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Jay stepped out of the shower, steam curling around the marble bathroom of his hotel suite. The hot water had done little to wash away the adrenaline from last night's club-hopping. Who knew the reserved Jay had such moves on the dance floor? The memory of spinning some girl around to Girl's Generation at a tiny basement club in Hongdae brought a grin to his face.
He pulled on the clothes he'd bought yesterday: dark jeans, a simple black t-shirt, and a monotone loose sweater. Basic, but it would do until he could upgrade his wardrobe.
Grabbing his travel bag and the inconspicuous guitar case containing Muramasa, Jay headed out into Seoul's morning bustle. Gangnam looked exactly like he'd imagined: glass towers streaming with digital billboards, luxury boutiques with Korean and English signage, and that particular Seoul blend of ultra-modern architecture and traditional respect for hierarchy.
His phone buzzed with Kim Il Sung's GPS location as Jay walked down the spotless sidewalks, dodging ajummas with their wheeled shopping carts and salarymen speed-walking with their morning coffee. But as he turned the corner near Coex Mall, he noticed a crowd gathering, cameras and film equipment scattered around.
"Noona, what's happening?" Jay asked a middle-aged woman clutching a coffee cup.
"Aigoo! It's PSY oppa!" she replied excitedly. "He's shooting a music video! My daughter will be so jealous!"
Jay's memory kicked in. PSY and Gangnam district. His pulse quickened as he pushed through the crowd.
"Excuse me, hyung," he approached one of the assistant directors. "What song is he filming?"
The AD looked up, surprised to hear English in an American accent, then smiled. "Ah, oegug-in? You know PSY sunbae-nim? This is for his new song, 'Gangnam Style.' It's going to be huge, I think."
Jay nearly choked. He was witnessing the birth of the most viral video in internet history. Without thinking, he pulled out his phone and started recording, taking pictures of PSY doing his ridiculous horse dance in a parking garage. Bobby and the gang back home were going to lose their minds when this song exploded worldwide in a few months.
"Jinjja incredible," Jay muttered.
After twenty minutes of fangirling harder than he'd ever admit, Jay remembered his actual mission. Kim Il Sung's location was only a few blocks away: a small convenience store that looked perfectly ordinary from the outside.
As Jay approached the 24-hour GS25, something felt off. His danger sense was humming. Through the store's windows, he could see the clerk: a thin man in his thirties with nervous eyes and hands that moved too quickly.
Jay pushed open the door, the electronic chime sounding with its standard "ding-dong" melody. The clerk looked up, and Jay immediately recognized Kim Il Sung from the photos. Mid-thirties, slight build, the kind of unremarkable face that made perfect sense for someone running a criminal operation from plain sight.
"Eoseo oseyo," Jay said casually while browsing the ramyeon section and studying the store's layout. His enhanced senses had already revealed hidden cameras, reinforced doors, and most tellingly a basement level.
"Can I help you find anything, customer?" Kim asked in accented English.
"Actually, I'm looking for—"
Jay's danger sense exploded.
He dove sideways as ice shards shattered the front windows, sending glass and frozen projectiles flying through the store. Jay rolled behind a display of instant coffee as Kim cursed in rapid Korean and hit something under the counter.
A mechanically amplified voice boomed from outside: "Kim Il Sung and the rest of the M-Gang scum! Come out now if you want to live!"
Jay crouched lower as Kim shouted toward the back in panicked Korean: "Ya, they found us! Get out here right now!"
The back door burst open, revealing more than a dozen mutants in various states of combat readiness. Jay's enhanced senses cataloged their abilities: pyrokinesis, super strength, acid secretion, and at least three with obvious physical mutations.
But his attention snapped to the figures outside as they entered through the destroyed storefront.
It was the Tiger Division. South Korea's government-sanctioned superhuman response team.
White Fox, Director Ami Han, took point, her fox-like features sharp with supernatural authority. Behind her came Gun-R, the agent's advanced armor gleaming. Dan Bi followed in her hanbok-inspired costume, and finally Luna Snow, Seol Hee, the K-pop sensation turned superhero, ice crystals dancing around her fingertips.
"Surrender immediately!" White Fox commanded in crisp Korean. "You're surrounded and completely outgunned!"
"Fuck that!" Kim spat back, his own power flaring.
What followed was a superpowered brawl. Gun-R's energy blasts lit up the store while Dan Bi's mystical guardian bear spirit sent products flying. Luna Snow's ice attacks clashed with a pyrokinetic M-Gang member, creating steam that filled the cramped space.
Jay decided this was the perfect opportunity to investigate the basement. He slipped around the chaos and approached the reinforced back door.
Using his technomorphing, he opened the digital lock.
What he found made his blood turn to ice.
Small cells lined the walls, most containing children between eight and fourteen, all showing signs of malnutrition and fear. In the center of the room, two teenagers who couldn't be older than seventeen were connected to blood-drawing machines, IV lines snaking from their arms. One of them, a girl maybe sixteen, was unconscious.
The clinical precision of the setup made it worse. This wasn't random violence. This was organized, methodical harvesting of children.
"Who the fuck are you supposed to be?"
Jay spun to see an M-Gang member with extended claws advancing on him. The mutant's claws were stained with old blood.
Something primal and furious erupted in Jay's chest.
Without conscious thought, he activated his tachyon field and drew Muramasa in one fluid motion. The enhanced blade cut through the man's torso in a single horizontal slash. The trafficker's upper body slid sideways before both halves hit the ground, organs spilling across the basement floor. Blood sprayed the walls in arterial bursts.
The children screamed.
Jay snapped back to himself, staring at the gore coating his hands and blade. The kids were pressing themselves against the back walls of their cells, terror written across their faces.
