Marcus watched the chaos he had unleashed upon New York. In one sector of the city, a glorious battle raged. His newly empowered test subjects, fighting with the desperate fury of the damned, were throwing themselves against the combined might of the two warring factions of the Seven. It was a beautiful, destructive spectacle.
But elsewhere, his grand experiment was being tainted by petty mediocrity. He saw others he had empowered, supes who had cowered from the real fight, using their godlike strength for pathetic thuggery. They were flipping cars onto screaming crowds, blasting holes in storefronts to loot, and basking in the terror of helpless civilians.
It was not anger Marcus felt, but the cold, sharp annoyance of a master craftsman seeing his precision tools used as clumsy hammers. He had not bestowed upon them the fire of the Void for this. Their purpose was singular: to stress-test Vought, to be the whetstone upon which the corporation's true strength and secrets were revealed. These worthless few were failing in their one and only task.
A voice, cold and cosmic, echoed not in the air, but directly in the minds of every test subject he had empowered.
"You were given the fire of gods... and you use it to frighten insects."
Across the city, the fighting faltered. The supes locked in combat with Homelander and his rivals felt a jolt of fear, but it quickly morphed into renewed determination. They were fulfilling their purpose. They were worthy.
The bullies, however, felt a dread so profound it froze them in place. A man who had been holding a terrified family hostage by their car suddenly felt his blood run cold.
"What does he mean by that?" he whispered to a companion who was busy trying to melt a bank vault door.
"How should I know?" the other snapped back, his bravado gone. "He's not talking about us, right? We're just... having some fun!"
Marcus's judgment was absolute. "You have proven... unworthy."
In the silent space of the Void, he snapped his fingers.
Across the city, every test subject not engaged in the primary battle screamed. It was a harmonious chorus of pure agony. The golden Void energy that had given them their incredible power suddenly turned on them, becoming a voracious fire consuming them from the inside out. Their skin cracked, not with fire, but with golden light pouring from within. They saw their own hands crumble, their bodies dissolving as their very life force was used as kindling.
In front of stunned civilians, the supes who had been terrorizing them moments before simply disintegrated, turning into drifting motes of ash that were carried away by the wind. The only evidence they had ever existed was the silence they left behind.
A young woman, who had been shielded by her father from a supe's taunts, watched the last of the ash scatter. "He... they're just... gone."
Then, the voice returned to the minds of the survivors, a chilling whisper that followed the silent executions.
"Entertain me. Show me a battle worthy of the power I have granted you. Or join your worthless brethren in oblivion."
The message was clear. It was not a request; it was a command. The remaining test subjects, their hearts pounding with a new kind of terror, turned back to the Seven. Their fight was no longer for revenge or glory. It was for their very existence. They attacked with a suicidal, desperate ferocity, knowing that their benefactor was also their executioner.
Homelander found himself on the back foot. For every supe he blasted out of the sky with his heat vision, two more would slam into him from behind, their blows rattling his bones. He was a god, but he was being drowned in a tide of demigods, each one fueled by the fear of annihilation.
"Homelander!" Stormfront shouted, zipping past him to electrocute a supe trying to flank him. She tossed a small, metallic syringe his way. "Stop sulking and use this! We can kill each other later. We deal with this first!"
Homelander snatched the syringe out of the air. It was the enhancement serum, Vought's own stable power-booster. For a flicker of a second, his pride warred with desperation. Using it was an admission that he, Homelander, needed help.
With a snarl of frustration, he slammed the injector into his own thigh.
The serum flooded his system, but it did not find a pure baseline. It found the dormant, corrupting trace of Void energy Marcus had left in him during their first encounter. The two forces collided, and the result was not an addition, but a violent, synergistic multiplication. Homelander roared as he felt a surge of power unlike anything he had ever known. The faint gold of the Void and the chemical blue of the serum swirled within him, supercharging his abilities to an impossible degree.
"NOW!" he bellowed, his voice shaking the entire city block. "LET'S SEE WHO'S REALLY THE STRONGEST!"
He unleashed his heat vision, and the beams were no longer just red, but tinged with a blinding white-gold. They didn't just cut through his enemies; they atomized them, wiping three supes from existence in a single, sweeping blast.
The battle reached a new, terrifying crescendo. On one side were the desperate test subjects, fighting with the strength of those who know they are already dead. On the other was a temporarily united Seven, led by a Homelander whose power had just been elevated to an entirely new level. The streets of New York became the grinding stone between two apocalyptic forces.
Marcus watched the escalating destruction, a clinical smile gracing his features. The chaos was perfect. The pressure was immense. Vought would be forced to deploy every asset, reveal every secret, call upon every hidden resource to contain a fire that threatened to consume them all.