“Wonder Man!” The crowd yelled triumphantly while he waved at them with a big smile.

“Why did it have to be you?” Lina asked with an astonished look on her face.

“Oh my?” Wonder Man asked and turned to look at her with a serene smile. “That’s very rude of you, princess.”

“Don’t call me that!” She exclaimed and suddenly looked annoyed.

“But you are though in our guild,” he replied in his defence before winking cheekily at her.

She placed a hand on her face and shook her head in exasperation before muttering, “Why did it have to be you and no other hero?”

“Well, we received a call that you had rushed out to face a villain on your own and I happened to be in the office at that time, so… here I am!” He explained brightly.

“I didn’t ask for an explanation.”

“I felt I should give you one since you seemed to be wondering about it.”

“I wasn’t wondering about it.”

“Sure, you weren’t.”

As she looked at him with annoyance, and he looked at her with a smile, they were suddenly interrupted when spider web came flying towards them. Wonder Man raised his hand in the air and caught the web, which wrapped itself around his hand and made it difficult for him to unfold his hand from the fist form.

“Fancy seeing you here, Wonder Man,” said Web Raider with a sinister smile on his face.

“Looks like you’re up to no good once more, Web Raider,” said Wonder Man as he turned to face him. “You should take responsibility and use such power for a great cause.”

For a moment, the smile on Web Raider’s smile flickered before he replied, “A privileged man wouldn’t understand the sufferings of the less privileged.”

“I wonder about the logic behind those words,” said Wonder Man curiously. Then he smiled and said, “Only way to find out is by apprehending you.”

“Like I will let you!” Web Raider exclaimed and fired multiple spider webs at him while shouting, “Web Finger Barrage!”

Multiple spider webs were shot from his fingers and flew straight towards Wonder Man, who stood there with a smile on his face. Then, as the attacked reached him, he instantly moved his hand that was encased in a spider web and began destroying each and every one of them in a fluid movement.

Web Raider continued to fire the barrage of spider webs until he suddenly stopped, which Wonder Man took advantage and charge straight towards him. He brought his fist back and unleashed it forward, which Web Raider caught in the palm of his hand much to the surprise of everyone there.

“Oh, you caught my punch,” said Wonder Man in amazement. “Not bad.”

Web Raider smirked and with his free hand, he aimed it at the feet of Wonder Man and said, “Sticky Web!”

In an instant, two balls of webs were fired form his hand and they smacked against the feet of Wonder Man. Then they transformed and encased around his feet and glued themselves to the ground around him.

“Now I have you where I want you!” Web Raider shouted and began unleashing a barrage of punches straight at Wonder Man.

Each hit carried a lot of strength and sent small shock waves in all directions. The watching crowd watched on in stunned silence with a horrified expressions on their faces at the sight of their beloved hero being punched black and blue without any shred of mercy.

“Oh no…!”

“Wonder Man!”

“Is he… going to lose?!”

“No way…!”

Lina watched on in silence with a serious expression on her face as the beating proceeded. After almost a minute of the punching, Web Raider stepped back while breathing heavily with a satisfied look on his face.

“That’s for all the annoyance you have caused me for all these years!” He said triumphantly.

Wonder Man stood still and silent as blood dripped from the places that he was beaten badly. He unlike Web Raider, was not breathing heavily and in fact seemed very calm despite being beaten into a pulp.

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Then Lina shouted, “Enough games, Wonder Man! It’s not funny anymore.”

“What?!” Web Raider exclaimed, looking stunned as Wonder Man raised his hand and cracked a smile.

“I wonder indeed,” he said with a wide smile. Then he said, “Wonder Heal.”

In an instant, he was surrounded by a green glow that very quickly healed all of his wounds and returned to him he was before the beating began. Then he stared at the villain with a smile before the ground began to shake slightly and the pressure in the air thickened, causing the hairs on end of the people around them to stand up in alarm.

Wonder Man suddenly kicked off the ground and caused it to break apart as he flew forward before shouting, “Wonder… Punch!”

He pulled his fist back and unleashed it straight in the gut of the villain, causing Web Raider to widen his eyes in horror. Upon impact, a powerful shock wave got released and this caused the Web Raider to fly backwards after letting out a strong groan of pain.

“Yeah!” Cheered the watching crowd.

“Here it is!”

“The Wonder Attack is here!”

Lina covered her face with her hand with a flabbergasted look on her face from the whole scene.

Without relenting, Wonder Man chased after him and shouted yet another technique of his.

“Wonder… Kick!”

