"Step On Up"
(I noticed you guys really like hitting like. My comments got loads of little red hearts. Leave more comments too, manual doge.)
"Rumble..."
The van's engine gave a low, subdued rumble before finally stopping behind an old oak tree that would take three people to encircle.
The thick trunk hid the entire vehicle, and fallen leaves covered most of its tire tracks.
"Click."
Dust clogged the sliding door's track, and it gave a muffled clunk as it opened.
Three men and a woman climbed out in turn, their soles leaving shallow impressions in the damp earth.
The Asian woman bringing up the rear hunched in on herself, with only a few loops of old, bloodstained bandages wrapped around her fingertips.
The men all carried "treasures" wrapped in black cloth, cold, hard black contours showing beneath the corners.
Frenchie crouched and pulled back the black cloth, revealing a rifle nearly half a meter long.
He hefted it, then looked up at Hughie, who stood helplessly beside him.
"Hughie, use this."
Frenchie put the rifle back in the bag and reached behind his waist for a handgun instead.
He pulled out the magazine, glanced at it, then clicked it back into place and held the gun out to Hughie.
"You haven't had any proper firearms training. That recoil could probably dislocate your shoulder. Better stick with a handgun."
Hughie froze for a moment, then hurriedly reached out to take it.
"Uh... what about Kimiko? Doesn't she need... need a gun?"
Hearing her name, Kimiko glanced at the gun in Hughie's hand without speaking.
She merely curled her fingertips slightly, her knuckles giving an exceedingly faint crack.
"You think she needs one? Our lives are all in her hands right now..."
Mother's Milk stood beside them with his arms folded.
"If it really comes to a fight, all of us together wouldn't be enough to take on one of her hands."
There was something else Mother's Milk left unsaid.
They were desperately short-handed, and Kimiko had only agreed to come after they coaxed and deceived her, saying there might be clues about her younger brother here.
"Speaking of which, did you get the location right? I remember Butcher saying it was beneath Godolkin, right? We're in the fucking outskirts now."
"Oh, I called John. John said Vought has a screenwriter who's a human mole that eats dirt like shit. He dug all the tunnels around here."
"The tunnel in Vought's basement connects to this place."
"Right, let's get moving, then."
The group hunched over and threaded their way between the crisscrossing tree trunks.
After roughly ten minutes, the trees ahead gradually thinned, and an open space came into view.
A high-voltage electric fence over three meters tall enclosed the laboratory completely, pale blue sparks crawling along the interwoven wires.
The fence's only entrance was directly ahead, where two fully armed guards stood in a booth, radios clipped to their waists and wary eyes scanning their surroundings.
"Getting in won't be easy..."
Mother's Milk's expression darkened.
With security like this, destroying the laboratory was out of the question; even getting close to the fence alive was uncertain.
He clenched his back teeth and turned to Frenchie. "Frenchie, got any ideas?"
Frenchie had already taken the toolbox off his back and was crouching on the ground, rummaging through it.
Soon, he waved a pair of insulated gloves and hydraulic cutters.
"These insulated gloves can withstand a thousand volts. These hydraulic cutters are for cutting wire fences."
The three men gathered together and quickly worked out a plan.
Hughie had little fighting ability, so he would keep watch outside the opening they cut, watching the guards at the front gate and warning the others if anything happened.
Frenchie would cut the fence. Once the opening was ready, Mother's Milk, Frenchie, and Kimiko would quickly change into cleaners' uniforms and slip through the laboratory's back door.
They got straight to work.
Having changed, Frenchie first crouched in a blind spot along the side of the fence and touched a voltage tester to the wire to check the voltage range.
Only then did he raise the hydraulic cutters, clamp them over the junction of two wires, and squeeze hard.
With a faint crack, the thick, stiff wire snapped.
Within minutes, Frenchie had cut an opening large enough for someone to bend down and pass through.
"Go."
Mother's Milk gave a low command and ducked through first.
The three followed the shadows along the laboratory's outer wall and circled around to the back entrance, an ordinary fire door.
Its lock was an old-fashioned pin tumbler. As a gang professional, Frenchie had it open with barely a couple of pokes.
The hinges gave a soft creak as the three slipped inside and pulled the door shut behind them.
Closed doors lined both sides of the corridor, and emergency exit signs hung on the walls. It looked no different from an ordinary hospital corridor.
