Ashley stood in front of the desk, looking at Commander Homelander who was in a beautiful mood, and she decided to go the extra mile and mention the matter of becoming a full-time employee.
At this moment, an emergency message suddenly popped up on the tablet in her hand.
Ashley opened the door subconsciously, and the security captain's roar instantly echoed in the office.
She raised her head stiffly and looked at the man behind the desk.
John, who was smiling a second ago, now has no trace of the smile on his face.
He stood up suddenly.
Bang--
The strong wind poured into the office through the huge gap, blowing over the files on the table.
In the horrified sight of Ashley, the figure wearing the cloak of Stars and Stripes broke through the glass, turned into a shooting star, and headed straight for the square below.
The sonic boom brought the hustle and bustle in the square to an abrupt end.
The red and blue figure hit the ground like Meteorite.
The hard floor tiles cracked instantly, and the violent airflow spread violently around the landing area, forcibly suppressing the blazing fireball.
People around him holding cellphones burst into exclamations.
John ignored those shots.
"I've never seen you."
He strode into the sea of fire, ignoring the heat, and grabbed the man who set himself on fire by the collar.
He wanted to throw the person directly into the fountain pool nearby to put out the fire.
The moment John exerted his strength to lift him, a hand that was burnt black and curled suddenly grabbed his forearm.
John lowered his head subconsciously.
The man raised his face.
In the gap between the fire and the thick smoke, a smile suddenly appeared on the painfully twisted face.
It was a sneer full of mockery.
This expression disappeared so quickly that even the cameras holding cell phones around him couldn't capture it.
But John, who has super vision, saw everything clearly.
Before John frowned.
The man opened his mouth full of blood and let out a hysterical roar.
Bang--
A dull loud noise exploded in front of John.
The bomb hidden by the man under his bloated windbreaker completely detonated.
The violent shock wave instantly tore the charred body into pieces, and the powerful thrust enveloped countless broken bones and flesh, splattering crazily in all directions.
John stood there without even blinking.
The force of the explosion could not even damage a single hair on his head. He was like a wall of sighs, blocking most of the frontal impacts.
But he can't block all directions.
Blood rain fell from the sky.
The people watching in the front row were splashed with minced meat and internal organs, and a warm fishy smell quickly filled the air.
There was a dead silence for two seconds in the square.
Immediately afterwards, a scream that was ten times more piercing than the previous self-immolation erupted like a tsunami.
The crowd went absolutely crazy.
Some people knelt on the ground in despair S.P.E.W., while others rolled and crawled away, pushing and trampling on each other.
In this complete chaos, a shrill cry suddenly came from deep in the crowd.
"It was Homelander! Homelander killed him!"
This sound was like a signal, quickly triggering a chain reaction among the panicked crowd.
More people who didn't know the truth ran away while blindly following and crying.
The cell phone lenses that did not fall to the ground during the shaking were all focused on the blond figure standing in the middle of the pool of blood.
Noise, curses, fear.
John stood quietly on the spot, holding a bloody rag in his hand.
He didn't open his mouth to explain, nor did he fly to catch the rhythmic loach hiding in the crowd.
He is thinking.
Someone is messing with him.
Moreover, it is a long-planned and interlocking dead end.
From provoking this man to self-immolate in front of the Vought building, to arranging a bomb with just the right power, to having the instigator already ambushed in the crowd.
The other party even predicted that he would rush down to save people immediately.
After this set of combos, Vought International couldn't explain it even if he was full of mouth.
The internet will soon be filled with videos of Homelander murdering protesters.
John slowly let go of his hand and let the piece of rag fall to the ground.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
Less than half an hour had passed since the explosion in the square.
The spread speed of this Stormfront was far more violent than any hurricane that year.
Hundreds of high-definition videos from different angles flew to every place with Internet access in All-America in just a few minutes.
New York, Los Angeles, Chicago...
In office buildings in major cities, countless workers stopped what they were doing and stared at the computer screens dumbfounded.
The TVs on the walls of fast food restaurants were crowded with people, and even the big screens showing shampoo commercials on the streets were cut to live news.
All social media platforms were completely paralyzed in just half an hour, and the servers lit up with dazzling red lights.
