Chapter 116: The Mad Cross
While Chris was dealing with Fox, Cross was not idle.
A day and a night had passed since his son was taken, and he had repelled several waves of assassins sent by Sloan, finally finding time to recuperate.
Returning to his safe house, Cross rose from a bathtub filled with restorative fluid, put on a coat, and walked to the window.
He frowned, looking at the apartment across the way, only to see a couple going at it.
Cross recognized who those two pieces of shit were; the woman was his son's girlfriend, and the man was his son's friend and coworker.
However, in the past, to protect Wesley's safety, Cross had never interfered in Wesley's life.
Even when his son was getting cheated on by his friend, or humiliated and bullied by others, Cross never revealed his existence.
But now, Cross felt that all his previous ideas were complete bullshit.
His concessions, his concealment—none of it gave his son a stable life. Instead, it caused his son to live in a chaotic and miserable environment.
More importantly, his arrangements, which he thought were for Wesley's good, ultimately dragged Wesley into his dangerous world anyway.
If he had known that fate would arrange things this way, he should have trained Wesley from a young age to become a strong person.
Instead of the pushover he was now.
The more he thought about it, the more he regretted it, and coupled with the sounds coming from the apartment across the way, Cross was consumed by rage.
He picked up the pistol from the table beside him and, without even looking, pulled the trigger toward the other building.
As the roar of a passing El train masked the gunshots, two more bodies appeared in Wesley's original crappy apartment.
One was his girlfriend, and the other was his best friend.
Fortunately, Wesley had long known about their affair, so even if he saw this scene, he would only wish he'd been the one to pull the trigger.
After dealing with the two annoying assholes in front of him, Cross slumped into a chair, covering his face and sighing in despair.
So far, he still didn't know where his son had been taken, or what that bastard Sloan planned to do with him.
After another train passed, Cross stood up and began to pack his gear.
Waiting to die was not his style, and rushing in recklessly didn't fit an assassin's habits.
Therefore, Cross decided not to worry about those details for now.
Sloan's goal was to kill him, so as long as he was alive, his son would still have value as leverage.
So, to increase his son's chances of survival, Cross needed to put some pressure on Sloan to buy Wesley more time.
After making thorough preparations, Cross left his hideout and began to hunt down his former colleagues.
While Cross was hunting Fraternity members, Chris had already taken Wesley to the bustling city center of Miami.
Looking at the bruised and swollen Wesley, Chris took out a bottle of energy drink and handed it to Wesley, motioning for him to apply it to his wounds.
The energy drink, to put it plainly, was a high-performance synthetic supplement; its main function was to replenish human energy consumption.
Other side effects were derived from this basis and even had to rely on the human body's natural abilities.
Therefore, in terms of healing injuries, as long as the energy drink provided enough nutrients and energy to accelerate cell repair, according to the body's own recovery speed, effects could be seen very quickly.
So, after Wesley applied the drink topically and took a sip, his injuries no longer looked so bad, and even his body pain had significantly eased; at least he could walk normally now.
Seeing Wesley return to normal, Stewie laughed excitedly, "Ha ha, kid, looks like we can give you extra training tonight!"
Hearing the demonic baby's remark, Wesley, who'd been happy about his body's recovery, showed despair in his eyes, suddenly regretting that his body had recovered so quickly.
"Haha, dude, don't tease him!" Chris laughed heartily, patting Wesley's shoulder, making his arm ache.
Looking at Wesley, who was clutching his shoulder and wincing, Chris explained, "It seems my buddy's education for you was very effective. I can see your whole vibe is completely different from before; you already have a bit of a badass's attitude."
After a day of Stewie's education, Wesley's original inferiority and cowardice had been replaced by courage and grit.
His entire mental state was also on a constant upward trajectory.
If he were allowed to develop like this, even if no one continued to guide and supervise him afterward, Wesley could become an elite member of society.
After all, this guy had the bloodline of that super assassin Cross; he had inherited some of Cross's talent, no matter what.
Wesley listened to Chris's praise, grinned sheepishly, and didn't respond directly.
He just knew that he had indeed become different from before.
Not only were there mental changes, but Wesley also felt that his physical body had undergone incredible changes.
During the time he was being "trained" by Stewie, he had entered that incredible state several times.
His heartbeat was as powerful as a roaring engine, and his blood surged like a freight train on the tracks.
This incredible change brought about the most direct enhancement of strength and speed, allowing him to even catch flies with chopsticks.
It was just a shame that even with this ability, he still couldn't resist the demonic baby's domination.
Recalling how he was still easily knocked down by Stewie even after entering that enhanced state, Wesley glanced nervously at the device on Stewie's wrist.
He had seen that devil baby activate the device, which made him suddenly lose the ability to resist.
While Wesley was reviewing his painful experiences, Chris had already led the group into a shooting range.
Fox watched as the shooting range staff escorted other customers out, and asked curiously, "What are we doing here? Teaching this guy how to shoot? What's the point of that?"
She had already learned Sloan's true nature from Chris; although she could tell Chris wasn't lying, this was still only Chris's side of the story.
Therefore, even with her attraction to Chris, Fox still didn't believe Sloan could be such a person until she found evidence.
However, the seed of doubt had been planted, and Fox wasn't prepared to return to the Fraternity headquarters.
She wanted to try to find evidence elsewhere to see if the facts were as Chris said.
Hence, she was puzzled by Chris wasting time at the shooting range now.
She had also seen Chris use that sci-fi equipment, so she naturally knew that coming to a place like this had no effect on Chris whatsoever.
So, were they really going to train Wesley?
Fox curiously studied the young man, who was a completely different person from yesterday, wondering what made him so special that so many people had designs on him.
To Fox's curiosity, Chris simply gave the most direct answer.
"Because it's fun."
Chris picked up a gun from the shooting range and aimed at the target ahead; his superhuman control meant he didn't need practice at all—he could hit whatever he aimed at.
After emptying the magazine, Chris replaced it, then handed the gun to Wesley, saying with a smile, "Don't you think it's really satisfying to train a nobody into a total badass?"
Faced with this strange answer, Fox laughed in disbelief, "You're insane!"
Wesley quietly nodded in agreement, while thinking, 'I'm not a nobody.'
He knew he was different from before.
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