Well done, little champ

Peaceful days always flew by. In the blink of an eye, Lynn and John had been living in the underground apartment for almost three months.

During that time, John's routine had been as regular as a real elementary school student's.

Every morning was "academic class," when Lynn taught him reading and arithmetic.

The afternoons were for "combat simulation class," where he learned how to control his strength precisely.

As for the evenings, those were reserved for "game time," without fail.

"You landed on my Atlantic Avenue, and there's a hotel on it."

Sitting cross-legged on the wool rug, Lynn pointed at the Monopoly board between them and held out his hand with a smile. "Two thousand in rent. Pay up, little tycoon."

John scrunched up his face, looking at the few bills left in his hand, then at the densely packed rows of little plastic houses on Lynn's side of the board, his face full of resentment.

"This isn't fair. My dice never land me anywhere good."

John slapped the colorful bills into Lynn's hand. "Besides, these are just paper. Why can't I just knock down your hotel?"

"Because those are the rules. Whether it's on a board or out in the real world, property is sacred and inviolable."

Lynn counted the money, slipping in a lesson in financial literacy wherever he could. "If you use brute force to knock down someone else's hotel, that's robbery. That's what bad guys do. Heroes have to learn to accept a loss when they agree to play."

John grunted, only half understanding, and was about to pick up the dice for another round.

Suddenly, the incandescent light overhead flickered without warning.

Then the light went out, replaced in an instant by glaring dark-red emergency lighting.

With it came the piercing shriek of an internal alarm.

"Warning! Level-four containment breach in the Sector A high-risk specimen isolation chamber. Test subject No. 73 has breached physical defenses. All noncombat personnel, seek cover immediately. Repeat..."

The smile vanished from Lynn's face.

Vought International's basement was divided into several sectors.

Sector B was John's exclusive domain, while Sector A housed the "adult rejects" who had been injected with inferior Compound V and lost their minds completely as their bodies broke down.

"Lynn, what's wrong?"

John looked up. His hearing, far beyond that of ordinary people, had already picked up the grating screech of thick metal doors being violently torn apart in the distance, along with bursts of gunfire from the guards.

"A little trouble."

Lynn quickly stood, grabbed John, and hurried behind the couch. "A bad guy at the company who doesn't follow the rules got out."

Meanwhile, in the monitoring room on the hundredth floor aboveground.

Madelyn watched the red dot representing "test subject No. 73" move frantically through the underground corridors on the screen.

"What the hell is going on?! No. 73 was only given a sedative yesterday!" Madelyn roared at the head of security.

No. 73 was an extremely dangerous reject.

His powers were the release of highly corrosive acid and infrasound. His own acid had eaten into his brain, driving him completely insane.

"We don't know! The isolation chamber's hydraulic locking system suddenly failed!"

The head of security was drenched in sweat. "He's heading down through the ventilation ducts... my God, his route is taking him straight toward the Area B living quarters!"

Madelyn whipped her head around to look at Stan Edgar, who sat on the couch drinking coffee.

Edgar's expression was as calm as if he were watching a boring baseball game.

"Sir, did you have someone unlock it?" Madelyn understood at once, a chill running down her back.

"Lynn has taught that boy to be very obedient. As obedient as a pet dog."

Edgar set down his coffee cup, his tone indifferent. "But I need to confirm whether this dog can still bite when its owner faces a genuine threat to his life, and... whether it will lose control to protect its owner or continue to follow that ridiculous 'no-killing rule.'"

"But No. 73's infrasound is fatal to ordinary people! Lynn will die!"

"If Lynn dies, it means this attachment isn't deep enough. We'll need a different approach to raising him."

Edgar's gaze was icy. "Seal the outer gates of Area B. Let them deal with it themselves."

Inside the underground apartment.

The alarm grew louder and louder.

Lynn had already pulled the modified Magnum pistol from beneath the bed and gripped it tightly with both hands, his palms slick with cold sweat.

Suddenly, an eerie hissing came from the alloy wall on one side of the apartment.

It wasn't the sound of something smashing through. Something was melting the metal.

In just a few seconds, a large hole melted through the half-meter-thick alloy wall as though it were a heated candle.

