Waller stood before the assembled team in front of a projection.
"In 1984, on Earth Seven, Vought's premier hero known as Soldier Boy disappeared." Waller said.
The Boys noticed MM's entire body tense upon hearing Soldier Boy.
"Vought propaganda states that he sacrificed his life to stop a nuclear meltdown in Ohio. As you can guess, that was a lie." Waller said.
"No shit, so how did he really die?" MM asked, sounding irritated.
Waller looked at MM with no emotion clearly analyzing him.
"In Nicaragua that same year, by the Soviets and Sandinistas of your world." Waller told him.
MM looked stunned.
"Sandi-what?" Boomerang asked.
"You mean Soldier Boy was running with the Contras?" Butcher asked.
"Oi, I didn't get my question answered pom." Boomerang protested, but his remark was ignored.
"Not quite, he and his team went there because Vought wanted to show support." Waller explained.
"Am I gonna get my bloody question answered?" Boomerang asked.
"To answer your question, Digger, the Sandinistas were a Communist political movement. The Contras were an anti-communist organization in Nicaragua." Waller explained.
"The Contras were a part of Operation Charly. The CIA needed to get funds for the Contra so they smuggled drugs to black neighborhoods in our US. Soldier Boy was a part of that." MM explained bitterly. "I should have known."
"That happened in your world too?" Black Spider asked.
"Why is that some sort of cosmic constant?" MM rhetorically asked.
There was an awkward silence in the room.
"I didn't know that." Hughie admitted.
"Thank you for the insight, Mr. Campbell. However, Mr. Milk, Soldier Boy had no direct involvement, he and his teammates were brought to raise morale. They had only been there for a short time before the camp they were in was attacked. Soldier Boy was killed by an anti-supe weapon known as CBL Red. Your mission is to retrieve it from your Moscow." Waller said.
"How do you know this?" MM asked.
"Your former commander, Grace Mallory, was in charge of the operation." Waller said.
The rest of the Boys looked at MM sitting there completely silent and wide-eyed as he processed the information. Butcher on the other hand seemed pissed.
"Run that back by us again love, you're telling us that Mallory was hiding information on an anti-supe weapon that took out Soldier Boy for decades and never told us this." Butcher asked.
"Yes." Waller bluntly told him.
The Hall of Doom flew above Earth Seven's clouds. The dreadful headquarters of the Legion of Doom was like the top half of a black skull, the shape allowed it to go unnoticed by radars and could easily go unnoticed by that Earth's technology. Inside, Black Manta's men took the last box of V24 to be sold. Black Manta watched this while Doctor Poison analyzed a sample of the green formula on her table.
"That was the last batch." Black Manta said. "Any luck recreating it?"
"I have many creative ideas for this chemical compound but… No, I can't recreate it exactly as it is." She answered.
"Scarecrow did it."
"The original, the temporary formula is much more tricky."
Doctor Poison was a woman with terrifying eyes, most of her face covered by a black leather cowl, still revealing her big teeth, her body covered by a heavy black leather uniform with gloves on her small hands. A large wooden box floated and fell between Black Manta and Doctor Poison, the nails flew out of the box, revealing it was full of gold bars.
"We wouldn't have even half of this if the same clients didn't have to buy again." Doctor Polaris said. "We need the temporary version to keep selling."
"The only thing similar in our Earth is the Quantum-Juice that spread in the Dakota." Doctor Poison said. "Even the permanent version of Compound V is much lighter; to recreate the V24, might take me a long time."
They heard someone approach them. They turned and saw a large Gorilla wearing a purple cape approaching them: Gorilla Grodd.
"That will be difficult, our infiltrator has just informed me that this product wasn't supposed to be ready until two years from now." Grodd said.
"You think, someone helped Vought?" Manta asked.
"Yes, I do." Grodd bluntly told him. "Fortunately, I should be able to synthesize it. All we just need is more."
Unbeknown to the Legion of Doom, Lex Luthor and his Secret Society of Supervillains watched and heard every move from them in real-time at their lair. The Society sat around their skull table seeing the Legion's argument on the holographic screen.
"Do you still have access to their cameras?" The Brain asked Luthor.
"I built the Hall of Doom, of course." Luthor answered. "You heard what they said, we can consider this problem solved."
"I don't understand." Arkillo said.
"Edgar will put out the information of a large cargo of V24 in a certain location, when the Legion comes to get it, they'll find the Justice League waiting. Won't you?"
The holographic screen is divided in two, on the right side, Stan Edgar is in his office.
"It can be arranged." Stan Edgar said. "If they have the means to access the information about the cargo ship they stole. Perhaps we could even solve two problems at once, tell me, Mr. Luthor, do you believe Homelander would survive an encounter with this Legion of Doom?"
