Chapter 15: Truth and Consequences
POV: Ben
The Boys' safehouse feels like a courtroom at dawn, Ben standing trial with five shadows as evidence of his crimes, Butcher as judge and jury with a gun, while Hughie tries desperately to mediate between his friend and his team.
Industrial light filters through windows that haven't been cleaned since the factory's productive years, painting everything in shades of judgment and accumulated suspicion. Ben stands in the center of the room while The Boys form a loose semicircle around him, their weapons casual but ready, their expressions ranging from Hughie's desperate advocacy to Butcher's predatory assessment.
"Trial. This is a trial. They've seen what I can do, and now they need to decide whether I'm an asset or a threat that needs elimination."
Butcher's pistol remains holstered but his hand rests on the grip with the particular casualness that comes from people who've learned to make permanent decisions quickly. When he speaks, his voice carries the authority of someone who's appointed himself prosecutor, judge, and potential executioner.
"Right then. Time for truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the bloody truth." Butcher's eyes never leave Ben's face, reading micro-expressions for signs of deception or dangerous intent. "What exactly are you, sunshine?"
"Careful truth. Give them enough to satisfy curiosity without revealing the System, the extraction mechanics, the fact that I'm not even from this reality."
"I gain power from killing Supes." Ben's voice carries the steady certainty that comes from revealing truths that have been carefully edited for audience consumption. "Some kind of Compound V mutation that I don't fully understand. When I kill enhanced individuals, I absorb aspects of their abilities."
The admission hangs in the air like smoke from weapons that have been fired in anger. Frenchie's eyes light up with scientific fascination while M.M.'s expression grows more cautious, calculating threat assessment based on capabilities they've fundamentally misunderstood.
"Prove it," Butcher commands with the satisfaction of someone whose paranoid instincts have been vindicated. "Show us exactly what you've collected from your hunting expeditions."
Ben manifests his shadows one by one, each extraction made corporeal through will and accumulated power. Juice Box's echo demonstrates enhanced strength by punching through a concrete support beam. Popclaw's shadow shifts density until she's solid enough to stop small arms fire. Gill's aquatic form manipulates water from building pipes into defensive barriers.
"Performance. They need to see coordination, tactical value, proof that I'm useful rather than just dangerous."
Ezekiel's elastic shadow stretches across the room to retrieve weapons from multiple locations simultaneously, while Traffic King's metal-manipulating echo demonstrates control over the building's steel framework that makes the entire structure groan with telekinetic stress.
"Five abilities," Ben explains while his shadows arrange themselves in tactical formation. "Enhanced strength, density manipulation, aquatic adaptation, elasticity, and metal control. Each extracted from criminals who used their abilities to hurt people who couldn't hurt them back."
Hughie steps forward with the desperate intensity of someone whose friendships have become more important than tactical considerations. When he speaks, his voice carries passionate advocacy mixed with personal investment.
"He's only killed monsters. Every single one of them—drug dealers, sex traffickers, murderers who got away with it because they had powers." Hughie's hands gesture toward the shadows with movements that suggest he's arguing for Ben's life. "Look at what he took down with us tonight. How many victims did we save because Ben was there?"
"Alliance. Hughie's choosing friendship over suspicion, personal loyalty over team cohesion. That makes him either incredibly brave or incredibly naive."
M.M. studies the shadows with professional assessment that speaks of military training applied to supernatural logistics. When he speaks, his voice carries the measured authority of someone evaluating weapons for tactical deployment.
"Useful abilities. Coordinated deployment. But the question isn't capability—it's reliability." M.M.'s gaze shifts from shadows to Ben with the particular intensity reserved for potential threats. "What happens when your interests diverge from ours? What happens when you decide we're in your way?"
"I target criminals," Ben says with conviction that feels authentic because it is. "Enhanced individuals who use their abilities to exploit people who can't fight back. That's not going to change."
Frenchie's excitement bubbles over with scientific curiosity that makes tactical concerns secondary to theoretical possibilities. His hands move in animated gestures while he processes implications that most people would find terrifying.
"Fascinating! Quantum entanglement perhaps, or psychic resonance creating permanent neural pathways. The shadows retain original abilities but respond to new consciousness—like recording death echoes and playing them back through different hardware."
