After Darian's earnest physical education, Ashley completely changed her demeanor.
She was now exceptionally obedient; when Darian said one, she would never say two, and if he told her to go east, she would never go west. Even the volume of her responses had dropped by eight decibels.
Old Hawkeye was amazed.
He hadn't expected Darian's methods to be so effective; the rebellious little fairy had turned straight into a good girl, and even her eyes had become clear.
If he had known it would be this effective, he should have given Ashley a good beating when she was younger, instead of now, where he couldn't win an argument or a fight against her.
After things settled down, Old Hawkeye took Ashley back to the residence of his third ex-wife.
To help Old Hawkeye and Ashley improve their father-daughter relationship, Darian acted as the driver this time, with Wolverine sitting in the passenger seat, and Old Hawkeye and his daughter sitting in the back, squeezed in with Wade.
Looking at the Spider-Man suit Ashley was wearing, Wade seemed to have suddenly activated some kind of attribute and excitedly said, "Big niece, do you know your Uncle Wade? I'm your grandfather's good buddy, Deadpool. Back in the day, I was a strong competitor for your grandmother's affection."
Ashley: "???"
Wade's chatterbox skill was fully activated, and he began to output frantically at Ashley without a single pause, driving her to the point of a breakdown.
If Darian was physical torture, then Wade was pure mental torture, forcibly stuffing all sorts of messy things into her brain until she felt like her entire mind had been tainted.
Ashley looked toward Old Hawkeye, her eyes carrying a hint of plea for help that had never been there before.
From childhood to now, she had never, like this moment, longed to receive a bit of fatherly protection from this biological father.
But Old Hawkeye remained indifferent.
It was the same old saying: he was blind and couldn't see anything.
When the third ex-wife opened the door and saw Old Hawkeye bringing back a female creature with a face swollen like a pig's head and features almost indistinguishable, she thought Old Hawkeye's taste had become quite heavy.
Upon learning that the person was actually her daughter, she was immediately heartbroken and cursed Kingpin for being inhuman, having tormented her daughter so miserably—not only was her body severely damaged, but her mind was also unclear. One could only imagine what kind of cruel, inhuman torture she had endured!
Learning that Darian had already killed Kingpin, the third ex-wife was filled with gratitude, praising Darian as a superhero for killing that beast Kingpin who had tormented her daughter.
Kingpin: "..."
Darian looked at the dazed Ashley and patted her shoulder; the latter instinctively trembled all over, and her pupils instantly focused.
"Is something the matter, Uncle Darian?" Ashley said nervously.
Everyone else was shocked; she had been trained to this extent—Darian just patted her shoulder, and she was able to instantly break free from Wade's mental control.
"Nothing, just reminding you to be obedient in the future, otherwise Uncle Darian will have to pay another visit."
Darian said cheerfully, "There is also an old saying: 'Learning without thought is labor lost, thought without learning is perilous.' It means if you don't reflect well after receiving an education, then you've been educated in vain; and if you still refuse to actively learn to be good after reflecting, then you'll have to Die."
"I understand, Uncle Darian."
Hearing this, Ashley felt a chill run through her entire body and hurriedly nodded, almost on the verge of tears from fear.
There was no helping it; the shadow Darian had left on her was simply too great, and she was afraid she would never be cured of it in this lifetime.
Wade chuckled like a creepy uncle, "Big niece, Uncle Wade is leaving. I don't have anything to leave you as a souvenir, so why don't you give Uncle Wade this Spider-Man suit as a souvenir..."
Bang!
Wade instantly had his third eye opened and fell to the ground.
Darian snorted coldly, "What are you saying? She's still just a child."
Ashley: "..."
You didn't seem to say that when you were hitting me.
Darian and the others didn't linger; they had to hurry to New Babylon. They threw Wade's body onto the Spider-Mobile and sped away.
"Goodbye, Uncle Darian."
Watching the receding silhouette of the Spider-Mobile, Ashley waved her arms frantically, tears welling in her eyes. Anyone who didn't know better would think she was incredibly reluctant to part with Darian.
"And just like that, with my excellent cooperation, our Captain defeated Magneto, our Immortal Duo saved the World again, and Old Logan stayed in that parallel Universe, becoming good brothers on the same path with Young Logan and Scott, and living a good life with Jean—the four of them together, which is more important than anything."
In the passenger seat, Wade spoke with great animation, dancing and gesturing, while Old Hawkeye, who was driving, listened with great interest.
