Free Web NovelChapter 13: 13: Homelander Is Going Bonkers!
The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
~ Oscar Wilde
___
The news that The Deep was getting benched tore through The Seven like wildfire.
No official statement dropped, but the next day’s schedule had his name scrubbed from every major gig. In its place: a brutal lineup of ocean charity tours, aquarium ribbon-cuttings, and voiceovers for some environmental docs.
The slots were jammed so full that anyone not in the know would swear The Deep was the hottest thing in Vought.
Truth was, he’d been shoved straight to the edges of real power. Banished to the fucking sidelines.
Ashley moved fast, at least.
Hillel stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows of Vought Tower, watching The Deep lug a suitcase out of the lobby and climb into a black company van. Right before he got in, The Deep glanced up at the tower. His eyes burned with pure resentment and regret.
[The Deep — Emotion Shift: Humiliation / Resentment / Fear]
[Ability Points Gained: +312]
Humiliated like that and the guy only coughs up 312 points? What a worthless sack of shit.
...
The next two days, Hillel’s routine locked back into a steady groove.
Days meant handling whatever supe crime Vought tossed his way. Nights meant playing friendly neighborhood hero around Brooklyn. Ability points kept climbing nice and steady.
Current Ability Points: 63,541 / 100,000 freeweɓnovel.cѳm
Hillel flicked through the key characters list on his panel. The contacted column had grown: Hughie, Homelander, Queen Maeve, A-Train, Madelyn, Ashley, and Starlight. A few names in the uncontacted section stayed grayed out—no trigger yet.
But one name jumped out at him.
[Billy Butcher — Status: Active, currently investigating Vought]
[Estimated Contact Window: Within three days]
Butcher.
The most dangerous regular asshole walking in the entire Boys universe. His wife got fucked by Homelander, so now he hated every supe on the planet. Paranoid, batshit crazy, ready to burn everything down if it meant wiping out supers. Hillel figured he wouldn’t get a pass just because he was trying to play the good guy. Butcher wouldn’t give a damn. He’d kill them all.
"The Guardian! Found you at last, brother!"
A voice boomed from the far end of the hallway. Warm. Friendly. Had to belong to a decent guy, right?
Hillel turned. Of course it was fucking Homelander.
Homelander stood there at the opposite end, hands clasped behind his back, cape hanging all the way down to his ankles. Looking every bit the elegant, calm gentleman.
Hillel glanced sideways. The hallway security camera had been busted for three days straight. Nobody had bothered to fix it yet.
Quite a coincidence!
"Haven’t seen you in a while, bro. Where you been raking in the cash lately?" Hillel asked with a grin.
Homelander smiled right back.
"Just knocked out a few promo gigs, bouncing all over the place. Got back and heard you got The Deep reassigned?"
"I can’t reassign members of The Seven. That was Edgar’s call."
"But you planted the idea, and Edgar agreed you were right!"
Homelander tilted his head, dead serious. "The Deep is a member of The Seven. If anything goes down with him, it’s my decision. You get that?"
"Oh, I get it, I get it!"
Hillel flashed an OK sign to show he understood.
"So next time..."
"Next time I’ll do it again!"
Homelander thought they’d reached some understanding and moved in for a handshake, but he froze halfway as the words sank in.
What the fuck did he just say?
"Listen, bro, keeping a guy like The Deep around isn’t smart. Picture it—if he gets horny one day and decides to rail a couple fans... sure, fucking fans is normal enough, but this idiot isn’t careful at all. If it leaks, won’t you, the leader of The Seven, end up eating all the shit?"
Homelander opened his mouth to reply, but Hillel steamrolled him.
"What’s your current approval rating?"
"Nine... ninety..."
"You wanna boost that public approval?"
Homelander blinked, stunned.
He came here to demand answers, yet somehow he was the one getting grilled.
To Hillel’s question, Homelander had only one answer.
Of course he fucking did!
He dreamed of jacking that number sky-high. Wanted every last billion asshole on the planet chanting "Long live Homelander" every single day. One negative comment under his posts and he’d stew over it for hours, itching to crawl through the screen and snap off all ten of that prick’s fingers.
"You? With an approval rating under seventy percent? Trying to school me on social media? Nobody knows this game better than me!"
Homelander sneered, full of contempt.
No matter how much he sucked at it, he was still the patriot, the savior in the public’s eyes. Some fresh meat had no business lecturing him.
"Brother, that’s not the right way to look at it. Sure, my approval’s only at seventy percent, but how many days did it take me to get there? Has it even been a full week?"
"When you first debuted, did you hit seventy percent in your opening week?"
Homelander froze. The question actually shut him up.
Back when he debuted, he’d hit plenty of bumps. A lot of people were straight-up nervous about him existing. Vought had poured serious time into crafting his image, running constant polls and tweaks...
Bottom line, it took him over six months to reach seventy percent. Ninety percent? That dragged on for years.
"That’s not important..."
"It is extremely important!"
Hillel didn’t give Homelander a second to recover. He knew the guy had always sucked at reading public opinion.
How did Homelander handle it in the show? Pure brute force. Ended up running a fucking speech concentration camp, tossing anyone who talked shit into prison.
"Your approval rating’s hit a wall. People are used to you now. You can’t pull the same old stunts anymore. If you want to turn bystanders into actual fans and push that number higher, you gotta give them something fresh!"
What’s the biggest sin in the internet age? No limits? Clickbait?
Nope.
It’s running out of fresh shit to show. No new tricks and you’re finished. Actually, worse than finished.
If Homelander dropped dead right now, his approval rating would probably spike even higher.
"W-what kind of new stuff?"
Homelander wasn’t easy to fool, but he was willing to hear Hillel out and see what kind of genius plan this guy had.
"Look at what happened with The Deep this time. Vought’s usual move is to bury the story, which only patches the surface. The rot inside The Seven has been there forever."
"Garbage like A-Train and The Deep... they never belonged on this team to begin with. Sure, they’re obedient little dogs, but if one of them pulls some massive fuckup, they’ll drag you down with them sooner or later..."
"When that happens, forget boosting your approval. Just holding onto what you’ve got will be a nightmare!"
Homelander curled his lip. "Scare tactics. You think Vought’s PR team is worthless? What about A-Train’s mess? Didn’t we clean that up perfectly?"
Hillel pulled out his phone and shoved the comment section right in Homelander’s face.
Three seconds later, Homelander’s face turned beet red with fury.
The comments were packed with people ripping into Vought for being too commercial and calling The Seven a complete shitshow inside.
The blame flew straight at A-Train. Not everyone bought the PR spin.
Netizens were getting better at smelling bullshit every day, and those cookie-cutter cover-ups had stopped working ages ago.
Some were even calling Homelander the biggest cancer of the bunch because of it. He was the leader of The Seven. If his team was rotten, how the hell could he be clean?
"Fake! It’s all fake!" Homelander snarled, clenching his fist and smashing Hillel’s cheap phone to bits.
R.I.P Phone-kun...
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