The location was the Redwood Creek Dam, fifty miles north of the city. It was a strategic Vought asset, providing power to a key military research facility. More importantly, it was isolated, structurally massive, and its destruction would create a catastrophe Homelander would be forced to personally avert. It was the perfect stage for a suicide play.
Two days later, the diversion began. I didn't sneak out. I blew out. Transforming into Mazahs in the heart of Vought Tower's lobby, I unleashed a controlled burst of black lightning that shattered the marble floors and sent the golden statue of Frederick Vought crashing to the ground. I was a storm leaving a deliberate trail of destruction, a challenge screamed in steel and lightning.
I flew north, not at my top speed, but fast enough to stay ahead of the news helicopters that scrambled to follow the path of devastation. I wanted them to see. I wanted him to see.
I landed on the dam's massive concrete crest, the reservoir a placid, giant mirror behind me. I could feel the immense pressure of the water, the hum of the generators deep below. This was it.
It didn't take long. A sonic boom cracked the sky, and Homelander descended like an avenging angel, his face a mask of cold, clean fury. There were no cameras here, no audience. This was for us.
"No more running," he said, his voice flat and deadlier than any scream.
"I'm not running," I replied, my own voice echoing with the power of the twelve souls within me. "I'm choosing my battleground."
He didn't waste time with words. He came at me with the same blinding speed, but this time, I was ready. I had spent the last two days not just planning, but integrating. The voices weren't just tools; they were a part of my own fighting instinct.
As he lunged, I didn't try to match his speed. I used a trick I'd learned from the A-Train absorption. I created a localized field of super-dense air directly in his path. It was like he flew into a wall of invisible steel. The thwump was audible, and he grunted in surprise, his trajectory faltering for a microsecond.
It was all the opening I needed.
I didn't punch him. I placed my palm on the dam's concrete surface and unleashed Ember's pyrokinesis, but not as a fireball. I channeled it inward, superheating the moisture trapped within the concrete itself. A network of micro-fractures exploded across the surface, steam hissing from a thousand new wounds.
Homelander recovered, his eyes glowing. "You'll drown the valley below! You're no better than me!"
"That's the point!" I shouted back, and I launched myself at him.
We met in the middle of the dam, a clash of titans that made our stadium fight look like a schoolyard scuffle. He was stronger, faster. But I was more versatile. I used Graviton's power to make myself a shifting, unpredictable target, my mass and momentum changing from one second to the next. I used telekinetic shields to deflect his blows, the impacts sounding like artillery shells. I layered Compound King's durability with energy shields that flared gold and black with every hit.
I was fighting a war of attrition, and I was losing. A punch slipped through my defenses, cracking my ribs. A blast of heat vision seared my shoulder. I was bleeding, burning, but I kept getting up. I kept pulling new tricks, new combinations of absorbed powers. I used Mindstorm's telepathy not to attack, but to feed him false proprioceptive data, making him misjudge his own punches.
I was a phantom, a storm, a relentless, infuriating problem he couldn't simply obliterate.
And through it all, I was aware of the silent clock ticking down in my head. Four minutes. Three.
With a roar of frustration, Homelander grabbed me by the throat and slammed me down onto the dam, his knees pinning my arms. His eyes were inches from mine, burning with the promise of finality.
"Game over," he snarled.
Two minutes.
I smiled, a bloody, broken thing. "You still don't get it, John. This was never the game."
I stopped fighting back. I let all my power, every ounce of it, flow not into defense or attack, but into a single, desperate, telepathic scream. A scream aimed not at Homelander, but at the one mind I hoped was listening, the one mind that operated on a frequency beyond even Vought's jamming.
BUTCHER! NOW!
It was the signal. The final piece of the diversion.
From a hidden location miles away, a streak of fire ascended into the sky. A missile. But not any missile. A stolen, experimental Vought projectile, its signature identical to a known foreign threat.
It arced high and then descended, not towards the dam, but towards the gleaming spire of Vought Tower itself.
Homelander's head snapped around. He saw the threat to his home, his throne, the very symbol of his power. The fury in his eyes eclipsed even his hatred for me.
He released me, shoving me back down onto the concrete with a final, contemptuous snarl.
"This isn't finished!" he roared, and he was gone, a crimson and blue blur rocketing towards the city to intercept the missile and save his castle.
I lay broken on the dam, the cold seeping into my burns. The diversion was a success. He was gone.
Now, it was all on Maeve.
The real heist had just begun.