Homelander and Superman landed at the ruined research facility as the cargo trucks containing the equipment.
"Good afternoon!" Butcher said to Homelander with a casual wave, and a shit-eating grin plastered across his face.
"Hello!" Homelander exclaimed, putting on a fake grin of his own. "I presume you're one of Superman's support team?"
"Got it in one!" Butcher said with a laugh. "Gotta say, I'm bloody chuffed to work with you!"
"Oh, you're a fan?" Homelander asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Massive one." Butcher said, extending a hand. "Followed you since your solo days. Gotta say, we could've used a few guys like you in the SAS."
A genuine smile came across Homelander's face, and he shook Butcher's hand. "That's exactly what I've been saying for years! Seems like you and I have a few things in common, mister?" Homelander trailed off, questioningly.
"William Butcher. We've actually met before." Butcher said, disengaging from the handshake. "My wife works for Vought. You might've met her."
"The drivers can drop off their trailers at the bunker," Superman interjected, cutting the conversation short. "They can retrieve them once we're done."
"Alright, I can relay that message." Homelander said to Superman. He turned back to Butcher. "You said you were in the SAS?"
"Oh yeah."
"What'd you do after that?"
Butcher smirked. "Sorry to say, that's classified."
"CIA?"
Butcher smirked wider.
"What about now?"
"Independent contractor. Take on any good cause for the right price."
"Well, mister Butcher, if all goes well, I think I can recommend you, and probably your associates here, to Vought in good faith, if you're interested. After all, if Superman trusts you enough to help him go home, I think we can trust you."
"Might take you up on that!" Butcher exclaimed. "Gotta say, I've always imagined what I could do with your power. Lost a few friends, some family over the years... What you could've done in my place, eh?"
Homelander nodded, solemnly. "If I could, I'd give every good person on this world my powers. There's only so much one man can do."
Superman gazed at Homelander mournfully. I know it's an empty platitude, coming from him... But it's true. The amount of positive change one good man with his powers could do for this world is tremendous.
"Starlight!" Homelander exclaimed. "Interesting to see you here, I didn't think Superman wanted to work with anyone else from Vought. How'd you wind up involved?"
"It's a long story." Annie replied, staring daggers directly into John's eyes.
"We've got some time while they unload the trucks." Homelander said with a casual shrug, ignoring her cold look. "Don't tell me, you were the 'friend of mine' who helped him with the creature at the facility!"
"Yes, she was." Superman said.
"So, what's our plan of action?" Homelander asked.
"Well, since the creature can apparently sense when the arm is activated," Superman began, "we can't leave it set to where it was the last time it cut a portal. Too much risk for collateral damage if it manages to get through, so we're going to copy the settings Vought used the last time they activated the arm, then try to tune it to the middle of deep space, near a gravity well."
"You think that's a good idea?" Homelander questioned. "There's a lot of stuff out there our atmosphere keeps out. Why don't we just drop it in a volcano?"
"Two reasons." Superman replied. "One, we don't know exactly how it reacts to heat radiation, so there's no guarantee that would work. Since we know it can consume atomic radiation, there's a chance it could just eat a bellyful of lava and get some kind of boost. The other is that either way, it might use the yellow arm to open its' own portal and come back."
Homelander pursed his lips, and made a contemplative sound.
Superman continued. "It wants the purple arm back."
"The one you have in that case." Butcher interjected.
"That's the one it used when it brought me through." Superman said. "Based on what I've seen it do, in both this universe and mine, it uses the purple arm to travel between dimensions, and the yellow arm to travel inside the dimension once it's there."
"So you want to put it somewhere it couldn't use the yellow one to escape to a place it could do more damage?" Homelander asked, raising an eyebrow.
Butcher smirked.
Superman nodded.
"Alright, so, assuming we do that," Homelander said, licking his lips. "What happens if we open it too close to the gravity well, or if something else out there tries to come through?"
"A friend of mine developed a force-field for the docking bay on the Justice League's satellite base, the Watchtower." Superman was interrupted by questioning looks from the others. "Oh, the Justice League are my team, back home." He said (While not answering questions actually on everyone's minds, "A satellite base?! Force-fields?!") "Anyway, I memorized the specifications of the field-emitter. I can tune it high enough to filter out any harmful cosmic radiation that might come through. Otherwise, I think we've got enough control over the power input that I can take the previous inputs from Vought and calculate the location of the black hole closest to my Earth, plus a relatively safe margin of error. I'll rig up the force-field, then we tune the arm to those star-coordinates, Homelander and I get Yl'geth right up to the edge, then Butcher fires off a volley of missiles that pushes it through. We close the portal, tune it back to my Earth, and the rest is history. Should only take me a couple of hours to get the force-field generator and missile system rigged up."
Superman looked over at Homelander, who'd momentarily screwed up his brow involuntarily, before regaining his composure.
"Of course." Homelander said, dismissively. "Of course it should."
"You look surprised." Butcher said, smugly.
"At this point I suppose I shouldn't be." Homelander replied through teeth he'd gritted into a fake smile.
"Anything you'd want to add?" Superman asked John, who just shrugged, and shook his head in response. "Alright then, let's get to it. We're burning daylight."