The early morning sunlight shone through the school bus window onto Damian's face. He half-closed his eyes, his head bobbing with every bump of the vehicle, teetering on the edge of sleep.
He'd been reviewing everything in his head until three in the morning, and now all he wanted was to catch up on some rest before school.
But then, a faint shout pierced through his drowsiness.
"Z—! Zagan—!!"
The voice came from far away, accompanied by hurried footsteps.
"Tsk—!"
Damian clicked his tongue in annoyance, lazily opened his eyes, and turned toward the sound.
Outside the bus window, Peter Parker was chasing the school bus at an astonishing speed—drawing horrified stares from passersby.
His brown hair was windblown and tangled, his schoolbag swinging wildly behind him, and his expression hovered somewhere between fury and despair.
Even more astonishing: his speed was no less than that of the school bus, which had already accelerated to 40 kilometers per hour!
"Tell the driver to stop the bus! I'm not on yet! I haven't gotten on yet—!"
Peter yelled at the top of his lungs, his voice somehow cutting through the closed window.
Hearing this, Damian smirked, raised an eyebrow, and slowly rolled down the window. He tilted his head as if straining to hear and asked in a deliberately mocking tone:
"What did you say? You said you could keep up with the bus?!"
"I said, tell the driver to stop the bus!!"
"What?! You said you wanted to outrun the school bus?!"
Seeing Damian's smug expression, Peter gritted his teeth in frustration.
Damn it! Everything in this world is getting more expensive—but people are getting cheaper!
By now, the other students on the bus, eager for a show, had crowded around the windows, staring in amazement.
"Oh my god—Parker can actually run that fast? That speed's almost breaking the school record, right?!"
A member of the rugby team rubbed his eyes in disbelief.
Even passersby had stopped to watch. An elderly man out for his morning jog pulled off his headphones, checked his sports watch, then gaped at Peter as he sprinted past—his expression as if he'd just seen a ghost.
"Z! If you don't make the bus stop, I'll use your personal info to register accounts on every Hentai website! You'll be sleeping with your back against the wall from now on!"
Damian glanced at Peter, who was still panting and glaring through the window, and shook his head with a sneer—clearly unimpressed by such a toothless threat.
Then, without hesitation, he spun around and shouted toward the front:
"Hey! Driver! Stop the bus! That lunatic running behind us is my friend!"
With a screech of brakes, the school bus gradually pulled over to the roadside. Peter Parker bounded up the steps, clutching his knees and gasping for breath.
Well—gasping, technically. But his face remained perfectly composed, not a single drop of sweat in sight.
He squeezed down the aisle and plopped into the seat beside Damian.
Eyes wide with excitement, he leaned in eagerly, hands gesturing wildly as words tumbled out like a machine gun:
"Z, you have no idea what happened last night! When I woke up this morning, I was facing the ceiling—not lying down, but standing upside down!
"And my 400-degree myopia? Completely gone! I could see the color of my female neighbor's underwear hanging on her balcony across the street!
"Then I tried to jump—and actually smacked into the chandelier! Aunt May thought it was an earthquake and nearly called the fire department!
"And get this—I tried bending a metal spoon with my bare hands… not just bending it, but crushing it into a ball! And—"
Damian raised a hand, cutting him off with an exasperated sigh.
"Stop! What even is all this nonsense? Think before you open your mouth."
Hearing this, Peter Parker took a deep breath, and the tension on his face eased considerably. He raised both hands into the air and gestured as if trying to catch something—but couldn't.
After gesturing for a long moment, Peter finally sighed helplessly and said dejectedly,
"Never mind. It's nothing."
The words hung in the air, and silence fell over the bus.
Then…
"Tsk~ What a waste of everyone's expressions!"
"You build up all this drama, and then the chrysanthemums scatter before you even finish!"
"This Parker kid is something else…"
A chorus of boos erupted inside the bus. Peter immediately lowered his head, unable to meet the others' contemptuous stares.
Damian watched him thoughtfully, his eyes lingering on the faint red mark on the back of Peter's neck—nearly faded now.
Not long after, the school bus rumbled back to life. Zagan leaned against the window, hoping to catch up on sleep. Just as he was drifting off, however, a low rumble reached his ears.
Rumble… rumble… rumble…
Frowning, he lifted his head—and froze.
Outside the window, a steel serpent crawled alongside the bus.
At the front rolled three M1151 Up-Armored HMMWVs, each topped with an M2 .50-caliber heavy machine gun. Their jungle camouflage glistened coldly in the sunlight.
Behind them came four M1126 Stryker infantry carrier vehicles. Their massive eight-wheeled chassis rumbled over the pavement, leaving deep tire tracks. Grille armor had been added to the sides—a field modification designed to counter RPGs.
Even more striking were the nearly hundred infantrymen marching in disciplined tactical formation behind the convoy. They wore Advanced Combat Helmets (ACH) and Improved Outer Tactical Vests (IOTV). Several carried AN/PRC-152 tactical radios, their antennas swaying with each step.
"Holy shit…"
The students on the bus stared in stunned silence.
On the roadside, passersby raised their phones to snap photos, murmuring in awe.
Then, a boy in a baseball cap suddenly pointed and shouted,
"That's—the 69th Infantry Regiment! Look at their shoulder patches!"
Damian narrowed his eyes and looked closer.
Sure enough, "69th IR" was stenciled on the HMMWV doors, and the soldiers wore red-and-blue "New York Army National Guard" unit patches on their right shoulders.
"They're heading toward Manhattan!" another student cried, pressing against the window.
Damian tracked the convoy with his gaze. The 69th Infantry Regiment—nicknamed the "Fighting 69th"—was a storied mechanized unit based near New York City, equipped far beyond standard National Guard levels. Earlier that year, they'd upgraded to M109A7 self-propelled howitzers and integrated new tactical data networks. Such a force wouldn't normally deploy into an urban area without serious cause.
At the rear of the column, two soldiers hurried past, wheeling the control terminal for a RQ-20 Puma unmanned aerial system.
The RQ-20A, with its 2.8-meter wingspan, provided up to 70 minutes of aerial surveillance—serving as the "eyes in the sky" for platoon-level operations.
"Was there a terrorist attack in Hell's Kitchen?"
"Did they rebuild the Twin Towers or something?"
"I heard there was a shootout at the port last night…"
"My cousin at the precinct said gangs have been trafficking heavy weapons lately!"
Damian didn't join the chatter. He'd noticed two things:
1. Every soldier's rifle was loaded with a live magazine—but the safeties were still on.
2. Mixed into the convoy were three unmarked Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTVs), their windows tinted with anti-peek film.
This wasn't routine training. It wasn't even a standard counterterrorism sweep.
It looked like a search.
As the school bus pulled away from the commotion, Damian watched the military column shrink in the rearview mirror, his fingers tapping absently against the seat.