasn't supposed to happen though. Not to me. Not in a Self-Insert. Those were all wish fulfilment stories, a little bit of mindless fun. Become friends with your favourite superhero, shag your celebrity crush(es), be adored by your allies, feared by your enemies and all that.
'Except, you chose to do none of those things, did you?' a tiny voice (either my conscience or Ant-man) whispered inside my mind.
"Michael? What are we going to do?"
Stein's hesitant voice dragged me from my morose contemplations, and feeling as if my head was made out of lead, I raised it enough so I could look him in the eye, exhaustion filling every part of my being.
"We're going to go with my original plan. Before all… thishappened. We ask them where we can find Klaue."
"Do you think they know where he is?"
"If they don't, they'll know someone who does."
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone