That brief conversation had left a very strong impression on both troublemakers.
They watched Homelander walk away with suspicious, wary looks.
MM, a large Black man with a beard, glanced at his former boss, the man who had decided to bring their team back together for another major operation.
He was beginning to realize just how reckless it had been to get involved in this mess again.
This time, things were far more serious than they had been with Lamplighter.
And far more dangerous.
Especially for his family.
“What do you think?” MM muttered, furrowing his brow.
Butcher already knew they had been exposed.
He simply hadn’t said a word about it.
“I think I want a drink,” Billy replied calmly as he headed toward the parking lot.
MM stared after him in confusion before following.
Hughie had just returned from his improvised walk around the fair when he spotted them.
He stared at the two men in surprise.
MM merely waved him over, silently telling him to follow.
Hughie obeyed without complaint.
He could immediately sense the oppressive atmosphere surrounding the other two, so he decided against asking questions.
A few minutes later, they reached the parking lot.
That was when they witnessed Butcher’s sudden outburst.
Unfortunately, the target of his rage happened to be the tire of the van they had arrived in.
“Fuck! You bastard! You fucking bastard! AAAAAH!”
Billy went completely berserk, kicking the van’s tire over and over again.
It was terrifying.
Hughie instinctively moved behind MM’s broad back, preferring to stay out of the possible line of fire from the man known as the Butcher.
“What happened?” Hughie asked anxiously, turning to the only one of the two who still seemed calm.
“Homelander happened,” MM replied.
Two words were enough to explain exactly what kind of shit they had gotten themselves into.
“What?”
That was all Hughie managed to get out in his hoarse voice.
“Fuuuck!”
Butcher kicked the tire one last time before finally calming down enough to notice the two witnesses to his breakdown.
He grinned when he saw the frightened look on Hughie’s face.
“What is it, Hugh? Shit your pants?”
“Leave the kid alone, Butcher,” MM said, stepping in to defend him.
He stared directly into the Brit’s eyes.
“What aren’t you telling us? What the hell is going on?”
“Homelander flew to my house, then flew away again. Gave me one last look with those glowing red eyes of his before he left,” Billy finally admitted with a sigh.
“That’s it. So relax your asses.”
“Relax our asses? Relax our asses?!” Hughie shouted, unable to contain himself.
“Yeah! Grow a pair already!” Butcher shouted back.
“Get a fucking grip. Nothing’s been decided yet.”
“Nothing’s been decided?” MM asked, frowning.
“What are you planning?”
“We continue what we started. You go see Ezekiel and show him this.”
Butcher pulled out his phone and showed MM a video.
In it, a rubbery-looking pervert was making out with two attractive young men at the same time.
Hughie recognized the location immediately.
“That was at the club.”
“But Homelander…”
“If he wanted to stop us, he would’ve done it already. He could’ve stopped us right now if he wanted to. But he didn’t.”
Butcher grinned.
“So we might as well take advantage of the opportunity.”
“Butcher, tickets to his private reception cost fifteen thousand dollars,” MM pointed out, trying to talk some sense into him.
“We’ll take one from one of the lucky bastards who bought one.”
Billy grinned.
MM simply rolled his eyes.
Somehow, that was exactly the sort of thing he had expected from this lunatic.
Getting ready to go onstage…
It wasn’t even funny.
John was irritated by the thought of having to speak through idiots who barely understood what they were trying to accomplish themselves.
Once again, he was expected to promote the people pushing for supes to join the military.
He hated the entire situation.
Something about it smelled wrong.
Badly wrong.
It had gotten so bad that he’d even started wondering whether he should have deliberately sabotaged that airplane mission.
If he had, he wouldn’t have to worry about any of this now.
But he quickly pushed the thought away.
If he’d done something like that, the guilt would have driven him insane.
He wasn’t a monster.
Right?
“Getting ready?”
Starlight entered the tent, pulling him out of his heavy thoughts.
“Not really,” John admitted with a smile as he turned toward her.
“But I’m trying.”
“At least you won’t have to read from a teleprompter,” Annie said with a small snort, clearly unhappy about that fact.
“Well, I can only see one solution to that problem.”
John smirked as he stepped almost directly in front of her.
