New York, the brightly lit JFK International Airport.
A streamlined Bombardier Global Express private jet sat on the runway.
Baltimore Mayor Thomas Shaw's itinerary and vehicle should have been top secret, but to a mind reader, secrets are meaningless.
Dressed in a flight attendant's uniform and wearing a different face, Wade carried a shoulder bag and walked past the ground crew with a relaxed expression.
Their minds drifted for a moment before recovering, completely forgetting that they had just "assisted" an uninvited guest's entry.
Inside the cabin, two flight attendants were about to push away the stairs. When they saw Wade, a look of vigilance appeared on their faces.
But before they could question him, an invisible psychic force seized their consciousness, leaving them standing there blankly.
Wade boarded the plane and hid in the cockpit, placing his hands on the two pilots' shoulders, causing them to completely ignore him.
Ten minutes later, the private jet taxied and took off on schedule, soaring into the sea of clouds.
Once the flight leveled out, Mayor Thomas Shaw was flipping through files; his son sat nearby, looking happily at a signed poster of Homelander.
Two bodyguards in black sat nearby on alert.
Wade walked out of the cockpit and greeted them, "Good evening, gentlemen."
"Is there something wrong with the flight path, Captain?" Thomas asked casually without looking up.
Wade waved his hand, and the two bodyguards immediately fell unconscious.
"You... you're a Supe?!" Thomas cried out in surprise, finding that he couldn't move his body at all. "What do you want? Are you hijacking the plane?"
Wade walked straight to the leather seat across from him and sat down, composed. "My name is Anderson, and I'm here to save you. Madelyn, the President of Vought Corporation, is going to send someone to kill you shortly, making the accident happen ten thousand meters in the air."
"Absurd! Nonsense!" Thomas growled, unsettled. "You'd better know what you're doing!"
Wade didn't argue further. "The truth will come out halfway through the flight... I just want to talk about a partnership. Whether we talk or not depends on whether I can save the two of you next."
He turned to look at the boy, whose face was pale and who was still clutching a Homelander doll, and teased, "You like him that much? I hope you don't wet your pants when you actually see him."
The little boy hugged the Homelander doll and whispered with a trembling voice, "H-Homelander is Daddy's friend. He'll come to save us."
"Stay quiet and don't cause trouble. I can't save everyone." Wade ignored the two and walked to the back of the cabin to start his work.
He took a large roll of shimmering zinc film from his backpack and quickly covered a square space of about 3 square meters at the rear of the plane.
'Homelander's X-ray vision can't see through this, so it'll work as a shelter.' Wade settled Thomas and his son there one after another.
Next, he moved the two bodyguards to the seats where the Shaws had been sitting.
"One last step." Wade's eyes shimmered, and a persistent, lifelike illusion of "Mayor Thomas" was projected onto the bodyguards.
Whether observed with the naked eye up close or from a distance, it would show Thomas sitting peacefully in his seat.
'Homelander is very confident; he's used to confirming targets with his eyes and then dealing with them quickly... Across the plane, he shouldn't waste time trying to distinguish things carefully.'
Wade muttered to himself, his palms sweating slightly. His plan was a gamble on Homelander's arrogance.
If that madman actually entered the cabin on a whim, he would have to activate the high-risk Plan B: after injecting the two with a serum, he'd detonate the airflow to create a massive explosion, generate an illusion, and jump into the sea from ten thousand meters with them in the chaos.
In that case, the survival rate for Thomas and his son would drop below ten percent.
Wade peeked through a corner of the window covered by the zinc film to keep watch; Thomas sat obediently, holding his son, not daring to move.
Shortly after the plane entered the designated airspace over the sea, a figure in a blue suit and a red-and-white striped cape made a heroic entrance, flying alongside the wing.
"Holy shit, Homelander is here!" Wade was startled and hid.
Thomas quickly peered through a gap in the zinc film. Seeing the figure, he muttered in disbelief, "Impossible, I just finished negotiating the contract for Nubian Prince with Madelyn... Just because I bargained with her, she... she wants my life?"
