Deep in his eyes, Yuri felt a surge of pity for Tangrui and Jem’s future.
At the same time, he couldn’t help but feel a little curious.
Living in Central City, there was no way the brothers hadn’t heard of The Flash.
Everyone in the city knew who he was.
The massive Flash Museum downtown was proof enough.
Why else did they think Central City’s crime rate was so manageable?
With The Flash’s absurd speed, standard crimes stood practically zero chance of succeeding.
Anyone capable of causing real trouble in Central City had to possess high-tech weapons or metahuman abilities.
Ordinary street thugs only served to pad the Central City PD’s arrest quotas.
A job worth a few million bucks was definitely not something street-level punks could pull off.
“A job worth a few million?
What, are you planning to rob a bank?
Aren’t you afraid of The Flash?
I’d bet he knocks you out before you even step through the front doors,” Yuri said in a hushed, intrigued voice, putting on a front of genuine interest.
Well, considering he only had three hundred twenty-seven dollars and fifty-five cents to his name—including the thirty dollars he’d just earned—and thinking back to the coarse, bitter, two-month-and-eighteen-day expired cheap cereal he’d been eating three times a day for the past few days, Yuri actually *was* interested.
Of course, that didn’t mean he’d lose his head and rush off to break the law.
At the very least…
he’d need a thorough plan.
“No, no, no.
Robbing a bank is way too stupid.” Jem was clearly pleased with Yuri’s reaction.
He knew how poor Yuri was, and desperate people were always the easiest to persuade.
*Not a bank robbery?* A flicker of surprise flashed in Yuri’s eyes.
It seemed the brothers weren’t completely brainless after all.
“Don’t worry about The Flash.
He isn’t in Central City anymore,” Jem whispered, his eyes and voice brimming with absolute confidence.
“The Flash isn’t in Central City?
How do you know?” Yuri could swear he hadn’t missed a single piece of superhero news over the last few days, specifically to avoid any sudden disasters and escape in time if needed.
Just yesterday, The Flash had fought Weather Wizard on a commercial street less than five kilometers away, and a storm had allegedly destroyed half the storefronts on the block.
“Not just Central City’s Flash.
The old Flash in Keystone City went to Denver, that sexy bitch Jesse Quick is in deep financial trouble and can’t be bothered with small fries like us…
As for Kid Flash?
Just a green kid.” Jem let out a sleazy smirk toward Yuri.
“This is a rare ‘superhero vacuum period’ in Central City.
All we need to worry about are the cops.”
Those few sentences dropped a massive amount of information.
Secrets like those shouldn’t have been known so clearly by the police or the media, let alone a petty street criminal.
Yuri began to wonder: was the guy standing in front of him really the punk Jem he remembered?
“Don’t ask how I know.
Once you decide to join us, you’ll naturally understand everything.” Jem reached his arm through the car window and patted Yuri on the shoulder.
“Don’t worry, we won’t make you do anything too dangerous.
You just need to drive.”
“If you’ve made up your mind, meet us right here at eight tomorrow night.”
With that, Jem turned around and returned to Tangrui, helping him unload the milk crates from the truck.
Yuri sat back to digest the information from their brief conversation.
On one hand, Jem hadn’t actually shared any details of their “job”—Yuri still had no idea what they were planning.
On the other hand, Jem seemed suspiciously well-informed about the movements of the superheroes in Central City and Keystone City.
He either had some unknown intelligence source, or he was talking completely out of his ass.
Yuri leaned toward the former option, though he wasn’t sure what kind of relationship Tangrui and Jem had with this “source.”
“Feels like I’m going to get dragged into something real troublesome…” Yuri frowned.
Sticking around Jem and his brother meant he’d likely come into contact with bizarre underground organizations.
But if he declined their invitation, and they really were connected to some group, they might worry he’d blow the whistle on them—which would lead to even bigger trouble.
Yuri hated trouble.
So, he decided he would come by tomorrow night to check out the situation.
Besides, with the beat-up watch on his wrist, he didn’t believe “normal people” like Jem and Tangrui could pose any real threat to him.
