Chapter 10: Translucent Countdown
POV: Ben
Day three of Translucent's captivity finds the abandoned factory thick with tension and the smell of fear—both the prisoner's and his captors'—as Ben arrives to find The Boys arguing in vicious circles about murder versus justice.
The morning light filtering through industrial windows reveals a team that's discovered the difference between planning violence and executing it. Butcher paces like a caged predator, his leather jacket creaking with each agitated movement, while Hughie sits hunched over coffee that's gone cold with his moral wrestling. M.M. cleans weapons with the particular focus that comes from needing to keep hands busy while mind processes uncomfortable necessities.
"Three days of debate. Three days of watching a Seven member deteriorate in a cage while they argue about whether killing him makes them heroes or just murderers with better motives."
"He's got a son," Hughie says for what sounds like the hundredth time, his voice carrying the hollow exhaustion that comes from repeating arguments that don't get easier with repetition. "Eight years old. What happens to kids whose fathers disappear?"
"What happened to Robin?" Butcher's voice cuts like broken glass. "Where was Translucent's conscience when your girlfriend got splattered across half of Queens?"
Ben settles into the argument's familiar rhythm while his fingers itch to test the electrical weakness he'd identified in Translucent's diamond skin. The invisible Seven member rattles his cage with decreasing enthusiasm, enhanced strength meaning nothing when the containment has been designed by people who understand that superhuman doesn't mean immune to creative engineering.
"Extraction requires a corpse. But they're planning explosives that will scatter him across three counties. Need to find a way to kill him myself before they blow apart my most valuable target yet."
"Maybe there's a middle ground," Ben suggests with carefully calibrated uncertainty. "Turn him over to authorities, but make sure the right authorities. People who can't be bought by Vought."
Frenchie looks up from explosive devices that gleam with industrial precision, his expression carrying the particular sadness that comes from being gifted at things that end lives. "Ah, mon ami, you have not been paying attention. There are no authorities that Vought cannot buy. Money, blackmail, threats—they own the system from judges to janitors."
"Right. Which means they've already decided on execution. The question is method and timing."
"I've been thinking about what you said," Ben continues, letting fabricated memory color his voice with convincing emotion. "About Supes who got away with it. There was this enhanced individual in Chicago—strength variant, maybe Level 15. Killed three people during a bar fight, claimed self-defense."
The lie builds itself while Ben studies their faces for signs of engagement. Hughie's attention sharpens with the particular interest that comes from needing justification for decisions that scare him.
"Vought paid the families, bought the witnesses, had their pet prosecutor rule it justified force. Six months later, same Supe put two more people in the hospital during another 'self-defense' situation." Ben lets bitter truth color the fiction. "Sometimes letting them live just means more graves to dig later."
"Pushing Hughie toward violence using his own moral framework. Make him think execution is preventing future victims instead of just murder with extra steps."
Butcher nods with satisfaction that tastes like vindication. Here's someone who understands that mercy toward monsters is cruelty toward their future victims, that some problems require permanent solutions regardless of moral comfort.
"Exactly right," Butcher agrees. "Show them mercy, they show your neighbors what enhanced strength does to human skulls."
During bathroom breaks and equipment checks, Ben finds himself alone with Translucent's cage more often than coincidence should allow. The invisible Seven member's fear has evolved from outrage to desperate bargaining, his voice carrying the particular panic that comes from understanding that being superhuman doesn't make you immortal.
"His diamond skin would conduct electricity beautifully. One good shock and his nervous system would cook from the inside out. Clean death, intact corpse, perfect for extraction."
"You're staring again." Butcher's voice cuts through Ben's tactical assessment like a blade finding flesh. "Something about our invisible friend particularly fascinating?"
Ben turns to find Butcher studying him with the intensity usually reserved for dissecting enemy motivations. When Ben speaks, he lets genuine frustration color his voice—not about being caught, but about watching opportunity slip away.
"Just trying to understand how someone like that gets made." Ben's voice carries controlled anger that feels authentic because it is. "What kind of system creates people who think enhanced abilities make them untouchable?"
"True enough. I am trying to understand. Specifically, I'm trying to understand how to kill him before they blow him apart and waste the extraction opportunity."
"System that tells them they're better than everyone else from the moment they put on the costume," Butcher says with bitter accuracy. "System that turns might into right and calls it heroism."
