Frenchie's underground room.
It was less a secret base and more a giant rat's nest stacked with junk and chemicals.
The air stank with a thick, nasty mix of motor oil, gunpowder, spoiled food, and chemical solvents.
Messy electrical wires hung from the ceiling like black vines. Every corner was piled high with random electronic parts and weapons of shady origin.
Right now, the king of this shithole was listening in total disbelief as Butcher and Hughie told him about their insane encounter.
"You're telling me the two of you got fucked up this bad by a seven or eight-year-old kid?"
Frenchie asked, his heavy French accent dripping with doubt.
He pointed at Butcher's badly splinted arm.
"He's no ordinary kid!"
Butcher took a angry swig of whiskey. The burn brought a little color back to his pain-twisted face.
"He's a fucking monster! A superpowered monster!"
"A child?" Hughie added, still rattled, his face covered in clear fist-shaped bruises. "His speed and strength… it's like he's not even human!"
Just as Frenchie opened his mouth to throw out a few more sarcastic comments to cover up his own shock, real terror arrived.
No warning.
An unstoppable, terrifying force slammed into them from the side.
Frenchie, who was starting to stand up, got hit like a high-speed truck. He flew sideways and crashed hard into a pile of scrap equipment with a loud bang.
"What the fuck was that?!"
Butcher and Hughie whipped their heads around in panic, scanning the room.
But they saw nothing.
Bang!
The next second, Butcher felt an unstoppable force slam into his back like a wrecking ball. He flew forward and smashed face-first into the ground. The arm he had just splinted exploded with fresh agony.
"Urg!"
Hughie got grabbed by the ankle by an invisible hand, yanked upside down, and then used like a human sandbag — slammed into the wall over and over.
"What the.. ack.."
"Urrgh.."
It was a completely one-sided massacre.
They could only feel themselves getting punched, kicked, thrown, and smashed repeatedly by an unseen, tyrannical power.
Yet they couldn't touch their enemy, couldn't even catch a single breath or glimpse of him.
This total helplessness hit them harder than the beating in the alley earlier. A deep, bone-chilling despair and fear sank into them.
After beating the three of them black and blue until they couldn't fight back at all, the invisible force finally stopped.
Ryan, still invisible, casually grabbed several thick ropes from the wall.
He tied the three semi-conscious men to sturdy iron chairs like pigs ready for slaughter, knotting the ropes tight.
When Butcher, Hughie, and Frenchie finally woke up through waves of searing pain, they found themselves completely helpless prisoners.
And standing silently in front of them was a man.
He wore the black uniform of Vought Company security forces — a uniform they all recognized too well.
He was tall, expressionless, with eyes as cold as if he was staring at corpses.
Ryan hadn't shown his real appearance. He had transformed into one of the guards who used to watch him back at the villa.
That face represented the humiliation and imprisonment he once suffered.
Now, it would represent the absolute power he held.
He smiled like a hunter admiring his trapped prey, watching with amusement as the three panicked rats squirmed in their cage.
"Who the fuck are you? Vought's dog?"
Butcher was the first to snap out of it. He glared hard at the man, trying to cover his fear with pure aggression.
Ryan didn't answer.
He simply stood there, cold smile fixed on his face, as his body began to blur and turn transparent right in front of their eyes.
Finally, like melting into the air, he completely vanished.
"Wh… what the fuck?!"
Hughie gasped in terror.
Frenchie's eyes bulged even wider, his mouth hanging open so wide an egg could fit inside. He couldn't even spit out a full curse.
The moment they saw that horrifying scene, both Butcher and Hughie's faces turned paper-white.
The same name slammed into their minds at the same time, bringing pure despair and fear.
The Translucent!
A member of The Seven!
They instantly realized this wasn't some regular Vought security goon.
This was the absolute last enemy they wanted to face.
Their plan…
Every single part of their revenge plan was now completely exposed!
"I fucking knew it! I knew it!"
