Prosperity

The conversation with Edgar had only been a brief interlude.

Stormfront had only just joined The Seven, but her presence was growing stronger.

She was a very capable woman. After all, she had lived long enough to see every trick in the book, and she had more experience handling things than most people.

At a meeting on Saturday, Stormfront brought out a projector.

All the Supes present were from Seven Tower.

The Deep sat in his chair, giving off his distinctive fishy stench. A-Train moved his chair a little farther away.

Homelander covered his nose and frowned, thinking of an excuse to kick The Deep out of The Seven, while Starlight and Ryan whispered to each other.

Starlight looked utterly numb. "Ryan, do you know about Compound V?"

"A little."

"Oh my God. I only found out that compound existed because I saw Stormfront calling for more Supes these past few days."

"How's the battle on Reach going?"

"What?"

Starlight looked at Ryan in confusion. Sometimes he said things she simply couldn't understand, but right now, she didn't care about that.

What she cared about was this: "I'm actually a product of science. I went home and asked my mother, and she said I was given Compound V when I was little."

"Without it, you wouldn't be sitting here."

"But all this time, I thought God had sent me to fulfill a mission, that I would spend my whole life helping people."

"Didn't you say everyone was ignorant when you were onstage before?"

"Looking back, I was a complete clown."

Beside the conference table, Starlight looked as though the light had gone out of her eyes.

Ryan hadn't seen her over the past few days, so he didn't know how long she had been like this.

All he could do