"Wait!"
"Could that wimp wearing a cape be the Homelander you guys mentioned?"
On the street.
Leon pointed at a huge poster of Homelander, turned his head, and asked Butcher and the others.
"That's right."
Butcher swaggered up to Leon with a wicked smile and said, "After Vought International declared you dead, he became the new you."
"Heh~"
Leon acted as if he had just heard some absurd joke, pointed at Butcher's hooked nose, and corrected him, "Watch your words, pal."
"I am the embodiment of Vought. No one can replace me, no one!"
With that,
Leon casually picked a direction and walked away with decisive strides.
Upon seeing this, Butcher and the others exchanged glances with smiles on their faces. Regardless of where Leon actually wanted to go, following him was the right move anyway.
The more Soldier Boy resented Homelander, the more favorable the situation became for them.
Just doxxing Leon had left the entire Boys roster severely battered, which made Butcher and the others much more cautious in their attitude toward Leon.
Fortunately, though,
it seemed that as long as they didn't actively provoke Leon and reasoned with him in a friendly manner, things were still negotiable.
Wasn't that a given?
Leon figured he wasn't a lunatic. Even Soldier Boy himself was considered the only bastard in the entire show who stuck to a code of contracts from beginning to end.
This discovery left Butcher ecstatic.
At least when it came to dealing with Homelander, he already had a ninety percent chance of success.
Because the intersection between the Boys and Leon happened much faster than in the original plot.
Therefore, the effects of Hughie's Temporary Compound V hadn't worn off yet, and ordinary hospitals couldn't properly handle his injuries. Butcher had no choice but to rent a large suite at a motel for the heavily wounded Hughie, and Leon's room was right next door.
In Hughie's room.
The members of the Boys were like an injured pack of wolves, trembling as they licked each other's wounds under the deterrence of Leon the lion.
"Ouch!"
"Frenchie, did you relapse and shoot up again?"
Mother's Milk let out a painful groan, casting an extremely aggrieved look at Frenchie, whose hands were shaking like he had Parkinson's while he used a pair of tweezers to dig out a bullet fragment for him.
"I did, but just a tiny bit."
"You know that stuff has anesthetic properties, I'm not just shooting up randomly."
Frenchie made a finger-galaxy gesture toward Mother's Milk, smiled a bit sheepishly, and then shoved the tweezers in deeper with a sudden fierce push.
"Fuck!"
Mother's Milk cursed bitterly, his brown lips pale and weak. When he saw Frenchie pull out the bullet fragment along with a large chunk of flesh, his eyes rolled back instantly and he passed out cold.
It was from the pain, and also from anger.
Butcher sat alone by the window with his upper body bare, keeping watch outside the motel while applying ointment to the burn wound that ran all the way from his left shoulder across to his right lower abdomen, then wrapping it securely with white bandages.
Hughie lay on the sole double bed in the room like a corpse in a hospital gown. Judging by his gradually stabilizing breathing, he wasn't going to die anytime soon at least.
That was because among the superpowers Hughie gained from injecting Temporary Compound V, aside from standard strength and endurance enhancements as well as personal teleportation and transit, he also possessed a certain degree of self-healing ability.
As for Leon, he leaned against the doorway with keen interest, toying with his Infinite-Ammo Desert Eagle while questioning the members of the Boys:
"Have you rabble really been locking horns with that Homelander fellow for quite a while now?"
"I think I need to reconsider whether I should cooperate with you lot."
"Trust me, pal."
Dressed again, Butcher walked up to Leon and said with absolute confidence, "No one understands those bastards better than we do, and no one is more daring when it comes to taking them on."
"You were captured by the former Fed-set because you were collectively betrayed by the other members of the Seven's Payback."
"Swatto was blown to bits by a missile around the time you were captured, and I wasted Gunpowder not long ago—don't thank me—but the other five members are still alive."
"Crimson Countess, the T.N.T. Twins, Mindstorm, Black Noir... I'll dig them out for you one by one and let you finish them off with your own hands."
"That's my sincerity."
"And our only request is just to add one more name to your revenge list," Butcher bargained with Leon.
"Homelander?"
"That's right."
"Why him?"
"Because you're not the only one looking for payback."
Hearing this,
Leon raised an eyebrow, pointed a wagging index finger at Butcher, and said, "Listen, pal, even though I can find them myself, you'd better not make me wait too long. My patience is limited."
"Pleasure doing business."
Butcher extended his hand toward Leon with a wicked grin.
"It's not over yet."
Leon toyed with the Desert Eagle in his hand and didn't reach out to shake it.
"What?"
Confusion flickered across Butcher's eyes.
"You've got to understand, I lay in that damned laboratory for decades, a whole few decades without touching a woman!"
Leon's tone was as indignant as if it were the most serious matter in the world.
"You mean..."
Butcher had already guessed what Leon was going to say next.
"I need a woman to help me remember what it feels like to be a man."
As he spoke,
Leon gave Butcher a wink with that mutual understanding exclusive to men, his lower body restlessly paying a slow-motion tribute to the Asian Dance King.
At this sight,
Butcher's eye twitch, but he completely understood Leon's current feelings. After all, everyone was a man, and men understood men best.
Take any man with a normally functioning libido who had tasted those pleasures and force him into celibacy for decades; of course he'd want some action after breaking out.
If anything,
for Leon, whose strength was formidable enough that he could practically do whatever he wanted, to still be able to calmly negotiate with him now was already restraint enough.
"What are your requirements?"
"Beautiful, powerful, healthy, older."
"Is that so..."
"I understand. Leave it to me."
After a brief moment of contemplation, Butcher readily agreed.
Leon's requirements immediately caused him to cross ordinary women off the pimping list.
Judging by the previous battle between The Female and her old landlord, probably only superhumans with extraordinary endurance and an inclination toward Body Enhancement could meet Leon's requirements.
How could Butcher know that Leon now possessed a Biological Field, meaning he could handle ordinary humans and superhumans alike.
Otherwise, Helen Cho and the others would have long been crushed flat by Leon's nearly half-ton weight.
"Hmm..."
Muttering in deep thought, Butcher suddenly spotted the crux of the matter: it seemed that among the Boys' extended roster, there was someone who fit Leon's criteria.
Only, she was already taken.
Should he play matchmaker for this or not?
Butcher began to agonize over it...
After all,
that was a buddy's girl.
He'd just have to make Soldier Boy take out a few more troublesome superhumans to make up for it!
Before you continue