Marvel: The Super Player

The Scotland Yard officers felt their souls leave their bodies. Staring at the timer counting down from ten to zero, they only wished they had been born with an extra pair of legs, scrambled and crawled out of the building as fast as humanly possible.

But…

What was going on?

Once they safely made it outside, a few officers looked at each other with lingering panic. Looking back at the building, nearly twenty seconds had passed, yet it still hadn't blown up.

They stared at one another in confusion.

"Boom!"

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

Just as they began to wonder if they had been played, a violent explosion erupted. In an instant, the building ahead shattered into dust like fragile tofu. A massive shockwave, accompanied by a deafening roar, swept out frantically in every direction.

Thud!

Thud!

Thud!

The sheer force of the blast wave even flipped the sedans parked on the street. Like a person casually flicking ants, the cars were tossed into the air by the expanding air current before crashing heavily back to the asphalt with a loud crunch.

Steering his jet ski through the London waterways, Locke glanced back over his shoulder.

The ten-second countdown displayed on that main screen just now had been fake.

However, what followed was entirely real.

In fact…

He hadn't even set that countdown. It had been triggered by someone else who had remotely hacked into the facility's system from the outside.

"Roar!"

With a sharp drift, Locke guided the jet ski out of the canal networks and directly into the River Thames. Focusing his eyes on the small red tracking dot in his vision, he twisted the throttle to full capacity and pursued his target at maximum speed.

Woolwich.

Locke drove the jet ski straight up the concrete ramp and onto the road!

"Whoa!"

A Londoner driving an Audi R8 stared in disbelief at Locke operating a jet ski on solid concrete. Leaning his head out of the window, he wasn't even angry. Looking at Locke, who had zipped out from the side to block his path, he remarked, "Nice ride, ma—"

Locke stepped off the jet ski, calmly fastening the button of his suit jacket. With a flick of his right hand, the suppressed Golden Dancer was pointed directly at the local inside the vehicle.

"Get out."

Before the driver could finish his sentence, he looked at the Golden Dancer pressing against his forehead and swallowed hard.

The next second.

*Thump!*

*Vroom!*

Locke took over the driver's seat. Glancing back at the Londoner now stranded on the jet ski, he smiled.

"Very unique look!"

The local forced to sit on the jet ski: "..."

*Roar!*

Locke slammed his foot on the gas. Watching the red dot on his radar engage in left turns, right hooks, and all sorts of deceptive maneuvers, the corners of his mouth twitched.

"Let's see just where you think you're running."

London had officially been placed under total lockdown today.

Fires were breaking out everywhere!

The MI6 headquarters had been subjected to a brazen frontal assault, resulting in heavy casualties among the active agents.

Right after that, another major facility had been leveled in a massive explosion. Though the blast didn't claim any civilian lives, the political and social fallout was disastrous.

"Here!"

Inside a facility somewhere in London, a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent's eyes lit up. He rapidly manipulated the satellite feed, zooming in and locking onto a peculiar sight on a street in Woolwich.

A man was driving an Audi R8, navigating through the concrete streets.

"Give me the footage from three minutes ago."

"Working on it!"

"Hurry!"

"Facial recognition complete."

Looking at the data generated by the facial recognition algorithm, another S.H.I.E.L.D. agent compiled the subject's entire background profile onto a document and projected it across the central screen.

"An Audi R8?"

"What's his license plate number?"

"85461!"

"Quick, track it!"

Among the operational intelligence forwarded by S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters in the US, one specific detail explicitly noted that "the Peerless Assassin has a strong fixation on the Audi R8."

Just then, the secondary screen illuminated.

The face of Victoria Hand, the Commander of the New York S.H.I.E.L.D. Hub, appeared on the display.

Simultaneously, Commander Hand looked at the London S.H.I.E.L.D. Commander, who was standing with his arms crossed on her feed, and nodded. "Good afternoon!"

The London Commander returned the greeting.

The satellite mapping and the expansive network of surveillance feeds across London were being systematically cross-referenced. Suddenly, the image froze, and like untangling the loose thread of a ball of yarn, feed after feed expanded rapidly across the monitors.

"Found him!"

"License plate 85461!"

"Confirm the driver."

"Confirmed. Sunglasses, black suit."

"Moving from Woolwich toward Plumstead."

"The local police precinct is right over there."

"Notify them to set up an interception roadblock."

"Understood."

"Get the choppers in the air. Keep him pinned down."

The London Commander's eyes gleamed as he stared at the verified Audi R8. Reinvigorated, he began rattling off a series of tactical commands.

Victoria Hand, remaining on the line, watched the London Commander's eager expression and threw a bucket of cold water on his excitement. "Be careful. This Peerless Assassin is incredibly cunning."

The London Commander smiled faintly. "This is London."

The underlying implication was clear: Victoria Hand and her team in the US simply lacked competence.

But very quickly, the smile froze on the London Commander's face. On the live satellite feed, two police cruisers attempting to intercept the Audi R8 failed completely, flipping through the air and exploding into massive fireballs.

"This is..."

Victoria Hand let out a soft laugh. "Because that is London?"

