Chapter 18: Cure

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Peter got the wind knocked out of him as he landed on the ground on his back, following a perfect shoulder throw from Edward.

As strong as he was, he remained human, and had the same weaknesses. His senses picked up on a danger coming for his head though, and he immediately moved his head away, just in time to dodge a powerful stomp that made the tatami under them bend.

Using his great strength, agility and balance, Peter managed to jump onto his feet from the ground while kicking towards Edward's head, forcing him to dodge.

Peter wanted to continue attacking and keep the offensive, but Edward stopped his body in an instant the moment he got out of range from Peter's punch, which stopped a centimetre from his face, and jumped forward, sending a flying knee into Peter's stomach.

Despite his physique that stood at the peak of humanity, Peter wasn't really hurt by the blow, thanks to his amazing strength. Through a series of tests, Edward had determined Peter's strength to be able to reach 25 tons at his best performance.

To endure such strength, his body had to be extremely sturdy too. Actually, when he fought against regular people Peter had to pull his punches by a whole lot, and when he gets hit he has to move along the punch or kick so they wouldn't break their limbs. He was a considerate kid.

Actually, he also had to pull his punches against Edward, at his peak performance Peter could probably beat Edward without much of a problem, he was way too fast, strong and durable to be defeated by Edward in a normal fight.

However, victory wasn't the purpose of their fight. Instead, Peter was training. He was learning martial arts under Edward, like he himself had learned under Dragon.

Peter proved to be quite talented in this aspect, not as much as Edward was, but still impressive enough to progress with great speed. Actually, this training was also helping Edward as he had already mastered every martial art Dragon had to teach him, and he didn't really see the point of learning every martial art in existence like Bruce did.

Instead, Edward knew the ancestors of martial arts, the ones out of which all recent martial arts were created. If used correctly, they were more than good enough to provide him with the flexibility in fights he and Bruce sought.

Training Peter, Edward quickly realized that Peter was good in agility based martial arts, meaning he couldn't pass down what he was best at, the Dragon Style, to Peter, but he was especially good at Leopard and Crane Styles.

But even those didn't perfectly suit the kid, and so Edward decided to create a new style, the Spider Style. It amplified Peter's strengths and allowed him to take down enemies with precision and swiftness.

Creating a martial art wasn't something easy to do though, and so it took them time.

After about half an hour of Edward beating Peter, they stopped, and Peter said "You know, I had an idea, Dr Bell."

Edward, who was wiping the sweat from his forehead, looked at the teen and asked "Care to illuminate me?"

Peter replied "It always takes a while to get somewhere with only my feet, jumping from building to building still takes me minutes to get to a crime scene, and more often than not the police get there before me."

Edward raised an eyebrow and said "Well, it's not like you can get there with a car, or bye-bye secret identity."

Peter smiled and said "Of course, I know that. I had another idea. What is the most important ability of spiders? Is it to climb walls? Carry stuff heavier than them? No, it's their web weaving."

Edward opened his mouth in realization of what Peter was implying, and said "The force created…"

Peter grinned and said "A normal human would be torn apart if they tried to swing at full speed, but my muscles and bones are much stronger than a normal human being, and their strength growth wasn't proportional to their mass, so I would face the same force as a normal human, but with much stronger resistance."

Edward thought about the idea for a couple of seconds, and said "That could indeed allow you to move within the city much faster than any other transport. To create a formula for those webs that would be strong enough to resist the force of your weight and swinging… It will take us some time, but it may be possible."

Peter nodded and said "Exactly what I thought." Edward then sighed though and said "This will have to wait for a while though, our current work is much more important."

Peter scratched his head, and said "About that…" Edward sent a look at the teen, who flinched and said "Don't get me wrong, it is important, but there will always be another serum, and I fear I will never see those web slingers."

Edward snorted and said "You already gave them a name?" Peter looked away with a blush, he indeed had thought about this much more than he told Edward.

Edward waved his hand dismissively as he sat in front of his computer and said "For your information, there will be no other serum."

Peter opened his mouth wide as he heard that, and asked "But they can do so much, and the fortune and fame you could get…"

Edward rolled his eyes and said "Wealth, glory, I couldn't care less about those things, one serum would already give me much more than I could ever want. But I fear creating more serums would do more harm than good."

Peter tilted his head and asked "How so?"

Edward sighed and said "Tell me, do you think this serum will be free?"

Peter nodded and said "Why not?"

Edward replied "Oh it will be free. Money is needed to make those serums, but we won't have to spend a penny or create all the serums for that matters, the different countries will all buy the formula and creation process, and deliver them for free to the population. Can you imagine the backlash if they refused to administer the cure to dementia for free?"

But then Edward added "The cost of administering it to every patient is more than good enough for a good image. However, if a second serum appears, maybe they will continue accepting it, but then a third, a fourth and many more serums will appear, and will they still be willing to pay for the cost?"

