Marvel Cybernetic Girl

— Somewhere in a New York Prison

Adrian Toomes — known in the underworld as "The Vulture" — once ran a respectable logistics and transport company.

He had a daughter and a happy, peaceful family life.

By all appearances, he was an ordinary, gentle man.

Nothing in his demeanor suggested he would one day become the infamous "Vulture."

For the record, his daughter, Liz Toomes, happened to be Peter Parker's classmate — and Spider-Man's secret crush.

Life was full of strange coincidences like that.

Then there was Phineas Mason, better known as "The Tinkerer."

A drifter with no steady job, no home.

But thanks to his exceptional skills in electrical engineering and physics, he was recruited by Adrian Toomes to join the illegal weapons trade, serving as the group's tech mastermind — rebuilding and modifying alien tech into dangerous weapons.

Now, these two men — captured by Kagura Hitomi, Spider-Man (Peter Parker), and the new hero "White Owl" Lila Barton — sat behind bars in a New York prison.

As for their unstoppable enforcer "The Shocker," he was still in the hospital, recovering from severe electric shock injuries.

"Sorry, boss… looks like we really screwed up this time." Phineas lay on his thin metal bed, glancing at Adrian, who sat silently beside him. "Guess our gear just wasn't up to snuff against those super-types. Couldn't stand a chance."

He sighed deeply, his face full of regret.

"Well… that's it, then. Business is gone. Maybe even life as we knew it. Not that it matters to me — you pulled me out of the gutter when I had nothing left anyway. But you... you've still got a family. A daughter…"

"You don't need to apologize, Phineas," Adrian said softly, shaking his head. "If anyone should be sorry, it's me. I dragged you into this."

"I promised you purpose, a future — but all I did was lead you down a road with no way back. This is on me."

Phineas gave a long, heavy sigh. "Boss… remember the day you first found me?"

"Of course I do," Adrian smiled faintly, recalling the past. "It was snowing hard. I'd just dropped my daughter off at school and was heading to the office... then I saw you, scrounging for food by a trash bin. You looked half-dead."

"You actually remember that?" Phineas chuckled bitterly. "Not surprising, I guess. I hadn't eaten in three days. I was almost dead."

Once, Phineas Mason had been a gifted engineering student. But when a sudden gang attack wiped out his family overnight, his life collapsed.

He was socially awkward, had no friends, and quickly fell behind on tuition and rent.

And in that harsh, uncaring world — where no one wanted to help a penniless, friendless "bookworm" hunted by gangsters — Phineas found himself homeless, freezing, and starving to death on a forgotten street corner.

Until Adrian Toomes found him.

Adrian fed him. Gave him shelter.

Offered him a job at his logistics company.

To Phineas, Adrian was a savior — the last faint spark of hope in an otherwise ruined life.

Snapping back to the present, Phineas frowned and asked quietly, "Boss… now that we're sitting here, locked up like this... who's really to blame for all this? You? Me? Or those so-called heroes out there?"

"I just don't get it. How did a good man like you end up here beside me?"

Adrian fell silent.

He glanced at his longtime friend, then out the tiny barred window at the sliver of sky beyond.

"Maybe... this isn't about right or wrong. Maybe... we just couldn't keep up with the world," he said softly.

Adrian Toomes. A man with a loving wife and daughter. A man who ran an honest, decent logistics business.

Why did he turn to the illegal alien weapons trade in the end?

Kagura had wondered the same thing — until she dug deeper into his past.

Back in 2012, after the Battle of New York, Adrian had risked everything to win the contract to clear the wreckage, hoping to salvage advanced alien tech and make a fortune.

But if alien technology fell into the wrong hands, the consequences would be disastrous.

Kagura — just like Tony Stark in the MCU — decided that Rhodes Island Industries alone would handle the cleanup, keeping alien tech out of public reach.

Knowing men like Adrian would feel cheated, she made sure he was well compensated.

She calmed every civilian contractor, offering generous payouts.

But even with that fortune in hand, Adrian Toomes couldn't escape fate.

Years passed.

With the Dark Elves' invasion, Ultron's machine empire, and other disasters, technology in human society — especially New York — advanced at a terrifying pace.

AI-driven logistics soon replaced traditional transport companies.

Adrian's business — once respectable, even successful became obsolete.

Clients left.

Revenue dried up.

Debts piled higher.

Life got harder.

