The Best Defense Is a Good Offense

Henry returned to the Hepburn Family in the Turtle Bay on East 49th Street in New York Manhattan, three days after he had left, looking disheveled.

Because it was Summer Vacation, Skye and Lorna Dane were both at home with Catherine Hepburn, and Gwen Stacy was also there.

As soon as Henry walked in, Skye rushed over to interrogate him. "Where have you been? You've been missing for almost three days! Ugh, you stink! Did you swim in a septic tank? You're completely rotten!"

Skye suddenly bounced back a large step, pinched her nose, and fanned herself with a look of disgust.

"Does it stink?" Henry raised his hand to smell his sleeve, equally disgusted by the stench. "Oh, damn, it's really awful. I haven't showered in three days. I'm going to take a shower."

Passing by Gwen Stacy, looking at this college girl who resembled a submissive wife in a courtroom trial, Henry didn't hesitate to deliver the final blow. "And, little girl, don't run away. I have a lot to ask you."

This caused Gwen Stacy's previously happy expression to instantly crumble.

After Henry finished his nice bath and changed into some dry clothes, he originally wanted to pretend to dry his hair with a towel before coming out. However, after realizing that he still had no hair, he had to give up on the act.

Henry plopped down in the dock next to Catherine Hepburn and began to complain. "You know how hard these past three days have been. The first day I received the call from your Little Red— "

Those two Amazon Spider were with Gwen; they were just tools providing the machine's outer shell, so there's nothing wrong with saying that.

"--I immediately ran to notify the X-Men, hoping they could help. Then I ran to the airport, took the next available flight to Colorado, but by the time I arrived it was already evening."

"I rented a car and drove to Raccoon City. When I arrived at the Mayhem Bridge, this main bridge connecting Raccoon City to the outside world had been blocked by the military. I didn't have a permit and couldn't enter Raccoon City. Then I kept making phone calls, but it kept saying that the other party was out of service area and I couldn't reach them. In order to be able to enter Raccoon City as soon as the military lifted the blockade, I parked my car outside the blockade and waited anxiously."

"I waited until this afternoon when the lockdown was finally lifted. I went in immediately, but I couldn't find anyone anywhere. Plus, my phone was dead by then. It's not like I could find anyone, and it's impossible for others to find me either."

"Then I wandered around Raccoon City like a headless fly, even going into the Police Station to ask what was going on. But the Police Station in Raccoon City was just as chaotic, and nobody knew what was going on. Some precincts didn't even have anyone there."

"Finally, after much pleading, I managed to find an experienced police officer who assigned a newly recruited junior officer to help me make contact. The final answer he gave me was that Gwen had already left Raccoon City with the military."

"You know, after three long days, I heard this answer. I don't know whether to be happy that you're safe or angry that I wasted three days of my time."

"Then, for some reason, flights from Colorado to New York were all messed up again, and there were so many people wanting to board. So I ended up queuing with a bunch of people at the airport, and almost ended up spending another night there."

"After all that hardship, I finally made it back alive. I didn't starve to death in that godforsaken place. But I only found out about the terrible things that happened in Raccoon City when I saw the news at the airport. So, are you alright, Gwen?"

The reason he started with such a long speech was, of course, to try and explain his whereabouts over the past few days. Otherwise, he would have to explain that Skye had hacked into Raccoon City's surveillance system, but he hadn't contacted her; and although she had successfully hacked in, she hadn't seen him in Raccoon City.

Gwen Stacy has also been informed of these matters! If I don't explain my whereabouts, my disguise will be exposed. Rather than be interrogated, I might as well preemptively confess by complaining.

Furthermore, what Henry said wasn't entirely nonsense. He would indeed return in three days after that, accompanying the X-Men back to New York to return the Canary Device to the police station, before flying alone to Colorado.

I first rented a car at the airport and drove to the military cordon outside Raccoon City, where I stayed overnight. After the military lifted the cordon, I wandered around Raccoon City aimlessly, asking the police for help to create a witness statement before returning to the airport to catch my flight back from Colorado.

Here we witness the malice of the universe once again. The new recruit, assigned by the old policeman, is a clueless rookie with nothing to do, named Leon Kennedy... However, with the Raccoon City incident resolved and one of the Biohazard Duo missing his moment of glory, Henry has no idea how things will develop in the future.

This young man was quite enthusiastic; at least he didn't ignore Henry's request just because he didn't know anything about it. In the end, he actually managed to contact the military and confirm Gwen's condition.

During the time when he was using the identity of the Green Arrow Duck, he also used AI deepfake technology to embed his image into all the street and airport surveillance footage that should have captured him.

Even the booking and boarding information were Hacker. Unless someone goes to verify "Henry Brown's" whereabouts today and asks those who should have seen him and remember him, there is no chance of the deception being exposed.

Otherwise, if they wanted to verify the surveillance footage and electronic footprint records, Henry's disguise was foolproof. The standard was designed to deal with Hacker of Skye's caliber, and the resolution of the embedded images wouldn't give anything away.

The most ingenious part was that last word of concern, which made Gwen beautiful that she forgot to raise her doubts. Her round little face was full of tenderness and reluctance, which alternated with her happy expression, causing her to overlook any possible loopholes in Henry's words.

But Skye wasn't as easily fooled as Gwen. She glared at Henry. "You went to see the X-Men, and they were indeed operating in Raccoon City. Why didn't you just go with them? Why did you have to take a plane by yourself?"

"They're the X-Men, you know. I'm just an ordinary person..."

stare...

"What right do I, an ordinary Mutants, have to act with them? It's not like they'll unconditionally accept me and allow me to become a temporary X-Men member just because I show them Mutants ID. That's not how they recruit people, okay?"

Are there selection criteria for the X-Men?

No! But it's precisely this "no" that makes Mutants fantasize about joining the X-Men more likely to break down. Because it's entirely up to Professor X and the veteran X-Men members to decide who can and cannot join.

Skye may not know how the X-Men select members, but that doesn't stop her from understanding that anyone wanting to join an organization will face certain hurdles or tests. Organizations with lower resistance are usually either less useful or have more internal problems.

However, such an explanation could hardly fill Skye's bellyful of questions. She was not a superhuman... She was the only one among the non-superhumans to have witnessed Henry and Gilgamesh's all-out battle and experienced most types of Krypton superpowers.

So Skye continued, "But..."

Henry quickly stopped the little girl's endless stream of questions. "Wait, put your matter aside for now, let me ask Gwen first."