Their conversation is interrupted by Ben's phone buzzing with persistent urgency. Maya's name flashes on the screen with the particular insistence that suggests growing concern rather than casual contact. Ben's stomach drops as he realizes he's been ignoring her calls while planning violence she can't imagine.
"She's worried. Her empathy probably picked up the satisfaction I felt during Gill's extraction, and now I'm not answering calls while planning another murder. From her perspective, I'm spiraling into something dark."
"Take it," Butcher suggests with the expression of someone who's learned that personal complications become operational liabilities if left unmanaged. "But keep it short. We've got work to finish."
Ben answers on the fourth ring, stepping away from the cage while Maya's voice pours concern through digital connection that somehow makes her care feel more immediate rather than less.
"Ben? Thank god. I've been worried sick." Maya's voice carries the particular relief that comes from confirming someone you care about is still alive. "You haven't answered any of my calls, and after what happened at the aquarium—"
"I'm fine." The lie tastes like metal and broken promises. "Just needed some space to process what happened."
"Processing. If only she knew what I'm actually processing—tactical approaches to electrical execution and extraction protocols for diamond-skinned targets."
"Your colors are different when you're lying to me." Maya's voice grows quieter, more careful. "They shift from storm-gray to something that tastes like copper and winter. Are you sure you're okay?"
The observation hits like cold water. Maya's empathic abilities are deeper than he'd realized, capable of detecting emotional resonance even through phone connection. If she can taste his lies, she probably felt the exact moment he murdered Gill while pretending to save him.
"Dangerous. She's becoming dangerous. Not maliciously, but her abilities are developing in ways that could expose everything."
"Just tired," Ben manages, wondering if exhaustion tastes different from deception in Maya's empathic palette. "The chemical exposure, the near-drowning—it's hitting me harder than I expected."
"I understand trauma processing." Maya's voice carries professional compassion mixed with personal concern. "But pulling away from people who care about you usually makes it worse, not better."
Behind Ben, Hughie's voice carries across the factory floor with new resolution—moral wrestling finally settled on the side of permanent solutions. Frenchie responds with technical specifications about C4 placement and blast radius, their conversation painting pictures of Translucent scattered across multiple counties.
"They've decided. Explosives. Which means I have maybe an hour before my extraction opportunity gets reduced to pink mist and disappointment."
"I need to go," Ben says, hating himself for the hurt that flashes across Maya's empathic perception even through digital connection. "Work emergency. I'll call you later."
"Ben, wait—"
He hangs up before Maya can finish expressing concern that would make him feel guilty for things she doesn't understand. His phone immediately buzzes with a text from Sarah: Maya called me. She's worried about you. I'm worried about you. Call one of us back.
Ben turns off his phone before guilt can overwhelm tactical necessity. Maya and Sarah belong to the world where people heal instead of hunt, where mercy is virtue instead of weakness that gets more innocents killed.
"They care about me. Actually care. And I'm choosing shadows over their concern, extraction over their affection, because building power matters more than maintaining relationships that were probably doomed anyway."
"Everything sorted?" Butcher asks with the expression of someone who's learned to read personal complications as operational intelligence.
"Sorted," Ben lies, pocketing his phone while part of his soul follows it into darkness.
The execution preparation takes place with military precision that speaks of experience with permanent solutions. Frenchie positions C4 charges with artistic care, calculating blast patterns that will ensure complete destruction while minimizing structural damage to their hideout. M.M. coordinates cleanup protocols, and Hughie stands pale but resolute beside equipment that will transform moral wrestling into practical necessity.
"They're going to blow him apart. Scatter every piece across three counties. No corpse means no extraction, no shadow, no aquatic abilities to complement Gill's skills. Just waste disguised as justice."
"Last chance for final words," Butcher announces with satisfaction that tastes like vindication. "Anything our invisible friend wants to share before we demonstrate that enhanced doesn't mean immortal?"
Translucent's voice carries desperate bargaining that transforms into genuine terror as he realizes they're serious about execution. When he speaks, his words pour out like water from a broken dam—confessions, bribes, threats, promises that probably wouldn't be kept even if they were accepted.
"I have a son! Eight years old! He doesn't know what I do for work—thinks I'm actually a hero!" Translucent's voice cracks with the particular panic that comes from understanding that death doesn't care about family obligations. "Please. I'll disappear. Leave the country. Never use my powers again."
