4.14

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It had taken me more than two hours to travel from the Bahamas to Vermont by plane, but as I flew alongside Homelander, it only took us slightly less than 45 minutes to reach Stan's mansion.

Being able to fly at Mach 2 was quite convenient.

As was levitated several hundred meters above the mansion, Homelander squinted his eyes at the scene below and asked, "Are you sure this is a trap? Maybe only Stormfront acted up-"

I shook my head, replying, "I know it is hard to take in, especially considering Solider Boy is your father, but I am positive this was a trap. Besides, there is a simple way to determine whether this is a trap or not."

"What is it?"

Pointing at the mansion below, I explained, "This Oni guy. I've been observing him, and he doesn't look like someone that could do any of the stuff Butcher and Soldier Boy claim he was able to do. If anything, I doubt he is even a Super," while I spoke, I suddenly felt a new presence, "oh, looks like they are here."

I pointed towards the sea, and although I couldn't see that far, I could feel the approaching boat with the Force. Homelander, on the other hand, possessed a powerful enough sight to see them clearly.

"Soldier Boy and William. This is strange, for only the two of them to be here."

I was about to reply, when I suddenly heard God's notification.

[Score +1. Your current score is 1.]

I frowned, looking over the horizon with cold eyes. There was something wrong.

In preparation to this fight and the absolute fuckery it would undoubtedly be, I had sent my Team away, to hide. For them to have gotten a kill… fuck. They're getting attacked. That's where Team Oceania and Team Northern Africa are.

"Are you seeing something else?" Homelander was clearly confused by my gesture as he tried to follow my gaze, but saw nothing. Of course he wouldn't, my Team was over the horizon, so no matter how good Homelander's vision was, he wouldn't see them.

Moving at Mach 2, it would take me around a little over 5 minutes to reach them, since they are in Miami. I was faced with a difficult decision. After all, they are being sieged by two different teams, who might have support of the runners from the Seven and the missing members of the Seven.

If I left now, I should be able to reach them in time. But that would be leaving Homelander here alone, and all my plans crashing down.

So, I decided not to move. At the end of the day, they had to learn to stand on their own two feet. I had already been handling everything by myself, be it in this mission or the others. For now, if they can't even stand against the enemy for a few minutes, then they are never going to stand against anyone.

I still wanted to do this fast, however.

Shaking my head at Homelander's question, I looked back at the boat approaching the beach, "Did you know that Zinc was the most conductive of metals?"

Homelander nodded, "Yes, why?"

I felt like chuckling. It wasn't. It was silver. Homelander was such a child. But it was Zinc he could not see through.

"They were clever with it. They coated the interior of their ship with Zinc, the only metal you can't see through, probably to hide the person hiding inside. Unfortunately for them, I can feel it."

Homelander's face turned cold as he said, "So they really are here to kill me… now I see why you did not want to expose your power. They think they are going to face me alone, but you will be there in support."

I nodded, as Homelander filled in the gaps himself, "You will go and attack first, while I remain in the sky. Once they think they have the upper hand, I will come in and take them by surprise."

Homelander nodded, his eyes shining red as he simply waited, which once again showed me how incompetent Homelander was as a fighter. Having never faced an equal opponent, he never learned anything.

But being the only one capable of flying, this was actually the best moment to attack them. All Homelander had to do was to fly over, and shoot them down with his lasers. Once in the water, they wouldn't be able to do anything as Homelander attacked them from the sky.

But Homelander simply waited for them to reach the beach, where they would be able to fight back. Truly pathetic.

As expected, once Butcher and Soldier Boy landed on the beach, Homelander came down from the sky to greet them. At the same time, a man wearing my outfit walked out of the mansion.

Impatient as he was, the pretender didn't even get to close the door behind him that he was bisected at the waist by Homelander's laser.

I couldn't see from this far, but I could feel the shock of Soldier Boy and Butcher from the Force. Unfortunately for them, they had no way to explain this, and so quickly, things degenerated into a fight.

The person who had been hiding in the boat, who turned out to be Queen Maeve, quickly came out of it, a sword in hand as she joined the fight against Homelander.

The fight itself was not very interesting, however. Homelander made next to no use of his advantage of flight, barely hovering over the ground but remaining within the three's range of action.

One thing to note would be the teamwork they showed, which had clearly been trained, and even allowed them to get the upper hand on Homelander. That was my cue.

However, as I started coating myself in lightning for my attack, I realized that I struggled a little more than before.

Frowning, I looked deeper within me, and as I probed my lifeforce, I realized what the problem was.

I had stolen Plasma Manipulation from Stormfront, and integrated it with myself. However, the power did not come from nothing. I had a special energy contained within my lifeforce, which I used to generate plasma.

However, it seemed that this energy wasn't regenerating, meaning that with every bit of plasma I generated, it would be a little more power I would lose.

To the current me, it wasn't that bad, but it was a bit of a shame technique wise. Although it took a long time to steal someone's power, the power in and on itself was quite OP. But if the power I stole was only temporary, then the long process required to steal said power wasn't really worth it.

Of course, maybe that was just for powers derived from Compound V. Maybe that Stormfront and every other hero faced the same issue, but the Compound V within them regenerated their power, turning it permanent.

That would make sense, and explain Temporary V. Maybe that my technique was only an enhanced version of Temporary V, granting me only the power but not the serum Compound V.

In any case, Plasma Manipulation wasn't that strong of a power for offensive techniques, not to me at least with all my other means, so I stopped generating lightning around myself, keeping it for flight.

The one true value I got out of Stormfront's power was the ability to fly at Mach 2, so I would better keep it for that. Moreover, I still need to join my team…

[Score -1. Your current Score is 0.]

Fuck.

I knew the logical thing to do would be to continue waiting for the two sides to injure each other more and play the more insidious game by slowly whittling down Homelander with something like Cryokinesis or planting an absorbing Force Seed within him, but doing so would only lead to the death of my team.

Team Northern Africa was already dangerous enough by themselves. Team Oceania's leader was also strong, stronger than anyone else than me among players in this world, and there were also the rest of the Seven and the Boys.

So, pointing my palm downward, I attracted the Fists of Randagulf, Shuten Doji's Mask and Shiroishi to me.