Marvel's Princess - Chapter 29
As a ghost, Miss Pick-up was invisible to the naked eye but could be captured by cameras and smartphones, suggesting that ghosts don’t possess true invisibility but are simply unseen by humans.
Bella had given up on optical invisibility due to its complex physical principles, which hurt her head just thinking about the massive calculations involved. However, ghost-like invisibility seemed worthy of study and emulation.
While she pondered this, she was suddenly grabbed by the neck and pushed against a wall. The assailant’s fingers tightened, seemingly ready to strangle her.
Bella fought back with considerable strength, capable of bench-pressing a ton, her panic not diminishing her power, which far exceeded human limits.
Despite her efforts, the assailant’s grip barely loosened, instead lifting her thirty centimeters off the ground.
“You’re looking for death!” Bella punched forward, but her attacker suddenly released her, making her strike the air.
Before she could regain her balance, the attacker reappeared behind her, grabbing her collar and smashing her into the hospital wall with a loud crash. Bella’s forehead met the wall intimately.
She used her excellent reflexes to grab the attacker’s arm in a critical moment.
The texture was odd, not the smooth spandex she expected but covered with dense, uneven protrusions, some retracting, others extending, as if she had grabbed an arm entire of eyes.
Disgusted, she exclaimed, “What the heck is this? Come here!” Despite feeling dizzy and unwell, she wasn’t about to let her attacker off quickly. Following the arm to what seemed like the head, she didn’t care about the disgust, and she forcefully smashed it against the wall.
The attacker might have had some mechanical augmentation, which gave him great strength, but his agility was compromised by the need to maintain optical invisibility.
Bella grabbed his head and repeatedly slammed it against the wall. A series of cracking noises followed, and suddenly, a vague human silhouette appeared in her hands.
The head, shoulders, and upper body became partially visible, while the legs remained hidden.
This was a tall man, over six feet, his body covered in dense optical lenses, making Bella feel as if countless eyes were watching her, an uncomfortable sensation.
Realizing his cover was blown, the man turned and ran.
“See where you can run!” Bella dressed like an ordinary person, and Claire had no criminal records, making their presence in the hospital quite normal. However, the man’s outfit, laden with bizarre optical lenses, looked outlandishly suspicious.
She executed a sliding tackle, kicking at the man’s shin. The impact burst several more optical lenses on his leg. Although most of the lenses on his body were still operational, his form could no longer be wholly concealed.
He ran out in panic while Bella stood her ground, not bothering to chase.
This was a hospital, and the man’s extravagant disguise made it impossible not to notice him.
Chasing him would only draw more attention to Bella.
She didn’t want to chase, but the injured Claire had a different opinion: “We can’t let that guy go! He’s killed a lot of people! We have to catch him!”
“You and your brother just pinned that ‘killed a lot of people’ charge on him, didn’t you?” Bella scratched her head, intrigued by the invisibility suit, and reluctantly agreed to pursue it.
However, she advised Claire to stay in the hospital to recover while she went after the fugitive.
Claire pulled out a map from her pocket, marked with potential hiding spots in Phoenix that they had identified. Bella took the map and drove away from the hospital.
Having lived in Phoenix for over a decade, Bella still found it a strange city.
Driving south across four states from Fawcett Town to Phoenix was manageable on the highway, but once she circled the vast, sixth-largest city in the U.S. a couple of times, she began to lose her bearings.
Fortunately, her car had an AI assistant, and Miss Pick-up guided her.
“Take me home.”
Bella was startled, “What? Was the Stark Tower on that street we just passed? I thought it was the next intersection.”
She wasn’t sure what job Miss Pick-up had, but her navigational skills were far superior to Bella’s.
Claire’s markings on the map were simple, assuming Bella, a local, would understand. Unfortunately, Bella didn’t get it! Thankfully, Miss Pick-up did.
“Take me home.”
“Okay, left turn, right?”
“Take me home.”
“Is there a road here? Did you get it wrong? Oh, there is indeed a road!”
Lucky for her, she found nothing at the first hiding spot, but at the second one, she discovered clues—a few optical lens fragments and faint, gray footprints on the ground.
Now more cautious after learning from scientists, Bella began negotiating terms with Miss Pick-up.
“No need to praise me this week; just go in and scout the enemy’s numbers and weapons!”
Determined to use the supernatural to overcome science, Miss Pick-up seemed to find the terms agreeable and floated in for reconnaissance. She soon returned.
“Take me home.”
After interpreting the ghostly information: “You mean there are two people inside? A woman is tied up, and the man is the Invisible Man with a handgun?”
Bella gained a new appreciation for Miss Pick-up, became familiar with the city’s roads, and recognized handguns—she wasn’t a ghost from ancient times.
Ghosts can’t stay away from their host for long, and dealing with the Invisible Man would require Bella to act herself.
Their current hideout was in an abandoned factory. Bella applied a mental suggestion of ‘invisibility’ to herself, making her unseen by others around her.
Her skill in mental suggestion was still essential, far from being a spell.
Entering the factory, she soon heard furious shouts.
The idea of cutting power to fight the enemy was great, but she had no idea where the circuit breaker was. For now, she could only climb the scaffolding, relying on her superior physical abilities to navigate along the steel beams of the derelict factory.
Become a Patron to read chapters ahead of public release and support me 😉
Read up to 30 chapters ahead on p atreon.