— General POV —
"Come on! Come on! You got two more!" Luke shouted as Adem pulled the reinforced steel chain that was connected to a dozen freight train, lifting them up before slowly descending it. "One More!"
"AH!" Adem screamed as he did one more rep.
"Ain't nothing to it but to do it!" He said as he patted Adem in the back who looked slightly strained.
"Yeah…" he mumbled as he took a couple of deep breaths.
Ever since he learned just how unhinged Homelander was, he had been training harder, so was Luke, but the latter was actually getting weaker with each passing day, as he no longer got booster blood injections.
"So… How is Sam?" Adem asked
"He is doing better. He is still struggling to adjust. But now, he has been coming out of his room when I am there." Luke said with a slightly strained smile.
"That's good to hear." He said with a nod. 'I wonder if Sam can-'
"No. Sam can't help us with Homelander. I love him. He is my brother. But he is too fucked up in the head for that." Luke said
*sigh* "Sorry man. It's just, I'm kinda worried you know, with just you and me, we might be able to take down Homelander, but if the Seven shows up as a team and tries to jump us-"
"We also have Cate," Luke chimed in, causing Adem to nod begrudgingly, "And I'm sure we can get Jordan, and Andre to help."
"Do you really trust Andre? You know his father is on the board of Godolkin, for all we know, he knows all about this shit." Adem said with a disappointed look on his face.
"Andre isn't like that. I can't be sure about his dad, but Andre is actually a good guy."
"If you say so man." Adem shrugged, not really convinced.
"Anyways, how is Cate doing?"
"Better. She has been lowering the dosage of the drug she had been getting from Shetty. It's causing her to have some headaches, but her powers are growing as a result. She should be completely off that stuff in a month now." Adem said with a small frown.
Shetty has been a sore spot for Adem. He had come to trust that woman, which was a mistake on his part considering she was a therapist- and it's Superhero Setting 101, 9 out of 10 times a therapist is either manipulator, evil, and more often than not both. And as a result of his fuck up, Cate had paid the price.
"You okay man?" Luke asked, Adem looked at him and noticed his eyes were shining red.
He closed his eyes and opened them again to their natural hazel color. "Yeah, I'm fine." He mumbled as he shook his head.
Luke put a hand on his shoulder, "It wasn't your fault."
"Didn't know you were a telepath." Adem said with a small grin but seeing the look on Luke's face he just sighed and acknowledged "Yeah, well it sure as heck feels like it's my fault." He said as he looked down, avoiding eye contact "I knew she has been going to therapy, and yeah- she needs it- but that doesn't mean she can't talk to me about it, does it? Maybe if I was more proactive in listening to her this shit wouldn't happen. I don't know why I didn't question it."
"You were scared." Luke finally let's go off his shoulder.
"I don't know. Maybe a little. But I think the big part of it might be that I just didn't want to push Cate to tell me things she didn't want to. I think I… I might be a little bit afraid of what I might find out." He admitted
"… Yeah, I suppose." Luke said after a while. "Want to get gelatos? I know this great place?"
*chuckles* "Sure, if you are paying,"
— Woods, General POV —
Once Sam was safe and Cate adjusted to safety, Adem decided to pay the Woods facility a visit.
"A biological weapon to take down Supes, huh?" Adem asked as he read the file in his hand, "And you are the lead scientist?" he asked as he looked towards a latin american man in his 40s,
"No- No- No Sir. It- It is for compassionate control." Dr. Edison Cardosa said. He was currently on his knees, standing in front of 3 Supes, each of whom capable of slaughtering the entire building on their own.
"Huh? The people in Vought actually made you buy into that crap?" Adam said as he passed the file to Luke who was standing next to him, Luke's hand turned ablaze and the file turned to dust. "This slightly changes the plans."
"Yeah… Does your entire team agree with you? You know what, don't answer that, I don't care." Adam said as he turned towards his girlfriend, "Cate, can you pull this off?" He asked as he
"Yeah… Yeah I can." She said as she walked towards Dr. Edison, placed a hand on his face, "Destroy all data on the biological weapon experiments." She said and the good doctor quickly got up and walked towards the super computer,
Cate then made her way to the remaining 7, and one by one made them forget about met parts of the details of Woods Project.
After a couple of hours, they evacuated some of the scientists, while leaving some of the guards in there, and burned down the place, making it look like an accident caused by a Supe they had been containing. In total, they had killed two dozen people that night.
'But it was necessary… it was for the greater good.' Adem thought before shaking his head 'Who the fuck am I kidding? This was no greater good or crap like that. Heck, what is greater good? After all, one person's greater good is another's nightmare. What I did was simple, they were a threat, and I take care of them.' He thought