"Welcome Home, Son"
Inside a long-abandoned grocery store.
The last door at the end of the hallway.
The room was small: a bed, a table, a chair.
There were no photographs or decorations on the walls, nor anything that could identify its occupant.
He closed the door, set his marker and writing board on the table, took off his tactical gloves, and sat numbly on the edge of the bed.
His thoughts in disarray, Black Noir leaned against the wall beside the bed in the abandoned room and closed his eyes.
The fluorescent light filtered through his mask, flickering bright and dim against his eyelids, leaving him especially agitated.
It was an extraordinarily cruel, painful memory.
The summer in Nicaragua had been cold, gloomy, and steeped in blood.
The damp could soak bones soft. Mud clung to their boots, and the sound of soles grinding over shell casings was particularly chilling.
After so long under a tyrant's heel, they had joined forces and rebelled.
They were going to send the chief culprit, the demon who bullied every teammate equally, to the Soviet Union.
Back then, the smoke from the mortar fire had yet to clear from the camp, and Swatto had been blown straight to pieces.
Soldier Boy had only just straightened up amid the flying sandbag fragments, his shield still across his chest, when a scarlet energy beam slashed in from the side.
Thud!
An eardrum-shattering shriek erupted. Before Soldier Boy could even grunt, he flew sideways and slammed hard into knee-deep mud.
Before he could get up, Mindstorm's mind control followed, driving into his cerebral cortex like an ice pick.
His vision warped, his sense of balance was cut off, and a high-frequency buzzing filled his ears.
He knelt in the mud, propping himself up with his shield, and looked up to see his teammates closing in from every direction.
Crimson Countess stood atop an overturned jeep, lingering scarlet energy curling around her hands and a cold sneer on her lips.
Gunpowder crouched behind an ammunition crate, holding a modified grenade launcher.
Mindstorm stood beside the campfire in the center of the camp, his eyes rolled back.
The three worked together with extraordinary coordination. Crimson Countess provided long-range suppression, Gunpowder supplied covering fire, and Mindstorm primarily cut off Soldier Boy's senses.
This coordination was no last-minute sharpening of spears before battle, but a "grand performance" secretly rehearsed more than once beforehand.
On a simulated training ground provided by Vought, the tactical plan personally approved by CEO Edgar had only one objective:
Knock Soldier Boy, that human tank, flat on his face, then hand him over to the Soviet Union.
As Soldier Boy raised his shield and stood again, Gunpowder's grenade arrived.
He tilted his head. The grenade grazed his outer ear and struck the tank armor behind him, blasting a smoking crater into it.
Crimson Countess took advantage of the opening while the gunfire pinned him down to charge a bigger shot.
Her hands traced an arc through the air. Scarlet energy condensed between her palms into an ever-expanding ball of light, which she then thrust forward.
Mindstorm piled on from the side, his mind control enveloping Soldier Boy's entire head like an invisible net.
In an instant, Soldier Boy felt as though a high-speed blender had been stuffed into his brain. His eyeballs trembled and his eardrums buzzed.
The demon spoke.
"You bastards. Which of you hasn't relied on me to stand in front? Which of you hasn't survived because of my shield?
"And now you fucking gang up to stab me. Fine. Who had the balls..."
After taking a barrage from his teammates, Soldier Boy stood up as though nothing had happened and shifted his gaze away from Crimson Countess's face.
It swept over Gunpowder and Mindstorm before finally fixing on the wrecked Sherman tank on the western side of the camp.
"So it was you."
Black Noir, a useless piece of shit who couldn't even speak properly, who dreamed of becoming some fucking Broadway actor.
The spineless loser he had mocked throughout his entire career.
Of this rabble, Black Noir was the one he despised most.
And now, a gutless weakling who lived like a woman had actually dared to orchestrate all this?
"Just you wait, Black Noir."
Soldier Boy forced the words through clenched teeth.
"You goddamn stupid dog. You really fucking put on a convincing act."