“And what would that be?” she asked expectantly.
“Don’t read. Just speak.”
With a theatrical flourish, he burned the papers in his hand with a single glance.
“Care to take over?”
Starlight grinned, her eyes shining.
Caught up in the moment, she kissed him.
John certainly wasn’t about to complain.
A little while later, Annie left the tent because Ashley was looking for her.
She left behind a pleasant aftertaste.
Literally.
John snorted at his own thoughts and shook his head before looking down thoughtfully at the ashes scattered across the ground.
His phone suddenly rang from the pocket of his suit.
The ringtone snapped him out of his thoughts.
John stared at the caller’s name in surprise before answering.
“What happened, Deep?” he asked immediately.
He didn’t have time for pleasantries with his appearance onstage coming up soon.
“Homelander, hey,” Kevin replied hesitantly.
“I’m calling about Ocean Land.”
“What about it? They trying to terminate your contract?”
John rolled his eyes.
He was already expecting some minor problem that was going to annoy him.
“No… It’s not that. There are dolphins there, and they’re suffering because of the way they’re being treated. I’ve told them so many times. I even talked to Stillwell about it recently. But nobody listens to me!”
Kevin’s voice grew increasingly emotional.
“They don’t understand that they’re alive!”
“Yeah, yeah. Calm down.”
From Kevin’s voice, John could tell he was extremely drunk and behaving completely irrationally.
Even so, Kevin’s fear of Homelander was strong enough that he couldn’t bring himself to openly argue with him, let alone yell at him.
“I can’t take it anymore! She’s screaming! She’s begging me to get her out of there!” Kevin screamed into the phone without even attempting to lower his voice.
“Okay. Wait for me, Kevin. I’m coming over. Where are you?”
John spoke in a soothing tone, although he was anything but pleased about having to rush somewhere to calm down an idiot.
“Me? I’m in the van, in front of Ocean Land.”
Kevin sounded genuinely confused.
There was a brief, tense silence.
“I’ll be there soon. Don’t do anything.”
John hung up.
He looked toward the stage with irritation.
With a sigh, he finally flew toward it and landed to the enthusiastic cheers of the crowd.
John smiled, waved to the audience, and walked over to Ezekiel, who stared at him in surprise.
“Sorry to interrupt your speech, Ezekiel. But I’m in a bit of a hurry. You don’t mind, do you?”
John patted the white-clad supe on the shoulder.
Ezekiel’s appearance wasn’t particularly remarkable.
He was simply a blond man with long hair and a neatly trimmed beard.
Even his clothing stood out only because of its white color.
It wasn’t exactly designed for superhero work.
That made sense, considering the image he’d built for himself.
There was no room for physical violence in his brand.
As for sexual violence…
It was probably better not to bring that up.
“Of course not, Homelander, brother.”
Ezekiel smiled and stretched his arm toward the backstage area.
His arm elongated, reaching toward the microphone before retracting and placing it in John’s hand.
“Thanks.”
John nodded before turning toward the audience.
The crowd waited eagerly for the words of America’s greatest hero.
“I’ll keep this short.”
He looked over the crowd.
“Vote for the bill allowing superheroes to join the military. Because that’s something that will bring you absolutely… nothing.”
The audience stared at one another in confusion.
Ashley looked as though her eyes were about to pop out of her head.
She frantically grabbed her phone and started dialing Stillwell.
Everyone else was equally shocked.
Everyone except one quiet blonde woman standing off to the side.
“Yes, don’t look so surprised.”
John’s voice rose as he surveyed the crowd.
“None of this is in your interests. It’s not in the interests of the American people!”
His eyes met Butcher’s.
The Brit’s expression darkened immediately.
“This is for the people above you. The people who rank higher than you, and even higher than me.”
The crowd grew restless.
“They want Homelander to clean up their messes. They want me to fly in whenever there’s a problem and deal with it for them. They want us to kill whoever they point at.”
The angry murmur from the crowd grew louder.
John continued.
“They wanted me to stand here and feed you some bullshit about how much better your lives would become because of this bill.”
He paused.
“But I don’t want to lie to you.”
His voice hardened.
