Shocking truth hidden behind the Flight 37 disaster!
Homelander was on the plane! Who is telling the truth and who is lying?
Is the girl's story believable? Vought faces its worst crisis ever!
...
The day after the girl woke up, the entire American media lost its mind. Clickbait headlines flooded every platform. An angry mob had already surrounded Vought Tower, even bigger than last time.
Their banners were brutal:
"Homelander, murderer of 122 passengers."
"Vought, hand over Homelander and give us the truth."
"Queen Maeve, speak the fuck up!"
Inside Vought Tower, Madeline called an emergency meeting. Everyone from The Seven showed up except The Deep.
"This situation is critical. None of you are to say a single word to the press. Especially you two," she said, looking at Homelander and Maeve. "You stay out of sight. Ashley will handle all PR moving forward. As long as the black box stays missing, we can keep questioning everything that little girl says."
"Sorry, I'm not feeling well," Maeve muttered, standing up to leave.
"Maeve." Homelander's voice was ice cold. "Sit down."
She hesitated, then slowly sank back into her chair.
"In one week Vought is hosting a charity gala called 'Samaritan's Embrace.' This is your chance to win back the public," Madeline said, handing out briefing packets.
When she reached Homelander, he didn't take it. He was staring at his twitter feed, scrolling through endless hate comments under his latest post. Every refresh cost him another hundred thousand followers. His face looked completely empty.
"Meeting adjourned," Madeline said quietly.
Once everyone else left, she stepped over and pulled Homelander's head against her chest, stroking his hair like a mother.
"Don't worry, baby. This will blow over soon. This morning Greevs gave me a solid idea. We'll pay big money to bury the news cycle with celebrity scandals. Once those stories explode, nobody will care about some plane crash. As long as the black box never surfaces, people will forget. You'll still be their hero. Their one and only Homelander."
Homelander opened his eyes and looked straight at her.
"And what if the black box does show up?"
Madeline kept stroking his hair like he was a scared little boy. "It won't. I won't let it see the light of day."
Homelander seemed to understand exactly what she meant. He closed his eyes again and leaned into her touch, soaking it up.
...
Over the next few days, the entertainment world exploded with fresh scandals one after another. The internet ate it up.
With the black box still missing and Ashley's PR machine working overtime, a new narrative started spreading like wildfire: the traumatized little girl had been obsessed with Homelander. She'd hallucinated seeing him on the plane right before she almost died. Reporters even dug up stacks of Homelander photos and DVDs from her old place. Proof she was a huge fan.
Homelander's die-hard stans ate that shit up and ran with it.
Ivan sat in his office scrolling through the raging online fights and smirked.
The Flight 37 story was dead in the water. The only way it could blow up again was if Vought released what was on the black box. But Madeline and Edgar wouldn't do that.
They wanted to control Homelander, not start an all-out war with him. His endorsement deals alone brought in way too much cash every year.
Back at the villa after work, Ivan pulled out the last few vials of Compound V and set them on the coffee table. He brought up the system panel.
[Reinforced Self-Healing Talent Fusion: 45%]
"Too bad Compound V is Vought's highest-level secret. Only the VP and CEO can authorize it." Ivan remembered even Homelander didn't have official access. The speedster prick had just stolen his own doses from the vault.
So outside of Vought and hospitals, there was really only one other person who might be able to feed him more.
Ezekiel. The rubber-bodied, God-fearing supe who ran the Samaritan's Embrace charity.
Ivan already knew exactly how to threaten Ezekiel. If memory served, Butcher had a nasty little video of the rubber freak getting fucked by another guy.
Get that tape and Ezekiel would have two choices: hand over the Compound V or watch his entire empire of followers, money, fame, and fake holiness go up in smoke.
Still, relying on Ezekiel was only a temporary fix. Vought wasn't stupid. They tracked every single vial. A few dozen missing might slip under the radar, but a couple hundred? Someone would notice fast.
Before heading back to the villa, Ivan had stopped by Mercy Hospital. The head nurse, Keely Gill, made it clear: they could only report a maximum of twenty vials lost or damaged per month.
So he'd have to find other sources.
By the time he finished sorting his thoughts, the tentacles sprouting from his hands had already sucked up every last drop of Compound V on the coffee table.
The panel updated.
[Reinforced Self-Healing Talent Fusion: 83%]
Ivan had no plans to jump into the next world right after finishing this fusion. He still didn't know if the next one would be as manageable as Parasyte. Better to wait until he fused the next talent before using All-Worlds Travel again.
He already had something in mind for the next one.
Ivan picked up the ophthalmology textbook from the table and started flipping through it, cross-referencing the diagrams with how his own eyeballs worked.
He spent the next few hours experimenting, trying to grow new eyes from scratch.
Every single attempt failed.
He wasn't in a rush though. The eye was the most complex and delicate organ in the human body. Creating one from nothing wasn't going to happen overnight. It would take hundreds of tries.
Still, he couldn't wait for the day he finally nailed it. Full panoramic vision sounded fucking incredible.
At least nobody would ever sneak up on him from behind again.
___
[]~(￣▽￣)~*
Read 12 Advance Chapters—P@t- Captain69