AN: Hi Everyone!
I have not posted my stories on any other website than Fanfiction. If you see this story or my other ones on other sites it's not me posting it.
I hope you enjoy the chapter.
TIMELINE & DATE:
I think Season 3 happens during 2021 with the last few episodes happening after Homelander's Birthday Special which is July 4th. So I put the action for the last few episodes to happen towards the end of August or first week of September.
For this story I am moving the date up by one year so Chapters 1 through 15 happen during the last week of August first week of September 2022.
My reasoning is that in the show they have a presidential election coming up. In the real world the next election is 2024 and campaigning starts around two years before the election so it fits nicely with the real world and makes future date calculations much easier for me.
As I'm starting the time skip I won't be providing exact dates only months and years and sometimes only years as we get further along the timeline.
Chapter 30
Date: September 2025
Mallory watched with hidden disgust as Homelander, Starlight, A-Train and the rest of the Vought executive contingent filled up the room.
As always it was the sheer arrogance and smug look that Homelander had as if he knew he was going to get his way today that irked her the most.
The rest were at least more respectful and understood the gravity of the situation of them meeting in the Pentagon, even if most were just useless puppets.
Powerful puppets but puppets none the less.
She knew A-Train had folded completely under Homelander and as for Starlight well…she was fucking him.
'Christ what a mess that was!'
She would have slapped the blond if she could have but she doubted that would help.
As for the rest of the Vought executives they were stooges, loyalists or simply too afraid to step out of line. The government hadn't had much luck in turning any of them.
'Bootlickers the whole lot of them.' She thought with disgust.
At the very least the redheaded bimbo, Ashley, in charge of the whole thing had fixed her hair. Mallory will give her credit for ruining the government's one chance to take down Homelander.
All the profiling said she would fold under pressure but instead she pulled through and held the whole dam ship afloat.
'Goes to show what those half-wits in Analytics really know.'
And now they were going to have to rely on Vought, on supers because the world was changing.
"Mallory." Homelander said with that smug smile.
The world was changing, that's why they were here.
"Homelander." She acknowledged back diplomatically.
"Ryan's looking forward to next weekend." He continued politely. "He's had a heck of an adventure in the past few months, he can't wait to tell you."
And that's why she was here, Ryan, her connection with Ryan and indirect connection with Homelander. The brass figured if she was 'clued in' she'd be able to extract more information from Ryan and also able to read Homelander better than anyone else.
It like they couldn't get it through their head that she and Homelander hated each other's guts.
"I know I've seen the news, he did well, a true hero. I'm looking forward to seeing him." She answered back genuinely.
She meant it as well. Against all odds Ryan had saved his classmate, outing him as Homelander's son and earning him fame world-wide.
Homelander tried to use Vought's might to stifle the news but there was no stopping a plane full of teens not shouting it to the world on social media.
"Ladies and Gentlemen let's get this show on the road. We have a lot to cover today." Special Director Bart Brown said as the Vought contingent took their seats at the centre table.
The conference room was filled with the who's who of defense, military and government big wigs…all security clearance approved.
"Johnson, please take it away." Brown said to the analyst.
"As you many of you know we have been tracking the development and evolution of Compound V research since it's proliferation a few years ago..."
The analyst took them through all the relevant information on the groups and countries that were experimenting or trying to experiment with compound V.
The Israelis, British, Germans, Russians, the Koreans, both of them, the French, Chinese, Saudi's and the list went on and on.
The US government technically wasn't on the list but the Israeli program was pretty much just a front for the US program, conveniently not on US soil.
They went over the known research bases and progress in synthesizing the compound. As far as they could tell so far most of them have been abject failures.
Apparently it was much harder than expected to synthesize the dam thing, which in her opinion was good for the world, and even when you thought you did it right the only way to find out was to test it on a person.
And well the videos of the gruesome deaths spoke for themselves.
People melting, exploding sometimes with such force it destroyed the whole laboratory other times simply mutating beyond recognition and dying.
It was all horrible human experimentation and it was made worse by the fact that a stable Compound V already had an atrocious high death rate in adults so you never really knew if the Compound made was good or simply was rejected by the body.
The other option was to insert it in babies and if they didn't die right away then wait a few years and see what powers manifested.
Still some of the less scrupulous groups were making progress.
"Wait, hold on." A-Train interrupted the presentation. "I don't get it why is the Chinese research base in Afghanistan? Is it because they don't want to test it on their own people? Even then wouldn't it make more sense to have it in like a secret location in China where no one can access it?"
Mallory saw Homelander speak, before Johnson could answer.
"It's because they are afraid A-Train." He said his tone smug and condescending.
"Afraid?" Starlight asked.
"Yes." Homelander said and looked around the room slowly, gazing with his eye at the military officials.
"They are afraid of success." He said slowly. "They are afraid of what might happen if they succeed and they get someone like you A-Train or Maeve or gods forbid me."
