The very instant the orange rectangular portal vanished—
The temporal freeze that bound Pierce and the other mercenaries was immediately lifted. Their bodies, unprepared for the sudden release, toppled over in a chaotic heap, unable to stabilize themselves.
Only Pierce, with his bio-enhanced body, managed to regain his footing in time. Just then, a burst of gunfire shredded through a nearby tree, punching a hole clean through it.
Startled by the sharp crack of the gunshot, Pierce gasped heavily for breath.
He stared at the spot where the portal had disappeared, his hands trembling as he raised his firearm, as if only the weight of the gun could provide some false sense of security in his shaken state.
No one knew how long passed before Pierce was finally convinced that the strange group had truly left and weren't coming back. Furious, he slammed his gun onto the ground.
"Fk! Fk! Fk!!"
He had finally managed to corner that bastard Deadpool — only for a group of unknown freaks to appear out of nowhere and snatch him right in front of their eyes. And the worst part? They couldn't even put up a fight.
To Pierce, this was the ultimate humiliation. He had taken down countless powerful mutants — ones revered and feared — and yet he had been rendered utterly powerless by those people.
"Boss, are you alright?" one of the mercenaries ran over, concern on his face.
Pierce didn't respond right away. He kept staring at the place where the portal had vanished, then suddenly turned his head sharply.
"Find out. I want everything! I don't care who they are — military, mutant resistance, whatever! I want their identities confirmed!"
"But, boss… those people… their powers were too strange. I'm afraid—"
"Afraid of what?" Pierce grabbed the man by the collar.
"What about Charles? What about Magneto? Didn't we take them down too? They're just another group of powered freaks."
He had barely finished speaking—
When suddenly, a new portal ripped open not far away, cutting his words short.
Unlike the rectangular orange portal from before, this one was circular, glowing with dazzling golden sparks that sparked and danced in every direction.
The mercenaries, still trying to get back to their feet, froze instantly. Even Pierce remained perfectly still, his hand still gripping the other man's collar.
All eyes were drawn to the portal.
From within, a man in a black trench coat stepped through, behind him followed a curvy woman in a skintight suit.
In the eerie, dim forest, Pierce and his raiders didn't even dare to breathe. The pressure from the man was palpable — disturbing.
The man scanned the area with a puzzled expression, then broke the silence.
"That's odd… I could've sworn I sensed Deadpool here. Where the hell did he go?"
Gulp.
Pierce swallowed hard, his face twitching. His gaze toward the black-coated man had changed completely.
Inside, a storm raged in his heart.
Another one?
Another freak showing up for Deadpool?!
Impossible.
Wade Wilson was a roach no one wanted. Pierce and his raiders had been hunting him for over a month, and in all that time, not one single person had stepped in to save him. No allies. No backup. Nobody cared.
To the world, Deadpool was an annoying pest — despised and disregarded. No one cared whether he lived or died. No one wanted to get involved.
That's exactly why Pierce had been assigned to kill him. And precisely why he had started entertaining the idea of recruiting him.
But now? Now he was discovering that Deadpool had some sort of secret draw that brought all these strange and terrifying beings straight to him?
As Pierce struggled with the unsettling realization, he noticed that the black-coated man was now staring straight at him.
The pressure was unbearable. Sweat poured down Pierce's face.
Then finally, the man spoke: "Hey, buddy. Got a question."
"You seen a guy named Deadpool around here?"
Pierce's lips went dry.
"I…"
"You'd better think carefully before answering," the man in the black coat said, taking a step forward with a polite smile. "After all, our time is valuable. You wouldn't want to waste either of ours, right?"
Despite the man's smiling face, Pierce didn't feel the slightest bit of relief.
In fact, he felt the complete opposite—this guy was even more unnerving than the bizarre group that had appeared earlier. Even though his demeanor was much more pleasant than that of the previous team's leader, Pierce didn't dare make a single reckless move.
Just then, one of the mercenaries behind Pierce seemed to notice something. He raised his head and tried to signal—but no one paid him any attention.
Meanwhile, Pierce was still considering how best to answer the man's question.
As his gaze shifted, he suddenly recognized the woman standing behind the man in black.
"Petra!? What are you doing here?"