"He would with Superman around. His irritating sense of morality means he must save even the worse of the worse."
"Well, perhaps the Justice League will be late for the party."
Cold day in Moscow, Earth Seven. On a highland in the city, a flash of light appeared, and there were Butcher, Manchester, Hughie, Trickster, Mother's Milk, Black Spider, Kimiko, Scarlett, Frenchie, and Captain Boomerang. MM was sweating, he removed his shirt, threw it on the ground and set it on fire.
"What the bloody hell is he doing?" Manchester Black questioned.
"There's crossed juice on my shirt, can't risk this shit spreading to my world." MM answered. "Why the fuck didn't you just sent us to the our universe, Waller?"*
"I'm sorry, Mr. Milk, does your universe traveling machine work better?" Waller sarcastically asked.
"You ended up in a zombie world too?" Trickster asked. "There was a zombie Adam Strange there and I saw the corpse of Giganta!"
"Those things were worse than zombies."
"You think that's bad?" Frenchie asked. "I was a cartoon! And supervillains tried to put my brain on the body of a singe!"
"I ended up in a version of our world where we all supes and work for the CIA." Hughie told them. "Butcher and the others thought I worked for Vought nearly killed. And I'm Scottish apparently."
"You can catch up later." Waller told them. "Now you have work to do."
"You heard the boss, lads." Manchester Black said. "Let's go."
Manchester walked towards the city, expecting to be followed, Butcher passed by him and took the lead. MM put on his extra shirt, still on the edge from what he had experienced. He heard the sound of somebody sucking on a straw, and saw Kimiko drinking a cup of something called 'Mocha Cola' and wearing a pair of pink sunglasses she didn't have before.
The Boys walked the cold streets of Moscow with the other members of the Suicide Squad, all of them in civillian clothing except for Manchester Black whose usual attire didn't not get any extra attention. Everywhere they looked, graffiti of Homelander, Queen Maeve or other supes as monsters, reminiscent of old Communist propaganda, some of the newer included the Justice League, Black laughed at Superman's arts.
"No way," Trickster said and raced towards a DVD stand. A man was selling bootleg DVDs, some of Vought Studios but those weren't the ones that caught his attention. "They're bootlegging movies from our Earth! Check this out, 'Gray Ghost Begins', 'Warrior Angel IV - The Quest for Peace', they even have that shitty remake of the Silver Blade!"
"What does it say here?" Butcher asked MM, pointing to the DVDs with pictures of the real superheroes from Earth One.
"Real footage." MM translated.
That section had DVDs with footage of Superman fighting Doomsday, the Justice League fighting Starro, and one in particular presented a younger Captain Boomerang wearing a skirt-like shirt with many boomerangs in it and a hat similar to a flight attendant rather than a beanie, he was fighting another Flash and a young Kid-Flash with red hair.
"What happened to this outfit, Digger?" Trickster asked.
"Those were different times." He answered.
"Well, well, look at the jewel of the crown." Butcher said. "Superman vs the Elite, live from the moon and from the Metropolis. I watched this before, wasn't that when you cried in front of the whole world?" He asked Manchester.
"Why don't you shut your trap, you dumb bird? Before I bollocks ya." Manchester answered, poking fun at the TV dramatization of Butcher killing Stillwell.
"We have to move." Black Spider intervened.
Trickster took his time to buy a few DVDs and then followed the others to a building at the end of the street. They walked into the building, a tall man in a leather mask waited for them, he wore navy blue and red, he had a cybernetic gun in the place of his left hand.
"KGBeast, long time no see, mate." Digger greeted.
"I'm not your mate, Boomerang." KGBeast answered, his accent was clearly Russian. "Have what Waller promised?"
Harkness paid KGBeast with a tiny bag of diamonds and he allowed them to choose a room in the building. Harkness laid on the bed while the others unpacked their guns and other equipment.
"That supe dressed like a gimp from the future is from your Earth?" Butcher asked.
"He used to be in the Suicide Squad, aye. One day he was just taking care of his business and was sucked into your Earth. Now he runs this place, the place you go in Earth Seven Moscow if you need to bring a bunch of guns, a hostage, or a meta-human killing weapon without questions."
"Gotta take my hat for businessmanship. Now we need to talk about breaking into that military complex."
"I broke into a thousand military complexes back when I was murdering for the majesty." Manchester said.
"Not in my world, so why don't you just sit this one out and let the voice of experience speak."
Black and Butcher and started an argument. They all learned some brand new British expressions that did not sound very flattering. Black Spider spoke to MM.
"That's why Waller wanted a team with similar personalities."
"So they can clash like this?"
"No, without a team leader, she wanted us to bond and knew neither of the Brits would take too much charge of the mission."
