Ch.34

(Logan POV)

"Hughie, tell him!" MM says while gesturing to me and looking at Hughie with a very annoyed look.

"I may have been talking to Annie– Starlight… and she is trying to get Compound V for us to leak to the press," Hughie says as I stare at him for a few seconds trying to process this information. 

"The fuck! Hughie, last you saw her she tried to arrest you and Butcher shot her several times!" I say pissed that Hughie put everyone here in jeopardy. 

"She understands the truth now! She is on our side, plus she told me that you got Queen Maeve with us too!" Hughie says as MM turns to me hearing this for the first time, and Frenchie gives me an awkward look. 

"You are right, I've been working with Queen Maeve, on the side. However, I have a hell of a lot more experience with these things than you. So don't go questioning my motives or how I do things! You are letting your emotions cloud your judgment of the situation," I say to him with anger lacing my voice as Hughie shrinks back a bit under my anger. 

"I just wish you told us," MM says backing up Hughie who gains more confidence again. 

"I was debating telling you… However, knowing how you all feel about supes, I figured it was best to wait until she could prove to you she is on our side," I say trying to come up with a valid excuse, which MM seems to buy. However, Hughie is still annoyed and Frenchie and Kimiko give me looks of 'really'. 

"And I can say the same about Annie– I mean Starlight!" Hughie says annoyed again. 

"Hughie don't–" I start to say with annoyance again. Then we turn to see one of the gangsters being knocked down the stairs as everyone grabs a weapon ready to fight. 

"I'm home chuckle fucks!" we all hear a familiar voice as Butcher walks down the stairs right after. 

"Butcher?" I say as Frenchie motions for the gangsters to lower their weapons. 

"Did you all miss me?" Butcher says with a laugh. 

"We thought you were captured or worse killed," Hughie says looking at Butcher in surprise. 

"Not yet mate, still kicking," Butcher says with his typical crazy smile. 

"How'd you find us?" MM says as Butcher places his things down on the old worn-down couch. 

"Frenchie's friend reached out to me after Frenchie asked her to find me," Butcher says as we all turn to Frenchie who gives us an apologetic smile. 

"I thought she would tell me before contacting him," Frenchie says as I sigh and turn back to Butcher who is looking around at the dump we are staying in. 

"So where have you been?" I say to him.

"Places… Speaking of places, this place is a shit hole," Butcher says with a grunt. 

"Butcher I'm not in the mood for your shit. So elaborate on these 'places' now," I say feeling very annoyed now. 

"Calm down mate, I'm just settling in," Butcher says before flopping down on the couch. 

"Butcher… now," I say walking over and placing a hand on his shoulder and squeezing a bit to show him I'm in no mood. Butcher glares up at me with narrowed eyes determining if he should punch me. 

"I saw Becca… She is alive and I'm not joking," Butcher says explaining himself while looking at the wall lost in thought. 

"What?!" MM says giving him a surprised look. 

"When I got to Madelyn Stillwell's house, I was going to use her against Homelander. Kill her in front of him to get some revenge… But instead, he killed her himself, something about lying to him. Then the last thing I remember is pressing the button to blow myself up before he could kill me," Butcher says while thinking about the moment we last heard of him. 

"I have no idea what happened next, just that I woke up on the front lawn of a house I've never seen before… Homelander was standing next to me too, then the front door opened with a small boy maybe around eight years old, who looked like the spitting image of Homelander. Right after the boy was Becca," Butcher says with pain in his voice now. 

"Homelander then told the boy he was his father and before I could talk to Becca, Homelander knocked me out again. The next thing I knew I was in the middle of a small bumfuck town," Butcher says before going quiet as we all take in what he told us. 

Right before anyone could ask anything else my phone gets a call. I look at it and see that Raynor is calling me. I show everyone who it is before answering it on speaker. 

"We need to meet ASAP, I have huge information for you all," Raynor says before I get a text message with the address. 

We all then packed into the van before driving to the spot where she told us to meet. There we wait for a minute or two, then we see Raynor's car pull up beside us. She gets out of the car and we all get out to talk with her. 

"Holy shit do I have some news! You guys have unlocked a rabbit hole that goes way deeper than you can even imagine! I did some digging and–" Raynor says looking both excited and nervous at the same time. 

Just before she could tell us her head explodes like a watermelon that was blown up. Her body falls to the ground immediately as we are all covered in her brain matter, Hughie immediately lets out a scream in panic. We all then drop to the ground looking around before rushing into the van and peeling away.

"What the fuck! What the fuck!!" Hughie says as we are rushing away. 

"Calm down!!" I shout as I try to focus on driving and thinking about what the fuck just happened. 

We all then rush into the hideout as Hughie runs to the shower to get the brain matter off of him. We each just stand there in silence thinking about what happened, before one at a time getting into a shower. Finally, we all sit on the couch as Kimiko turns it on with the news popping up. 

"We obviously have no idea what Raynor was going to tell us… That only means we have one play left and that is to release Compound V to the public. Once that is done, I can ask Grace to use her connections to get you guys immunity," I say breaking the silence. 