"Close. Uncomfortably close. Need to deflect before his scientific analysis hits too near the truth about extraction mechanics."
"I don't understand the theory," Ben admits with genuine honesty. "I just know it works. Kill a Supe, gain their abilities. Use those abilities to kill more dangerous Supes. Build power that might eventually matter when the really dangerous ones need killing."
Butcher's smile grows sharper but not warmer as he processes Ben's explanation. Here's someone who thinks like a professional killer rather than a traumatized victim seeking justice. Someone who understands that power comes from taking risks that lesser hunters wouldn't dare attempt.
"Homelander," Butcher says with the particular satisfaction that comes from finding weapons capable of threatening gods. "Could you take him? With enough shadows, enough stolen abilities?"
"Eventually. Maybe. If I can reach Level 80-90 and collect enough high-tier extractions. But that's years of hunting away, assuming I survive long enough to matter."
"Maybe," Ben answers with careful honesty. "He's Level 95 or higher. I'd need to be much stronger, much more coordinated. But eventually... yeah. I think I could hurt him."
The room falls silent except for the sounds of shadows that shouldn't exist shifting their positions with supernatural coordination. Butcher's assessment continues while his teammates process implications of fighting alongside someone whose nature they've fundamentally misunderstood.
"Right then," Butcher decides with the authority of someone who's learned to make alliances based on usefulness rather than comfort. "You're in. But with conditions. No secrets between us about targets or methods. No hunting without team approval. And if you ever turn those shadows on us..."
"I won't." Ben meets Butcher's gaze with steady intensity that carries its own kind of promise. "You've seen what I hunt. You've seen how I operate. I target monsters, not heroes."
"Alliance secured. Provisional, conditional, but secured. They'll watch me, test me, look for signs of betrayal or mission drift. But they need me more than they trust me, and that's enough for operational purposes."
The tension breaks like fever as The Boys accept their newest member's supernatural nature while Ben dismisses his shadows back into normal darkness. They spend the next hour discussing tactical integration, target assessment, and operational security protocols that account for abilities they're still learning to understand.
But even as Ben participates in strategic planning, part of his mind races ahead to complications that alliance will create. Maya's empathic abilities growing stronger, Sarah's medical observations becoming more suspicious, the System's demands for continued hunting and extraction.
By the time Ben leaves the safehouse, dawn is breaking over Newark's industrial wasteland with the promise of another day spent balancing truth and deception in ratios that probably can't be maintained indefinitely.
His apartment feels different when he returns—not physically changed, but psychologically altered by the knowledge that his secrets are partially exposed and his nature partially accepted by people whose opinions matter for survival rather than just social comfort.
"Maya. Need to see Maya. Her empathy is developing in ways that could expose everything the System requires me to hide. If she reads too deeply..."
Maya's spare key opens his apartment door at noon, her presence announced by the particular energy that comes from empathic abilities operating at maximum sensitivity. Ben finds her sitting on his couch surrounded by swirling darkness that probably isn't visible to normal perception, tears streaming down her face as her evolved abilities catalog psychic architecture that shouldn't exist in human consciousness.
"She knows. Sees everything. The shadows, the extractions, the cold spaces where normal human empathy used to live before I started collecting the dead."
"I felt you," Maya says without looking up, her voice carrying the hollow exhaustion that comes from psychic overload. "All the way across the city, I felt you revealing truths to people who don't understand what they're allying themselves with."
Ben settles carefully beside her, noting the way her empathy creates distance even as her body seeks comfort. When he speaks, his voice carries desperation disguised as explanation.
"Maya—"
"Don't." Her hand rises to stop words that won't change what her abilities have revealed. "I can feel them. All of them. Echoes of death moments, fragments of consciousness that shouldn't exist in living minds."
Maya's evolved empathy reads his shadows like an archaeological expedition discovering ancient horrors. Her voice grows quieter as she describes psychic geography that maps the places where Ben has stored extracted abilities.
"Popclaw's betrayal and suffocation. The way she trusted you until the moment you killed her." Maya's tears reflect light in ways that suggest her empathic abilities are approaching true telepathy. "Ezekiel's terror and pain as you cut him apart. Traffic King's rage as he realized he was dying for someone else's power collection."
