*Bang!
Bang!
Bang!* Bullets rained down like a monsoon on the spot where Grimm had been standing just a second ago.
The sheet metal of the pickup truck screeched under the onslaught, sparks showering into the night.
The windshield turned into a web of white cracks before collapsing entirely, and foam stuffing spurted out from the bullet-riddled seats.
“Smile for the camera.” The voice came from above.
A dozen men looked up in unison.
Grimm’s silhouette hovered briefly in midair, the rocket launcher on his shoulder gleaming with the cold sheen of steel.
*Clack!* The firing pin struck.
Someone managed to squeeze out a single word: “Run—” The tail end of the scream was swallowed by a deafening explosion.
A torrent of flame expanded, instantly vaporizing the figures below.
Once the shockwave passed, all that remained on the scorched concrete was a patch of wet, rapidly evaporating crimson.
“Ten out of ten.” The second Grimm’s boots touched the ground, a spike of ice-cold danger shot straight between his eyebrows.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he swung the still-smoking RPG tube in front of his face.
*Clang!
Clang!
Clang!* Several alloy needles slammed into the metal casing.
Grimm flicked his wrist, using the momentum to thrust the tube upward.
The remaining needles shifted trajectories, whistling into the air and punching pinpricks through the ceiling, letting down thin needles of starlight.
“Fast reaction,” Grimm said, looking toward the source of the dark weapons.
Bullseye was slowly pulling back his throwing hand.
“Boss, get out of here,” Bullseye muttered, his tongue licking his lower lip as his eyes locked onto Grimm.
Kingpin didn’t answer.
He pulled out a phone and pressed a speed-dial key.
“Which test subject is in this facility?” “Subject 084, my favorite little wolf girl, Boss,” a mature female voice came through the speaker.
“Release her.” “Aww, do we really have to?” She sounded reluctant.
Kingpin watched Grimm slowly striding toward him, his voice darkening.
“Release her.” “Alright, alright.
Unlocked.” *Ding—* High above the factory floor, the steel chains holding up a suspended shipping container snapped with a thunderous crack.
The heavy iron box crashed to the ground, shaking the entire building.
“Whoa, secret weapon.” Tony stole a quick glance at the wreckage.
As he spoke, a stun gun slid down his sleeve and into his palm.
He pulled the trigger, driving the electrodes straight into the side of Bullseye’s face.
A massive charge of electricity surged through the assassin’s nervous system.
Bullseye let out a sharp, choked groan before freezing rigid and collapsing to the floor.
Tony turned and bolted.
“I’m leaving it to you, brother!” he yelled without looking back.
“Don’t even think about escaping!” Kingpin bellowed, reaching out with a massive, meat-hook hand to grab him.
Grimm flashed between them, the Soul Splitter Katana raised high.
“Angry, big guy?” Grimm sneered, bringing the blade down in a brutal arc.
The edge sheared straight into Kingpin’s leathery, hardened flesh.
Blood spattered everywhere, drenching Grimm from head to toe.
“Ah!
Fuck!” Kingpin roared in agony, his eyes flashing with feral rage.
He threw his thick arms around Grimm’s waist, trying to crush him in a bear hug.
“Wanna cuddle?!” Grimm reached back, yanking the Inverted Spear of Heaven out of Choubao’s mouth, and plunged it straight into Kingpin’s left eye.
*Squelch!* The eyeball burst.
Kingpin clutched his face, his fingers sliding across the embedded blade as excruciating pain made the veins on his forehead bulge.
Cold sweat poured down his cheeks.
“Didn’t anyone tell you never to owe me my final payment?
Or have I been acting too nice lately?” Grimm sneered and bore down harder.
He leapt onto Kingpin’s broad shoulders like a night owl, driving the blade deeper like a ravenous beak sucking out marrow.
“Not a single…
damn…” He twisted the hilt, the metal scraping against the socket bone with a sickening screech.
“…cent!” Kingpin finally broke, unleashing a blood-curdling scream.