"Hmph." Petra clearly recognized Pierce as well. She let out a cold snort, and the killing intent in her eyes was almost palpable. "Donald Pierce. You're still alive, huh."
"You know him?" Alex turned his head to glance at Petra.
At his words, Petra gave a hard nod, biting her teeth as she spoke. "Of course I do. I'll never forget this scumbag for as long as I live. He's the one who tricked Professor X and Cyclops—and he also helped lead the operation to hunt down Wolverine."
Hearing that, Alex looked at Pierce with a surprised expression.
He had originally assumed this was just some random nobody, but now it turned out the guy had quite the background.
Looking more closely and recalling the name, Alex suddenly made the connection—Donald Pierce, wasn't he the villain from Logan who was hunting down Logan and Charles?
Because of his interest in X-23—created using Wolverine's DNA—Pierce had led the Reavers in an aggressive pursuit, repeatedly ambushing Charles and Logan as they tried to protect her.
In the end, he had been killed by the other young mutants who had escaped from the lab.
No wonder Alex hadn't recognized him right away. In the movie, the guy only had a robotic arm. But now, aside from his head, the rest of his body had been fully transformed into a cybernetic construct.
"Uh… Boss—" the subordinate behind Pierce couldn't hold back and tried to speak.
But Pierce had no time for distractions right now. Staring at the man in black and Petra, he frowned and spoke.
"If I remember correctly, Petra, you were part of the first group turned into Sentinel cyborgs. How are you even here!?"
"That's none of your concern. Just answer his question—while you still can." Petra stepped forward, her tone icy.
Truth be told, if Alex weren't standing right beside her, Petra would've already used her mutant powers to send these Reavers straight to hell.
If it weren't for these bastards, Professor X and Cyclops wouldn't have ended up the way they did. Things wouldn't have spiraled this far. In many ways, the man in front of her was one of the primary culprits behind it all.
Pierce, however, wasn't thinking about answering the question. His mind was racing. He looked at Petra and couldn't help blurting out: "I've got backup files on the mission plans. According to intel from Dr. Essex, you were supposed to be deployed with the Poseidon Fleet to the Pacific—to help wipe out Atlantis.
I just got the news this morning: something went wrong with the team out there. HQ reassigned us to assist in the destruction of Atlantis. I'm guessing that incident was your doing, wasn't it?"
"Boss! Boss!" the subordinate called out loudly from afar.
But Pierce didn't even turn his head. Instead, he drew a more advanced firearm from behind his back and aimed it straight at Alex.
"Who the hell are you? As far as I know, once a mutant is converted into a Sentinel cyborg, there's no saving them. If you forcibly destroy the Sentinel system, the mutant inside dies with it. So how did you pull this off?"
"Listen, Pierce," Alex said slowly, arms folded across his chest, enunciating every word, "you have no idea what kind of being you're speaking to."
"I don't have time for chit-chat. Tell me where Deadpool is, and I might—just might—let you live."
While Pierce and Petra were exchanging words, Alex had already scanned the entire area with his senses. Unfortunately, he didn't detect even a trace of Deadpool.
But Alex was certain—Deadpool hadn't been killed. Or rather, even if he had died, as long as he was nearby, Alex would have been able to locate him.
The current situation was far stranger than expected. Unless Deadpool had been completely disintegrated by someone like Molecule Man, this kind of thing simply shouldn't be possible.
But a being like Molecule Man showing up here? That made no sense at all.
Pierce's hand holding the gun was trembling, but he still had no intention of lowering it.
"I've had enough! One after another—everyone thinks they can just show up and humiliate me!?"
"Boss!!"
Finally, the subordinate in the distance couldn't take it anymore and shouted.
This time, everyone heard him.
"What!?" Pierce turned his head furiously.
He saw the subordinate standing next to that hourglass-shaped device, pointing at it.
"Boss, I was trying to say—that thing the guy left behind just now… it looks kinda—"
He didn't finish.
Suddenly, the orange energy inside the hourglass device shifted to purple, and a strange, ghostly energy surged outward in an instant.
In the next second, the mercenary's legs dissolved into stardust under the influence of that energy, and in a blink, his entire body was erased from the world from the feet up—disappearing at incredible speed.
As if he had been wiped from existence by some unknowable, unspeakable force.
........
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