"It's okay," he said in gentle Korean, forcing his voice to stay calm. "I'm here to help you. No one's going to hurt you anymore."
He used his technomorphing to unlock every cell, then activated his healing aura. The process showed him everything: needle marks, surgical scars, prolonged physical trauma. The girl with the missing kidney had been cut open by someone who cared more about speed than survival.
Jay carefully lifted the unconscious teenagers, surprised by how light they were, and herded the younger kids toward the stairs. "Stay close to me. When we go upstairs, there might be loud noises, but I won't let anyone hurt you."
The main store was still a war zone. Gun-R's armor was sparking, White Fox was bleeding from several cuts, Dan Bi's mystical abilities were nullified by Kim, and Luna Snow seemed to be holding her own.
Jay gently set the teenagers down behind the counter. He turned to the frightened children. "Close your eyes and cover your ears. This will be over very soon."
Then he drew Muramasa again.
His null field expanded to its fifty-foot range thanks to fusing Chance's powers with his. It encompassed the entire store. Every mutant ability within range simply stopped working. The M-Gang members looked around in panic.
What followed wasn't a fight. It was systematic execution.
Jay moved with cold precision, enhanced by Silver Samurai's tachyon field and Muramasa's supernatural sharpness. But he didn't give them clean deaths. These bastards had tortured children for profit.
He started with the pyrokinetic who'd been fighting Luna Snow. The blade took both hands at the wrists in rapid succession. The man's screams mixed with the hiss of cauterized stumps as the tachyon-wreathed blade sealed the wounds hot from his fire. Jay moved to the next before the first had finished falling.
A woman with bone spurs tried to run. Jay's blade caught her behind both knees, severing tendons and sending her sprawling. She tried to crawl. He stepped on her spine, applying just enough pressure to paralyze without killing.
The acid-secreter got Muramasa through both shoulders, pinning him to the wall like an insect in a collection. His power-nullified acid glands leaked uselessly down his chest as he shrieked.
One by one, Jay dismantled the M-Gang members. Hands severed from those who tried to fight. Eyes gouged from those who tried to run. Achilles tendons cut on anyone still mobile. He kept them alive, kept them conscious, made sure they felt every moment of what was happening to them.
The convenience store became a gallery of agony. Blood pooled between the aisles. The smell of copper mixed with the scent of instant ramyeon and coffee. Some of the traffickers were still trying to crawl away, leaving red trails across the linoleum.
Kim Il Sung, realizing his scrambling had been resisted, pulled a gun. Jay cut it in half so cleanly the metal surfaces looked like mirrors.
For Kim, Jay sheathed Muramasa. This needed to be personal.
The beating he gave Kim was methodical. Each punch landed with calculated force, opening gashes in Kim's face, breaking bones systematically. Jay targeted the floating ribs first—painful but not immediately fatal. Then the orbital bones around the eyes. The jaw. The collarbone. He worked his way down Kim's body like a butcher breaking down a carcass, avoiding vital organs but maximizing suffering.
Kim's face became unrecognizable. Teeth scattered across the floor. One eye socket collapsed inward. Blood bubbled from his mouth with each labored breath.
Only when the man was barely conscious did Jay activate his power theft ability, forcibly draining Kim's Paranormal Power Disruption.
"Tell your Boss," Jay whispered in Kim's ear, his voice deadly calm, "to hide and prepare himself. Because when I meet him, I'm going to make what happened to you look merciful."
One final punch to Kim's temple sent him into unconsciousness.
Jay looked up to find Tiger Division staring at him. The convenience store looked like a slaughterhouse. More than a dozen mutants scattered around, missing various body parts, pools of blood reflecting the fluorescent lights. Some were still moving, still moaning. The ones who'd lost hands clutched at stumps. The woman with severed tendons was crying silently, unable to move from where she'd fallen.
White Fox stepped forward carefully, her fox-like instincts clearly marking Jay as a threat. "Unknown individual, you need to identify yourself and stand down immediately."
Gun-R's damaged systems tried to target Jay. "Powering weapons systems. Stand down or we will open fire!"
Luna Snow was using her healing ice on Dan Bi, who'd taken a bad hit during the initial fight. Her K-pop star persona was completely gone.
Jay ignored the threats entirely and walked over to check on the children. Several of the kids were crying, but his healing aura was already taking care of their physical injuries. The psychological trauma would take much longer.
"Sir!" Gun-R's mechanical voice cracked. "I ordered you to stand down and—"
"Gun-R," White Fox said sharply. "The victims come first. Always."
She approached Jay with cautious respect. "Can you tell me your name and why you were here?"
Jay looked at the rescued children, taking in their hollow eyes and the way they flinched from loud noises. Then at the mutilated traffickers still groaning in their own blood.
"Get these kids to their families," he said quietly. "Make sure they get proper medical care and therapy. They've seen too much, been through too much."
White Fox nodded slowly. "We will. The NIS has protocols for this. But you—"
Jay sat down heavily on the blood-stained floor, suddenly exhausted. The righteous anger had burned itself out.
He closed his eyes and tried to shut out the noise: the sirens approaching in the distance, Gun-R's continued threats, White Fox's careful questions about his identity, Luna Snow speaking softly to the children in the gentle Korean that idols used with their youngest fans.
Around him, the M-Gang members continued their symphony of pain. Missing hands. Ruined eyes. Shattered bones. All still alive, all still suffering, exactly as he'd intended.
For now, thirteen children were safe. It would have to be enough.
[A/N]: I write across multiple fandoms. Support my writing and get early access to 45+ chapters, exclusive content, and bonus material at my P@treon - Max_Striker.