Hua Wei, Neos, and Pandora's "vacation" in New York had been leisurely, but there always seemed to be some reckless rats coming to disturb them.
They had not taken the earlier street robbery incident to heart, dismissing it as a feature of the local public safety.
However, the matter did not end there.
Those gangsters who had killed one another belonged to the underground emperor of New York, Kingpin.
Kingpin himself felt those idiots had deserved their deaths—openly committing armed robbery in a wealthy district, then inexplicably slaughtering each other. They had utterly disgraced him.
But to maintain his absolute authority in the underworld, anyone who dared touch his forces had to pay a price, even if the other party might be troublesome mutants.
Thus, Kingpin sent out one of his finest assassins—Bullseye.
Bullseye was a cold-blooded killer famed for being able to turn any object into a lethal weapon with an accurate throw.
After accepting the mission and learning that the targets might possess "mind control" abilities, the cunning Bullseye did not choose to charge in alone.
He called in a few favors and found two equally vicious helpers who operated in the mutant black market:
One was an extremely arrogant man who called himself Porcupine. He could instantly grow black bone spikes from his skin, as hard as steel and as sharp as blades.
The other was a freakish man called Corrosive, who resembled a toad and could spray intensely corrosive acid from his mouth.
The three hit it off immediately and confidently infiltrated the penthouse suite where Hua Wei and the other two were staying.
They hid in the shadows of the room, intending to launch an ambush when Hua Wei and the others returned, at their most relaxed and least vigilant moment.
In their words, they