The first thing Hughie Campbell was aware of was the smell. It was a physical weight pressing down on him, a metallic stench so thick and overwhelming it coated the back of his throat like oil. The second sensation was the throbbing ache behind his eyes, a rhythmic pounding that synced with the frantic beat of his heart. His entire body felt like a badly tuned engine, vibrating with a nauseous hum of shock.
He pushed himself up, his hands slipping on something wet and sticky. He blinked, trying to clear the fog from his vision. The dim light of the warehouse basement slowly resolved into a scene from a slaughterhouse.
Blood was everywhere. It was sprayed across the concrete walls in high velocity arterial patterns. It dripped from the ceiling pipes in slow drops that landed with a wet plip sound. It pooled on the floor in a dark lake. And he was in the middle of it. His clothes were sticking to his skin. His hands, his face, his hair everything was slick with the gore of a man he had been guarding just a few hours ago.
He scrambled backwards, crab-walking away from the epicenter of the carnage, his heels scraping against the filthy floor. His breath came in ragged, hysterical sobs that burned his lungs.
"Oh god, oh god, oh god…"
His eyes dropped to his hands. They were stained a deep crimson. Resting in his palm, his fingers curled around it almost instinctively, was the detonator. The red button sat beneath his thumb.
His mind was a black hole. He tried to reach back, to find the moment it happened, but there was nothing. He remembered the fear closing in on him like a vice. He remembered Translucent's voice. He remembered his own hand shaking uncontrollably, his thumb hovering over the button.
And then… the nothing.
The gap in his memory terrified him more than the blood. His thoughts scrambled to fill it, to make sense of the silence. And the conclusion his panicked mind reached was simple.
He had done it.
He must have blacked out. Overwhelmed by the grief of Robin's death, the terror of the moment, and the sheer pressure of the situation, he snapped. Somewhere in that storm of emotion, he had pressed the button. He had killed a man. Whatever Translucent was, whatever he'd threatened, Hughie could only see one thing now, a life ended by his hand.
His legs gave out completely, and he folded onto the filthy floor, curling in on himself as the smell of blood and death filled the room.
———-
From my command center, watching the microscopic camera feed, the scene was pathetic. The audio picked up every one of Hughie's choked sobs.
[Kid's gonna need therapy,] the System's voice commented, its usual cheerfulness tinged with a hint of something that might have been pity. [And a fire hose. And probably a new everything. I don't think you can get those stains out.]
"He'll be fine," I said, my voice devoid of emotion as I took a slow sip of my coffee. "Butcher will make sure of it."
———-
As if summoned by the mention of his name, the sound of a heavy door opening echoed from the floor above. Heavy footsteps descended the stairs. Billy Butcher and Frenchie appeared in the doorway, their faces grim. They stopped dead at the bottom of the stairs, taking in the room. Their expressions were a mixture of shock and disgust, but in Butcher's case, there was a flicker of something else. Something that looked disturbingly like pride.
"Well, fuck me," Butcher breathed, a slow grin spreading across his face as he surveyed the carnage. "Look what the cat dragged in. Or, uh, blew up."
Frenchie moved first, his pragmatic habits taking over despite the mess. He crouched near the remains, scanning the damage with a sharp eye.
"Yeah," he said quietly, more to himself than anyone else. "That is the charge. Exactly how it should look." He exhaled slowly, relief washing over him. "Nothing went wrong."
Their attention finally turned to the sobbing figure on the floor.
Butcher walked over, his boots splashing softly in the fluids, and nudged Hughie. "Oi. Look at me. Are you still breathing?"
Hughie looked up, his face a mask of tears and blood. "I think… I did it," he stammered, his voice broken and hollow. "I don't remember… but I had the trigger. I must've pressed it."
Butcher's grin widened. He reached down and put a hand on Hughie's shoulder. It was meant to be a comforting gesture, but in the dim light, it looked more like a predator claiming its prey.
"Yeah, you did, kid," Butcher said, his voice rough but approving. "You did good. Welcome to the fuckin' club."
Hughie just shook his head, retreating back into his own personal hell.
Frenchie found a shovel and began to scoop the larger chunks of Translucent into heavy duty garbage bags.
"What are we gonna do with… all of him?" Hughie asked, his voice barely a whisper. He was still sitting on the floor watching the process with horrified fascination.
