Chapter 46: An Unexpected Ally
At the same time, Caine and Marcus had arrived at the Mexican cartel's stronghold in the slums.
It was Marcus's first time stepping into the slums, and what he saw genuinely shocked him. The crumbling tenements looked like they could collapse at any moment. Mountains of garbage gave off a stench that defied description.
He shook his head. "This place is hopeless. I thought Hell's Kitchen was bad. This is worse."
Caine couldn't see — but his Observation Haki gave him a sense of the place that was, in some ways, more complete than sight. He could feel the despair and the rot saturating every corner of the neighborhood.
"Don't forget, my friend. This is part of Hell's Kitchen too. We're here tonight to deal with the source of all this."
Marcus understood immediately. Their target was the man who ran this place — Gustavo, the Mexican cartel boss. The man controlled the slums' entire economy, using drugs and violence to grind the residents into the dirt.
"No more sightseeing," Caine said, his head turning slightly. "They're ready for us."
Through his Observation Haki, Caine could perceive everything around them. He could feel armed men moving into position from every direction — their footsteps, their breathing, the small clinks of weapons against gear. None of it escaped him.
And at the center of it all, one presence stood out. Far stronger than the rest. That was Gustavo's outside backup — the leader of the S.H.I.E.L.D. strike team.
Caine knew immediately that no drug operation, no matter how well-funded, produced fighters like that on its own.
The snipers and gunmen positioned in the surrounding tenements opened fire first.
BRRRAP. BRRRAP. BRRRAP.
Bullets shredded the night air, converging on Caine and Marcus from every angle.
Caine's hand came up reflexively — his Gravity-Gravity Fruit ready to crush the gunmen where they hid. But then his Observation Haki picked up something else: the homeless and the addicts huddled in the corners of those buildings, ragged and terrified, completely innocent.
Caine's hand lowered.
He couldn't bring himself to harm bystanders. Instead, he wove through the incoming fire using Observation Haki to predict every shot, closing on the gunmen at speed.
Marcus was already moving for cover, picking off targets with his sniper's precision — each shot deliberate, each one buying time and space.
It didn't take long for them to clear the first wave. But before they could even catch their breath, a second wave came pouring in like a tide.
In the central command room, Gustavo watched the feeds with a sneer.
"This Ethan is suicidal. He sent two people into my territory? Two?" He laughed. "Neither of them is leaving here alive. Send everyone! Five million dollars for each of their heads!"
The bounty lit a fire under his men. They came pouring out of every alley screaming like maniacs.
Standing nearby, the leader of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s rapid response unit — Crossbones — watched the same feeds with open contempt. "Mr. Gustavo. There are two of them. You really need an entire strike team to babysit you?"
Gustavo's smug attitude evaporated instantly. "Mr. Crossbones — I just like having insurance. As long as I make it through tonight unharmed, I'll personally recommend a ten-million-dollar donation to your... organization through the mayor first thing tomorrow."
"Hmph." Crossbones snorted. "Then you'd better have your ten million ready."
He turned away and said nothing more.
Gustavo kept his fawning smile in place — but inside, he was cursing the man with everything he had. If I could take him in a fight, I'd feed him to my dogs personally.
Outside, Marcus was reaching his limit.
The waves of cartel soldiers were endless. He and Caine had been holding their own through superior skill and coordination — but Marcus was, at the end of the day, still just a man with a gun, and the ammunition kept needing reloading.
Caine knew they couldn't keep this up.
"This isn't working. Hold them off."
"Cut off the head and the body falls. I'm going for their leader. You handle the rest."
Before Marcus could even react, Caine had launched himself into the air, using his gravity powers to propel himself toward the central command post like a missile.
"Shit, I'm just a regular guy here!" Marcus snarled as the next wave of cartel soldiers closed in around him.
Caine crossed the battlefield like a streak of lightning and landed in the central plaza. He couldn't see, but his Observation Haki had Gustavo locked perfectly in his awareness.
The S.H.I.E.L.D. strike team on the ground spotted him immediately. Their weapons came up without hesitation.
These were elites. Every member had been put through punishing training, and the gear in their hands wasn't standard issue — it was advanced equipment developed by S.H.I.E.L.D.'s research division specifically for handling enhanced individuals.
Caine sensed the bullets coming. He brought both hands down sharply, and the stones of the courtyard responded.
His Gravity-Gravity Fruit power surged. Massive chunks of broken concrete and stone tore themselves up from the ground, lifted into the air on invisible currents of force, and arranged themselves into a rotating barrier between him and the strike team. The bullets struck rock and stopped.
Caine landed lightly inside his shield wall and turned his blind gaze toward Gustavo.
"Pleased to meet you. I'm Ethan Cross's man. My name is Caine. I'm here to escort you to the next world."
Gustavo's composure cracked. "Kill him! Protect me!" He wheeled around and bolted for his safe room.
Caine moved to follow — but Crossbones wasn't going to let that happen. Two quick pistol rounds forced Caine to break stride, and Crossbones closed the distance fast, throwing a punch.
Crossbones had no powers of his own. But as a protégé of the original Taskmaster — the man with photographic muscle memory who'd repeatedly beaten Captain America in the comics — his hand-to-hand was world-class.
Meanwhile, Marcus was alone against the remaining cartel forces.
His situation was bad. The cartel's firepower was overwhelming, and he was just one man — no super powers, no healing factor, just decades of experience and a finite amount of ammunition.
He fired, reloaded, fired again, reloaded — but the enemies kept coming.
Despair started creeping in. He shouted at the empty air: "Fuck — anybody! Anybody want to lend a hand here?!"
"I hear you need some help, friend."
Marcus whipped around. There was nothing behind him but darkness. He thought he'd imagined it — that the stress had cracked something loose in his head.
Then the voice came again. "I said — do you need help, friend?"
A figure in red stepped out of the shadows.
Marcus stared, then squinted in disbelief. "Wade? Did you change your suit?"
The figure in front of him was wearing red — but Marcus immediately spotted the differences. The biggest one was the lack of Wade's signature face mask.
The figure stiffened, deeply offended, and pointed at his own eyes.
"I'm Daredevil. I'm blind. I'm not wearing a mask."
Marcus blinked. The figure wasn't a hallucination. He was real.
He was reinforcements.
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