Chapter 21: Scorpion
Chapter 21
Inside the bank, Xavier could see that the doors to the vault had been ripped open. "Mark super strength on the list for him." Xavier held a button at the edge of his left eye, starting a recording. 'I need to record what his powers are. Hopefully this is just a suit…"
It was not just a suit. MacDonald Gargan had been enhanced in some way. Xavier could tell from up above him as he threw mounds of cash into bags. Looking at the design of the suit, it was way too thin to be a power suit powerful enough to rip a vault door off. While above him, Xavier took the chance to look for any weaknesses in his suit.
'Hmm, looks like it was made pretty well. All the plates cover each other really well. I'd have to know the blueprint to find a good enough weakness.' He thought, double checking for anything he missed.
'Oh, the base of the tail!' The base of Gargan's tail was essentially a ball joint. It was made to be extremely flexible and not defensible. It was a good starting point for dealing with him. 'All right, enough observing.'
Dropping to the floor rather silently, Xavier made a strike to the base of the tail, cracking it. "Hey! You know it's not nice to steal right?"
Whipping around to face whoever had attacked him, Gargan attacked without wasting any time. Using his momentum from his turn, he swiped his tail at Xavier. Jumping out of the way, Xavier admonished himself for holding back so much. 'I didn't want to paralyze him by accident by breaking through the armor.' Midair, Xavier shot a web into Scorpion's face, blinding him temporarily.
"Argh!" Gargan began to attack in the general direction of Xavier while he tried to peel the webs off of his face.
"Let's try this again…" Xavier stepped out of the attack range of the tail and waited. He watched the tail swipe by twice before dashing in when it had swung all the way to the side once again, leaving the weak spot open for a split second. Just as Scorpion managed to rip the webs out of his eyes, Xavier managed to seize the moment to land a strike.
~CRUNCH~
This time, Xavier managed to control his strength correctly and properly damaged the tail. "What have you done?!" Scorpion screamed at Xavier, trying to maneuver the tail. Because of the hit it had taken, the tail was now barely hanging on.
'Wait, doesn't that design look familiar?' Xavier saw something within the tail's inner workings that triggered his memory. Before he could investigate, he felt his danger sense going off. Ducking out of the way, he barely avoided a punch from Gargan.
"Do you have any idea what they'll do when they find out the suit's broken?!" He broke down to an emotional mess, mixed with anger and fear.
"What, Scorpion not so brave without its tail?" Xavier teased.
"Y-You!" Gargan went in for another punch.
"Me!" Xavier slipped it to his side and countered with a punch of his own. Only, Xavier didn't miss. Gargan fell to his knees holding his jaw, dazed and disoriented. Taking the opportunity, Xavier began to wrap the Scorpion up in a thick layer of webs, immobilizing him.
A few moments later, Gargan regained his clear mind and began to struggle. Seeing this, Xavier chuckled. "That's not gonna get you anywhere soon, even with the strength you have."
Scorpion struggled stubbornly for a few minutes before giving in. "Hah, hah. Come on then, bring me in." Gargan adorned a resolute face, like he had accepted his fate.
"In a second. First, I want to know who 'they' are." He said, squatting in front of him.
"... I can't. If I do, they'll kill someone important to me and I can't let that happen. Surely you understand that. Otherwise, you and that other bug wouldn't wear the masks."
"Yeah, you got me there." He shrugged. 'Hmm, maybe I could look for whoever he's worried about?' Xavier asked him who it was, making Gargan hesitate.
Looking at Xavier where his eyes would be, Gargan made his decision. "If you can get my daughter away from them, I'll tell you everything that I know. But until then you get nothing that isn't important."
"I can do that. I can even have a place for her to stay for a while if you don't. A friend of mine has a good spot for a kid to stay."
"...I don't know exactly where she's kept, but Oscorp took my daughter and has been blackmailing me with her. Soon, I expect to be out of prison and doing this again. Save her, and I'll stop."
'Wow, he's a good person.' "All right, let's go and meet the police outside so they can clean the place up. Luckily, you didn't destroy much else from the doors to the place."
Outside, the ambulances had arrived and taken the injured away already. The rest of the police had surrounded the bank and were waiting for either one of them to come out behind cover. Seeing this, Xavier raised the hand that wasn't dragging Gargan to signal that he meant no harm and brought him. Dropping him close enough to the cops, he left Gargan some final words.
"Remember to cooperate with them, and we'll save your daughter Gargan." Xavier said, just before shooting a web and swinging off.
"I hope you do…" Gargan said back as the police began to approach him.
===
While he was swinging back, Xavier was thinking about Oscorp. 'That's why the design on his tail was familiar- I built it!. The armor was something else, but the insides were definitely from Dr Octavious' project.' Xavier was beginning to connect his thoughts about Oscorp together.
'This could have a few causes, but either way this means that Oscorp has begun to move. I don't know who else they'll use to their benefit but I should start making gadgets to counter for each of the Sinister Six. They'll be the most likely to be used, seeing that they've started to put Gargan out there.'
'...You know what? Let's make a stop by the Den. I need to start making this stuff Yesterday. ' He thought, changing his destination. It was Peter who had started calling the place the Den, he said that the Web sounded weird.
===
Once there, Xavier took off his mask and began to brainstorm. "Okay, okay let's start with Gargan since he's already in action. Luckily, I've been adding some purposeful flaws here and there that I can take advantage of. Ah! Before I forget." He took out the toxin sample from his inventory and put it into an analyzer.
'Okay, his suit is designed to be more armor than exosuit so I can take advantage of that. If I could have a precision weapon or tool that could get in between his armor plates, I could strip them off. But, I think the biggest threat is that tail.' Putting the first idea away for now, he thought about how to deal with the tail.
"I'm sure that they'll improve it's design with me having destroyed it so easily, so I'll have to either crush it or cut it. Can't I do that with my Spider Limbs? I can just make them sharp and thin so I can take care of his tail before he stings me.'
With that problem taken care of, Xavier moved on the next obvious addition to the Six, Doc Oc.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone