Chapter 14

I greedily drank out of the glass and with each gulp the refreshing liquid cooled the fiery feeling I felt inside of me.

As I finished slurping the last drops of water I handed the glass back to Martin and let out a satisfied sigh.

"Thank you. I really needed that."

I looked inside the large gown I was wearing to stare at the bandages that were covering me from the waist up to the neck.

I felt weak, fatigued, each breath was heavy, muscles screaming of being sore as if they had been pressing against an unstoppable force though admittedly the pain numbed a little bit with each rising of my chest.

I raised my bandaged right hand barely able to bring it to shoulder level. I had to turn my head slightly more to the right to get a good look.

I couldn't see out of my right eye…no correction I couldn't feel my right eye, only a throbbing sensation of pain like a drumbeat following the rhythm of my heart.

My right hand, was too thin even with the bandages I felt no strength in it.

"Martin" I'm seated halfway up on the bed and my head turns to him. "What happened?"

The older man sitting in a chair next to my bed, sighed and leaned back.

"I'm not going to lie to you it was pretty bad. For a little while we thought we were going to lose you."

I was actually taken back by his words, I knew I had been in bad shape but not close to dying. I motioned for him to continue.

"You fell in Harlem, busted up some buildings on your way down, it was only pure luck that we got to you before the police…then again most of them were evacuating the affected neighborhoods-"

"Neighborhoods?" I interrupted him.

"Ah, well more like a few of the city blocks around us, Soldier Boy's laser beam wrecked a few buildings a bunchof people died evening workers and falling debris and all that." He said almost as an afterthought. "We also have a radiation warning for about five blocks all around us" He saw me scrunch my visible part of my face in worry "that's mostly for show. Don't worry none of the buildings came down." He paused.

"Ok, you said I fell in Harlem?" I nudged for him to continue.

"Yea, you were a mess, burns all over you, melted skin and suit, bruising and bleeding well from everywhere." I could feel his weariness at bringing up the images of how he found me.

"We brought you back, the medical team was ready to operate, we did what we could to help you but broken as you were for the first three hours we couldn't penetrate your skin." He paused briefly.

"You were as sturdy as ever, problem was you weren't healing or mending back together then around the three hour mark suddenly you heated up and started emitting large amounts of radiation. We weren't sure what was going to happen so we evacuated and only observed you." He paused briefly once more.

"That lasted about forty minutes then our instruments indicated you had cooled down and the radiation reduced to, well, more, reasonable levels. That's when we came back and found we were actually able to cut you" my eyes immediately widened in shock "so we started to fix you."

My hands immediately shot up in front of me and as if reading my mind Martin answered my question. "Don't worry you're still super…I think."

Not waiting for him to elaborate I took a breath and willed myself up off the bed, instantly I felt myself rise above it though I felt pain from my muscles trying to stabilize my core.

"Well that confirms it you can still fly and you're at least still very much invulnerable again."

As I plopped down on the bed I looked at him confused and waited for him to elaborate.

"We operated for about twelve hours straight, stopping internal bleeding, skin grafts, setting bones the whole works." He says. "You were losing quite a lot of blood so we had to get you some new one also to counteract the radiation damage we needed to do a bone marrow transplant"

"Bone marrow but from where" I interrupted him "I don't have anyone-" then it hit me.

"Ryan" we both said at the same time.

I instantly felt an energy surge in my belly and my whole body heating up. My right arm weak as it was shot up to grab him by the throat and machines in the room started beeping wildly in that radio static sound indicating high levels of radiation.

Martin's eyes bulged as my thump pressed against his throat box but he managed to squeeze out a few words that clamed me down.

"He's fine! Completely fine!" he said through choking breaths.

I let him go and I put my face in the same right palm that was just squeezing him. "I'm sorry Martin, I'm so sorry. I just-"

"It's fine, it's ok. You've been through a lot." He said rubbing his neck. "Ryan is ok, perfectly fine, his healing factor is outstanding, and everything we took he regenerated back in a few hours. He's truly a fine specimen."

I immediately shot him a glare and he put his hands up in resignation. "Sorry, poor choice of words."

"So his bone marrow healed me?" I asked and I saw him shift a bit uncomfortably.

"Eh…we're not quite sure…" I looked at him incredulously.

"You're not sure?"

"Well, his blood and bone marrow were needed since, well you needed it and he was the only compatible donor but we also used stem cells from him along with a concoction" he hesitated a bit "experimental of course, of subject Black's stem cells and compound V."

"And that's what worked to bring me back ? To being super?" And once again I saw the man hesitate.

"Eh…not exactly, uh I think maybe, that's the best theory we have" He said rapidly as he saw my un-amused look.

"I had hoped the V would restore you immediately like it did for subject Black but that didn't happen."

"So what happened then?"

"We'll we performed the transfusions around the eight hour of operating once the other team managed to finish extracting from Ryan and synthesizing the Black V compound but well once we did it, nothing happened." He took a deep breath.

