The hallway lights flickered as Delih, Taskmaster, Sarah, and Laura moved deeper into Sublevel 4. Every surface felt sterile. Like the walls themselves were holding their breath.
Delih hated the environment.
Weapons out, tension high, they swept each corner with quiet precision until they reached a door marked with nothing at all. That was the giveaway.
Secret facilities didn’t do bnk doors.
Delih exchanged a gnce with Taskmaster.
“Secure location?” he asked.
“Probably a trap,” Delih murmured.
Taskmaster keyed the panel.
The door slid open with a soft hydraulic hiss.
Inside: an empty, white room.
Delih stepped forward—and the moment the st of them crossed the threshold, the door smmed shut behind them with a metallic BOOM that echoed off every ft surface.
Bulkheads locked into pce.
Delih sighed, “Yup, definitely a trap.”
A moment ter, a speaker crackled overhead.
“Well,” Dr. Zander Rice's voice drawled with smug satisfaction. “You saved me the trouble of luring you here.”
Delih’s muscles tightened. She scanned the room automatically: no vents rge enough for escape, no control panels, no cameras visible—but she knew they were there.
‘After all, this idiot wants to see us die.’
Taskmaster muttered under his breath, “I hate when bad guys monologue over the PA system.”
“Shut up,” Delih said quietly but sharply. “Keep stalling.”
Sarah stood frozen behind them, hand csped over her mouth. Laura, silent and coiled, was pressed to her side like a shadow waiting for instruction.
“First,” Rice continued cheerfully, “allow me to thank you for removing Dr. Sutter. He’d outlived his usefulness. You saved me the paperwork. Truly—helpful.”
Domino’s voice crackled in Delih’s earpiece, “Uh, boss? We’re still looking for Rice. Where—”
Delih muted the channel.
Taskmaster’s visor glowed faintly. “He’s about to deploy something. The air’s shifting.”
Delih felt it too.
A faint hiss. Barely audible.
Then—
Her stomach dropped. She remembered Luc’s warning.
She lunged backward.
“Sarah!” Delih barked, grabbing her by the arm. “MOVE.”
She snatched Laura with the other and threw the girl across the room just as Laura inhaled—
—and her entire body convulsed.
Sarah stared, horrified. “What—what are you doing?!”
Delih didn’t answer.
Because Laura’s eyes were already changing.
Green irises constricted into predator slits. Her breathing became hitched as her shoulders shook.
Her fingers curled—
SNIKT SNIKT
—and her cws extended on instinct.
Taskmaster swore under his breath. “Oh. They added something to the air in the room.”
Sarah gasped. “Scent—? No!”
“Yup means we’re all marked,” Delih said ftly.
Taskmaster readied his weapons, “Ah, so she’s entered a kill mode. Damn, if we kill her, we won’t be paid.”
“Rice pumped the room with Laura’s trigger scent. She’s been conditioned to go berserk and kill anything wearing it,” Sarah said as her voice began to crack. “No—Laura—no, no— damn you Rice.”
But the child was already gone behind the conditioning.
Her lip curled.
Her cws flexed.
Her stance shifted lower, tighter, lethal.
She was now a living weapon locked onto its targets.
“Delih—” Taskmaster said seriously, stepping forward, shield raised, “—pn?”
“Dey her. Don’t kill her. Focus on keeping Sarah alive.”
“Not exactly my favorite parameters,” he said.
Delih clicked her comms back on and whispered. “Domino. Sable. Rice trapped us in a room. His attention is focused on us, so you’ll have an easier time moving around. Take him out quickly.”
Domino replied, “On it, boss.”
Sable responded with a curt, “Understood.”
The speaker crackled again, Rice’s voice smooth and gloating, “You see, X-23 instinctively prioritizes threats and proximity. She’ll kill you quickly. I recommend praying.”
Delih snarled. “I recommend you shut the hell up. Your voice is annoying”
Laura unched forward with a feral scream.
The girl moved like a bullet.
Small, fast, almost impossible to track.
Delih sidestepped, but Laura adjusted mid-air and sshed Delih’s ribs—blood spattered the floor.
