Erasmus hovered in the air, keeping pace alongside his father. Minutes earlier, Stormfront had shattered the window below, flying inside to negotiate with the supe-terrorist.
Outside, the silence between father and son was suffocating, the heavy air thick with anticipation.
"Are you so scared to fight me that you sent her to talk?" The voice appeared before the figure even appeared. "No need to be scared. Just let me finish what I failed... what I started last time."
BOOM
Homelander didn't even have time to react before he was blown straight into a building far away before coming from the other side and being imbedded into another building further away.
Erasmus just stared at the empty space where his father stood moments earlier, now occupied by Aldrich. Erasmus and Aldrich stayed still for a split second, locked in a calm stare, before flying at each other.
"Aldrich," Erasmus acknowledged his clone.
"Erasmus," Aldrich acknowledged back.
The shockwave of their collision shattered the windows of the nearby buildings. Erasmus caught Aldrich around the waist, driving him downward toward the city streets. But Aldrich didn't even flinch.
Mid-descent, Aldrich planted both hands around Erasmus's waist and violently flipped him in mid-air, breaking his momentum and sending them both spiraling out of control as they plummeted wildly toward the ground.
They crashed hard into the street, tearing up the asphalt. Before the smoke could even clear, a blinding streak of red light sliced through the sky. Homelander was back. And he was completely furious.
Twin beams of intense heat vision tore through the air, slamming directly into Aldrich's chest. The lasers forced Aldrich backward, his bare feet carving deep, smoking trenches into the asphalt.
Suddenly, a crackle of purple lightning tore from the sky and struck him as well, forcing him to stagger.
Aldrich swung his arms upward, unleashing a massive, localized sonic shockwave. The blast literally deflected both the heat vision and the lightning right into a nearby building, sending Homelander and Stormfront flying backward into the debris.
Erasmus rose from the ground, his eyes glowing a vibrant violet-purple. A pair of incredibly powerful beams of violet-white light struck Aldrich violently from behind, throwing him back to the ground and making him clench his jaw.
Aldrich abruptly flew away to the side, causing Erasmus's continuous beams to track onward, accidentally tearing directly into the crowd of running people and slicing through the surrounding buildings.
BOOM.
Aldrich tore through the air with the combined, terrifying speed of both Homelander and Great Wide Wonder. The initial sonic shockwave violently pushed Erasmus backward, how stabilized himself, Then blitzed right behind him at that same impossible speed.
Homelander and Stormfront flew right behind them.
Erasmus and his father unleashed their destructive beams, a violent mix of violet-white and blood-red heat vision, while Stormfront cracked her purple lightning across the sky.
All three elements of pure destruction chased the battered Aldrich as they tore out of the city, heading straight over the open sea.
"Don't let him get into the sea!" Homelander roared.
Homelander assumed Aldrich was trying to dive into the sea to escape again, relying on a power that Erasmus had actually lost long ago.
But the truth was far simpler: Aldrich just loved the sea. If he was going to die today, he wanted his final moments to be in the peaceful expanse of the ocean. Though, looking back, Aldrich highly doubted his pursuers would honor that final wish.
BOOM
Sand exploded into the air as Aldrich crashed violently onto the beach. He rose to his feet, spinning around to launch a counterattack at Homelander, but Erasmus cut him off mid-air.
Erasmus slammed Aldrich directly back into the ground, locking him down in a brutal, chokehold. Homelander dropped from the sky a second later, landing right next to them. Furious, he immediately began raining down devastating punches straight into Aldrich's face.
But as his fists kept striking, the force behind Homelander's punches grew weaker weaker until it froze. He stared down at the bloody features beneath his knuckles. Even though this boy had almost killed him once before, and had just attempted to do it again, hitting this face felt... entirely wrong and pain full.
Homelander's hand felt paralyzed mid-air. It was like something invisible was physically pulling his arm back, forcibly stopping him from doing what he needed to do. His mind demanded blood, but his body wouldn't cooperate, a raw, sudden gut instinct screaming deep inside his chest that he shouldn't be doing this.
The distant chop of news helicopters and the growing roar of crowds in the distance snapped Homelander out of his trance. This was his chance. If he killed the supe-terrorist that had defeated him once and was matching him blow-for-blow, he would prove to the world once again that he was the absolute strongest there is.
Forcing his way through the strange, paralyzing resistance in his muscles, Homelander locked his hands around the boy's head right alongside Erasmus. Together, father and son began to twist and pull, straining against Aldrich's raw, superhuman durability.
"Homelander, stop! We won!" Stormfront shouted, her voice filled with a rare desperation. "Stan wants him alive! Stop!" she said as she started pulling.
But Homelander and Erasmus didn't even blink. They kept pulling with everything they had, determined to snap his spine.
Homelander stared down at the bloody, battered face beneath his grip. Aldrich didn't struggle. He didn't scream. His eyes were locked completely on the rolling waves of the open sea, entirely calm and unbothered by his coming end.
Suddenly, the eyes that had been anchored to the horizon shifted, locking directly onto Homelander.
A single tear slipped down from Aldrich's unyielding gaze, cutting through the blood and sand on his cheeks. For a heartbeat, everything else, the spinning helicopters, Stormfront's screaming, the roaring crowd, completely faded away.
"I really love the sea," the boy said, his voice chillingly steady despite the crushing grip on his throat. "It would be very kind of you if you threw my body into the waves... father."
Before Homelander's brain could even process the word, the brutal resistance they were pushing against vanished entirely. The muscle and bone beneath their hands gave way instantly.
CRACK
The head fell limp into Homelander's palm, the golden hair scattering through his fingers, the blue eyes staring blankly at the waves as the body went completely limp.
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