《Claws of Metal | Pietro Maximoff》C h a p t e r 4:
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I looked at myself in my body length mirror, straightening my dress. This evening was one of Tony Stark's fabulous parties, and I guess I had to actually dress up for this. If you didn't already know, I'm not a huge fan of parties, but Natasha forced me to go.
"It'll be fun." she said "You'll have a good time." she said.
I didn't know whether to believe her or not, but I just ended up going. Satisfied with my look, I went downstairs to find guests already entering the 'party room'.
"You actually came kiddo, I thought you would bail on us!" said Tony, slightly drunk already, as he walked towards me.
"Well, I would've been scolded by my mom if I didn't." I replied.
"Don't listen to her, she could be a party poooper sometimes." his words slurred a bit.
"I guess that's just why I never leave my room." I said as I turned around and left. Roaming around, I eventually found members of the Crew, but ended up sitting down on a couch quietly with a glass of water in my hands.
"Do you mind if I sit down?" asked someone above me. I looked up and saw a guy with a black suit on, curly brown hair, and light blue eyes.
"No go ahead." I replied as I slightly smiled.
"Thanks....Um so, how do you know Tony Stark?" he asked.
Having to make a quick lie, and not reveal my identity I said, "My mom, well adopted mom, is friends with Tony so I guess she decided to bring me along."
"Oh well, MY mom is the head secretary of here and she is Stark's favorite." he bragged.
"I'm sure she is." I muttered to myself sarcastically.
"What?" he asked.
"Oh nothing, I just wondered where my mom was." I replied quickly. To that, I just got a nod and seconds of silence.
"How about we just ditch this place and go somewhere else?" the weirdo offered.
"How about I get up and stop hearing you talk?" I growled as I knew the kind of game he was trying to play. No one ever messes with a person who doesn't have a good temper, and they weren't going to start now.
I got up and saw his shocked expression- it was as if he never had gotten "no" for an answer. Slightly smirking, I got up form the couch and left.
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Being sick of this, I went to the bathroom, where I multiplied into another me (dressed up and all) and let my twin go out. For those who don't know, my illusions not only look like me, but they could also talk like me and use the powers I have.
Quietly slipping out like a mouse, I ran to the comfort of my room, where I stayed there until I no longer heard the sounds of the guests.
Closing my bedroom door behind me, I made my illusion come towards my bedroom, where I made it disappear and ended up taking it's place. I then walked back to the living room, seeing the Avengers all sitting on couches.
"Whatever man it's a trick!" exclaimed Barton as I sat down on a couch, next to Thor.
"Please be my guest." chuckled The Asgardian as he pointed to his hammer.
"Really?" Clint challenged.
"Yes."
Not wanting to ask what they were talking about, I simply kept my mouth shut, until I realized that they were referring to Thor's mighty hammer. All of the Avengers looked at each other as Clint finally accepted the challenge and got up.
"Well Clint, you've had a tough week. We won't hold it against you if you can't get it up." Tony said as I chuckled with the rest.
As he tried to pull up the hammer, he chuckled of embarrassment and said,"I still don't know how you do it."
"Notice the silent judgement?" asked Tony as I rolled my eyes at him.
"Please! Stark, by all means!" Clint pointed to Stark as if Tony wanted a try.
Acting like a total boss, Tony got up. "I was never one to shrink from an honest challenge. It's just physics." He went towards the hammer and put his hand on it as he looked at Thor. "Let's get this straight, if I lift it, I rule Asgard?"
"Yes of course." said Thor as-a-matter-of-factly.
"I will be instituting premonapta."
As Tony pulled, he had put both feet on the table, but it didn't work.
"I'll be right back." he said as he eventually got his Iron Man fist, which didn't work either. After that, he had gotten Rhodes to use his Iron fist to help.
"Are you even pulling?" asked Rhodes.
"Are you even on my team?" responded Stark as he looked at him.
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"Just represent, pull!"
When they both couldn't get it, it was Bruce's turn to try. He exclaimed as he tried to lift it and held his hands in the air, only to get disapprovals amongst the crowd.
