With a casual sweep of his hand, a head fell to the ground beside Joey.
It was like when he was still in Kansas, when childish mischief took over and he used a tree branch to knock down countless wheat stalks in Laurie's family field alongside her.
Joey had thought he would react more strongly.
What he was doing now was, in essence, no different from some of the things he had reported on in his previous life—wielding power far beyond ordinary people and harvesting lives as if they were mere grass.
But this was for a better tomorrow.
A woman with fluffy orange hair, dressed entirely in black except for a white vertical stripe across her face, hurled a grenade at him. Joey glanced at it, and the grenade detonated prematurely, taking her down with it.
This was "Luckless" from the G-Force. Supposedly she could transfer her misfortune to her enemies. It seemed the intel had been wrong.
For a better tomorrow.
A short-haired woman let out an eerie, catlike screech and lunged at him. This was PussPuss, the last member of the G-Force. With a single strike, the woman's head caved into her chest.
Then came a black man with slicked-back blond hair and an animal-eared helmet. He was called Born Free, the final member of G-Style.
To prevent any regeneration, Joey used heat vision until nothing remained.
For a better tomorrow.
---
When no second heartbeat remained at the scene, Joey finally stopped.
He could feel his power surging like a rising tide. Even though he had used barely one percent of his strength, the rush in his veins felt real—intoxicating.
In fact, the moment Cold Snap finished speaking earlier, Joey had already divided his attention to search for Laurie. His senses seemed to sharpen continuously with each kill. Before Luckless had fallen, he had already heard the faint sound of Laurie's soft snoring.
Laurie was not in danger.
But the killing had not stopped.
It was like sneaking to the fridge in the middle of the night for cola and chips. Emotionally and rationally, Joey would condemn the behavior. Yet in the end, the chips and cola would be gone.
Because it felt too good.
When there was no one left to kill and the pleasure receded like the tide, the emptiness that followed filled him with fear.
Joey realized that this Kryptonian body of his was a machine built for killing. He had started out of anger—but during the slaughter, he was not driven by anger at all.
He observed each opponent calmly. Nearly every strike was precise and fatal, even though their strength was insignificant compared to his.
Joey desperately wanted to convince himself that killing was a means, not the end.
But the truth was that the pleasure it brought far outweighed the moral calculations of his conscience.
It felt as though he had been born for this.
Now, only the final cleanup remained.
---
"Fuck, fuck, fuck! They're all dead!"
the Devine, who had fled with Professor G at the beginning, was on the verge of mental collapse.
His abilities were flight and limited telepathy. He could only faintly sense the thoughts of others nearby.
Within the first sixty seconds of the battle, the backbone members of the G-Men were nearly wiped out. By the second minute, almost half the consciousnesses he could sense had vanished.
He had never imagined they would lose to a single opponent.
The overwhelming contrast and the deaths of his companions overwhelmed his nerves, forcing him to shut off his perception temporarily to avoid going insane.
"Go to that place!"
Professor G sensed his panic. He knew the worst outcome had already arrived—they had to escape.
The defective products of the G-Men could not stand against Vought's ultimate biological weapon. Fortunately, he understood Homelander's abilities.
Homelander's vision could not see through zinc. Presumably, someone with similar powers—like Superman—would be the same.
Once they reached the secret basement exit, they would be safe. The underground passageways formed a maze, each reinforced with zinc plating.
With the ultrasonic disruptor activated, even if Superman searched relentlessly, he would not find them quickly. It would buy them enough time to escape.
The Devine carried Professor G into the manor hall. Several children peeked out from their hiding room.
These were the next generation of G-Men. Despite Vought repeatedly forbidding Godolkin from recruiting new members, he had continued anyway.
The children, already injected with experimental drugs, clutched plush toys tightly. In their eyes were fear—and deep dependence.
"Professor, we're scared. We heard… a lot of screaming outside…"
"Don't be scared, children. We're just playing pretend."
Professor G forced a gentle smile.
"In a moment, someone pretending to be a ghost will rush in. If he catches me, we lose. You must hide. When he appears, hit him with everything you got, alright?"
"Use all your power. Don't worry about hurting him—he's an adult! If we win, I'll get you the PS4 you've always wanted, okay?"
"Okay!"
Their crisp voices answered in unison, eager to show the "ghost" what they could do.
