The air in the cramped, subterranean base was thick with the smell of stale coffee and paranoia. Billy Butcher paced like a caged animal in front of a wall plastered with maps, photos, and scribbled notes, the worn floorboards groaning under his every step.
"Alright, listen up," he finally growled, stopping to glare at his team. "Our friends at Vought have been busy little bees."
He jabbed a finger at a list of names pinned to the corkboard. "They're flying in every top-tier pharma brain from around the globe. Five-star hotels, black cars, the whole nine yards. I thought it was just more PR bullshit after the last terrorist scare, but it's bigger than that."
"They're making something," Frenchie murmured from his corner, meticulously cleaning a custom-made firearm without looking up.
"Exactly," Billy affirmed. "If I'm betting, they're trying to cook up a new batch of supe juice. Something stronger than Compound V."
MM, ever the voice of reason, stroked the thick beard on his chin, his expression thoughtful. "That's a long shot, Billy. Developing a completely new formula would take years, decades even. It's not something you can just rush. Besides," he added, gesturing vaguely, "look at the track record. The adults they juice up almost always end up with a screw loose. Compound V works best on infants. The failure rate for fully developed subjects is catastrophic."
He had a point. The world was littered with the tragic, often gruesome, results of Vought's adult trials—superhumans whose minds had fractured under the strain of their newfound powers, now locked away in mental institutions.
It was Hughie who voiced the fear that had been simmering beneath the surface. He nervously adjusted his glasses, his voice barely above a whisper. "What if… what if they're not making a new drug for new supes?" He looked from Billy to MM, his eyes wide. "What if they're making something to make the ones they already have stronger? A booster shot… for Homelander?"
The room fell silent. The thought hung in the air, cold and heavy. Homelander was already a god-like monster, virtually unstoppable. If Vought found a way to amplify his power, or the power of The Seven, their fight would be over before it even began. Any hope of ever bringing them down, of exposing the truth and getting justice for Becca, would evaporate.
Billy's jaw tightened, his eyes hardening into chips of flint. "Then we've got to move," he said, his voice low and dangerous. "Now. We need to find out exactly what they're cooking up in that lab, and we need to burn it to the ground."
Miles away, in a lavish penthouse suite overlooking the city, a faint shimmer in the air coalesced and then dissipated. Marcus let a small, satisfied smile touch his lips. He'd been observing The Boys through a rift in the Void, a personal viewing window into their squalid little world.
"Heh, so eager," he mused to himself, swirling the amber liquid in his crystal tumbler. "Their investigation is surprisingly efficient. They've managed to sniff out the trail right on schedule."
The pieces were falling into place perfectly. The pharmaceutical experts he had been waiting for, the greatest minds in biochemistry and genetic engineering, were all gathered under one roof. They were the final, crucial ingredient he needed to complete the formula—to perfect the flawed miracle of Compound V.
With a sense of finality, Marcus set down his glass, the crystal ringing softly against the marble tabletop. He straightened his tailored jacket and, for the first time in weeks, walked toward the door of his hotel suite. It was time to make a personal appearance.
His departure caused a small stir among the hotel staff.
"Oh my God, the guest in the presidential suite… he's actually coming out," a concierge whispered to a bellhop, both staring as Marcus strode through the lobby.
Ever since he'd checked in, he had been a ghost. He never used the hotel's amenities, never made a sound, and never once left his room. Food was delivered and left at the door, the empty trays collected later, always looking as if the food had simply vanished. More than one staff member had nervously joked that their mysterious guest might have died up there. Seeing him now, moving with such purpose and presence, was both a relief and a source of profound unease.
Ignoring their hushed whispers, Marcus stepped out into the New York City air. He hailed a cab, directing the driver toward Vought's temporary headquarters with the casual air of a tourist.
The drive was an interesting tour of a city in a state of perpetual recovery. New York was a sprawling construction site. The battles that had scarred its landscape—many of which he had personally orchestrated—had left deep, unhealed wounds. Skeletons of half-finished skyscrapers clawed at the sky, their exposed rebar like broken bones. The constant drone of heavy machinery was the city's new anthem.
