AN: Hi Everyone!
I have been informed that this story is being posted on Webnovel under the name: The Boys: Reborn as Homelander.
It is not me who is posting the story there. Fanfic is the only site where I have posted any of my stories.
Thank you to The Watcher of Fiction for letting me know in the reviews!
That's all for now.
I hope you enjoy the chapter.
Chapter 15
"AAAAHHHH! ENOUGH! NO MORE INTERFERANCE!" Soldier Boy recovers just as fast turning towards Starlight, his body resuming his death glow brighter than before.
Time slows as she feels the heat radiating off him, stinging her skin burying itself inside of her.
She sees the mutated faces of Butcher and M.M shouting but the sound takes its time to reach her ears.
Her eyes turn back to her assailant.
The small movement takes an eternity, as the red intensifies. Her stomach drops and knees tremble, she is weak, the radiation is making her weak.
She sees it happening but can't move.
'I'm going to die' is the single clear thought that resonates as certainty.
"Annie!" The scream hits like a wave.
In a blur he's there enveloping the glowing death from behind.
His eyes meet hers and a shiver goes up her spine lightning fast.
In another explosive blur they are both gone, time resuming its normal course as the sound of the crashed window and wall reaches all of them.
'Homelander saved me' was the first thought that popped into her mind as she watched the confused looks of everyone around her.
'He saved all of us. He…'
She didn't have time to finish the thought as a flash of red and 'BRAAKNGG!' the building shakes along with crashing sounds of broken glass, steel beams falling and cement scraping.
"Cherrie!" Frenchie say as he rushes to Kimiko.
His scream brings everyone out of their shock.
"Hughie!" She says loudly mostly to herself while rushing to his side.
"What the fuck was that?" M.M asks as he rushes to the window.
"Hopefully that's Cunt Boy blowing up Homelander." She hears Butcher say as he joins M.M by the opening in the side of the building.
"YEA and HALF OF MANHATTEN WITH HIM." She hears M.M say with fury. "ALLYING WITH THAT MAD MAN!"
"Hughie!" She screamed as she saw he was bleeding from his mouth and having a hard time breathing along with a bruise starting to swell on the side of his head.
She makes to help him but is distracted by a desperate call from Frenchy.
"Guys!" She turns and sees Frenchie and Kimiko, the girl already recovered, backing away from a slowly advancing Noir.
"Well, the little black dog wants to keep playing." She hears Butchers say while ignoring the furious looks from M.M . "An attack dog without a master well that won't due, we'll just have to put you down now won't we."
A sputtering cough brings her attention back to her boyfriend.
Her resolve steels and she screams. "ENOUGH!"
Everyone's attention is on her.
She turns to them with righteous fury.
"BUTCHER! NOIR! STAND DOWN! NOW" The lights flicker all around them and her eyes start glowing.
Noir stops for a moment to look at her tilts his head to the right then relaxes his stance and gives her a mock salute.
"Good dog." Butcher quips which only enrages her.
"YOU! YOU SELFISH PRICK!" She starts advancing on him. "Hughie is dying and you want to keep fighting!"
That seemed to bring Butcher back to reality as a pang of shame colored his features. "Hughie!" he said as he rushed to the replacement little brother.
"Look at all this destruction! Soldier Boy could have brought the whole building down! Thousands could have died!"
Butcher looked at her from Hughie's side with resigned determination.
"It wasn't supposed to go down like this, the plan was..."
"Man your plans are always fucked up! They never work!" M.M said frustrated. "But this Butcher! This takes the fucking cake!" M.M said resentfully looking out the city skyline. "I see at least half a dozen buildings with damage, debris falling everywhere, how many people died tonight because of you?" he said with anger as he turned back towards the group. "How much blood until you are satisfied?"
She could see Butcher was about to respond so she interfered.
"Enough! No more fighting! Hughie needs help. We need to take him to a hospital!" Butcher reluctantly nodded and so did M.M.
Butcher picked up Hughie and carried him as they made their exit to the stairs.
As she passed the stoically looking Noir she saw him sign rapidly with his hands and give her a nod once he was done.
Confused she turned to Frenchie for translation.
The man's face scowled but translated nonetheless.
"He said The Seven need their Light."
Annie couldn't help but feel an anxious knot in her chest.
Scene Break
"Until this compound runs out in a few hours like you said there isn't much we can do. The internal bleeding has stopped by itself and we tubed him to deal with the perforated lung."
Starlight listened aptly to the doctor describing Hughie's condition to her Butcher and Hughie's dad Hugh Campbell.
As next of kin it was him who could authorize any procedures to be made on Hughie so they had to bring him in.
"So I'm not too worried about that, it's the brain injury that worries me." He said.
Six hours it had taken six hours until the doctors were able to see Hughie and perform all the tests needed to assess his situation.
The emergency rooms around the city were packed with injuries both minor and major from the earlier battle between Homelander and Soldier Boy.
"The swelling from the blunt force trauma is manageable with anti-inflammatory medication but it's the lesions that I can't do anything about."
That brought her back to reality.
"Lesions?" Hugh Campbell asked.
"Yes, lesions. The scans indicate his brain has suffered damage all over outside of the blunt force trauma he just received, not only that but there are some small growths of tumors in various places. Has he ever experienced…?"
Starlight, out of the corner of her eye, caught Butcher suddenly stiffening up, falling and shaking.
"Seizures!" the doctor finished loudly as he moved to the falling Butcher.
To his credit the doctor immediately mobilized Hugh and asked him to put his hands underneath Butcher so as not to hurt his head.
Not that Butcher could since he was still doped up on 24-V.
The doctor continued yelling in code over the phone as a bunch of nurses flooded into the office.
"We'll have to continue this conversation later. You can go back to the waiting area or home we will call you if there is any change in Hughie's condition." And with that he rushed them out of the room.
"I'm going to stay." The father said. "They might need me. You should go home it looked like you've been through a lot today."
Starlight silently agreed and hugged the man.
As she made her way out of the hospital she realized there might not be a home to return to. The tower might still be off-limits and she has no idea if her apartment was damaged in the fight.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the buzzed vibrations of her phone.
Ashley was video calling her.
"Hello." She said with curiosity as a disheveled Ashley appeared on screen.
"Oh thank god! Starlight! You need to come to the Tower. We need your help, they are trying to get him! You need to come back!"
Annie was taken aback by the rapid fire spewing from Ashley.
"Ashley wait, slow down! What happened?" She asked the flustered woman.
"The fucking Feds happened! That's what! They're here to take Homelander! Noir fought them off! Fuck, we're so fucked! We're all going to jail! Fuck FUCK FUCK!" Annie could see Ashley was starting to lose it again.
"Ashley slow down. What do you mean they are trying to take Homelander? Where is he? What happened with him and Soldier Boy?"
"Martin's team picked Homelander up from Harlem a few hours ago."
"Wait, Martin, Martin Schultz the CSO?" She interrupted.
"Yes the fucking CSO!" Ashley answered exasperated. "Homelander was hurt really bad, they've been operating on him ever since." That actually shocked her.
If they were operating that means he was powerless?
"The CIA somehow found out and put a team together to take him, with some fucking legal bullshit that our Counsel is trying to fight right now."
"Wait, what happened to Soldier Boy?"
"I don't know, Martin thinks Homelander threw him into the Moon or something. Look that doesn't matter we need you here! I'm only here with A-Train who is helping the police with clean up." She continued.
"Deep is keeping Ryan away" That's right Butcher said that Ryan had been there as well, another fuck up on his part "and Noir is guarding the operating room." She paused.
"I've sent out a call to the other heroes and some are coming in but they need a leader. You're captain of The Seven, you, A-Train and Deep need to show a united front they'll follow you. We need to prevent them from taking Homelander!"
"But if they have the legal right what can we do?"
"Fuck Annie! We physically stop them!" Ashley said incensed. "We buy time so our legal team can fight this! Look Homelander is Vought!" She said exasperated.
"If they take him it won't just be him, they'll take Maeve, and they'll take Ryan"
"Wait, Maeve? Why would they take Maeve?" she interrupts Ashley.
"Because she's the strongest woman in the world that's why! And she's currently unconscious and helpless!"
"And what do you think will happen if they fuck up and can't contain John? He recovers and finds out they took his son again?" she stopped and paused as she saw Starlight grimace.
"Look Annie, this is a mistake waiting to happen. We can stop this. I need you to at least keep the rest inline so this doesn't escalate more than it needs to. We just need to buy some time that's it! Please!"
Annie sighed and felt the knot of anxiousness grow larger and tighter in her chest.
Homelander was hurt, technically an opportunity to end this but it wasn't guaranteed, and Noir was guarding him.
The government would try again and with more heroes inbound it would surely escalate, more people would die.
And if they took Maeve and Ryan and Homelander recovered then even more people would die.
She couldn't help but feel a string of despair resonate within her. Death, everywhere there was death. They were supposed to be heroes, to help people to prevent death, not cause it.