"Complete exposure. She's reading the extraction echoes, feeling the death moments of every shadow I've collected. No way to deflect or explain that level of psychic archaeology."
"They were monsters," Ben says with conviction that feels inadequate against the weight of Maya's empathic evidence. "Every single one of them was a killer who used enhanced abilities to hurt innocent people."
"I know." Maya's admission carries the particular pain that comes from understanding both sides of moral equations that don't balance cleanly. "I can feel that too. Their crimes, their victims, the justice in what you did to them."
She stands with movements that suggest she's carrying weight that empathic abilities were never designed to bear. When she looks at Ben, her expression shows someone who's seen too much truth through senses that are evolving beyond human limitations.
"But I can also feel what you've become. Not a wounded hero seeking justice—a predator who seduces and kills, who collects the dead like trophies." Maya's voice breaks completely. "A beautiful monster wearing human skin, and I fell in love with the disguise instead of seeing the truth underneath."
"Truth. More truth than I want to admit. She's reading me accurately—not misinterpreting empathic data, but seeing exactly what the extraction process has turned me into."
"Maya, please—"
"No." She moves toward the door with the particular determination that comes from making decisions that hurt but can't be avoided. "I can't. I can't love someone whose soul has holes where empathy used to live, filled with the consciousness of people he's murdered."
The door closes with finality that echoes through Ben's apartment like the last note of a song that's been played too many times. Maya's footsteps fade down the hallway while Ben sits surrounded by empty space that his empathy can't fill with normal human emotional responses.
Hours pass. The sun sets over Queens while Ben drinks whiskey that tastes like lost opportunities and makes tactical decisions about relationships that have become operational liabilities. His shadows manifest without conscious command, responding to emotional turmoil with increasing independence that suggests they're developing beyond programmed loyalty.
Butcher arrives at Ben's apartment near midnight, finding the door unlocked and five shadows arranged around their creator like bodyguards protecting someone who's forgotten how to protect himself. When he speaks, his voice carries the pragmatic assessment of someone who's learned to recognize useful monsters.
"Heard your bird flew the coop. Empathic lass, wasn't she? Probably read more than you wanted her to know."
"Alliance. He's not here to kill me—he's here to negotiate. To offer something that makes the loss of Maya into strategic advantage rather than just personal failure."
Ben pours whiskey for two while his shadows demonstrate their abilities for Butcher's amusement. Traffic King's echo manipulates bottle caps into tactical formations while Ezekiel's shadow performs a mock execution on a photograph of Homelander that Butcher produces from his jacket.
"I've got a proposition," Butcher says with satisfaction that tastes like mutual monstrousness finding common ground. "You help me kill Homelander and the rest of The Seven. I keep your nature secret from Vought and anyone else who might find it interesting."
They drink together while Butcher shares intelligence about Stillwell, Compound V trafficking networks, and tactical assessments of Seven members that paint pictures of vulnerabilities that might eventually be exploited by someone with Ben's particular skill set.
"Devil's bargain. Alliance with someone who understands exactly what I am and doesn't care as long as it serves his purposes. That's either incredibly freeing or incredibly dangerous."
"Partners then," Ben agrees, and they shake hands while his shadows perform coordinated exercises that demonstrate tactical capabilities Butcher can use against enemies they both want dead.
The alliance feels like damnation disguised as practical necessity, but it also feels like the first honest relationship Ben's had since arriving in this world—two monsters recognizing each other across a table covered in tactical intelligence and empty bottles.
[MAJOR REPUTATION SHIFTS LOGGED]
[THE BOYS: HOSTILE → CAUTIOUS ALLIES]
[MAYA RODRIGUEZ: ROMANTIC → BETRAYED/FEARFUL]
[BUTCHER: SUSPICIOUS → PRAGMATIC ALLIANCE]
[QUEST PROGRESS: THE BOYS' TRUST (4/5 MILESTONES)]
[SHADOW LOYALTY: MAXIMUM - EMOTIONAL INTENSITY DETECTED]
Ben's phone buzzes with a text from Sarah as Butcher leaves: Maya called. Said you two broke up. Are you okay?
Ben stares at the message knowing he has one relationship left to destroy, wondering if losing his humanity piece by piece is the inevitable price of gaining power in a world where monsters rule and the only choice is becoming stronger or becoming prey.
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