Published at 10th of July 2026 6:52 am

Chapter 35 Fool & Imbeciles (Kai POV)

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From this high up in the air, I see black dots moving towards our location. The BNA soldiers look like ants coming to reinforce the other insects. It's not a surprise; I expected reinforcements for either the Capes or the Cowls, and I planned for both. Two Capes, sixty soldiers, ten SWAT members, and eight police officers. A small army has been sent to handle the escalating situation. It still isn't enough to stop me. The Triad is one of the obstacles to Nobody's plans. No, not an obstacle. They're an annoyance, a bug to be squashed when he feels the time is right. Why not accelerate their downfall?

Ten, Thirteen, I said into my wrist communicator. Have you secured the packages?

Both targets are ready for transport. They will not be waking up for four hours. There were no issues encountered during capture, Subject Ten reported back.

Good. We're moving forward with the current plan. Execute A-5. Thirteen, engage the current forces at our location. Ten, inflict heavy losses on the incoming soldiers, I ordered the Subjects.

Understood, Ten said.

YES! Thirteen screamed.

The sword woman, Arsenal, destroyed all of my Beholders; she's more dangerous than at first glance would lead you to believe a knight with forty swords could be. Note to self: start work on Beholders V2. Automate assembly to begin mass production of the model. I can't be too precious about the drones; they're going to be destroyed at some point. Especially if Nobody is intent on having me participate in missions like this. Arsenal is checking on the unconscious Marshal and helping her partner get up. Tenacity waves off her concern and questions to charge at TigerHawk. Boring.

From above the forest, I see Subject Thirteen and Subject Ten head toward the highway. The two of them break into a sprint to get there faster. They split up right before leaving the forest. Ten veers right, heading toward the BNA soldiers. Thirteen's massive form explodes out of the tree line like a bear on the attack. His role is to distract eyes away from her so she can get set up without being harassed. The two of them arent wearing the usual Subject uniform. No, that would draw unnecessary attention, and you never know if the two that Nobody unleashed on the world might get ideas upon discovering there are more. I should ask him about that. There's no way he's not planning something with them. Him having me add the ability to access their senses and communicate with both Subject Six and Subject Zero let me know he has a goal for them in mind.

Back to the Subjects I'm currently testing, Ten has changed into the BNA uniform she took off one of the corpses. The tech they use for the biometric locks on their gear is good; it's clearly created by someone with at least a semblance of mastery of coding and a tiny sliver of knowledge about genetic gating, which is to say that it took me slightly longer than five minutes to hack it. How overconfident they must feel in the precautions they've built into their gear. In order to make it easier to produce and more accessible to their members, they've dumbed it down. She'll have no problem getting behind their lines and into their ranks once a big enough distraction has begun, which should be beginning in 5 4 3 2 1.

Thirteen had no desire for a disguise, and so he's wearing a leather jacket, white t-shirt, blue jeans, and cowboy boots. The All-American Psycho. I can't help it, and a chuckle escapes from my lips. The destroyed armored truck is hiding his approach, but when he's halfway up the ditch, he leaps onto the top of it. All it took was isolating the Golgi Tendon Organs and creating a nanomachine program created to capture and snuff out the electrical impulse they send. Now, both of them can use their bodies to their full strength, and the nanomachines will work to keep the damage to a minimum.

Thirteen hops off the truck, landing between TigerHawk and Tenacity. TigerHawks plan to leave isn't going to go as smoothly as he hoped. Before the Cowl can ask who he is, Thirteen whips a right hook into his face. His Shifter form is very tough, but that is built on the idea that he is bulletproof. He isn't. His body reacts to high-speed objects and protects him from being pierced by them. It isn't quite like a non-Newtonian liquid, but it's close. Thirteen is beyond what a peak human can do, but he's no speedster. TigerHawks feline face jerks to the right from Thirteen's punch. The tiger man growls angrily, but the large mountain man isn't done. Thirteen isn't much smaller than the Shifter, and I doubt he's used to that. Thirteen kicks him in the chest, then his left hand, which is already coated in metal and sharp, stabs forward. Idiot. To Thirteen's surprise, he does not pierce through the fur and flesh. His blade hand bounces off the Shifters chest. He recovers quickly, slicing at the white fur. Red blood sprays from the cuts. Before TigerHawk can grab him, Thirteen jumps away.