'How did things go sideways so fast' she couldn't help but think.
'The Seven need their Light'
Noir's last words to her came knocking at the front of her mind.
No, she was a hero, she won't sacrifice more people just on a chance that Homelander could be taken down.
'I'm not like Butcher' she thought and with a sad thought continued 'or like Hughie'.
With steely eyes she looked at Ashley's image and responded.
"I'm on my way."
Scene Break
The small vibration indicating that Ashley pressed the end call button on the screen was accompanied by the closing image of Starlight into black.
"Ok, good, good, Starlight is coming over…" she whispered more to herself than anyone else not that there was anyone else in her office.
"This can be salvaged, just need time for counsel to…" she didn't get to finish as her office door opened and her assistant walked in.
"What do you have for me?" She asked expectantly of her mini-self.
Mini-Ashley's face scrunched hesitation as if she had just taken a sour patch bear.
"Not good. No one's answering. The contacts at DoD are silent and the few lower rung aides that answered all said they had no idea about it but can't reach the Senators now."
Ashley felt anxiety building in her chest again along a fire of rage.
"AAAARRRRGGHHHH!" She let out a frustrated yell while her hands made to choke a non-existing person making her mini-self shrink back in fear.
"Those fucking assholes! They smell blood and don't want to be caught on the wrong side of this. FUCK!" she yelled.
"This is why you can't trust politicians! They will take Vought's money but when it comes to a little information…" she just shook her head in denial "fucking assholes!"
"Congresswoman Neuman answered she said FBS didn't know about the raid either but she's looking into it." Her assistant tried to re-assure her.
"Of course she didn't." Ashley's hands went to cover her face. "Of course she fucking didn't."
She took a few deep breaths to calm herself down.
"… 'just figure it' out he says 'you're the CEO'" she mumbled to herself remembering the conversation she had with Martin when she pulled him out of the O.R to warn him about the incoming agents.
'I shouldn't have done that' she thought as she started to bite her nails. 'No, it wouldn't have mattered' her consciousness changing course 'Noir was going to be there anyway.'
She'd just reached the top and now it was all close to crashing down around her. Worse it might drag her down as well and end up in prison.
Martin outright said if he goes down he's bringing everyone else with him and then Noir had to go and be a one man fucking army.
'And now no-one is picking up the phone….FUCK!' she thought and bit harder on the nail in her right thumb.
'What would Stan do? Fuck! This never would have happened under Edgar! Fuck! Ok calm yourself, what would he do?' she thought rapidly.
'Ok' she thought and took a deep breath 'he would play to his strengths. He would use his political connections and favors to squash this…but I can't do that because I don't have his contacts…and no one is fucking answering me! '
Her inner frustration realizing only as shaky closed fists on the outside.
'What are my strengths? I don't have the same connections as him.' She shook her head. 'because I spend every fucking waking second crisis managing selfish, egoistic, self-absorbed and incredibly stupid super powered celebrities. Idiots who wouldn't be able to string two sentences tog…" she suddenly stopped, her eyes widening in realization.
"Ashley are you ok?" she heard her assistant ask. "Do you want me to get you anything? Maybe a band aid?" she asked reluctantly. "Your thumb is bleeding."
Her eyes looked down at her hand and saw the tiny red droplet going down her knuckle from the outside side of her nail.
She had ripped off a bit too much skin trying to chew on the dead end.
Her instant reaction was to bring it back to her lips and suck the remaining drip out.
She held I there for a second taking the time to formulate her thoughts.
"We're going live." She said as she removed the appendage from her mouth.
"What?" the Mini-her asked.
"The CIA wants to pull this shady shit in the middle of the night? Let's see how America feels about this." She paused.
"We promised more transparency right? So let's shed some light on what just happened!" She said with conviction.
"So Live on TV?" Mini-Ashley asked. "The studio's a mess I don't think the crew can-"
"Fuck TV." Ashley said.
"Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, Tik-Tok." She paused "we'll go live on all of them at the same time." and finished with a smile.
She wasn't Stan but she had her own strengths.
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AN: Here is Annie and some Ashley POV.
I hope the chapter was able to explain some of the going-ons while Homelander was unconscious in the O.R getting fixed up along with the motivations of the two women.
I think this is all I'm going to elaborate on that time period.
In the next chapters I will start the time skips to show the progression of Homelander and Vought.
What steps should Homelander first take to start in the space race and make humanity multi-planetary?
I am also working on my main fic Stumbling Through Godhood. Check it out when you have time, looking forward to hear your thoughts on there as well.
Once again thank you for reading.