Translucent's death surprised Joey to some extent. As far as he knew, there were no such things as supervillains in this world—at least before the arrival of Trigon.
Until then, these "superheroes" could be said to face no truly lethal external threats.
That said, the deaths of even the strongest supes were not some impossible fantasy. Joey himself had personally killed one just earlier that morning.
Homelander was obviously furious. He saw himself as the leader of the Seven, and the outright death of a team member was nothing short of a direct provocation against him.
Translucent's life wasn't worth much—but Homelander's pride was priceless.
Perhaps buried deep within Homelander's rage was also a trace of fear.
If a near-immortal supe like Translucent could be torn into pieces without anyone even noticing, who could truly guarantee that the rest of them were safe?
But Joey didn't care in the slightest. Ignoring Homelander's outburst, he walked straight towards Ashley's office.
"Ashley, has anyone come to the company looking for me recently, or tried to contact me?!"
"What?"
Joey's question nearly overloaded Ashley's brain. What kind of normal person would even ask something like that?
Joey was a member of the Seven—the most famous superhero team on the planet. Every single day, there were enough obsessed fans trying to see him just once to form a line from Long Island to Manhattan!
Joey could have waited until Ashley left her desk and then, like before, hacked the internal system to find what he wanted. But right now, he had no patience for that.
"Get out of your seat. Now."
Seeing the expression on his face, and the same kind of vicious look he had when Homelander lost his temper, Ashley immediately stood up and gave up her seat.
Joey went through the visitor logs one by one, but only realized afterwards that it had all been pointless.
Anyone recorded in the visitor system was a big shot—senators, politicians, people like that. No one would bother recording the name of a Kansas farm girl who claimed she knew a superhero.
But if a supe girl—one tough enough to withstand a flick to the forehead from him—had sent a text asking for help, that likely meant she had been dragged into some kind of supe affair.
Joey then began searching through the registered supe files in Vought's database, but compared to the last time he snooped around, there weren't many new entries. He turned his head towards Ashley.
"Are all of Vought's superhuman files in this system?"
Ashley didn't want to answer. These files were never meant for someone like Joey to access.
But when she saw his eyes, and remembered Homelander's past tyranny, she instantly lost the courage to resist.
"There… there's still a batch of files I haven't had time to enter yet. They're in—"
Before Ashley could finish, Joey swept his gaze across the room and used his X-ray vision to spot the new files hidden in a compartment of the drawer. He reached out, crushed the lock with his fingers, pulled out the documents, and in an instant found what he was looking for.
A personnel file completed just a few days ago.
Name: Laurie Lemon — potential successor to the G-Men's Silver Kincaid.
"Your HR department is useless. Do you people even do your jobs? Something this important, and you didn't even put it into the system?"
Leaving behind only that criticism, Joey jumped out the window and flew away from Vought Tower, leaving Ashley frozen in place.
Of course it wasn't entered—because I spend all day cleaning up the messes you superpowered assholes keep making!
The humiliated office worker felt her head buzzing with anger. Ashley desperately wanted to scream her thoughts out loud, to finally give these super bastards a piece of her mind.
But the existence of super hearing forced her to swallow it all back down.
---
On the other side, Starlight was hurriedly changing her clothes. Pajamas, underwear—everything was tossed aside as she pulled on a fresh set of clothes, free of bloodstains.
Most of the exposed skin on her body was still smeared with mottled blood, but she forcefully pulled the clothes on anyway. She needed to use every precious second to escape.
Even though the mirror-version of herself who had tried to kill her had been cut in half with the help of some unknown party, Starlight's instincts told her that things were far from over.
That feeling of being watched still relentlessly stimulated her nerves. She couldn't afford to clean herself up or deal with the body. She had to leave this hellhole immediately.
Right—
Starlight grabbed her phone and called Stan Edgar. What had happened was already far beyond her ability to handle. Being targeted for murder by a supe was a first for her.
The call connected, and Stan Edgar's calm, emotionless voice came through. "Speak."
Hearing that steady voice, Starlight immediately felt much more relaxed. She was just about to report the attack she had suffered.
After all, as the head of Vought, Stan controlled all supes. He would definitely be able to help her escape the pursuit.
Controlled all supes…
Suddenly, Starlight felt as if she had connected a crucial dot. Without saying a word, she crushed the phone in her hand.
On the other end, listening to the sudden dead line tone, combined with the message Red River had sent him minutes earlier, Stan had already guessed how things would unfold.
Starlight had survived the attack, but she was shaken. She had misunderstood a key part of the situation and now viewed him as someone she couldn't trust.
This was the consequence of letting someone who was somewhat clever—but not clever enough—handle a covert task. She thought she had uncovered part of the truth, when in reality, she hadn't seen the full picture at all.
There was no connection between him and Starlight in any sense. She was neither a card in his hand nor a trump card.
Stan had merely thrown her out as bait, waiting for the G-Men to be forced into making enough noise.
The problem was that the effect had been a little too good. Before Starlight's investigation had progressed to anything truly lethal, the other side had already panicked and moved to kill.
But Starlight no longer mattered. Her quietly disappearing right now actually suited his purposes better—because he had already obtained another, far better card.
Under his manipulation, this card had the potential to completely resolve the internal factionalism within Vought.
In fact, before this card was even played, one of those factions had already collapsed on its own.
Stan Edgar was different from Madelyn. Madelyn had risen through the ranks during Homelander's era, in the post–Cold War period—America's so-called golden age.
Vought, like America itself, had chosen to go with the times, restraining most of its lethal claws and operating through exchange of interests and political compromise, wrapping itself in the veneer of 'civilization.'
That was Madelyn's style.
Stan Edgar, by contrast, was far more… primal.
The era in which he ran corporate operations was one of fierce confrontation.
Helping authorities overthrow Third World regimes, massacring resistance movements in former colonies, detaining and assassinating political leaders, assisting Langley in backing local reactionary forces, smuggling drugs—these were routine matters to him.
Compromise and mutual benefit were always just appearances. Violence and coercion were the true foundations of power.
Stormfront had initially been beyond his ability to resolve—but the G-Men were different.
After decades of brutal expansion under Professor G, the internal contradictions of the G-Men had accumulated to the point of inevitable self-destruction.
Madelyn was still constrained by her way of thinking, hoping to slowly check and balance Godolkin and fully absorb the G-Men into Vought.
Stan Edgar had lost his patience.
What he wanted was total eradication.
Vought was about to enter a new phase, and those old, rotten assets needed to be cut away as thoroughly as possible