Desperate, Adrian finally turned to the only assets he had left — alien scrap salvaged years ago — and gathered people like Phineas to secretly sell modified alien weapons on the black market...

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— New York, a Prison Interrogation Room

Kagura Hitomi sat quietly across from Adrian Toomes, dressed in a sleek business suit—white blouse, tight skirt, black stockings.

She patiently listened as Toomes recounted the twists and turns of his life, his struggles, and how he came to walk the path of illegal arms dealing.

"What a truly unfortunate story," Kagura sighed softly. "Mr. Toomes, let me start by saying this—you are not a wicked man. You are not some irredeemable villain who must be destroyed."

Toomes let out a low chuckle, his face tired. "Thank you for saying that, Miss Kagura... but what good is that recognition now?"

"I know what I did was illegal. But what choice did I have? I did it to survive, to provide for my family. There was no other way... and now..."

He slowly lifted his head, sorrow and desperation flickering in his eyes. "I'll take full responsibility for what I've done. But please... I beg you... look after my family. My wife, my daughter... I don't want them left alone, helpless in this world..."

"Rest assured, Mr. Toomes. You don't need to worry about them," Kagura replied calmly.

"Your daughter is an outstanding young woman. She's been offered an internship at Stark Industries."

"As for your wife, she'll be given work that suits her wishes and will be more than enough to support the family."

"Thank you... thank you so much!" Toomes lowered his head repeatedly, his voice shaking with relief. "That's all I could ask for... as long as they're safe, as long as they have a future... thank you, Miss Kagura... thank you..."

"There's no need to thank me, Mr. Toomes. This has nothing to do with me personally," Kagura said softly, though her tone carried a sharp edge. "In my view... your wife and daughter are far stronger than you ever were."

"Your company was left behind in the tide of technological progress. But you weren't!" she continued.

"You could've made new choices. You could've seized the opportunities this world offered and built a new life. But instead... you chose to peddle alien weapons on the black market."

She leaned forward, her golden eyes staring straight into his, making Toomes flinch.

"It's a shame, Mr. Toomes. You have a kind heart. I know about how you saved Phineas Mason when he was at rock bottom—that much is admirable. But your way of thinking? That's where you failed."

"Society didn't abandon you, Mr. Toomes. You abandoned yourself."

"When your business fell behind the times... when your services were no longer needed... you didn't have the courage to change, to adapt, to start over."

"You didn't even have the nerve to go out and get an honest job. And yet, somehow... you had the courage to break the law?"

"To traffic deadly weapons without caring about the consequences? To live as a supervillain?" She shook her head. "Frankly, Mr. Toomes... I can't understand you at all."

"Maybe you should take a lesson from your wife and daughter. The world never left you behind—you simply refused to move forward with it."

"If you feel anger toward this society... that anger is nothing but your own misplaced resentment."

The world moved like a relentless machine—always forward, never stopping.

In the flood of progress and change, no one could remain unchanged forever.

Those who stood still were simply swept aside.

As the old saying went: to stand still in a river was to be carried backward.

Adrian Toomes was no different from those surgeons who had tried to block Kagura's advancement of the Extremist Virus treatment... no different from the old-fashioned sorcerers who opposed the industrialization of dimensional magic.

He was merely another man who failed to keep pace with a changing world.

And there were so many more like him.

Even Kagura herself—even Rhodes Island Industries, even Griffin—if they ever lost that sense of resolve, they too could be swept away by this unforgiving world.

Leaving the interrogation room, Kagura let out a long sigh.

"The Vulture... let's call this case closed. Just a pathetic little farce, in the end. As for the credit and the headlines... let's leave all that to Spider-Man and White Owl."

The world was vast and tangled.

Society was like a deep, unknowable forest.

Stopping alien invasions, resolving dimensional crises, capturing supervillains—those were things she could handle. Things a hero could—and should—do.

But some choices... some mistakes... belonged only to the people who made them.

Everyone had their own story. Every family carried its own burdens.

All Kagura could do was share the right thoughts and ideas with them.

She could never live their lives or fight their battles for them.

After all, Griffin was meant to watch—not to grant every wish like some omnipotent machine.

And those who couldn't take control of their own lives, no matter how tragic their past, no matter how sad their story... would find their road ended.

Stopped, for good, by Kagura Hitomi and the Griffin Security Agency.

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[Side Mission Completed: Assist Peter Parker in the Investigation]

[Reward Earned: 10 QP]

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