"Family. They always mention family when they realize enhanced abilities don't make you immune to consequences. Wonder how many of their victims had families too."
"Robin Ward had family too," Hughie says with newfound steel in his voice. "All those people you helped Vought cover up—they had families. Maybe your son will grow up understanding that actions have consequences."
Ben watches the exchange while calculating angles and opportunities, wondering if there's any way to salvage extraction value from what's about to become expensive fireworks. Translucent's diamond skin would survive most explosions, but C4 placed with Frenchie's precision would overcome enhanced durability through focused application of physics.
"No way around it. They're committed to explosives, and trying to intervene would expose my nature. Have to watch a Rare-quality extraction opportunity literally blow apart."
"Do it," Butcher commands with the satisfaction of someone settling old debts.
Frenchie triggers the detonation with professional competence that transforms the factory's lower level into abstract art painted in primary colors. The explosion paints everyone in gore that used to be a Seven member, coating walls and equipment and people with proof that enhanced individuals bleed just like everyone else.
Ben tastes copper and lost opportunities while others vomit or stare in shock at what they've accomplished. Translucent had been worth maybe 1,500 experience points and a Rare-quality shadow with invisibility powers—resources that just got reduced to biological debris and moral complications.
"Gone. All of it. Fifteen hundred XP minimum, probably more. Rare-tier shadow with invisibility and enhanced durability. Tactical advantages that could have changed everything, scattered across three counties because they chose explosives over precision."
"Jesus Christ," Hughie whispers, staring at his hands which are painted with what used to be a person. "We actually did it. We killed a Seven member."
"We killed a rapist," Butcher corrects with satisfaction that borders on religious experience. "Proved that gods bleed when you apply sufficient pressure to the right places."
M.M. and Frenchie begin cleanup protocols with the efficiency that comes from planning for aftermath, while Ben helps a traumatized Hughie process what they've accomplished. The young man shakes with adrenaline and moral reckoning, having crossed lines that can't be uncrossed.
"He'll be stronger now. More useful. The first kill changes you in ways that make the second kill easier. That's how The Boys recruit—by making normal people complicit in violence that transforms them into weapons."
"You did the right thing," Ben tells Hughie while his shadows writhe with hunger for the feast they can't claim. "Sometimes justice requires getting your hands dirty."
"Doesn't feel like justice," Hughie manages through chemical-burned lungs that taste of C4 and consequences. "Feels like murder with extra steps."
"Both true. But murder of monsters is still preferable to mercy that enables more victims. Even if it costs me extraction opportunities that might have made survival easier."
The cleanup takes three hours—biological debris removed, evidence disposed of, equipment sanitized until no trace remains of Translucent's execution. Ben participates with calculated enthusiasm while mentally calculating how much stronger he'd be right now if he could have extracted instead of watched them blow apart his most valuable target yet.
"Two milestones toward earning their trust. Helped capture a Seven member, helped execute him. But at what cost? Rare-tier extraction opportunity wasted, relationship with Maya deteriorating, Sarah worried enough to coordinate with Maya about intervention strategies."
They drive to a New Jersey pine forest for final disposal, the van's interior thick with the smell of industrial cleaner and moral compromise. Ben comforts Hughie while his shadows scout for surveillance, knowing that every lost opportunity makes survival that much harder in a world designed to favor the monsters.
[QUEST UPDATE: MISSED OPPORTUNITIES]
[FAILED TO EXTRACT TRANSLUCENT (RARE-TIER)]
[COMPOUND V RESISTANCE INCREASED FROM EXPLOSION EXPOSURE]
[QUEST: EARN THE BOYS' TRUST (2/5 MILESTONES)]
[CURRENT XP: 175/350 TO LEVEL 7]
Standing in pine forest that will probably never recover from what they've buried here, Ben stares at hands that are painted with someone else's blood while his shadows whisper about hunger that went unfed. The Boys celebrate their first successful execution while Ben calculates the true cost—not in moral comfort, but in power that could have changed everything, scattered across three counties because justice required explosives instead of precision.
"This is what hunting with allies costs—compromise, waste, opportunities lost to group consensus. Next time, I extract first and worry about teamwork later."
The forest closes around secrets that would make headlines if anyone bothered looking in the right places, while Ben learns the difference between justice and efficiency, between building trust and building power, between what's morally satisfying and what keeps you alive when the real monsters decide you've become worth killing.
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