The basement of the Elmira Adult Rehabilitation Center was filled with sevoflurane across the entire floor. Personnel in gas masks split up—some disposed of the bodies, others repaired the damaged walls.
A maintenance technician glanced at the unconscious Locke and prepared to reapply the blindfold, having confirmed that the restraints remained intact.
Just as he was about to put the blindfold on, no one noticed Locke laboriously crack open his left eye and look at the technician.
His eyes were filled with madness and coldness, piercing through the technician's gas mask. The technician instinctively shuddered, then quickly calmed himself, wary of being discovered by those around him.
Having achieved his goal, Locke closed his eyes and continued feigning unconsciousness, his disguise flawless, his pulse never wavering.
The technician likewise pretended to see nothing. He firmly fastened the blindfold, then retrieved the expensive sealed helmet from his case, locked it back onto Locke, and secured it.
With the work complete, all personnel left the secret chamber. The heavy hydraulic alloy door closed once more. The embedded lights in the walls illuminated, leaving not a trace of shadow in the entire room.
Only then did Locke finally stop pretending and truly fall asleep, his consciousness gradually drifting into another place within the dark abyss.
Locke, once again sealed in isolation, opened his eyes in a dream.
Dressed casually, wearing slippers, holding a cup of coffee, he sat at a high table in a shop. Before him lay a book titled The Actor's Art of Self-Cultivation.
Outside the window, a light rain fell. Thin threads of drizzle wove into a misty curtain, softening the street scene into a gentle blur. Dim streetlights filtered through the haze, casting dappled light and shadow across the tabletop. The sound of rain was soft and soothing, carried by the shop's air conditioning, spreading throughout the space.
He looked up and gazed at the rainy scene for a moment, then took a slow, deep breath. The air was filled with the dampness and sweetness that followed the rain, mingled with the faint aroma of sausages from the shop.
More precisely, it was the breath of freedom.
As a transmigrator, he believed his unfortunate experience must be one of the unluckiest among transmigrators.
An orphan. No cheats. No golden finger. No mentor. He hadn't even been dragged down by student loans and had successfully built himself up from nothing—honestly, he had truly accomplished something.
By all logic, aside from a system that had been distorted for decades and whose repair date was nowhere in sight, Locke, as an everyday person, had been moving in the right direction.
Until that day. Two third-rate Vought "heroes" were fighting on the street, and he was killed on the spot while trying to avoid them—activating the system's sole remaining host protection clause.
That day, Locke learned for the first time that his system was actually a role-playing system. He resurrected on the spot, transforming into [Yujiro Hanma], and made those two third-rate heroes understand what it truly meant to be a hero among heroes.
Unfortunately, perhaps because he had become the freest man on Earth, Locke's freedom began to accrue debt. The utterly inexperienced Locke was soon reported to Vought and, to his surprise, discovered that he was a natural-born superhuman.
What followed was a year of inhumane experimental imprisonment that continued to this day.
He had tried many times over the past year. Although each personality he assumed near death made him stronger—or even stronger—the duration of his transformations grew shorter and shorter.
Most recently, when he had succeeded, he had become a notorious DC villain—the Joker.
Perhaps because he himself had been on the verge of collapse, he and the Joker had inexplicably achieved a high degree of synchronization, extending his transformation time to three days. He had nearly escaped successfully.
Too bad he had run into Homelander at the last moment.
However, that time he had still left behind many contingencies. He had charmed numerous people, turning them into his loyal followers, waiting for the opportunity to help him escape.
In his dream, Locke reviewed every detail of his conversation with Cyfer and finally confirmed his suspicion: Cyfer truly harbored lethal intent toward him.
Although he didn't know if Cyfer had found a way to eliminate him, Locke understood that he had to act before the sevoflurane was replenished tomorrow.
And now, his only hope was the technician he had signaled earlier.
Locke's mood gradually sank. The rain outside grew heavier, pattering down as if trying to wash away the suffocating panic and faint bitterness in his heart.
He replaced the coffee in his hand with wine, drank half the glass, poured the rest onto the floor, and left the dream without looking back.
But just as he departed, his dream did not fade. A large hole appeared, as if something had opened it…
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Locke awoke from his slumber. His senses were almost entirely sealed again by the helmet that had been refastened.
Now, the only thing he could do was repeatedly review the memories in his mind, staying alert and contemplative.
He replayed his near-escape experience over and over, examining every detail of each personality he had assumed, hoping to be more thorough next time. Until a strange vibration came—the only external signal he could perceive.
In his complete isolation, this faint vibration was exceptionally clear. He could even discern its chaotic nature—the noise of irregular collisions.
"Damn it! Why are there so many supes in this hellhole?!"
Butcher, who had taken a dose of Compound V, used his laser vision to slice through a guard while simultaneously grabbing Hughie and asking him to teleport them to the elevator shaft's bottom.
But Hughie's teleportation ability was limited—he could only go to places he had been or seen with his own eyes. They couldn't make it directly to the lowest floor and ended up landing on top of the elevator car, forced to feel their way through the shaft.
Seeing this, the guards above grew increasingly frantic and poured down through the elevator doors the pair had torn open, trying to stop them.
