"I didn't expect you to have the same Self-healing ability as that idiot. No wonder neither of you died," Francis muttered, dropping the two axes in his hands with a strange calm.
He showed no fear, no panic—just a dead look in his eyes. The man had long since lost his ability to feel pain, and it showed in the way he stared down death like it was a casual inconvenience.
"To be honest, I'm a little jealous of you two," he continued. "I was once a patient in the same facility myself. Unfortunately, the mutant gene that awakened in me wasn't all that great—just heightened reflexes and physical strength. Sure, I don't feel pain anymore… but I don't heal, either."
Francis smiled grimly, as if he'd just delivered a winning speech. "You should be grateful to me. Thanks to me, you gained this incredible Ability. Your Self-healing factor can regenerate any injury. Most people would kill for that."
"Shove it," Robert snapped, smashing the butt of his shotgun into Francis's ribs with a loud crack. His eyes burned with anger. "I didn't get here because of you. I got here through my own skill, my own effort, and sheer willpower!"
Francis just stared. Seriously? You were a total nobody two months ago. Where was all this skill and willpower back then?
Robert wasn't finished. "You're not even the top guy in that sick little lab you ran, right? Just the manager. So who's the real boss? Who's behind the whole operation?"
Francis smirked. "You think I'd just tell you?"
Robert cocked his head, his tone suddenly light. "Oh, I think you will."
He crouched beside Francis and continued casually, "You don't feel pain, right? No problem. I've got plenty of ways around that. For example… what if I lock you inside a completely sealed coffin, bury you hundreds of feet underground, no light, no sound—just pitch-black silence for days, weeks, months. They say nobody lasts five days in that kind of isolation. They always lose their minds."
Francis blinked. "That's… creative."
"Oh, and if I feel a little extra cruel," Robert added cheerfully, "I'll find a Mutant who can repair your nerve endings. Fix you up just enough that you can feel pain again. Then, I'll make you do an aerial 360-degree split like a gymnast... and see how flexible you really are."
That got a reaction. Francis's eye twitched. A full-body split mid-air? He wasn't even sure that was physically possible.
But the threats worked.
Francis exhaled slowly and finally relented. "The company I worked for is called Essex. I managed a few of their facility branches. But I don't know who's above me. I swear."
Robert narrowed his eyes. Essex Corp. The name rang a bell. It was mentioned more than once in those old mutant files. If he remembered correctly, Essex was known for hunting down Mutant DNA and running horrifying experiments—cloning, splicing, you name it. They even created the clone of Logan in that old X-Men timeline.
A full-blown villain organization, in other words.
So the threads all connect back to mutants after all, Robert thought.
He wasn't one himself, though. His powers came from the high-level talents in his system—not from a mutant X-gene. His "bullet time" effect, the regenerative healing… all from abilities that no serum should've triggered.
Robert glanced at Francis. "That serum you injected me with—didn't it require adrenaline as a catalyst?"
Francis nodded. "Yeah. Why?"
Robert scratched his chin, deep in thought. If that was true, then maybe the reason the serum worked at all was because of how much adrenaline he produced during bullet time. His body was probably in a constant state of accelerated stress and response.
He filed that thought away for later.
At that moment, Wade walked up with Vanessa by his side. His red mask was off now, revealing the horror show underneath. Judging by the way they stood together, he'd already confessed everything to her.
And by some miracle, she hadn't run screaming.
Robert looked at the moody mercenary and tossed Francis toward him like a sack of garbage. "Here. He's all yours. I'm heading back to collect my stuff. Blew up too much of my gear in the fight—I need to restock."
Wade raised an eyebrow. "You're running low?"
He gestured at the three grenades still strapped to Robert's chest and the full ammo clips on his belt.
Robert shrugged. "Hey, preparation is everything."
…
Ten minutes later, Robert returned dragging a massive duffel bag stuffed with weapons—and a motorcycle to boot.
He glanced over and noticed Francis lying motionless on the floor, a fresh bullet hole in his forehead.
"Handled it?"
Wade snorted. "Damn right I did. Guy couldn't even fix my face. After all that chasing and fighting, he just tells me there's nothing he can do! So yeah… I gave him something to remember me by."
He punctuated the statement by kicking Francis's corpse again.
Robert gave him a pat on the shoulder. "Look on the bright side. Sure, your face is still a disaster—but at least you're not dying of cancer anymore."
He grinned. "Me? I'm not ugly, not sick, and fully stocked on ammo. I've got zero problems."
Wade stared at him. "…You're kind of a jerk, you know that?"
Vanessa looked at the two of them and sighed. "Neither of you is normal."
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