Fresh Blood

[Date: March 2023]

Dina watched the two women sitting across her dinner table with trepidation and curiosity.

She was soon going to ascend to the top of the superhero community by joining The Seven, the premiere team in the world, the best of the best.

Everything she had worked for since she was a little girl was almost within her grasp, fame, money, power and most of all the ability to do good on a real scale, to really make a difference to be the symbol that every little girl looked up at.

Just as she looked up at Queen Maeve.

So when her future teammates and women extraordinaire asked to meet her on a personal level she was ecstatic but when they said they wanted to meet at her house in the middle of the night during the middle of the week she knew something was wrong.

Both Maeve and Starlight were dressed casually looking none more glamorous or standing out more than any other New Yorker. That is of course if you ignored Maeve's obvious baby bump.

'The Mommy of Tomorrow!' the billboards called her. 'Women can do it all!' some of the talk show slogans said. Though she much preferred the 'Men not required!' posters.

As much as she didn't like the gaudy advertising she had to admit it was working very well.

Maeve baby merchandise was flying of the shelves and there had been an uptick in same sex couples looking into clinics and adoption options. At least according to the blogs she was reading.

Either way all good things in her opinion but from the looks of the two right now she doubted they were at her house in the middle of the night to talk about merchandising deals.

"So" she started off "you wanted to meet? I'm guessing from the circumstances this is not about having some girl talk but about me joining team?"

The two nodded.

"Yes you see" Starlight started "after talking it over with Maeve we thought its best that we prepare you for what it means to join The Seven and show you how the team works" Dina saw Starlight hesitate to continue her thought and looked briefly at Maeve "and what it means to work with…" she paused "…Homelander."

She looked at them with even more rising curiosity and some indignation.

"Look if this is some stupid team tradition, haze the new girl so she becomes one with the team I'm not doing whatever you have planned. I already did that stupid reality show and that was corny enough." She said with feeling more annoyed than anything.

She wasn't going to let herself be bullied into some stupid tradition that was probably spawned out of the brain of some frat boy corporate schmuck. "I'm a grown ass woman and I will not-"

"No!" Starlight interrupted loudly and animatedly. "It's not that! No hazing, no weird tradition, nothing like that!" She paused. "The Seven aren't quite what Vought presents them to be." She started off again slowly. "The team has flaws, many flaws, terrible flaws, like terrible, terrible-"

Dina saw Maeve roll her eyes and lean in interrupting Starlight.

"We're all terrible fucking human beings with Annie being the only remotely decent one. Homelander is the absolute worst and I'm probably third, maybe forth. No probably third." She said after pausing for a second.

Both she and Starlight looked shocked at Maeve's declaration.

After processing it Dina couldn't help but chuckle which got the attention of the other two.

"Come on now. All supes are fucked up." She said with a bit of relief. "The powers they mess with our brains. I know I've been in a few." She said leaning in towards the two women. "And if you're worried about me running my mouth don't." She paused and looked at them with intent.

"Trust me when I say in my time with the G-Men, I've seen it all and I've done it all. I know how these things work." She said with confidence and leaned back in her seat.

"Not like this you haven't." Maeve was quick to reply. "You can read minds? How does that work?"

Dina looked at both of them in silence for a brief moment.

"I need to be within 10ft of the person. I need to look at them and concentrate. It's ideal if we are both stationary and I can only read what the person is thinking about. It comes up as images, flashes of memory. I can only do it about thirty to forty seconds at a time and the person will know I'm in their head."

She paused for another second.

"Sometimes it's painful for the person sometime it's not. Don't know why."

"Good then read mine. It will be easier to explain that way."

"Maeve, are you sure? You're ok with that in your condition? She said it could be painful." Starlight interjected with concern.

"I am." And she looked at Dina. "Do it."

Curiosity taking her over Dina looked at Maeve and concentrated on her. It wasn't long before thoughts, images and memories jumped up to the front of her mind.

At first slow and then a torrent as she synchronized better with Maeve's mind.

And with each image, with each thought and each memories that she saw, that she understood and she felt a knot in her chest grow bigger, tighter while disgust and fear crept into the depths of her mind until she broke off the connection.

She shook her head for a moment as if to dispel the memories and looked back at her two teammates.

"You?" What could she say about what she saw, about her hero? "How could you? How?" she started "Why…why didn't you say something. Someone…everyone, we have to say something about this." She said trying to get control of her anxious breathing.

"It's not right, it's too much. It's…it's…"she was rambling she didn't know where she was going with her thought until Maeve interrupted her.

"No." she said calmly which brought Dina back.

"No." she repeated back as Starlight stayed silent. "Just No? That's all you have to say?" she asked incredulously.

Maeve nodded.

"You will say nothing about what I've shown you and you will do nothing." Maeve's tone was steel. "Because, nothing was said or shown so there is nothing to be done."

"If you do, Annie and I will deny everything. We will not be on your side. If you are lucky Noir will be sent and you will die cleanly and efficiently." Dina saw Maeve pause. "If you are unlucky Homelander will pay you a visit and well you've seen how that turns out."

"Then why show me this? Why show me this at all? Did he send you to prepare me or something? Or do you even want me on the team?" she asked with nervousness and exasperation. "I don't understand!"

"No, no!" Starlight intervened. "Homelander does not know we are here. If he did then that wouldn't be good for any one of us."

"Then why the fuck are you here? Why are you showing me this? So I don't join the team?"

"No! We want you on the team! I want you on the team!" Starlight affirmed. "You're exactly what the team needs!" she said and paused.

"Look when I joined I didn't know what I was getting myself into. So I wanted to make sure you were able to make an informed decision." She said earnestly. "To know that you might be in some fucked up situations and hopefully to be able to better protect yourself if you are."

"Protect myself? You're joking right? How can I protect myself from that madman?" she asked angrily. "If he says jump I have to ask how high? If he says kill I just go and crush a guy's head or it's my head? Is that the deal?"

Starlight leaned back and looked a bit offended.

"Well it's not exactly like that." She said with some reluctance. "At least not in the last few months. Things have changed quite a bit, especially after he took over Vought and his fight with Soldier Boy."

"Changed how?" Dina asked, anger lacing her tone.

"He's more …" and Starlight hesitated again looking for the right words.

"He's less psychotically homicidal and more worried about his legacy." Maeve interrupted.

They both looked at her waiting to elaborate and Maeve rolled her eyes.

"He thinks the Moon is Gaul and he's 'Caesar' or 'Alexander the Great' …or something like that. He ranted about it to me one evening. He went on a big tangent about the education system and something about a new American dream." She said, her chest deflating letting out a big sigh.

"Either way Annie is right, things have changed we'll see if it's for the better or not." Maeve finished.

"Look Dina, we're not here to convince you one way or another. I think you're exactly what the team needs but you have to understand what you're singing up for." Starlight said.

Dina looked at the two women and exhaled.

"You'll have my answer by tomorrow."