Chapter 28: THE BIG MAN
The text came at 11:47 AM: Changed location. Red Hook. Same time.
No explanation. No apology. Just Billy Butcher deciding the rules were different now and expecting me to adjust.
I adjusted.
The Red Hook warehouse looked different in daylight—less ominous, more industrial, the kind of place that could be a microbrewery or a boutique candle factory if the neighborhood ever gentrified. The chemical smell was fainter today, but the surveillance feeds were still active on Frenchie's monitors, still showing Vought Tower from angles that shouldn't be possible.
Butcher sat at a folding table in the center of the open floor, a bottle of beer sweating rings onto the metal surface. He didn't stand when I entered. Didn't offer his hand. Just watched me cross the concrete with the patience of someone who'd spent a lot of time waiting for things to die.
"You're the Mythmaker," he said.
"You're Billy Butcher."
"Sit down."
I sat.
Frenchie was somewhere behind me—I could hear him moving equipment, the clink of glass against metal—and Kimiko was a presence I felt rather than saw, the way you feel a storm before the rain starts. But the room belonged to Butcher.
"Three questions," he said. "Answer them straight or fuck off."
"Ask."
"What are you?"
I'd prepared for this. "Something new. Not Compound V, not a natural mutation, not anything that fits in Vought's filing cabinets. I get stronger from public attention. The more people believe in what I represent, the more real it becomes."
Butcher's expression didn't change. "What do you want?"
"To survive in a world Vought controls. To build something they can't buy, suppress, or destroy. To not be afraid every time a Supe walks past."
"And why should I care?"
This was the real question. The one that would determine whether I walked out of here with an alliance or just walked out.
"Because I'm the best weapon you've never had." I held his stare. "Vought runs on public image. They spend billions making people love their Supes. I run on the same fuel—but I point it in the opposite direction. Every time I stand up to them publicly, I get stronger and they get weaker. You want dead Supes? I want an audience. We can help each other."
Silence. Butcher took a long pull from his beer.
Behind me, Frenchie shifted his weight. I'd learned to read that as interest.
"Here's how this works," Butcher said finally. "You want to be famous? Brilliant. I want cunts in capes bleeding out in ditches. You draw the cameras, we work the angles. You get your belief bollocks, we get operational cover."
"There's the pitch."
"Conditions," I said.
His eyebrow rose slightly. "You're negotiating?"
"I'm establishing terms. Independent control of my public persona—you don't dictate what I say or how I say it. No operations that put civilians at risk just to generate spectacle. Full transparency on mission objectives before I commit."
"That all?"
"That's the start."
Butcher smiled—a thin, cold thing that didn't reach his eyes.
"Done."
He agreed too quickly. I'd expected pushback, compromise, the kind of hard-won negotiation that meant both sides were actually committed. This was too easy, which meant he planned to renegotiate the boundaries later, when I was already invested.
I let it pass. I needed this alliance more than he needed me, and we both knew it.
"One more thing," I said.
"What?"
"Kimiko sensed something about me. Something that made her uncomfortable. I assume she told you."
Butcher's expression flickered—surprise that I was bringing it up directly.
"She said you smell wrong. Not like V. Not like anything." His eyes hardened. "You want to explain that?"
"I can't. Not because I'm hiding something—because I genuinely don't understand it myself. Whatever's happening to me, it's not in any playbook."
"That supposed to make me trust you?"
"It's supposed to make you understand why I'm here instead of trying to figure this out alone." I met his stare. "You've killed more Supes than anyone alive. If I turn into something that needs killing, you're the expert."
A long pause. Then Butcher laughed—a harsh, genuine sound.
"Fair point," he said. "I like a man who plans his own funeral."
I was almost at the door when Kimiko stepped into my path.
She didn't block me aggressively—she moved deliberately, planting herself where I'd have to acknowledge her. Her eyes met mine with an intensity that made my enhanced durability feel very thin.
She signed something to Frenchie. Quick, fluid movements I couldn't read.
"She says be careful what you become," Frenchie translated. His voice was soft. "She's seen people change when they get power."
The words hit harder than Butcher's assessment, harder than the alliance terms, harder than anything in this warehouse full of weapons and wanted fugitives. Because Kimiko knew. She'd been made into something she never asked to be, forced into violence by people who saw her as an asset instead of a person.
Her warning wasn't philosophical. It was testimony.
"I'll try," I said.
She held my gaze for three more seconds. Then she stepped aside.
Butcher's handshake at the door was exactly what I expected—crushing pressure, the grip of a man who'd spent his life breaking things with his hands. I gripped back hard enough to feel my durability absorb the force, matching him pound for pound without flinching.
Something flickered in his expression. Interest, maybe. Or just the recognition of a tool that might actually be useful.
"Frenchie'll be in touch," he said. "Don't fuck this up."
I drove home through empty Brooklyn streets, Kimiko's warning echoing against the BP counter still ticking upward in my peripheral vision.
Be careful what you become.
The woman who had no choice, speaking to the man drowning in choices.
My phone buzzed an hour later.
Frenchie: First job. Thursday. Bring your camera face.
Get Early Access to New Chapters
Thank you for reading. For those who want to skip the wait, my Patreon is currently 21 chapters ahead of the public sites.
Schedule: 7 new chapters released every 10 days.
Benefit: Gain a significant lead of 7 to 21 chapters depending on your tier.
Support the project and start reading the next arc now: Patreon.com/IsekaiStories