His First Flight

Lucian silently pushed open the ventilation window on the side of the gym.

He vaulted out and slid down a pipe along the outer wall. In the fire alley behind the boys' dormitory, several hoodies someone had hung out to dry swayed in the wind.

Lucian pulled down the two largest ones and grabbed a pair of sweatpants.

When he returned to the stands, Luke was still sprawled out in the same position. Lucian put a hoodie on him and zipped it all the way up, hiding most of his face.

He bent over, pressed his shoulder against Luke's stomach, and heaved the 190-pound man onto his shoulder with a push from his waist. He avoided the two security cameras along the main road.

He skirted the beams of the patrolling guards' flashlights.

Lucian dumped Luke in a corner of Combined Training Room 3.

The place saw heavy use during the day. Whoever came to train first tomorrow morning would naturally discover their sleeping "Golden Boy."

As for how Luke would explain why he had been sleeping here naked once he woke up? That was his own problem.

After settling Golden Boy in, Lucian climbed over the school's back wall and entered a construction site where work had stopped. Tall sheet-metal barriers surrounded it, and several yellow tower cranes stood beneath the night sky. No surveillance cameras, no passersby.

Thermonuclear Flight. The words rolled through his mind.

Lucian closed his eyes and focused on the center of his chest.

A high-temperature core ran continuously there.

He issued a mental command.

Energy flowed out of the core, rushing down along the grain of his thigh muscles toward his feet.

The rubber soles of his shoes gave out first. The smell of burning spread.

Two jets of orange-red flame erupted from the soles of his feet.

A powerful reactive force arose instantly.

Lucian's body shot upward.

Half a meter.

One meter.

The instant he lost the pull of gravity, his balance broke.

The output from his left foot was slightly stronger, and his body immediately tilted to the right.

Lucian hastily lowered the energy to his left foot while instinctively pressing both hands downward, trying to find support.

Two pillars of fire shot uncontrollably from his palms.

The four forces converged. Lucian tumbled twice in midair and slammed into a pile of rubble.

Dust billowed everywhere.

Lucian climbed up, brushed the dirt off himself, and steadied his stance again.

This time, he distributed the energy more evenly.

His feet provided the main lift, while his hands adjusted his posture and direction. Flames erupted again. The ground scorched black, and gravel scattered in every direction. Lucian hovered steadily three meters above the ground.

His knees were slightly bent, his hands extended level. Waves of heat rolled, making his trouser legs flap.

He increased the output. The pillars of fire beneath his feet instantly grew thicker and brighter.

Boom.

Lucian became a human missile, shooting straight into the sky. Air resistance tore furiously at his cheeks.

The air pressure plummeted. Ten meters. Fifty meters. Two hundred meters. He pierced the low clouds.

Two kilometers away.

At the Highway 3 Toll Booth, the night-shift toll collector was dozing in his chair.

A dazzling burst of light suddenly exploded in the night sky.

He jolted awake and pressed against the window to look outside.

A trail dragging an incandescent plume pierced straight through the clouds. "What's that? A missile?" The toll collector rubbed his eyes.

Lucian hovered five hundred meters above the ground. He maintained a constant, faint thrust beneath his feet to counteract gravity.

His feet emitted steady pillars of fire, while his hands occasionally released small jets of flame to adjust his direction.

The night wind brushed his cheeks.

Lucian looked down. The steel and concrete at the construction site had become a pile of building blocks. Lights dotted the distant Godolkin University campus. Farther away lay New York's never-fading neon glow.

Free from gravity's constraints, looking down upon everything.

The illusion of having everything under his control grew wildly in his mind. The thermonuclear engine inside him roared, constantly urging him to fly higher, fly faster, and burn away anything he disliked.

Lucian abruptly cut off the energy output.

The flames went out.

His body instantly lost its support and plummeted straight toward the ground.

Weightlessness struck again, and the wind tore at his ears.

Five meters above the ground, Lucian ignited his flames again.

"Boom!"

The powerful braking force jolted both his legs. He landed steadily on a concrete slab.

Lucian stood still, steadying his breathing.

He forcibly snuffed out that swelling sense of superiority from moments earlier.

This world was full of bizarre superpowers. Even someone with Homelander's physique could be knocked out by a breath of poison gas from some superhuman who came out of nowhere.

In this world with no bottom line, I still had to keep working. The road ahead was long and hard.

To obtain more powerful, high-tier abilities, he had to make contact with those at the very top.

Joining The Seven was a shortcut, and a good way to gain access to Vought's entire business. After all, Vought's value had never lain in its entertainment business or superhumans. It was a pharmaceutical company.

When he went to other worlds in the future, a drug that gave people superpowers could serve as a bargaining chip, let alone V1, which could grant eternal youth and immortality.

Now Translucent was dead.

Madelyn was keeping a tight lid on the news for now, but the truth could not stay hidden forever.

Once the news went public, a spot would open up in The Seven.

But Lucian knew Vought would reserve that spot for Stormfront. He still needed a ticket in. Showing his strength was the first step.

But strength alone was not enough. Vought had no shortage of muscle. What it lacked were stars who could generate commercial value, or blades that could solve its problems.

There were still a few people in The Seven who occupied spots while being utterly useless.

Like that idiot who spent all day mating with fish.

I needed to find a way to kill one of them. Free up more spots.

I could have Homelander help kill one of them.

With just a little prodding at his fragile ego and his paranoia about betrayal, he should be more than happy to clean house.

Then, for the next step of the plan, I needed to stake out Doppelganger.

Lucian climbed back into his dorm through the window, sat on the edge of his bed, and stared blankly at the ceiling.

The approach to finding Doppelganger was not complicated. The hard part was timing.

Under normal circumstances, Vought's higher-ups kept extremely tight control over this kind of "functional asset."

Doppelganger was not a superhero. He did not need screen time or fans. He was a dedicated tool for dirty work such as impersonation, public-relations stand-ins, and control through intimacy. Madelyn would not casually reveal a card like that.

But now, the rules at the table had changed.

Translucent was dead.

Lucian's fingers tapped unconsciously against the mattress. Vought was currently keeping a tight lid on the news, concealing it for as long as it could. In the short term, it could still brush people off with lines like "Translucent is carrying out a secret mission." But what about the long term?

The sponsors were not fools.

Translucent had exclusive endorsement contracts with three brands. One was a major Budweiser ad, a deal worth more than twenty million dollars.

If Translucent missed two or three commercial events in a row, the brands' legal teams would come knocking before the reporters did.

Vought would not announce his death. At least not in the short term.

It would be too humiliating.

A member of the illustrious Seven had died without a sound. That fact alone could send Vought's stock price down eight percent.

So they would definitely use a stand-in.

Doppelganger.

As long as he watched the upcoming public events Translucent was scheduled to attend, the person appearing in his place would be his prey.

The problem was that Lucian was not a Vought insider. He had no access to The Seven's commercial schedule.

But one person did.