Toxic
Inside the temporary base.
Cate touched her forehead with one finger, her brows furrowed, her mind a jumbled mess.
Excited cries, greedy motives...
Dense brainwaves surged into her nerves like a tsunami, following her outward-radiating mental tentacles.
"Uh... Ah!"
Cate's body trembled, and then she suddenly opened her eyes, which were filled with spiderweb-like blood vessels.
In an instant, the weakness that followed the tentacles breaking free left her swaying precariously, only able to maintain her balance by clinging to the wall.
" Kimiko..."
Cate gripped Kimiko's shoulders, her voice trembling.
"Quickly, go... wake them all up!"
Kimiko's eyes narrowed, and she quickly transformed into a black shadow and darted out, kicking Frenchie was snoring, awake.
Then he grabbed Hughie, who was sprawled on the broken sofa, and banged on the iron door of the cubicle where Annie was.
"Uh... what's wrong? Did the sky fall or did those idiots from Vought come to investigate?"
Frenchie opened his sleepy eyes, scrambled to grab his pistol, drool still dripping from his mouth.
Hughie and Annie rushed out in a panic, their sleepy eyes filled with confusion.
"It's an enemy attack... they're here!"
Cate composed herself for a moment, then, forcing back her discomfort, said:
"I sensed a lot of brainwaves... redneck militia, bounty hunters, Superman..."
The entire Lower Manhattan was lured by Neuman's multi-billion dollar bounty, completely surrounding the area; at least—"
Cate hadn't finished speaking.
"Boom--!!"
A devastating cannon shot, without warning, pierced through the concrete ceiling that was several meters thick!
The blinding, scorching flames instantly engulfed the entire hall.
A deafening roar shook everyone's eardrums, followed by a sharp pain, and then the entire abandoned subway station began to shake.
"Splash--"
Gravel, concrete blocks, and the almost plastered dust on the ceiling cascaded down like a waterfall.
"Fuck! This is a heavy howitzer! Where did these crazy lunatics get it from?!"
Frenchie, covered in soot, took a deep breath, spat out the bitter black ash from his mouth, and cried out in despair:
"Damn it, if this keeps up, we'll be buried alive here sooner or later!"
Thump!
As the shells continued to fall.
Thick smoke and gunpowder fumes instantly filled the air, and the pungent smell of sulfur made everyone cough incessantly.
All that remained in sight was the rolling red flames and the chaotic black fog.
"Go! Don't stay together! Split up!!"
Starlight propelled a faint beam of lightning to deflect the falling rocks, and shouted to the chaotic crowd:
"Split up and run!"
Amidst the continuous explosions of artillery shells, billowing smoke completely obscured everyone's vision.
The crowd could only dodge among the collapsing rocks and sea of fire, then scatter in panic towards the dark passage.
"Fuck! Something's in!"
Cement chips and dust fell into Frenchie's neck, burning him and making him wince.
"Cough... cough cough! Putain de merde (This is fucking awful)!"
Frenchie stumbled through the rubble, wiped his eyes with his sleeve, then crouched low and ran toward the back door.
To his despair, the back door of the underground passage, which he had intended to use for evacuation, was now on fire.
Frenchie looked through the gap at the back.
They're all human.
Without a doubt, this was done by those brainwashed, idiotic mobs outside.
"We can't get out!"
Frenchie scrambled back behind a square pillar whose concrete had been shattered by bullets.
"The back door was completely blocked with sandbags, and they even set it on fire... They just wanted to trap us inside and kill us."
Just then, a hand covered in black ash suddenly grabbed Frenchie's suspenders and dragged him back half a meter.
"Clap clap clap clap!"
As Frenchie moved back, a burst of 12-caliber shotgun shells struck the concrete wall he had just been pressed against.
The force of the blast created a hole the size of a bowl in the wall, and the flying debris even splattered on Frenchie's ear, cutting a bloody gash.
Fortunately, he Kimiko.