Soldier Boy abruptly surged up, throwing off the wreckage pinning him down, then twisted his shield in his right hand and slashed diagonally upward.
The shield's rim instantly smashed into Crimson Countess's wrist before she could pull it back. The scarlet light wave in her palm was brutally interrupted before she could release it, sending her flying.
Thud!
Her back struck the jeep's hood. The windshield shattered into a spiderweb, cracks spreading outward from the point of impact.
"Aaaah!"
Gunpowder gritted his teeth and pulled the trigger.
But before the grenade could leave the barrel, Soldier Boy was already in front of him.
With a charging bull's tackle, he drove his shoulder into Gunpowder's chest and slammed him, gun and all, into a pile of ammunition crates.
Crack-
The wooden crates splintered on impact. Bullets and shell casings spilled across the ground, rolling everywhere in the mud.
Mindstorm still wanted to control Soldier Boy's mind, but Soldier Boy was now burning with rage, intent only on killing Black Noir. His willpower was off the charts, clearly making him difficult to control.
If he rushed forward recklessly, facing Soldier Boy without any combat ability would be no different from slaughtering a chicken-and he would be the chicken.
So he could only watch helplessly as Soldier Boy headed toward Black Noir.
The demon had come.
Black Noir-that was him.
He opened his mouth to say something, but Soldier Boy gave him no chance, simply clamping a hand around the back of his neck.
Like hauling up a wildcat by the scruff, he yanked him straight out from behind the tank.
A violent suffocating sensation overwhelmed him. His legs kicked desperately against the ground, his boot heels gouging two deep furrows in the mud as he struggled violently.
The demon carried him roughly a dozen steps, then swung him hard, smashing his entire body into the Sherman's armor plate.
He slid off the armor and fell into the mud. All the air had been forcibly driven from his lungs. He opened his mouth to breathe, but his diaphragm began to spasm, and he couldn't draw anything in.
Before he could crawl up, the demon seized his collar, hauled him up again, and pinned him against the tank's armor plate.
Those rage-reddened eyes looked down at him from extremely close range. The voice was hoarse, forced through clenched teeth along with bloody foam.
"They were all in on it, but they didn't have the fucking guts. You did.
"You've got balls, huh? You mongrel coming up to bite me. You think you're fucking worthy?"
When the first punch landed, he didn't even have time to react.
He only felt his entire head go numb, followed by a low buzzing from deep inside his skull.
Fragments of teeth rolled around his mouth. His tongue slipped between broken bone, and all he could produce were hoarse, breathy sounds.
It continued. The demon hauled him up.
Smack!
Air squeezed through his shattered windpipe with a shrill whistle, but he could no longer make a sound.
With that punch to his vocal cords, he truly became mute.
Then time stood still.
He became a disfigured tactical puppet who could never speak again, a "cleaner" who could never realize his dream of becoming an actor.
As the memory grew increasingly blurred, its edges began to darken.
A soft halo emerged in the darkness, with several brightly colored cartoon animals standing inside it.
The first to appear was a groundhog in a blue baseball cap, its brim pulled so low it almost covered his eyes.
Next came a pink pig in overalls, his round belly hanging over the waistband, looking very cute.
But both cartoon animals looked at Black Noir with unusually sorrowful eyes.
"You look awful. Is this... Soldier Boy? Earving, why are you remembering this part again..."
"Oh, my poor little Black Noir."
The pig walked up to Black Noir, clumsily patted his shoulder with a hoof, and said gently,
"But Soldier Boy's been dead for years!"
"I saw someone looking for files on Soldier Boy today."
The version of himself in Black Noir's mind answered.
That voice was as concise as the words he usually wrote on his board with a marker, but it carried a trace of trembling that even he refused to acknowledge.
His cartoon avatar-
A lamb in a miniature black uniform stood before the groundhog and the pig, fists clenched tight.
"It was The Deep. He went to the archives this morning and went through the files from 1944.