"The grand struggles of superhumans," Marcus murmured, watching a fleet of cement mixers crawl through the congested streets. "And in the end, it's always the ordinary people who pay the price." A wry smile played on his lips. He was, of course, the primary author of this destruction, a fact he savored with a sense of detached, cosmic irony. This world was peaceful before Compound V, before gods walked among men. He was simply accelerating the inevitable chaos.
The cab pulled up to a sleek, modern glass-and-steel building that felt starkly out of place amidst the surrounding rubble. After Marcus had unceremoniously transformed the iconic Vought Tower into a glassy, pyramid-like tomb, the corporation had been forced to relocate to one of its subsidiary branches. This was their temporary nerve center.
It was still an imposing structure, designed to project power and corporate dominance. It would have been more effective, Marcus thought, if not for the bizarre figure standing stock-still near the entrance.
It was Stan Edgar, the former CEO of Vought. Or rather, a spectral echo of him, a glitch in reality left behind after Marcus had cast him into a pocket dimension. The figure was frozen, his expression lifeless, a permanent, silent fixture that the city's jaded inhabitants were already starting to call the "Vought Ghost."
"Ah, I'd almost forgotten about him," Marcus thought with a flicker of amusement. "He's probably long dead in whatever reality I tossed him into. No need to clean this up. Let him become another one of this city's urban legends."
He strolled past the silent specter and into the lobby. It was teeming with people from all over the world, a desperate cross-section of humanity. Ambitious military commanders, wealthy parents hoping to buy their children a spot in the genetic lottery, and corporate sharks looking to weaponize Vought's miracle drug. The news that Compound V might become more widely available had created a gold rush.
Marcus moved with the crowd, a predator hidden in plain sight. He let his senses expand, his Void-born perception mapping the entire building in an instant. Every hallway, every vent, every security camera feed, and the heat signature of every living being unfolded in his mind like a three-dimensional blueprint.
"Ah," his inner voice purred. "There you are."
His targets, the collection of brilliant scientists, were gathered on the top floor. Even in this temporary headquarters, Vought had spared no expense. The rooftop laboratory was a state-of-the-art facility, more advanced and lavish than the primary labs of most sovereign nations.
"Let's hope you can give me what I need," Marcus whispered to no one.
His physical form dissolved. The world around him washed out into shades of grey and muted purple as he slipped into the Void, becoming an unseen, unheard current of energy. The building's security was formidable, far tighter than the old Vought Tower. Armed guards patrolled every floor, and even the emergency stairwells were monitored.
"They're certainly protective of their new assets," Marcus commented internally as he drifted effortlessly through a reinforced concrete wall. "These experts must be the real deal."
He passed straight through a burly guard, who shivered suddenly, a chill running down his spine for no reason he could identify.
Marcus emerged from the wall into the hallway outside the main lab. Inside, a heated argument was in full swing. A collection of mostly gray-haired men and women, the titans of their fields, were shouting over one another.
"A completely new drug is the future!" declared a tall, imperious-looking man with a Vought lapel pin. "We must innovate, create a formula that surpasses Compound V entirely! It's the only way to solidify Vought's global authority for the next century!"
"Are you insane, Evans?" shot back a sharp-featured woman. "We don't have a century! We don't have the time or the resources for that kind of blue-sky research! We don't even fully understand the long-term ramifications of the current formula. The only sane, responsible path is to continue our analysis of Compound V and find a way to stabilize and enhance it!"
Behind them, their younger assistants and researchers stood in rigid silence, furiously taking notes or staring intently at their screens, all desperately trying to make themselves invisible. This was a battle of gods, and they were merely mortals caught in the crossfire.
From his vantage point in the Void, Marcus watched the drama unfold with the quiet satisfaction of a playwright. The debate, the conflict, the brilliant minds clashing—it was all part of his design.