Free Web NovelChapter 2: 02: The Viral Livestream
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
~ Edmund Burke
____
It was a convenience store with half its rolling shutter ripped clean off and glass crunching underfoot everywhere.
Three guys were tearing the place apart inside. One of them had a writhing mass of black shit wrapped around his palm, crackling like live electricity.
Some kind of substance-manipulating Supe.
His two buddies were regular assholes, waving guns around.
Behind the counter, a middle-aged couple huddled together, shaking.
A dozen or so rubberneckers stood outside the door, phones held high, filming everything but not one of them moved a finger to help.
Just your typical crowd that loved a good show.
Hillel dropped down from the air.
The bio-field soaked up the landing like it was nothing.
Everyone outside caught sight of a tall man floating down from the sky.
The chaos inside the store froze for a second.
The gun-toting thug reacted first. He swung the muzzle at Hillel and opened fire.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
A few sharp cracks.
The bullets slammed into Hillel’s chest, smashed flat against the invisible bio-field, and shattered. Copper fragments pinged off in every direction.
Not a single wrinkle on his shirt.
Hillel glanced down at his chest.
"Seriously? That’s all you got? Fire a couple more and let’s see."
The thug’s hand shook so bad he almost dropped the gun.
The Supe finally snapped out of it and whipped that black substance at Hillel’s face like a striking snake.
Hillel just raised his hand and caught it.
His fingers clamped down on the writhing mass like he was kneading wet clay.
Then he squeezed. Hard. frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓
Eight tons of grip strength.
The black substance burst apart in his palm, leaking between his fingers and crumbling into ash the second it hit the floor.
This weak-ass power was nothing but a kid’s toy to him.
The Supe stared, stunned. "You motherfu—"
Hillel didn’t let him finish.
He covered the distance in one step. Even at Clerk level, the Viltrumite bloodline made his combat ability no joke.
Short bursts of subsonic flight felt like straight-up teleportation.
Hillel raised his hand and slapped the bastard across the face.
He held back. Probably used... five percent of his power?
SMACK!
A heavy smack rang out.
The Supe flew sideways, smashed through three shelves, eyes rolled back, and dropped unconscious right there.
When their boss went down, the two armed thugs whipped their guns toward Hillel.
He reached out with both hands and grabbed the barrels.
With a quick twist. Both gun barrels bent like cheap pretzels, turned into useless scrap.
The two thugs saw that and nearly pissed their pants.
One of them started straight-up crying in terror on the spot.
"Don’t kill us... please don’t kill us..."
"My grandma’s getting married soon... I’m still waiting to be the best man at her wedding..."
"Look at the pathetic fucking state you’re in. Why didn’t you think about this when you were robbing the place?" Hillel tossed the twisted scrap metal to the ground, dusted off his hands, and turned to the store owner and his wife. "Call the cops. These assholes are all yours."
The store owner gripped the counter to steady himself, legs shaking for a long moment before he finally choked out, "Th... thank you."
His wife just stood there dazed, nodding over and over.
The crowd outside the door went dead silent for two seconds.
Then someone started clapping.
Every phone camera swung toward him.
"Holy shit, that was badass!"
"Bending gun barrels with his bare hands... why the fuck did I just clench my ass?"
"Those muscles are insane. Wonder if he likes guys?"
...
A fifteen or sixteen-year-old kid pushed to the front, phone held high as he livestreamed, voice shaking with pure excitement.
"Hey, everyone, you seeing this shit?! This dude flew down from the sky! One slap and that Supe was out cold! Who the hell is he? Anybody know this guy?"
The livestream shot from single digits straight into the hundreds, then blew past a thousand viewers.
The system panel started ticking up fast.
[Collecting positive emotions from the masses...]
+42 +67 +38 +91 +55 +83...
Total this time: +847
Current Ability Points: 847 / 10,000
Over eight hundred points.
Just from a dozen random bystanders?
Hillel was about to stick around and do a quick interview, milk the moment for more clout.
Then the system pinged him with a new alert.
[Traces of key character activity detected nearby (blurred)]
[Suggestion: Actively contact key characters to farm large amounts of Ability Points]
Key character?
Who?
...
Twenty minutes later, on the 72nd floor of Vought International headquarters, in the monitoring center, an analyst stared at the red-flagged data spike on his screen. He paused for just two seconds before grabbing the internal phone.
"Ms. Madelyn Stillwell, there’s something you need to see."
"...An unknown Supe just showed up in Brooklyn."
"From the video analysis, his power level... it’s probably close to Homelander’s."
...
Hillel stood at the entrance of the convenience store, eyes locked on that notification.
[Traces of key character activity detected nearby (blurred)]
Blurred.
It meant the person was close, but the system couldn’t lock onto an exact spot.
