Ways to Respond

No one had told Ezekiel Sims that the bulletproof Mutant and the sniper were the same person. That was to say, the girls had not known Henry was bulletproof before either.

Just as the girls were about to stop and talk, thinking they could settle this with words, the crafty Ezekiel Sims taught them a lesson.

This experienced mercenary had chosen to stop right beside a trap mechanism.

Although the trap was meant for people on the ground, Ezekiel Sims deliberately tugged the vine that served as a rope. With a swish, a massive log dropped down, briefly obscuring the man from view and drawing all the girls' attention.

By the time they caught on, the man was gone. The girls stood on the branches, looking around in confusion.

They might have experienced vicious fights between girls, but they had never faced a life-or-death confrontation like this. Ezekiel Sims's little vanishing trick immediately made them nervous.

Just as the sounds on the ground gradually died down, signaling that none of the mercenaries who had entered the trap zone could keep moving, all three girls' Spider-Sense blared warnings at once!

"Watch out!" "Behind you!" Julia Carpenter and Anya Corazon shouted almost simultaneously. Marty Franklin, panicking, threw herself forward. Even if she fell from the tree, she could not afford to care.

Wearing the Black Spider suit, Ezekiel Sims appeared behind where Marty Franklin had been standing. With a savage elbow strike, he smashed the not-so-thin trunk cleanly in half.

He watched coldly as the girl who had fallen from the tree scrambled desperately between the traps, only to be pulled back into the canopy by another white girl using psychic spider silk. In front of the three girls, Ezekiel Sims pulled on his spider mask.

The Poison Spider suit did not