At the end stood a heavy metal door with a central control unit embedded in it.
Several indicator lights glowed on its silver-gray panel, with "Unauthorized personnel prohibited" painted beside it in red.
Frenchie stepped forward, tapped the control panel with his fingertips, then leaned closer to examine the lock's structure and muttered:
"This should be the central access-control system hospitals usually use. It's been modified, but the principle's pretty much the same. I know this kind of lock. Opening it won't be hard."
As he spoke, he reached out to enter the code, but Mother's Milk grabbed his wrist.
"What's the rush?"
Mother's Milk raised his chin toward the heavy door.
"Nobody knows what's behind that door. Once we open it, there's no turning back. If a dozen supes are waiting inside, the three of us will be serving ourselves up on a platter."
"Fuck, we'd be screwed."
Frenchie turned sideways, pressed his right cheek against the cold steel door, and held his breath.
As for why he didn't use his left cheek, that side was already swollen from being beaten, making contact-based stimulation unsuitable for it.
Sound traveled much faster through solids than through air, and the metal door could transmit sounds clearly from the other side...
There were footsteps, soles scuffing against tile in an even rhythm, going back and forth. Someone was clearly on patrol.
Frenchie carefully counted the cadence and weighed the heaviness of the footsteps. Around five or six people.
The crackle of radios mingled with them, along with the occasional muffled exchange, though he couldn't make out the words.
After a dozen seconds, Frenchie straightened and lowered his voice.
"Mother's Milk, there are about five or six guards patrolling the corridor behind it. If we open the door, we'll run straight into them. Gunfire will definitely alert the others."
"No other choice..."
Mother's Milk shook his head helplessly, flicked off his rifle's safety, and aimed at the seam of the heavy door.
"Kimiko, if you can, clear a path up front. Frenchie and I will cover you from either side."
Kimiko didn't answer. She merely stepped forward in silence.
She lowered her body slightly, staring at the door that was about to rise, and adopted a hunting stance.
Frenchie exchanged a look with Mother's Milk. Seeing him nod, he turned back and began operating the controls.
"Whirr-"
Before long, the door's motor gave a muffled hum, and the thick panel slowly rose.
Hearing the noise, the guards behind it immediately turned to look in confusion, their faces still blank with bewilderment.
In that moment of hesitation, Kimiko had already shot forward like an arrow loosed from its bow.
She pushed off the ground, moving so fast that only an afterimage remained.
The foremost guard had only just raised his gun and hadn't even had time to pull the trigger when he felt a chill at his neck.
The next second, Kimiko's face flashed beside his ear, her fingers piercing straight through his windpipe.
Warm blood instantly sprayed out, splashing across half her face.
Then she sharply twisted her wrist, and his neck immediately bent at a grotesque angle before he crumpled to the floor.
"We're under attack!!"
At the sight of their companion's gruesome fate, the remaining guards finally reacted, shouting as they raised their guns and fired.
The next second, countless bullets poured out amid tongues of flame.
But those bullets had a negligible effect on a regenerative ability user like Kimiko.
The wounds the bullets punched through her writhed and healed at a speed visible to the naked eye.
New muscle forcibly squeezed the bullets out, and they fell to the floor.
Her steps didn't even falter. Facing the hail of gunfire, her approach came down to one word.
Charge!
She turned sideways to dodge a swinging rifle butt and caught the attacker's arm with a backhanded grab.
With just a little pressure, the sound of shattering bone rang out amid screams.
Fingers pierced flesh, elbows shattered ribs, and knees broke spines. Every vicious move went straight for the kill.
Mother's Milk and Frenchie charged in as well, taking positions against the walls on either side and firing controlled shots.
One guard tried to duck around a corner, only for Mother's Milk to shoot him in the head. Brains and blood splattered against the white wall, leaving a glaring patch of red.
In less than two full minutes, the corridor fell silent.
The five guards lay peacefully in pools of blood, dead beyond all doubt.
Kimiko stood amid the blood, her face and body covered in it.
Breathing slightly hard, she hooked the shirt of a corpse with the hand hanging at her side and wiped it clean.
"Fuck, with these bastards guarding it this tightly, there's gotta be something good in this room."
Frenchie wiped his face, raised his foot, and kicked open the door at the end of the corridor.