With that, he unleashed a strong kick to the Web Raider’s side, causing him even more pain as he was sent flying straight into a building. The people scattered in every direction as pieces of the building crumbled down from impact as Wonder Man landed back down.

“Oops, I didn’t mean to do that,” he lamented with a sheepish smile.

He suddenly received a punch from the back and turned to see Lina standing there as she said in annoyance, “This isn’t the first time you said that!”

As he continued to smile sheepishly, they heard running footsteps from behind and turned to see Zayden running towards them.

“Lina!” He called to her as he reached her and breathed a sigh of relief. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, no thanks to this guy,” she said and glanced at Wonder Man.

“Princess—!” He began with a wry smile.

“Stop calling me that!”

He chuckled and asked, “I wonder who this man is,” and eyed Zayden with curiosity.

“This is Zayden,” she introduced him. “I met him at the hospital that I work after he came there heavily injured.”

“I see,” said Wonder Man with a curious smile.

“Hello there. My name is Zayden, how do you do?”

“It’s another good day, so I’m doing good,” Wonder Man said with a bright smile. Then he noticed something and asked, “How come you aren’t smiling?”

Zayden blinked in surprise and asked, “Is there a reason to smile?”

To that, Wonder Man grinned and replied with a question of, “Do you need a reason to smile?”

This surprised Zayden as he never expected someone to ask him that.

“I’m… not sure,” said Zayden uncertainly.

“You should wonder about that,” advised Wonder Man with a smile.

There was a moment of silence between them when before Lina said, “Go check on the people over there from the mess you created.”

“I will,” he told her and walked away towards the people neared the collapsed building.

As he walked away, Lina turned to Zayden and said, “Don’t think over his words too much. He can be stupid at times and downright annoying at other times.”

“Really?” Zayden asked and turned to look at Wonder Man helping people with a bright smile. “Despite what you said, he is a well-liked person and he is the strongest member of the Berserks Guild.”

“He is but he’s very childish in his mannerism!” She complained with a shake of her head.

“Childish?” Zayden asked and pondered about it.

He recalled earlier as he was hurrying towards them when he saw Wonder Man’s attacks.

“Wonder Punch.”

“Wonder Kick.”

Each of the techniques began with the word ‘Wonder’ and it reminded him of a certain someone from his past as Asura. This made him reflexively chuckle much to Lina’s surprise.

“So, you do know how to laugh,” she commented with a shrewd smile.

“Um…” He reacted in surprise at her remark before returning to his normal expression and said, “I just remembered someone behaving like that in the past.”

Asura, in control of Zayden’s body, remembered some fond memories he had with his only blood brother from his previous world. He remembered the silliness that his younger brother would get up to and Wonder Man’s behaviour was somewhat similar. However, his expression darkened when the memories ended with him holding the limp body of his brother while the rain poured down on them on that destroyed battlefield.

Lina noticed the change in his expression and wondered, “Why does he look like he did something wrong?” Then she looked back at Wonder Man and wondered aloud, “Anyway, I think we should apprehend Web Raider now.”

“Not a chance!” Shouted a voice from close by.

There was a sudden bust of dust from which Web Raider dashed out from at an incredible speed. Lina reacted with surprise and Wonder Man also was alarmed to see that he was conscious.

“Stop!” Wonder Man shouted, dropping the people he was helping and immediately rushing towards him.

“No!” Web Raider shouted back, with his hand forming a web form in the shape of a sword. “The privileged people always take from the less privileged, so consider this as payback!”

As he reached Lina, who widened her eyes in horror and winced by raising her hands up in defence as he said in a surprisingly remorseful voice, “I’m sorry,” and lunged the blade of web at her.

She braced herself, expecting the dreadful weapon to pierce her, however, nothing happened. Then she slowly unwrapped her hands and saw the blade of web just centimetres away from her. Looking at what had caused it to stop in its place, she saw a hand holding the blade in place and she turned to see it was Zayden holding it.

Web Raider tried his best to budge his blade of web but it did not budge and he shouted, “Let go!”

Zayden, with a serious expression on his face, simply replied with a strong, “No.”

Then he took a step to the side and pulled the Web Raider towards him much to the villain’s surprise. As he stumbled forward, he let go of the blade of web and grabbed his face firmly. In the same flowing movement, he gripped firmly and raised him high into the air before slamming him down heavily onto the ground, causing it to crash and a lot of dust to explode into the air while the ground shook from the impact.

Zayden let go of the Web Raider’s face, whose eyes were rolling in dizziness and he straightened up before telling to the villain, “Apology not accepted.”