The cold evening air was refreshing, carrying the crisp scent of the sea.
Annie would have loved to take a walk along the shore, relaxing after a long day of work, interviews, and photoshoots.
Unfortunately, she was on a mission right now.
It was her first real assignment since becoming a superhero, and she couldn’t help feeling nervous.
Working alongside one of the members of the Seven, someone she’d actually been a huge fan of during her teenage years, only made her more anxious about what was coming.
Of course, it wasn’t Homelander.
He was busy at the moment.
Instead, she’d been assigned to replace the Deep, who had suddenly disappeared somewhere.
Still, Annie couldn’t complain.
This was the first serious assignment of her entire career.
In a sense, this was her debut in the big leagues.
Starlight noticed the Deep emerging from the water in his usual costume.
Judging by the look on his face, however, he wasn’t exactly thrilled to be there.
He finally reached her and stopped beside her with a sigh, not even bothering to nod.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. A crime on the water! I’m so fucking sick of this!” the Deep suddenly exclaimed, breaking the awkward silence.
“They only ever send me on jobs at docks… or rivers… lakes… dams.”
Starlight gave him an awkward smile, having no idea what to say to that.
This was definitely not what she’d expected.
“Those narrow-minded idiots. I’ve got so much potential! And what do they use me for? Diving beautifully in front of cameras and showing off my biceps on Instagram,” the Deep scoffed.
“It’s fucking humiliating… What about you?”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you. What’s going on between you and Homelander?”
“Nothing,” Annie answered, genuinely confused.
She couldn’t understand why the Deep was suddenly interested in that.
“Oh, come on. Spill it. Homelander didn’t just randomly decide to take you under his wing,” the Deep said with a smirk.
Annie immediately disliked that smirk.
“It wasn’t because you have a pretty face, was it?”
“He saw potential in me,” Annie replied with a frown.
The nearby lights began flickering.
Whenever she was under stress, Annie instinctively accumulated energy, drawing it from the electrical devices around her.
As a result, lights were usually the first things to suffer whenever she got nervous.
“Hey, relax. I was just kidding,” the Deep said, raising his hands and taking a couple of steps back.
“It’s just unusual for Homelander.”
“What do you mean?”
Starlight calmed down and stared at him intently.
“Well, he never wastes his time on rookies. Ask A-Train,” the Deep explained.
“But then there’s you. A new girl, and a pretty one at that. Naturally, I got curious about what kind of relationship you two have. That’s all.”
“We’re not in that kind of relationship,” the blonde said with a frown, unable to understand how he’d even come up with such an idea.
“He was just teaching me how to use my powers.”
“Okay, now it all makes sense,” the aquatic superhero said with a grin.
Yet Annie didn’t see any actual understanding in his eyes.
“So, wanna show me what he taught you?”
“Gladly,” Starlight replied eagerly.
She noticed a Jeep pulling up beside the hangar.
“Hah, got it,” the Deep said with a smile as he moved toward the edge of the water.
“I’ll come in from behind. You take the front. All right, let’s get started!”
With that, the Deep dramatically dove into the water, performing a backward flip.
Annie rolled her eyes at the display of showmanship and headed toward the stairs.
Not every supe could fly, and she didn’t really need the ability anyway.
It would certainly be useful for getting around quickly, but there wasn’t much she could do about not having it.
It took her two minutes to reach the hangar, but she still made it in time for the action.
The Deep was already beating the crap out of two men, although his attacks looked far more impressive than effective.
Two more men were already pulling out guns.
Those were the ones Starlight chose as her targets.
Her eyes began glowing with a brilliant golden light, rapidly increasing in intensity.
The energy built up far faster than it would have if she’d fired it from her hands.
Two golden beams struck their targets squarely in the chest.
One man was hurled several meters backward and knocked unconscious.
The other suffered exactly the same fate.
Once she was finished, Annie looked toward the Deep, who had just finished messing around with his own opponents.
“Over here, quickly!” Ashley suddenly appeared with a camera crew.
“Great job! That looked amazing!”
“W-what?” Starlight stammered, staring at them in confusion.
“Give us a smile for the camera.”
Annie had no idea what they were doing, so she looked toward the Deep.
He was already smiling as he spoke with the cameraman.
