Chapter 163: Little Naughty and Black Cat
"Merry Christmas in advance!"

Tony Stark greeted everyone: "Although Christmas hasn't arrived yet, the festive atmosphere here is quite good."

He glanced at Vampire Princess and Helen.

He was a little surprised after seeing Helen's appearance.

I originally thought that Vampire Queen’s appearance was stunning enough, but I didn’t expect that the woman recommended by Spider-Man was unexpectedly not much inferior to Vampire Queen.

"Let me introduce myself. I'm Tony Stark, and I'm the convener of this expedition team."

Tony looked at the people present and introduced himself.

"If you have any doubts about this mine tunnel exploration, especially about the danger, you can withdraw early. As for your reward, we will pay half of the scheduled reward."

The girl who worked as a secretary took over Tony's words and explained to everyone.

Everyone attending the meeting looked at each other, and no one offered to withdraw.

"very good."

Tony Stark touched the table with the tip of his pen and said to his secretary, "It's time to start, Daniel."

The secretary nodded and started playing the projector in the conference room.

The projector projects various images one after another.

Cooperate with the female secretary's explanation.

"There seems to be a very rich historical narrative here, and we were lucky enough to find a building that contained a lot of relevant information among the intricate stone buildings on the ground."

Various strange stone buildings appear in the picture.

"These stone houses were built very late, and although a crack adjacent to them has caused some damage to its wall, many murals that could no longer be achieved with other techniques are still preserved here."

"These carvings tell a story that seems to be unknown to us, a history that is even earlier than the starting point of all the time we know."

What appeared on the projector were all kinds of strange buildings and murals of different styles.

"This underground space is incredibly long - it starts in the Derwig area in the eastern part of the state park and runs almost across the entire national park."

Helen frowned as she listened to the secretary's explanation.

The contents of the murals before one's eyes were eerie and terrifying. Half of the carvings would make the viewer appear hesitant, while the others would clearly reveal feelings of disgust and fear.

These buildings are clearly not of the style of known civilizations and look more like some kind of humanoid creatures.

Could it be that there really was a group of vampires in ancient times who once fought against the ancestors of the "Queen"?

"These geologic layers look very much like the Comanchean period."

A freckled girl wearing glasses who was attending the meeting spoke up.

"Excuse me, who are you?"

Tony Stark asked the other party.

"I'm Anna Marie, a mutant."

The woman named Anna looked at the projection screen and continued, "During the Comanche period, there was a violent crustal bending movement, which caused this area to fall into violent turmoil. At that time, a series of peaks rose from the noise and turmoil, pointing straight to the sky. This is why this area is mountainous."

Tony watched the other person talking.

Did he remember that the other party was not a combat-type mutant?

Now it seems to have become an intelligent type?

Thinking of this, Tony lowered his head and looked through the information about the other party.

Anna Marie is a mutant who can absorb people's memories and abilities through physical contact.

The other party can quickly absorb and seize the memory, superpowers, personality and even life of other living humanoid intelligent beings through skin contact.

Ability that looks threatening.

Tony closed the document and turned his gaze towards the other party.

at the same time.

Peter, who was monitoring the on-site conference room, stared at the woman named Anna and fell into deep thought.

According to his shallow memories of the Marvel world in his previous life, this woman seemed to be the popular little rascal in the X series? !

According to Peter's memory, Rogue was initially unaware of her abilities, and her mutant powers manifested when she kissed her boyfriend, causing him to fall into a coma for three weeks.

This shocked her so much that she ran away from home, and later met Wolverine in Canada, and formed an indissoluble bond with him.

And a subsequent encounter with the Brotherhood of Mutants led her to meet the X-Men, and she became a student at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.

Magneto has attempted to capture her several times in order to use her to absorb her abilities to power his machines and turn world leaders into mutants.

At first, she couldn't control the absorbed abilities freely, so she wasn't outstanding among mutants. But as her abilities matured, she began to be able to freely choose the abilities of the objects to absorb, and even absorb the abilities of multiple objects at the same time.

In Days of Future Past, Rogue is captured by the Sentinels and taken to the X-Mansion to be kept in a Cerebro Amplifier so that the Sentinels can try to use her powers and use them to absorb the powers of other mutants.

Although the ability is not obvious now, it is definitely a BUG-level ability.

In essence, the other party's abilities are similar to his own, both of which are achieved by seizing and absorbing the superpowers of living humanoid intelligent life.

He didn't know that the embryo in his chest gave him the ability after he touched the other person.

Who will absorb whom between the two? !
Twirling the ballpoint pen in his hand, Peter looked out the window.

The warm sunlight shines in, a little bit dazzling.

The little rascal, who had no idea that he was being targeted by two guys with bad intentions, was expressing his opinions.

Although she is a mutant, she is obviously more interested in science, especially history and humanities.

If I hadn't discovered that I was a mutant, I would probably have gone to college.

Little Naughty continued to say to everyone: "I have seen similar buildings in Antarctica. They start from 70 degrees east longitude and 77 degrees south latitude and extend to 100 degrees east longitude and 70 degrees south latitude. It is in the northern section of the Queen Mary Mountains. I saw it when I was exploring with a research ship."

She likes to travel around the world and has even been to Antarctica.

"The content of this mural is as bizarre and strange as the mountains. These carvings may reveal a secret to us, that is, there were indeed a group of blood-sucking creatures in ancient times. They were superior to humans, and these buildings were their achievements."

Everyone who heard this had different expressions.

Although Vampire Princess thought about expressing her opinion on behalf of the vampires.

But he thought that he was an alien vampire and knew nothing about the history of the earth.

The daywalker stared at the murals with a serious expression.

In his eyes, these things, these strange cubes and barrier-like structures, had countless weird and bizarre buildings reaching into the sky.