Just as the point was about to penetrate the brain stem, a fierce gust of wind slammed in from the side.
Bullseye leapt into the air, his leg whipping out like a steel cable toward Grimm’s head!
Without even turning around, Grimm swept the Soul Splitter Katana in his other hand toward the attacker’s midsection.
The blade sliced through flesh, but instead of cutting through bone, it produced a harsh, metallic screech as sparks burst out.
“What the hell?” Grimm raised an eyebrow.
He yanked out the Inverted Spear of Heaven and leapt backward to create space.
The agony of the blade tearing free from deep within his skull forced Kingpin to his knees with a muffled groan.
He clamped a hand over his ruined eye socket, blood gushing wildly between his thick fingers.
“Boss…” Bullseye stumbled forward, barely managing to support Kingpin’s massive frame.
The numbness from the electric shock hadn’t fully passed.
Tony’s modified taser was an upgraded model, discharging the energy of a high-capacity battery in a single fraction of a second.
“Tsk, tsk.
Looks like that hurt.” Both men looked up at the sound.
Grimm was hanging upside down from an iron girder above, grinning down at them with a wide, manic smile.
“We blew it this time,” Bullseye muttered, clutching his bleeding hip.
He wasn’t smiling.
If his spine hadn’t been reinforced with Adamantium, that cut would have bisected him.
*Screeech—* A sharp tearing noise echoed from the fallen container nearby.
Four metallic claws sliced through the iron sheet, showering sparks into the air.
A tiny figure wrapped in a thin, white hospital gown bolted out of the wreckage.
With a high-pitched screech, she leapt into the air, lunging straight at the strongest person in the room—Grimm.
“Whoa!” Grimm snapped his torso back, felt the razor-sharp claws shear through the empty air where his face had been.
The figure drove her claws into the steel girder, flipping herself over like a wild beast to scale the high structure.
“This is…” Grimm sat back on the metal frame, studying the four-legged crouch of the figure before him.
It was a girl, maybe twelve or thirteen years old.
Her face was delicate, yet radiating a raw, feral savage instinct.
Her eyes were clouded, overflowing with wild rage.
Button-sized devices were embedded into both of her temples, and metallic claws protruded from her hands, while one claw on her foot hadn’t fully deployed yet.
“Weapon X…
X-23…
Laura?
What is she doing here?” Grimm frowned slightly.
The timeline was off.
This clone of Wolverine should belong to a much later future.
Then again, he existed here himself.
How broken was this world already?
The thought flickered through his mind for only a second before he accepted the reality.
“Haaaah—” The girl seemed to recognize her name.
She shook her head painfully, then bared her sharp teeth at him, letting out a low, gut-wrenching growl.
“Looks like you’re being controlled, but you still have your self-awareness.” Grimm pulled a chocolate bar out of his pocket and waved it in front of her.
“Salty flavor.
It’s really good.
How about you pretend you didn’t see me?” As he spoke, he caught Kingpin and Bullseye out of the corner of his eye, struggling toward a getaway vehicle.
The girl blinked, tilting her head.
The next second, the devices on her temples flashed with a bright blue light.
With a barely audible hum of electric current, her pupils contracted violently.
She leaned forward, muscles coiling across her limbs.
Her claws dug into the edge of the steel frame, blasting sparks across the metal as she launched herself straight at him!
“Tsk.
Troublesome little wolf.” Grimm casually tossed the chocolate bar into the air, his form blurring.
He reversed his grip on the blades, dug his boots into the steel frame—leaving deep dents in the metal—and shot forward like an arrow.
In the blink of an eye, he was right in front of the girl, reflecting in her contracting pupils.
Too fast!
She swung her claws in a panic, the superheated red-hot blades crossing in front of her chest.
Grimm crossed his twin blades to lock her claws in place, pulled back using her momentum, and drove a violent knee strike straight into her jaw!
“Ugh—!” The girl flew upward.
The violent shockwave traveled through her skeleton straight into her brain, causing her eyes to roll back.
