Chapter 12: The Believe Expo - Part 2
POV: Ben
The maintenance room door slams shut just as Homelander's heat vision turns the main stage into a hellscape, and Ben has precious seconds before someone finds him crouched over a dying Supe with shadows crawling from his skin.
Emergency lighting paints everything in shades of arterial emergency while screams echo through convention center walls that were never designed to contain this level of superhuman violence. Ben's danger sense pings continuously—warnings about Homelander, about security response, about the particular kind of chaos that follows when gods decide to stop pretending they're benevolent.
"Thirty seconds. Maybe less. Need to extract now before they breach the door or Homelander decides to X-ray through walls."
Ezekiel twitches beside a mop bucket that smells of industrial cleaner and broken dreams, his elastic abilities trying to reconnect severed circulation while enhanced healing fights physics and loses. When he speaks, his voice carries the particular confusion that comes from discovering that divine mandate doesn't include immortality clauses.
"What... what are you?"
Ben places his trembling hand on the preacher's chest, feeling enhanced heartbeat stutter like machinery running out of fuel. "Someone who knows the difference between faith and fraud."
"ARISE."
The shadows explode from Ezekiel's dying body with force that overloads the maintenance room's electrical systems. Fluorescent lights shatter like glass prayer beads while darkness coalesces into translucent form that retains the preacher's elastic abilities but moves with different purpose.
[EXTRACTION SUCCESSFUL]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 1,100 XP]
[LEVEL ADVANCEMENT: 6 → 7]
[SHADOW QUALITY: UNCOMMON]
[POWER RETENTION: 38%]
[NEW ABILITIES: ELASTICITY, STRETCHING (MAXIMUM RANGE: 15 FEET)]
[MANIFESTATION DURATION: 10 MINUTES]
The extraction creates a visible shadow explosion that rattles the door in its frame and sends maintenance equipment flying like shrapnel designed by nightmares. Security pounds on the other side with increasing urgency while Ben's new shadow—Ezekiel's echo—helps barricade the entrance with elastic limbs that stretch through impossible angles.
"Stronger than the others. Much stronger. Uncommon quality instead of Common, thirty-eight percent power retention instead of fifteen or twenty. The System's learning, adapting, getting more efficient at stealing abilities from corpses."
Through air vents that connect the maintenance room to the expo's ventilation system, Ben spots The Boys pinned down by Vought security while Homelander terrorizes civilians for the cameras. The scene plays out like corporate theater—America's greatest hero creating chaos then positioning himself as the solution, manufacturing crises that justify superhuman intervention.
Ben could help them. His four shadows are strong enough now to make a real difference—Juice Box's strength, Popclaw's density manipulation, Gill's aquatic abilities, and Ezekiel's elasticity working in coordination could tip the balance toward The Boys' survival.
But doing so would reveal his nature to everyone present, including Homelander.
"Tactical choice. Help allies and expose everything, or stay hidden and let them handle their own problems. They're professionals—they knew the risks when they planned this infiltration."
Instead, Ben sends Gill's shadow through maintenance pipes that connect to the expo's sprinkler system. Aquatic abilities let the shadow manipulate water pressure in ways that turn fire safety into tactical advantage, triggering emergency flooding that creates chaos and visual cover.
The sprinkler system explodes into action with enough force to simulate divine intervention, water cascading from ceiling fixtures in torrents that transform the expo floor into ankle-deep chaos. Emergency lighting flickers through artificial rain while attendees scream and scramble for exits that security has already sealed.
Through the deluge, Ben watches The Boys extract toward predetermined rally points while Homelander's heat vision carves through sprinkler heads in frustrated rage. The chaos provides perfect cover for multiple escapes—some planned, some improvised, all taking advantage of superhuman temper tantrums disguised as heroic response.
"They're clear. Made it out without knowing they had help. Better this way—preserves operational security while keeping useful allies alive."
Ben dismisses his shadows and exits through ventilation shafts that connect to the convention center's loading docks. By the time security breaches the maintenance room, they find only Ezekiel's corpse and evidence of electrical malfunction that explains the power surge and sprinkler activation.
The rendezvous location—an abandoned parking garage in Newark—smells of motor oil and operational anxiety when Ben arrives forty minutes later. The Boys conduct after-action debriefing with the particular intensity that comes from missions that almost become disasters, while Ben participates with calculated enthusiasm that hides his secret assistance.
"Play it right. Act concerned about their safety, curious about what went wrong, grateful they all made it out alive."
"Hell of a thing," Butcher says with satisfaction that borders on religious experience. "Homelander throwing a tantrum in front of cameras. Showed the whole world what he really is when nobody's playing their scripts."
"Anyone hurt?" Ben asks with concern that feels genuine because it is. These people matter in ways that extend beyond operational usefulness—they're becoming something approaching family in a world where family usually gets weaponized by corporate interests.
"Few close calls," M.M. reports while checking equipment for damage from emergency evacuation. "Security was better prepared than intelligence suggested. Almost like they knew we were coming."
Butcher's eyes narrow with suspicion that tastes like professional paranoia mixed with personal experience. When he speaks, his voice carries undertones that suggest this conversation is moving toward uncomfortable territory.
"Funny thing, though. Ben here looks remarkably dry for someone who was inside when the sprinklers went biblical."
