Joey watched Starlight as she continued charging up, and he didn't let his guard down. Like grabbing a chick by the scruff, he reached out, seized the white cape behind her, smashed straight through the window, and shot into the sky at maximum speed—straight up to an altitude of ten thousand meters.
The Starlight in his grasp erupted with a burst of light so intense it would have blinded everyone who'd been present moments earlier. Then… nothing else happened.
That made Joey breathe a long sigh of relief.
"Thank God. I thought you were about to straight-up self-destruct back there!"
Starlight also realized she'd lost control. The near-stratospheric altitude and biting cold cleared her head considerably, but she was still furious. She struggled violently, twisting her head to glare at Joey.
"You—let go of me!"
"Okay."
At this point, she was already like this, so Joey figured the only option was compliance.
The instant he released her, Starlight began free-falling.
Watching her scream a beat too late as realization hit, Joey sighed helplessly and dove after her, scooping her back up.
"So… you can't fly, and you still told me to let go?"
"What does that have to do with you?!"
Held in his arms, Starlight was both embarrassed and enraged. At ten thousand meters up, none of her powers worked properly—she didn't even dare move much. All she could do was pound her fists against Joey's chest.
"My powers are completely dependent on electricity. Without power, they're useless."
Hearing that, Joey couldn't help smacking his lips.
"What a ridiculously situational power. What happens if a Kryptonian or someone from Apokolips invades tomorrow and you're needed in outer space? You gonna haul a giant lithium battery up there with you?"
"You freak! You've read way too many Victory Comics!"
Victory Comics was Vought's own superhero comic line, controlling nearly ninety percent of the American comic book market.
Starlight had started doing vigilante work when she was young. Back then, she'd fantasized about outsmarting alien invaders like the Tek Knight in the comics…
Or vaporizing alien motherships with heat vision like Homelander.
But reality was reality. Most of the criminals she actually faced were just petty thieves robbing convenience stores or gas stations.
Achoo!
At that altitude, the dense moisture in the air made Starlight sneeze.
Joey frowned, suddenly remembering something his father Jonathan had once said about men needing a bit of gentlemanly courtesy. He tugged his cape around the woman in his arms.
She clearly wasn't grateful.
"Are you stupid? I'm a supe—I'm not afraid of a little cold!"
That said, Starlight still pulled the red cape tightly around herself. Up here, maybe it gave her some sense of security.
"Feeling calmer now?"
Joey didn't think hovering in the sky arguing with her was productive. He still needed to get back and study magic with Stormfront.
"Promise me that when we go back down, you'll keep your emotions in check and won't hurt innocent people. Do that, and I'll take you back."
"I never wanted to hurt innocent people!"
Wrapped in the cape, Starlight vented her anger by punching Joey's chest again.
"The only person I wanted to hurt was you!"
"But the way you were about to hurt me would've definitely hurt innocent people."
Joey wasn't about to release a ticking bomb back onto the surface without clarity.
"I really don't get you supes. One by one, you throw around powers that can kill people. When irreversible damage happens, how exactly do you plan to clean that up?"
Starlight's face flushed red. Thinking about the consequences of what she'd almost done filled her with fear—but she still reflexively argued back.
"I'm sorry… but what do you mean, 'you supes'? Aren't you one too?"
"Of course not."
Seeing her remorse, Joey turned and flew toward Vought Tower.
"I'm an alien who landed on Earth more than a decade ago and was raised by my adoptive parents."
Starlight covered her face. She had nothing left to say.
If she remembered correctly, that backstory was from one of Homelander's early comic origins. But over the past decade—because of immigration controversies—it had been retconned by the editors into him being American-born.
She'd just been utterly crushed—physically and psychologically—by a comic-obsessed, terminally chuuni freak. She couldn't beat him. She couldn't argue with him. And she was completely in the wrong.
That alone was humiliating enough.
Before long, Joey brought Starlight to the top floor of Vought Tower. After setting her down on the rooftop terrace, he prepared to rush back to his hotel to continue studying magic.
But someone tugged lightly on his cape from behind.
It was Starlight, finally catching her breath.
"Um… my name's Annie. Annie January. I'm really sorry about what just happened. I—"
Joey's expression hardened. He cut her off, lifting into the air and looking down at her.
"Annie, you shouldn't be apologizing to me. That attack couldn't hurt me. You should apologize to the people who were there. If I hadn't taken you away in time, the consequences wouldn't be something you could smooth over with a single apology."
With that, Joey flew off toward his residence, leaving Starlight standing alone on the rooftop.
"Hey! Aren't you supposed to take me back to my original floor?!"
The wind carried back only Joey's voice:
"Doesn't Vought Tower have electricity?"
Starlight's ability to fly existed only in theory. She'd always felt like she could fly—but she'd never actually tried, not even from ground level.
Trying her first flight at this height felt like a good way to die, so in the end she had no choice but to pry open the rooftop door by brute force, find an elevator, and return to the floor she'd left.
"Oh. I was just wondering whether you'd make it back, Starlight."
As she returned to retrieve the backpack she'd left behind, she found the backstage area completely cleared out. Only a Black man in a tailored suit sat calmly in the center of the lounge, waiting for her.
He carried an air of authority that didn't need anger to be intimidating. With a small gesture of his hand, a masked figure in black stealth armor emerged silently from the shadows behind Starlight, making her break out in a cold sweat.
It was Black Noir—a top-tier infiltrator, a silent assassin among the Seven.
Yet at this moment, Noir showed none of that lethal aura. Instead, he obediently followed the man's instructions, carrying over a chair and placing it between the two of them.
"Please, have a seat."
The imposing man introduced himself.
"My name is Stan Edgar. You've probably heard it before."
---
"That's all? There's nothing else?"
Joey was sprawled across his hotel room bed, flipping through page after page of material Stormfront had brought him. The pages were yellowed with age—it was obvious the originals were decades old.
Like the previous documents, the information was substantial but fragmented. Even after reading everything, it was impossible to piece together a complete picture of magic.
"Don't rush it. I've already tracked down his descendants, but the materials are scattered. Organizing them will take time. I could only scan part of it for now."
Water splashed loudly from the bathroom next door. As she spoke, Stormfront cracked the door open and extended a hand.
"Done studying? If you are, help me out—hand me a towel."
Joey was always happy to help.
"Sure."