"Bond over what? Being the one black dude? What? Did somebody already use the Afro Web, motherfucker? No one wants to be here, Waller got a team that won't stay together, no wonder somebody always dies in these missions."
Maeve was lying down in her bed. The floor was littered with liquor bottles, beer cans, and even some wine bottles. Despite this, Maeve's hangover was not bad. She looked up and saw Ashley approaching the bed. She looked concerned.
"What?" Maeve asked not even leaving the bed.
"Elena's missing." Ashley said.
Maeves' world stopped upon hearing that.
"What?" Maeve could only reply.
"Her sister filed a missing person report, she disappeared yesterday. The police found the vehicle that allegedly abducted her outside a candy store, but it was torched. No bodies inside of it though." Ashley said.
Maeve was completely silent. It was Homelander, she was almost certain of it.
"Is there anything I can do?" Ashely weakly asked.
"Get out." Maeve told her.
Remembering her previous one-to-one talk with Maeve, Ashley decided to leave.
Maeve took out her phone and called Donna.
"Hello?" Circe asked.
"He took her." Maeve told her.
"Who?" Circe asked, feigning oblivious.
"Homelander he took Elena. I know it!" Maeve told her.
"Are you sure?" Circe asked.
"He had some people with a van abduct her! Then he torched it!" Maeve said practically tearing out her hair.
"Are you certain it was Homelander?" Circe asked.
"Yes, who else could it be?" Maeve asked.
"The Justice League." Circe said.
"Why would they do that?" Maeve asked.
"Think about it. Martian Manhunter is a telepath, the greatest on Earth One. He's probably been looking through the minds of everyone in Vought Tower looking for evidence to pin against you." Circe said.
"What makes you say that?" Maeve asked.
"Tell me something you know Homelander, right?" Circe asked.
"Yes, I do. This is the same kind of shit he would pull." Maeve responded.
"Would he tell you it the first chance he got?" Circe questioned.
"No, it was Ashley." Maeve said.
"If that's what you believe." Circe said.
Maeve hung up from the call. Anxiety started to take hold of her thoughts. Did Homelander kill Elena? Or maybe the Justice League faked her abduction?
The Boy and the Suicide Squad observed the Russian stone building from far with binoculars.
"Waller did us no favors." MM said. "That ain't a lab. It's a military compound."
"Russian military compound." Butcher argued.
"Earth Seven Russian military compound." Black added.
"We'll come here when it's late at night and it will be like storming a Baja Fresh."
"Why wait? Boomer."
Captain Boomerang stepped up and launched a boomerang toward the compound. He put out a phone screen from his pocket and watched the trajectory of the boomerang.
"What the fuck was that?" MM asked. "We're supposed just to observe."
"Little something I built before Waller sent us here." Harkness explained. "Will give me full access to their security system and we can just walk in."
"You forgot the reds with AKs in there."
In the premises of the compound, one of the guards saw Trickster waving at him, pulling his pants down, and showing the guard his butt. The guard got offended and walked over to Trickster, that was the moment when Scarlett put a gun behind his head.
"Don't move." She said,
They dragged the guard inside the lab and took his access card and gun. The guard presented a slight smile.
"What is he smirking for?" Manchester asked.
Behind them, was a group of five guards with machine guns. Black used his powers to take away their weapons and throw their bodies against the wall. It seemed like they were unconscious, but one of them tried to reach for his gun. Black Spider stepped on him, took the gun, and used to knock him down in the head.
"You looked more powerful in the videos." Butcher teased.
"You can blame Superman for that." Black answered, not a quick quip but genuinely upset, his eyes were black and green and he had his hand on his head like he had a strong headache.
MM went to use the guard's access card, and when the guard attempted to stop him, MM knocked him down with a punch.
"Rocky IV, motherfucker." MM said and took one of the machine guns on the floor.
In the lab, one of the scientists held a hamster with light brown fur. He picked a needle with Compound V and was about to inject it when someone entered the lab. The Boys and the Suicide Squad had their guns pointed at the scientists.
"Red Dawn, motherfuckers!" MM announced, pointing his rifle at them.
"Cuff them." Both Butcher and Black said at the same time and exchanged angry looks.
One of the scientists pressed a button to call for help, but nothing happened.
"That won't work, mate." Captain Boomerang explained.
Hughie and Trickster zip-cuffed the scientists. Hughie carefully put the hamster back in his cage. He showed MM the syringe.
"Were they about to make a supe hamster?" Hughie asked.
"Probably trying to learn about the V." MM said and pointed to the name in the cage. "Says his name is Jamie."
"Jamie." Hughie said and took the cage away from the scientists.
They started searching around the lab, every inch of space, all of them but Captain Boomerang who refused to search in tiny spaces.
