Nighttime.
Lucas finished his daily patrol in Brooklyn.
The haul was mediocre: he only caught two armed robbers and a burglar, and saved a cat stuck in a tree along the way.
The cat’s owner was an old lady in her eighties, so excited she nearly spat out her dentures.
Of course, the footage of him doing a good deed was "coincidentally" captured by the media.
He was less than 20,000 points away from leveling up to Lv.3.
Just as he was about to take off to head home, his Super Hearing caught an unusually familiar sound.
Down in the alley below, someone was talking.
Two people.
The content of their conversation caught Lucas’s attention.
"...Are you sure he patrols this area every night?"
"S-sure, I’ve been tracking him for three days. His route is basically fixed: starting from the Brooklyn Bridge, heading south along Atlantic Avenue, and finally finishing up around here."
"Good boy!"
Lucas’s mouth twitched.
That dog Butcher actually sent someone to tail him for three days?
There were two people standing in the alley, both familiar faces.
One was wearing a black trench coat, burly, with rough stubble on his chin.
He was holding an unlit cigar in his hand.
Billy Butcher.
The other one...
Lucas narrowed his eyes.
Tall and thin, curly hair, looking nervous.
Hughie Campbell.
He had clearly changed the original plot trajectory.
Yet these two had somehow come together again!
He jumped straight down from the rooftop.
With a dull thud, the concrete ground cracked in a spiderweb pattern.
The two people in the alley were startled.
Hughie fell onto his butt, his face full of terror.
Butcher’s reaction was much faster; his right hand instantly reached inside his trench coat.
"Good evening."
Lucas glanced at the two of them, quite satisfied with their reaction.
"You’ve been tracking me for three days, aren’t you going to introduce yourselves?"
Hughie swallowed hard.
Is Guardian also the kind of Supe that Butcher described?
He didn’t want to accept this reality, because the other party had saved him and Robin.
Compared to Hughie’s hesitation, Butcher was calm.
He put the unlit cigar in his mouth, pulled out a lighter, and lit it.
He took a deep drag.
"Hiss!"
Nice!
"Billy Butcher!" He grinned. "Friends call me Butcher."
"Alright Billy, you can tell me now, why were you tracking me?"
Butcher’s eyes were like a hungry wolf; an ordinary man treating a Supe as prey.
For Lucas, Butcher’s danger level was almost zero.
Even if he developed a super virus like in the original show, it wouldn’t be able to hurt a Viltrumite.
"Hughie, long time no see."
Hughie was stunned.
"You... you remember me?"
"Of course, you’re that guy from the electronics store; I bought a data cable there last time. Besides, I saved you and your girlfriend, didn’t I?"
Hughie obviously didn’t expect a superhero to remember an ordinary clerk.
Butcher’s eyes darted back and forth between the two.
"Looks like you two know each other, that saves me the trouble of introducing you!"
"Kid Billy." Lucas continued the previous topic.
"You sent people to track me for three days, surely not just to get an autograph."
"I don’t want that useless graffiti." Butcher spat out the cigarette butt and crushed it with his shoe sole. "I want intelligence."
"About what?"
"Vought."
Butcher asking him for intelligence?
Lucas was a bit confused.
Do you know who I am?
So brave?
"Be specific."
Butcher took a step forward, shortening the distance to within two meters of Lucas.
For an ordinary person to dare to face a Supe at such close range, you have to say he’s really brave.
But Butcher didn’t care.
"I know what Vought is doing," Butcher deliberately lowered his voice.
"They aren’t raising superheroes; they are manufacturing weapons. compound v, have you heard of it?"
Lucas didn’t answer.
"It’s a serum; injected into infants, it can create Supes."
"Vought has been doing this for decades. All the Supes in America, including everyone in The Seven, are products of compound v."
"You aren’t the chosen ones; you’re just products on an assembly line."
When Butcher said this, he was probably thinking about what Homelander did to his wife, his eyes filled with hatred.
Butcher knew about compound v; Vought’s hostile forces wanted to use this mad dog to drag all of Vought down.
Like the famous CIA.
"So what?" Lucas asked. "You tell me this, what do you want me to do?"
"I want to know which side you’re on."
"Which side?"
Butcher held up both hands. "Vought’s side, or the human side."
Lucas laughed.
"Butcher, your question has a logical flaw."
"What?"
"You’ve set up a dichotomy between Supes and humans, as if we can only choose one side to stand on."
"Isn’t it?" Butcher’s tone became sharp.
"You possess power that ordinary people will never have. You can kill anyone at any time without punishment. This unequal relationship is inherently confrontational."
"Then you are standing in front of a Supe who can kill you at any time."
"Aren’t you afraid?"
"Afraid?" Butcher grinned, revealing a set of neat yellow teeth. "I’ve been afraid of everything in my life, but I’m not afraid of dying."
Truly brave!
No wonder he dared to fight Homelander in the original show with just a ragtag team.
Lucas suddenly felt that Butcher seemed like a very good tool.
A tool against Vought!
"You can’t understand my existence, but I’m very happy to cause some trouble for Vought." Lucas said, taking a USB drive out of his pocket.
He had originally planned to quietly release the contents of the USB drive himself.
But now, let the bad boys attract Vought’s fire.
"What’s this?" Butcher looked at the little thing warily.
"Some internal Vought data; it should be enough for you to give them a good kick in the ass."
Butcher didn’t reach out to take it; he didn’t believe things could go so smoothly.
"You had this ready all along; even without us, you were planning to release it secretly?"
"You’re a smart man; you know what to ask and what not to ask."
Lucas didn’t explain and flew away directly.
"He... he really seems to have left!" Hughie felt like he had just had a nightmare, his crotch was wet.
Then Butcher walked over and picked up the USB drive.
"Do you think, if there’s a tracker inside..."
Hughie wiped the sweat from his crotch, saying with the relief of having survived a disaster: "I don’t think Guardian would be interested in you; before this, he didn’t even know who you were."
Butcher nodded. "Boy, you’re kind of breaking daddy’s heart! But I can guarantee that sooner or later, Vought will remember us."
"Then I’d better buy two accidental insurance policies early."
The two disappeared at the end of the alley.
Lucas stood at an altitude of 10,000 meters, watching the numbers jump out on the panel.
[Key Character · Billy Butcher — — Vigilance, Probing, Intent to Cooperate]
[Evolution Points Gained: +3,476]
...
[Key Character · Hughie Campbell — — Fear, Confusion, Bewilderment]
[Evolution Points Gained: +1,102]
...
[Current Evolution Points: 86,917 / 100,000]
Butcher alone contributed over three thousand.
Deserving of being a key character.
As for that USB drive...
It was indeed internal Vought data.
But it wasn’t anything core.
It was all internal memos from Vought’s PR department regarding handling Supe scandals.
And a few suppressed victim testimonies.
As well as surveillance footage of The Deep and reports on A-Train using drugs.
Only high-level internal personnel knew about these things.
And they had all signed non-disclosure agreements enough to bankrupt anyone.
But well, Lucas didn’t need money; he just wanted to stir things up.