As though sensing her gaze, he turned toward her, winked, and gave her a thumbs-up.
That’s when she realized.
This had all been planned from the beginning.
“Smile, Starlight. Come on!”
Annie quietly sighed before smiling at the camera.
Her experience from competitions during childhood and adolescence hadn’t completely faded, so she easily gave them exactly what they wanted.
Still, she’d thought all of that was behind her after joining the Seven.
Apparently not.
Arthur Robinson was a tall Black man wearing an expensive suit.
You wouldn’t have guessed it just by looking at him, but he was an important figure in the military industry.
He was the head of Lockheed, the American military-industrial corporation responsible for producing ballistic missiles, ammunition, and all sorts of other military hardware.
Talking to him, or people like him, was about as enjoyable as taking a bath in a pool of shit.
Everything about this place irritated me.
From the guests at the reception to having to stand there and deliver some speech about patriotism and other assorted bullshit.
The only consolation was that I wasn’t the only one suffering through this.
Maeve and Noir were here too, doing their part to appease these influential men, although neither of them looked particularly enthusiastic about it.
The only one missing was Translucent, who was probably either getting drunk somewhere or spying on someone again.
Fucking exhibitionist stalker.
“All right, enough with the bullshit,” Robinson interrupted me, immediately drawing the attention of the people around him.
“Why do we need you? Why should the government pay for you and your little friends to fly around and make our soldiers nervous?”
The condescending tone he used with me was extremely irritating.
What the hell did he actually understand about any of this?
What did he know about the products his corporation manufactured?
Nothing.
The only difference between him and Madelyn was that he advertised weapons instead of supes.
And honestly, Stillwell’s job was much harder.
So I decided to enjoy myself and wipe the floor with the bastard in front of all his colleagues.
“You want honesty, Arthur?” I asked with a pleasant smile.
“That’s exactly what I want,” Robinson replied with a smirk, waiting for my answer.
I briefly glanced toward Madelyn, who was standing at the bar with yet another general.
Our eyes met.
I immediately noticed the concern on her face, and her ever-present smile slowly disappeared.
One look was enough for her to realize that the blonde was about to do something stupid.
Unfortunately for her, there was nothing she could do to stop me.
“Arthur, you’re standing in front of me talking with all the confidence in the world, as though you’ve already got everything figured out. What you’re failing to realize is that you’re sitting in the dirt with your ass hanging out, holding a crooked stick in your hands.”
I openly laughed when I saw the shock on the Black man’s face.
“You’d better apologize…”
“For being honest? Not a chance,” I replied, looking at him with open contempt.
“You people spend hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons, yet somehow they still can’t fire lasers.”
“Our army is the best in the world, largely because of our technology and…”
“And how’s that technology working out for you in Afghanistan?” I asked with a condescending smile, looking around at everyone present.
“You’ve already lost. Your tactics don’t work, and everyone knows it.”
“And what exactly are people like you going to change?”
“Everything, Arthur. And we both know it.”
I smirked and winked at Stillwell, who had been watching our conversation closely from across the room.
“The military contract is inevitable.”
“That will never happen,” Robinson growled, looming over me with the ease that came from being built like a basketball player.
“Oh, really? Do you know America’s oldest lie, Arthur?”
I smiled and once again looked around at the people gathered around me.
“That those in power can never be criminals.”
Still smiling, I turned and calmly headed for the exit, leaving the disgruntled rulers of the world behind.
What a satisfying feeling.
“What the hell was that?” Madelyn demanded the moment she caught up with me in the hallway.
“Something that should have been done a long time ago.”
“Homelander, do you have any idea what this is going to cost us? After what you just said, we’re not getting that military contract even ten years from now!” the woman hissed through clenched teeth.
“Really? Excellent.”
I smiled at her without feeling the slightest bit concerned.
“Next time, let Black Noir talk to them. He likes keeping his mouth shut. I, on the other hand, am done with that.”
“Are you doing this to get back at me?”
Madelyn sighed and began rubbing her temples.
“Think of it as a preview,” I replied, staring directly into her eyes.
“Sometimes you have to settle for something small when you’re trying to take back something that was never yours to begin with.”
“Homelander…”
“Tell Stan that if he even thinks about touching my son…” I stepped closer to her, watching her freeze in fear.
