Chapter 9: Weakness!
"Jesus!" Rand cried out as he and Lilly ducked down.
Noir then began menacingly walking over towards the alien, ready to get up close and personal.
Upgrade charged however, but not at the Vought supe, but to the computers.
Once there he placed his hands on two of them. The color scheme immediately morphed into his and suddenly the cords became tentacles that launched at his opponent.
Believing himself to be impervious to the attack Noir let the tentacles wrap around him. However he soon had a tough time breaking them so he stopped and put more strength into it.
This allowed Upgrade to morph the screens so that guns popped out which fired lasers at Noir. The impact sent Black Noir crashing into the wall, leaving a huge hole.
A few moments of tense silence followed. Since the commotion stopped Lilly and Thomas rose up from their cover and looked at Upgrade and then the smoking hole. The alien turned to Lilly and asked. "Your insurance covers this right?"
Before she could reply Noir's hand shot out of the hole to pull himself in. Immediately Upgrade readied his computer guns and optibeam to fire at a moment's notice.
But Noir didn't attack, he just stood there, with his front kevlar burnt off and smoke coming his chest.
"Wanna go again?" Ben asks with confidence.
Noir replies by pulling out a phone and he began typing. He then flipped it over and it showed Upgrade firing at a walking Black Noir, twisting the narrative.
When it's over he points at Thomas, indicating he wants them to sign Vought's deal.
"Blackmail really?" Upgrade sighs, then his head morphs to one of the security cameras. Then he projects the entirety of the events onto one of the walls, when it was over he say's.
"That's why I was in the camera, so you couldn't pull one over on me."
Noir's reply is silence.
"Also you guys need to remember, there's one weakness you all have that I don't. That includes Homelander." Upgrade speaks, causing Noir to tilt his head in intrigue.
"Reputation." He speaks and then Pause. "You all care about it I don't." He tells him.
Just then Noir's phone rang, after two rings he answers it and soon points it Upgrade.
The alien hero then relaxes a bit and shoots a tentacles to grab the phone and comes face to face with a older blonde woman. She start's talking but no sound comes out.
"I can't hear you?" He say's and she presses something on her end, but there's still no sound. "Still nothing." Ben comments.
The woman appears to swear in frustration as she starts typing things. "Oh wait." Upgrade raises the volume.
"My bad, I accidentally muted you on my end."
The woman takes a breath. "Hello. I'm Madelyn Stillwell, I'm Vice President of Super Human affairs at Vought. Here's our new offer." Ben doesn't let her finish, instead he hangs up, drains the battery and tosses back the phone. Noir catches it.
"Sign that or we keep fighting. Then cops will come, unless the paparazzi or anyone with a working phone shows up first." Upgrade begins to tell him.
"Then they'll want to investigate what happened, then it would look suspicious if on the night Vought goes to meet a famous lawyer she goes missing or disappears."
"Sure you can blame me but Vought is gonna have to be investigated and if both Lawyers goes missing to that gives them right to search the tower top to bottom." He lays it out.
"So sign it, honor it and leave her alone and next time we fight it'll be easier for you to spin it against me." He tells him plainly. Noir is quite for a few moments before he looks at the terrified Rand and nods.
The corporate lawyer scrambled to his feet and signs the deal Choi offered. Thankfully it's still in one piece and on the desk. With that Noir walks away casually as Rand sprints.
"Wow you really weren't lying when you said you were the best." Lilly comments straightening herself out.
"Do I look like a liar to you?" Upgrade ask's detaching himself from the computer and popping the camera out.
"Well you did steal 20 million dollars and hack into US government files." She reminds him.
"That's true." He admits.
"You know you're supposed to deny that by saying allegedly." She replies him, not expecting him to openly admit to committing crimes.
"Well you're my lawyer so now it's privileged information." Upgrade counters. "Right?" He asks, not entirely sure if he just incriminated himself.
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Vought:-
Madelyn Stillwell tossed the tablet on her desk with a swear. First the incident upstate, then the mall and now one of Vought's own heroes had to do a complete 180. Which means less constitutes to support putting Supes in the military.
Just then Stan Edgar comes in. "I take it that something went wrong." He tells her, knowing the answer.
"We just lost Gunpowder's fan base." Stillwell tells him. "And he's pulling from Samaritan's Embrace and he's gonna be paying even more money than he donated to them."
"He's also gonna support laws and policies to prevent people from getting guns. The complete opposite of our demographic to get Vought Heroes in the Armed Forces." Edgar adds in.
"Noir failed." Stillwell tells him plainly. "He never fails. Which means we need to take care of this quickly."
"First of all it's not a we problem, it's a you problem." Edgar corrects. "Second of all, the solution to this is simple. You get Gunpowder a new fan base, one that shows that Vought heroes are politically diverse, but share the same goal." He tells her.
"Finally." Edgar begins. "I want that alien shapeshifter brought in alive."
"He'll never go for that." Stillwell tells him, referring to Homelander.
"We need to know how one single individual is obtaining multiple powers that has beat 3 members of the Seven and publicly humiliated two other members of Vought." Edgar reasons.
"This is my company and this is a direct order. This Shifter comes in alive, no matter what. I don't care what some spoiled, self entitled man child wants."
"He's America's hero and we are a hero company." Stillwell responds.
Edgar chuckles and replies. "So you've been working somewhere else this entire time."
"What?" The blonde replies not understanding.