Ben's heart stops for approximately three heartbeats before training kicks in. He gestures toward his jacket and shoes, both showing appropriate water damage from emergency flooding. "Supply closet. Heard the chaos, found somewhere to hide until it was over."
"Close. Too close. Need better cover stories for extraction operations that coincide with their missions."
Butcher studies Ben's hands with the particular intensity that comes from reading people for survival purposes. When he speaks, his voice carries the certainty of someone who's caught lies dressed as truth.
"Blood under your fingernails. Wasn't there this morning."
Ben glances at his hands with manufactured surprise, noting dark crescents beneath nails that should be clean. The extraction process apparently leaves traces that normal hygiene doesn't address—another operational detail the System forgot to mention.
"Evidence. Physical evidence that links me to Ezekiel's death. Need deflection, misdirection, anything that explains blood without revealing extraction mechanics."
"Must be from crawling through vents." Ben shows superficial cuts on his palms and forearms—self-inflicted damage that predates the mission but explains blood evidence. "Sharp edges everywhere in those maintenance areas."
The explanation satisfies immediate questioning, but Butcher's expression suggests he's filing inconsistencies for future consideration. Here's someone whose survival depends on reading lies accurately, and Ben's cover story has gaps that professional paranoia will eventually exploit.
"He knows I'm hiding something. Not what, but something. Need to be more careful about operational security during joint missions."
"Strange shadows too," Frenchie adds with scientific curiosity that makes Ben's blood temperature drop several degrees. "During the chaos, I saw darkness moving against the emergency lights. Very unusual behavior for normal shadow physics."
Ben's nervous system fires warnings while he maintains expression of casual interest. Frenchie saw his shadows during the extraction—not clearly enough to understand what he witnessed, but enough to register anomalous behavior that doesn't match expected patterns.
"Disaster. Complete operational disaster. They're connecting dots that lead directly to questions I can't answer without revealing everything."
"Emergency lighting does weird things to perception," Ben suggests with the authority of someone who's crawled through enough maintenance areas to understand how shadows behave during electrical malfunctions. "Probably just water and flickering lights creating optical illusions."
Frenchie nods with the expression of someone who accepts explanations that answer questions he's not ready to pursue. Here's a man whose scientific training tells him something unusual happened, but whose operational priorities focus on immediate survival rather than theoretical investigation.
The debriefing continues with tactical analysis and lessons learned, while Ben participates with careful enthusiasm that hides his growing certainty that The Boys are becoming more dangerous to his operational security than Vought's surveillance apparatus.
"They're professionals. Eventually, they'll piece together enough inconsistencies to realize I'm not what I claim to be. Need contingency plans for when alliance becomes liability."
[QUEST UPDATE: BUILDING AN ARMY (4/5 SHADOWS COLLECTED)]
[NEW SKILL UNLOCKED: SHADOW COORDINATION LEVEL 1]
[CAN NOW COMMAND SHADOWS INDEPENDENTLY IN TACTICAL SITUATIONS]
[CURRENT XP: 75/400 TO LEVEL 8]
That night, Ben stands on his apartment roof with four shadows arranged around him like a general reviewing troops that shouldn't exist. Juice Box's echo practices punching techniques against air, Popclaw's shadow demonstrates density manipulation by becoming temporarily solid, Gill's aquatic form tests swimming motions in empty space, and Ezekiel's elastic duplicate stretches limbs in impossible directions.
"An army built from monsters who deserved worse than they got. Each extraction making me stronger, each shadow expanding my tactical options, each kill proving that enhanced doesn't mean immortal."
Somewhere across the city, Homelander reviews security footage from the Believe Expo while asking questions about anomalous readings and unusual shadow behavior during the chaos. Ben can feel that attention like weight pressing against his operational security, divine omnipotence wondering about darkness that moves without explanation.
The System pulses with quiet satisfaction, blue text reminding him that power comes from taking risks that lesser hunters wouldn't dare attempt.
[DANGER SENSE UPGRADED TO LEVEL 2 FROM EXTREME STRESS EXPOSURE]
[QUEST PROGRESS: KNOW YOUR ENEMY (4/10 WEAKNESSES CATALOGUED)]
[WARNING: HOMELANDER AWARENESS INCREASED]
[RECOMMENDATION: ENHANCED OPERATIONAL SECURITY REQUIRED]
Ben dismisses his shadows one by one, watching them dissolve back into normal darkness while their abilities settle into his nervous system like cold water finding its level. Enhanced strength, density manipulation, aquatic adaptation, and elastic stretching—an arsenal of stolen abilities that might eventually be enough to matter when the real war begins.
But for now, he's still just a Level 7 predator in a world designed to favor gods, building power one extraction at a time while Homelander's attention turns toward shadows that shouldn't exist and questions that can't be answered without revealing truths that would make survival impossible.
The city breathes around him with the rhythm of eight million heartbeats, most of them belonging to people who attended the Believe Expo because they still have faith in heroes instead of understanding that heroes are just monsters with better marketing departments.
"One more shadow. One more extraction, and the System unlocks whatever comes after building an army. Time to find target number five and complete the collection."
The resolution sits heavy in his chest like winter that's forgotten how to end, while somewhere in the darkness below, shadows that used to be people whisper suggestions about hunting and feeding and growing strong enough to challenge gods who think enhanced abilities make them untouchable.
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