Chapter 41 : Kimiko
"Keep an eye out," Frenchie said while pulling out a lock-picking kit. "I shall handle the door."
He barely finished the sentence before Mark walked past him.
There was a brief distortion in the air.
The steel door suddenly folded inward with a violent metallic screech. The entire center section compressed into itself as if an invisible hand had crushed it like aluminum foil. A second later, what used to be a reinforced security door hit the concrete floor as a dense twisted sphere of metal.
Silence followed.
Frenchie stared at the metal ball in disbelief.
Mother’s Milk looked from the ruined doorway to Mark and back again.
"Yeah," Mark said casually. "Save the lock-picking for later."
Then he stepped through the opening.
Frenchie remained standing there for another second.
His eyes drifted toward the crushed steel.
If Mark could do that to a reinforced door...
He wasn’t particularly interested in finding out what would happen if the same force was applied to a human body.
"I know exactly what you’re thinking," M.M. muttered while walking past him.
"Oui?"
"That would be ugly."
Inside, the storage area stretched much further than expected.
Large stacks of crates filled the floor. The place looked ordinary except for the dark and damp atmosphere until Mark noticed three men sitting around a table near the center of the room playing cards.
None of them had noticed the destroyed entrance yet.
"Well," Mark said while removing his glasses and slipping them into his pocket, "time for some public service."
One of the guys finally looked up.
His eyes widened.
"Hey, who the fu—"
The sentence was never finished.
Mark crossed the distance in a blur.
The chair exploded backward as he grabbed the man by the front of his jacket and lifted him completely off the ground. The guy barely had time to react before Mark slammed him into the concrete floor.
The impact knocked the breath from the man’s lungs and sent the card table flying sideways.
The other two guys reacted instantly.
Their chairs crashed backward as both men reached for pistols.
Gunfire erupted through the warehouse.
Frenchie and M.M. instinctively ducked.
Mark didn’t.
The bullets raced toward him, only to slow rather than stop, hanging in the air unnaturally.
Each round hung in the air as though it had suddenly entered thick invisible syrup. Inches from his body, the bullets lost all momentum and dropped harmlessly to the floor.
They froze.
For a split second they couldn’t process what they were seeing.
That hesitation was enough.
Mark moved.
His foot snapped upward.
The first guard barely managed to raise an arm before the kick caught him beneath the jaw and sent him spinning across the floor.
The second guard tried backing away while reaching for another magazine.
Mark closed the gap instantly.
A straight punch drove into the man’s chest and folded him over.
Before he could recover, an uppercut lifted him upright again.
The final body shot emptied whatever fight remained in him.
The last guy collapsed onto the concrete unconscious.
Silence returned to the area after the fight ended in less than ten seconds. Mark looked down at his hands, the motions already feeling instinctive, each strike flowing naturally into the next without any hesitation.
The combat experience from the simulations wasn’t theoretical anymore.
His body remembered it.
"Yep," Mark said while looking at the unconscious guys scattered across the floor. "Those simulations were definitely worth the money."
Behind him, Frenchie stared at the aftermath.
Mother’s Milk looked equally unimpressed and concerned.
"Well, do your thing and find Compound V or whatever the hell we’re looking for."
Mark adjusted his glasses slightly.
"You two handle that. I have something else to take care of."
He had already found her the moment he entered the underground storage area.
The Six Eyes made hiding things almost pointless.
Behind several rows of crates and a secured section of the underground level sat a small holding cell. A television in the corner played a Japanese song while flickering fluorescent lights cast an uneven glow across the concrete room.
Inside the cell sat Kimiko.
A narrow bed occupied one side of the room while a small metal table stood near the television. Kimiko herself sat beneath the table, staring at the screen without any visible reaction to the outside world.
Mark stopped outside the bars and observed her quietly.
’Yeah... she’s really not stable.’
Then again, very few people would be after everything she’d been through.
Kidnapped.
Experimented on.
Injected with Compound V.
Transported halfway across the world.
Locked inside a cage.
The more Mark thought about it, the more he felt Homelander’s entire plan was unbelievably stupid.
Leaking the most dangerous substance on Earth into the outside world so Vought could manufacture supervillains sounded clever only to people sitting safely in boardrooms. Once Compound V escaped into circulation, there was no realistic way to control where it ended up.
A-Train moving shipments around the country, criminals obtaining samples, unstable people gaining powers—it all traced back to Homelander wanting a reason for the Seven to enter the military industry.
Mark looked toward the girl behind the bars.
"Hello there. If I open the door, are you going to attack me?"
Kimiko didn’t answer.
She didn’t even look at him.
Her attention remained fixed on the television.
"I’ll take that as a yes."
Mark unlocked the cell.
The metal door swung open with a quiet creak.
For the first time, Kimiko reacted.
Her eyes shifted away from the television and settled on the open doorway. Slowly she crawled out from beneath the table before rising to her feet.
At that exact moment, one of the goons entered the room carrying supplies.
The second he saw the open cell, his face immediately turned pale.
"Wait! Don’t let her out—"
He never got the chance to finish.
Kimiko launched herself forward.
Mark casually stepped aside.
The guy barely managed to react before she crashed into him and drove him into the concrete wall. Supplies scattered across the floor as she pinned him down and began smashing his face with a relentless barrage of punches.
Bone gave way beneath the impacts, and the sounds were wet and ugly, like watermelons being crushed under a hammer. Blood sprayed across the concrete with every strike, turning what had been a face into a mangled mess.
Mother’s Milk and Frenchie took one look at the scene and instinctively stepped back.
They knew when it was smarter not to interfere.
*****
A/N: Advanced Chapters are available on Patreon.
👉 /Mark841
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