Cap had then offered to go. It shocked everyone, especially Thor, as he made it move just the slightest bit. Along with The God, my eyes widened as his attempt. I decided I would try- with the help of my illusions, but still it wouldn't budge.
"Well, I tried." said my illusions, along with the real me, at the same time.
"The answer is simple, who ever shall carry Thor's fingerprints is worthy." said Tony.
"Yes, that is a very interesting theory, but I have a simplier one," he started as he lifted his hammer with ease,"Your're all not worthy."
"Awwww." said everyone as we didn't want to hear those words. It was just then, that a loud noise went throughout the living room, as we covered our ears. Coming out of a room, an unknown robot started walking towards us all.
"How could you be worthy? You're all puppets, tangled in strings. Strings."
I released my claws just in case anything was about to happen.
"I'm sorry, I was asleep. I had a dream, there was this terrible noise and I was tangled. In Strings. I had to kill the other guy." the crazy robot said.
"You killed someone?" asked Steve.
"It wouldn't have been my first call. Much down in the real world we're faced with ugly choices." he continued.
"Who sent you?" asked Thor.
It was suddenly then that we heard Tony's voice coming through the robot.
"Ultron." said Banner all of the sudden.
"In the flesh. Or no, not yet..not in this chrysalis." informed the robot as he looked around. "But I'm ready, I'm on a mission."
"What mission?" asked Natasha.
He then looked at us and said, "Peace in our time." On contact, two of the Iron Legions burst through the walls. I multiplied into three others, and all four of us took on a robot.
"Cap!" said Clint as he threw the shield to Steve, who used it to cut a robot in half.
"That was dramatic, I'm sorry, it appears it didn't get through. You want to protect the world but you don't want to change it. How is humanity seen, if it's not allowed to work? Especially with these puppets? There's only one path to peace- The Avengers Extinction." the maniac stopped there as Thor threw his hammer at it, but not before saying, "I had strings, and now I'm free."
"What did you guys do?!" I exclaimed, a little ticked off as we had to experience that.
**
"If Ultron is on the internet and has our file and records, he probably knows more about us than we know about ourselves." I shook my head as I put my claws away that I still had out, and dissolved my illusions.
"What if it decides to access something more exciting?" asked Rhodes.
"Nuclear codes?"
"We need to call some people." someone said.
"He said he wanted us dead..."
"He did not say dead, he said extinct." corrected Steve.
"But he also said he killed somebody." added Barton.
"There wasn't anybody else in the building." stated Maria.
"Yes there was." said Stark as he suddenly pulled a holographic image up, out of nowhere. "Jarvis."
"He was our first line of defense."
"I still don't understand, if you build this robot, then why is it trying to kill us?" asked Dr. Cho.
Tony, that bastard, just laughed.
"You think this is funny don't you?" threatened Thor.
Wrong move, I thought.
"No, probably not right. This is very terrible, probably bad." said Tony, as he slightly coughed.
"This could have been avoided if-"
"No, I'm sorry! It's a problem that you don't get why we need this. We're the Avengers! How do you plan on doing this?"
"Together." said Steve.
"What if we lose?" asked Tony.
"Then we do that together also. Look he's right- it's looking for us. The world is a big place. So let's start making it smaller. Let's find Ultron, Together."