"Wait!! Go back!" I say before anyone could follow up as Kimiko is flipping through the channels and I see a woman I never thought I would see again. 

"NO, IMPOSSIBLE!!" I say standing up in extreme rage making everyone look at me in surprise as I stare at the Nazi supe who killed my best friend during WW2. 

______________________________________________________________________

(Starlight POV)

A few days ago Hughie asked me to get some Compound V, at first I was still furious with him. But we talked and I can see he is trying to bring good change to this fucked up world. So I agreed and forced an old friend of mine nicknamed Gecko to get me some since he works with it. 

"Starlight the interview is starting let's go," Ashley says as I walk toward the interview area wearing my new costume which makes me feel like a slut and sex object. 

Originally it was supposed to be Queen Maeve, me, and the new girl Stormfront, however, Maeve had a family emergency. So now the interview is only with me and the new girl, who doesn't appear to be a big fan of me. 

"Stormfront congrats on the Seven. Are you as excited to be here as I am?" one of the many interviews we have to see asks the first question. 

"I don't know! I don't think so!" Stormfront says with a laugh. The man then asks more generic questions. 

"Can you tell us a little about how girls get it done?" every interviewer asks us this question one after another. 

Both Stormfront and I are getting more and more agitated as the same question is being asked by every interviewer. Then the next interviewer breaks the standard asking about dating life. 

"Let's dish boys. Starlight, single? Or, spoken for?" the interviewer asks me at first taking me by surprise before I answer. 

"Uh, single, single," I say to him as he nods his head. Then the next interview goes back to the same questions about girls. 

"Tell us how fun it is to have all this girl power," the interviewer says as Stormfront lets out a laugh right after the question was asked. 

"Look, uh, no offense. I get you have your talking points, but why does it matter whether heroes have a dick or a vag? I mean, shouldn't we all just, you know, be competent at our jobs? I don't think girls do anything better, I think chicks and dicks are in it together," Stormfront says taking everyone by surprise as she finally snaps from the same questions one after another. 

"Oh, that's me!" Stormfront says as her phone goes off during the live interview. 

"Sorry Ashy. Vought won't let me have pockets in this thing. You can see every crease in my ass. You can practically see up Starlight's uterus. You want to talk about girl power, let's talk about getting some pockets," Stormfront says while turning her phone off and making Ashley have a small eye twitch. I let out a laugh as everyone went quiet from her small outburst. 

After all the interviews we head back to a small after-party where everyone is hanging out. Then I see Stormfront in the back live streaming on her phone again while showing off one of her new action figures Vought has started producing. 

"So, in short, do not waste your hard-earned cash on this shitty, big-titted hunk of plastic. That'll probably end up in a manatee's belly when your kid chucks it in the garbage," I hear Stormfront say before turning off her Livestream. 

"Hey… um… I just got to say, I really like everything that you've been saying about Vought," I say to her hoping she might be one of the good guys here who can maybe join Maeve and me later. 

"Yeah, okay, cool," Stormfront says to me with a dismissing, distrustful look. 

"No, I mean… I agree with you," I say while looking around making sure no one hears me. 

"You wearing a wire or something?" Stormfront says giving me a sarcastic look. 

"What?--" I start to say. 

"Look, I mean this in the nicest possible way, but I don't need some fucking Vought spy barbie sniffing around to see whether I'm a team player," Stormfront says to me with a shit-eating grin. 

"What? That is not at all what I am," I say with offense heavily lacing my voice. 

"I used to be a fan. But look at you. You're like the Voughtiest Vought in all Vought… I think that guy wants to talk to you," Stormfront says and points behind me to where I see Gecko with a new eyepatch now. 

"What happened to your eye?" I ask him as he walks over. 

"Like you give a fuck, here," Gecko says handing me a small pink tampon case that has Compound V in it. 

"Are you kidding me? I can't take this right now! I can't get away from this press junket. I literally have no pockets," I say trying to hand it back to him. 

"You wanted the V, here it is. If you threaten me again, I'm gonna make sure that everyone knows that you're the one who took it," Gecko says before pushing back into my hands and walking away before I can respond. 

I look around before trying to put it in my boot, but then I hear A-Train appear behind me and give me a smirk. 

"You're tight with Gecko?" A-Train says with a suspicious look. 

"Yeah it… From Capes for Christ, back in the day, yeah," I say and try to walk away. 

"Yeah… What'd you just put in your boot?" A-Train says to me as I discreetly place the case in Stormfront's bag without him noticing. 

"What? Nothing," I say as A-Train walks over. 

"Cause it looked like you just put something in your boot," A-Train says to me with a disbelieving look. 

"Why don't you tell me what's in my boot?" I say to him with a challenging look as he narrows his eyes and checks. 

"Maybe… you shouldn't be hitting the Cristal with your buddies quite so soon," I say to him with a smirk since he found nothing. A-Train gives me a very annoyed look as Stormfront comes back over. 

"Come on. Let's finish dick-tickling these half-wits so we can finally do our real job," Stormfront says grabbing her bag which has the case still in it and I quickly follow after her leaving an annoyed A-Train behind.