The silence in my apartment was a physical weight, thick and suffocating. It was a vacuum that the echoes in my mind rushed to fill. With the immediate adrenaline of survival faded, the psychic backlash from The Aerie hit me like a tidal wave. I collapsed to my knees on the cold, polished concrete floor, my hands pressed against my temples.
The scent of antiseptic and fear. The cold gleam of a needle. A child's scream, not of pain, but of erasure. The profound, soul-crushing silence that followed. Noir's memory wasn't a ghost anymore; it was a tenant, and it was remodeling the inside of my skull to suit its own traumatic architecture.
But it wasn't alone. Ember's rage was a bonfire, stoked by Homelander's smug face. Burn it all! He thinks he's a god? Show him the face of a real god—a god of fire and ash! Graviton's cold calculus provided a counterpoint, laying out trajectories and structural weaknesses in Vought Tower with chilling detachment. A precisely applied gravitic torsion at the 84th floor support would initiate a cascade failure. Maximum efficiency. Minimal survivors.
I squeezed my eyes shut, sweat beading on my forehead. "You're not me," I gritted out, the words a desperate incantation. "You're echoes. You're dead."
Are we? The voice that answered was new, a sibilant whisper that coiled through the others. It was the Hypnotist, the most insidious of them all. We are the sum of your experiences. You consumed us, made us part of your cellular structure. Your morality is a construct, Alex. A fragile one. We are showing you a more... efficient path. Power is not meant to be shackled by doubt.
A phantom pain lanced through my shattered hand, a memory of Homelander's effortless dominance. The echoes fed on that memory, on the humiliation. They offered a simple solution: more power. Always more.
A soft chime broke through the cacophony. The secure line. Mallory. I dragged myself to my feet, my body feeling like it belonged to someone else, and activated the wall screen. Her face appeared, her expression, as always, unreadable.
"Your suspension is official," she said without preamble. "Homelander is pushing for a full review board, citing 'psychic contamination' and 'erratic behavior.' He's using the mountain, Alex. The footage is everywhere. They're not calling you a hero; they're calling you a walking natural disaster."
I saw the news feeds scrolling beside her image. MAZAHS: SAVIOR OR SABOTEUR? VOUGHT FACILITY DESTROYED IN MYSTERIOUS 'ACCIDENT'. The narrative was already tilting. Homelander's media machine was a precision instrument.
"What's Edgar's position?" I asked, my voice rough.
"He's playing Switzerland. He sees the value in you, but he won't burn down his empire to protect you. Not unless you give him a compelling reason." She leaned closer to her camera, her eyes sharp. "The drive is secure. But it's a static weapon. We need a dynamic one. We need to change the story."
"How? He controls the narrative."
"Does he?" A faint, grim smile touched her lips. "He controls the official channels. But there are other streams. Darker, faster, and far more virulent. The people who believe Homelander can do no wrong are a lost cause. But the ones who are afraid of him? The ones who see the deadness in his eyes? They're a market we can tap into."
She was talking about bypassing the mainstream media entirely. Using the underworld of information Butcher operated in.
"You want me to leak something," I stated.
"I want you to become a symbol," she corrected. "Not Vought's redeemed monster. Not Homelander's rival. Something else. The man who inverted a mountain to save his team from a 'catastrophic accident' that Homelander was too late to prevent. The powerful, controlled presence in the chaos. We need to show strength, but it must be a strength that protects, not obliterates."
It was a dangerous, delicate dance. I would be openly defying Homelander's narrative while still operating under Vought's umbrella, protected only by Edgar's cold calculation of my worth.
"And what's my first move in this PR war?" I asked.
"Get out of that tower," she said. "You're suspended, which means you're off the leash. Be seen. But be seen doing something... human. Remind them there's a man under the lightning. Let Homelander be the distant god. You will be the grounded protector."
The call ended, leaving me in the renewed silence. The echoes had quieted, listening. The concept of a "grounded protector" was alien to them. Compound King saw it as weakness. Ember saw it as a distraction. But Graviton... Graviton saw the tactical advantage. Winning the people was a form of terrain control.
I walked to the window, looking down at the city I was supposedly meant to protect. A city that feared me, or was being taught to. Mallory's plan was smart, but it felt like putting a bandage on a gushing arterial wound. The real battle wasn't for the hearts and minds of the public. It was for the integrity of my own soul.
And as I stood there, a new, more terrifying thought occurred to me. What if the "controlled presence" Mallory wanted me to project wasn't an act? What if it was the key to survival? Not by suppressing the echoes, but by imposing my own will upon them? To use Graviton's logic without his cruelty, Ember's passion without her rage, the Hypnotist's persuasion without his malice.
I was not a council of warring personalities. I was the chairman. And it was time I started acting like it.
A soft, almost imperceptible shift occurred within me. The voices didn't vanish, but their chaotic screaming receded into a manageable murmur, a background hum of potential. I focused on my own breath, on the feel of the cool glass beneath my fingertips, on the memory of Annie's face—a touchstone of the person I was fighting to remain.
The first step was to leave the tower. To walk among the people I was supposedly becoming a monster for.
But as I turned from the window, a cold certainty settled in my gut. Homelander would not let this stand. He would see my public appearance not as a PR move, but as a provocation. He would be waiting.
The stage was set. The next move was mine. And the whole city would be watching.