[Perspective: Aryan's Clone, Soldier Boy]
The night air at the edge of the city was thick with the smell of rusted iron and damp earth. It was an industrial graveyard, a sprawling expanse of abandoned warehouses and decaying factories left to rot by a dying economy.
At the very edge of this desolation stood an empty farmhouse, its porch sagging under the weight of decades of neglect.
I sat on the warped wooden railing of the porch, wearing the dark green tactical suit and the heavy brass shield resting against my knee.
I drew a long drag from a thick Cuban cigar. The cherry glowed bright orange in the gloom, casting a warm light against the harsh angles of my stolen face.
I exhaled, the thick plume of blue smoke curling into the cold air.
A battered transit van slowly crunched up the gravel driveway. It came to a halt twenty yards from the porch, the headlights cutting through the darkness and illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air.
Four doors opened.
Billy Butcher stepped out of the driver's side, the heavy fabric of his dark trench coat billowing slightly in the wind. He slammed the door, his eyes locked onto me.
To his left, Mother's Milk emerged, his massive frame tense, his eyes scanning the perimeter for ambushes.
From the sliding side door, Frenchie stepped out, his hands hovering near his pockets.
Finally, Hughie Campbell slipped out, looking pale, terrified and entirely out of his depth.
They walked toward the porch, stopping at the base of the rotting wooden steps.
I took another drag of the cigar, letting the silence stretch, forcing them to feel the weight of the moment.
"Well, well, well," Butcher said, his voice a mocking purr that echoed in the quiet night. "If it isn't the Ghost of America Past. Have to say, you look bloody fantastic for a bloke who's been pushing up daisies since Reagan was in office."
I stared at him, the cigar clamped between my teeth. "You're trespassing."
"We're paying a neighborly visit," Butcher corrected, taking a step closer, resting his boot on the bottom step. "Heard you've been busy. Doing the Lord's work."
"I don't do the Lord's work," I said, my voice adopting the gravelly timbre of the legendary hero. "I do my work. And right now, you're interrupting my smoke."
"Fair enough," Butcher smirked, pulling his hands out of his pockets and holding them up in a gesture of mock surrender. "Straight to business, then. Vought sold you out. They let you rot in a Russian freezer while they built a shiny new toy to take your place."
I let a puff of smoke escape my lips. "I know who took my place."
"Then you know he's a right proper cunt," Butcher said, his eyes gleaming with a manic intensity. "And he's untouchable. To us, anyway. But you... you're the original recipe. You've got the muscle. We've got the intel. We know where they hide their dirty secrets. We can help you tear Vought down to the bloody bedrock."
Mother's Milk shifted his weight uneasily. "We can get you access to the Tower. We have blueprints. Security rotations."
I looked at them. A grieving husband, a paranoid medic, a manic chemist and a traumatized retail worker.
"I don't need a boy band," I said, my tone dismissive.
Butcher's smirk vanished. The charismatic facade cracked, revealing the raging core beneath. "Don't be a stupid old man," Butcher snapped, taking another step up the stairs. "You think you can just waltz into Vought Tower and start punching? They'll swamp you. You need us."
"I don't need anyone," I said. I pulled the cigar from my mouth and flicked it into the dry grass.
"You're making a mistake," Butcher growled, reaching into his coat.
Hughie grabbed Butcher's arm, his voice a frantic whisper. "Butcher."
"Shut it, Hughie," Butcher snarled, shaking him off. He looked back at me, his eyes wild. "You listen to me, you arrogant prick. Homelander took my wife. I am going to see him dead and if you aren't going to help me, you can get out of my bloody way!"
I stood up from the railing. The wood creaked under the immense weight of the Tier 1 muscle density.
"I'm not in your way," I said, looking down at them. "You're in mine."
I focused on the core of energy resting dormant in my sternum.
Radiation Blast (Tier 1).
The reaction was instantaneous. A deep thrumming sound began to vibrate from my chest, like a nuclear reactor spinning up to critical mass.
A brilliant green light began to shine through the fabric of my tactical vest, casting a glowing shadow over the faces of the four men below.
"What is that?" Frenchie whispered, taking a step back, his hands trembling.
Hughie stared at the glowing light, pure horror paralyzing his limbs.
Butcher stood his ground, his face bathed in the radioactive glow.
"Bollocks," Butcher whispered.
I released the lock on the energy.
The blast was an eruption of localized nuclear devastation. The beam of radioactive plasma tore from my chest in a blindingly expanding cone of absolute destruction.
It hit Billy Butcher first. The sheer thermal kinetic force of the Tier 1 blast evaporated the moisture in his body in a microsecond.
His trench coat, his flesh, his bones… they flashed into white hot ash and scattered atoms before his brain could even register the sensation of pain.
The beam swallowed Mother's Milk, Frenchie and Hughie an instant later. The blast wave erased them from the physical plane.
The beam continued, striking the heavy metal frame of the transit van. The engine block melted into slag, the tires vaporized and the chassis disintegrated into a cloud of molten shrapnel.
The shockwave tore through the earth, ripping the grass from the soil and shattering the foundation of the farmhouse behind me.
I cut the beam off.
The silence that followed was deafening, broken only by the crackle of localized fires burning in the superheated dirt. A glowing cloud of radioactive dust drifted slowly in the night breeze.
Where the four men and their van had stood, there was nothing but a scorched trench carved into the earth, fifty yards long and ten yards wide.
I picked up my shield, turning my back on the crater.
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