“This unpleasant little incident will seem like the most harmless thing that’s ever happened to Vought.”
I stared into her eyes.
“Was I clear?”
“I… understand.”
“Good. Don’t miss me too much, Madelyn.”
I smiled and quickly left the event.
Sometimes people needed a reminder that I wasn’t their errand boy anymore.
They needed to remember that once and for all.
Hughie was uncomfortable.
Terrified, actually.
He breathed deeply and rapidly, desperately trying to calm himself down.
His eyes remained fixed on the steel door behind which the main source of his anxiety was being held.
What else could anyone expect from a complete klutz like him?
How the hell had he managed to attract the attention of the fourth-ranked member of the entire Seven?
Hughie nervously ran his fingers through his hair, scratching as hard as he could in an attempt to distract himself from the itching anxiety.
Why the hell had he agreed to Butcher’s proposal?
Why had he gone along with planting a fucking listening device inside Vought Tower?
Hughie knew the answer, of course.
That didn’t stop him from thinking about it.
The situation was beyond fucked.
Translucent was sitting inside a steel cage under high voltage.
And the supe had seen their faces.
He even knew Hughie’s name.
As if that wasn’t enough for one horrible couple of days, Hughie had also discovered that Butcher wasn’t a federal agent at all.
He was just some kind of psychopath.
Then there was the Frenchman, who could apparently make a fucking rifle bullet from scratch in a matter of hours and probably dealt in illegal weapons.
And somehow, Hughie Campbell had ended up mixed in with this collection of lunatics.
All he could do was panic in a situation that seemed completely hopeless.
One thing was obvious.
Nobody intended to keep Translucent alive.
If that was the case, Hughie needed to learn something about A-Train and the day he’d killed Robin.
That was about the only thing Hughie had the skills to accomplish.
Even if it didn’t work, he could at least try.
He filled a glass with water, opened the steel door, and found an empty steel cage inside.
He placed the glass on the floor in front of the cage, then stepped back and stared at it.
“So you don’t want it,” Hughie muttered, reaching down to take the glass back.
“Wait. I’m thirsty.”
Translucent finally decided to cooperate.
Hughie watched as the water in the glass began disappearing, even though the man drinking it remained invisible.
“Listen… I need to ask you about A-Train,” Hughie began.
“When he… ran through that girl recently. Robin Ward. I want to know why. Where was he going? What was he doing?”
“What was she? Your sister? Your girlfriend?” the invisible man asked from inside the cage.
“Friend.”
“So that’s what you want from me.”
“Please, listen. These guys… they’re going to kill you. Tell me something and I…”
“And what? Stop them?” Translucent interrupted sarcastically.
“They’re listening to every word you say. You’re the big boss around here, aren’t you?”
“Fine. You don’t want to talk? Whatever. I tried.”
Hughie turned toward the exit, fully aware that he wasn’t going to get anything useful out of the supe.
“Kid, I’m pretty good at reading people.”
Translucent suddenly appeared in front of him.
He was completely naked, looking no different from any other naked man.
“You’re terrified, and you know damn well you’ve wandered way too far into this sea of shit. You’d better run before you sink all the way to the bottom.”
“First, we’re going to kill you.”
Hughie frowned and looked him directly in the eyes.
Maybe he was a coward.
Maybe he was terrified right now.
But he wasn’t going to run.
He’d started this, so he was going to see it through to the end.
And if killing Translucent was necessary to get to A-Train, then Hughie would do it without hesitation.
“I’m invulnerable. My skin can’t be pierced. I’m a fucking superhero. Did you forget?” Translucent grinned.
“We take down gangs and terrorists. We save the world every day!”
He looked Hughie up and down.
“And who are you? A rag doll stuffed with meat and intestines? Homelander will find me, and he’ll tear you open from your throat to your balls.”
Translucent smiled confidently.
“And then I’ll go home and drink some cocktails. Because I’m me, and you’re you.”
“Well, good luck. I tried.”
Hughie smiled and finally walked out, slamming the door behind him.
“Run, Hughie. Don’t look back.”
Translucent smirked as he stared up at the ceiling.
He was absolutely certain they were already looking for him.
Soon, he’d be out of here.
And when that happens, he’d tear those motherfuckers apart with his own hands.