A/N
I just wanted to thank everyone who has been keeping up with story, it really means alot! Also thank you to all those who have voted for it too. Again, until next update :)
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- In Serial20 Chapters
Sword System Academia
2/17 NOTICE: I'm putting this on hiatus, possibly permanently. I didn't want to spam with an "update chapter", so hopefully here and in the story blurb will get enough eyeballs. There are a couple reasons for ending SSA for now. 1) I wrote the next chapter but wasn't happy with it. I've been less and less satisfied with SSA's quality the more I thought about it. Part of the reason is... 2) I am seriously thinking about trying to publish some novels to help pay the bills, since I don't have my other source of income anymore. I have never asked for anything from SSA readers, no money, not even a review or rating. SSA is written for fun to amuse myself, primarily, and I would kind of feel bad actually charging someone money for something as unserious as that. I don't think it is good enough to ask anything in return. To use an analogy from music, SSA is more like a jam session with a bunch of friends. You're just chiling and having fun playing some music. I mean, if you are Mozart or even Eminem, your jam session is good enough to sell, but for an amateur beginner like myself, haha, no. If I want to publish something, I feel like I need to go the proper route of practice and rehearsals, which might be more similar to a classical concert performance. With SSA, I work from worldbuilding notes and a loose outline, but what you are essentially getting is the first draft with lots of so-called pantsing. Pushing out a web novel like this also means it is very difficult to go back and improve things without breaking everything else downstream. I wanted to try this "jamming" approach, as it was a good way to teach me about another aspect of writing, but to move forward, I think I need to hone my "classical" techniques, which emphasize rewriting, or at least, revising outlines. 3) While I intend to try to make $$$, my actual current goal is to "get gud". I've spent a lot of time recently trying to understand the self-publishing industry, and I'm pretty sure I can make some money by using short-term strategies with my current amateur skill level. But I've seen too many authors come and go/burnout, and really, the only way that I think I can enjoy writing and still make money on a long-term basis is to become a better writer. And the next step for me, which I haven't done much before, is to spend more time on rewriting and outlines. That is pretty much antithetical to the way SSA is developing. I've always been kind of 20/80 plotting/pantsing, but I want to spend a lot more time outlining before I even start writing. SSA jam sessions don't really fit my goal anymore. If you're curious about what's next, read on... Among other regrets, I regret not finishing SSA. It's the first story I've dropped, but then again, it's the first web novel I've attempted, so I suppose that's not a surprise. I don't think traditional web novel formats suit me that well. The whole SSA story I had loosely planned (beyond a first book or major arc) is way too large as well. Big story = good for neverending webnovel with Patreons, bad for penniless and fickle writer like me. I am currently outlining a complete trilogy to another story in great detail. I want the story to end concisely, and I also want the chance to really spend a lot of time on the full outline to spot pacing problems, character issues, lost themes, and so on. I'll still share this story on RR. What I intend to do is finish book 1, flash-publish the whole thing here for a few weeks, then publish on the big Zon. Repeat for books 2 and 3. The upcoming story will be about crafting heroes. The backdrop is an isekai-like setting, where elves will summon humans to their world as heroes, but the whole hero crafting business is still in its infancy. The elven mage researchers are figuring out how to imbue heroes with power, while the heroes are trying to figure out how to use the powers that they gain. Humans are the best hero templates because they are blank and have no intrinsic magic. Or at least that what the elves thought. The human MC has his own secrets... There will be some similarities with litrpgs, but I would call it more a progression fantasy or gamelit story. For example, the stats are very low, at least initially. Say we have a stat called Str. Going from Str = 1 to Str = 2 is a huge deal. Also, going from Dex = 0 to Dex = 1 is an even bigger deal. I guess you could call it a "low-stat litrpg", haha. Also, the heroes won't be gaining stats simply by killing things or leveling up. You can't increase stats arbitrarily, either. There will be rules to how stats can increase, and how they work with each other. The elven mages will be figuring out these rules in order to craft stronger and stronger heroes. Some inspiration will be from cultivation magic systems, but there won't be overt cultivation, at least for now. A theme I really want to explore is the idea of interactions. That includes things like hero crafter vs hero, tactics vs strategy, skill synergies, racial interactions (dwarves, elves, etc), and son. Yeah, so hero crafting. I'm super excited about this project and venturing into publishing. If you want to check out the upcoming story, you can follow my RR author profile to see when it drops here. Finally... THANK YOU TO EVERYONE! I'm very sorry that SSA is stopping, but I hope at least some of you will find the next story at least as enjoyable, if not more. Thanks to all the readers who gave SSA a shot. Big hug or solid fistbump to all of you, whichever you prefer! I hope this message is not a downer but an upper, because I am psyched!! -purlcray -------------- BLURB: Talen, youngest Master of the Koroi, makes his way to the Empire's capital to salvage his clan's fate. 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