Inside, more than a dozen monitors were set into an entire white wall, each displaying surveillance footage from a different ward.
And none of the "patients" on those screens were normal people.
On the upper-left screen, a girl who looked barely in her teens floated with her eyes shut, half a meter above her hospital bed.
On the screen beside it, a man covered in festering sores hung his mouth open. Yellow-green acid dribbled from its corners onto the metal bed frame, hissing and giving off white smoke as it ate pits into the metal.
On the far-right screen, a burly man over two meters tall gripped a flesh-colored yo-yo, swinging it with a whoosh as he hopped up and down like a child skipping rope.
For a moment, the scene was exceptionally beautiful.
"Holy shit, why is it so disgusting... he's actually using that thing as a skipping rope?"
Mother's Milk stared at the screen, eyes wide and face filled with disbelief, feeling as though his entire worldview was about to shatter.
"What the hell are these Vought lunatics trying to do?"
"Looks like this place isn't just a laboratory."
Frenchie walked up to the screens and lightly tapped the glass.
"This is a fucking prison. A prison specifically for supes. They're experimenting on these people. Maybe they're even working on some plan to mass-produce soldiers."
"Then tell me, what level of bastard would it take to keep these lunatics under control?"
"I can't imagine."
Mother's Milk stared at the wards deepest inside on the screens. Their doors were all marked with red "High risk" signs, and he felt a little uneasy too.
Just then, Frenchie's sharp eyes swept over one of the screens. He paused and raised his chin.
"Look. We should be in this room right now. There's a red figure over there flying toward us."
"What?"
At his words, everyone turned to the screen he indicated.
It showed a corridor, where a middle-aged blond man with a buzz cut and an orderly's uniform strode forward, clutching a silver lighter.
To Mother's Milk and Frenchie, the man's face looked somewhat familiar, but neither could immediately remember where they had seen him.
"He looks kind of familiar..."
Frenchie frowned and stared at the screen for a long time, but still drew a blank.
"Whoever he is, this place isn't safe anymore. We need to move."
Mother's Milk turned and headed out.
"Before he gets here, let's explore farther inside and see if we can find any records."
The three left the surveillance room and followed the corridor deeper into the laboratory.
The farther they went, the stronger the sickly sweet, bloody smell in the air became, and the iron doors on either side grew thicker and heavier.
Soon, they reached the end. A solid wall stood ahead, with locked iron doors on either side. Their path was completely blocked.
"Fuck. Dead end."
Mother's Milk knocked on the wall, and a dull echo came from the other side.
"Wrong way... Frenchie, how the fuck were you leading us?"
They had just turned to head back when, out of the corners of their eyes, they glimpsed someone suddenly appearing around the bend.
Blond hair, buzz cut, gray orderly's uniform.
It was the man from the surveillance footage.
The man saw them too. After sweeping his gaze over the bodies and blood littering the corridor, his expression instantly darkened.
"You shouldn't have broken in here."
As his words fell, his thumb pressed down.
With a click, a bright yellow flame suddenly sprang from the lighter.
Then he grasped at the air with his left hand. As though drawn by an invisible hand, the little flame floated off the lighter and began to grow.
In just two seconds, it swelled into a blazing fireball the size of a human head.
Orange-red waves of flame churned, heat washing toward them. Even from several meters away, they could feel its scorching temperature.
"Shit... fucking hell, it's Lamplighter!"
"Didn't he retire ages ago?"
(Don't think this section is just filler. Lamplighter is connected to Stormfront, and I don't intend to turn these promising characters into chicken ribs.)
(Just right for serving as John's underling)
Dr. Vogelbaum was sitting in an armchair beside the fireplace, reading an old genetics monograph by the light of a table lamp.
Pine logs blazed in the fireplace, the orange firelight illuminating his white hair and the group photograph of Vought's laboratory staff from decades ago hanging on the wall.
He was eighty-seven now, retired for nearly thirty years, and had thought he would never have anything to do with Vought or those superhumans again.
Until a minute ago.
Without warning, the window glass exploded inward. Cold wind swept in with flurries of snow, scattering sparks from the fireplace in every direction.
By the time he put on his reading glasses, he discovered a uniformed figure standing at the window, silhouetted against the light.
A stars-and-stripes cape fluttered, and blue eyes stared fixedly at him.
"Ah... you're..."