Frenchie had completely lost it, twisting violently against the ropes as he hissed at Butcher and Hughie.
"You two stupid bastards! Look at the massive shit you've dragged me into!
I should never have let you pieces of shit in here!
Now we're all going to die!"
A long, suffocating silence filled the underground room, broken only by Frenchie's ragged, panicked breathing.
But after the heavy silence dragged on, the battle-hardened Butcher was the first to pull himself together.
His brain — sharpened by years of cheating death — started working fast.
Something didn't add up.
If this really was The Translucent, and if Vought already knew their plan, they should already be three cold corpses on the floor.
The bastard hadn't killed them. He had beaten them half to death and tied them up instead.
That meant there was still a chance.
The other side wanted something.
"Oi, what do you want?"
Butcher lifted his head and spoke into the empty air in front of him, his voice low and rough.
It was hoarse from pain, but ice-cold calm.
"If you're here to negotiate, then I think we can find a way that hurts a lot less."
The air stayed silent for a few seconds.
Then, a processed, gender-neutral, electronically synthesized voice floated through the room from every direction at once, making it impossible to pinpoint where it was coming from.
"Negotiate? Fine."
As the voice faded, the light in the empty space in front of them twisted again. The man in the Vought security uniform reappeared.
Butcher stared at him hard and asked, "What's your purpose?"
Ryan answered straight up, his voice cold and blunt.
"I know exactly what you want to do.
You want to overthrow Vought. You want to take down those hypocritical superheroes one by one."
Hearing that, Frenchie panicked so hard he nearly pissed himself. He shook his head like a broken bobblehead, frantically denying everything.
"No, no, no! I didn't! I don't know shit! I'm just a chemist! I'm not with them!"
Ryan shot him a cold look, the kind you'd give a noisy bug.
"Since you don't want to, you don't have to join the rest of this conversation."
A freezing killing intent instantly locked onto Frenchie.
He felt like a venomous snake had him in its sights. Every hair on his body stood straight up.
He immediately slapped on the ugliest, most desperate ass-kissing smile and stammered, "No… no… I mean, I… I'd be very fucking willing to join! I'll do my part for the great cause of taking down Vought!"
Ryan ignored the spineless opportunist and turned his gaze back to Butcher.
Butcher gritted his teeth through the waves of pain ripping through his body and asked the question burning in his mind.
"If you're here to work with us, why the fuck did you beat us half to death?"
Ryan's answer was simple, direct, and dripping with absolute dominance.
"If I didn't beat you into the ground first, would you have sat down nicely and listened to me?"
"...." Butcher had nothing to say. The words choked him.
After completely seizing control of the conversation with raw power and fear, Ryan knew it was time to drop the real bomb.
He stopped playing games and went straight for the core truth that would flip their entire worldview upside down.
"You think those superheroes are chosen ones?"
"God's grace? A miracle of human evolution?"
Ryan looked at the three of them, a cold, mocking smile on his lips.
"Wrong."
"They're just ordinary people, exactly like you.
The only difference is that when they were babies, Vought injected them with something called 'Compound V'."
He laid out the truth about Compound V in simple, brutal terms.
How Vought used this glowing blue drug to mass-produce so-called superheroes year after year, like products rolling off an assembly line.
Butcher, Hughie, and Frenchie sat there completely stunned.
Their faces twisted with shock, disbelief, and the sick feeling of watching their entire worldview collapse.
So that was the truth?
All those heroes worshipped by millions, treated like gods… were nothing but drugged-up frauds?
Ryan gave them enough time to let the bombshell sink in.
Then he moved to the final step.
He slowly pulled out a syringe from his jacket. The eerie blue liquid inside still glowed faintly in the dim underground light.
He placed the syringe on the table in front of them and gently pushed it forward with one finger.
Looking at their three very different expressions, he asked in a low, seductive voice, dragging out every word:
"Now tell me…"
"Are you willing to become… Supe, just like those cunts?"