The top ten on the hot search list are dominated by several shocking titles.
"God or Butcher? Homelander blasted and killed protesters in the street!"
"Desperate Roar: A man who lost his wife set himself on fire in front of the Vought building!"
"The truth behind gang fights? Banner's bloody letter accuses Vought of directing and acting!"
The Internet is completely abuzz.
The people's anger, fear, and sense of humiliation at being betrayed are like a pot of hot oil that will explode instantly if you throw anything into it.
The All-America idol who once made headlines even for saving a person, now turned into a cold-blooded monster on the screen standing in a pool of blood and minced meat indifferently.
Vought Tower Public Relations Department on the 60th floor has now become a battlefield filled with smoke.
Hundreds of landline phones were ringing, making it impossible to answer the call.
Public Relations Department Supervisor loosened his tie and stood in the middle of the office area covered in sweat, his voice hoarse from shouting.
"Send an announcement! Get rid of all the trolls on all platforms!"
The supervisor slammed the table hard,
"Bite to death. This was a premeditated terrorist attack! They said that the man had a bomb tied to his body. Homelander failed to stop it in time to protect the people around him! Hurry!"
Vought's public relations machine started running wildly.
A large number of official statements and long clarification articles were pushed online, trying to lead the rhythm in the direction of "extremists deliberately smearing".
This sophisticated public relations approach did have some effect.
Amidst the overwhelming curses, some die-hard fans of John began to show up. They took the frame of the live video in which Homelander tried to pull the man and resisted desperately, biting him to death. This was because he wanted to save people. Everything was a conspiracy against Vought.
The two groups of people exchanged wild insults in various forums, and the situation briefly reached a stalemate.
However, this stalemate did not last even ten minutes.
In Basement, Frenchie sniffed, with a crazy smile on his face.
He stared at the Vought public relations slander posts on the screen and laughed contemptuously.
"Want to whiten it? Then I'll put some bleaching powder for you."
Frenchie's fingers hit the Enter key heavily on the keyboard.
A twelve-hour long video without any editing was directly packaged and thrown into several of the largest anonymous forums of All-America, and was forcibly pinned to the top through hackers.
The title of the video is simple and crude. "This is the conspiracy you want."
Countless netizens clicked on this huge video file.
At first, the picture was just a boring street scene.
But soon, the progress bar was dragged to the gang fight section.
All-America's tens of millions of eyes clearly saw how the camera was hidden in the grass in advance, how Homelander fell from the sky, and even how the staff member wearing the Vought uniform skillfully bypassed the crowd afterwards and went straight to the grass to recover the Video Camera.
All the ground-washing remarks were smashed to pieces by this record hammer at this moment.
There is no justice from heaven, only bloody gods stepping on the bones of innocent people.
But what really turned this online carnival into national mourning was another detail in the video.
While netizens were analyzing the video frame by frame with magnifying glasses, someone intercepted the scene before Homelander landed.
In the corner of the screen, a tall man wearing a black trench coat and a beard was kneeling in a pool of blood on the floor in a pool of broken glass, holding his seriously injured fiancée tightly, raising his head and letting out a desperate roar.
A few minutes later, a comparison picture went viral on the Internet.
On the left is the bearded man in the video holding his fiancée and crying.
On the right is the charred figure on Vought Plaza just now, covered in gasoline, holding a blood-lettered banner and setting himself on fire.
Although the pixels of the video were not high and the man in the square was burned beyond recognition, the same black windbreaker, the very similar beard outline, and the phrase "Kill my fiancée" on the banner were instantly connected in the minds of all netizens.
Everything is right.
This is a desperate man who has lost his true love and has no way to turn to others. In the end, he can only use the most brutal way to hit the wall of power.
The anger across the Internet turned into heartache at this moment.
Thousands of candle emoticons flooded the screens on major social platforms.
Some people's eyes turned red in front of the screen, some changed their avatars to pure black, and some organized themselves to go to Vought Plaza to lay flowers in memory of this ordinary man who didn't even know his name.
But no one sent McDonald's as a gift.
In this era where traffic is paramount, Butcher's desperate face has completely become a totem of resistance to the tyranny of Vought.