"Can't just bury him," Butcher said, glancing at the ceiling as if looking through the floorboards. "Golden boy up there's got X-ray vision. He'll spot a grave from five miles up."
He paced for a moment, the gears in his head turning.
"The sea," Butcher said finally, a stroke of grim genius lighting up his eyes. "We take what's left of Casper the Horny Ghost here, we stick him in a box, and we dump him in the drink."
"The sea?" Frenchie asked, pausing his frantic scrubbing of the floor. "What good is that gonna do?"
"There's another fish fucker in The Seven, ain't there?" Butcher explained, a nasty smirk playing on his lips. "He's always talking to his underwater pals. We dump this in the sewer outfall, sooner or later one of his little guppy mates is gonna find it. The message gets back to the fish boy, he tells Vought, and they know we're not fuckin' around."
"But what about Homelander?" Hughie asked, his voice trembling. "Won't he see it?"
"Lead," Butcher said, tapping the side of his head. "We get a box lined with zinc or lead. Blocks his vision. He won't see a damn thing."
———-
I watched them work for a while longer, ensuring the timeline was secure. Butcher was smart. He was turning Vought's own strengths against them.
I switched feeds. The Boys were handling their mess. It was time to see how the other side of the war was faring.
———-
The first sign of trouble for Vought came from a grainy cell phone video that hit the internet like a wildfire in a dry forest.
The footage was shaky and dark. It showed Starlight in a damp alleyway, brutally disabling two men. There was no context, no audio of what led up to it. Just a flash of blinding light, the sound of bones breaking, and two crumpled bodies on the ground.
By morning, the news cycle was dominated by outrage. Vought's carefully crafted narrative of the "girl next door from Iowa" was being dismantled. Pundits were painting her as a violent vigilante. #StarlightTerror was the number one trending topic. The talking heads were on every channel, debating the lack of accountability for Supes, questioning Vought's vetting process, and demanding answers.
I watched the internal Vought communications channels light up with pure panic. Their new star was becoming a PR nightmare overnight.
My surveillance feed from Madelyn Stillwell's office flickered to life. I saw her sitting at her desk, a picture of corporate fury. Ashley was a mess. She was pacing frantically back and forth, a tablet clutched in her hand like a lifeline, her face pale and sweating.
"Her approval rating is in freefall," Ashley stammered, her voice a high pitched squeak of terror. "We're down fifteen points in six hours. The focus groups are a disaster. They're calling her 'unhinged,' 'a menace.' We're getting hammered on social media. It's a bloodbath."
"Get it under control, Ashley," Madelyn said, her voice dangerously calm. "That's what I pay you for."
"We're trying! We've pushed the 'she was stopping a mugging' narrative, but there's no proof! It's her word against two guys in the hospital claiming they were just asking for directions," Ashley wailed. "It's a PR nightmare!"
Just as the panic in the room reached its peak, a new alert flashed on Ashley's tablet. She stopped pacing abruptly, staring at the screen, her eyes widening.
"Wait," she breathed. "Wait a minute."
She tapped the screen and turned the tablet towards Madelyn. It was a live feed from a local news station. A young woman, her arm in a sling and her face bruised, was standing in front of a bank of microphones.
"My name is Heather," she said, her voice shaking. "And Starlight saved my life. Those men weren't asking for directions. They were trying to rape me. And she stopped them. She's a hero."
The story exploded, this time in the opposite direction. The narrative just did a triple backflip with a perfect landing. Starlight was a real hero who had saved an innocent woman from a horrific crime. The authenticity of the victim's testimony was a bolt of lightning that incinerated the old narrative.
By noon, #StarlightSaves was the number one trending topic worldwide. News outlets were running Heather's tearful account on a loop. Starlight, the girl from Iowa, the one they had tried to mold into a vapid sex symbol, had accidentally become the most popular and respected hero in America.
The mood in Madelyn's office shifted from sheer terror to calculating avarice in the blink of an eye.
"The focus groups are off the charts," Ashley said, her voice now filled with a manic excitement. "They love her. They love the authenticity, the 'real hero' saving one of her own. Her approval rating has jumped thirty points in the last hour. She's polling higher than Maeve now."
"I've seen the numbers, Ashley," Madelyn said, her tone dismissive, the crisis already a forgotten memory. "What's the plan?"
