The Young Man Here

On the screen, Hans Zimmer-style sweeping music thundered, a symphony of fate woven from deep French horns and stirring violins.

In the image, a massive nuclear missile streaked across the sky with flames trailing behind it. Beneath it, the red-and-blue figure lifted the weapon of destruction in a resolute pose and charged toward the wormhole tearing open the heavens.

This was the final scene of Homelander: Origins.

There was no excessive dialogue, no Hollywood-style sentimental slow motion.

The camera moved in for a close-up: in the final second before plunging into the darkness of the wormhole, Homelander, played by Azu, looked back at New York below.

There was no fear on that face, no hesitation. Only a trace... of attachment to the mortal world.

At that moment, he was not a god, but a man preparing to die.

"For... home."

Amid the howling wind, he softly spoke the line.

Then, the light swallowed everything.

The white blaze of the nuclear explosion burst across the screen, and the entire IMAX theater seemed to tremble with it.

Then the screen went black.

Silence fell over the three thousand seats of the Dolby Theatre.

No one spoke. No one ate popcorn. Even the sound of breathing seemed to have stopped.

A few seconds later, the screen lit up again.

It showed the soot-stained streets of New York, ruins shrouded in smoke and dust.

A figure descended from the sky, carrying that alien life pod in his hands.

The image froze.

A line of white text slowly appeared, as though carved into obsidian:

"You are the true heroes." —Homelander

Without any warning.

"Whoosh—!!!"

Applause flooded the entire theater like a burst dam.

It was not polite clapping, but a heartfelt roar, even carrying the force of emotional release.

The audience in the front rows stood first, followed by those in the middle, then those in the back.

Thousands stood at once, their thunderous applause enduring without end.

Some screamed, while others wiped tears from the corners of their eyes.

Most of them had personally experienced the Battle of New York.

This was the power of "reality."

This was not a special-effects actor in a motion-capture suit before a green screen. The hero who had saved the world on that screen was sitting among them right now.

The impact of breaking the fourth wall caused the film's emotional power to explode exponentially.

"Ding! Popularity Points gained: +10,450!"

"Ding! Popularity Points gained: +9,110!"

"Ding! Popularity Points gained: +15,330!"

"..."

As Azu listened to the wildly chiming system notifications, the corners of his lips could not stop rising. It gave him tremendous confidence in the upcoming global release and the continuous harvest of Popularity Points it would bring.

That's more like it... he murmured inwardly. Cry, scream, and then... fall in love with me.

He rose to his feet and turned to face the audience.

At that moment, the volume of the applause surged to another level.

Tony Stark stood as well.

The billionaire, who was usually so critical, wore a somewhat complicated expression now.

He looked at the frozen image on the big screen, then at Wu Yanzu basking in glory.

"Okay..." Tony did not immediately switch into mockery mode as usual.

Turning his head, he said quietly to Steve Rogers, "Even though I really hate this guy... I have to admit, the special effects in this movie are fucking good... They look real."

"They are real, Tony." Steve Rogers was clapping, his eyes deeply moved. "That's what really happened that day. He merely... filled in the part we never saw."

"He captured that feeling, Tony," Steve said softly. "The feeling of... knowing you might not come back, yet charging ahead anyway to protect the people behind you. In that moment... he was a hero."

Beside them, Natasha Romanoff had remained silent.

As S.H.I.E.L.D.'s top agent and the Red Room's strongest Black Widow, she never easily believed what she saw.

Before the movie began, she had even come with the attitude of Let's see how this narcissist glamorizes himself.

But now...

She looked at the man onstage, waving to the audience.

There was a scene in the film: Homelander had been imprisoned by the Chaos organization. Through countless inhuman experiments, he curled up in the corner of an icy cell, clutching a crumpled candy wrapper printed with the Stars and Stripes.

It was his only source of spiritual support.

That look... the look of someone stripped of his humanity and treated like an animal, yet still yearning for The Light.

Natasha's heart suddenly clenched.

She had seen that kind of look countless times in the mirrors of the Red Room.

"Maybe..." Natasha sighed, suppressing the inexplicable ache in her chest as she muttered, "Maybe beneath that perfect mask we see... there really is a broken soul hidden away?"

As Natasha looked at Azu's back, a hint of softness appeared in her formerly cold gaze for the first time.

At that moment, Azu's performance, beyond even an award-winning actor's level, successfully cracked open a gap in the female agent's defenses.

The mixed interview area after the screening was a disaster.

Or perhaps it was a carnival.

More than a hundred reporters tried to break through the security line like zombies besieging a city, even if it was only to capture a glimpse of Homelander's back.

"Mr. Homelander! Box office projections say the opening weekend will surpass five hundred million dollars! What do you think?"

"Mr. Starr! Is it true? Were you really locked in a laboratory for an entire year?"

"Queen Jones! Is Homelander your boyfriend? Are you and Homelander really together?"

Azu maintained a perfect smile as he moved through the crowd under the protection of the guards.

He occasionally stopped to answer one or two harmless questions, every movement flawlessly elegant.

Just then.

"Make way! Please make way!"

"Sorry!"

"Oh! My foot... Sorry!"

A small figure wriggled through the burly bodyguards and frenzied reporters like a nimble loach.

He was a boy who looked only eleven or twelve.

He wore a faded plaid shirt, carried a bulging backpack, and had a pair of black-rimmed glasses perched on his nose. He was drenched in sweat, his hair a mess, looking both disheveled and inconspicuous.

But his brown eyes shone startlingly bright.

Tonight, he had spent three months' worth of saved allowance just to get a standing-room ticket in the farthest corner.

But he did not care.

He had watched the entire movie, and his heart was still pounding wildly in his chest, as though it were about to leap out.

That sense of shock... a person with godlike power, yet willing to die for ordinary people, willing to endure pain to protect the weak...

With great power comes great responsibility...

The boy silently recited the line in his heart.

Like a bolt of lightning, those words split apart his ordinary, even somewhat timid, teenage world.