The milk in the beat-up old truck was unloaded in no time.
Yuri spent the entire time sitting in the driver’s seat spacing out, not even bothering to look back.
There was nothing inside the dilapidated vehicle anyway, so he wasn’t worried about anything being stolen.
As for why Yuri didn’t help unload the cargo?
Naturally, it was because Ms.
Shufen didn’t want to pay him an extra handling fee.
This was free America: you could get anyone to do anything, provided you paid for it.
Exchanging a “you know the drill” look with Tangrui and Jem, Yuri drove away with a complicated mood.
He had thought he could live a quiet, ordinary life, but that prospect was looking increasingly unlikely…
The distance between Central City and Keystone City was extremely short—so short that the two could essentially be viewed as a single city, true Twin Cities.
Only a single river separated them, and the Van Buren Bridge led straight from Central City into Keystone City, taking less than ten minutes to cross.
The police stations of both cities happened to sit near opposite ends of the bridge, allowing them to render aid to each other at a moment’s notice.
The reason Yuri had been late coming over earlier was that the dairy factory was located near the ranches in the far suburbs of Keystone City, far from the city center, forcing him to take a detour.
Crossing the bridge connecting the two cities, Yuri drove non-stop toward the slums of Keystone City.
Before heading home, he had one more errand to run.
Car repairs.
If he didn’t fix the truck, its terrible appearance would prevent anyone from hiring him for haulage, cutting off his only source of income.
“The hole in the windshield is almost half the size of a fist.
The whole thing needs to be replaced.
I think the cheapest windshield shop is in…”
*BOOM!*
“Hahaha!
These toys are absolutely amazing!”
Just as Yuri was pondering where to buy cheap glass, an explosion detonated right above him, followed by someone’s joyous laughter.
A blonde young man wearing an eyepatch and a yellow-and-blue circus outfit, dressed like a carnival magician, dashed across the roof of the old truck, sparks flying from the soles of his shoes.
As he ran, he turned back and taunted, “You cops are just getting run in circles by me!
Remember to tell your colleagues tomorrow—The Trickster is back!”
The Trickster—a veteran member of The Rogues and a former arch-nemesis of The Flash.
However, ever since the Justice League was founded and The Flash shifted his focus from Central City’s daily affairs to League missions, The Rogues had officially disbanded.
No one knew why.
Pied Piper had reformed and turned to vigilante work, Captain Cold and his sister Golden Glider had founded a bounty hunter agency, Heat Wave had accepted a pardon to become a firefighting consultant, Mirror Master had retired, and Weather Wizard had been missing for a long time until he suddenly resurfaced yesterday to fight The Flash.
As for The Trickster, he had accepted a pardon just like Heat Wave and was now an FBI agent.
But that wasn’t the main point—the main point was that the famous Trickster, James Jesse, was well over forty years old!
Yet the guy running across his roof calling himself The Trickster was a young man in his early twenties.
None of that had much to do with Yuri, though.
Looking up at the four extremely visible dents pounded into his roof by the falling bricks during the explosion, Yuri fell into a heavy silence.
He didn’t know why The Trickster seemed to have regressed in age.
He only knew that his entire net worth was three hundred twenty-seven dollars and fifty-five cents.
Replacing the windshield was already enough to make his heart bleed, and now he had to fix the roof…
No.
This “Trickster” had to pay!
Without another word, Yuri extended his left arm to reveal the beat-up watch and slammed the activation button with his right hand.
The core popped up, displaying the DNA list above the dial.
Out of the ten initial DNAs, Yuri made his choice swiftly.
Selecting the icon on the list, he pressed the core down firmly.
“I choose you—XLR8!”
A burst of green light shot out from the face of the watch, enveloping Yuri before a tearing sensation ripped through his muscles.
Yuri’s body began to rewrite itself at the cellular level.
His skin hardened into a sleek armor composed of blue and black patterns.
The watch emblem embedded itself directly into his chest.
His hands transformed into razor-sharp claws, while his legs morphed into those of a velociraptor, equipped with black rolling spheres beneath his feet and a long tail extending from behind.
The human body vanished, replaced by—XLR8!