𝐝𝐞𝐣𝐚 𝐯𝐮, peter parker

li. the power of the sun

chapter fifty-one
the power of the sun

now. this is going to hurt, but I need u guys to read these next two chapters in one sitting. they'll flow together better - as if they're just one after the other ... it'll give u the best experience, even if it is a painful one </3

    NINA DOESN'T know how long it has been. She knew it was night━she had been stuck here that long until Doctor Octavius returned. Outside, a thunderstorm raged on; and the lightning sparked a crack of sheer, blinding white beams through the cracks of the rotten wood━it illuminated Doc Ock and his workspace into an ominous scene straight out of Frankenstein. He had taken her from the cafe straight to the piers on the shore of the Hudson River. An old, dirty, rundown wharf that was on the brink of collapse into the water━lost and forgotten with the perfect view of Ellis Island through the splintered walls and shattered windows. The Statue of Liberty looked ghostly within the dark fog. 

    Nina tugged, annoyed, at the ropes that kept her arms clung to the wooden pillar above her. Her arms themselves were starting to ache from keeping them up for so long; each tug rubbed a burning rash against her wrist. Her hair and clothes were drenched from the rain that spat through the caved in roof above her. Chains wrapped from the wood and around her waist, keeping her frustratingly still. She shook her wet hair away from her face, frowning onwards to the Doc Ock's workstation. Barely anything was left of the brilliant scientist. Now, all he had become was a mutation of who he once was━a living and breathing host of an artificial intelligence parasite that lived and thrived; writhing in the form of metal arms from his back. They leered over his shoulder, one glanced backwards at her and she knew it could see her as if having eyes of its own with that single, gleaming red light in the centre of its talons. Octavius didn't just have eyes on the back of his head, he had eyes everywhere. 

    Octopuses were insanely intelligent. Studies were ongoing━still, they were finding more and more evidence to show just how smart they were; and it was almost chilling to think that they had even the capability to do things━treat animals━in such ways purely for fun. Like dolphins, and killer whales, an octopus held a dangerous capability beyond what the human mind originally had thought. They reminded her of artificial intelligence in that way, and now she looked at a way that they had been combined. It was haunting and terrifying to see it take over the mind of man. 

    And a genius mind at that. 

    Nina was a firm believer that the laws of science existed to govern the world. She believed it was a scientists right and responsibility to stay true to them to keep the world safe, humble and true━to make sure that no ambitious mind sought to defy them in a way that would hurt anyone else. There was a greater power than them all: laws that could not be broken, no matter how hard they tried without dire consequences. Newton's laws of motion were a perfect example of this. One: an object will not change its motion unless a force acts upon it. Such as a box. A box cannot move on its own unless, for example, someone or something physically uses force to push it or pick it up. Two: the force of an object is equal to its mass times its acceleration. F = ma, for her to simplify: the acceleration must be in the same direction as the applied force, such as a moving car. But third and final, she found the most important: that for every action in nature, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Now this could be applied to━for example━a spinning ball. The air is deflected to one side, but the ball reacts by moving in the opposite. This means that no matter what━no matter what━not one force can become so powerful without another that can meet it.