The Cutting Artist

"Everyone! Everyone!!" Killian roared. "Get him! Tear him apart! Melt him!!"

"Die—!!!"

On the deck, the remaining twenty-odd Extremis Soldiers charged at Homelander from all directions like a pack of enraged beasts!

They would use their scorching heat to roast this blond bastard alive into charcoal!

"No! Homelander, get out of the way!" Rhodey shouted instinctively.

"Danger!!" Tony raised his remaining repulsor cannon as well.

Homelander stood at the center of the storm.

He slowly... closed his eyes.

"It's so noisy. Sometimes I really wish I didn't have super-hearing."

He spoke softly.

The next second, he opened his eyes.

Those azure eyes were instantly flooded with blazing crimson!

"Bzzz—!!!!!"

Death rays shot from Homelander's eyes!

He began to turn.

Like an elegant ballet dancer, he slowly spun in place.

The two beams of Heat Vision became indestructible blades, sweeping across the entire battlefield with him as their center.

Time seemed to slow.

Through his damaged faceplate, Tony Stark witnessed a scene he would never forget for the rest of his life.

An Extremis Soldier leaped high into the air, lunging at Homelander.

The Heat Vision... swept across his waist.

His upper body remained in the air, still holding its forward-diving posture, while his lower body... had already separated from it.

"Thud." "Thud." "Thud."

The seven or eight Extremis Soldiers charging at the front were all cut cleanly in half at the waist.

Their upper bodies hit the deck, some of them still twitching.

"Ah... ah..." One soldier with only half a body left looked down at the empty space below his waist and let out a howl of agony.

"It's not over."

Homelander raised his head.

His Heat Vision... became a cutting machine.

"Bzzz—! Bzzz—! Bzzz—!"

Like a cold, merciless artist wielding a brush, he began dismantling these "human-shaped furnaces"...

Vertical cuts, horizontal cuts, diagonal cuts.

Arms, thighs, torsos, heads.

In just three seconds, the more than twenty once-arrogant Extremis Soldiers were all... sliced into pieces.

Three minutes later.

Homelander withdrew his Heat Vision, and his eyes returned to blue.

He stood amid a field of... severed limbs and mangled bodies, completely spotless.

The Stars and Stripes Cape remained immaculate.

"..."

"Bleurgh..." President Ellis was the first to lose it. Bracing himself against the railing, he vomited violently.

"My... God..." With a clang, Colonel Rhodey disengaged his armor and ran to the President's side, patting him on the back.

Tony Stark stood frozen in place.

He looked at the "parts" scattered all over the ground, then at that smiling face. The man seemed so righteous it was almost evil... and a chill shot straight to Tony's head.

"Devil... you devil!!"

Killian was the only one left. Looking at the "artwork" covering the deck, he was clearly on the verge of a breakdown.

"Oh, you're not dead yet?" Homelander pretended as though he had only just noticed him.

"No... don't come any closer!" Killian scrambled backward in a panic, rolling and crawling. "Don't come closer!!"

"I... I still have a hostage!!" Killian suddenly remembered something and lunged toward a half-open shipping container.

"Pepper!!" Tony remembered too!

Killian rushed into the container and dragged out a woman.

Pepper Potts!

She looked weak, and her body glowed with the orange-red light of the Extremis Virus.

"Don't move!!" Killian clutched Pepper's throat, and the hand gripping her had begun to redden.

"Tony..." Pepper said weakly.

"Let her go, Killian! You son of a bitch!!" Tony raised his repulsor cannon. "Come after me!!"

"Too late, Tony!" Killian's face twisted with madness. "You're all going to die! I want her dead! I want you to watch her..."

"Hey."

Homelander's voice suddenly sounded beside Killian's ear.

Killian's pupils shrank sharply.

"...What? What the fuck!"

He realized... he was no longer on the dock.

He realized... Tony and Pepper were... below him?

He... was in the sky!

At some point, Homelander had seized Killian at a speed beyond the limits of human vision and carried him thousands of meters into the night sky.

"Take a deep breath. Dizziness is normal..." Homelander faced Killian, the smile on his face unchanged.

"Ah—! Put me down! You monster! Let me go!! You can't kill me!" Killian struggled wildly in midair.

"Why can't I?"

"Because... because I'm... Aaaaah—!!"

Homelander's eyes lit up again.

This time, the Heat Vision did not cut him apart.

Instead...

"Bzzz—!!!"

Two thin beams of Heat Vision pierced precisely through both of Killian's eyes!

"..."

Killian's scream stopped abruptly.

In 0.01 seconds, his brain was completely roasted into protein charcoal by heat of 5,000 degrees.

Homelander let go.

Killian's corpse tumbled like a rag doll as it fell back toward the dock...

On the oil tanker's deck.

Tony Stark finally broke free of his battered armor.

He rushed to Pepper, and the two embraced tightly.

"Tony... I... I'm so hot... I..." Pepper's body flickered between light and darkness.

"It's okay, Pepper. I'm here. I can cure you, I definitely can..."

"Ahem."

A faint cough interrupted this "touching" reunion.

Wu Yanzu slowly descended from the sky.

He landed before them, the Stars and Stripes Cape draping perfectly behind him.

"You..." Tony looked at him, his expression complicated. "Thank you for saving her... for saving us."

"I was only saving the world, Tony." Wu Yanzu's smile was flawless. "Those little iron cans of yours..."

He casually glanced at the steel wreckage scattered across the deck.

"...didn't hold up."

"You!" Tony felt his pride suffer a tremendous insult.

"As for her..." Wu Yanzu's X-Ray Vision swept over Pepper Potts's body without restraint.

"The Extremis Virus... is interesting. But it doesn't look very stable."

"Don't look at her!!" Tony stepped in front of Pepper like an enraged lion.

"Relax, Tony." Wu Yanzu withdrew his gaze. He knew Tony could handle this virus himself.

His eyes turned toward the "valuable asset" still vomiting in the corner.

"Mr. President." Wu Yanzu's voice became "gentle."

"Ah... yes! Mr. Homelander!" President Ellis wiped his mouth and staggered over. "Thank you! Thank you for saving... for saving the United States!"

"It was nothing, Mr. President." Wu Yanzu patted the President on the shoulder.

"I'll take you back to the White House now. The reporters are waiting for you."

"Then... what about them?" The President pointed at Tony and Pepper.

"Oh, Mr. Stark?" Wu Yanzu smiled.