"An educational experience."
Su Ming fastened his helmet, gazing pensively at the Torchbearer shrouded in dust and smoke.
Even if he could use elementalization to be immune to most damage, could he really dodge the cosmic energy weapons so easily?
As the dust settled, the Torchbearer still stood there, arms high, but his body was in complete tatters. If the German Army fired another round, he'd be left naked.
The Torchbearer couldn't quite understand why humans would kill one another; he had no concept of this.
But now the intense pain in his body made it difficult for him to control his abilities.
Severe flames erupted from the doorway.
"Get down!"
The Torchbearer's ability was not the flames, Su Ming knew that clearly. The flames were merely an external manifestation of the fusion-like energy within him.
So as the Torchbearer seemed about to lose control, he immediately instructed everyone to get down to avoid potential harm.
Following that, it was like the fire in New York had reenacted here — the enemy troops on the streets, and some nearby fragile buildings, were blasted apart.
The Prime Minister's Office was also somewhat shaky, with dust and debris falling from the ceiling.
The Torchbearer stared blankly at his hands and touched his chest. He was momentarily lost for what to do.
"I've killed, I've killed again..."
Confused and at a loss, he flew into the air, heading to some unknown place.
He needed to find a place to think things over thoroughly.
"Mm, the bomb worked well, it eased our pressure." Su Ming got up from the ground, dusting off his armor, though Strangulation was slightly droopy, as it still disliked heat and noise.
Cable walked over to check the situation at the front door, but outside there was only charred blackness and flames, with ripple-like black marks on the ground.
"What happened just now?"
"Nothing much, just a Little Superman with a stomachache." Su Ming chuckled wryly, urging Cable to continue defending other directions.
Though the nearby blocks were temporarily safe, this was Berlin, and the German Army would soon return in force.
Su Ming hoped Apocalypse would return soon, and not battle Conqueror in some alternate dimension for years; if they didn't show up by nightfall, Su Ming would resort to Plan B, leading everyone in a retreat.
"Enemy attack, from the left flank!"
Su Ming heard Little Rascal's voice from the second floor and flexed his wrist, ready to hold the fort once more.
Time and again, the German Army surged like a relentless tide, advancing and retreating, with Hydra Soldiers gradually appearing among them.
For now, Su Ming hadn't seen any Hydra leaders, but perhaps they were observing from afar.
At dusk, just as Su Ming began preparing a retreat, Apocalypse returned.
He held Conqueror Kang like a ragdoll, swaggering down from the sky to crash onto the ground.
This Kang was already defeated by him, but unfortunately, it was just one among millions.
Apocalypse looked around, surrounded entirely by enemies, who attacked with futile tickling-like methods.
He rolled his eyes dramatically, and instantly, a vast tract of the city kicked up yellow sand.
The sand, like grinding wheels and blades, silently severed enemy heads and penetrated their war machines and mechas, turning these war machines into scrap.
"Ignorant humans."
Apocalypse was in a great mood, having killed Kang once more; the shadow of past defeat a century ago seemed to vanish in an instant.
On a silent street, he strode into the Prime Minister's Office, casually tossing Kang's corpse to Su Ming to handle. He and Kang had pierced hundreds of timelines, entangling in Otherworld for countless years, but he finally won again.
He needed a bit of rest.
Su Ming signaled to Wade to quickly 'serve' Apocalypse, in any case not letting him think.
Meanwhile, Su Ming himself called Cable, secretly dragging Kang's corpse to the basement to study his high-tech armor.
"How is it?"
The 'research' process was Cable working while Su Ming smoked and overseen.
There was no choice; among them, only Cable was likely to comprehend Kang's technology.
Cable pulled the corpse out from the armor and discarded it, using various tools to study the high-tech armor, with a heap of data and patterns emerging from his gadgets.
"If I say I don't understand it at all, what would you think?" Cable cracked a bitter smile on his rough face, wiping sweat from his forehead.
Su Ming shrugged, casually exhaling a smoke ring: "It's normal; Kang's technology might not even have come from Earth, so it's possible you can't understand it at all."
"Excluding damaged parts, and the majority I don't understand, I might only understand about 1% of what it's used for."
Cable began trying to disassemble the armor, which was no easy task.
Even though Apocalypse had smashed it flat, it still possessed very sturdy physical characteristics, and Cable's tools cut through the armor at a snail's pace.
"Just tell me what you can understand." Su Ming needed to advance the next step of his plan now that Kang was dealt with; it was time to get rid of the burden.
Sending Apocalypse back to sleep sooner meant everyone could finish and head home sooner.
"This, an injector inside the armor, this injection fluid should be a potent stimulant, like a fast-acting super serum that can instantly unleash immense power."
Cable reached into the armor, pulling out a set of miniature systems.
This thing was useless to Su Ming; unknown constituents, unknown dosages, he certainly wouldn't apply such an unidentified liquid to himself.
"Oh, distribute it among yourselves as this campaign's spoils of battle."
Cable gave Su Ming a helpless glance, feeling like getting involved in Deadpool's affairs was a mistake from the start, and now he seemed entangled with Wade's cousin, a true tragedy.
"And this." Cable extracted something akin to an arm guard from the armor.
This item looked stylistically different from the armor, exuding a vintage vibe, with a large red gemstone embedded in the golden arm guard, oval in shape and about the size of half a palm.
"What is this?"
"A temporal displacement device, this style should be the creation of the Observers, Kang might have taken it from a Young Avenger at some point."
Cable had seen it before; it could alter the wearer's space and time, also inspiring him to develop the time-travel wristwatch.
Today, the X-Men could rely on Phantom Cat and Bishop's abilities to wander anywhere, and Cable and Deadpool almost everyone had time-travel devices, except Deathstroke.
Cable noticed this too, so he considered handing this trophy to him, which seemed fair.