Butcher picked up his signature move from his FBI days and kicked the door open.
Inside the private room, the two men's unrestrained laughter abruptly stopped.
Upon seeing the two strangers who'd suddenly barged in, A-Train wasn't immediately angry. Instead, he stood up in a friendly manner. "Hey guys, if you're looking for a restroom, you've come to the wrong place."
"But since we've already met, I can give you two autographs for free!"
He raised an eyebrow, eagerly anticipating the familiar look of surprise.
Unfortunately, the superstar's charm completely failed this time.
"Thanks, but I don't need it."
Faced with A-Train's goodwill, Butcher squinted at him like a lone wolf, a signature roguish grin on his face.
He fawned over Jordan like a true lackey, making way for him.
"Boss, this is the one."
"Hey, what's going on?"
Seeing Jordan behind Butcher, A-Train realized something was wrong. He picked up his goggles from the sofa, put them on, and his face darkened. "Are you deliberately trying to cause trouble?"
"Good guess, mate! Congratulations on gettin' it right! But I don't have a reward for you!"
With Butcher as his lackey, Jordan suddenly realized he didn't need to speak at all.
If he let Butcher try to communicate amicably, he'd automatically generate massive amounts of hatred.
"Then you can die!"
A-Train muttered something, and before Butcher knew it, the floor beneath A-Train's feet shattered with a crash.
The speedster had completely disappeared from normal human sight.
Even without enough distance to accelerate, A-Train was still confident enough to break through the blockade of the two men in front of him.
From now on, whether it was interrogation or torture, it was up to him to decide...
A-Train, who'd crashed into Butcher at supersonic speed, hung on the invisible wall like a mural.
Butcher stared in astonishment at the invisible force field rippling with dazzling colors before him, raised an eyebrow, and grinned in a particularly smug way. "Bloody hell, this is brilliant!"
A-Train, who'd crashed head-on into the force field barrier, felt dizzy. Normally, he could smash a car into scrap metal if it was in his path, let alone an ordinary person.
However unbelievable it seemed, he'd now become the very insect he'd spoken of.
"This is impossible!"
A-Train shook his head, snapping out of his daze, and warily moved away from Jordan and Butcher.
Having withstood a near-sonic impact head-on, an ordinary person would've been reduced to pulp long ago, but he recovered in just a few seconds, demonstrating the incredible durability of his enhanced body.
Although he was physically strong but simple-minded, his simple mind reminded him that he had to break through the predicament as soon as possible.
So how exactly do I break through this barrier?
Of course—my best asset is speed!
That's right, the problem is speed!
"I need to go faster..."
The moment this idea arose, A-Train had already begun moving.
A blue phantom flickered in the cramped private room, like a coil in a magnetic track, accelerating to a speed imperceptible to the naked eye in the blink of an eye.
"Hey, buddy! I'm still here—"
A-Train's friend, wearing a black cape, only leather briefs, and triangular goggles, was about to finish speaking when he exploded into a splattered mess.
Blood, bones, shattered organs and tissues, and those triangular goggles now filled with vapor.
They were all pasted on the wall the moment A-Train passed by, forming an abstract oil painting.
"My god..."
Butcher frowned and covered his eyes, unable to bear the sight, yet he could fit three galaxies between his fingers.
"He must be in a lot of pain."
Even A-Train himself paused for half a second, spitting out a back molar belonging to his own friend, feeling as uncomfortable as if he'd eaten shit.
He was disgusted to have killed two people the same way in one day.
"Sorry, brother, but I can't stop..."
To survive, he had no choice but to keep running.
Only by running faster can I break through that man's superpower blockade.
This was the only solution his impoverished mind could come up with.
Unfortunately, he was just A-Train, not the Flash.
Without the Speed Force and with the damage to his body from long-term Compound V abuse, even after taking drugs, his maximum speed was only slightly above the speed of sound.
Homelander had achieved this feat when he was seven years old.
"My all-powerful boss, what should we do now?" Butcher could no longer see A-Train in the compartment, only hear the roar like a turbine engine taking off. He helplessly spread his hands. "Should we wait for this idiot to work himself to death, or wait for him to crash into us and kill himself?"
In his view, no matter how powerful Jordan was, he shouldn't be able to handle a fully accelerated A-Train.
After all, there were limits to any specialty.
"Neither."
As Jordan spoke, his gaze locked onto the blue figure that was still trying to accelerate. Spider-Time activated. The world slowed to a crawl.
His arm blurred through the force field, reaching out to grab.
The air crackled with an astonishing sound, and a figure with both feet off the ground appeared out of thin air in his hand as if by magic.
A-Train, whose throat was precisely locked, let out painful cries. His legs, which couldn't reach the ground, kicked wildly. His hands weakly grabbed at Jordan's arm.
With his body covered in blood and gore, he looked like someone whose neck had been bled out.
"Oh, boss, I mean, that's absolutely mental!"
"Shut up. I've done my job. You can leave now, Mr. Butcher."
"Wait a minute—"
A blinding blue light flashed. Butcher raised his hand to shield his eyes from the glare, instinctively closing them.
When he opened his eyes again, Jordan and the A-Train he'd grabbed had all disappeared. Only the television was still flickering in the compartment, and the floor was a mess covered with gore.
"Damn it, that heartless bastard actually left me here all alone."
Butcher straightened his collar, cursing, and walked out of the private room with a fierce expression.
He quickly glanced around and strode toward the monitoring room.
Can't be so arrogant by myself. Have to destroy the evidence and run before the security guards arrive.
Abandoned Dock Warehouse, Hudson River
A blurry shadow crashed down from the sky, creating a cracked impact crater in the empty concrete ground.
A-Train clutched his neck and let out a wail, struggling to rise from the bottom of the crater. As he rolled over, he assumed the starting stance of a sprinter, and his blue figure vanished abruptly with the rising air currents.
When he reappeared, he was already slammed against the force field wall outside the crater.
"At a time like this, you're not still clinging to illusions, are you?"
Jordan slowly descended from the sky, his right hand crackling with electricity.
The high-temperature plasma flowed and dripped, cleaning the filth that had accumulated on A-Train at the molecular level.
"You can't escape. I told you."
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