As time passed, caves were carved out by flowing water; entire limestone veins were completely hollowed out by groundwater, and a complex network of interconnected caves and tunnels appeared in this underground world.

Many carvings and paintings are hidden deep in the earth, like the River Styx, never to be seen.

He seemed to be able to see the ancient vampires sleeping deep in these caves.

According to Tony Stark, the expedition team in the cave had been attacked.

So this was most likely the work of those ancient vampires inside.

If your guess is correct.

Once the ancient vampire inside is released, the whole world will probably fall into catastrophe.

Everyone present had different thoughts.

Little Naughty continued, "These murals have accurately told us what the buildings, mountains, squares, suburbs, landscapes, and lush Tertiary vegetation looked like. If we can restore the original appearance of this underground world, perhaps we can create a map."

Hearing this, Tony nodded.

That's a good idea.

To be honest, he didn't like the gloomy atmosphere inside.

The ancient, heavy, dead and remote atmosphere displayed inside is very depressing.

This kind of oppression seemed to have been tightly strangling people's souls and weighing heavily on their hearts.

"Very good. We will enter next week. Before that, I hope everyone will make corresponding preparations. After all, there really are attackers in there. My expedition team members were killed in there."

Tony Stark made a concluding speech.

Helen put on her sunglasses and walked outside.

Before leaving, she glanced at the vampire princess.

The vampire princess, with a frown on her face, didn't notice her gaze.

Midtown High School.

Gwen was kept back by her English teacher to discuss a paper, so Peter went outside to wait for her.

A convertible sports car suddenly stopped in front of him.

The black cat, wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses, waved to Peter, "Peter."

Seeing Black Cat appear here, Peter walked up to her and looked at her sports car.

"Our rock star has the time to show up here?"

"I always have enough time. After all, you have to allow a woman who messed up her concert to take some time to calm down."

She said to Peter, "Get in the car. I have something to discuss with you."

Peter glanced in the direction of the teaching building, thought for a moment, then took out his cell phone and sent a text message to Gwen.

"Thank you."

The black cat said to Peter.

Peter, who was in the passenger seat, turned his head and looked at her in astonishment.

"Thank you for what?"

The sports car had just passed an exit ramp and was passing a traffic light.

It started to drizzle, and the black cat's hair was already wet with sweat, with strands of it sticking to her forehead, adding to her wild beauty.

"Don't tell me it wasn't you who did it last time in the Kingpin Building."

"No."

"That's good. I don't have to owe you a favor."

She rubbed her eyes.

It was already dark and the windshield was wet from the rain, but under the dim street lights, it looked yellow.

"Where are you driving?"

Peter asked her.

"I go to a truck lot in Coopersburg, Manhattan. There's a sister of mine there who's a great mechanic. She's very talented. I like to have her do maintenance on my car. She's always very welcoming whenever I come over."

She said, smacking her lips.

"Do you want me to accompany you to get your car serviced?"

"is it not OK?"

The black cat licked the roof of his mouth and said to Peter, "My mouth is as dry as gauze now. I need cigarettes, coffee, or wine. Any of them will satisfy my craving."

"Sorry, no."

Peter said as a matter of course that there were no such things.

"Then we can only find a cafe or a bar. Let me purse my lips first. Staying up late is such a bad thing."

Black Cat deliberately didn't talk about her purpose of dating Peter.

A truck drove past at high speed and almost hit the sports car.

Black Cat complained to Peter: "Shit! These truck drivers drive like they're flying airplanes."

Peter nodded. "Yes, they have to support their families, so they race against time and drive day and night. Sometimes they push themselves to the limit, but many drivers are assholes, so there's no need to pity them."

"I'm different. I feed my whole family, so I don't need to work so hard. If I use my sports car as a taxi, I can earn about 35 cents a mile."

The black cat talked about his business.

"I drove over 500 miles yesterday, which is about 200 bucks. With that income, I can make over 60,000 bucks a year. I have no loans and don't have many bills to pay. Being a taxi driver is better than being a rock star."

Peter looked at the black cat who wanted to drive a taxi in surprise, "What inspired you? Not to be a thief, or your rock star?"

"Correction, I'm not a thief, I'm a robber. Also, I'm just a homeless person. I don't have a home. Isn't it good to drive around everywhere?"

Black Cat recalled his own experience, "Sometimes I quite like this feeling of being at home everywhere, like a fallen leaf in a stream, drifting wherever the stream flows. But I also hate this feeling, because to anyone or anything, I am just a passing visitor, like a ship without an anchor, a duckweed without roots."

"Am I just a passer-by to you?"

Peter asked.

"You are and are not to me," she responded.

Although she said so, Black Cat was also surprised to find that her relationship with the other party gave her an especially distant feeling.

Perhaps the closest people are the farthest, and the closest people are the most distant. The two people encountered a paradox that no one could overcome.

She was getting closer and closer to Peter, but between them lay an unbridgeable chasm: an abyss that separated them.

After all, there are a lot of things between the two people.

The soft light of the street lamp poured into the cab, and Black Cat broke the silence, "I've been talking too much nonsense too fast, I need to moisten my lips ahead."

In the community, a coffee shop came into their sight.

The two entered the store.

The table was clean and tidy, the eggs were well made, and the coffee didn't smell too bad.

The restroom next door was also very clean, with no smell of vomit or smoke.

There are no sneaky animals on the sink and the room door does not face directly onto the parking lot.

The unexpected surprise is that there is a real corridor here.

This is the fucking Four Seasons Hotel, Black Cat thought.

I thought I would encounter some awful coffee shop when I stopped in this remote neighborhood.

Looks good?

But she soon realized how wrong she was.

(End of this chapter)