She looked at the still-shaken Frenchie, pursed her lips, and pointed to the cracked cast iron drain fence at their feet.
Below that is an old, abandoned drainage tunnel leading to the downtown area.
A suffocating stench often permeated the air.
It smelled of decades of accumulated industrial heavy metals, dead rats, and untreated feces fermenting together.
"Go this way? This is way too..."
Frenchie, like someone trying to quench their thirst by looking at excrement, suddenly gagged.
But Kimiko didn't have much patience. She gripped the rusty iron fence tightly with both hands and pulled hard with her arms.
"Duang--"
It forcefully ripped a half-meter-wide cast iron fence off!
"Awesome."
Frenchie pinched his nose and reluctantly slid down the dark pipe.
"Splash!"
Frenchie shivered as he plunged his feet into the cold, viscous water.
The water down there is deep enough to reach your shins, and it's incredibly slippery to walk on. There's even a thick layer of whitish oil floating on the surface.
It was pitch black all around, with only a few pale rays of light occasionally filtering through the gaps in the vaulted ceiling, making visibility extremely low.
The two of them, one in front of the other, explored deeper into the narrow pipe.
However, they had only run less than two hundred meters.
"Buzz--!"
Frenchie's eardrums were suddenly hit by an extremely uncomfortable resonance.
At this moment, the viscous air in the pipe ahead seemed to be forcibly compressed by an inexplicable brute force.
It condensed into a visible, semi-transparent wave of air, pushing the oil slick on the water's surface to both sides.
"Too slow, Frenchie!"
A blurry afterimage refracted back and forth on both sides of the narrow brick wall, and a voice that did not belong to Frenchie's memory echoed in the confined space.
"Who!"
Frenchie drew his gun abruptly.
The next second.
"Bang!"
Frenchie felt as if he had been hit and thrown into the air by a giant truck.
The massive impact slammed him against the rusty iron pipes on the tunnel wall, instantly obscuring his vision with dark spots.
Immediately afterwards, a hand wearing a green glove grabbed his collar and slowly lifted Frenchie until he was suspended in mid-air.
Soon, the afterimages converged, revealing a face with a thick beard and medium-length hair.
He was wearing a white tracksuit with black patterns, white powder still lingered around his nostrils, his eyes were bloodshot, and his face was contorted with madness.
"Frenchman... got you! This is a billion dollars! I'm going to take this money to Miami and buy two cruise ships, and play with young models on board every day!"
"Horse, Marathon?"
(For those who haven't seen season 5, this is Mister Marathon from the previous the Seven, essentially A-Train's predecessor.)
"Oh, you know me? But sorry, bro..."
Marathon grinned maliciously and raised his right hand.
The titanium brass knuckles on his fist gleamed coldly in the dim light, aimed directly at Frenchie's nose.
"Your death is of great value to me and to my old friends."
Frenchie was struggling to breathe from being choked by Marathon, his tongue tasted of rust, and his eyes were fixed on the growing fist.
But at that moment...
"Roar--!!"
A suppressed roar suddenly erupted from the darkness behind the Marathon.
Not long after.
The ferocious expression on Marathon's face instantly froze.
He tried to turn his head, attempting to create distance through his reflexes.
But in this extremely narrow place, there was no straight track for him to move and accelerate, and he was also carrying a person in his hand.
With a "pfft" sound!
Two sharp, bony claws, gleaming with a metallic sheen, pierced directly into Marathon's back.
It instantly tore through his lungs and spine, then burst out of his chest!
"Pfft!"
The blood pumped by the heart pressure gushed out instantly.
Hot, viscous blood was splattered solidly onto Frenchie's entire face.
"Tear--!!"
Kimiko's brows furrowed, and she violently yanked her two bone claws to the sides!
"Sizzle!"
The mercenary's torso was ripped open with a huge gash, and his intestines and various internal organs were smashed into the water like mud, splashing up a red, thick mess.
Then Kimiko casually tossed the remaining remains into the water.
"Call..."