"We lean into it," Ashley said. "We pivot her brand. We ditch the 'Shining Light' tagline and go with something more… empowering. 'Starlight: The People's Hero.' We can launch a whole new line of merchandise."
"Fine," Madelyn said. "But first, we need to address the optics. Her current costume… it's too wholesome. Too much fabric. It doesn't fit the 'powerful, take-charge woman' narrative we're now selling."
"I agree," Ashley said eagerly. "It's not… edgy enough."
I watched as they called Starlight into the office. She walked in with a hopeful smile on her face. She thought she was being called in to be congratulated. And she was, in a way.
"Annie, darling," Madelyn began, her voice dripping with condescending sweetness. "We are so, so proud of you. What you did last night was truly heroic. You represent the very best of what Vought stands for."
"Thank you, Ms. Madelyn," Starlight said, her cheeks flushing with pride.
"Your approval ratings are through the roof," Ashley chimed in. "You're a star!"
"And because you're such a star," Madelyn continued, gesturing to a man who had been standing silently in the corner, "we've had our top designer, Rubin, create something for you. Something that reflects your new status as a premier hero."
Rubin stepped forward and unveiled a mannequin. On it was a new costume. If you could call it that. It was essentially a white bikini with a flowing cape. It was a porn star's idea of a superhero outfit.
Starlight's smile vanished. Her face went pale. "What… what is that?"
"It's your new look!" Ashley chirped. "It's bold, it's powerful, it's…"
"It's a bathing suit," Starlight said, her voice flat.
"It's a testament to the strength and beauty of the female form," Rubin the designer interjected, his voice oily. "I wanted to create something that says, 'I am a woman, hear me roar.'"
"I'm not wearing that," Starlight said, her voice shaking with a mixture of anger and disbelief.
Madelyn's warm facade evaporated, replaced by a mask of cold business. "Annie. We've invested a lot of money in you. We've given you a platform, a chance to be one of The Seven. This is part of the job."
"The job?" Starlight shot back, her idealism fighting a losing battle against the cynical reality of the room. "My mother and I, we designed my costume together when I was a little girl! It's supposed to stand for something! For hope! For modesty! I became a hero to save people, not to… not to sell sex."
"You became a hero because we let you," Madelyn said, her voice like ice. "You signed a contract, Annie. A very comprehensive contract. It has clauses covering image, branding, and wardrobe. You gave us the right to control your look. And this is your new look."
"I designed Homelander's suit," Rubin added, as if this were the irrefutable argument. "Do you think he questioned my taste?"
Starlight looked from Madelyn's cold eyes to Ashley's pleading face, to the leering grin of the designer. She was trapped. A cog in a machine that was about to grind her values into dust. The hope in her eyes died, replaced by a look of bitter resignation.
—————
A few days passed. The "Z-Drug Crisis" was in full swing, and Starlight's revealing costume had debuted to a predictable storm of media attention, both positive and negative. Vought spun the negative attention into a narrative about female empowerment. It was nauseatingly effective.
Translucent was still officially "missing."
My camera feed in Madelyn's office captured the moment Homelander finally decided to address it. He simply walked into her office without knocking, arms crossed, his expression one of supreme impatience.
"He's still missing," Homelander said, his voice a low rumble.
Madelyn didn't even look up from her paperwork. "Who's missing, dear?"
"Don't play dumb, Madelyn. Translucent. It's been days. A member of The Seven doesn't just go missing."
"Oh, I'm sure he's fine," she said, her tone dismissive, like a mother placating a worried child. "He's probably hiding in the women's restroom at some department store, getting his kicks. You know how he is. He'll turn up when he gets bored or hungry."
"This is embarrassing," the Homelander growled. "It makes us look weak."
"What's embarrassing is your performance at the Pentagon meeting yesterday," Madelyn said, finally looking up at him, her gaze sharp. "We are on the verge of getting Supes into national defense, John. This is the culmination of sixty years of work. And you need to sell it. The speech you're giving tomorrow at the memorial has to be perfect."
"I know what I'm doing," Homelander said.
"Do you?" she countered. "You need to be humble and relatable. You need to talk about sacrifice and about service. You need to make them feel like you're one of them, just with a little extra firepower."
Homelander stared at her for a long moment. "I'll give them a speech they'll never forget," he said with a wink.