Assimilation

A tall figure stood before Fu Qinghai, staring coldly at him.

A huge, grotesque metal mask covered its head. Dense, thick black tendrils like braids hung around it. Its iron-black shoulder guards, breastplate, arm guards, greaves, and groin guard had a bizarre, alien design. The skin exposed between the armor was as rough and ugly as crocodile hide.

A Yautja!

Fu Qinghai finally understood what the blurry shadow he had seen earlier was: a Yautja who had snuck into Stark Tower while invisible!

Two long, razor-sharp wrist blades had extended from the box on the terrifying alien warrior's forearm. Blood dripped from their tips.

Fu Qinghai's eyes widened. Before he could react, an overwhelming force seized him by the collar and yanked him up. Then his body left the ground, and the world spun around him.

A moment later, he crashed heavily onto the floor with a bang, and the gun flew from his hand.

The Yautja had grabbed Fu Qinghai with one hand and hurled him into the middle of the living room.

The bang startled everyone inside. They all turned to look at Fu Qinghai, lying on the living-room floor.

Ignoring the pain in his back, Fu Qinghai hurriedly surveyed the room.

Tony Stark, clad in his Iron Man Armor, sat dejectedly on the floor, leaning against a shattered liquor cabinet. His red-and-gold armor was cracked in places, with some fissures wide enough to fit a finger. Sparks flickered inside them. His helmet had been completely smashed, leaving his entire face exposed.

Not far from Tony Stark sat Colonel James Rhodes, wearing his silver-and-black War Machine armor. He was in much the same condition as Tony.

But a strangely shaped metal spear had been driven through a crack in the armor over Colonel Rhodes's shoulder, pinning him to the wall behind him. He was on the verge of death.

So that was why the Yautja wasn't carrying his signature collapsible spear. It was stuck in poor Colonel Rhodes.

Fu Qinghai looked to the other side.

A black-haired woman in a black tank top and camouflage pants held a classic silver Desert Eagle, holding the terrified Pepper Potts hostage.

In the middle of the room, a young white-haired man hovered in the air. He was extraordinarily handsome, with the look of a Half-blood. He wore white slacks and nothing above the waist, exposing a muscular torso marked with strange black patterns. He wasn't very tall.

He frowned as he looked down at Fu Qinghai. The skin around his eyes was unnaturally flushed, making him look somewhat deranged.

On the other side stood a bald, burly white man holding a bulky American-made M32 Grenade Launcher. Seeing the weapon in his hands, Fu Qinghai understood the explosions and the blasted-open stairwell fire door he had encountered earlier.

Ignoring the other bodies on the floor and Fu Qinghai himself, there were four villains and three heroes present.

"What's going on?" The white-haired young man frowned at the Yautja. "Musa, who is this?" He had been in the middle of a long speech, and was clearly displeased by this unknown interloper.

"Eavesdropper," the Yautja replied in standard English, his voice muffled by his oversized helmet.

A red beam shot from a round opening on the side of his helmet, scanning Fu Qinghai from head to toe.

"Ordinary human." After the scan, the Yautja delivered his verdict.

"An ordinary human? Did he come here to die?" The white-haired young man glanced at Fu Qinghai, puzzled.

The three heroes looked just as confused.

This... was awkward. What should he do? What could he do? Faced with such a hopeless situation, Fu Qinghai's mind raced as he frantically recalled the movies, anime, and novels he had seen, trying to remember how their weakling protagonists had turned the tables.

Talk his way out of it! Right, they always talked their way out.

"Ahem!" Though he had no idea what to say, Fu Qinghai still gave a light cough from where he lay. "Everyone, could you hear me out first?"

"No." The white-haired young man, who had just been delivering a long speech, now gave a remarkably curt reply.

"Bang!"

"Argh!" Fu Qinghai screamed as a burst of blood erupted from his thigh.

A wisp of smoke curled from the black-haired woman's gun. She pointed its barrel back at Pepper's head and said coolly, "No one should interrupt Lord Murakami while he's speaking. That's the first lesson you need to learn when you enter the Reincarnation World, newcomer."

The Reincarnators present had already decided Fu Qinghai was one of them. Otherwise, his inexplicable behavior would have been difficult to explain.

Ah... damn it... He said he wouldn't listen, so why shoot me? Were you some kind of lovesick fool? Fu Qinghai writhed in agony and let out a pained howl. He felt as if his thigh had been blown apart. Bright red blood gushed from the wound, quickly forming a pool on the living-room floor.

After silencing the clueless interloper for the moment, everyone's attention returned to the standoff.

At that moment, no one noticed the black bird that seemed to flash past the blue sky beyond the glass wall.

"Just get it over with... Enough damn talking. I've seen more death than I can count in Vietnam. You think I'm afraid of some goddamn mutant freak?" The dying Colonel Rhodes raised his head and spat a mouthful of blood at the white-haired young man.

After Fu Qinghai's interruption, the white-haired young man seemed to have lost his patience for negotiation. His bloodshot eyes fixed on Tony Stark's, and Iron Man met his gaze with an equally cold, fearless stare.

"Fine. Very well..." The white-haired young man nodded with a sinister smile. "What courage!"

As soon as the words left his mouth, he drew a sharp breath and swept one hand forward. A dark ripple appeared out of nowhere in the air and spread toward Iron Man on the floor.

No one expected what happened next. Fu Qinghai, lying in a pool of blood and groaning softly, curled up like a shrimp, suddenly sprang forward with all his strength. Using the last of his energy, he pushed himself upright with one hand and one leg and blocked the dark ripple.