Grimm tossed his blades into the air, caught her head with his newly freed right hand, and slammed her face-first into the iron girder!
*Crack.* The sound of fracturing bone echoed through the warehouse.
The steel frame caved inward, and the girl’s body went limp, completely losing the ability to move.
*Thunk, thunk.* The twin blades spun through the air and embedded themselves into the ceiling above.
“Told you it tastes good.” Grimm caught the falling chocolate bar and tossed it beside the unconscious girl.
He glanced down toward the direction the vehicle was speeding away in.
His eyes were cold and indifferent, making no move to pursue.
They couldn’t run far.
He had followed the rules too closely these past few years, giving certain people the delusion that he belonged to the ‘lawful’ camp…
That was his mistake.
But he would make sure they learned what real pain felt like.
*BOOM—!!* The side wall of the factory collapsed inward.
Dust and debris flew everywhere as brilliant sunlight poured through the newly created breach.
A blonde man clad in a suit adorned with stars and stripes knelt in the center of the ruins, slowly raising his head.
“Choubao, go fetch them,” Grimm ordered.
The cursed spirit wrapped around his torso detached itself, slithering up toward the ceiling to retrieve the blades.
Grimm jumped down from the high frame.
“A-Train was supposed to be the backup, not a busy guy like you.
A thirty-second response time is way slower than what I expected.” Grimm approached him.
“That idiot ran straight through a woman and turned her into red paste.
He’s currently matching scripts with the PR department.
So, I came instead.” Homelander gave Grimm a friendly pat on the shoulder.
“Besides, I’m the fastest one here.
But you know how it is—Madelyn’s milk is just too sweet to resist.” “Still, Edgar spending the capital to send you here is a big move,” Grimm remarked.
“Mm-hmm.
The camera crew will be here any second.
But…
I think I saw some SHIELD folks outside?” Homelander shot Grimm a sidelong glance, his tone dragging out with playful amusement.
“Ah, you greedy bastard.
Trying to play both sides again?” “What’s wrong with that?
Tony Stark escapes from terrorists in Afghanistan, only to fall into the clutches of New York’s underworld.
Luckily, SHIELD intelligence spotted it in time, and Homelander carried out a flawless rescue of the billionaire.
This whole operation was a joint effort between SHIELD and Vought from the start, wasn’t it?” “Mmm~ I should fire those useless idiots in the marketing department and hire you instead.” Homelander preened, tilting his chin up in satisfaction.
“Do I look like the type to sit in an office?” Just then, a gang member who had survived the explosion let out a painful groan from under the rubble.
Homelander turned his head, his eyes igniting with a lethal red glare.
*ZZZZZT—* A burst of heat vision swept across the room.
The man’s head instantly vaporized, leaving behind only a charred ring of skin around his neck.
“Too messy,” Grimm criticized.
“Yeah.
Next time, I’ll aim for the chest,” Homelander agreed with a nod.
“Go find Tony Stark.
He hasn’t gotten far.” “Yes.
I see him.” Homelander took a duck-footed step back, bent his knees, raised his hands above his head like a breaststroker, and launched off.
*BOOM!* He smashed straight through the ceiling, shooting into the sky.
“Fuck’s sake, couldn’t you just walk outside before flying?” Grimm took a few steps back, dodging the shower of dust and concrete chips.
He was very familiar with Homelander—or rather, with Stan Edgar.
A few years ago, Edgar’s granddaughter, Zoe Neuman, was kidnapped by an invisible, mentally unstable supe.
After passing through several hands, the contract ended up with Grimm.
It took him less than a minute to solve it, mostly because the psycho happened to be standing in the same KFC line as him, ordering food.
Afterward, Edgar wanted to bring Grimm into the fold and recruit him into the Seven, but Grimm turned him down.
Ironically, that rejection pulled Homelander’s attention toward him instead.
Still, the two got along well enough…
As for shared hobbies, they weren’t entirely the same.
Homelander liked drinking milk.
Grimm preferred biting and scratching.