Starlight's First Day in The Seven

Ryan flew ahead and landed at the Seven Tower.

Flying was a wonderful ability. He could cross mountains and plains and go wherever he pleased.

He entered the conference room through a window high up the tower.

Someone was already seated at the table.

A woman in leather armor sat beside the head of the table. Ryan had met her yesterday.

If he remembered right, she was Maeve, Homelander's model girlfriend and a woman with a body of steel.

Maeve looked at Ryan.

"The Deep can't make it. Do you know why?"

"I have no idea."

Ryan glanced at the other seats. A-Train shook his head, as though to say he hadn't told her anything.

Maeve, however, looked as if she already knew everything. She spoke with weary earnestness.

"Madelyn told me that if anyone in The Seven got hurt, I should ask you. It seems you don't just fight your teammates. You hit them hard."

"He started it."

"It doesn't matter who started it. Fighting is wrong."

"So I was supposed to stand there and let him hit me?"

"You could have called for a superhero."

"..."

There was nothing more to say. Ryan sat down beside Maeve.

Counting on a hero to help was nowhere near as quick as handling things himself.

Besides, he was a superhero himself now.

Still, he didn't want to solve everything with his fists.

There in the conference room, Ryan began telling his story.

"I was born in a prison only birds could fly out of. I wanted to escape, but where were the superheroes then?"

"Right here."

Maeve pointed at herself, then listened as Ryan continued.

"You couldn't help anyone from here. I kept praying a hero would come save me, but I waited and waited, and no hero ever came."

"..."

Maeve fell silent. She hadn't expected Ryan to have such a past—or for him to start making up a story on the spot.

She admitted she hadn't thought it through. She hadn't meant to say those things.

Speaking frankly, Maeve shared some of her own story. When she first met Homelander, she had thought he was the superhero everyone dreamed of.

Noble, great, worthy of admiration.

But as time went on, his cruelty and whims made every moment at his side feel like walking on thin ice.

Now she had met Ryan, who was so much like Homelander.

She couldn't help saying something. Ryan was still young, and Maeve didn't want to see him become a second Homelander.

After hearing her out, Ryan understood her concern.

"That won't happen. You don't have to worry. Homelander is Homelander, and I'm me."

That assurance eased much of Maeve's worry.

She apologized for overthinking it, then admitted that she couldn't stand the dead-fish stink The Deep carried around. With him out of the conference room,

the air was much fresher.

But Maeve couldn't hear the words Ryan left unsaid beneath his gentle expression.

I might be even more of a Homelander than Homelander.

Maeve and Ryan chatted for a while before A-Train brought up how many people would be at today's meeting.

There were only three of them.

No one knew where Translucent had gone. Homelander was out giving an interview, Starlight was on her way, and The Deep was still in a cast.

There might not be many people, but the meeting still had to go on. Ryan looked at Maeve beside him. The heroine he had met only a few times had a stack of documents in front of her.

Clearly, she had plenty to discuss.

She was the first to speak. She picked up the script on the table and was about to read it when the conference-room doors were pushed open.

The newcomer strode in with confident steps, golden hair and blue eyes.

He wore the stars and stripes and spread his arms as if everyone ought to welcome him.

"Now, this is air I can breathe."

The conference room fell quiet. Everyone knew the man's name.

Homelander.

Maeve froze. Only then did she realize Ryan was sitting beside her, in the seat that belonged to Homelander.

She immediately stepped in front of Ryan and urged him to move.

But Maeve didn't understand. Ryan had X-Ray Vision. He had seen Homelander long before he entered the room.

Ryan knew his own body well. He had inherited his abilities from the man before him.

Powerful. Unmatched.

Homelander had the same X-Ray Vision, so he must have spotted Ryan before entering too.

In the silence, cold sweat beaded on Maeve's forehead. She had spent plenty of time with Homelander.

She knew him well enough to understand that even his broad, hearty laugh didn't mean he was in a good mood.

It was just as likely that, in the next second, he would fire lasers from his eyes and burn every living thing in sight. Even in an ordinary conversation, there was no telling when something she said might inadvertently

set him off.

Maeve had always thought of Homelander as an unstable compound that could explode at any moment.

That was why she was so careful around him. But careful or not, she didn't want to see him kill Ryan.

Standing between them now, Maeve faced Homelander's expressionless stare and felt the pressure mounting.

The only sound in the room came from A-Train.

Wearing his goggles, A-Train picked up the papers he had placed on the conference table.

