Elsewhere in the ruins of the Little Finger Safe Zone…
Gabe, Sly, and Iris stayed back. They didn't join the first wave. Unlike Bob, their Glint forms needed time to activate. With that many enemies on the field, charging in without transforming would've been suicide.
Gabe exhaled. "We should be out there."
Sly didn't move. "Bob's got it."
Iris gripped her spear tighter. "Doesn't mean I like it."
For nearly an hour, Bob fought alone in Goliath form. The Little Finger cartel members hadn't transformed yet. Still human. Still weak. They tried to run. They tried to hide. None of them got far. Bob hunted them down, one by one.
Then the wait ended.
Gabe's wings snapped out with a rush of wind as his Griffin form took hold, feathers sharp and eyes glowing. Iris felt the surge too. Her Valkyrie form ignited, heat rolling off her skin. She gripped the spear she always carried, her other hand resting near the short swords on her waist. She was ready.
Only Sly remained still. Then, without a word, his body flickered. Gone one second, back the next. His Specter form had locked in.
They moved.
"About time," Gabe muttered, rolling his shoulders. He cracked his neck and glanced toward the battlefield. "Let's finish this."
As Bob crushed the last remnants of resistance, he spotted Gabe, Iris, and Sly entering the fight.
That was all he needed to see.
He turned away from the fleeing cartel members and shifted focus.
They couldn't guarantee everyone would be killed. They couldn't guarantee no one would escape. But Bob could guarantee this. No one would take over what was left.
He marched straight for the cartel's buildings.
The drug labs. The logistics hubs. The delivery crates. One by one, he smashed them down.
Walls cracked. Windows shattered. Doors snapped off their hinges. Bob didn't stop until each structure was reduced to rubble. No survivors. No resources. Nothing usable.
Fortunately, the cartel hadn't built high rises. Every building was within reach, and Bob made sure none of them stood by the time he was done.
Even tables were broken. Tools crushed underfoot. Dust choked the air.
Bob wasn't just cleaning up.
He was erasing them.
Bob kicked open the last room in the far end of the logistics building. A table flew across the space and shattered against the wall. Behind it, curled up in the shadows, was Lucian Duvall.
Bob stepped in without a word.
Lucian stood slowly, dust clinging to his suit. He looked around.
Everything was gone.
No buildings. No crates. No walls. Just piles of rubble and broken steel frames scattered across the clearing. The cartel was finished, and he was the last one left.
The once-feared right hand of the Little Fingers Cartel was surrounded. His back pressed against the ruins of what had once been his empire.
Bob loomed over him, silent, the fog swirling low around his feet.
Lucian clenched his fists, his voice hoarse. "You got what you wanted. The cartel's gone. You won. Just let me walk away."
Bob cracked his knuckles. "Oh, I am letting you walk away."
Lucian froze.
Bob stared at him.
"Just not with your life."
Lucian's face twisted in anger, but he never got the chance to speak. Bob's fist came down and crushed him into the dirt.
The Little Fingers Cartel was gone.
-----
Quinn Adler had seen a lot of things in her career.
Wars between factions. Political betrayals. The rise and fall of safe zones. But this? This was different.
From the moment she saw the truck rolling down the alley, she knew something was about to happen.
And then it did.
She watched as Bob set the truck on fire, loaded it with gasoline, and sent it barreling straight into the Meteor Fragment, the core of the safe zone.
She saw the explosion rip through the safe zone, the pink fog rushing in like a beast unleashed.
And then she saw him.
The giant. The monster. The Goliath.
Through the thick, rolling fog, she saw Bob emerge. Hulking. Unstoppable. He tore through the survivors like they were nothing.
But it wasn't just the bodies. This was a purge.
She watched him hunt them down, one by one. No hesitation. No mercy.
She saw how he and his crew picked off the stragglers, covering every corner, making sure no one got out.
Then they turned on the buildings.
They destroyed the drug labs. Smashed the supply crates. Crushed the logistics hubs. Bob ripped down anything that had fueled the Pink Dust trade.
There was nothing left to take. Nothing left to rebuild.
