Surgery

"For me, this was a breakthrough, a chance to prove myself—and an opportunity I finally seized."

Shockwave beamed. Even through his goggles, everyone could see the joy in his eyes.

"Do you have anything to say to your opponent, A-Train, who was the clear favorite before the race?"

"Well... I know athletes can't avoid losing some of their physical edge with time. But I respect him. He held on until the very end."

Shockwave wanted to talk trash and take the arrogant bastard down a peg.

But he was the newcomer. This was the time to show humility, toward both his senior and the sport.

"Can you tell us anything about the sneakers Nike is designing and releasing for you?"

"Well... First off, they'll definitely be red, like my suit..."

Rorschach hadn't stayed. As mentioned earlier, there was still the matter of The Female.

Besides, it would take time for A-Train to see this interview. He was probably still being treated, so he couldn't provide Rorschach with any more Defense-Break Points just yet.

The Female was another story. An unsuspecting landlord had played cops and robbers with her, only to find he couldn't withstand the force of her thighs.

By the time Butcher reached the truck's cargo compartment, the landlord had already undergone a minor operation: an amputation above the neck.

The Female stared at the corpse on the floor, at a loss.

Compound V had sent her soaring and left her mind hazy.

And after A-Train dumped her in public, she'd been miserable enough to seek relief in a quick lay.

What she had never expected was for those two things together to leave her landlord dead in her bedroom.

"Who are you?"

Sensing someone approach, she thrust her bone spurs through her skin, forming a pair of claws.

"Easy, ma'am." Butcher stood in front, with Frenchie behind him. "We're here to help you deal with this."

"Tell us about Compound V, and we can make it like this never happened."

"You're back?" Rorschach sipped his coffee, still considering what to buy from the shop.

This system was worse than the big gaming companies. Most useful abilities either came with layer upon layer of restrictions or had outrageous side effects.

Take the lighter that never went out and could ignite anything.

It was actually a miniature nuclear bomb, with more than enough yield to destroy any borough in New York City.

And it cost a mere three hundred points.

But every time Rorschach lit it, there was a slight chance he'd leave the waters around New York contaminated like those around Japan.

Rorschach had no faith in his luck—not after his one draw had landed him a stun baton.

Sure, it was a high-end model. But it was still something he could buy with money, making that draw a shameful waste.

Until the lottery system offered some kind of guaranteed reward, Rorschach wasn't touching it again.

Thinking ahead to a plane crash, however, Rorschach found something that caught his eye.

That landlord? He hadn't been innocent. He knew the woman was The Female, and she had clearly seemed out of it.

But his little head had overruled his big one. Everyone had to answer for their own choices.

Boarding a plane, though? That should never have been a fatal choice.

At the very least, the passengers shouldn't die because of someone else's incompetence.

"She told us plenty. At least we can narrow down the target."

Butcher looked pleased. Ever since the man named Rorschach had come to him, his campaign against metahumans had gone smoothly.

The Deep had been reassigned, A-Train had collapsed on the track, and Starlight seemed to get along famously with Rorschach...

With so much upheaval in The Seven, Vought International wouldn't have the resources to deal with them.

Butcher had to consider whether this was his one chance in a lifetime.

After all, if he wanted to bring down Vought International and Homelander, what they'd done so far barely counted as saying hello.

But Vought International clearly hadn't realized that yet.

That was fine. Rorschach would make sure they got a surprise when the time came.

Then again, Rorschach would have preferred A-Train to remain the fastest man alive.

He had traded him for Shockwave, whose capabilities were a complete unknown, just to gain more Defense-Break Points for now.

It was a gamble of sorts.

But Rorschach didn't particularly care. How much better than A-Train could Shockwave be?

He was younger, steadier under pressure, and hungrier. That also meant he was more likely to take risks.

And if he could get the two newcomers to band together, factions and divisions within The Seven would give Rorschach more room to maneuver.

Of course, Rorschach was the one setting the problems. Vought International had to solve them.

Their contest would extend beyond New York City, perhaps even across the entire United States.

The Boys, however, had no sense of that at all. Right now, they were having a small celebration.

"Tomorrow, we go there. Bring your gear, and follow orders."

At that moment, all three of Butcher's team felt the pressure on their backs.

Butcher lived up to his name. He treated them as weapons, hurling them at the enemy in a frenzy.

He cared neither for them nor for himself. All he wanted was to hurt the other side.

In Rorschach's hands, though, they became tools of different sizes, each used to perform a surgical debridement.

Precision was the difference between butchery and surgery.

And Rorschach was like the world's most precise instrument, leaving them little to do.

It seemed he'd contacted Butcher simply because this was their line of work and they were convenient.

Otherwise, a few expensive mercenaries could have done the job just as well.

He had chosen the three of them only for the sake of secrecy.

"Oh, and you'd better take what I said seriously." Before leaving, Rorschach stressed it once more. "I don't want to see you on the news."

Good tools like them are hard to find. There won't be many replacements.

He added that last thought silently.

"He's weird. One moment I was standing there, and the next I was inside A-Train's closet. Damn it, I nearly got caught."

Frenchie had had the most nerve-racking day of them all. After all, in their eyes, these metahumans deserved to die.

Good or bad, the very existence of superpowers had made society less stable.

Vought International kept bringing more heroes into the world because it was hungry for profits that rose year after year.

Yes, crime rates had fallen, but the cost of fighting crime kept climbing.

Vought International was even on its way to monopolizing the whole business!

Now that A-Train's race was over, Vought International had finally begun pushing its bill to join the national defense system.

Superheroes would then be plugged directly into the government's response network, arriving faster and handling incidents more efficiently.

That was the theory, anyway.

Rorschach intended to stop a small conspiracy and burst Vought International's bubble.