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The homemade satellites Henry had built weren't limited to North America's east and west coasts.
To support Aleksei, he'd already deployed one over Europe as well.
According to his long-term plans, he'd eventually establish a global satellite network. After all, accurate positioning couldn't be achieved with a single satellite alone.
The problem, however, was orbital rights.
All three of Henry's satellites were essentially black satellites—unauthorized objects occupying orbit. That meant they could potentially collide with legally registered satellites sharing the same orbital path.
Once he launched more satellites in the future, that issue would only become more troublesome.
Fortunately, that was a problem for another day.
With the support of his own satellite overhead, the three powered suits no longer needed to hack into foreign satellites to obtain environmental data for their destinations.
Henry's private satellite supplied all the positioning information they required directly, drastically reducing the warm-up time for their hyper-acceleration system.
Only twenty-nine seconds later...
The three suits had traveled from New York to Budapest, Hungary.
Night had already fallen over one of Central Europe's most important capitals, and most businesses had long since closed for the evening.
Thanks to satellite coverage—and with Little Duck and the other support drones shadowing Aleksei—pinpointing the Red Guardian's exact location was effortless.
The moment his position was confirmed, all three suits descended like meteors.
Special electromagnetic force fields surrounding the armor not only shielded them from the tremendous heat and flames generated by atmospheric reentry but also prevented ordinary radar from detecting them.
At approximately five hundred meters above the ground, Bullhead and Bunny split off in opposite directions, each taking control of a nearby high vantage point.
Only Green Arrow Duck continued straight down...
...crashing directly through the roof of Aleksei's hiding place.
---
Without the slightest surprise...
Before the smoke had even cleared enough for Green Arrow Duck to speak, pistol rounds were already ricocheting loudly off its armor.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Helplessly, Henry sighed.
"If you scratch the paint on your own armor, don't complain that my workmanship was poor."
"Aren't you... Henry?"
Aleksei asked.
The collapsing roof had filled the room with thick dust, making visibility almost nonexistent.
But the Duck Armor's sensors could still track Aleksei's movements perfectly.
Otherwise, the moment someone opened fire...
Even if Henry himself didn't return fire...
The armor's automatic defense system could have either shot the gun out of the attacker's hand with a single round...
...or simply put a bullet through his head.
Since the shooter happened to be the very man Henry had come to rescue, the system naturally held its fire.
"It's me," Green Arrow Duck replied.
"I'm here to help.
"So... how exactly did you manage to get yourself into such a spectacular mess?"
Despite the urgency of the situation, Henry spoke as calmly as though he were making casual conversation.
Unfortunately...
The forces surrounding the building weren't nearly so patient.
Another burst of gunfire shattered the quiet of the Budapest night.
---
A mechanical arm extended from Green Arrow Duck's back, lowering the folded Bear Armor onto the floor.
"I brought your delivery.
"The powered armor you've been waiting for."
Aleksei couldn't help glaring at him.
"At a time like this?
"You think I have the luxury of putting that thing on?"
At a high-frequency voice command, the folded Bear Armor immediately unfolded.
Without a pilot inside, the suit rose upright.
The armor plates covering its back—including portions of the arms and legs—opened outward like massive doors, exposing the cockpit and making entry remarkably easy.
Aleksei stared in surprise.
"...This is..."
"I designed it with your needs in mind.
"It's meant for rapid deployment.
"The tradeoff is that the armor's structural integrity is slightly lower than my other designs.
"If a one-thousand-pound bomb detonates nearby, the frame could suffer damage."
For anyone unfamiliar with the figure...
A thousand-pound bombs were standard heavy aerial bombs during World War II, used against bridges, buildings, reinforced concrete structures, and lightly armored warships like cruisers.
Most fighter aircraft could carry only a single one.
Just as Aleksei was about to climb into the Bear Armor, he paused and looked at the plush duck-shaped machine beside him.
"I've actually been meaning to ask...
"What exactly are you imagining as your enemy when you design these things?"
Before Green Arrow Duck could answer...
He casually raised one wing-arm, effortlessly blocking another barrage of bullets.
Aleksei himself wasn't startled by the gunfire.
Unlike ordinary people, he didn't instinctively flinch.
Still, he knew this wasn't exactly the right time for a leisurely conversation.
He tossed over a heavy backpack.
"Here's the material you wanted.
"And it's exactly because of this stuff that all those monsters came after me.
"Damn it.
"I'll never come back to Budapest.
"The city's crawling with these freaks."
Before leaving New York, Henry had intentionally unloaded much of his ammunition.
The newly freed storage space was just enough to accommodate the backpack.
Green Arrow Duck stored it securely inside the cargo compartment located—appropriately enough—in the duck's rear.
---
The raw material required for manufacturing UV rounds consisted of heavy elements with atomic numbers near 92 (uranium) or higher—the actinide series.
Elements beyond uranium had another collective name:
Transuranium elements.
Their common characteristic was radioactive instability.
They naturally decayed into lighter, more stable elements over time.
As a result, naturally occurring quantities on Earth were extremely rare.
Most had to be produced artificially.
Fortunately, UV ammunition didn't require especially pure material.
As long as traces of those elements were present, certain treatments could induce them to emit visible radioactive light.
That radiation was lethally effective against vampires.
Of course...
It wasn't exactly harmless to humans either.
Because the emitted radiation gradually weakened as the radioactive material decayed into more stable forms, UV ammunition had a relatively short shelf life.
If the bullets required highly purified transuranium elements, the production cost would have been unimaginably expensive.
Fortunately, there were much cheaper sources.
Depleted uranium.
Or various forms of spent nuclear fuel from power plants.
Henry wasn't trying to trigger nuclear fission or fusion reactions.
So extremely high purity wasn't necessary.
Even so...
Such materials weren't something anyone could simply buy on the open market.
And since nuclear waste could also be used to manufacture dirty bombs, many countries tightly regulated it.
That was precisely why Henry hadn't been able to source enough materials through the Continental in North America.
Instead, he'd turned to Europe and hoped for better luck.
---
Still...
Henry could understand terrorists taking an interest in radioactive materials.
What he couldn't understand...
...was why the cargo had also attracted an entire army of vampires and werewolves.
Just as Green Arrow Duck was puzzling over that question...
Aleksei had already climbed into the Bear Armor.
The suit sealed itself around him.
Its internal systems immediately began clearing the dust from the cockpit, purifying the air.
The startup sequence, however, still required a little more time.
Before every subsystem had fully initialized...
The monsters surrounding the building finally stormed inside.
Through the surveillance feeds transmitted by Little Duck and the Sparrow drones, Aleksei watched every movement.
Green Arrow Duck, meanwhile, remained standing beside the Bear Armor...
As though completely unaware of the approaching enemies.
Aleksei had just opened his mouth to warn him—
When suddenly...
Gunfire erupted from seemingly nowhere.
Some of the charging monsters were struck by what looked like large-caliber rounds, leaving bowl-sized holes blasted clean through their bodies.
Others were shredded by relentless storms of bullets until they were little more than mangled heaps of flesh.
The wounds weren't fatal.
Creatures like these couldn't be killed so easily.
But...
For the time being...
None of them were getting back up.
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