To say Homelander was shocked was an understatement. In one half of the sentence, he felt a small spark of pity; by the second half, his face was so frozen in disbelief it looked like molded plastic.
"What?" was all he could utter.
"They gave me seventy-five dollars and some sandwiches to come here and stall you for time," the kid repeated. He spoke naturally, as if he were discussing something as trivial as the weather.
"What?" Homelander said again. He was so stunned his brain seemed unable to process the reality of the situation. He was convinced this had to be a hallucination.
"Are you dumb, or just plain stupid? I imagined this meeting much differently, you know. Now you're just standing here repeating the same word with that stupid expression on your face."
The storm of insults finally woke Homelander from his trance. His eyes glowed a violent red, ready to incinerate the boy. He reached out, gripped the kid's throat, and lifted him off the roof. But even then, there was no change in the boy's expression. No fear. No racing heart.
"Who are 'they,' and where are they?" Homelander growled. His focus on finding Translucent, barely restraining his rage from turning the boy into a red smear on the gravel.
"The 'who' are three men who really, really hate Supes. They kept calling me a freak and saying all Supes should be killed. They have Translucent. After trying to kill him for an entire day, they finally figured out how. They're shoving something called C4 up his ass as we speak i think we have ten minutes before you have to scrape him off the floor. It's some British guy who hates Supes the most, a guy called Frenchie who is doing the shoving, and one other guy, I don't know his name, he's just there so he doesn't expose them. Also, some Russian and Chinese guys."
"WHAT?"
"I was told you were the top of the food chain," I said, my voice barely a rasp as his fingers tightened around my windpipe. "But you're just... slow. Is the air thin up here for you, too?"
I had no plan.
Every logical fiber of my being screamed at me to retreat, to hide in the shadows, and to accumulate power grain by grain until I was ready. But the moment he appeared, logic became a distant, flickering candle in the hurricane of my hunger.
My mind had been overridden. Seeing him, the raw, radiant perfection of his DNA, triggered an evolutionary fever I couldn't suppress. There was a one-in-a-trillion chance that I could somehow taste that gold, that I could Plunder the sun itself.
I had to do it.
To consume is to become, and to become is to evolve. My species does not understand the human concept of "suicide." To us, there is only the Hunt. If this path led to my end, so be it. What is death? Death is nothing but the cessation of growth.
To stand before a god and not reach for his throat, that is the only true death I recognize.
I would either become him, or I would be erased by him.
"I SAID WHERE ARE THEY!"
"I will tell you... if you save me."
"Save you?"
"I have cancer. That's why they sent me here. They told me 'gems are meant to shine before they're crushed. Go up there and give the cunt a show. Lead him toward the water. If you're going to die, kid, die making the big man look like a twat.'"
Homelander was never insulted this much in a short span of time, both literally and figuratively. He wanted to crush the little shit, but he needed to find Translucent fast. "Fine, fine, you little shit. I can see they used you. Just... just tell me where they are and Vought will take care of you. They have the best doctors; they will fix you up."
"Look inside of me. It's too late. You're the only person on this planet that can save me."
Homelander looked at him with his X-ray vision and saw a huge tumor already covering most of his chest. This kid was far, far gone. He sighed. "How am I supposed to save you? I'm not a doctor. I can't help you."
"Yes you can."
"HOW?"
"Give me one drop of your blood."
"A drop of my blood?" Homelander's voice was a soft, terrifying level. "You've got a lot of nerve for a kid who smells like a dumpster. You think I'm a fucking fountain? You think you can just... ask for a piece of me?"
Homelander's eyes glowed brighter and his fists closed tighter. If Aldrich didn't have the Deep's durability, he wouldn't have to worry about "cancer" anymore.
"IF YOU DONT"
"You will what? Kill me?"
"You think my blood is that powerful? You think I can fix a broken little thing like you?"
"I know you can," I lied. "Just one drop. That's all I need."