Herogasm

The hotel where The Boys were temporarily staying.

Leon's room.

After a full day and night, Maeve, who had come looking for him, was utterly exhausted. Wearing a black-and-white maid outfit, she flopped onto the bed and lay there without moving.

Nearby.

Leon stood by the window, already changed into the Soldier Boy Suit. As he wiped down his shield, he spoke to Arcee, who was enjoying herself racing outside, through a Bluetooth earpiece.

"Is it very different from our world?"

"About ninety percent similar. Aside from many different place names, the layout is almost identical. Stark Tower is where Vought Tower stands."

"Honestly, if you hadn't told me this was another world, I'd have thought it was a parallel version of our original world."

"Is that so..."

Leon narrowed his eyes in thought.

Just then.

Knock, knock, knock!

There was a knock on Leon's door.

Butcher's voice came from outside. Ever since the last time he had walked in and been left with an unforgettable psychological scar, Butcher had learned his lesson and only called out from outside:

"Oi, mate, time to send the Twins on their way."

"Let's go."

Leon wanted to see whether Payback really was full of trash.

This time.

Because there were so many innocent people involved at the venue, nearly all of The Boys headed out.

Among them.

Frenchie, who had long yearned for Herogasm, was the most eager.

Outside a vast manor estate.

"Oh, fuck."

"It really is an unfit-for-human-eyes mess of a party. That damned Herogasm is actually still being held."

Hidden in the grass, Butcher watched the uncensored, stimulating scenes inside the manor hundreds of meters away through binoculars, unable to stop himself from commenting.

After watching for a while.

Butcher handed the binoculars to Leon beside him, but Leon raised a hand to refuse them.

"There's no need."

"I don't need that thing. A few hundred meters might as well be happening right in front of my eyes."

"Oh?"

"You can do that too?"

Butcher raised an eyebrow, his outstretched binoculars frozen in midair.

Leon was currently adjusting his focus by controlling the contraction of his pupils and the thickness of his lenses, achieving vision equal to—or even stronger than—the binoculars in Butcher's hand.

The more Leon explored Super Self-Regeneration, the more he discovered that its potential far exceeded his imagination.

The literal meaning of "self-regeneration" was merely its most basic application. It was truly marvelous~

"If he doesn't want them, I do!"

Frenchie eagerly snatched the binoculars from Butcher's hand and began watching with great interest, clicking his tongue nonstop as if he wished he could join in himself.

Nearby.

Hughie wanted to look too, but Starlight stood beside him watching him, making him too embarrassed to openly take a peek.

At that moment.

As though delivering a cutscene line, Leon suddenly felt inspired to recite Soldier Boy's dialogue.

"Come to think of it, I founded Herogasm back then. The first one was held in 1952, started by Liberty and me."

"She really was one hot little firecracker. If I hadn't already been with Crimson Countess at the time, she and I might have a child by now."

"They'd probably be in their thirties or forties, haha."

Hearing that.

Butcher, Hughie, Starlight, and the others exchanged looks. Wasn't Liberty Stormfront, whom they had been dealing with all along?

After being severely injured and crippled by a blast of Heat Vision from Homelander's son Ryan, they had heard that she had killed herself on Homelander's birthday not long ago.

After understanding what he meant.

The members of The Boys tacitly avoided mentioning anything about Stormfront, lest they trigger Soldier Boy's mental state again.

"Fuck~"

Leon suddenly cursed with a laugh. "Even though I founded it, they've clearly surpassed their predecessor—"

"They're playing way too wild."

"Some of those scenes are so disgusting that even I feel like throwing up."

"Shit!"

"What the hell is that thing? Not a real man at all!"

"Heretic. It must be eliminated!"

"Ah?"

"W-wait!"

Swoosh—

As soon as Leon finished speaking, Hughie and the others had only just reacted and tried to stop him when Leon fired a pinpoint blast of Heat Vision from one eye, cleanly severing Love Sausage's superpower from hundreds of meters away.

"Holy shit!"

"My little baby~ How could you break off? How am I supposed to live without you?!"

By the manor's outdoor swimming pool, Love Sausage himself collapsed to the ground in agony.

After separating from its owner's control, his superpower did not immediately vanish. Instead, driven by instinct, it slithered toward the nearest place.

As long as it could...

As long as it could reach that place...

"Oh my God, you actually shot it off!"

"Didn't you say you wouldn't hurt people for no reason anymore?"

"And... shit!"

Snatching the binoculars from Frenchie's hand, Hughie saw Love Sausage's severed superpower even turning the tables on its owner. Before he could say much more, he hurriedly tossed the binoculars back to the bitter-looking Frenchie beside him.

"If you want to watch, go ahead. I can't appreciate this!"

After calming the churning in his stomach, Hughie looked at Leon worriedly.

"There are a lot of people inside..."

"As long as they don't get in my way, they'll be fine."

"Then what about just now..."

"He disgusted me. It wasn't like I wanted to do it."

Leon's expression was entirely serious, without the slightest hint of pretense. He continued:

"How about this? I'll give you three minutes to evacuate anyone you think is a good person. Everyone left behind after that, I'll treat as heretics and eliminate."

"What kind of people are those? How dare they disgust me, the founder of Herogasm?"

Hearing that.

Butcher, Hughie, and the others exchanged looks.

Then.

He decisively handed each powerless member of the team a vial of Temporary Compound V.

Hughie and Frenchie did not refuse, but Mother's Milk stubbornly held to his principles.

"Hughie, didn't you promise me you wouldn't inject that harmful crap again?"

Starlight questioned Hughie and tried to snatch the Temporary Compound V from his hand, but Hughie reacted faster and injected it first. In the end, she only managed to grab an empty syringe.

"Annie, this isn't the time to argue about this. I have to regain my powers."

As Hughie felt his superhuman strength return, he explained earnestly, "To evacuate those innocent ordinary people and Superhumans as quickly as possible, I need my teleportation power."

"Fuck!"

"Just this once. No next time!"

Hughie had already injected it, so no matter how unwilling Starlight was to accept it, she had no choice but to do so. Besides, Hughie did have a point.

Time waited for no one.

Given how seriously Soldier Boy took agreements, if he said three minutes, then it would be exactly three minutes—not one second more or less.