The van smelled of stale smoke and anxiety. On a small screen mounted to the dash, news channels ran a panicked, looping montage of the battle's aftermath. The Boys were quiet, the adrenaline from their clean infiltration of Sage Grove slowly ebbing away, leaving a familiar weariness in its place.
They had confirmed their suspicions. The place was a Vought dumping ground for supe experiments gone wrong. And among the madmen and monsters, they had seen a familiar face staring blankly through reinforced glass: Lamplighter. For a tense moment, Butcher's hand had hovered over the butt of his pistol, old hatred flaring, before he forced himself to stand down. That was a ghost for another time.
"I don't get it," Frenchie finally said, breaking the silence. He gestured wildly at the screen, which was now showing a still image of Mag's Iron Cloud. "This Tenno Council... they have the power of God, oui? They could snap their fingers and Homelander is… puff… gone. They could burn Vought to the ground. Why this theater? This game? Why always stop at the last moment?"
Mother's Milk sighed, rubbing his tired eyes. "Because it's not a war for them, Frenchie. It's a sport. You ever seen a cat with a mouse?"
Frenchie nodded slowly.
"A hungry cat kills the mouse. Quick, efficient," MM continued, his voice low and somber. "A bored cat... that's when it gets cruel. It breaks the mouse's legs and watches it try to crawl away. It lets it think it's escaped, then snatches it back at the last second. It plays with it until it gets bored or the mouse's heart gives out. We're not dealing with soldiers. We're dealing with gods. And they're bored."
"So we're the cheese on the mousetrap," Butcher grunted, a cynical smirk playing on his lips. It was his way of processing it, of framing their new reality on his own terms. They were pawns, yes, but they were the crucial pawns that lured the king into the open.
"Being the bait isn't so bad," Hughie added quietly, looking out at the passing streetlights. "At least... at least the cat doesn't want the cheese to get eaten. It's probably the safest we've ever been."
"The lad's got a point," Butcher conceded. "We can't refuse their help anyway. They don't give a toss what we think. But our mission and theirs happen to line up. We want to expose Vought, they want to pressure Vought. We get to operate with their protection, their funding... and their chaos for cover. Our goal's the same as it's ever been: find the Compound V formula. Only now..." He paused, a new thought taking shape. "Maybe we don't just find it. Maybe we find a way to unmake it. An Anti-V."
The idea hung in the air, a new, tangible objective. A way to not just expose the gods, but to make them mortal again.
Around the world, in shadowy briefing rooms and clandestine laboratories, the same conversations were taking place, though laced with far more terror. Analysts frantically replayed the footage of the Iron Cloud. Physicists and materials scientists stared at data streams in disbelief. Mag's ability to magnetize non-ferrous materials—earth, stone, concrete—was not just an extension of magnetism; it was a violation of the known laws of physics. It rendered every countermeasure, from ceramic bullets to non-metallic explosives, utterly useless. The world's secret keepers, for the first time, were united in their absolute terror of a single being.
The public, meanwhile, responded with its own brand of morbid opportunism. A news report flickered onto the van's screen, showing a sleazy-looking man in a trench coat being interviewed on a ruined New York street. He held up a plastic baggie filled with dirt.
"Genuine New York Cataclysm Soil!" the man proclaimed. "Still got the tingle! Tenno-touched! One hundred bucks a bag, get it while it's hot!"
Miles away, in a luxurious penthouse apartment overlooking the quiet ocean, Marcus chuckled. He clicked off the television with a remote, genuinely amused by the sheer audacity of humanity. The soil-sellers were like ants trying to study the footprint of a giant. He found their efforts quaint.
He leaned back on the plush sofa and activated the computer on his wrist. A complex, holographic display of molecular models sprang to life above his arm, swirling and connecting as he manipulated them with lazy gestures. He had the partial Compound V formula from Edgar's mind and the data from the island. Now, it was time to see if the puzzle could be solved.
He inputted the known variables, instructing the Kree computer to run simulations, to fill in the gaps and determine the viability of the incomplete formula. The holographic model of a Kree physiological system appeared. As the simulated compound was introduced, the model immediately went into catastrophic failure. Organs ruptured in cascades of red light. Cellular structures dissolved. Alarms in the Kree language flashed across the display.
[BIOLOGICAL CASCADE FAILURE. SUBJECT INTEGRITY COMPROMISED. SIMULATION TERMINATED.]
Marcus leaned back, a wry smile on his face. The incomplete formula was a potent, agonizing poison, lethal even to the superhumanly durable Kree.
"Heh," he chuckled to himself, shutting down the hologram. "Vought's great miracle. Was this potion created on the premise of suicide? They didn't create a serum. They just got lucky with a batch of poison that didn't kill everyone."