Chương 41

Frenchie looked up through the falling dust. Frenchie looked beaten as he looked at Adam and said, "Petit Adam, you came for us. You are our friend." All three of them looked like they had been hit hard. Hughie looked beaten too as he let out the breath he had been holding. M. M. was in the same beaten state. He kept pulling at the cuffs on his wrists. Adam turned toward the iron gate that held them in. The room was spacious. Soldiers could rush in from more than one side. Adam had room to move there.

The team was still in the open. His eyes lit red. He drew a square through the iron gate and the wall around it. The beam cut from one corner to the next. The cut held its shape. Metal glowed before the concrete cracked. For a second, the whole piece stayed in place. Then the square fell outward with a heavy crash. The crash brought soldiers running. Boots hit the floor outside. They rushed in from the corridor with guns raised. Adam looked at Frenchie.

"Where is Kimiko?" Frenchie looked around quickly. His smile vanished.

"She is not here." Adam stepped out through the broken opening.

"Find her. I will keep their attention on me." He lifted from the floor until his boots floated a little above the ground. The soldiers aimed at him. Adam's eyes darkened into a deeper red. Boom. Heat vision shot forward. Adam did not aim to kill. He kept every beam away from the head and heart. He wanted burns, not holes through their bodies. The point was to hurt them enough to stop them. One soldier tried to fire while Adam was still rising.

Before the man's finger tightened fully, a red line struck his chest armor and burned through the surface. The man fell on his back, screaming and clutching the smoking plate. The others opened fire. Bullets hit Adam's body and dropped to the floor. They struck his upper body and face, yet none of them went in. The soldiers saw it and kept firing. A few bullets bounced off his cheek and neck before dropping near his boots. Love what you're reading?

Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. A blue window flashed before Adam's eyes. [Host Synchronization: 35%] Power moved through him in a hard wave. The number stayed in his sight for a breath before fading. His hearing sharpened. His skin felt the air shift around every gun barrel. Footsteps came from beyond the next wall. He sensed more soldiers moving in from the far side of the building. If he used too much power here, the building could collapse.

His team was still inside. Kimiko was trapped too. He could not keep using heat vision like this. He cut the beam off and landed. The soldiers kept firing. Adam disappeared from their aim and appeared beside the closest one. He caught the rifle with one hand and ripped it away. Then he smashed the butt into the soldier's nose. The man flew back and dropped. Adam kept his strength low. He did not want dead bodies filling the floor. Every hit had to stop them without killing them.

He threw the rifle at another soldier. The weapon spun too fast for the man to react. It struck his shoulder with a crack and threw him sideways. Adam was not sure if the shoulder was dislocated or broken. The soldier would not lift a gun again for a while. Then Adam moved like a red blur. He moved like A-Train. For the soldiers, he was only a blur. The air snapped each time he changed direction. He caught one man and threw him into the line behind him.

Before the next rifle rose, Adam grabbed two more and sent them flying the same way. By the time the last muzzles turned, the first wave was already down. Adam turned back. The others were running toward a room on the left. Adam flew after them and reached the door just as Frenchie shouted Kimiko's name. Inside, Kimiko was unconscious. Adam's eyes lit again. He cut through the locked gate and the wall around it in one hard square. The section fell inward.

Frenchie rushed in and pulled Kimiko free, his hand shaking as he lifted her. He tapped her face and said, "Wake up. Come on, wake up," until Kimiko's eyes moved a little, her body still weak in his arms. More soldiers arrived behind them and opened fire. M. M. pushed Hughie into the room. Frenchie dragged Kimiko back from the doorway. Adam stood in the open area.

"Stay here," he said.

"I will handle them. When the path clears, run for the exit." He shot forward into the air. This time his target was not the soldiers. His heat vision cut into the metal supports and the concrete edges above them. The beam sliced across the structure where they stood. Chunks of debris crashed down in front of the soldiers. More fell behind them, trapping them between broken concrete and dust. Their bullets went wild as they tried to move away from the falling pieces. The soldiers stepped back on instinct.

The falling blocks split their group apart, and that gave the team a path out. Adam landed near the center of the room, ready to move again. Then the air snapped on his right, and a red blur stopped a short distance away. A-Train stood there, staring at Adam's glowing eyes, shocked enough to freeze for half a second. He knew this masked man from the news as the one who had carried the hijacked plane down in front of everyone. Even after recognizing him, A-Train did not believe Adam could beat Homelander.

Heat vision did not mean Adam had Homelander's strength or durability. A-Train let out a short laugh and looked Adam up and down.

"Looks like you got some fresh powers," he said.

"Don't worry. If Compound V did that to you, it probably happened because of me." Adam's full attention shifted to him.