"Your meta-human killing gun won't be in a drawer." He explained and walked to a sort of tank, big enough for a whole person to fit inside. "My bet is that it's in there."
"I can crack it open." Trickster said.
"Yeah, nah. I have more experience than you in this department."
Captain Boomerang put out his tools to open the tank. The scientists observed this with fear. One of them, an older man with glasses, glanced at the Compound V left on the table. He had a scalpel hidden on his sleeve and used to cut the zip cuffs. He quickly grabbed the syringe, at this moment, Black Spider turned around and shot him in the head. Manchester Black looked disappointed.
"We were not supposed to make any…" He hesitated, and saw the syringe was on the scientist's shoulder and fully injected, red light shone from the bullet hole, his mouth and glowed on his face. "Noise…"
The scientist got up and shot fire out of his entire face. The fire started to spread on the lab, the zip cuffed scientists were the ones burning to death, unable to move away. The Boys shot the newly supe transformed man but the bullets only slowed him down. Manchester Black used his powers to stop the fire from hitting them.
"Protect me." Harkness said. "I'm your chance to get this weapon."
"You're having a laugh if you think I can't beat this freak by myself." Black argued.
"It doesn't matter." MM said. "There's a whole squadron of reds coming in here to see what caused this mess."
"Actually, I took care of this already." Trickster explained.
A squadron of Russian soldiers ran towards the lab carrying their gun. Suddenly, they stopped, unable to move with their feet stuck on the floor. Looking down, they saw their boots were glued to the floor, this glue covered the entire way to the lab.
Manchester held the scientist away with his telekinesis. Frenchie ran from behind him and hit the supe's face with a fire-extinguisher, it melted with the impact and put the fire away. Black Spider and Scarlett proceeded to shoot him. He got up and started following Black Spider, until Scarlett started shooting, so he started to follow her, as the fire from his face became stronger but he couldn't concentrate as the two shooters ran in opposite directions. Hughie ran to where he left the hamster's cage to take him away from the fire, giving the supe the opportunity to aim at Hughie. Butcher hit the scientist with his crowbar, that didn't do anything but piss him off, he gave an angry murderous look at Butcher. Before he could use his power, the supe's head exploded as Manchester sent a wave of energy at full strength towards it. Hughie's face got covered with blood.
"Still got it." Manchester tiredly said, as he lit up a cigarette.
"Done!" Harkness announced.
The tank was open, a thick white fog obscured their vision. As it dissipated, a man was revealed inside the tank, long hair and a for very long grown beard, he had an oxygen mask on his face. Butcher looked at him, he knew who this man was.
"Soldier Boy…" Butcher whispered.
Soldier Boy broke out of his restraints, removed the oxygen mask and stepped out of the tank. Mother's Milk was speechless, scared, powerlessly watching Soldier Boy break free. Until Captain Boomer put an inhibitor collar on his neck and pushed Soldier Boy to the ground.
"Got him." Captain Boomerang said to Waller, touching his earpiece.
"You knew about this!?" MM asked.
"Just me, mate. We also knew about your history with the bloke, aye. Waller thought it would be safer if only I knew."
"Step away, Boomer." MM ordered pointing his gun at him. "This collar takes his powers, which means I can actually kill this piece of shit."
"Put the gun down, Milk." Waller spoke in his earpiece, he started hearing the bomb on his neck ticking. "I won't say it again."
Fab five Freddy told me everybody's fly… That song echoed in MM's mind with memories of himself watching Solid Gold as a child with his grandfather. DJ spinnin', I said: My, My… It kept playing in his mind with images of a car going through his apartment and his grandfather dead on the ground. He couldn't hear the bomb ticking anymore, even if it still was. He kept his gun pointed to Soldier Boy. Black Spider removed the gun from MM's hand and pushed him aside.
"What the fuck, Needham." MM said.
"I just saved your life." Black Spider answered. "We just went through a Suicide Squad mission with no casualities, that's rare, I'd like to keep it like this…"
Soldier Boy's body was lit up, his chest was glowing, the pieces of destruction near him started moving. He got up, pushing Captain Boomerang away and sending a blast of energy out of his chest towards Black Spider that went through the wall behind him, he liberated the blast with a scream. When he was done, Soldier Boy breathed heavily, and Black Spider was reduced to ashes and gutters. Soldier Boy was about to turn to Captain Boomerang but MM punched him in the face and knocked him out.
"Bloody hell, I didn't know he had this power." Harkness said.
"He didn't." MM said.
The inhibitor collar's light turned white, same as the bracelets the Boys the rest of the Squad were wearing. All of them were taken with a flash of light.
* So for anyone curious as to what the Boys were talking about, on AO3 there is a story written by AGoodCraftsman titled "The Boys take a peep at the multiverse". I will be posting it on this site soon, as I have their permission.