"Then let's happily get to work, starting right here." Su Ming clapped his hands and unceremoniously assigned Magnetic King a task, his tone very relaxed: "There are probably tens of thousands of Hydra troops in the city. Go kill them all, then come wait for me here. I'm going after their commander."
"Are you sure you mean kill all of them?" Magnetic King was indeed ruthless, but hearing "kill tens of thousands" all of a sudden was still a first for him; he couldn't help feeling a bit out of his depth.
"Think about the pain they caused you before, think about how they tortured your fellow Mutants. Of course, the choice is yours. If you can capture them all alive, I've got no objections. It's just that the United States doesn't have capital punishment, so once these guys get out of prison, who knows if they'll ever turn over a new leaf..."
Su Ming said he didn't mind, but every word was fanning the flames, as if if he didn't Eradica these people, Magnetic King would become the eternal sinner of the Mutant race.
Magnetic King was a man with a very peculiar way of doing things. The choices he made were often incomprehensible to others; you could say he acted completely on his mood.
Simply put, he was willful. If he wanted someone dead, he'd chase them to the ends of the earth to kill them. If he didn't want to kill someone, then no matter how much that person courted death right in front of him, he wouldn't spare them a glance. Especially when it came to Ordinary humans: as long as that Ant hadn't bitten him or his kin, he couldn't be bothered to argue with an Ant.
In his heart there was only the greater good of the Mutant race and his own Hate; he only ever looked toward the Future in the distance, rarely paying attention to what was happening around him.
Fortunately, Su Ming had plenty of things in hand that could be used as bargaining chips. Today was just a nice start. A few years down the road, if Magnetic King behaved himself, he'd give him back his burned wife, let him taste a bit of sweetness.
"Don't forget your promise."
"Relax. Anyone who's negotiated terms with me knows I always keep my word. One hundred percent honest businessman."
Magnetic King gave him a long, deep look, as if trying to etch Deathstroke's image into his memory. Then he stepped onto a manhole cover that had flown over from who-knows-where, his cape billowing as he drifted away.
If he'd been standing on a Treasure Sword or some other weapon, it might've been a pretty cool pose, but on a manhole cover...
Su Ming curled his lip. Looked like the Magnetic King of now hadn't yet grasped that future "pretend to be cool as naturally as the wind" vibe; he still came off a bit tacky everywhere.
So the troops in the city were left for him to handle. Su Ming needed to find the person in Super Axis in charge of this place and kill him.
Would it be Zemo? But Zemo was still useful. Whether it was to check the Red Skull who would appear again in the Future, or to use him as a shit-stirring stick within Hydra, there was no one more suitable than him.
And Zemo didn't believe in any doctrine either. He went to the battlefield purely to avenge his father. A good kid like that should be kept alive; at most, break his legs.
"Heimdall!"
The Eternal Guardian of the Immortal Palace was now being used as a pure tool man, dedicated to Teleportation, sending Deathstroke back and forth, and also responsible for using his eyes as surveillance cameras.
Even though using the Rainbow Bridge required a huge amount of Energy, it wasn't Su Ming footing the bill. If it's free, you'd be a fool not to use it.
Originally, Su Ming hadn't planned on letting Asgard get involved in this, but Monac had malfunctioned. Without Divination Spell, the only way to track people down was to rely on this outsider Heimdall.
"Found the target yet?" Su Ming stood in the observatory, looking at Heimdall beside him, the Giant Sword thrust into the pedestal.
The Guard looked a bit helpless. Just now, Odin's Crow had brought the Divine King's order, telling him to cooperate with Deathstroke and get this disaster star sent off as soon as possible.
"I saw some special individuals in what you people call a city, but I'm not sure if it's that skintight-weirdo you're looking for. He's all in black, very strange. You can go see for yourself."
With that, he gave the hilt a hard twist. The Rainbow Bridge flared with light and instantly shot Su Ming out again.
This time his landing spot was obviously much more conspicuous—right in the middle of a battlefield.
By now the surroundings had clearly been plowed over by shells or explosives; their original appearance was unrecognizable. Only chunks of earth blown up by the blasts were scattered everywhere, along with a large number of ring-shaped blast craters.
The two sides' forces were also very clear. On one side was a multicolored tide of people in everyday clothes; on the other was a small unit directly under the SSR, led by Nick Fury himself. The two sides were firing wildly at each other across an open stretch of ground.
The fact that Fury had made it here in such a short time meant his people had already been in Washington before this happened. Little Black Man had indeed sensed that the new Director was off and had prepared a backup plan in advance.
He probably just hadn't expected things to unfold like this; the enemy's attack method had completely blindsided him.
Right now the Strategic Science Corps' men were fighting with their hands tied. It seemed they'd already realized the enemy were their own people under control—but so what? Bullets don't check IDs.
The National Guard had completely fallen into the hallucinatory effects of the mushrooms. In their eyes, they were probably in the middle of occupying Berlin right now, who knows.
And the pillar of light suddenly appearing in the middle of the battlefield threw Fury's side into a brief daze, during which several of their men were immediately cut down by the enemy.
The SSR's numbers were far fewer than the other side's. They were relying on their elite training and the cover of urban alleyways to hold the enemy back. Losing a few men at this point made the corner of Fury's mouth twitch uncontrollably.
"Faker... it's this guy again."
Seeing the black-and-yellow Armored Man step out of the light column, bullets sparking off his Armor while Deathstroke walked like nothing was happening, a cigarette still pinched between his fingers, Fury clutched his permed hair in agony.