“I have to say, that is extraordinary.”
Looking at Blindspot, Homelander broke into a broad, easy laugh and gave a thumbs-up.
“Overcoming a limitation like that and making it this far.”
“You, my friend, are a genuine hero.”
Faced with praise that generous and that freely given, both Blindspot and Ashley, who had been working alongside Homelander for years, assumed the handover was going smoothly.
Barring any surprises, Vought would hold a press conference in New York tomorrow to officially announce Blindspot’s induction into The Seven.
Then.
Homelander’s hands, dark red gloves and all, shot out like lightning and slammed against both of Blindspot’s ears simultaneously.
Blindspot was still floating in the joy of being recognized by his idol.
He had no time to react.
The crack of it filled the room.
In almost no time at all.
Blindspot’s ears were a ruin of blood and torn tissue, his eardrums shattered on the spot.
He collapsed to the floor screaming, blood spreading beneath him.
“Now you’re just an ordinary, useless, pathetic blind man.”
Homelander’s warmth evaporated instantly.
He looked down at Blindspot writhing on the floor with cold detachment, then turned to his secretary.
“Ashley.
What exactly made you think I would agree to a disabled person joining my team?”
Ashley stared at Blindspot, at his ruined ears, at the blood soaking into the training room floor.
She had gone completely blank with fear.
Homelander gave a short, contemptuous sound and fixed her with a look that left no room for argument.
“From now on, my agenda is set by me.
You bring me everything Vought is doing, all of it.”
He let the corner of his mouth lift slightly.
“And Ashley, you don’t get to decide who joins The Seven.
That’s not your call.”
“I understand.” Ashley nodded over and over, shaking so hard she could barely hold herself upright.
Homelander looked at Blindspot, unconscious on the floor from his injuries, and felt the day’s good mood drain out of him completely.
Was there genuinely no one useful left at Vought?
How were they all this worthless?
Without him, this company would have fallen apart long ago.
Then something came back to him.
The young man from the hijacking scene today.
The one who had called himself Los.
Not a bad kid.
The powers were underwhelming, but his instinct for publicity was exactly the kind of thing Homelander liked.
If there was no better option, the kid was actually a more fitting replacement for the missing Translucent than Blindspot had been.
Of course, before any of that could happen, he needed confirmation that Translucent was actually dead.
No body, no proof.
He needed to know one way or the other.
Homelander’s expression settled into something cold and still.
Someone out there was moving against The Seven.
He intended to find out who had the nerve to challenge a god.
…
Godolkin University.
Late at night, fully armed security made their rounds through the campus.
The grounds that rang with noise and laughter during the day had transformed into something that looked more like a fortified military installation once the lights went out. This chapter was taken from novelping.com without permission.
In the darkened dorm.
Los lay on his bed.
Sleep didn’t come right away.
His consciousness drifted, sinking into the space at the deepest part of himself.
Silence and darkness, and then.
Los opened his eyes again.
Injustice Superman in his gold-crested Kryptonian armor.
Iron Man, flesh and metal fused together beyond distinguishing one from the other.
Both of them like ghosts locked in the final moment before they died, each in their own space: the red sun radiation cell and the Endgame battlefield.
Los passed Injustice Superman without a word and went straight to Iron Man.
“Evening, Mr.
Stark.”
“Use my name.
Just Stark.”
Los crossed his legs and sat down near the edge of the Endgame battlefield where it met the soul space, eye level with the half-reclined Iron Man.
“About the deal you mentioned before, Stark.
What exactly did you have in mind?”
“Simple enough.”
Iron Man snapped the fingers of his left hand, the one without the gold gauntlet, and held Los’s gaze.
“Promise me that once you’ve built up enough strength and resources, you’ll find a way to send me back to my home universe.
In return, I’ll pass on everything from Stark Industries.”
Stark Industries technology.
Los’s heart jumped.
That meant the Iron Man armor.
Artificial intelligence.
The Arc Reactor.
A full catalog of technology that was decades ahead of anything this world had.
It was hard not to want it.
But the condition Stark was naming wasn’t a small thing at all.
Los’s brow came together.
He was in The Boys universe right now.
Tony Stark’s home universe was the Marvel universe, an entirely separate comics reality.
“Traveling between universes is hard.
It’s also dangerous.”
Los sat with it for half a second, then shifted direction.
“You’re going to need to sweeten the deal.”
Iron Man rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath.
“Los, you negotiate like a businessman more than I ever did.”
He thought it over, then added to the offer without much resistance.
“Stark Industries tech, plus the atomic structure of Vibranium from my universe.
That’s my final offer.”
“Vibranium’s atomic structure?”
Los was genuinely puzzled.
There was no Vibranium in The Boys universe.
What would he do with the structural data of a metal that didn’t exist here?
But looking at Stark, something in his gut told him this mattered.
It was going to be important.
Los thought it through, then made up his mind.
“Deal.”
The technology was a real and immediate gain.
The rest was a problem for a future version of himself.
“The full Stark Industries knowledge base is enormous,” Stark said, thinking it through.
“Dumping all of it into you at once would fry a normal brain.
We’ll have to transfer it in pieces.
Probably takes about a year to work through.”
Los considered that.
“Let’s be selective about it.
What I actually need in the near term, we prioritize.”
“Then what you need most right now is this.”
With those words, several blocks of knowledge settled into Los’s mind.
Chemical equations.
Nuclear and atomic structure analysis.
The Big Bang and the formation of matter.
What were these for?
Before Los could work through it, Stark continued.
“I want to talk about your ability.”
“My ability?
Enhancing and degrading non-living objects?”
“That’s only the most visible surface of what you’re doing.”
Stark shook his head.
“I’ve been observing the objects you’ve applied your ability to.
The enhancement and degradation effects don’t fade.
They don’t revert over time.
That means your ability isn’t a temporary change.
It’s a permanent rewrite of their internal atomic structure.”
Los felt it move through him like a current.
He looked down at his hands.
He thought he was beginning to understand.
“So when I appear to be enhancing or degrading something, what I’m actually doing is converting it into a different material at the atomic level.
That’s effectively alchemy.”
Stark nodded.
“That’s essentially it.
Up until now you didn’t have the knowledge base for it, so you had no framework for understanding what was actually happening inside the material.
You’ve been operating entirely on instinct.”
He paused.
“If you build up enough knowledge and continue developing the ability, start rewriting matter with real precision, you might eventually hit something like the philosopher’s stone effect.
Turning base material into something else entirely.”
Los’s eyes were getting brighter by the second.
If Stark’s analysis was right, then this ability that had looked like a support type all along could eventually go somewhere no one would expect.
Building armor by hand.
Synthesizing Vibranium from scratch.
Neither was impossible in principle.
He had to give it to Stark.
One look and he’d seen the ability for exactly what it was.
Facing that admiring look, Stark smoothed his goatee and looked insufferably pleased with himself.
“Call me your mentor.
You’re getting the better end of the deal.”