"Miller, you've done a great job today. The boss will definitely reward you. Luckily, you have a good face, which helps us bypass the local agencies for recruitment," Brahm continued, trying to recover the thread of his conversation while chugging the rest of his wine directly from the bottle.
"Brahm, if it weren't for you guys providing the transportation and the security, some of them would definitely have run away," Miller, the drunken white man, replied, adjusting his typical blond hair and smirking. His handsome face was indeed his best tool, giving him a sickening advantage in luring desperate, hopeful young girls away from safety—a fact he took immense pride in.
The other white man, Rice, looked far more grim, leaning heavily on the table. He slammed his glass down, the sound muffled by the ship's continued creaking. "Damn, Reginald's been gone so long, he's not going to give up and start a fight in that tiny room, is he?! We need to move this cargo, not ruin it."
Another man chuckled dismissively. "Seventeen women this time, Rice. Seventeen! We're sure to make a fortune! A little rough handling won't hurt the final price, you know?"
"Look, I'm just saying, it's good to have a handsome face," Brahm interrupted, clapping Miller roughly on the shoulder. "As soon as Miller appeared, those girls surrounded him, listening to his spiel, and believed everything he said. He could bring back three or four at a time, easy."
A collective round of mocking laughter erupted, turning to Rice. "Look at Rice, he only brought one back all day, and he practically had to drag her back, kicking and screaming! What a pathetic effort, hahaha!"
Rice, already tense, cursed under his breath. "You can't even bring one back, what's so funny about my work ethic, you fat pig!"
The Black men ignored him, resuming their loud, celebratory discussion about their disgusting day's achievements. Seventeen people in one day was a huge haul. They confirmed one young woman had already suffered a broken leg because she resisted too fiercely, but the rest were all accounted for and would be delivered to the dock later that morning.
They kept glancing anxiously at the aft door, clearly anticipating the return of Reginald.
Clang!
The heavy, steel door to the aft cabin was kicked open with brutal force. A tall, towering black man, over 1.9 meters tall, emerged, breathing heavily. He was carrying two limp, unconscious young women slung haphazardly over one massive arm. He threw them both unceremoniously onto a nearby worn leather sofa.
"F**K, these two women are quite heavy and they smell of cheap perfume, you'll have to deal with them yourselves," the tall man, Reginald, said, panting heavily. He walked straight to the table and grabbed a large chunk of meat, biting into it fiercely.
"Reginald, it's been five hours, what's the status on the rest of the cargo?"
Reginald swallowed his mouthful. "They're all lying down, deep under. Looks like one of them in the back is barely breathing. Should we throw him into the sea now or wait until we dock?" the tall man said nonchalantly, reaching for a bottle of whiskey.
Lakasha, the man they called their immediate boss—a lean, scarred man—glanced at the two unconscious women on the sofa, a sneer on his lips. "Neither of them are awake. There's no fun in this yet. I'll go get the specialized antidote later to make them pliable. There are only two women here on the sofa. If they die now, it's a waste."
He turned and started walking towards the rear cabin, presumably to check on the rest of the victims and the drug supply.
CRUNCH
Leo gently landed on the thick steel roof of the cabin directly above the main table. His Golden Eyes of Insight had been locked on the interior situation the entire time, tracking the women, listening to the boasts, and observing the casual, horrifying cruelty.
Although Leo wasn't proficient in lip reading their various accents, his Golden Eyes had confirmed the location of the bound girls and the dark intentions of the men. This was human trafficking, pure and simple, and it was the kind of evil that Leo simply could not suppress the murderous intent in his heart for.
Judging from their practiced manner and callous talk, this was definitely not their first time. They were hardened criminals who had harmed countless innocents.
A sound of protesting, twisting, tortured metal screamed through the air. The heavy steel roof above the table suddenly tore inward, the ragged, broken metal edges folding back like a flower of razor blades. An enormous hole was ripped open as if by an invisible, impossibly strong can opener.
A small figure—Leo—floated silently down from the gaping wound and landed directly on the center of the wooden table, sending plates, food, and spilled wine skittering to the floor.
He stood in the center of everyone's sudden, shocked attention.
Three of the black men, hardened by years of coastal piracy and smuggling, reacted immediately, quickly and alertly drawing their battered pistols and pointing them at the child standing amid the ruins of their meal.
The others, seeing only a small, fair-skinned boy wearing a backpack standing on their table, burst into loud, nervous laughter. The sudden shock gave way to cruel amusement.
"A child, ha-ha-ha! A little tourist trying to save his mom!" Rice mocked, clutching his belly, convinced the boy was no threat.
The tall, powerful Black man, Reginald, didn't waste time on words. His eyes narrowed with a predatory, ferocious expression. He roared and threw a heavy, muscled punch, aiming a blow containing all his raw physical force.
"Go see God, little brat!"
The target was Leo's fair face. This time, Leo wasn't wearing any mask or helmet; his face was open and unmoving.
The huge fist slammed through the air, carrying enough kinetic force to shatter concrete, but it was abruptly and completely halted two inches from his nose by a small, fair, seemingly delicate hand—a hand incomparable in size and mass to Reginald's ham-fist.
Leo didn't even use his physical strength. He simply used his Metal Control to instantly reinforce the molecular structure of the skin and bone in his hand to an impervious level, effectively turning it into a diamond-hard vice.
He grabbed Reginald's fist, twisted it once—not with immense physical might, but with sudden, focused, overwhelming torque generated by his power. A sharp, sickening snap echoed in the cabin, the sound of Reginald's right wrist completely and cleanly fracturing.