Yes, he had lost again.
Old Hawkeye felt that the previous two times had been rigged, so he chose to change the way they played, which was… drawing lots!
Unsurprisingly, he lost.
Wade thought this old guy was even more of a goofball than himself; you, a blind man, playing rock-paper-scissors and drawing lots with people—if that's not being a goofball, what is?
Old Hawkeye's mentality had originally collapsed a bit, thinking this journey would be another new torture, and this time he didn't have his biological daughter to divert the fire, but to his surprise, he unexpectedly got to eat some gossip about Logan.
If you're going to talk about that, then I'm not sleepy anymore!
"I never would have thought, Logan, that you were so persistent about stealing Cyclops's girl, that you could even become a love rival with yourself."
Old Hawkeye beamed with joy, the wrinkles on his face bunching up together.
Wolverine's face was as dark as Kingpin's, and he gritted his teeth, "Those Logans aren't me. We don't even look the same, and… I'm not as tall as them either."
He absolutely refused to admit that those two goofy Logans were his counterparts, and for this, he didn't hesitate to engage in self-deprecation to clear up the relationship between them.
Darian chuckled, "But in essence, you are all the same. Wanting to steal Cyclops's girl is the underlying code for all Logans."
Wolverine: "..."
He couldn't refute this point, as he did indeed think so.
Old Hawkeye listened with great interest and took the opportunity to ask, "By the way, how many people are actually in this Immortal Alliance of yours?"
Darian thought for a moment, "Besides me and Wade, there's Old Logan's daughter, two Sabretooths, and three Wolverines. If the Old Wolf of this World also joins us, we could just form the Four Heavenly Kings."
Old Hawkeye was shocked, "So many Wolverines? Aren't you afraid they'll tear the house down?"
He understood Wolverine's past temper and personality very well. Even if they were counterparts from different Universes, he estimated they were roughly the same; this was no different from raising a few huskies at home.
Darian waved his hand, "It's fine. Our team also recruited two Professor Xs as consultants. One of them has decades of experience in dog training; no matter how fierce a dog's personality is, they have to become guard dogs in front of them."
"Awesome!"
Old Hawkeye couldn't believe this Immortal Alliance was so powerful that they could even scrape together two Mutants as powerful as Professor X.
He suddenly asked with a thick face, "Um… do you think I can apply to join your team? I don't need an official position, just an honorary member like Professor X would be fine."
Darian raised an eyebrow, "Why do you want to join our team?"
Old Hawkeye's expression became more serious, "This World is no longer the era of superheroes. The superheroes who are still alive are either hiding or have forgotten who they are. I don't want to be like them, finding a corner and quietly waiting for death. I just want to find something I can still do, even if it's just a little bit."
This wasteland World didn't lack superheroes, but their will had long been worn away. Most of them, like Wolverine, had suffered severe physical and mental trauma and chose to escape.
Old Hawkeye was the only superhero who maintained his faith; there was still a tension in his heart. He didn't want to be an ordinary person; even if he died, he wanted to die as a superhero.
Darian nodded, "I see. We do have a vacant position on our team right now."
"What position?"
"Gate Watchman."
Old Hawkeye: "...Um, would 'Gate-listener' work?"
The four of them drove across America, and the talking never stopped along the way.
Of course, ninety percent of the chat record was contributed by Wade alone.
As they drove further and further, the scenery outside the car gradually became strange.
For example, herds of dinosaurs were visible everywhere.
As the previous generation of Earth's rulers and humanity's predecessors, they had reappeared on this land, and in great numbers. They had suddenly ascended from extinct creatures to common ones, and dinosaur meat had become one of the most common ingredients in the wasteland World.
Darian was very curious about what dinosaur meat tasted like, so he had Wade get some dinosaur meat back to grill on the spot.
At first, Wade was reluctant, until he ate the dinosaur meat skewers Darian made; his eyes lit up on the spot, and he shouted that he had to marry Darian and bring him home to make barbecue for him from now on.
With a gunshot, Wade immediately shut up.
Wolverine and Old Hawkeye applauded and cheered, logically dividing up Wade's portion of the barbecue.
Besides that, most of the iconic buildings or locations of the past had also changed their appearance.
Under the ruins of the Fantastic Four's Baxter Building, a huge skeleton was buried. One could see the long-horned helmet on the skull, all of which displayed the identity of the person.
On the rock face of Mount Rushmore, on the far right of the four Presidents' statues, there was an extra head with a completely different art style; it was none other than the leader of HYDRA, Red Skull.