Frenchie leaned against the rusty iron pipe and slowly slid down the wall into the blood.
He coughed violently, and his vision finally returned to normal.
Kimiko was standing half a meter in front of him.
His body was covered in bits of flesh and sticky red and black blood, with a few strands of long, black hair clinging to his cheeks.
Those eyes, which had just been filled with rage, were now quietly watching him.
"All right..."
Frenchie wiped his face, sniffed out the pungent smell of blood, and then grinned at Kimiko with a wry smile.
Then he raised his blood-stained hand and gave her a thumbs-up:
"Well done... Mon Cœur ( Japan Sweetheart)."
A hint of satisfaction flashed in Kimiko's eyes, then she tilted her head and pointed to a place deeper in the pipe.
"Well... since you're here, I might as well go..."
"I wonder how things are going on their end..."
Meanwhile, in front of the old turnstiles in the subway station hall.
Starlight blocked Hughie's path as he walked on the concrete ground stained with oil and spent bullet casings.
Large patches of cold sweat seeped from their foreheads, and a layer of white lightning erupted around their bodies.
Opposite her, more than thirty heavily armed rioters completely blocked the turnstile.
Ironically, there isn't a single Superman among them.
Only unemployed auto mechanics and real estate agents.
Redneck farmers with tobacco in their mouths, and white-collar workers in cheap suits.
They reeked of paint, cheap whiskey, body odor, and a strong, sour smell.
They were carrying civilian rifles, heavy shotguns, and even modified machetes.
Dozens of bloodshot eyes held only naked greed, bestiality, and bloodlust.
Starlight looked at this group of people, her heart filled with inner turmoil.
You need to know.
For the past two decades, they have dedicated their lives to the churches in Iowa and the America's Sweetheart pageant stage.
She wanted to become a true hero, to protect the people, and to fight against evil.
But now she's hesitant.
In the front row stood a middle-aged man wearing a baseball cap and greasy work clothes; he also had a wedding ring on the ring finger of his left hand.
He looks exactly like the uncle who used to mow the lawn next door when she was a child.
They... shouldn't be like this.
Starlight kept finding excuses for them in his mind.
Perhaps they've been brainwashed by Neuman, driven mad by poverty, and have no idea what they're doing...
"Everyone... put down your guns! Listen to me!"
" Neuman is using you! The billion-dollar bounty offered by Vought is just bait!"
Run! I don't want to hurt you... I really don't want to hurt any civilians!
However, this heartfelt advice failed to stir any ripples among the mob.
The middle-aged man wearing a wedding ring spat a mouthful of black, sticky tobacco residue onto the ground.
Then he pointed the gun tip directly at Annie's chest, abruptly interrupting her:
"Screw your brain-dead tropes! Stop playing the saintly, rotten act with me!"
The man grinned, revealing a mouthful of rotten, yellow teeth, his eyes gleaming with a morbid greed.
"A scam? Ten billion US dollars could buy me all the bars and beaches in town, and free my entire family for ten generations from being dogs for those damn banks!"
If we tie you up and take you back to town today, every single man in town can play with you like a dumpling.
At this moment, the militiamen behind the man also burst into vulgar laughter:
"Yeah, you slut, rip that tight battle suit off right now!"
"Stop pretending to be so high and mighty! He's probably been thoroughly humiliated by those suit-wearing executives in the Vought Tower by now!"
"What nonsense are you talking about? I'm going to twist this bitch's breasts off and use them as a pendant!"
Starlight looked at these so-called "people" and felt a sense of alienation for the first time.
All the warmth and fantasies about "the people".
The fluttering petals sank into the cesspool, were stomped into a puddle, and mixed together.
It stank horribly.
Under this revealing mirror of a billion-dollar bounty, there were no "victims" at all.
What remains is only the most filthy, primal bestiality, stripped of its civilized facade.
Just as Starlight hesitated, a child wearing a hoodie in the center of the rioters suddenly took a step forward.
