"What do you three have to say for yourselves?"
Evenson sat behind the counter with both hands planted on the surface, his expression dark.
His demon pets stood in a neat line before him, arranged from tallest to shortest.
Tyler stood at attention with his chest puffed out, looking remarkably unconcerned for someone who had just massacred an entire gang.
Truppi looked as though she’d just walked out of a battlefield. Her hair was an absolute disaster, but her face was glowing, cheeks flushed with health and satisfaction. She had her arms folded firmly across her chest and was making it very clear that she had absolutely nothing to do with those three idiots.
As for Hubs...
He wasn’t there.
Given demonic regeneration, he should have recovered long ago. Yet, for reasons known only to himself, he’d apparently decided to continue living at the stray-dog shelter.
Evenson hadn’t even gotten an explanation out of Tyler when Clea spoke from the side.
"Is this really worth getting so angry about?"
She looked completely unconcerned.
"The Scorpion Gang were drug dealers and violent criminals. They had blood all over their hands. Your people took them out. That’s a good thing, isn’t it?"
Evenson turned and stared at her.
Wait. She’s defending them?
"Exactly! The Matron speaks the truth!"
Truppi immediately sprang upward as though she’d been launched from a catapult.
"The Matron is wise! The Matron is always right!"
Clea laughed lightly, covering her mouth with one hand while waving the other in mock modesty.
"Oh, you’re too kind..."
Her narrowed, crescent-shaped eyes told a different story.
She clearly enjoyed being called the Matron.
Evenson understood immediately.
So that’s the game.
Clea was using the opportunity to show mercy, win the loyalty of the underlings, and quietly establish herself as the unquestioned lady of the household.
He had to admit, it was efficient.
"But, Clea..." Evenson frowned, choosing his words carefully. "Are you really sure this was a good thing?"
"What’s wrong with having a few more superheroes willing to punish criminals?"
Clea wasn’t defending Tyler purely to win influence.
The Scorpion Gang really had been monstrous. They’d ruined countless lives, and Tyler had killed every one of them.
As far as Clea was concerned, that hardly qualified as a tragedy.
"Superheroes?"
Evenson snorted.
"Yeah. About that."
He didn’t argue with her directly.
Instead, he picked up the television remote and switched on the news footage from the previous night.
The screen showed chaos.
Police and gang members were locked in a vicious firefight. It was nighttime, but the constant flashes of gunfire illuminated the streets like daylight.
The Scorpion Gang had come armed to the teeth.
Rifles, pistols, submachine guns.
Dozens of gang members poured bullets into the police positions with manic abandon.
And somehow, a gang numbering only a few dozen had managed to pin down the NYPD, including the SWAT teams.
Several officers attempting to advance were hit and collapsed behind their shields, crying out as they writhed on the pavement.
The sheer volume of gunfire was almost absurd.
The United States certainly had a unique relationship with firearms.
The reporter’s voice could be heard over the footage.
"New York has become a battlefield! The police are completely outgunned! And where is the mayor while all this is happening?"
The camera briefly showed the reporter himself.
"He’s vacationing at his private estate!"
The man’s outrage practically crackled through the recording.
"Mr. Mayor, maybe cut the vacation short and come back to uphold the rule of law!"
The footage returned to the street.
Two SWAT officers crouched behind ballistic shields, inching forward.
A wounded teammate lay exposed ahead of them.
They were trying to pull him back.
Then the leader of the Scorpion Gang appeared.
A wild-haired Mexican man raised a Chinese Lake grenade launcher and aimed not at the officers, but at a car behind them.
He squeezed the trigger.
BOOM!
The vehicle exploded.
The blast hurled both SWAT officers into the air along with the wounded man.
They crashed back onto the pavement.
None of them moved.
The police position was collapsing.
The commander was already considering calling in the National Guard and requesting armored vehicles when something enormous stepped out of a dark alley.
Nearly three meters tall.
Wrapped in a black leather coat that hung below his knees.
His head was covered by a burlap sack, cinched tightly around his neck with wire.
He walked with slow, heavy steps.
Clang.
Scrape.
Clang.
Only then did everyone realize he was dragging something behind him.
A massive battle axe.
It was longer than he was tall.
The figure looked less like a man and more like some nightmare that had crawled out of Hell after being skinned alive.
The gunfire stopped.
Just for a moment.
Every eye on the street turned toward him.
The giant didn’t hesitate.
He threw back his head and roared.
Then he planted one foot against the pavement.
The concrete shattered beneath him.
A crater appeared where he’d stood.
The next instant, he exploded forward.
A black blur tore across the street and crashed into the Scorpion Gang.
The axe came down.
One of the gang members had been fighting like a madman only moments earlier, dual-wielding Uzi submachine guns and pouring bullets into the police.
Now he simply stood there.
Frozen.
The axe cleaved him cleanly in two.
Blood and viscera sprayed across the man beside him.
The second gangster looked down at himself.
Warm blood covered his clothes.
His brain finally caught up with what had happened.
He screamed.
The giant reversed his grip and swept the axe sideways.
The gangster was cut in half diagonally.
"AAAGH!"
The rest of the Scorpion Gang finally snapped.
They raised their weapons and opened fire.
Bullets hammered into the giant.
He didn’t dodge.
He didn’t even slow down.
He simply walked through the gunfire and entered their ranks.
The axe swung again.
And again.
Blood sprayed.
Bodies fell.
Limbs flew.
The gang members who had stood fearless against the police finally understood what terror felt like.
"MONU-KA!"
Someone screamed the word in desperation.
Weapons clattered to the pavement.
Men turned and ran.
The giant pursued them.
For something so massive, he moved with horrifying speed.
Anyone he caught was either hacked apart by the axe or struck with its flat.
One blow was enough to turn a man’s upper body into a smear of blood and broken flesh.
Within moments, only a handful of Scorpion Gang members remained alive.
The giant swung again.
This time, the axe didn’t reach its target.
The terrified gangster had collapsed onto the ground, and the blade became lodged in the car behind him.
The giant simply pulled upward.
The axe came free.
Along with the car.
He lifted the entire vehicle and smashed it down onto the screaming man.
The Scorpion Gang’s leader and his final few followers desperately fled into a bus.
They crawled beneath the seats and tried to hide.
The giant approached.
Then swung.
The bus was split from front to back as neatly as a loaf of bread beneath a knife.
When the violence finally ended, rescuers searched through the wreckage.
They found three bodies.
Or what was left of them.
The remains had been chopped into so many pieces that it was difficult to tell which parts belonged to whom.
The reporter appeared on camera again.
"The death of criminals should look exactly like this!"
He gestured toward the carnage with almost evangelical enthusiasm.
"Hell’s Ravager, the reaper of criminals! Keep going! Clean this city of every piece of trash!"
Then he pointed toward the scattered corpses.
"And to our mayor, still enjoying his vacation!"
The reporter’s voice rose.
"Keep vacationing! We don’t need you! What we need is a strong hero who can lead us out of this crisis!"
The television went black.
Evenson lowered the remote.
"What an incredibly persuasive reporter."
He turned toward Clea.
"Still think he’s a superhero?"
Clea stared at the blank screen.
Her eyebrows slowly drew together.
She remained silent for a long moment.
Then she finally sighed.
"Honestly?"
She looked at Evenson.
"Just looking at him... if he were a character in a video game, he’d absolutely be the final boss."
She paused.
"And not some fantasy RPG, either. I’m talking about a survival-horror game."
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