The meeting took place in the one location in Vought Tower designed for absolute security and deniability: the "Crisis Management" bunker deep beneath the sub-basements. The air was chilled, cycled through HEPA filters, and tasted of recycled fear.
Homelander was already there, pacing like a caged tiger. He stopped when I entered, his eyes glowing with a baleful light.
"You," he snarled. "Edgar says you've brought aliens to my doorstep. Is this another one of your pathetic tricks?"
"Look at me, John," I said, dropping all pretense, all titles. I let him see it in my eyes—the raw, unvarnished truth of the threat. I didn't use hypnosis. I let the chilling certainty I felt radiate from me. "Do I look like I'm playing a trick?"
He studied me, his head tilted. For once, he saw no deception, no hidden agenda. He saw a reflection of his own primal understanding of a threat. He saw fear, and it wasn't of him.
"They called me a prototype," I continued, my voice low. "They called you a flawed final product. They see this whole world as a farm, and they're here for the harvest. Your strength, your speed, your very cells… they're a resource to be collected and refined."
That was the button. His narcissism couldn't tolerate being seen as a mere thing, a commodity.
"Who are they?" he demanded, his voice a low, dangerous rumble.
"They call themselves the Chimeric Legion. Their agent called himself Silas." I projected the memory of Silas's visit, the feeling of ancient, predatory patience, the casual way he spoke of culling worlds.
Homelander's jaw tightened. He believed me. The threat was too grand, too alien, to be a lie I could concoct.
At that moment, the door hissed open and Stan Edgar entered, followed by Black Noir, a silent, ominous shadow. The unholy trinity was complete: the capitalist, the god, and the weapon. And me, the nexus.
"The situation is critical," Edgar began, without greeting. "Initial satellite and deep-space monitoring we've co-opted from various intelligence agencies confirms anomalous activity in the Kuiper Belt. Large, non-terrestrial objects moving with intent. Silas was a scout. The main force is coming."
He laid out the brutal calculus. World governments were unprepared and would be paralyzed by infighting. Conventional military was useless. Vought, with its concentration of super-powered assets, was the only possible line of defense.
"We have seventy-two hours, by our best estimate, before their vanguard arrives in orbit," Edgar concluded. "We will mobilize every available Supe. A-Train for rapid communication and evacuation. The Deep for any potential aquatic incursion. Starlight for morale and energy projection."
He turned his cold gaze to Homelander and me. "The two of you are our strategic deterrent. You will be the spearhead."
Homelander looked at me, a flicker of that old, homicidal joy returning to his eyes. "You hear that, Alex? We're partners." The way he said it was a promise of future violence, once the common enemy was dealt with.
"We're not partners," I said, meeting his gaze. "We're a mutually assured destruction pact. I'll fight beside you to save this planet. But the moment this is over, the war resumes."
He smiled, a true, genuine smile. "I'd have it no other way."
The plan was set. A desperate, global defense orchestrated by a corporation, led by a psychopath and a man haunted by the souls he'd consumed.
As we left the bunker, Homelander clapped a hand on my shoulder, his grip tight enough to shatter steel. "Don't get yourself killed out there, Mazahs. I'm looking forward to tearing you apart myself."
He flew off, a streak of red and blue against the artificial light of the corridor.
I was left with Black Noir. He stood, a silent statue. I reached out with my mind, not to probe, but to acknowledge the absurdity of our situation. I sent him a single, clear thought, an image of the four of us in that room: Edgar, Homelander, him, and me.
The fate of the world, I thought, rests on the most dysfunctional family in history.
For a fraction of a second, I felt a flicker of something from behind his mask. Not a word, not an image. Just a feeling. A grim, shared amusement that was as close to camaraderie as a broken weapon and a walking graveyard could manage.
Then he turned and walked away, his footsteps silent on the polished floor.
The countdown had begun. The world was sleeping, unaware that its fate now depended on a truce between heaven and hell.