Maeve noticed and wondered why he was clearing them away.

The next second,

someone kicked the conference table into the air. The papers she had left on it scattered like white snow.

Maeve had no attention to spare for the fluttering pages. She watched the table hurtle toward Homelander.

The table was broad and heavy. When it had pinned The Deep, he hadn't been able to free himself.

Homelander was different. He merely raised his head, and red beams from his eyes pierced the table.

They burned a large, glowing hole through its center, but the table kept flying.

Homelander walked safely through the hole. Behind him, the table slammed into the wall with a thunderous crash.

His footsteps remained unhurried.

"I'm so hurt. Attacking a superhero? Do you know what that means, you piece of trash?"

"It means a superhero is about to fall."

Ryan pushed Maeve out of his way.

"You're in the way."

He walked toward Homelander, his steps just as calm.

"Homelander, when a villain falls, a hero rises. I've been here a while, and all I've heard is how afraid everyone is of you. You're the villain."

Then Ryan pointed at himself.

"And right now, I'm going to free them from your tyranny."

"..."

Homelander didn't argue. His whole body trembled, then his mouth opened wide.

His grin said nothing in the world could restrain him.

"I'll kill you."

As the words left his mouth, another red laser shot from his eyes.

The searing beam struck Ryan. Homelander let out a startled cry. The charred human silhouette he had expected never appeared.

Instead, he saw a boy whose face resembled his own. Ryan held the laser in one hand.

The skin on his hand was slowly melting, but the damage spread at an agonizingly slow pace.

The boy muttered to himself.

"I use this thing to warm myself up sometimes."

"What?"

Before Homelander could react, an equally brilliant red laser burst from the boy's eyes.

The beam struck his chest, melting the skin there into red liquid.

Homelander touched his chest. The heat, the pain—it all felt strange to him.

And yet it was exhilarating.

Ryan frowned at the man before him.

A normal person would have been pierced through by that laser, but Homelander was barely hurt. Worse, despite the pain of being burned,

he didn't look distressed. He looked as though he was having the time of his life.

Homelander rolled his neck and charged at Ryan through the beam.

With his heavy footfalls and powerful build, he was like a human tank rolling across the ground.

He was fast enough to reach Ryan in a blink. Ryan immediately stopped using Laser Eyes; it took too long to work.

A beating would be more direct.

Rather than retreat, he charged to meet Homelander. Both threw punches.

Ryan took flight halfway there to accelerate and drove a fist into Homelander's eye.

As for the punch coming at him, he didn't even try to dodge. He took it square in the face.

The blow brought blood, pain, and a moment of dizziness.

Ryan ignored everything that might get in the way of a fight. He kept swinging, hammering Homelander's tightly shut right eye.

Homelander was tough—far tougher than Translucent. Even with his superpowered body, Ryan felt, each time his fist struck,

as though he were pounding a slab of alloy.

Homelander felt much the same. He wondered where this monster of a boy had been made.

His punches weren't drawing any red liquid from Ryan.

That wasn't enough.

Ryan was thinking the same thing. He wanted to beat Homelander to the ground.

Cracks spread across the conference-room floor as they fought. It looked as though the whole story might collapse.

A-Train didn't dare speak. Maeve tried to persuade them to get along, but neither listened to her.

Ryan stepped back, separating himself from Homelander.

Then he flew up, smashed through the conference-room window, and shot into the air.

Beyond the window lay blue sky and white clouds.

The morning breeze brushed Ryan's cheek. He touched it and felt a faint ache.

He hadn't felt pain since crossing over. It was almost unfamiliar now.

But using the superpowers he had kept in reserve until this moment set his heart racing.

He could feel the adrenaline surging through him. It felt incredible.

He stretched out a hand toward Homelander.

"It's too cramped in there. Come settle this with me beneath the open sky. Winner lives."

Homelander gave no answer. He flew into the sky too.

Elsewhere in the Seven Tower, Madelyn turned on her work computer as usual.

Another peaceful day.

With that thought, she rose from her desk and opened the curtains.

The sky filled her view. Clouds drifted across the blue.

Charred birds kept falling from above. Madelyn rubbed her eyes and spotted two people flying in the distance.

They collided violently, lasers spraying from their eyes without hitting each other.

Instead, the beams struck birds or buildings that rose too high.

Madelyn looked down through the window. Even from up here, where people were as small as ants, she could see them fleeing.

They ran as if a natural disaster had struck.