"Smack!" Fu Qinghai was struck in midair and went rigid. He fell like a sack of mud in front of Iron Man. His chest felt shattered, his organs ground into pulp. A tidal wave of pain swept through his nerves, leaving him unable even to scream.

Tony Stark had already resigned himself to death. He stared blankly at what had just happened.

Everyone present was stunned.

"Damn it, you arrogant little ant... You really don't value your life!"

Seeing some worthless nobody dare to block his attack enraged the white-haired young man. Perhaps the battle in which he had just dismantled two suits of Iron Man Armor had left him exhausted. He paused to catch his breath, but couldn't muster another strike like the first.

[You saved Iron Man Tony Stark's life, achieving a milestone event!]

[Calculating Assimilation Points... 7136 points]

[Reincarnator near death. Preparing recovery. Please choose an item within your control or an acquired ability to assimilate as soon as possible]

"Control... item..."

The pain from his shattered body had already clouded Fu Qinghai's consciousness and blurred his vision. Yet the voice in his mind remained cold and clear, unaffected by his agony. A wheezing sound escaped his throat along with blood and chunks of flesh. Slowly, he reached out his right hand, using all his strength to grasp at anything within reach.

Tony Stark stared blankly at the blood-soaked figure before him. Fu Qinghai's hand closed around a large hard drive plugged into an electronic device beside him.

[Selection confirmed. This assimilation will consume 7012 Assimilation Points. Beginning assimilation... 1%, 15%, 30%...]

Suddenly, a fair hand gently pulled the hard drive from Fu Qinghai's desperate grip.

[Assimilation interrupted]

"So..." The white-haired young man, still hovering in the air, turned the hard drive over in his hand and examined it. "You gave your life for this thing?"

He chuckled. "Then you can have it." With that, he drove the hard drive's connector hard into Fu Qinghai's skull.

"Pfft—" The hard drive, forged from a solid block of alloy, plunged into the back of Fu Qinghai's head. Its metal connector sank deep into his brain stem. Fu Qinghai stopped twitching and died for good.

The white-haired young man slowly rose, flicked the blood spattering his hand away, and ran a hand through his sweat-damp hair.

"That little interruption is over. Now... it's time to send you on your way, Mr. Stark."

Before he finished speaking, the floor-to-ceiling windows shattered with a crash. A black figure with folded metal wings burst through the glass wall and slammed into the white-haired young man, knocking him out of the air and sending them both tumbling across the floor.

Before they could scramble to their feet, Falcon Sam Wilson shouted into his earpiece, "Captain, now!"

A muscular man in blue burst through the door. He spun the Vibranium Shield in his hand with all his strength, its sharp rim crashing into the Yautja. Caught off guard, the Yautja hurriedly raised an arm to block, but he had lost the initiative. Captain America's follow-up combination drove him back step by step.

The black-haired woman, witnessing this, was so enraged her eyes nearly bulged. She was about to pull the trigger when, with a swish, an arrow appeared, embedded in her temple.

Her hand, still gripping the Desert Eagle, fell limply to her side. Pepper quickly broke free and scrambled over to Tony Stark.

The bald man clutching the grenade launcher hurriedly dove behind the bar to avoid the ghostly arrows coming from an unknown direction. He crawled among the furniture wreckage, yanked the tiny microphone from his ear, and roared into it, "Banks! Weren't you supposed to be keeping Captain America busy?"

There was silence on the other end of the microphone. Then came a mocking chuckle. "Sorry, Grant. Actually... I never chose the same side as you in the first place."

"Son of a—traitor! You goddamn—"

"Swish!" Another arrow buried itself in the bald white man's bare head.

"That's enough!"

"Boom—" A thick column of blue-white light erupted from the floor. The shock wave blasted Falcon, who was wrestling with the white-haired young man, as well as Captain America and the Yautja, who had been locked in fierce combat, away from each other.

When the column of light faded, the white-haired young man hovered in midair, his face twisted and his eyes bloodshot. His once-bulging muscles had shrunk and collapsed, while the black markings had spread to his neck. It seemed he was burning through his life force.

Captain America, Steve Rogers, silently rose to his feet. Without a word, he hurled the Vibranium Shield. It spun toward the white-haired young man, who vanished and reappeared in an instant, dodging the incoming shield. A fist as big as a sandbag met him instead.

"Thud! Thud! Thud!" Captain America's punches landed one after another, each blow driving into the white-haired young man. He gave him no chance to strike back.

The white-haired young man shoved both hands forward with all his strength. A translucent blue-white shield of hexagonal cells materialized in front of him, barely blocking Captain America's relentless blows.

But he failed to notice the shield he had just thrown. After smashing through the floor-to-ceiling window and flying outside the building, it had spun around and was coming back.

"Thump!" The Vibranium Shield slammed into the white-haired young man's lower back. He could no longer sustain the Power of Orochi he had gained by burning through his life force. He spat out a mouthful of black blood and crashed to the floor.

Seeing this, the Yautja, who had somehow made his way to the doorway, gave everyone in the room a long look. His figure slowly turned transparent and disappeared.

No one noticed the tiny electrical arcs flickering between the hard drive lodged in Fu Qinghai's skull and his brain stem.

[Control regained. Beginning assimilation... 78%... 99%... Assimilation complete. Reincarnator's soul recovered]

[Reincarnation Life -1]