Pungent yellow-green poison gas flooded the apartment. The pure wool rug blackened and charred the moment the gas touched it.

"Cough, cough, cough..."

Even with his mouth and nose covered, Lynn choked and coughed violently, tears streaming from his eyes as his head swam.

A humanoid monster, thick acid streaming over his body and his facial features melted together completely, squeezed through the hole in the wall.

He had no eyes, but his biological instincts locked onto the sound of Lynn's heartbeat in the room.

"Roar!"

No. 73 let out a hoarse roar, and a fist-sized glob of highly concentrated acid shot straight toward Lynn's face like a cannonball.

The poison gas had already dulled Lynn's mind. He had no time to dodge.

At that critical instant, a small figure stepped in front of Lynn.

"Hiss!"

The acid, which could instantly melt through even alloy, struck John's chest and produced nothing more than a puff of white smoke. It didn't leave so much as a red mark on his fair skin.

But it burned through the pure cotton T-shirt Lynn had bought him just two days earlier.

John lowered his head to look at the large hole burned in the front of his shirt, then glanced back at Lynn, who was deathly pale and swaying after inhaling the poison gas.

For the first time, genuine, undisguised fury appeared in the little boy's azure eyes.

"You ruined my shirt, and you got our rug dirty."

Instead of walking over at his usual unhurried pace, John pushed off hard with both legs.

Boom!

Spiderweb cracks instantly spread across the floor beneath his feet. His small body shot forward like a cruise missile launched from its tube, appearing before No. 73 in an instant.

He reached out with his small, fair hand and seized No. 73's arm, which was covered in corrosive acid.

"The rule is to break legs."

John's voice was utterly cold.

He pulled with both hands.

Crack! Riiip-

He didn't break it. He tore one of No. 73's arms clean off at the root!

Dark-green acid sprayed through the air, burning large holes in the furniture where it landed.

No. 73 let out an agonized scream. Instinctively, he opened his enormous, bloody, lipless mouth, about to unleash lethal infrasound at close range.

The sound waves couldn't hurt John, but they were enough to shatter Lynn's internal organs several meters away in an instant.

Leaning against the couch and clutching his chest, Lynn could feel the air vibrating at high frequency. It felt as though a huge hand was about to crush his heart.

"John... stop him..."

Lynn forced out the words, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

At the sound of Lynn's weak voice, the last trace of restraint in John's eyes vanished completely.

He looked at the monster about to release infrasound. Faced with the threat of Lynn's imminent death, the boundary Lynn had taught him-"don't kill"-was instantly torn to shreds in his mind.

Two dark-red beams of Heat Vision, almost tangible, erupted from John's azure eyes like the swords of divine judgment.

"Hiss-!!!"

There was no resistance, no stalemate.

No. 73's head, along with the infrasound he was about to release, vaporized instantly beneath the several-thousand-degree Heat Vision!

The Heat Vision continued unabated, slicing straight through the ruined wall behind the monster and leaving a dark-red scorch mark of unfathomable depth in Area B's protective layer.

Thud.

The monster's headless remains fell to the floor, dissolving into a pool of foul-smelling acid.

A deathly silence filled the room, broken only by the crackling of furniture set alight by the intense heat.

John stood where he was as the red glow in his eyes gradually faded.

His chest heaved. Looking at the headless corpse on the floor, he seemed to realize only then that he had just broken the "supreme law" Lynn had laid down.

He turned to look at Lynn, who was leaning against the couch and gasping for breath.

A rare flicker of panic passed through the little boy's eyes.

Like a child who had done something wrong, he wrung his fingers awkwardly, his voice trembling slightly.

"Lynn... he was going to hurt you. I had to kill him... are-are you mad at me?"

Leaning against the couch, Lynn looked at the wreckage strewn across their cozy apartment, then at the future Homelander standing amid the scorched ruins, his eyes full of apprehension.

He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, forced himself to stand, and walked over to John. He knelt on one knee and met those clear eyes.

Lynn reached out with his still-trembling hand, firmly ruffled John's blond hair, and managed a weak but resolute smile.

"Mad? No, John."

Lynn drew a deep breath and added one final patch to his code of justice-the most important one.

"When the rules can't protect the people you want to protect, protecting your family is the highest rule. Well done, little champ."