And on a highway in Connecticut, a skeleton even larger than the one under the Baxter Building lay across it; it was the remains of the superhero Ant-Man, which had now become a famous landmark, Pym Crossroads.
Darian and Wade felt everything was fresh, and every time they passed a strange landscape, they would always stop the car to take photos.
Just like that, they ate and took photos along the way. If one didn't know they were transporting goods, they would have thought they were on a road trip.
It was just a pity that more than half of the journey had passed, and they hadn't encountered any supervillains; Darian's mission objective hadn't progressed at all from beginning to end.
"Hawkeye, I think you shouldn't play with a bow, but with a knife; that's the only way to perfectly unleash your abilities. You have to know, your ability is something that even the Infinity Stones could forget about. Otherwise, do you think you really survived Thanos's snap by luck?"
Old Hawkeye: "..."
God, why am I blind and not deaf?
Wade kept harassing Old Hawkeye.
Suddenly, he stopped and blinked, "Guys, did you hear any sound?"
"I heard it."
Darian nodded, and Wolverine beside him also seemed to have sensed something, looking toward the top of the towering rock wall on the right.
"Roar——!!!"
The roar rolled down like a thunderclap, and a huge black shadow slammed behind the car!
Amidst the flying dust, a strange T-Rex appeared.
It was covered in flowing black and white matter, with countless tentacle-like semi-liquids writhing frantically on its body. Its bloody mouth was wide open, full of sharp teeth gleaming coldly, and a long scarlet tongue hung out of its mouth, with saliva splattering everywhere.
[Venom]
[Description: From the Symbiote race of alien creatures, possessing independent thought, it can only survive by combining with a host. It can grant the host powerful strength and the memories of past hosts. Furthermore, the symbiote will copy the host's abilities and memories, but at the same time, it extremely amplifies the host's nature. It fears sound waves and fire.]
"It's Venom!"
Wolverine immediately recognized the thing on the T-Rex and shouted at Old Hawkeye, "Drive at full speed! Don't stop!"
The Venom T-Rex's pale vertical pupils were locked tightly onto the Spider-Mobile in front of it.
It recognized the logo on the Spider-Mobile; it was its nemesis, Spider-Man!
"Roar——!!"
The Venom T-Rex raised its head and let out a deafening roar. Its muscles, wrapped in the symbiote, were exceptionally swollen, bursting forth with a speed completely inconsistent with its massive body.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom————
It took huge strides to start chasing the Spider-Mobile. Every time its foot hit the ground, gravel splattered, and a dull tremor came from the ground.
"Shit!"
Old Hawkeye cursed. Even if he couldn't see, he could feel the huge movement behind him. He hurriedly floored the accelerator, the Spider-Mobile's engine roared, and it flew forward frantically.
However, this didn't increase the distance much; instead, the Venom T-Rex was getting closer and closer to the Spider-Mobile.
"Ahhh! It's catching up! Drive faster! Faster!"
Wade looked back while frantically shaking Hawkeye's arm.
"We're going to be eaten! We'll all turn into dinosaur poop, and then in hundreds of millions of years, archaeologists will dig us up and put us in a museum as dinosaur dung fossils. Then everyone will know that we were the idiots who got swallowed by a dinosaur!"
"Shut up! I'm already driving as fast as I can!"
Old Hawkeye felt that Wade's noise attack was even more hair-raising than the Venom T-Rex, and he roared, "We must deal with that big guy behind us! Otherwise, we'll be caught sooner or later!"
Wade was still dancing and gesturing, "Quick, get Star-Lord here; no one knows dinosaurs better than him. If that doesn't work, Black Widow will do too————"
Crackle!
Before he could finish speaking, a hand reached out from the back seat and rested on Wade's shoulder. A strong electric current flashed, and Wade instantly went stiff all over and fell asleep.
Darian didn't fire his gun; he didn't want those filthy things splattering all over the car.
"Hawkeye, drive slower; I'll handle it."
"Are you sure?"
"Just keep driving, leave the rest to me."
Darian stood up and turned his head, steadying himself in the bumpy car, and looked at the Venom T-Rex.
The Venom T-Rex and Darian stared at each other, and it actually hissed.
"Small one————stop————eat————"
Hearing this, Darian raised an eyebrow, and a large flamethrower suddenly appeared in his hand, aimed at the Venom T-Rex.
"Who are you calling small?"