"Will they really be able to stop this person if suddenly they decide that perhaps the communist party isn't communist enough or that the clergy in Iran are not Islamic enough…perhaps…they could do a better job than the government in charge." He paused as he looked around.
"How much damage could they do? How many people, leaders, and politicians could they kill? What type of symbol could they become to rally the people to their side?" He asked slowly.
Mallory could feel the tension building it was as if the heat in the room had gone up a few degrees.
"Dictatorships leave no avenue for people to vent their frustrations, which only leaves violence as the only means of expression." He paused slowly.
"Luckily for us we live in a democracy. If I don't like who is in power I can simply use my vast wealth and connections to simply vote them out of office in the next round…just…like…God…intended." He finished with a cheerful smile.
'Fucking prick.' He was all just taunting the government to their face.
"Yes well, we wouldn't put it quite that way but yes that's the summary of it. Now if we could resume-"
"No need." Homlander said interrupting Brown.
"We get it. Soon enough someone is going to succeed and for that you will need supers to fight supers." He continued. "But heroes make for poor soldiers. They are not trained with the right mindset." He paused with a smile.
"We told you we also had big news for you. So Martin if you please." Mallory saw him gesture to the CSO.
"Right if I could just get hooked up to the screen first." Johnson looked at Brown before ceding the stage who nodded in agreement.
"Some of you may know that Vought has been working on a new compound to enhance people which would alleviate some of the previously mentioned concerns that come with permanently powering individuals." He said slowly.
"So I give you 24-V!" Mallory felt the pride as he said it.
"We have been able to modify…well... more like create a new compound that only gives powers for 24 hours. The compound is created for each specific individual and is able to give enhanced strength, durability and stamina."
Mallory saw that everyone was on the hook as he was explaining and showing videos of the results.
The test subjects were able to bench press a ton and lift over their heads at least half a ton, run at almost 50 mph, leap several feet into the air effortlessly and do it all without seeming to break a sweat.
"…keep in mind these were not trained soldiers but just men of average physical fitness, with trained men results will likely be…" Martin continued his explanations.
But it was their endurance and durability that was the most attractive. The test subjects all shrugged off with minor bruises everything under a .50 caliber and the old scientist was assuring them that with proper armour they would shrug off ordinance even higher than that.
The presentation continued on for a few more minutes until it was Q time.
"And the compound is safe for our people?" One of the generals asked.
"While the formula is specifically created for each individual user we recommend no more than using the compound five times, six if required in a pinch. Beyond that the changes to the body become too adverse to recover. The younger, healthier and physical fit the user is the better. We have observed no non-recoverable short term side effects and are note expecting any long term side-effects if used correctly." The CSO answered…politically.
"And how much will it cost to enhance our soldiers?" Another government stooge asked.
"Going price will be two million a pop with a minimum of five shots per user, a thousand users to begin in the first year, a minimum purchase of one thousand units per year and a mandatory training session of at least two days per user. The switch from normal to super can be quite jarring." It was another of the Vought execs that answered this time. "In time we would also rely on your support to expand the program to our NATO allies and relevant law enforcement agencies. We would of course take that into consideration when negotiating the supply contracts."
Mallory saw that everyone was doing the math in their heads, ten billion to begin and a minimum of two billion afterwards.
"Gentlemen." Ashley interrupted their mental math. "I know it seems like a steep price to invest in limited human resources. We at Vought truly understand just please keep in mind when making your decision that our research shows the main two factors that set the public against foreign military interventions are casualties of our soldiers and civilian casualties of the enemy." She paused slightly.
"Our compound cuts the first one down to almost zero at the very least against normal forces while at the same time it allows our forces to perform almost risk free surgical strikes against any enemy." She paused slightly again.
"No more drone strikes that kill a whole wedding party. No more children shot because they looked like they were holding a gun. No more deaths to IED's. No more bad press. You would be free to operate wherever you please as long as it's only the bad guys that are killed."
'Christ!' Mallory knew that she had them. She could see the wheels spinning behind everyone's eyes…the missions they could run.
It wouldn't even matter really the defense budget was almost a trillion dollars now another ten billion for super soldiers was practically a rounding error.
The world was changing there was no turning back now.
And the people in this room were all fools, blinded by greed and ambition they couldn't see that they were slowly being left behind.
Deep down she knew that Vought wasn't giving them everything…that this was just the…beginning.
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AN:
The rest of the world is playing catch-up with potentially drastic geopolitical consequences while 24-V is now into play.
What would happen if lets say a die hard Chinese commie believer suddenly got as strong as A-Train? Would he be able to topple the Chinese government? Or what about someone as strong as Maeve? In this AU she's pretty much a female version of HL in terms of strength and durability. Will someone of her caliber be able to say fuck you to the oppressive muslim Saudi or Iranian regime?
At around what 'strength' level is the cut off? Maybe there isn't any after all the IRL revolutionaries were normal people.
Let me know what you think in the reviews and don't be surprised if I use your idea.
More to come next time on Dragon Ball….!
Thank you for reading!