The book in Vogelbaum's hands fell onto the carpet.
"M-Mr. Homelander?"
He braced himself against the armrest and shakily stood up, his voice trembling slightly.
"What brings you..."
"Dr. Vogelbaum."
With his hands behind his back, Homelander stepped inside, his boot soles grinding over broken glass with a grating crunch.
"Long time no see... or rather, you've been hiding from me for thirty years, and now you finally can't hide anymore."
The temperature in the room instantly dropped.
Although the fireplace was still burning, Vogelbaum felt a chill shoot from the soles of his feet up his back.
It's over...
He knew all too well what kind of being the man before him was.
He was Compound V's most perfect creation, and also its most dangerous ticking time bomb.
"I... I don't know what you're talking about."
The old man feigned composure and bent down to pick up the book.
"I retired long ago. I know nothing about Vought's affairs. If you're looking for research materials, you should go to the corporate archives..."
"Cut the fucking act."
Homelander interrupted him, his gaze dark. He swayed as he walked over to the fireplace, his eyes sweeping over the group photograph on the wall.
They finally settled on the old man's taut profile.
"Becca. Eight years ago, Madelyn brought her to see you, didn't she? I want to know everything."
At those words, Vogelbaum abruptly froze.
"So that's what you came for."
The old man sighed, walked over to the fireplace, and added a log to the fire.
Sparks danced, the wrinkles on his face etched into distinct furrows.
"It's been eight years. What's the point of finding out now?"
"The point?"
Homelander scoffed.
"Doctor, my woman was pregnant with my child, and you people secretly disposed of it without even telling me. Now you're asking me what the point is?"
He took a step forward, his enormous shadow almost engulfing the old man.
"Talk. What exactly happened eight years ago?"
Vogelbaum was silent for a long time before finally looking up.
There was an earnestness in his eyes that feigned compassion.
"All right. I'll tell you."
He began slowly.
"Eight years ago, Ms. Madelyn brought Miss Becca to my private clinic. By then, Miss Becca was already three months pregnant.
"But the fetus was developing far faster than a normal human. Its bones and muscle tissue were already showing superhuman characteristics.
"Ms. Madelyn said the child was yours."
Homelander said nothing. He merely stared at him, his eyes betraying nothing.
"Then I gave Miss Becca a full examination. The situation was far from promising."
Vogelbaum continued.
"Your genes were too strong. The fetus would unconsciously use its powers inside the mother's body. An ordinary human uterus simply couldn't withstand it.
"I tried using medication to suppress the fetus's development, but it didn't work.
"By the seventh month, the fetus had already grown to the size of a normal ten-month fetus, and Miss Becca's uterine wall was as thin as paper."
"I discussed it with Ms. Madelyn. We had to perform an early C-section.
"So we transferred Miss Becca to a secret medical facility and assembled the best team... but we were still a step too late."
The old man paused, a look of regret appearing on his face.
"On the day of delivery, the child tore through the uterine wall itself and crawled out of its mother's belly.
"Miss Becca suffered a massive hemorrhage. We couldn't save her there and then.
"The child... because of the premature birth and abnormal development, its respiratory system failed. It stopped breathing less than ten seconds after birth."
When he finished, he sighed softly and looked at Homelander, his voice carrying just the right amount of sympathy:
"Ms. Madelyn and Mr. Edgar decided to keep it from you to protect you.
"Your career was on the rise then. Your public image couldn't afford a single blemish.
"And... they were afraid you wouldn't be able to accept the outcome, afraid you'd lose control. After all, that was your first child."
He had finished speaking, but the room remained silent.
Vogelbaum waited for Homelander to fly into a rage, to smash things, to vent his emotions.
He already had his next soothing words prepared. He and Madelyn had rehearsed this story countless times. It was practically seamless.
But to his surprise, not only was Homelander not angry, he even smiled and said warmly:
"Old friend, we've known each other quite a while, haven't we..."
As he spoke, Homelander rested his hand on the old man's shoulder.
"So do you think I'm so useless now that I can't even tell when someone's lying?"
"Your heart has aged, and its layer of fat has thickened, but it's being very dishonest. Wouldn't you agree, Vogelbaum?"
Before he had even finished speaking, Homelander's gloved hand was already resting against Vogelbaum's chest.
"I'm giving you one last chance."