Free Web NovelChapter 9: 09: Homelander Says Hi
The lion does not fear the jackal, but respects another lion.
~ Don’t remember xD
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The day after signing the contract.
Hillel moved into the Midtown Manhattan apartment Vought provided.
One hundred and sixty square meters, floor-to-ceiling windows, full smart home setup, and a direct view of Central Park.
The fridge was packed with organic food and imported beer. Three custom suits hung in the walk-in closet.
Hillel tried one on for ten minutes before ripping it off.
He looked like a damn insurance salesman in a suit. His battle suit was way better.
At ten in the morning, his phone rang.
"Guardian, there’s a routine Seven meeting at three this afternoon. You’re welcome to observe."
Madelyn Stillwell called him personally, then paused.
"Homelander will be there too."
"Alright."
Hillel hung up.
At 2:45 PM.
Hillel showed up early.
When the elevator doors opened, the corridor was empty except for one guy leaning against the wall.
Perfect blond hair, dark blue skin-tight suit, stars-and-stripes shield on his chest, red cape hanging down to his ankles.
Homelander.
Arms crossed, head tilted, watching Hillel step out with a warm smile plastered on his face.
On TV that smile could make American women lose their minds for ten straight minutes.
In this empty hallway, it was pure threat.
Hillel walked toward him and activated Bloodline Perception.
Homelander’s bio-electric signal was insanely strong, way beyond A-Train’s, like a burning flare.
He really was powerful.
But that was it.
"So you’re the... Guardian?" Homelander looked him up and down. "Interesting suit. Doesn’t look like Vought’s style."
"It isn’t."
"Oh? Then whose is it?"
"Alien technology."
Homelander’s smile dropped.
Did this damn newbie think he was an idiot?
Homelander stared hard at Hillel.
An overwhelming pressure rolled over him.
But Hillel didn’t seem to feel a thing.
Once you filtered out the aura, Homelander’s actual threat level was about the same as a dog sitting at the dinner table.
"You’re not in any Vought files, but you’re clearly a supe. Some defective experiment from an underground lab?"
Homelander spoke slowly, clearly trying to rile him up.
If this had been said back on Viltrum, Homelander would’ve already been turned into red mist.
Viltrumites put honor above everything. An insult like that would probably make even Conquest pause for a second.
"Even if you had two brains, you still couldn’t understand where I come from. And when it comes to defective lab products... you should know better than anyone who the real one is."
Hillel wasn’t scared of Homelander at all. Back at Level 1 he might have given the guy some slack.
But now that they were evenly matched, what the hell was there to be afraid of?
If he had Homelander’s level of power, he would be way more arrogant than this clown.
Homelander was just too young. With that much strength, he was still scared of getting dragged online?
"Uh.. You shouldn’t have... tell me, are you made of stupid?"
"What kind of question is that? Did you fail 3rd grade? Oh well, you didn’t even attend—"
Sizzle~!
Homelander’s eyes lit up red. High-energy heat vision blasted straight into Hillel’s chest before he could even blink.
Heat vision.
Homelander’s signature move. Temperatures over fifteen hundred degrees, strong enough to slice steel, melt concrete, and turn a normal person into ash in 0.3 seconds.
But that kind of power did nothing to Hillel.
His bio-field blocked it completely.
Homelander cranked up the output. The temperature in the hallway shot up fast. Paint on the walls started blistering and peeling, and the fluorescent lights on the ceiling buzzed from the heat.
Hot.
It was definitely a bit warm.
But to Hillel it felt like sitting in a sauna. Homelander pouring on more heat vision was basically just adding two extra buckets of water to the sauna stones.
That was about it.
Hillel lifted his head and stared at Homelander with a blank face.
"Bud, did you skip lunch? Put some fucking effort into it!"
Homelander’s smile disappeared completely.
His heat vision changed from two thin beams into a thick orange-white torrent. This was damn near his maximum output.
The bio-field over Hillel’s chest started to flicker and weaken, which meant Homelander’s full power could actually reach his real body.
Even though a Viltrumite’s physical body was tough, Hillel’s combat instincts told him those two lasers would still break through if they hit directly.
He clenched his fist, instantly sucking in the air around him. The sudden pressure yanked Homelander forward.
Bang!
Hillel threw a punch.
With one punch, Homelander flew backward.
Urg!
Hillel hadn’t held back. Even though the punch sent Homelander flying, his own fist felt like it had slammed into reinforced alloy. His knuckles went numb from the impact.
"What the fuck!" Homelander crawled out of the wall. The front of his suit had ripped open, exposing the skin underneath.
On his supposedly unbreakable skin, a trickle of blood was actually seeping out.
There was even some bruising.
That damn Guardian... actually managed to hurt him?
Homelander stared down at the bruise on his chest, his eyes turning dark.
As far back as he could remember, no one had ever left a mark on him.
Even the highest-intensity weapon tests in Vought’s labs had only given him a slight sting.
And now some random guy who popped out of nowhere had made him bleed with a single punch.
The corridor fell into an eerie silence.
The melted scars on the walls were still sizzling and smoking. Debris kept dropping from the ceiling. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm
The two of them stared at each other from more than a dozen meters apart, neither making another move.
Hillel shook out his numb fist and quietly sized up the situation.
Homelander’s defense was tougher than he expected. He’d used about seventy percent of his strength in that punch. Anyone else, like A-Train, would’ve been turned into red mist, but it only left Homelander bruised and bleeding a little.
On the other hand, Homelander’s full-power heat vision had nearly broken through his bio-field.
They really were evenly matched.
If they went all out, it was hard to say who would win, but it would turn into a long, ugly war of attrition.
If they fought in downtown Manhattan, everything within a few kilometers would get flattened.
Homelander suddenly got wary of the consequences.
Before the meeting, Madelyn had told him everything, but he hadn’t believed there could be a supe stronger than him.
He had taken her suggestion to "test" the guy as a green light to eliminate him.
Vought didn’t need a second Homelander.
But the other guy’s power was damn near equal to his own.
Hillel stared at Homelander, not expecting what the guy did next.
He flashed a smile.
"Haha. Not bad. Your strength qualifies you to police the supes. That was just a little test. You don’t mind, right?"
Homelander raised a finger, pointed at the ceiling, and gave a "you know how it is" look.
"You know... the higher-ups still have some doubts about you, but me... I think you can work with us, brother! After all, you are also one of us.. a real hero."
Homelander adjusted his torn suit and used his cape to cover the wound on his chest.
His tone went back to relaxed.
"It’s been a long time since anyone made me break a sweat."
Break a sweat?
More like bleed.
But Hillel wasn’t going to call him out. He had no plans for an all-out fight right now.
A mutual destruction wasn’t what he wanted.
"You’re not bad either," Hillel shrugged, playing along. "That heat vision of yours is something. It almost scorched my skin!"
The two of them silently agreed to end the little power test there.
The panel quietly popped up with data.
[Key Character: Homelander]
[Emotional Shift: Anger → Shock → Fear → Forced Suppression]
[Ability Points Obtained: +4,217]
Damn.. Four thousand two hundred.
As expected from the central character of the whole series. One emotional swing from him was worth hundreds of regular people.
