Shocking Gwen!
24: Chapter 24: The Armor’s Terrifying Defense!
Shocking Gwen!
“Don’t just stand there.
Keep up!” Holden broke her train of thought.
Gwen instinctively nodded, shaking off her confusion as she silently trailed behind him.
“Quiet.
Kingpin brought his elite enforcers,” Gwen whispered, cautiously peeking out from behind a rusted shipping container and gesturing toward the distance.
“He specifically trained these guys to clear out obstacles for him!” Following her gaze, Holden spotted a squad of heavily armed mercenaries.
These guys were decked out in gear that rivaled top-tier special forces units.
Not only were they wearing state-of-the-art ballistic helmets and tactical vests, but their faces were completely covered by heavy ballistic visors.
‘Kingpin really has deep pockets,’ Holden marveled inwardly.
A single set of that tactical gear easily cost half a million dollars, and there were dozens of them patrolling the yard.
“We need to be careful.
These aren’t your average street thugs…” Gwen murmured, stretching her limbs as she analyzed the enemy’s patrols, looking for an opening.
She was fast and agile, but she wasn’t bulletproof.
Against highly trained tactical squads, she had to play it smart.
But before Gwen could even finish her tactical breakdown, the armored figure beside her simply stood up.
To her absolute horror, Holden stepped right out from the safety of the shipping container and casually strolled out into the open.
“Hey!” Gwen hissed, keeping her voice as low as possible.
“Unicorn, what are you doing?!” She didn’t know if his helmet was blocking his hearing or what, but walking straight into the open was pure suicide!
“Just testing out my suit’s specs!” Holden didn’t even look back, casually rolling his shoulders as he walked.
Beating up those street thugs earlier hadn’t provided any real combat data.
If he wanted to see what the Kabuto Zecter was truly capable of, he needed to play with the big boys.
The moment Holden stepped out, the elite mercenaries immediately spotted him.
“Control, we have an intruder!” Seeing the armored man walking so brazenly toward them, they didn’t open fire immediately.
Instead, they raised their rifles and reported the breach with cold, professional discipline.
Within ten seconds of the call, squads from every sector of the lumber yard swarmed the area, completely surrounding Holden.
Faced with a sea of assault rifles, Holden remained entirely unfazed.
He slowly reached down and rested his hand on the Kabuto Zecter attached to his belt.
“Masked Form.” He grabbed the horn of the mechanical beetle and forcefully pulled it back to the right.
[PUT ON!] The sleek, streamlined Rider Form instantly began to shift.
Holden crossed his arms as digital light flashed across his suit.
Thick, heavy plates of silver steel materialized and locked onto his body, completely encasing the armor.
The prominent beetle horn on his helmet retracted, splitting into two shorter, thicker prongs.
The lightweight aesthetic was replaced by the appearance of a walking tank, looking utterly indestructible.
He had deliberately shifted into Masked Form specifically for its absurd defensive capabilities—a defense so dense that taking a direct hit from a missile wouldn’t even leave a scratch.
“Oh my god, that is so cool!” Hiding behind the shipping container, Gwen poked her head out, her eyes wide with awe.
No science nerd could possibly resist a suit like that.
The craziest part was that she couldn’t even figure out the mechanics behind the transformation!
“Open fire!” the mercenary captain barked.
Muzzle flashes lit up the night!
A torrential downpour of bullets erupted from the rifles, converging on Holden from every direction.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Thanks to their elite training, the mercenaries fired in perfect, overlapping tactical bursts.
The deafening roar of automatic gunfire echoed through the night sky without a single pause, sounding like a million firecrackers going off at once.
The bullets slammed into Holden’s Masked Form, sending a shower of metallic fragments and sparks flying in every direction.
The flashing impacts bloomed across the surface of his heavy armor like miniature fireworks in the night sky.
The deafening clatter of lead against steel echoed relentlessly as the mercenaries kept their fingers firmly pressed on their triggers, refusing to stop until the intruder dropped.
Holden, however, just stood there with absolute indifference, calmly observing the defensive specs of his Masked Form through the barrage.
