Chapter 11: The Believe Expo - Part 1
POV: Ben
The Believe Expo erupts with manufactured faith and real power two weeks later, thousands of worshippers unaware that predators walk among both the heroes and the crowd—Ben included, his danger sense screaming warnings from the moment he enters the convention center.
Corporate spirituality hangs thick in the air like incense mixed with marketing budget, banners proclaiming "Faith Through Strength" and "Believe in Tomorrow" stretching between vendor booths that sell salvation at premium prices. Ben's nervous system fires warnings with machine-gun intensity as his Compound V Detection maps a constellation of enhanced individuals scattered throughout the crowd like landmines disguised as messiahs.
"Too many. Way too many. This isn't a religious gathering—it's a superhuman convention disguised as spiritual experience."
[COMPOUND V DETECTION: MAXIMUM OVERLOAD]
[WARNING: 47 ENHANCED SIGNATURES DETECTED]
[THREAT ASSESSMENT: EXTREME - MULTIPLE APEX PREDATORS PRESENT]
[RECOMMENDATION: IMMEDIATE EVACUATION]
The Boys move through the crowd with practiced efficiency, their plan to infiltrate Vought's Compound V distribution network requiring them to blend with true believers while hunting corporate heretics. Ben splits from their formation during the opening prayer, letting manufactured devotion carry him toward a different kind of hunting ground.
Ezekiel's revival stage dominates the convention center's eastern wing, where the stretchy preacher holds court over a baptism tank that's seen seventeen "accidental" drownings in three years. The man's elastic abilities let him reach every corner of his congregation simultaneously, hands stretching fifteen feet to touch foreheads while his voice carries the particular authority that comes from confusing enhanced abilities with divine mandate.
"Level 12. Moderate threat under normal circumstances. But surrounded by forty-six other enhanced individuals, including some that register as..." Ben's System flickers, displaying readings that make his blood freeze. "Level 95+. That's Homelander territory."
Ben positions himself near the baptism tank using crowd dynamics and religious fervor as camouflage. Ezekiel's followers press close with the desperate hunger of people who've learned that faith without miracles is just hope without evidence. When the preacher demonstrates his abilities—limbs stretching like divine comedy—the crowd gasps with manufactured awe.
"Seventeen people. Seventeen drowning victims who thought they were getting blessed instead of murdered. He holds them under just long enough for brain damage, then claims God called them home."
Ben's shadows stir beneath his skin like restless predators, responding to the concentration of Compound V in ways that feel dangerous and unfamiliar. For split seconds, darkness flickers at the edges of his vision—not visible to normal perception, but present enough to make several children point and ask their parents about the "moving shadows."
From the main stage, a voice cuts through religious pageantry like a blade finding flesh.
"My fellow believers, your faith has brought you here today to witness the power of hope made manifest!"
Starlight.
Ben's head snaps toward the main stage where the youngest Seven member addresses the crowd with manufactured enthusiasm that can't quite hide the exhaustion behind her smile. She moves with the particular grace that comes from years of performance training, but her eyes scan the crowd with something approaching desperation.
When her gaze passes over Ben's section, she pauses. Starlight's expression shifts subtly—confusion mixing with concern as she stares at shadows that seem to move against the light. Her abilities create illumination that should banish darkness, but Ben's shadows twist in ways that suggest they're not entirely bound by normal physics.
"She sees something. Not everything, but enough to know something's wrong. Need to move before—"
The crowd's energy shifts like a seismic event preparing to reshape geography. Conversations die mid-sentence, children stop crying, even the air conditioning seems to quiet as if the building itself holds its breath. Ben's danger sense explodes into red-line warnings that make his vision blur with terror.
Homelander.
The crowd parts like water as America's greatest hero approaches the main stage, his costume pristine and his smile calibrated for maximum psychological impact. When he speaks, his voice carries the particular authority that comes from knowing you're the most dangerous thing in any room you enter.
"My fellow Americans..."
Ben's System goes completely insane.