"Some rich countries will maybe continue themselves, but you can be sure that the support given to those poor countries unable to provide for themselves will be left behind. I can't accept such a thing for our creation, to divide humanity even more with it, and we don't have the resources to provide for the whole wide world. And if we ever create a serum that enhances the capacity of the average human, and allow the different countries to use it…"

Peter sat down on a nearby stool and said, sounding dejected "I didn't think so far ahead…"

Hearing the guilt in Peter's voice, Edward let out a chuckle and said "Peter, you are 16 and you are an assistant. It isn't expected of you to see so far ahead. And this is only my point of view, maybe I am wrong, but I don't want to take any risk."

Peter nodded, and so the two started working. The reason Edward didn't want to work on the web slingers right away was that they already had more than needed work, as they didn't just work on the Elephant Mice Hybridization Serum, but also on the cure to Barbara's condition.

Moreover, they had reached a critical point for both, having created a nearly functioning Lizard Serum and an anti serum for it, Edward already had a lot of experience with those Hybridization Serums, and adding in Peter's intelligence they really were about to finish.

Moreover, they were quite in a hurry to finish, because Peter's school would start in early September, and he would have as much time ahead of him.

So their goal was to finish both projects by the end of the month.

And like that, on the first of September, two weeks later, they finished. They finished synthesizing both the Elephant Mice Hybridization Serum and the Cheetah Anti-Serum on the same day.

The first serum was directly sent to WHO, no one was going to buy it before they approved of it. As for the second one, when he showed it to Diana she kissed him so hard he felt his lips were gonna fall off.

Then, they took off the New York Sanctum. Ever since Barbara and the assassin attacked Diana and went through Edward's ceiling, she had been detained by the Sorcerers for her own good. As for the others, they had regained human form when Circe was defeated.

The reason Barbara didn't was because she was special, she was stronger than the other hybrids, but reversing the process was also harder. Her curse was stronger it seemed, although they didn't know whether it was willed by Circe, or something in Barbara that was different from the others.

When they arrived at the New York Sanctum, they were obviously greeted by the master of the place.

"Welcome, Princess. It is a pleasure to see you again." Stephen Strange himself, floating down the stairs as he always did. He really liked to look cool.

Diana smiled politely, but Edward had no reservation as he said "We are here to see Barbara, weirdo."

Strange sent a glare at Edward and said "Oh, I didn't see you there, apprentice."

Diana rolled her eyes as the two glared at each other, and said "We are on urgent business, so if you two could stop your childish games."

Edward snorted and said "Hear that, weirdo? Stop being a child and bring us to Barbara." Strange humphed but didn't answer as he opened a portal in front of them, at the other side of which they saw a cell.

As they walked through the portal, something jumped out of the shadows and tried to scratch them, but it only bumped against the barrier and fell back, it's nose bleeding.

Diana put a hand on her mouth as she saw the state her friend was in, while Edward looked at Stephen who was following them and asked "Can you restrain her?"

Stephen raised an eyebrow and asked "Still haven't learned the Bands of Cyttorak? It's quite the simple spell though."

Stephen and Edward actually had a lot of interactions in the past two weeks as Edward passed by the Sanctum almost every day, to exchange for books. Although they had been teasing each other, Edward and Stephen actually became quite good friends over the past two weeks.

And even if he wouldn't ever admit it to Edward, Stephen was quite impressed by Edward. Not by the speed at which he was learning the books, that much was something to be expected, the Astral Form had been abused by him too, and was what allowed him to reach the level of a master in only seven years.

No, what truly impressed Strange, was the patience Edward showed. Any normal human being who learned about magic would be impatient to use spells, and would go straight to spell books to learn spells, to earn power. Strange himself had started by learning the Sling Ring teleportation, as well as other spells like the Bands of Cyttorak.

However, Edward did not let the prospects of power elude his mind, and focused on strengthening his foundations. First learning the basics of magic, to truly comprehend what magic is, before attempting to learn any spell.

Unaware of his friends inner praising for him, Edward walked into the cell as Stephen restrained Cheetah, and said "Diana, could you slightly cut her arm?"

Diana, clearly shocked at the question, asked "What?!" Edward showed the needle to her and said "If I tried to stab you with this needle, would I be able to hurt you?"

Diana realized what he meant, and unsheathed her sword as she approached her friend cautiously. Cheetah, or Barbara, was growling at them, trying to attack them, but she was powerless against Stephen's restraints.

Diana made a slight cut on her arm as she said "I'm sorry." Then, Edward carefully put the needle in the wound and injected the anti serum in her blood stream before walking away.

Barbara's growls became louder as she tried to thrash around, making Diana worry as Edward felt his hand being crushed by hers, but he didn't let go and whispered to her "Don't worry, she only has to endure this and she will be fine."

However, while he said that, he himself frowned. Something wasn't right.

Author's Note: Hey, would you mind giving me your power stones? To make the story more popular?