With armor this impossibly thick, the hail of bullets barely even counted as a tickle.
To him, the mercenaries were just putting on a desperate, pointless light show.
‘He actually can handle these guys!’ Gwen finally let out the breath she’d been holding.
Standing amidst the crossfire, Holden looked like an impenetrable fortress.
She had clearly worried for nothing.
At this rate, these guys couldn’t even scratch him.
“Guess it’s my turn to put on a show!” Gwen muttered.
She vaulted nimbly over the shipping container, executed a flawless mid-air roll, and rapidly fired twin streams of webbing at the elite mercenaries.
The sticky white fluid plastered directly onto their tactical visors, completely blinding them.
Just as the soldiers frantically tore at their helmets, a white blur tore through their ranks.
She swung and ricocheted off trees and obstacles with such breathtaking speed that the naked eye could barely track her.
Using Holden’s impenetrable defense as a distraction, Gwen traced a high arc through the air and landed perfectly behind enemy lines.
Caught in a brutal pincer attack, the elite squad completely fell apart.
Meanwhile, inside the main facility.
“Leave the North Coast operations to me.
If we combine our networks, our enterprise will expand overseas in no time!” a massive, bald man declared, sitting heavily on a black leather sofa.
His tailored suit looked as though it was straining to contain his sheer bulk.
Resting his right hand on a walking stick, Kingpin flashed a ruthless grin and raised his wine glass to the man sitting across from him.
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
Just as they were about to clink glasses, a frantic barrage of gunfire erupted from outside.
Kingpin frowned, his cold eyes shifting to the lieutenant standing beside him.
“Boss, we have two intruders on the perimeter!” the henchman reported rapidly, pulling out a tablet and bringing up the security feed.
“Ghost-Spider,” Kingpin noted, instantly recognizing the white suit.
“And who is that in the red and silver armor?
Iron Man?” “It doesn’t look like Iron Man, sir,” the henchman explained respectfully, bowing his head.
“No?” Kingpin’s tense shoulders relaxed slightly, and he waved a hand with outright disdain.
If it was Tony Stark, the rest of the Avengers might be right behind him.
But these two?
Just a couple of nobodies.
“Tell the doctor to initiate Plan A.
Wipe them out.” “Mr.
Fisk, is everything alright out there?” the guest asked, visibly shifting in his seat with unease.
“Relax, it’s just a minor pest problem.
It will be dealt with shortly!” Kingpin flashed a terrifyingly calm smile and picked up his wine glass once more.
Back outside.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Holden stood unhurriedly in the center of the battlefield, raising his armor’s sidearm to casually pick off the remaining guards.
A few simple, precise shots were all it took.
One by one, the mercenaries collapsed, pools of crimson soaking into the dirt beneath their helmets.
“Are you some kind of scientist?” Gwen asked, performing a mid-air twirl before landing gracefully next to him.
She was insanely curious about his identity.
She attended high-level tech expos all the time, but she had never seen anything like this.
At first, she thought he was wearing a knockoff Iron Man suit, but the tech and design were fundamentally different.
“Let’s just get inside,” Holden replied, completely ignoring her question as he stepped toward the warehouse doors.
“What is this armor made of anyway?
It can’t be regular titanium, right?” Gwen followed right on his heels, bombarding him with questions.
“Otherwise, it would have been shredded by now!
Wait…
is it vibranium?!” She really couldn’t figure out who this guy was.
BOOM!
Suddenly, the heavy warehouse doors exploded outward.
Through the billowing black smoke, over twenty grotesque silhouettes emerged.
As the dust settled, they revealed themselves as massive, mechanical spiders.
They crawled rapidly along the walls and the ground, their metal jaws clicking open to reveal heavy rotary cannons mounted directly inside their mouths!
“It’s Kingpin’s Spider-Slayers!” Gwen’s expression turned incredibly grim behind her mask.
These lethal machines had been explicitly designed and engineered to hunt her.
She had barely managed to scrap a prototype before, but she never expected Kingpin to actually mass-produce them!