"As far as we could tell your body just kind of fully absorbed everything with no discernable changes. Your temperature was still hot and the radiation was still…high…abnormal. You're healing and blood coagulation was…normal human levels as far as we could tell."

"So what happened then?"

"Well seeing no perceptible change, we continued with the operation, we fixed as much as we could and called it quits when we couldn't, twelve hours in."

"Then how am I still super?" I asked confused.

"Well, we did a pin prick test every hour or so after we were done to check you and in the fourth hour after Dr. Ferrelli reported that it failed and all the things we had hooked you up to were expelled from your body." He took a slight breath and continued.

"Most of the sutured wounds were healed over and the burned areas showed considerable scarring as well there was considerable growth of skin and muscle on your damaged right arm." He paused slightly as I looked at my bandaged arm.

"Since then we haven't been able to penetrate your skin, all the medicine had to be administered orally or annually." I flinched at that last part but whatever he was the doctor he knew better. "Your eye though didn't regenerate, we had to remove the remains but the area around it had already started to scar when we found you in Harlem" he said.

"But overall the more important part was that you had cooled down to normal human temperature and the radiation subsided as well…at least until you just got angry now." He said and took a look at the machines near us.

I sighed. "So you used me as a guinea pig for your new untested compound and don't even know if it worked or not."

Martin scowled and I could see he wasn't pleased with my assessment.

"I'm giving you the short notes here, you have no idea how bad you were, even the video won't do justice to show you but I can read you the chart of all the things that were wrong with you"

I stopped him before he could go on. "No that won't be necessary. You're right. I'm sorry and thank you for saving my life."

The man loosed up and nodded in acknowledgement.

"Look, I need a few moments, to recollect and let all of this sink in." I said while my hand motioned at my state.

Martin nodded once again.

"I can give you half an hour. Ashley and the exec team along with the board want to see you asap and there's only so long I can keep Schiffler and Ferrelli of you. Now that you're awake they will want to run tests on you." I rolled my eyes at that.

"Hnhm, does Ashley have anything to do with the crowed outside?"

"You can hear them?" Martin asked back.

"How can I not" I said shrugging.

"That's good. It means that healed as well and yes she does, I'll let her tell you about that, fucking government pricks." He swore under his breath and I just raised my remaining eyebrow at him.

"Never mind that." He said shaking his head. "Washroom's over there through that door if you need it. Noir's outside call for him when you're ready."

I nodded and the man left me to my own devices.

I walked slowly to the washroom, with each step getting reacquainted with the feel of my body. That and I was trying to minimize the lingering pain.

I looked at the half mirror in the washroom and it wasn't pretty.

Scarred red skin on the right side of my face, even though it was hidden by the bandages I knew part of my hair was also gone. The scarring went down my neck to my shoulders where the bandages began again.

Part of me wanted to unwrap them to see the damage however I felt a surge of anger as I stared at myself in the mirror.

Homelander's feelings were bubbling up, the man was…had been a supremacist and took great pride in his perfect looks.

Seeing them now ruined must have risen whatever was left of him inside of me.

I felt heat and energy build more wild, chaotic and much hotter than when I used my laser vision, no, this was something different.

I heard the instruments in the other room start beeping, making static noises. As the heat and energy built my breathing got faster and I saw in the mirror my chest glowing red.

With almost frantic breathing I realized what was happening.

I needed to get it under control before I exploded.

I inhaled deeply thought my mouth and exhaled in a controlled manner through my nose.

'Fuck this I'm in charge!'

I did it again and again while slowly pushing the energy through my whole body, circulating it as if was blood with each breath.

I felt my heart rate slow and with it the energy buildup along with the glowing in my chest.

I brought my hands up in front of my one good eye, took a deep breath through my nose and as I exhaled slowly I willed the energy to move into my arms.

Immediately I felt heat from my stomach through my chest running down my arms.

I scowled, took another breath, sharpened my will and tried again with the same effect.

I did it again and as I finished my controlled exhaled I couldn't help but let a smile build upon my chapped lips.

'Like father like son!'

My palms were glowing with a bright, deep, red aura.

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AN: Here is Homelander POV and the extent of the damage.

I'm thinking of doing a Starlight or Ashley POV as well, let me know which one you would like to see most.

Homelander has lost some but he also won some.

Some of you have already guessed some of the things that Martin is going to develop with Kimiko's cells and V.

If the medical stuff didn't make sense or is not accurate well that's because I have no medical knowledge so I was winging it.

Homelander has now adapted to the radiation, like his daddy dearest, and he also has 'Black V' along with Ryan's stemcells and bone marrow in him.

What will that do to him? How will it help him evolve? Will he reach a new stage?

To find out tune in NEXT TIME ON DRAGON BALL….oh shit wrong show!

Once again thank you for reading.