"You..."

"Goodbye, London."

"..."

Commander Hand waved her hand, disconnecting the transmission. She then frowned slightly.

"Doesn't the Peerless Assassin usually refrain from targeting law enforcement? Why is it different this time?"

Beside her, Bobbi Morse noted, "My contacts in London told me that the MI6 headquarters suffered the same fate—staggering casualties, and Director M is currently fighting for her life."

"His principles have vanished."

"But he didn't harm that civilian."

Hearing Bobbi's observation, Victoria Hand nodded.

"So his principles haven't vanished; they've simply shifted. Because he is abroad, not back home. Is that it?"

Incredible.

Who would have thought that the Peerless Assassin was actually a nationalist? Back home, no matter the chaos, he avoided lethal confrontations with law enforcement. The moment he stepped onto foreign soil, he completely threw caution to the wind.

"This time..."

Commander Hand shook her head, snapping back to reality. "The London Hub... no, the face of the entire British establishment is going to be completely dragged through the dirt."

Bobbi Morse nodded, a hint of lingering dread and perhaps a trace of relief showing on her face.

Why did anyone think it was a good idea to provoke Locke Broughton in the first place?

On the surface, that kid had a legal team capable of suing an organization into bankruptcy.

And as for this bounty, people had claimed no one would dare take the contract. No one? This is what they called 'no one.' Thirty million—what kind of money was that anyway? Was the pride of Britain only worth thirty million?

"Bang!"

"Boom!"

Locke steered the Audi R8 expressionlessly. With his left hand, without even looking, he raised his weapon and fired a single shot, blowing apart the rotor blades of a police helicopter rushing over from the Thames.

He had genuinely wanted to maintain his operational parameters.

Unfortunately, the other party had broken the unspoken rules first.

Since the ICA belonged to MI5, it was incredibly easy to deduce that this entire operation carried the blessing of the British establishment. After all, MI5 was a domestic agency, functionally identical to the FBI.

Since they chose to draw first blood, why shouldn't Locke finish the job?

Furthermore, the more people they sent, the better.

Glancing through the rearview mirror at the absolute carnage left in his wake, Locke grinned. He floored the accelerator, pushing the vehicle's speed to a whole new level.

With a loud roar, the car rounded a bend and barreled straight toward a plain, unassuming office building that had appeared in his line of sight.

In an instant, Locke's trajectory shattered the last illusions of the security detachment inside. They had vainly hoped that Locke might just be passing through the sector.

Just then, his sixth sense tingled.

The exact moment the vehicle was about to slam into the building's facade, Locke leaned out and smoothly slipped from the moving car.

*Crash!*

The Audi R8 breached the entrance of the building, followed by a deafening impact and a highly unscientific cloud of dense gray dust.

The threat emerged directly from the haze.

But it was tiny. Negligible.

"Boom!"

"Clang!"

Locke raised his arm to parry a heavy blow, watching the man land firmly on his feet. Raising an eyebrow, his gaze dropped to the mechanical exoskeleton framework encasing the man's arms.

"Oh."

Locke tilted his head. "Well, aren't you a novel one?"

Jimmie Dalton glared at Locke, a manic grin spreading across his face. Without uttering a single word, he charged forward like a bullet.

*Click-clack-clack!*

The Peerless Divine Weapon reconfigured itself seamlessly in Locke's right hand. In an instant, a Barrett anti-materiel sniper rifle materialized in his grip.

"What?"

*Bang!*

Staring at the enemy leaping toward him like a hunting leopard, Locke pulled the trigger with his right hand. The airborne leopard didn't even have a chance to react; the moment the high-caliber round connected, he was instantly blown apart, disintegrating into a shower of shredded remains.

"Are you insane?"

Locke dismissed the Peerless Divine Weapon back into its passive state. Looking down at the red mist on the floor, and recalling the man's fleeting expression of panic as if accusing him of lacking martial honor, he let out a disdainful chuckle.

"I'm here to complete a contract, not to engage in some amateur martial arts duel."

With that, Locke turned around, focusing his attention on the building his Audi R8 had slammed into. Aside from the reinforced combatant he had just erased, not a single person had run out of the facility.

"Interesting!"

Locke looked up toward the eighth floor of the structure. His gaze seemed to pierce right through the tinted, reflective glass of the exterior, staring directly into the interior space.

Mr. C!

Wearing his spectacles, Mr. C watched Locke's leisurely, entirely unbothered approach toward the entrance down below. "Possessing quite the domineering aura, isn't he?"

Standing right behind him, Mrs. A said in a deep voice, "How on earth did he track us all the way here?"

"Who cares?"

"What?"

Mr. C smiled smoothly. "My facility is completely impregnable. Besides, did you really think my installation would be just as useless and fragile as yours?"

As he spoke, Mr. C pressed a concealed switch beneath the conference desk. Standing up, he gestured toward a reinforced panic room that had just opened up, inviting Mrs. A inside.

"Perhaps by the time we wake up from a short nap, he will have already been dealt with."

Mrs. A: "..."

***

Bonus chapter.

Next one at 300 stones

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