The third man, the one at the security monitors, finally heard the scuffle. He spun around in his chair, his eyes widening in shock as he saw me standing over the bodies of his comrades. His hand flew to the gun holstered at his hip.
He was too slow. Infinitely too slow. I kicked the rolling chair out from under him, sending him sprawling to the floor. Before he could recover or even draw his weapon, I was on top of him, my knee pinning his gun hand to the concrete. My other hand delivered an open-palm chop to the side of his neck. His body went limp, his attempted shout dying in his throat.
My attention turned to the back of the lab. She was there, huddled in the far corner, a feral figure in a dirty smock. Her face was hidden behind a curtain of tangled black hair, but I could feel the intensity of her glare, like a physical heat, even from across the room. She had watched the entire thing, a caged observer. Kimiko Miyashiro. The Female.
I took a slow step towards her, my hands raised to show I was no threat. Her head snapped up, and her eyes locked onto mine. She let out a low growl that seemed to vibrate in my very bones, the sound of a cornered wolf ready to tear out the throat of anything that came near.
I knew words were useless here. She didn't speak English, and even if she did, she was too far gone into her traumatized state to listen. Action was the only language she would understand.
I approached the cage door. It was secured with a heavy padlock. I ignored it. I gripped the thick steel bars of the door with both hands.
[Show-off,] the System quipped.
I planted my feet. The steel groaned in protest, the sound unnaturally loud in the silent basement. The welds holding the bars to the frame began to screech and tear, sending sparks into the dim light. With a final effort that sent a jolt of exertion up my arms, I ripped the entire door off its hinges and tossed it aside. It crashed to the floor with a deafening clang that echoed off the concrete walls.
She exploded out of it. I had anticipated it, but the sheer speed and ferocity of her attack were still breathtaking. She was a living projectile of pure violence, her hands curled into claws aimed directly at my throat.
I met her charge head-on. My Combat Mastery took over, my body moving with an instinct born of a hundred martial arts, my mind a cold supercomputer calculating angles and trajectories. I sidestepped her initial lunge by a razor-thin margin, letting her momentum carry her past me. As she spun around, I moved in.
She was a storm, and I was the mountain. She threw a haymaker punch that would have caved in a normal man's skull. I caught her fist in my hand, my grip like a steel vise, the impact sending a shockwave up my arm. She screamed in frustration and tried to claw my face with her other hand. I caught that wrist too.
We were locked in a stalemate, a face-to-face tug-of-war in the center of the bloody basement. I could feel the raw power of a Tier 2 Supe straining against my own enhanced strength. Her muscles were like coiled steel cables, and her eyes were boring into me, filled with a murderous hatred.
While holding her arms in an unbreakable grip, I shifted my weight and swept her legs out from under her. She crashed hard to the floor, but her healing factor was already at work. She bounced back to her feet in an instant, ready to lunge again.
But in that brief moment she was down, I had created the opening I needed. As she came at me again, I ducked under her attack, my body moving in a spinning motion that was pure Jiu-Jitsu. I came up behind her, my arm wrapping around her neck in a textbook rear-naked choke.
She thrashed and struggled, her powerful legs kicking wildly, her sharp nails digging into the flesh of my arm, tearing through the fabric of my jacket. I felt a stinging pain, but I ignored it. My grip was unbreakable. I applied a controlled pressure enough to cut off the flow of blood to her brain.
It was a struggle against a force of nature. For a full thirty seconds, she fought with the desperate strength of a dying animal. Her struggles were so violent I had to brace myself against a table to keep my footing. Then, her movements began to weaken. Her thrashing slowed. Her body went limp, and she slumped forward, her full weight falling against me.
I gently lowered her to the ground, my heart pounding from the exertion. My arm was bleeding from a series of deep scratches, but the wounds were already beginning to knit themselves closed, my own Regeneration power at work. She was even more powerful than I had anticipated.
[Okay, new plan,] the System said, its voice a little shaky. [Next time we acquire a feral super-soldier, let's bring a tranquilizer gun. A big one.]
I didn't have time to reply. I scooped her unconscious form into my arms. She was surprisingly light, her body small and seemingly fragile. I had to get out.
I carried her to the grated sewer drain in the corner of the room, my pre-planned exit. I ripped the heavy iron grate from its moorings with one hand and descended into the darkness of the city's underbelly.
I navigated the dripping tunnels by memory, a map I had studied for hours. After a ten-minute walk through the filth, I emerged from a manhole in the deserted alley where I had parked my car.
I gently placed Kimiko in the back seat, covering her with a blanket I had stored, and drove away, melting back into the city's nightlife.
Moments later, my audio bugs in the noodle shop picked up new sounds. Shouting. The sounds of a frantic raid. Butcher's crew had finally arrived.
"They are all dead! Or knocked out!" Frenchie's confused voice echoed from the basement. "The cage… it is broken! Whatever was in it… it is gone!"
The drive back to the penthouse was silent. Kimiko was still unconscious in the back seat.