Chapter 19

That was way too badass, way too cool!!

"My home isn't far from here. Before a mission, I usually come to this safe house to change into my gear and put on civilian clothes, then head straight out."

Mindy smiled.

"How old are you?"

Su Chen was very curious.

"I just had my birthday. I'm fourteen."

She patted her chest, looking like a little grown-up.

"I really admire you."

Su Chen meant it. A cold-faced, fourteen-year-old loli assassin was a deeply shocking sight.

"I'm the one who admires you. You're way cooler than me. You just took down an entire army!"

Mindy patted Su Chen on the shoulder and gave him a thumbs-up, the very picture of a lively young girl.

Now that Su Chen had gotten to know her, he had opened up considerably, and his formerly cold, stiff expression had softened somewhat.

"You look so handsome like that."

The lively Mindy even reached out to pinch his face, acting a bit like a big sister.

But when she remembered how coldly and mercilessly he had slaughtered his enemies, she didn't dare go too far. She stuck out her tongue cutely and withdrew her hand.

"Oh, right..."

"I forgot to call."

She suddenly remembered something important: she had forgotten to contact her father.

She had rushed out earlier and forgotten to bring her phone.

But now that she had called home, no one had picked up for a long time.

"Come on, pick up..."

Mindy suddenly grew anxious.

Su Chen frowned too, immediately realizing that something was wrong.

But after half a minute, then a full minute, there was still no answer.

"This is bad!"

"Something might have happened to Dad."

Mindy's delicate little face was full of anxiety. She hurriedly grabbed a large-caliber automatic rifle from the wall and slung it over her back, then propped one foot on a stool and took the throwing knives and butterfly knives from the table, fastening them all to the thigh straps beneath her skirt.

Su Chen didn't hesitate either. He followed her straight out of the safe house.

Mindy's home wasn't far from the safe house.

Following an alley led to a detached house a short distance away.

Mindy nimbly climbed over the wall and entered through the back door.

"Someone broke in..."

Mindy crept quietly into her living room, muffling her footsteps. The overturned tables and dishes scattered across the floor made it clear that a fight had taken place.

"Damn it! They took my dad!"

No matter how thoroughly Mindy searched the house, she couldn't find Big Daddy Damon.

The secret computer hidden in the toolbox was gone too.

Mindy was frantic. She immediately pulled a phone from a drawer in the counter.

"In case one of us gets caught, Big Daddy and I each carry a miniature tracker on our clothes..."

It had taken quite a while to get back from Central Park and stop at the safe house along the way.

But it would also have taken their pursuers some time to find the address in the computer's backend and come to capture him.

It was very possible her dad hadn't been taken all the way back yet.

There was still a chance to put everything right!!

P.S. There's a profession abroad called photojournalism. They specialize in filming fires and crime scenes as soon as they happen and selling the footage to TV stations and media outlets. There's a good movie called "Nightcrawler" about it.

Chapter 19

Whoosh!!

A car sped down the street. For Hit-Girl, driving a car was far easier than precisely firing shots at an enemy.

"Not much farther..."

Mindy pressed down on the accelerator. The fourteen-year-old loli was so small and petite that she looked as though she was practically standing in the driver's seat.

There was something inexplicably cute about it.

But Su Chen didn't find it funny at all. After all, if he was right, her father had probably been dragged into this because of him.

All he could do was pray that nothing had happened to him.

Damn it...

If he could control his reality-warping power more precisely, he wouldn't be so helpless now. He could simply cross space and reach their destination.

But their destination wasn't very far away.

Mindy pulled off a fierce drift, swinging the entire car more than ninety degrees before bringing it to a steady stop on a road.

"Something's wrong!!"

She suddenly felt as though she had been toyed with.

Mindy opened the car door. According to the map on her phone's tracker, the location was right in front of her.

But what lay before her was a wide road without a single person in sight. Only a conspicuous trash can stood within view.

"Bastards!!"

Mindy cursed and kicked over the trash can, which stood taller than a person. Among the pile of garbage that spilled out was a gray T-shirt.

"Big Daddy's clothes were thrown away. This was a trap to toy with me."

Hit-Girl's eyes instantly turned red.

