“Wasn’t that what you asked?”
Alex suddenly blinked, abruptly dispelling the heavy atmosphere from before.
Queen Maeve: “…”
“I’m not joking anymore.”
“I can understand that you weren’t in control of yourself—just like how you were when you faced me before.”
“And in the same way, I hope you can understand that the situation now is completely different.”
Queen Maeve furrowed her brow, staring at Alex.
“You mean to say that everything you did before, all those displays—it was all because of the Vought Corporation, that you were forced to do it?”
Queen Maeve voiced her guess tentatively, though even to her own ears the words sounded hard to believe.
Because in the past, she had been someone who’d been intimately close with Homelander.
It was precisely for that reason that she felt she understood Homelander very well.
But now, if she believed what he was saying, then it meant that everything she had come to know through her own feelings was all fake.
That it had all been an act he was forced into.
How was she supposed to accept that?
“You know that I came out of a laboratory.
They performed all kinds of experiments on me.”
Alex pointed at his own head.
“I never had a normal childhood, no playmates, no family.”
“They didn’t even bother to properly teach me any knowledge.”
“There was only brainwashing, inhuman experiments.”
“Fortunately, I was a little smarter than they expected.”
Alex gestured with his index finger and thumb.
“So I began to diligently observe everyone I could come into contact with, analyzing their behavior, and what they wanted.”
“Luckily, I found my direction and successfully met their expectations, and so the old me came to be.”
“A love-starved, overgrown infant with an antisocial, narcissistic personality—fragile, irritable, quick to anger, lacking any sense of security, and with a low level of self-awareness.”
“Madelyn was simply a rope tying me down, exploiting a so-called mother complex.”
“Well?
Do you think I’ve made all of this clear enough?”
Queen Maeve sat blankly on the sofa, her entire mind turned to mush.
She didn’t even have much of a reaction when Alex asked his question.
Because all of this was simply far too astonishing.
If, earlier, Queen Maeve had still thought he was deliberately putting on an act, trying to find an excuse to shirk the responsibility off his own shoulders—
The moment she heard him describe his own personality, she could no longer bring herself to disbelieve.
She knew all too well just how narcissistic and self-absorbed the old Homelander had been.
Even the smallest thing not going his way would drag down the people around him.
How could such a person possibly have such an accurate understanding of himself?
How could he possibly admit to all these problems?
It was precisely because Queen Maeve felt that Alex was right that she was so deeply shocked by everything before her.
The Homelander of the past was fake.
His irritability, his quick temper, his need for control…
Every single thing, all of it, was nothing more than protective coloring that he had fabricated in his early childhood to protect himself from the hands of the Vought Corporation.
For someone to live in that kind of environment from childhood and to accomplish even this much—just to survive—was already incredibly difficult.
Even though she could count herself a victim of Homelander’s past pretense, when faced with this reason, she couldn’t bring herself to say anything too harsh.
In a place like that laboratory, the people of the Vought Corporation had never instilled any correct ideals in him at all.
Instead, they had used countless dark and filthy things, attempting to cultivate a flower of evil under their control.
“So you’re saying that everything before was a pretense you were forced into, and now that you’re no longer afraid of the Vought Corporation, you’re preparing to fight back?”
“More or less, yeah.”
“Then what was the trigger for your decision to stop pretending?”
“The day before yesterday, you were still your normal self.”
“The trigger?
Perhaps it was the news about the original compound.”
Alex shrugged.
“Before that, I was merely investigating, without any gains, unable to find a single lead.”
“Yesterday, the goddess of fortune smiled upon me.
I learned of Golden Geisha, I learned of Blast Vision, and I learned of the last remaining vial of the original compound.”
“As for what came after, you already know.”
“Regarding the death of those two.”
Alex pointed in the direction of the suite.
“By normal moral values, I suppose I should say I’m sorry.”
“But you know, I don’t have much of a grasp on these things.”
“It’s not something that can be understood through study alone—even for me, it’s hard to make any progress.”
“Still, I think their sacrifice was at least worth something.
With the original compound, I can overthrow Vought’s rule and let all superheroes become true heroes.”
“To truly lower the crime rate in the city, and let you become the kind of hero you once dreamed of being—one who upholds justice.”
“That’s the reason I came to see you tonight.”
“Join me.
Become a true hero.”
Alex extended his hand toward Queen Maeve, inviting her in all seriousness.
At this moment, a thousand thoughts raced through Queen Maeve’s mind.
Every single word Alex had spoken, she could comprehend.
Every sentence, she could understand its meaning.
But strung together, the impact they created was quite simply like combining uranium-235 and plutonium-239 and triggering a fission reaction.
Queen Maeve could guarantee that what she had heard tonight was, without a doubt, in her thirty years of life thus far—
The most shocking, the most incomprehensible, the most unbelievable thing she had ever heard.
“No.”
“No, no, no.”
Looking at the hand Alex extended, Queen Maeve instinctively shrank back.
“My mind is a complete mess right now.
Don’t make me make any kind of decision at a time like this.”
“That’s all right.”
Receiving no answer, Alex’s expression remained calm—he even gave Queen Maeve a small smile.
“I can understand you.
After all, if one day Edgar were to say that everything he’d done was because he had no choice, that he actually loves me very much or something like that, I wouldn’t be able to accept it either.”
“I’ll give you plenty of time to think it over.”
“Just like I said before, out of all of The Seven, you’re the only one who can truly be a superhero, the only one who fits my vision.”
“Don’t say any more!”
Queen Maeve abruptly shot to her feet.
“Hey, listen, John, I don’t care what thoughts or goals or whatever other bullshit you have right now.”
“Don’t open your mouth and tell me anything else.”
“I don’t want to know anything right now.
Let me think things over by myself.
Let me get a good night’s sleep, OK?”
____
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🔥 New history: Homelander: Founding the Hero Association
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