Soldier Boy

Lower Manhattan, Vought Corporation's temporary command center.

Starlight sat alone in an empty conference room, three screens in front of her.

She stared at the blurry figure on the middle screen, fingers tapping at the keyboard.

The surveillance footage ran backward, from the ruins to the alley, then farther back. She examined every frame.

Nothing.

The man seemed to have appeared out of thin air and vanished the same way. All he had left behind was that one sentence: only living heroes could change anything.

Starlight rubbed her eyes and switched to the energy monitoring system. A string of data appeared. Seventeen anomalous energy fluctuations had been detected in Lower Manhattan over the past six hours. Sixteen had been confirmed as Homelander's doing.

That left one.

The coordinates pointed to an abandoned industrial street in eastern Brooklyn. The time was 3:27 a.m., half an hour after she had been rescued.

Energy type unknown. Intensity far above standard Compound V levels.

She stood and grabbed her coat.

"Where are you going?"

Queen Maeve came through the door.

"Following a lead."

"What lead?"

"The person who saved me."

Queen Maeve frowned.

"We don't know who he is or what he can do. Homelander's still out there causing destruction. You should stay here."

"And wait for what? The military to send more fighter jets to their deaths?"

Starlight turned toward her.

"He took Homelander down in three seconds. Three. If he's willing to help, we have a chance to stop this disaster."

"And if he isn't?"

Starlight fell silent.

Queen Maeve came closer and lowered her voice.

"I understand you want to do something. But you can't pin your hopes on a stranger. We don't know what he wants, or whether he might be even more dangerous than Homelander."

"I know he won't