And then there was Butcher’s hideous, fiendish face.
The image of his most beloved cape torn, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth, and Butcher raising a crowbar behind him to strike him down exploded from the depths of his memory, instantly tearing through eighteen years of sanity.
At that thought, John’s eyes involuntarily flared with a red glow as hot as branded iron.
“…”
He grabbed Butcher by the hair, twisted his head to the side, and slammed his right fist directly into his cheekbone.
*Crack…*
Butcher’s nose broke with a loud snap, blood spraying instantly from his nostrils and splattering across the brick wall.
The second punch hit his lips.
His lower lip split down the middle, the tear ripping all the way to the gums, exposing the tender pink oral mucosa inside.
After taking two punches from John, Butcher’s face was already covered in a sheet of blood.
He opened his mouth, trying to say something, but only gurgling sounds came from his throat, choked by blood and foam.
“Stop, you’ll kill him!”
Hughie finally made up his mind.
Gritting his teeth, he rushed forward.
He grabbed John’s right arm, straining with all his might, digging his fingernails into the sleeve of the leather jacket as he pulled backward with everything he had.
“Stop!”
Hughie’s exhausted arms shook, but he found John’s arm as unyielding as a welded steel pillar.
Even as Hughie’s own feet slipped on the brick floor, he couldn’t budge the arm in the slightest.
John turned to look at him.
The twin beams of red light in his eyes were incredibly bright, boiling like magma deep within his pupils.
Even with the high noon sun hanging in the sky, they were clearly visible.
“Get lost.”
John kept his voice very low, so low that Hughie could barely hear it, but the warning was crystal clear.
But Hughie couldn’t let go.
He had already thrown caution to the wind; Butcher had helped him, so he couldn’t let him die here.
“Stubborn fool.”
John’s right arm muscles tensed in an instant.
He gave a sharp flick of his arm—the movement was slight, but the force was exceptionally immense.
In the next second, Hughie was violently flung off his arm.
His body went airborne, his feet leaving the ground, and his back crashed into the newspaper rack in front of the convenience store.
The metal rack collapsed with a loud crash, sending newspapers and advertising flyers scattering everywhere.
Hughie lay slumped in the ruins of the metal rack.
The back of his head banged against the brick sidewalk, his vision went black, and his ears buzzed with deafening static.
“I’m not afraid to kill you.
I’m keeping you alive for now because you’re still useful.”
Slamming Butcher’s head hard against the ground, John let the man’s head strike the brick wall.
Butcher then slid down the wall, his trench coat scraped by the rough red bricks, leaving white streaks behind.
*Phew—*
After venting his rage, John calmed down slightly.
Having lived two lives, his temperament was much more stable.
He wasn’t like his past life, where his immediate response to any issue was the permanent humane destruction of the target, complete with a “meet God with your whole family” package.
Moreover, he had held back his strength.
Otherwise, Butcher would be a pile of mush by now.
His main quest in returning this time was to seize the World Power to keep Jonathan alive.
While killing Butcher might allow him to seize a portion of the World Power, Butcher was clearly not the primary weight of this world.
And once Butcher died, many of the original events would spiral out of control.
This was something John did not want to see.
Revenge was one thing, but Jonathan’s life was obviously far more precious than this bunch of bastards.
At this thought, John squatted down, grabbed Butcher by the hair, and lifted his face from the steps.
Blood dripped from Butcher’s face, mixed with brick dust and debris.
His face was now unrecognizable.
His nose bridge was crooked to one side, his left eye socket was swollen like a purplish-black walnut, and his lips were split open, revealing blood-soaked gums and a few loose teeth.
“Let…
go of me—”
Butcher squeezed the words through his teeth, saliva splattering onto the bricks.
He wanted to say something filthier, but John already had his hand pressed on the back of his neck, compressing his voice into a narrow rasp.
“If I hear anything I don’t like out of your dog mouth…
I don’t mind killing you right here, right now.”
“Cough, cough…
then kill me right here, you bastard.
Daddy’s waiting for you in hell.”
“I’m only here to make a deal.”
Hearing Butcher’s words, a blue vein throbbed almost imperceptibly on John’s forehead.
If not for Jonathan, he really would have crushed this idiot who kept leaping around in front of him.
“I would never deal with a bastard like—”
“Becca is alive.”
With those words, Butcher froze.
His back was still heaving violently, but his struggling stopped.
As his brain processed those words, all other bodily systems were forced to a halt.
The root of his hatred, all of his obsession, stemmed from this name that haunted his soul.
His deceased wife, Becca.
“What the fuck did you say?”
“Becca Butcher, that’s the name, right?
She is your wife, listed as deceased in Vought’s security system.
File number RC-884, date of death March 17, 2012.
But that file is a fake.
She’s alive, and she’s doing quite well.”
John released his grip on the back of Butcher’s neck and stepped back.
Butcher turned around with difficulty, pushing himself up from the ground.
Leaning his back against the brick wall, his chest heaved violently.
He stared intently into John’s eyes, trying to spot any sign of a lie in those eyes that had faded from red back to blue.
But John’s eyes told him:
This was the truth.
A truth he had waited years for, one he couldn’t pry out of any Vought file.
“In Vought’s hands.”
“To be precise, in a secret facility run by Red River.
It’s not a prison, but an apartment.
There’s a living room, a kitchen, a TV, and drawings by Becca and Ryan on the fridge.”
“Ryan?”
“Oh, your son.
He’s eight this year.”
John didn’t tell Butcher about Ryan’s true parentage.
First, he was afraid this hyena would go wild again; second, he had long given up on that son.
He had treated him well without reservation, bared his soul to tell him his most painful secrets.
He didn’t care who Ryan betrayed, but Ryan had betrayed him.
And more than once.
What would be left fifty years later?
So John didn’t want to accept it, nor could he.
It was better to leave this headache to Butcher to deal with.
“My deal is on the table.
I only need you to do one thing for me.”
“You bastard…
who the hell are you?
You’re definitely not Homelander.
He doesn’t have this kind of brain.”
“If you don’t answer, I’ll take that as a yes.”
“…”
“So, who is Becca?”
Hughie, who had crawled up from the ground long ago, breathed a sigh of relief when he saw John “temporarily” let Butcher go.
Then, he heard an unfamiliar name.
Butcher had never mentioned this name.
Hughie had been with him for so long, shoving C4 up Translucent’s ass, helping him pin photos of Vought executives and draw red lines all over the warehouse walls.
But he had never heard Butcher mention anyone’s name that could make him show such an expression.
Butcher pushed himself up using the crowbar.
His ribs stabbed with pain every time he inhaled.
His nose was broken, his lips split, his left eye socket swollen to a slit, and the nail of his left ring finger had been torn back during one of the punches.
He truly couldn’t stand up right now.
He could only stand on the convenience store steps, watching through blood-smeared eyes as John drove a gray Ford around the corner and away.
Then there was A-Train, still kneeling at the corner of the street, and Hughie limping over to his side.
Hughie looked at him and fell silent for a moment.
“So, who is Becca?
You never told me you had a wife, and you never told me you had a son.”
“I’m finding out for the fucking first time too.”
Butcher wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.
It kept flowing, and he kept wiping.
He pulled a cigarette pack from his pocket, wanting a smoke, only to find the box had long been crushed against his ribs, snapping every single cigarette inside.
“So Hughie…
did he tell you what the terms of his deal are?”