But it was futile. Bullets ricocheted off the metal walls of the elevator shaft with crackling sounds but didn't even graze the two men's clothes. At most, they could prove to their superiors that they were "making an effort to stop them"—but it wasn't working.
Taking advantage of the pause, the two finally caught their breath. A forty-five-meter height difference was enough to hold off the guards for a while.
"Fuck. That crazy bastard didn't say anything useful before he died. Now we'd better pray his boss is as good as he said."
Butcher tore through the elevator roof and descended into the twelfth basement with Hughie.
Vought had carved out twelve underground floors to imprison "Hope." And now, the mysteriously imprisoned "Hope" also symbolized their hope of escaping alive.
"Hughie, can you transmit from here?"
Hughie closed his eyes and tried, then shook his head at Butcher. He couldn't. Now that they had reached this damn central zone, something was interfering with his teleportation.
Cyfer probably hadn't anticipated that the magnetic field jammer, originally designed to prevent Locke from teleporting, would interfere with teleportation abilities at this moment.
"Fuck!" In desperation, Butcher turned his gaze to the meter-thick superalloy gate at the end of the twelfth-floor corridor.
Butcher looked at Hughie. Hughie gave a slight nod, and they silently moved toward the door, leaving the noise behind.
The mad researcher had died unexpectedly, but fortunately, he had mentioned this in advance—Butcher had ripped out the deputy's eye and broken his finger to get the access code to enter the secret chamber.
The hydraulic alloy door let out a deep, heavy sound as it opened, accompanied by a faint, desperate cry from inside the chamber.
"Fire!"
The four guards at the gate saw them. Their pupils contracted sharply, their eyes filled with despair, and they immediately raised their weapons loaded with specialized armor-piercing rounds, pulling the triggers toward the two temporary supes.
But before the bullets could travel far, two searing lasers erupted from Butcher's eyes. All four were instantly severed, warm blood spray splattering across the cold door panel, painting it crimson.
Afterward, Butcher felt an inexplicable irritation in his heart.
But he didn't dwell on it. He bent down, stripped bloody clothes from a corpse, pulled them on haphazardly, and then his gaze fell upon the thing before him—something he could only cautiously describe as an "alloy figurine."
The being before him was suspended in the air by thick chains, wrapped in sealed alloy armor. Only a few tiny ventilation holes remained on its body—the only indication that a living person might be trapped inside.
Butcher stared at the alloy figurine, his eyes full of doubt. Was this the "Hope" they had come for?
But he had no time to think. Suddenly, a steel cable dropped from the elevator shaft in the distance, followed by the piercing screech of metal grinding against metal.
Thinking of that damned Viking (a Vought hero), Hughie suddenly spun around and dashed out of the lock, smashing the door's control panel with his fist. The hydraulic alloy door immediately activated its safety mechanism and began closing slowly with a heavy groan.
"What are you doing?" Butcher's voice came from behind.
"Saving our lives!" Hughie spun back and roared, his voice filled with urgency and resolve. "We're trapped in here now! Our only chance is to rely on this damned 'Hope'!"
Stunned by the outburst, Butcher wasted no time on arguments. He knew Hughie was right. If they wanted to get out alive, their only hope was that this figurine would come through. Following Hughie's lead, the two set to work preparing to free the alloy figurine.
Just as the two were desperately trying to break open Locke's helmet, the sound of the Viking's hammer smashing against the door from outside, along with other superpowered guards attempting to break in, shook the entire secret chamber.
Meanwhile, the deputy—the only one left—was sweating profusely as he called Cyfer, who had been summoned by Stan to the Vought building, hurriedly explaining the current emergency.
Inside the secret chamber, Hughie and Butcher, both temporary supes, exerted considerable effort to finally open the sealed helmet covering Locke's head.
Suddenly, light flooded his vision, and his ears filled with a cacophony of noise—the sound of the door being battered and the muffled collisions of superpowers intertwined. Locke, just emerging from long confinement, had barely begun to process his surroundings when Hughie leaned in and quickly explained their situation.
"Can you hear me? Do you understand English?" Hughie's voice was filled with urgency and desperate anxiety. "We're counting on you now. What are your powers?"
As soon as Hughie finished speaking, Locke paused for a few seconds, then spoke slowly, his New York accent tinged with an inexplicable note of amusement and silence:
"So I heard correctly. You two didn't call Kimiko, Mother's Milk, Frenchie, Starlight, or Queen Maeve, but with two temporary doses of Compound V, you dared to break into a superpower prison that Vought has been running for decades? Based on the astronomical investment they've poured into this place?"
His words were like a bucket of cold water, leaving Hughie momentarily speechless.
He opened his mouth but couldn't utter a single word of explanation. His heart was full of confusion: how could this man, imprisoned for so long, know his own situation so clearly?
Butcher had no patience. He shoved Hughie aside and stood directly before Locke. They locked eyes, and when he opened his mouth, he cut straight to the point:
"Listen here! You fucking squinty-eyed bastard, if you don't want to keep playing S&M in this place, give me your powers so I can actually fight! Get us the hell out of here! Otherwise, just wait for them to come in and finish you off!"
But Butcher hadn't expected that after his angry tirade, Locke would simply sneer, look up with contempt, and retort:
"Fine then. Kill me."
Butcher froze, his face full of incredulous shock.
Were they really going to die here today?