After a bumpy ride, the bag over Alberto's head was finally removed. Shaking his head, still dazed from a blow, Alberto's eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness. The first thing he saw was a large, grotesque face.
"Oh, this is our first time meeting in such a private setting. Shake hands, shall we?" The short, overweight man smiled smugly.
"Mr. Cobblepot... what is the meaning of this?" Alberto recognized the man as Oswald Cobblepot, a rising star in the underworld known as The Penguin, who had recently gained notoriety through arms smuggling.
"I need you to have a serious talk with your father, old Falcone, about his retirement." Penguin deliberately emphasized the last word to sound more intimidating.
Dragged into gang warfare again... Alberto thought. As the son of Carmine Falcone—nicknamed "The Roman," the king of Gotham's underworld—Alberto was used to people seeking connections through him, but this was the first time someone had actually dared to kidnap him.
"My father won't listen to me..."
"That's your problem." Penguin waved his hand, and the tall woman standing beside him handed him a freshly poured glass of red wine.
Alberto felt utterly miserable. He had only gone to a bar for some fun, but instead, he was kidnapped, beaten, and pressured to do the impossible.
"I will persuade my father to give up Gotham's arms trade. Please, don't hurt me..."
"I see your mouth moving, but I'm not hearing what I want to hear." Penguin downed his wine in one gulp and thrust the glass behind him. "Give me the bat. I want to give little Alberto a 'talking to'."
Alberto looked past Penguin, his expression shifting to surprise.
"What's wrong, Candy?" Penguin turned and barked, his eyes widening when no one took the glass from his hand.
Instead of his familiar, tall secretary, he saw a blue-haired woman with a radiant complexion. She was perched on a black object, idling with a wine bottle, watching Penguin with amused interest.
"Who are you?!" Penguin recognized the "object" the woman was sitting on: it was Candy, his personal secretary, slumped over.
Despite his arrogant tone, Penguin felt a prickle of nerves. Candy had been standing right there seconds ago. In the time it took to exchange a few words, she had been neutralized without him noticing a thing.
Alberto had seen it more clearly: the blue-haired woman had appeared behind Candy like a ghost, injected a vial into her neck, and eased her to the floor in one fluid, impossibly fast motion.
"Don't be so serious, boss. The name's V. I'm a mercenary. We might even collaborate in the future." The woman slid the wine bottle into her pocket. Amazingly, despite the bottle's size, it disappeared into her clothing without leaving a bulge, as if it had entered a void.
"A mercenary? What do you want?" Penguin asked, slowly edging toward the coffee table.
"The Roman wants his son back." V stood up, hands in her pockets, seemingly oblivious to Penguin's movement.
My father actually sent someone to save me! Alberto felt a surge of hope.
"You're all alone… Go to hell!" Penguin lunged for the coffee table and slammed a hidden button. The surrounding walls retracted, and a deafening alarm blared.
"Just as I thought," V muttered, sounding bored.
Alberto panicked as armed goons flooded the room. V remained motionless. He wanted to scream for her to do something, but fear kept him frozen.
"Hahaha! How stupid! Kill her!" Penguin pulled a submachine gun from beneath the table.
V squinted, looking almost half-asleep. Her effortless demeanor made Penguin uneasy; to shake the feeling, he pulled the trigger.
When V opened her eyes, the world froze.
It wasn't a total stop—more like time had been stretched thin. The sounds of footsteps and gunshots became distorted, low-frequency hums. Everyone else looked like statues.
[Sandevistan Activated]: Slows time to 15% of its original speed for 8 seconds.
"What a pity. If the Falcon 4 hadn't been nerfed so badly, I wouldn't have to deal with these long cooldowns," V sighed.
She reminisced about "Version 2.0" upgrades while she moved. After neutralizing Candy, she hadn't attacked Penguin immediately because she was simply waiting for her cyberware to recharge.
Even in this dilated state, bullets still moved, but V could dodge them as easily as walking through rain. She counted seventeen men. Since she might want to work for Penguin later, she decided not to be too lethal. She pulled a massive hammer—as tall as a person—out of her "pocket."
Blunt force is rarely fatal, right? This video-game logic felt strange in reality, but it worked.
Eight seconds left. Move!
V blurred across the room, slamming the hammer into Penguin's midsection. He sailed through the air, his gun spinning away. Then she charged the minions.
BAM. BAM. One strike per person. By combining her "Flash" dash and "Double Jump," she cleared the room before the eighth-second ticked down.
As time snapped back to its normal flow, V was suddenly back at Alberto's side. To Alberto, V had vanished for a split second, Penguin was suddenly flying backward, screaming, and every single gangster hit the floor simultaneously.
"What... what just happened?!" Alberto's eyes nearly popped out.
Just then, a cold hand landed on his shoulder.
"Ouch!" Alberto cried out in humiliation.
"It's time to go." V had untied the ropes binding Alberto without anyone noticing.
"Yes...yes!" Alberto answered subserviently, completely lacking the dignity expected of a gangster's son.