Motherfucker, TigerHawk snarled.

Tenacity looks like he's going to laugh, but Thirteen kicks him onto the pavement. The Subject isn't done yet, and he stomps the downed Cape repeatedly. Thirteen holds his blade hand to his mouth, sticking his tongue out and licking the blood on it. Just because the nanomachines keep him from catching something doesn't excuse the unsanitary action. Tenacity flips back to his feet and spin kicks Thirteen, who just cackles gleefully. The Cape ducks under a blade hand swipe and punches his knee. He dives to his right, rolling around to the Cowl's back. He slices through the leather jacket with his gloves claws, and blood sprays out of the deep lacerations. He jumps on top of Thirteen, jabbing his boots blades into his flesh and raking his claws over his back like a cat with a scratching post.

Thirteens smile is only growing as he's being torn to shreds. TigerHawk takes the opportunity to leave the two men behind as he flies toward Lin and URF. My creation sees the fleeing Cowl and decides to remove the tick. He slams his back into the armored truck, trying to dislodge the Cape. Tenacity is forced to stop attacking as he's smashed against the sharp metal protruding from the vehicle. Good, this will allow me to gather data on his durability and the limitations of it. Eventually, a particularly twisted piece of the truck pierces through his suit and skin.

THE BUTCHER DEMANDS MEAT!

Thirteen stabs his blade hand into Tenacitys abdomen, his unrestrained enhanced strength letting him power through the Cape's durability. The blade-hand he's using might look similar to the one he used against the Security Director, but that couldn't be further from the truth. The new and improved version is vastly superior to the previous iteration. Taking advantage of the size of my nanomachines, I was able to make the blade's edge nanoscopic. Its finer and sharper than it appears. Slowly, he slices a line across him from side to side. Jamming his other hand into the open wound, he yanks out a length of the Capes lower intestine. A bucket's worth of blood splashes into the road.

Stay awake, Thirteen said, slapping the man in his face. I wouldn't want you to miss what comes next. The real show begins now.

He drags the Cape across the highway by the hole in his stomach. Subject Thirteen is a fascinating specimen. Im quite confident that hes the serial killer known as The Woodsman. A prolific murderer who has eluded capture or discovery for two decades. The methodology of the killer was that they would always go after healthy people who were in their prime. Retired BNA agents, soldiers, professional outdoors-men, college athletes, rock climbers, hunters, and others who were either in peak fitness or had eperience as a survivalist. The Woodsman would abduct them without a trace of DNA, a sighting, or a single clue. All of New England is their hunting ground, but all of them were drugged and then released into the wilderness, where The Woodsman would hunt them for days at a time. Traps, spears, guns, knives, bows: a wide range of weapons were used to murder their victims. Then they were cut up like animals. Drained of blood, broken down, and put inside coolers for the police to discover. His Butcher persona fits the profile perfectly, and he is certainly capable of the level of violence and precision demonstrated by the killer. I havent asked him to confirm because I dont care.

TigerHawk grabs both of his men by their waists and launches into the air, soaring away on his large, feathered wings. Yes, flee like the bugs you are. My tracking command drone is already nestled deep in his fur, and once they have retreated back to their base, it will activate. It will send out the activation protocol to the tracer nanomachines attached to its body. They will release like spores, spreading to map out every single inch of their base. Then Ill have the location and layout of their base. Tenacity is struggling against Thirteen, trying to dislodge his hand from inside him, but the Subject isnt even noticing it. He stops moving, staring at his blade-hand intensely, which slowly starts to change. The metal coating turns back into its liquid form and reenters his body, reabsorbed through his skin. Excellent. The changes I made worked perfectly.