The teenager's face was covered in acne, his eyes were vacant, and his two buck teeth made his lips smirk.
"So noisy."
He was carrying a revolver, his neck tilted to the side, not even blinking.
Then, without warning, he pulled the trigger on Hughie behind Starlight!
"Why not just beat this guy to death?"
"Bang--!"
Gunshots rang out.
The bullet, enveloped in a whistling heat, grazed Hughie's head and blasted a chunk of concrete from the pillar behind him.
Splattered cement debris grazed Hughie's face, cutting a bloody gash.
Seeing the matter-of-fact expression on the Demon Orb's face, Starlight let go of what she had always insisted on.
damn it...
Die.
"Zzz--!!"
A burst of extremely dazzling electric light erupted from Starlight's eyes.
All the light bulbs and old cables within a radius of tens of meters exploded within the same second.
Tens of thousands of arcs of electricity raged and spread through the air, making her look like a god shining with holy light.
"Get out of my way, all of you!"
Annie's long-suppressed anger was finally unleashed, and she shoved her palms forward with all her might.
"Thump--!"
With a loud bang, a wave of electricity several meters wide swept across the entire turnstile.
The seven or eight people at the front were instantly blasted backward by the impact and crashed heavily onto the rail bed.
The ammunition on some civilians exploded in a chain reaction due to electromagnetic sparks, and they fell one by one, smoking, amidst the scattered remains of their bodies.
The remaining mob were stunned by the horrific scene and tried to run away, but their escape route was already blocked by the surging crowd.
Wealth can be very tempting.
For that 10 billion, everyone abandoned civilized order, tore off their masks, and turned into bloodthirsty mad dogs.
In an instant, a hail of bullets rained down, covering the sky and earth.
In order not to hinder Starlight, Hughie could only dodge using his rusty teleportation ability.
He narrowly escaped being hit by stray bullets several times, leaving him looking extremely disheveled.
Although his teleportation is a rare spatial ability, its side effects are also exceptionally significant.
Every time Hughie tried to activate his power, a strong feeling of nausea would rise in his stomach, and his legs would go weak.
" Annie! No! There are too many people! We can't possibly stop all these lunatics."
Hughie dodged a barrage of shotgun blasts while calling out orders.
"Move quickly! Back away!"
As the Starlight unleashed its lightning, it blasted away the two civilians who lunged at it.
"Don't stay near me, Hughie, keep an eye on what's behind me!"
Just as Starlight's attention was drawn to the two armed thugs on his left...
In the shadow of the collapsed concrete pillar on the right.
A blind old man with a thick cigar in his mouth turned to the side and loaded an armor-piercing bullet into the muzzle of a gun that was propped up on a tripod.
Then it was pointed at the side of Starlight's head.
At that moment, Hughie, who was hiding in the pile of rubble, suddenly sensed something and caught a glimpse of the protruding black gun barrel out of the corner of his eye.
At the same time, the trigger is pulled.
"No--!!"
Hughie's mind went blank for a moment.
Adrenaline surged wildly.
Everything, in the face of this fatal blow, transformed into ultimate instinct.
He even ignored the stray bullets around him, spread his arms, and sprinted straight towards the direction of the Starlight.
"Buzz--"
In the midst of his turmoil, a crack suddenly appeared in the stubborn power within Hughie's body.
A massive surge of energy erupted from his heart, flowing through his bloodstream and into his limbs and bones.
"Smack!"
With a distorted, translucent light flashing by, the two figures vanished into thin air amidst the hail of bullets.
The bullet, flying straight through a set of empty clothing that was in freefall, struck the concrete wall firmly, leaving large spiderweb-like marks.
"Thump!"
The next second, Hughie and Annie crashed heavily into an extremely small and dimly lit space.
The surrounding area was littered with broken brooms, rusty yellow metal cabinets, and dusty old subway uniforms scattered on the ground.
Soon, the pungent smell of mildew and decades of accumulated dust filled their lungs.
"Cough cough..."