Only then did she suddenly recall that her enemies weren't those stupid gangsters at all, but the machinery of the state, weighing down on her shoulders like a mountain.

How could those crude tricks possibly outwit military personnel?

Mindy gritted her teeth and dialed another number on her phone.

It belonged to Big Daddy Damon's friend, a close friend from his days in an intelligence agency. Thanks to his connections, they had managed to obtain plenty of weapons and equipment.

Beep, beep...

But after two or three calls, no one answered.

An ominous feeling spread through her heart. Perhaps he had been implicated and arrested too. The bold but reasonable thought made Mindy's heart clench.

"We have to go. It isn't safe here..."

Mindy forced back the tears in her voice and climbed resolutely into the driver's seat.

Watching her, Su Chen felt a faint ache in his heart.

If she had been a stranger, he wouldn't have felt so bad.

But his cold, guarded heart had only just begun to lower its defenses and prepare to accept a new friend when a merciless answer arrived: he seemed to have caused the death of this friend's family.

He had caused others far too much trouble.

In a daze, the two returned to the safe house.

Mindy's old home was naturally no longer somewhere they could stay.

Compared with the cheerful atmosphere before, the safe house, with its three high walls lined with guns, was solemn and tense upon their return. They spoke much less, too.

The usually cheerful, lively loli girl had fallen utterly silent.

Last year, she had been able to fight her way in and out of an underground gang's underground garage seven times without changing expression.

But against the enemy she faced now, she felt powerless, with no idea where to begin.

She couldn't even find out where her dad was being held.

In the end, they were only two children. They had no powerful backing or extraordinary means, and with Damon having vanished into thin air, all they could do was wait helplessly here.

Outside the window, the sky was gradually growing light.

A new dawn had arrived, but the light the two inside were waiting for had yet to come.

"I'll definitely help you..."

Su Chen didn't know how to comfort her, so all he could do was make a promise.

"How will you help me? Can you bomb an army base? Go against this country? Go against the whole world?"

Mindy snapped back.

Her emotions out of control, tears filled her eyes and streaked her delicate face. The misery she had suppressed for so long burst out.

She was only a fourteen-year-old child, after all. However much she had been through, she still couldn't withstand the loss of a loved one.

And just then, even worse news arrived.

The television, which had been left on, switched programs.

"We now bring all citizens a news bulletin. According to reports, a battle took place in Central Park in the Manhattan area early this morning. General Ross's troops were fighting a Mutant and were wiped out. General Ross himself was also at the scene."

The sensational news left every viewer in front of a television utterly shocked.

In peacetime, had an army really been unable to defeat a single Mutant?

Was this another terrorist attack launched by the Brotherhood of Mutants?

Or had the army tried to arrest a Mutant, only to be killed instead?

Soon, the television station with the exclusive report aired footage of that night's battle in Central Park. A barrage of flying needles swept across the sky, claiming soldiers' lives, while a slender young boy sent a bulky monster flying with a single collision.

Although the camera footage was in black and white, it all seemed far more thrilling than a Hollywood blockbuster.

As word spread privately, the television station's ratings soared.

The military was caught off guard. They had never imagined that the despicable Rising Tide had played them as well. But they reacted quickly and immediately approached the television station for damage control.

"...Upon learning of this, a military representative sent our station a message."

At that moment, the host appeared on screen. Unhurriedly, he read the note he had been handed. "The suspect is a new member of the terrorist organization known as the Brotherhood. He is a vicious, extremist Mutant, a Chinese youth named Su Chen."

"Hmm..."

"An S-class warrant, the highest level of wanted notice, awaits him. In other words, there's nowhere left for him to run."

To help viewers identify him, an enlarged black-and-white image of Su Chen appeared on the television.

Seeing this,

Su Chen, standing in front of the television, twisted his face.

Central Park was adjacent to Manhattan's most prosperous district, so the events there naturally couldn't be kept out of the news. In fact, Su Chen had even harbored a sliver of hope that the media or someone else would clear his name and fully exonerate him.

Yet he, an innocent lab rat, a military test subject who had narrowly escaped death,

Had today become wanted throughout the world, transformed into a Mutant member of an extremist terrorist organization.

It was utter nonsense!