“And I’m sick of being used as a puppet in their little games behind closed doors.”
He looked over the crowd once more.
“Because if I stay silent now, I’ll never be able to change anything.”
John took a breath.
“I hope you make the right choice.”
He held the microphone out toward Ezekiel.
“That’s all I’ve got.”
Then he dropped the microphone into Ezekiel’s hands and shot straight into the sky.
John smirked as he imagined the chaos his words were going to cause on social media.
As entertaining as it would be to see the public reaction, this was definitely not the right time to sit around staring at his phone.
And, apparently, solve his problem with…
Dolphins.
John arrived at exactly the right moment.
The famous aquatic hero was climbing out of the van.
Unfortunately, John quickly discovered that Kevin wasn’t exactly in a condition to carry out any decisive rescue mission.
“You okay?”
John asked out of courtesy as he approached the man who was still vomiting.
“Urgh… Completely fine.”
Kevin abruptly straightened up and stared at him nervously.
“Want some mineral water?”
“I won’t say no, sir.”
Deep nodded.
He had been expecting a much more aggressive conversation.
“Well, come on, then.”
John smirked and headed toward the nearest store.
A few minutes later, the two of them were sitting on a rooftop, looking down at Ocean Land.
It was the aquarium that Deep had been promoting for several years.
Unfortunately, the facility’s treatment of dolphins and other marine animals was far from humane.
After listening to Kevin explain the situation, John asked the only question that came to mind.
“So, let me get this straight. You decided to literally steal a dolphin and release her into the ocean?”
“She hates it here,” Kevin said uncertainly, trying to justify himself.
“Right.”
John sighed.
“I know I’m going to regret this…”
He looked at the desperate hope in Kevin’s eyes.
“…but I’ll help you.”
“Steal the dolphin?”
“Of course not.”
John looked down at the building.
“We’re going to handle this through more legal means.”
Hughie breathed slowly, trying to relax as he thought about how he’d managed to get Ezekiel to reveal where they had taken the Compound V.
For the moment, he could simply enjoy his burger and fries while waiting for Butcher and MM to return with the results.
Unfortunately, his peace didn’t last long.
He had barely taken his first bite when Homelander suddenly appeared in front of him as if out of nowhere.
Hughie was so startled that he nearly fell out of his chair.
“Hello, Hughie.”
Homelander casually reached over, grabbed one of his fries, and popped it into his mouth.
“Hey! That’s rude!”
Hughie was absolutely outraged.
“I know. That’s probably why it tasted so good.”
Homelander grinned.
“Where are the others?”
“I don’t know.”
Hughie pressed his lips together.
“Hughie, I understand that you think I’m a monster. And you’d probably be right.”
Homelander smiled as he took another fry.
“But you know me. You’ve known me since you were a kid. So what exactly makes you think I’m the villain?”
He tilted his head.
“Tell me, who was it that kidnapped Dr. Stillwell’s informant? A single father and a superhero with only a few minor shortcomings, then blew him up?”
“He has a child?”
Hughie stared at him in shock.
“Yeah. A son. He’s a teenager.”
Homelander sighed.
“You have no idea how difficult it was to comfort a child who had suddenly lost the only person he had left.”
“I didn’t know…”
“Not many people did.”
Homelander nodded.
“He always kept his private life secret.”
He popped another fry into his mouth.
“But let’s get back to where we started.”
“I… don’t know.”
Hughie pressed his lips together.
That made Homelander frown.
Then his expression changed.
“It’s connected to Compound V.”
Hughie’s pulse changed.
That was enough to confirm Homelander’s suspicion.
A grin slowly spread across his face.
Another fry disappeared into his hand.
“And the most popular hero around here who can be pressured…”
He paused deliberately.
“Ezekiel.”
“That’s…”
“So if you managed to pull this off, they’re already at the nearest hospital.”
Homelander smiled when he saw the horror spread across Hughie’s face.
“Wait!”
That was all Hughie managed to shout before the blond disappeared.
He frantically pulled out his phone.
Then, a second later, he remembered that it wasn’t working because water had gotten inside it.
Panic set in.
He ran around desperately, searching for someone willing to lend him a phone.
He had to hurry.
He had to hurry Badly!.