That wasn’t a big deal for Hillel, though.
His hearing was way sharper than a normal person’s. He could pick up every little sound within a two-kilometer radius.
He closed his eyes, tuned out the chatter from the onlookers, the city traffic, and the distant rumble of the subway...
Got it!
Northeast, about a kilometer away.
Two people talking.
The woman’s voice had a teasing edge. "Hughie, you really planning to work at that electronics store for the rest of your life?"
The guy faked annoyance. "It’s called stability, Robin. Stability, you know?"
"Two thousand three hundred bucks a month before taxes is stability to you?"
"...Uh!"
Hughie. Robin.
Hillel opened his eyes.
Found them.
The opening scene of season one. Robin gets turned into red mist by A-Train.
This was the exact moment that made Hillel binge all three seasons in one night, only to watch Starlight get weirder and weirder as it went on.
Save her or not?
The question barely lasted half a second in his head.
Of course he was saving her.
It wasn’t like Hillel was some bleeding-heart saint. Saving Robin would bring a shitload of benefits.
As a key character, fucking with Hughie’s fate would definitely rack up serious Ability Points.
Just as Hillel was about to take off, hurried footsteps pounded up behind him.
"Hey! Hey, hey, hey! Wait up!"
That kid from the livestream caught up, shoving the phone right in Hillel’s face. Comments were flying across the screen like crazy.
"Bro! What’s your name? You with Vought or..."
"I don’t work for any company. Just a Supe doing this stuff for fun."
"An independent hero? Bro, you were fucking insane back there! One slap and that Supe was done! My stream is exploding!"
The kid flipped the phone around to show him. Online viewers had already smashed past three thousand and kept climbing.
The comments poured in:
[Who the hell is this handsome hunk???]
[Bullets bounced right off! He flew in! New hero?]
[Great body, is he gay? I think I could]
[Chill upstairs]
[Never seen this kind of character before. Vought hire new writers?]
[Name! Name! Name!]
Three thousand people.
Hillel checked the system panel. Points were ticking up, but slowly. Online viewers gave weaker emotional feedback than the ones right there in person, but the sheer numbers made up for it, piling up bit by bit.
+3 +2 +5 +2 +3 +4...
Even mosquito bites add up.
"My codename is... Guardian!" Hillel said casually.
"Guardian! You hear that, guys?! His name is Guardian!" The kid bounced around like he’d won the lottery. "Guardian, can you do something for the guys watching? Fly a bit? Please!"
Hillel looked at him.
Over three thousand people glued to the livestream. If he put on a quick show and the video spread, tonight’s hype could easily multiply a few times over.
He was still over nine thousand points short of the next level.
Life sucked. Even Supes had to put on a performance.
"Alright, watch this."
Hillel tapped his foot on the ground.
Boom—!
An afterimage blasted straight up into the night sky, too fast for most eyes to track. The air blast knocked the onlookers back a step, nearly ripping phones out of their hands.
By the time they looked up, Hillel was already hovering around thirty stories high.
Night wind whipped past his ears. All of Brooklyn stretched out below like a glowing circuit board.
Manhattan’s skyline burned bright in the distance, and he could just make out the spire of Vought Tower.
He glanced down. The people on the ground looked like tiny ants.
But he could still hear that kid screaming his lungs out: "Did you see that?! He flew up! He actually fucking flew!!!"
The livestream comments went nuclear.
Viewers jumped from three thousand to five thousand, then straight to eight thousand.
The system panel...
+7 +12 +9 +15 +8 +11 +6 +14...
Still too slow. Online emotional feedback was weak, and the numbers weren’t there yet.
The real explosion would hit once these clips spread to bigger platforms tomorrow.
Hillel wasn’t in a hurry.
He spun around in the air. Since Robin was still alive, A-Train hadn’t splattered her today.
He memorized the general direction. He’d track her down tomorrow.
Tonight... he’d clean up the streets of Brooklyn first.
Supe crime was fucking everywhere around here. You could trip over it every couple blocks, like some twisted version of Gotham.
Hillel picked a direction where another crime was going down.
Then he suddenly stopped mid-air.
He looked down. The crowd at the convenience store still hadn’t left, and that kid kept his phone pointed at the sky, yelling nonstop.
The livestream sat at twelve thousand viewers.
And climbing.
An afterimage streaked across Brooklyn’s night sky and vanished between the buildings.
On the ground, the kid finally lowered his phone, took a deep breath, and grinned at the camera, buzzing with excitement.
"Holy shit! This is the most viewers I’ve ever seen! Guys, that dude is so fucking real! His name is Guardian—remember that shit! This account is now officially all about Guardian. Smash that follow!"
"I bet you a pack of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos this guy ends up bigger than Homelander one day."