The Devine trembled. He remembered being that small once, soothed by the same promises—baseball games, hot dogs—gradually forgetting what his own family looked like.
But time was short. He carried Professor G into the secret exit.
The underground maze beneath the manor was known only to Professor G and two favored members—Nubia and Silver Kincaid.
That was why Professor G had been so furious when Nubia broke down and betrayed him—furious enough to order Silver Kincaid to kill her.
But the Devine had seen what Professor G had not: Nubia and Silver Kincaid had formed a bond beyond mere colleagues.
Months later, another tragedy struck. Silver Kincaid, unable to continue living as she had, yet lacking the courage to betray Professor G, chose to end her own life in a quiet town, using her powers to explode her own head.
As the Devine moved through the tunnels, a thought surfaced.
Betrayal.
"Why have you stopped?"
Professor G frowned and tapped his head impatiently with his cane.
"Superman could catch us at any moment!"
The Devine let go and dropped him to the ground.
"Old man, I just realized—"
He never finished. From the darkness, pale claws struck him down.
Blood pooled across Professor G's boots.
Two crimson eyes glowed in the shadows.
Unlike before, she wasn't wearing that white skintight outfit. She was completely naked, her exposed skin not a single inch unscarred—everywhere was marked by wounds.
Cuts, burns, punctures, tears… nearly every kind of injury one could imagine could be found etched across her body.
"Oh, it's you."
Mirror Girl had just killed the the Devine who was preparing to betray him, yet Professor G felt not the slightest trace of joy in his heart.
He looked at the completely naked Mirror Girl. At this moment, the only piece of fabric on her body was a tattered doll hanging from her neck—an old toy made in the likeness of Queen Maeve.
"You regained your freedom and the first thing you did was find that stupid doll instead of killing me?"
There were no mirrors in the underground passage. The Mirror Girl who had come here was her true body—the original that Professor G had kept under control.
As long as there were mirrors, she had that many duplicates. So long as the original did not die, the life or death of her reflections meant nothing.
Because of that, long ago Professor G had tried many "games" on the frequently disobedient Mirror Girl—things he could not attempt on the other children.
Now, whoever had released her original body, Professor G already knew what kind of end awaited him.
"A person like me, who cannot die, gave me freedom."
Mirror Girl reached out and seized Professor G by the throat, tightening her grip bit by bit. Her superhuman strength left him no room to resist. "I'm going to enjoy this."
At this moment, countless ideas for revenge flashed through her mind. Even if she tore the flesh from his body piece by piece, it would not amount to one ten-thousandth of the suffering she had endured.
But there was no time.
As Professor G finally stopped breathing, losing all strength to struggle, Mirror Girl did not hesitate—she snapped his neck.
She clutched tightly the plush toy hanging against her chest. In the long years after being abducted to G-Men, it had been the only thing that gave her even the slightest sense of security.
Now she was about to run toward the freedom that belonged to her.
Buzz—
Two beams of heat vision from beyond the atmosphere pierced through layers of earth and dense pipelines, slicing straight down from head to toe—cleaving Mirror Girl in two along with the Queen Maeve doll pressed to her chest.
After confirming there were no survivors, Joey dove downward. He slightly relaxed his bio-field, and the friction with the atmosphere burned away the mottled bloodstains on his body, revealing once more the golden "S" emblem on his chest.
He very much wanted to appear immediately beside the sleeping Laurie. But after some thought, he chose instead to land again at the G-Mens' manor and step into the hall.
"Scatter star!" "Take this!"
A boy emerged from behind a fountain where he had been hiding, forming a sphere of light in his hand and hurling it at Superman. From behind an overturned banquet table on the other side, a girl popped up, opened her third eye, and shot a seven-colored beam at Joey.
Joey twisted his fingers to snuff out the light sphere, then caught the rainbow beam in his palm.
His gaze swept over the seven or eight children in the room. Dressed as if for Halloween, they giggled as they prepared to unleash superpowered attacks that could instantly annihilate ordinary people.
He sighed helplessly. He clapped his hands lightly, interrupting their mischief.
"All right, kids, listen to me—Professor G has gone very far away. I can't catch him anymore!"
He beckoned the children to gather around him. He had already heard uninvited guests approaching in the distance.
"Gather around. This round of ghost-hunting is over."