[APEX PREDATOR DETECTED]
[THREAT LEVEL: FATAL]
[HOST SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: 0.2%]
[EMERGENCY PROTOCOL: MAXIMUM STEALTH MODE ACTIVATED]
[ALL SHADOWS MUST REMAIN DORMANT]
His shadows try to flee independently for the first time since extraction—primal terror overriding their conditioning as they attempt to disperse into whatever darkness they can find. Ben grips the baptism tank's edge until his knuckles go white, using physical pain to maintain control over incorporeal terror that wants to scatter across three counties.
"He can't see them. Shadows don't show up on X-ray vision. But if they manifest visibly, if they panic and become corporeal..."
Homelander's gaze sweeps the crowd with casual omnipotence, X-ray vision cataloging threats and inconsistencies among his worshippers. When his attention passes over Ben's section, those laser-blue eyes pause.
Something registers as wrong.
Ben forces himself to cheer with manufactured religious ecstasy, throwing his hands up like a true believer while his shadows writhe in primal terror beneath his skin. Homelander's eyes narrow thoughtfully—not with recognition, but with the particular curiosity that comes from sensing anomalies in expected patterns.
"He knows something's off. Not what, but something. The shadows don't show up on X-ray, but their absence might. Empty spaces where darkness should be."
For ten heartbeats that feel like geological ages, Homelander studies Ben's section of the crowd. Ben continues his performance of religious rapture while calculating escape routes and wondering if this is how every predator dies—not in glorious combat, but discovered during routine surveillance by something infinitely more dangerous.
Then Homelander's attention moves on, drawn by Starlight's speech about faith and community service and all the manufactured virtues that turn superhuman violence into acceptable entertainment.
"Dismissed. Filed under 'probably nothing' by something that could vaporize me before I realized I was dead. That's either incredible luck or incredible stupidity disguised as survival instinct."
The crowd erupts in chaos somewhere near the expo's entrance—screaming, running, the particular pandemonium that follows when normal humans encounter evidence that their heroes aren't heroic. Ben can't see the source through the religious masses, but his tactical sense recognizes opportunity disguised as disaster.
"The Boys. Something's gone wrong with their infiltration. Perfect distraction if I can—"
Ezekiel stretches toward the commotion with inhuman flexibility, his elastic limbs extending twenty feet to get a better view of whatever's causing the disruption. Security swarms toward the disturbance with military precision, leaving the baptism area momentarily understaffed.
Ben strikes during the transition between order and chaos.
His approach is surgical—industrial scissors stolen from expo setup crew sliding between Ezekiel's ribs while the preacher's attention focuses on distant screaming. Enhanced durability means nothing when precision finds the spaces between enhanced protection.
But his shadows, hyped up from proximity to Homelander and primal terror, refuse to remain completely hidden.
Darkness flickers visibly around the baptism tank as Ben drives the scissors deeper. Several congregation members scream about "demons" and "darkness manifesting," but security assumes it's part of the religious theater until Ezekiel starts actually dying instead of just performing salvation.
"Partially visible. The shadows are partially visible. Need to finish this before—"
Ezekiel's elastic abilities become weakness as Ben applies leverage that normal human anatomy couldn't provide. The preacher stretches to escape, limbs extending fifteen feet in panicked desperation, but stretched rubber has structural limits that enhanced healing can't overcome fast enough.
The scissors part tendons that have been extended beyond breaking point. Ezekiel's scream carries across the expo floor with the particular pitch that comes from discovering enhanced abilities have failure modes that training never covered.
"Elasticity works both ways. Stretch him far enough, and he snaps like any other material under stress."
Ezekiel collapses beside his baptism tank, enhanced healing insufficient when your circulatory system has been severed at seventeen different extension points. Ben drags the dying preacher toward a maintenance room while his shadows practically scream to feast on fresh corpse.
Behind them, Homelander's heat vision carves through the crowd somewhere near the expo's entrance. The smell of burning flesh mixes with manufactured incense and holy water as America's greatest hero demonstrates why normal humans should leave superhuman problems to people with superhuman solutions.
"Time to feed. Time to grow stronger. Time to add stretching to my arsenal of abilities stolen from monsters who deserved worse than they got."
The maintenance room door slams shut just as emergency lighting transforms the expo into a hellscape painted in red and corporate terror.
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