Delih didn’t flinch.
She grabbed Laura’s wrist, twisted, and pinned her for half a second—
Only half a second.
The girl headbutted her, cws sshing upward.
Delih barely rolled back in time.
“Jesus,” she muttered. “She’s faster than you, Taskmaster.”
Taskmaster scoffed. “I heard that.”
Taskmaster stepped in as Delih disengaged.
He copied Laura’s crouch, her footwork, her timing.
“Cute,” he said. “Let’s see who does it better and faster.”
Laura leapt.
Taskmaster mirrored her perfectly.
They collided in midair—
cws to shield,
heel to heel,
strike to counterstrike.
The impacts blow them both back.
Taskmaster slid back a foot, impressed, “She’s reading me and adjusting. That shouldn’t be possible.”
“That’s because she isn’t reading you,” Delih said, stepping back into the fight after her side stop bleeding. “She’s reacting to motion like an animal does.”
Laura pivoted toward Sarah as she froze—but Delih intercepted the girl with a full-body tackle, smming her into the wall.
Laura’s cws sliced into Delih’s shoulder, blood pouring freely.
Delih didn’t even blink.
Pain meant nothing as she had been trained to ignore small pain such as this.
Sarah colpsed to her knees, panic shredding her voice, “Laura! Laura, look at me! Sweetheart, please—”
But Laura couldn’t hear her.
Conditioning screamed louder than love.
Taskmaster swung his shield, ricocheted it off the far wall, and let it sm into Laura’s ribs. She staggered—
Delih grabbed Laura’s jaw from behind and locked her in a chokehold—
Laura snapped her head back and broke Delih’s nose.
Delih grunted. “She’s impossible to hold down. She’s fully triggered.”
Taskmaster leapt over Delih, nding behind Laura and kicking her into the air.
Laura twisted mid-air and sshed him across the chest.
Taskmaster hissed. “Okay—she’s learning me too fast. I hate that. I see why people hate fighting me.”
Delih wiped blood from her nose and fixed it.
“Just keep her occupied,” she growled. “Rice wants us dead in here. Our job is to ruin his expectations.”
While they fought for their lives below, Mack had Sable’s Wild Pack finish pnting charges on the upper floors.
Mack clicked the detonator remote with his thumb, checking the indicators.
“Charges set,” he muttered. “Now all we gotta do is wait for those idiots down there to bring out the targets. Then we can turn this entire building into a very expensive ashtray.”
Back in the kill room, Laura lunged again—this time straight for Sarah.
Sarah screamed Laura’s name.
Taskmaster intercepted her with a sweeping kick.
Delih grabbed Laura’s hair and smmed her into the floor—hard—but the child bounced back instantly, eyes wild, cws dripping with Delih’s blood.
“Taskmaster!” Delih shouted. “Left side!”
“I see it—”
Laura vanished from their sight for a heartbeat.
Then—
She struck from above.
Delih tackled Sarah out of the way as Laura’s cws stabbed into the metal floor where Sarah had been.
Taskmaster caught Laura’s wrist, twisted, and pinned her arm to her back.
Laura screamed and writhed, foot cws extending as well—
Delih swore. “Right, I forgot that she has the toe cws too?!”
Taskmaster ducked just as Laura’s foot almost sshed his throat.
“Yep,” he said. “Not using these judo moves are enough for this kid.”
They held her—but only barely.
And not for long.
Delih panted, blood dripping down her chin.
Taskmaster strained against Laura’s strength.
Sarah sobbed behind them, seeing what she had done to her daughter.
And Laura?
Even berserk, even drowning in conditioning—she looked sad.
Like she didn’t want to be doing any of it.
Like something inside her was screaming to stop.
Delih met her eyes for a split second.
“Hold on, kid,” she murmured. “You’re gonna be okay. You hear me?”
Laura didn’t respond.
She only fought harder.
The doors stayed locked.
Rice ughed at the moronic dispy of trying to save one’s would-be assassin, “While X-23 is taking care of them, I should get ready to leave. It’s a shame to lose such a toy, but she’s proof of concept, and we can just make a new one. This data download is slow.”