Hughie got up from his conscious state, only to realize that something was wrong.
He discovered that both he and Annie were completely covered in flesh-colored clothing, with nothing to hide them.
This means that, in the case of teleporting people.
Spatial shearing left their shirts, jeans, shoes, and even underwear behind.
Hughie lay on top of Annie, his hand pressed against a soft, supple spot.
"Well..."
He looked up blankly, only to meet Annie's fiery eyes.
The air seemed to freeze for a second.
" Hughie Campbell--!!"
Starlight let out a scream, her face instantly turning red to her ears, then she slapped Hughie away and covered her chest with one arm.
Then she bent her two long, fair legs and used her other hand to cover her private parts completely.
" Hughie, you bastard! Where are my clothes?!"
Hughie panicked and frantically covered his lower body with both hands:
"How the hell should I have known this would happen! If I hadn't lunged at you, that old man would have blown your head off!"
You're a pervert!
Enraged, Starlight grabbed an old shoe from beside her feet and hurled it at Hughie.
"I don't!"
Hughie got hit by a shoe, covered his crotch with his work pants, and retorted, straining his neck.
"I don't care... Get me some clothes right now! Don't look!"
While the two were covering their buttocks, in a state of confusion...
Suddenly, a wisp of a woman's cigarette and a strong, vintage perfume wafted from the dark, narrow back.
"You two have quite the romantic flair..."
"Tap, tap, tap."
Retro military boots stepped onto the cement floor.
Then a slender, voluptuous figure slowly emerged from the shadows.
A blonde, blue-eyed woman.
She had a half-smoked cigarette dangling from her mouth, and her long, wavy blonde hair was casually draped over her bare shoulders.
Her fiery red lips parted slightly, exhaling a wisp of smoke.
The WWII-era US military uniforms crudely crammed their extremely exaggerated curves into tight leather.
Her skin was white and heavy, swaying violently with her cat-like steps.
The military-style short skirt that hugged her round, peach-like figure completely exposed her long legs to the air.
It exudes the scent of a canary, yet carries a chilling and dangerous hormonal aura like that of a venomous snake.
far away.
Annie and Hughie had no idea who the woman in front of them was, but it wasn't hard to tell.
She's just like the group of people outside.
"Tsk tsk... Modern women, they still look quite young."
The Private Angel took a deep drag on his cigarette, his dark purple eyes sweeping unabashedly over Annie's naked body.
"It's quite round, but not perky enough, and as white as a piece of skim cheese..."
"When I snapped Nazis's neck with these legs, your great-grandmother probably wasn't even born yet..."
"Moreover, the modern Vought's aesthetic standards are actually the same special type that those old men liked back then...?"
"Get out of my way!"
Starlight felt goosebumps all over from the blatant, lewd gaze of the Private Angel.
Overwhelmed with shame and anger, she disregarded covering her body and unleashed a burst of blazing golden electricity from her hands, lashing them towards the Private Angel's chest.
"Sizzle--!"
The extremely violent high-voltage electric arc instantly charred the fair skin on the Private Angel's chest.
In some places, the flesh was even mangled and bloody.
However, the Private Angel didn't even flinch.
"Mmm... that feels so good~"
The Private Angel's long eyelashes narrowed, and a satisfied, blushing expression appeared on his face.
A strange wriggling sound followed.
Fresh buds of flesh were gushing out from the charred, decaying patch on her chest at a visible speed!
Blood vessels intertwine, muscles reorganize.
In just three seconds.
The charred skin was restored to its original fair, plump, and elastic state, without even a trace left.
"It feels quite comfortable, but... I don't like people who are rough with me~"
The Private Angel grinned, then licked his alluring red upper lip.
The next second.
"Brush!"
The Private Angel ' figures transformed into almost invisible afterimages, moving at an extreme speed.
Before Starlight could even react, the delicate, fair hands of the Private Angel gripped her neck like iron clamps.
Then, he easily lifted her off the ground and slammed her against the wall.