An Invitation

"Something happened?"

Vought International did, of course, have a plan to "cultivate supervillains."

Otherwise, repairing the damage caused when superheroes stopped crimes cost far more than deploying the police.

So why, in some cases, did they choose superhero rescues that were less efficient and caused greater losses?

Because there was a fortune to be made behind it all!

Television deals, merchandise sales, online buzz, even public funds for repairing the damage.

As the sole giant of the superhero industry, Vought International reaped an enormous share of the benefits.

As long as it stimulated the national economy and made money across every industry it touched,

most people in a position to know better chose to look the other way.

The safety of the American public?

It was enough for most people to feel safe.

Those who actually suffered could be compensated. What more did they want?

And if anyone threatened the heroes' approval ratings, Vought International had heroes willing to do the dirty work.

That was why New York City and the East Coast were firmly under Vought International's control.

But recent events had sent Homelander's approval rating into a steady decline.

With three newcomers in The Seven, the team's overall approval rating was low too.

Apart from the silent Black Noir and Translucent, whose ratings had held steady, not one of the other heroes had seen any improvement.

As for A-Train, his departure from The Seven was already a foregone conclusion, and his approval rating had fallen off a cliff.

Even his most loyal Black fans had abandoned him within days.

That meant he had no chance of clinging to his place in The Seven.

And now he had landed himself in serious trouble.

"I gave all the Compound V to a gang. They were going to inject it into a woman."

"But when I went to check after I got out of the hospital, the gang members were dead, and the lock on the woman's cell had been forced open."

A-Train sounded panicked, but he pulled his thoughts together as quickly as he could.

"Where did you get the Compound V?"

Madelyne was irritated too. For days, all she had received was bad news.

A feeling she had not experienced in a long time had returned—a powerful sense of foreboding.

After decades in business, Madelyne could tell something was wrong. But she could not make a judgment on instinct alone.

"From my girlfriend... The Female..."

A-Train hesitated, then admitted that he and The Female were in a relationship.

Compared with the possibility of Compound V being exposed, that was hardly worth hiding.

"Find out whether this leads back to her. If it does..."

Homelander did not finish, but A-Train could see what he was supposed to do in his eyes.

"If you really keep this quiet, I can cut your contract termination fee by thirty percent."

Madelyne had made her offer.

"But she's my girlfriend. We've known each other since we were teenagers. It's been almost twenty years..."

A-Train still hesitated.

He was confident he could get the truth out of his girlfriend. After all their years of intimacy, he knew her inside and out.

But to silence her for good, as Homelander wanted?

A-Train thought that was going too far.

"Fifty percent." Madelyne did not waste her breath. She simply named a new figure.

"I'll get to the bottom of it. Don't worry!"

A-Train shot out of the office with a sound like a train whistle.

"Wasn't that a strange sound he made when he took off?"

Madelyne was arranging for A-Train's documentary crew to be reassigned to Shockwave. She kept her head down and did not look at Homelander beside her.

"Maybe. Why?"

"Hmm... Maybe it's nothing."

Homelander thought it over for a moment, then turned his attention back to Rorschach.

Bringing him into The Seven would do more good than harm.

And if he was not as physically powerful as the rest of them, he could still carry out assassinations in secret.

With money and fame on offer, Homelander saw no reason for him to refuse.

"So this is where you chose to bring me for our first date?"

Starlight had been feeling down. She wanted to patrol more often, but Vought International had flatly refused.

She could spend an entire day doing nothing, but until the Criminal Investigations Division sent word, she was not allowed to patrol or stop any criminals.

These days, plenty of people staged incidents involving superheroes to claim hefty compensation from Vought International.

The Criminal Investigations Division was responsible for gathering evidence and confirming that a suspect had actually committed a crime.

Only then would a superhero head out with a camera crew, making sure every act of heroism brought in as much publicity as possible.

That was both the constraint of being in The Seven and one of its conveniences.

They could arrange their time as they pleased. If they wanted to uphold justice, they could wait for a call from the Criminal Investigations Division.

And if they were busy with something else, like filming a variety show or attending to personal matters, another hero could handle it.

"What's wrong with this place?" Rorschach looked around. It was private, with only him and Starlight there.

Aside from being a little too open and having a monotonous view, there did not seem to be anything wrong with it.

"All right..." Starlight lowered her head with a smile, then looked up at Rorschach. "What did you want to tell me?"

Starlight was no fool. He had asked her here because he wanted to discuss something private, away from anyone who might overhear.

"I've learned some things about Vought International that they don't want anyone to know. It's serious, so I'm getting ready to make some noise."

What Rorschach said next was no confession of love, but it stunned her even more.

"If you come with me, the road ahead could be hard."

"Of course, you can keep being Starlight. Given the image they've built for you, you'll soon be able to hold your own in The Seven."

"So what do you say?"

Rorschach looked up at Starlight.

Starlight's mind had gone blank, yet a story from the Bible surfaced in it.

Adam and Eve had lived without a care in the Garden of Eden, their days full and happy.

There were only two trees whose fruit they could not eat: the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life.

Then one day, tempted by the serpent, Eve ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Adam did the same.

Once they knew good and evil, God drove them from the Garden of Eden and stationed an angel at its gate with a sword that burned forever, never to let humanity enter again.

As a child, Starlight had cursed the serpent more than once over that story.

Whenever she encountered a venomous snake, she would use her powers to blind it, then crush it underfoot.

But now, looking at Rorschach, she found herself thinking of that serpent, hissing among the leafy branches with its tongue flicking out.

Now Starlight understood. Keeping them ignorant in the Garden of Eden had not been God's mercy. It had been His way of controlling them.

Only when humans learned good from evil and understood the differences between things had they truly come alive.

"I'll go with you, even if it leads to hell."