Reginald didn't just scream; he let out a strangled, primal howl, clutching his ruined hand and collapsing to the floor, rolling among the shards of glass and spilled meat. The howl was the first noise of true, visceral fear to penetrate the haze of their drunken bravado.
The three black men who had drawn their guns, seeing their strongest enforcer taken down by a single, casual wrist-twist, hesitated for only a fraction of a second—a fraction Leo didn't allow.
Leo raised his right hand slightly, palm up, in a gesture so calm it was chilling. The three men who were about to fire suddenly found their pistols moving, independent of their desperate grip. The metal weapons wrenched violently out of their control, swung around in tight arcs, and pressed the cold steel muzzles firmly against their own temples.
Everyone else was horrified. Rice tried to raise his gun toward Leo again, but he had only managed to raise his arm halfway before his own pistol wrenched itself from his fingers. The weapon shot backward, floating in the air toward Leo.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Then came the deafening sound of three gunshots fired in unison. Three black men, their faces frozen in terror, each had a bloody hole instantly appear in their temples, and their bodies collapsed heavily to the floor, twitching once before going still. The weapons then dropped harmlessly to the ground.
The sudden, brutal sound of the gunshots rang out throughout the entire ship, a terrible and irreversible finality.
Lakasha, who was just opening a metal lock box to select the women's antidote in the aft cabin, also heard the deafening barrage of gunfire.
"F**K, how many times have I told you idiots, no playing with guns near the docks! Boss Klaue has warned you so many times, are they looking for death?!"
Lakasha cursed, slammed the metal box shut, picked up a woman with a displeased expression, and stormed toward the main cabin to vent his fury.
Upon hearing the gunshots, Rice's remaining composure dissolved. His hand, still half-raised, trembled uncontrollably. The pistol he had lost now floated up into the air and pressed against his own forehead, the cold muzzle a palpable, terrifying weight.
Leo glanced around at the six people who remained standing, including the howling Reginald.
"Where are you planning to take those women?" Leo's voice was low, flat, and utterly devoid of emotion, a dangerous sound that promised violence.
As he spoke, two wicked, blood-red-tipped metal spikes, extensions of his power, silently appeared on his back. They flew out through the air and pierced directly through the shoulders of one of the remaining, unarmed black men, pinning him violently against the bulkhead.
"Ah!" A painful, piercing scream rang out.
A small, concealed pistol fell out from behind the man's back, dropping from a holster. Before it could hit the ground, Leo's control snatched it up. The weapon was shoved directly into the man's mouth, forcibly silencing his shouts with the cold metal taste of fear.
"I'll ask you one more time," Leo repeated, his Golden Eyes radiating a terrifying, focused intensity. "Where are you planning to take these women? The next person who tries to lie or resist dies instantly."
The other three floating pistols—the ones that hadn't been fired—also found their targets and were pressed against the remaining men's foreheads.
Now, only Miller, the handsome white man responsible for the luring, sat trembling on the overturned sofa, too terrified to move, his pants suddenly damp.
Leo walked up to Miller. The two blood-stained metal spikes were pulled brutally from the shoulders of the pinned man, flying through the air to stop inches from Miller's face. The smell of fresh blood, metallic and heavy, filled the air, and the cold tips of the spikes pressed against the thin fabric of his shirt, hovering over his chest.
"Tell me, everything," Leo commanded. "What is going on here?"
Miller stared at Leo, his eyes filled with pure animal fear. His lips parted, but no sound came out.
One of the black men, the one pinned to the bulkhead, tried desperately to pull a hidden dagger out of his pocket, intending to stab Leo in the back as a last, desperate act.
Bang!
Before the dagger could clear the pocket, a bloody hole instantly appeared on his forehead. The man slumped against the wall, the metal spikes still holding his body erect, a silent, bloody warning.
"I'll talk, I'll talk!" Miller screamed, unable to bear the sight of the sudden execution and the threat of the metal spikes slowly piercing him. With the growing number of corpses around him, he completely broke down, his voice trembling and hysterical. "Lakasha is the boss! Lakasha is the one in charge of the women! I was just responsible for bringing these women back, the rest is none of my business! Really, this is my first time doing this, please don't kill me, please!"
"Continue!" Leo commanded, the pressure from the metal spikes increasing infinitesimally.
"Lakasha works for Boss Klaue! Ulysses Klaue! He's the boss of this entire area. He sells a lot of weapons and has hundreds of men under him. Everyone here has to report to him, including us! Lakasha usually goes into the city to find women who come here for tourism, then kidnaps them and sells them to Boss Klaue, or to some other people who specialize in this industry for transport."
Miller said the words hurriedly, his fear growing exponentially as the metal spike pressed hard enough to pierce half a centimeter into his chest, drawing a bead of blood.
"I really just arrived here recently, I swear! They said I could get five hundred dollars for every woman I brought in! This is my second, no, my fourth time doing this, really, my fourth time! That's all I know!"
"Klaue?" Leo repeated the name, his internal focus shifting from rage to cold calculation.
"Yes, Ulysses Klaue, that's him! He's the boss of this area. He's the one who controls the main trade routes and the docks. You can't kill us, he's too big! He has hundreds of men under him!"
Miller stared desperately at Leo, who seemed momentarily lost in thought, his expression distant. He tried to wiggle, hoping to dislodge the two metal spikes from his chest, but they held him perfectly still.
'Ulysses Klaue? That name sounds incredibly familiar. Where have I heard it before? Vibranium! He's the South African arms dealer who stole the Vibranium from Wakanda and had his arm blown off by Ultron later on. This is it. This is the connection!'