"They were Soldier Boy's injection records, including the V1 clinical trial data."
"Earving, maybe this is just a misunderstanding."
The groundhog's voice suddenly lowered, and he pressed down on his cap with a paw.
"Maybe The Deep is just genuinely interested in history."
"He's never interested in history."
Black Noir spoke without hesitation.
"So I think you could go check. That way, at least you'll have an answer."
The pink pig took his hoof off Black Noir's shoulder, and the strap of his overalls slipped a little farther down.
"Go on. Otherwise, you won't sleep tonight again."
Black Noir's infiltration plan was extremely professional.
First, he circled the block where The Deep lived, checking every entrance and exit.
One of the streetlights by the front entrance was broken. Its glow only reached the edge of the sidewalk, leaving the entire recessed porch in shadow.
The iron fire escape was already rusting, and two bolts leading to the roof had worked loose, but the structure was still reasonably sound.
The area beneath the ladder was a surveillance blind spot. The camera's infrared indicator wasn't lit; it was either broken or had never been installed at all.
Black Noir committed each detail to memory, then chose the mouth of the alley opposite the fire escape on the side of the apartment building as his observation point.
An old oak's crown happened to block the overhead surveillance camera here, while affording a clear view of the front entrance and side windows of The Deep's apartment.
He didn't wait long.
Just after one in the morning, the lights in The Deep's apartment went out.
A moment later, the apartment building's side door opened. The Deep emerged, having changed into dark casual clothes, carrying a document envelope.
He glanced left and right, then relaxed his guard and headed toward the street corner.
Black Noir watched from the darkness as his silhouette disappeared around the corner, choosing not to follow.
Following recklessly would only beat the grass and startle the snake. If the other party had some contingency hidden away, it would only make things more troublesome.
What he wanted to examine were the traces The Deep had overlooked.
Once he was certain The Deep's footsteps had faded completely, he stepped out of the shadows behind the old oak.
Then he circled to the side of the apartment building, gripped the fire escape's metal supports with both hands, and silently climbed up.
His combat boots' rubber soles pressed against the rust-covered iron steps, but Black Noir controlled his strength to the utmost, making not the slightest sound.
When he reached the windowsill on The Deep's floor, he hooked one hand over the sill and braced a foot against a brick joint protruding less than a centimeter from the wall, leaving his whole body suspended in midair.
With his other hand, he pulled a pry shim from the tool pouch at his waist.
The window was an old-fashioned vertical sash window, and its crescent latch was already loose. He slipped the shim into the latch gap, gave it a gentle push, and it popped open.
He pushed the window open and slipped soundlessly into the hallway like a black ghost.
Outside The Deep's apartment door.
Black Noir crouched and inspected the lock with his gloved fingers.
Hmm, an ordinary spring lock. No security chain added, and the cylinder is the most common model on the market. One twist with the shim will open it.
Click-
He stood, put away the shim, and closed the door.
Switching on his ultraviolet flashlight, he turned and swept it across the entire living room.
The apartment was dark, lit only by moonlight spilling through the windows.
An octopus huddled in a tank, its arms twitching occasionally.
A stack of papers lay on the coffee table. Black Noir approached and glanced down, immediately identifying it as a list of Compound V clinical trial subjects.
The Deep had circled one of the names in red pen and added a question mark beside it.
He put the list back on the coffee table and straightened. The dark purple beam swept over the floor, walls, and sofa, then reached the doorframe.
Beneath his mask, Black Noir's pupils abruptly contracted.
Under the ultraviolet light, the full outline of a scorched groove appeared.
It split all the way from the lock to the bottom of the threshold, its charred wooden edges giving off an eerie dark purple fluorescence under the ultraviolet light.
There were even several fine cracks in the surrounding wallpaper, caused by a shock wave, extending all the way to the ceiling.
This was serious trouble.
That useless piece of shit, The Deep... how could he possibly have Heat Vision?
[Current time distortion: 18%]