As the two changed direction, sprinting toward the waterfall, a series of continuous violent explosions suddenly erupted behind them. Large amounts of dirt and shattered wood flew into the sky, and the pursuing AIM members were instantly blown to pieces by the powerful explosives.
The forceful blast wave knocked Steve and Howard to the ground, rolling them as far as a bouncing ball.
Steve immediately raised his shield, covering Howard while glancing back. He saw a head slowly rising from the grass not far away.
It was an American steel helmet, adorned with leaves and branches caught in the camouflage netting.
Steve breathed a sigh of relief, allies had arrived quickly. Did the Godfather notify the military?
But the face under the helmet was nothing like he imagined. Instead, it was a red and black mask resembling a painter's palette.
Inside the tight red and black suit, he wore a camouflage combat vest covered in colorful weapons like water guns and BB guns. This person, with a large cigar insolently in his mouth, swaggered over like a military thug.
Along came a stench like a garbage dump.
Yet, the newcomer was oblivious, extending a hand to the grounding Steve, while tossing a remote control marked with a "Explosive" sign far away with the other.
In a voice seemingly choked with phlegm, he spoke.
"Captain, I'm here to rescue you!"
"Uh... who are you?" Howard pinched his nose, tears running down his cheeks.
The red and black weirdo gestured for Howard to be quiet.
Then he took a forward lunge, propping his elbow on his thigh, striking a pose like T800.
His uniform pants ripped at the crotch because of the movement, exposing slightly blackened and stiff strawberry-patterned underpants, completely unaware.
"I am the Terminator... wait, although it can be called so by time travel standards, that was my cousin's previous code name. I'm afraid saying that will cause trouble, um... How should I say it to be shocking enough? So annoying."
The weirdo whispered half his words, then swallowed them back and pondered, squeezing his chin. Soon, he knocked his fist on his palm:
"Forget it, you'd best not know who I am now anyway. I'm just a mercenary who does good deeds without leaving a name, oh right, here's my business card. Contact me if needed, I'm running a promotion now: assassinate one, assassinate the entire family for free. Don't miss out."
A certain anonymous mercenary quickly threw two business cards to Steve and Howard, which not only had the alias "Deadpool" but also several contact methods, as if afraid people wouldn't find him.
After handing out business cards, the mercenary turned gracefully, then swaggeringly saluted Steve with two fingers besides the head, and then dashed into the smoke, leaving behind only a crop of strawberries in their view.
Steve and Howard looked at each other, both clueless where this lunatic came from, yet possessed terrifying destructive power.
Howard glanced at the business card, which had a red and black cartoon character and many dark services listed below. He sighed, feeling a strong sense of déjà vu.
"What does the @ mean in this string of letters?" Steve paid more attention to contact info, though phone numbers were clearly incorrect, and another item labeled 'network' contained gibberish.
He turned to the scientist next to him for inquiry.
Howard immediately shook his head: "I don't know, but I suspect this guy has ties with Deathstroke. Look at their business card."
Howard pulled out another yellowed card from his pocket, left by a person when abducting Dr. Erskine, for audiences at the scene.
Now, putting the two cards side by side for comparison, one can find business scope and card layout were nearly identical. Hard to say who copied whom, except one circular avatar was black and yellow, the other red and black.
Even a fool could see the connection, and Steve let out a long sigh.
Howard sympathetically patted his shoulder, looked at Steve's suffering expression, desired to reveal Slade's true identity but dared not, eventually just sighed as well.
"I hate mercenaries." Both spoke in unison.
...............
Su Ming, closing his eyes on a beach lounge chair, furrowed his brows, suspecting someone's letting it loose near him?
Moreover, it seemed to be dropping it while moving, since the stench source was drawing near, no, this wasn't local defecation; this was...him...
"Strangulation."
A small, thin black tendril extended from his Hawaiian floral shirt, pinching his nose.
Turning on the lounge chair to face away from the approaching Deadpool, Su Ming decided to play asleep.
"O~~~ni~~~chan!"
Suddenly, Su Ming felt a mass of decaying flesh stick to his back, its greasy stench felt infiltrating his pores. At the same time, a hand resembling an unpeeled chicken claw grasped in orchid finger pinched his shoulder.
In the sunlight, a grin like a dried donkey dung came close with a shadow looming beside his face.
Deadpool not only squeezed himself onto the lounge chair with Su Ming, lying side by side, but also flamboyantly played the lady, snuggling as if to entertain a drinker.
Su Ming immediately sprung from the chair, frantically patting his shoulder and back: "Ugh... Is this the casting cost for disgusting magic? Making me disgusted too? Give me an incendiary bullet."
Strangulation directly pulled an incendiary bullet from the pouch, flinging it toward the lounge chair location, and the grinning Deadpool quickly grabbed his box to dodge away, a blaze consumed the chair entirely.
"Wow! Isn't that excessive? Don't you miss me?" Wade, in black swimming trunks, adorned with a red floral shirt, revealing his rotting chest and belly, lifted a garishly decorated little box and danced a tap dance on the sand: "If it's cousin, you can hold me, oh, ni, chan?"
This was Su Ming's private beach, with no outsiders.
"Bang!"
A gunshot rang, Wade's head exploded like a tomato, leaving the lower half limping backward with a retained smile.
"Well done, Strangulation."
Su Ming patted the Divine Gold Gauss's strangulation tendril withdrawn, the symbiote transmitted a comforting emotion to the host. Though it was a symbiote, with the host having acid reflux constantly, it had no good solutions.
But Deathstroke's willpower was unquestionable, Su Ming quickly calmed down, although still feeling the clingy stench wrapped around, it didn't hinder battle capability now.
He let Strangulation help cover his nose before going to the headless corpse, dragging Wade by a leg disdainfully, planning to hurl him into the ocean, a pity these Hawaiian waters lack sharks.
"Go!"
The human dart bounced on the sea surface, splashing waves, disappearing instantly in the horizon.