Crouching down, Thirteen starts to grab some of Arsenals swords that are strewn about. The two new Capes are charging ahead toward Thirteen. Too soon. Its not a problem; I can slow them down enough for him to finish. I foresaw their reinforcements arriving before everything was set up, and thats why I brought a second charm bracelet. I fly over toward the Capes, still high up in the sky, and then I grab seven charms from my wrist, snapping the bands holding them on. Stretching out my arm, I undo the shrinking effect on the charms as I open my hand. Bombs away. A smattering of different vehicles plummet towards the ground and the two Heroes Union members. The woman is the first to react, body bulging as she starts to grow until shes easily as big as the Statue of Liberty, if not much larger. Her costume, which looked to be ruffled at first glance, is actually several times larger than it appears in order to stretch with her to this size. She grabs a truck and a minivan out of the air, then she leans over the other Cape to protect him. The remaining five vehicles slam into her back, including an oil tanker. The explosion sends her to her knees, and she puts a hand out to steady herself.

Subject Ten should have integrated with the soldiers by now. I check on the other one, and hes finishing up his job. Tenacity is crucified on the hood of the armored truck that was originally escorting the prisoners. And still alive? Well done. He used the Capes partners weapons, stabbing him in multiple places with the swords. Thats one accounted for. I scan the area until I find Arsenal, who has discovered what Thirteen did. She rushes at him in rage, drawing every sword she passes into a swarm surrounding her. The man turns around to the source of the screaming, and he lights up when he sees how furious she is. He smiles and holds his hands out like hes asking for a hug. Arsenal fires all of her collected blades into him, skewering him fifteen times. There we go. Thirteen stumbles backward, falling back onto the asphalt. From up here, I cant be one hundred percent positive, but it looks like even if she attacked him in a rage, she avoided vital areas.

Subject Ten, execute B-7, I said into my communicator.

Gunfire erupts, followed by several explosions as Subject Ten begins to execute the plan. B-7 is among the simpler of the plans I created. It begins with Ten dealing as much damage as possible to the reinforcements. I look over to see how things are going, and shes gunning down soldiers left and right, reaping lives like a specter of death. She grabs one of them, holding them at knife point as a hostage. The giantess is looking at the sky, searching for me. She spots me and looks torn between coming for me and stopping Ten. What will it be? The male Cape is shouting at Ten and the remaining soldiers, who lower their weapons. She pulls the pin off the flash bang hanging from the soldier shes holding and shoves him at his comrades. It goes off, and she takes off in our direction. Shes moving at 50 mph, leaping over rubble, and parkouring across cars. She heads straight for Arsenal, who is carefully trying to remove the blades embedded in Tenacity. Ten hits the Cape like a freight train, sending the woman flying headfirst into the ditch. She picks up Thirteen, carrying the giant man over her shoulder like a bag of rocks. Time to leave.

I arrive at our rendezvous point, landing next to the U-Haul we rented a week ago. I double-check the two bound Cowls, but the sedative I gave Ten to use is still working as intended. Based on speed, she should be here shortly. My hoverboard drone slides under the two men, lifting them into the back of the truck. The duffel bag in the front seat has my change of clothes, and I take off my current outfit, piling it on the dirt off to the side. Ten arrives as I finish changing into my civilian clothes. My hairs pulled back in a ponytail, a pair of jeans, a long-sleeved black shirt, and some sneakers. I send the command to my nanomachines, and my right arm dissolves, leaving behind the stump. Ten arrives as I start pouring gasoline over my clothes, and shes not even sweating from sprinting through the forest carrying such a heavy load. She tosses Thirteen into the back, shutting and locking the door. She strips down to her underwear, adding the BNA uniform to my pile. Her second outfit is inside the duffel bag; the first one she had is left next to the dead BNA soldier whose clothes she stole. She starts the fire with a snap of her fingers, the spark igniting the gasoline as I scan the sky for the last thing Im waiting on. There we go. Six camera drones come flying into the clearing, and I direct them inside the bag. Once were back at the lab, Miles can begin editing todays movie before its released to the public.

Things went well, Ten. I gathered quite a bit of data on both you and Thirteens enhancements. Your performance was acceptable, and the mission was accomplished. Take us back, I commanded.

Understood, Doctor, she said, nodding her head.

Yes. Subject Ten is an excellent soldier, and Thirteen has his uses as well. Nobody will be quite pleased with this.

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