If Homelander truly wanted to do something, she really had no right to refuse.
“I’m in a suite at the St.
Regis Hotel.
Just come over.”
Queen Maeve still gave in, her voice weary as she gave him her address.
“OK, I’m coming.”
Queen Maeve hung up the phone and, somewhat agitated, walked over to the window, pushed it open, and lit a cigarette.
She hated her current life, hated everything about the present.
Once, she had been full of fantasies about becoming a superhero, full of expectations, wanting to be a hero admired by all.
But once she had truly come into contact with all of it, she realized these were nothing more than the lies of capital.
So-called superheroes were merely tools that capital used to deceive the masses.
Though they were human, they were no different in nature from the packaged goods on supermarket shelves.
Wrapped in different personas, catering to different forms of political correctness…
Every performance on screen, every so-called heroic operation.
The vast majority were actors arranged by the company.
And they were just going through the motions—stepping up to deliver a couple of lines, striking a few poses, then taking photos with those actors.
And then it was all over.
But all of this could only be said to be far from what she had imagined; it was still far from utter despair.
The true last straw that broke the camel’s back was still Homelander.
That utterly contradictory, even perverse, contrast between his public and private faces brought her an immense sense of fracture.
This feeling, combined with his desire for control and the shattering of her ideals.
Queen Maeve felt that every day of her life was shrouded in gloom, unable to muster interest in anything, drifting through life in a daze.
Even her girlfriend of many years had cut off all contact and left without a word, fearing Homelander’s controlling nature and his retaliation.
Thinking about all of this, Queen Maeve’s mood became unbearably foul.
She took a deep drag of the cigarette and forcefully exhaled.
“It seems your mood isn’t very good.
Is it me who’s troubling you?”
The smoke billowed against a brawny figure clad in a blue combat suit.
Queen Maeve stared at Alex before her, a faintly sardonic smile surfacing on her face.
“Are you asking a question you already know the answer to?”
“Something like that.”
Alex chuckled dismissively, then flew straight in through the window.
“Where’s Golden Geisha?”
“In the suite next door.
She may have already fallen asleep.”
“So, what did you come here to talk to me about?”
Queen Maeve crushed out the cigarette butt with her fingers, folded her arms, and spoke coldly.
Alex didn’t answer.
He merely looked toward the room of the suite, then walked toward it without a word.
He opened the door.
The room was pitch dark.
He casually switched on the light and looked at Golden Geisha before him, who had already stopped breathing.
A flicker of emotion passed through his eyes.
“What a touching love.”
At this moment, Queen Maeve also sensed that something was wrong and hurried into the room.
When she saw Golden Geisha’s corpse, still faintly warm, her eyes narrowed.
“How could this be….
She, she said she was just tired and wanted to rest.”
When she had been outside, she clearly hadn’t heard the slightest sound.
“In a sense, you could say she’s reunited with her lover.”
Alex shook his head, turned, and walked out of the room, then sat down on the sofa in the living room and pulled out a cigarette.
“What exactly did you do?”
“Why did she…”
A life had vanished right before her eyes, just like that.
Though it had nothing to do with her, it was still she who had agreed to help bring Golden Geisha over.
Yet now it had turned out like this.
“I had the Shapeshifter transform into her likeness, and then forced out her lover, the World War II-era superhero Blast Vision.”
Alex didn’t conceal what he had done, speaking to Queen Maeve very calmly.
“And then?”
Queen Maeve thought of the earlier incident where the live news broadcast had lost signal.
With her understanding of Vought, it was surely something Alex had done.
“And then I seized from his hands the world’s last remaining dose of the original compound, and killed him.”
“You bastard…”
Hearing this, Queen Maeve couldn’t help but speak with derision.
She now understood why Golden Geisha had committed suicide.
This was dying for love!
“If you’re talking about killing Blast Vision, that I won’t deny.”
“However, I imagine you no longer want to live a life like this either, do you?”
Alex wasn’t angry.
Instead, he looked at Queen Maeve and spoke earnestly.
“What, I don’t need you to find this kind of excuse to explain yourself.”
Queen Maeve gave a cold laugh and lit herself another cigarette.
“You’ve got one thing wrong.
I’m not making excuses—I’m stating a fact.”
“You want to be a superhero—a true superhero—and not an actor cultivated by the Vought Corporation, isn’t that right?”
“Or have you already forgotten the girlfriend who left you without a word?”
As Alex spoke, he flicked the ash from his cigarette.
“Don’t look at me like that.
I’m not trying to use this to threaten you.
Or do you think Vought doesn’t know, and that I don’t know?”
“Indeed, you’ve been protecting her as much as possible all along, but you must understand—even with superpowers, before you joined Vought, you were just an ‘ordinary person.'”
“In the face of Vought’s intelligence, your every move is transparent.”
“What exactly are you trying to tell me?”
Queen Maeve gazed at Alex before her, feeling a chill run down her spine, both alarmed and furious.
However, Alex did not answer her question.
He simply continued on his own.
“I’m well aware that you’ve always intensely despised me, that you’re repulsed by my almost perverse desire for control.”
“But are you really just as you appear on screen?”
The ash fell from the cigarette in Queen Maeve’s hand, the lit tip flaring and dimming, as her eyes contracted to pinpoints as she looked at Alex.
Even when the cigarette in her hand burned down to her fingers, she gave no reaction at all.
“So, I spent a great deal of time investigating and searching for a way to break the deadlock.”
“But the more I investigated, the more I came to understand Vought’s methods.”
“I imagine you aren’t aware that there exists in this world a virus specifically designed to target superheroes like us?”
“Once exposed, whether it’s you or me, you’ll die within ten minutes.”
“Without some means of leverage, what makes you think those people could control me and make me do things I don’t want to do?”
“Fortunately, in the end I found a way—and that is the original compound.”
“What was in Blast Vision’s hands was the very last dose remaining in this world.”
“It was also what he left for Golden Geisha, but Golden Geisha was unwilling to inject it, and so the two were separated for many years.”
Alex exhaled a puff of smoke, speaking indifferently.
“Why are you telling me all this?”
Queen Maeve’s expression was somewhat dazed, as if she had heard something inconceivable.
____
👻🔥Whant more?: Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Homelander: Founding the Hero Association
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