The evidence she had gathered no longer mattered. There was no operation left to expose. No infrastructure left to condemn. Bob didn't just take down the cartel. He erased it.
She had wanted to document the horrors of the Pink Dust trade, to expose the cartel and bring them to justice. But there was no justice left to serve.
They were gone.
Now, her focus had shifted. She wouldn't just report on the Pink Dust trade.
She would report how one man and his crew wiped an entire empire off the map.
She had filmed all of it.
Every strike. Every building collapse. Every body.
Her hands shook as she gripped the camera tighter.
This wasn't just a story.
This was history.
-----
Bob stood still, looking over the wreckage. Bodies, rubble, and ash were all that remained of the cartel's empire. He rubbed the back of his neck and exhaled.
"Hope the ones who deserved better finally get some peace."
The crew didn't say anything. No jokes. No comments. Not even from Sly.
They just stood there with him, silent.
A moment for the ones who never got one.
Then Bob clapped his hands together. "Alright! Enough sad stuff. We got work to do!"
With the Little Finger Cartel reduced to ruins, Bob's crew moved through the wreckage, scavenging every Meteor Fragment they could find.
Bob knelt beside the broken remains of their old mobile safe zone, lifting the shattered core they had once relied on for protection. Nearby, fragments from the cartel's destroyed safe zone were scattered across the rubble.
He didn't hesitate.
"Alright, grab what you can," Bob said, hauling a chunk of meteor onto his shoulder. "We're making a new one."
Gabe wiped sweat from his forehead. "I'm assuming we're not just leaving it in a pile somewhere?"
Bob grinned. "Nope. We're taking that."
He pointed across the ruined compound.
Sly followed Bob's gaze. His face fell instantly. "Why?"
Bob smirked. "It's got wheels. It's got storage. And most important, it's got food."
Gabe turned slowly. "Wait. You're serious."
Bob nodded proudly. "We're taking the food truck."
Iris exhaled. "You do realize that means we'll be the ones cooking, right? There's no food in there, Bob. It's just an empty truck. We have to make everything ourselves."
Bob shrugged. "You will. Don't forget our deal. I can already smell something good. La la la..."
Gabe rubbed his temples. "That… actually makes sense?"
Sly threw up his hands. "No. No, it does not. Bob, we are not turning a food truck into a safe zone."
Bob leaned against the truck, ignoring him completely. "Think about it. We can drive. We can eat. It's perfect. And this one will be fast."
Sly buried his face in his hands. "You know what? Fine. Whatever. I give up. We're living in a food truck now. Just let me process this in silence."
And just like that, Bob's second mobile safe zone was born.
A food truck.
Gabe sighed in defeat, but deep down, he knew the truth.
Bob's dumbest ideas somehow always worked.
-----
Quinn sat at her terminal inside the network station back in the capital. The footage she had captured played across the screen, raw and undeniable.
She spent hours editing, cutting together everything. The destruction. The silence. The fury. She knew exactly what she was about to release.
She took a deep breath and hit publish.
Within hours, Bob's destruction of the Little Finger Cartel spread like wildfire. Across factions, reactions poured in. Some were alarmed. Some were curious. Others were already looking for an angle.
She had set out to expose the cartel and reveal the truth about Pink Dust. But now her story had changed.
She wasn't just reporting on the fall of a criminal empire.
She was reporting about the group that did it.
Bob's crew had single-handedly erased an entire cartel. They weren't fugitives. They weren't mercenaries. They were something else entirely.
As she pieced together the last section of her report, a clip caught her eye. Bob was painting the side of an old food truck, the same one they were turning into their new mobile safe zone. He had written the name in thick, uneven strokes.
'The Last Bite'.
Quinn smirked. She had been planning to call them Wildcards. It made sense. Unpredictable. Reckless. Impossible to control.
But now?
She leaned back, watching Bob mess up the lettering and laugh like he hadn't just leveled a criminal empire.
The Wild... bites, she whispered.
With that, she finalized the report.
The world would be watching Bob and his crew no 'the Wild Bites crew' now.
And she intended to follow them to see what they would do next.