Wade, his body completely hidden behind the zinc film, gave his rear a kick. "Did you mention compound v?"
Thomas turned his head. "How did you know?"
Wade shrugged. "Just a guess."
Hearing this, the little boy also peeked through the gap in the window and asked innocently, "Daddy, is Homelander here to save us?"
Through the porthole, Homelander's iconic blonde hair and his face with a menacingly "kind" smile could be seen from afar, his eyes glowing with a brilliant red light.
Zzzzt—Boom!
A violent explosion echoed from the middle of the plane. The cabin instantly depressurized, oxygen masks dropped, and a shrill alarm sounded.
In the clouds, Homelander hovered in mid-air, coldly watching the fuselage begin to disintegrate and burn from the middle. He then turned around with satisfaction and vanished into the horizon as a streak of light.
At the tail of the plane, in the area shielded by the zinc film, Wade controlled the airflow, resisting the strong winds on his own.
"Hey—Anderson! Save us!" Thomas cried out in terror amidst the deafening noise and weightlessness, instinctively clutching his son tightly.
"Daddy!" the boy screamed, his face filled with terror.
Wade pulled out two syringes of shimmering blue "Bear-Guard Serum" and shouted loudly, "Don't move if you don't want to die!"
Before the Shaws could react, he quickly injected the serum into their bodies.
The serum took effect rapidly; the skin of the father and son slowly took on a silvery-white metallic texture.
"Hold on to me!" Wade shouted, shielding them with his body and forming several buffer barriers with air walls behind him.
A minute later, at the last moment before the wreckage of the plane plunged into the icy sea, he grabbed them both by the waist and leaped from the breach.
Wade flipped twice, traced an arc over the sea, and steadily began to hover.
Below was a dizzying drop of hundreds of feet. The trio flew rapidly toward the coastline.
The powerful airflow whipped past like knives against their faces, but under the hardened skin and rapid healing granted by the "Bear-Guard Serum," Thomas and his son remained unharmed.
A few minutes later, the three landed on a desolate beach.
Waves crashed against the rocks with a hollow echo, the air thick with the salty smell of seawater and a faint scent of burning.
The child had long since fainted from extreme shock. Thomas knelt on the cold sand, dry-heaving uncontrollably.
He looked at the burning wreckage of the plane in the distance, then at his own rapidly healing wounds. Feeling the surging power within him, his heart was filled with shock and lingering fear.
Thomas looked up at Wade, his expression extremely complex. "You... what do you really want? Isn't this whole thing just a play directed by you? Why should I believe you're not one of Vought's people?"
"I can't exactly order Homelander around." Wade took off his flight attendant uniform and said with indignation, "If I had directed this, I could have used a much simpler method to directly threaten and control you both."
He looked Thomas straight in the eyes. "I'm a businessman. Vought Corporation has a monopoly on the entire superpower serum market... My 'Targeted Temporary Super Serum' has no way to survive."
"I need massive funding and official backing to research and produce on a large scale, rather than letting my products be strangled in the cradle by Vought."
Thomas calmed down and stood up. "Then what should I do? If Madelyn finds out I'm still alive after I return to Baltimore, will she..."
"Exactly, she'll keep sending people to kill you... You haven't forgotten who just destroyed the plane, have you?" Wade clapped his hands and said in a low voice, "You need to fake your death, seek protection from high-level government officials, and report this matter truthfully. As for me, I need a secure channel to the military and federal leadership, and a strategic investment."
After Thomas understood his goal, he didn't let down his guard. He took a step forward. "How can I be sure you're not just another Vought?"
Wade looked at him calmly and raised a finger. "My product philosophy is 'Targeted and Controllable.' After the effects wear off, everything returns to normal. This fits the needs of most people and the military for a tool—safe and controllable."
"If I wanted to control you, I could have injected you with something else to blackmail you right now, instead of negotiating with you here."
Thomas was silent for a full half-minute. He crushed a football-sized rock with one foot and spoke slowly, "Since your serum is so powerful... why don't you go fight Homelander?"
"Isn't it obvious? I can't beat him!" Wade laughed in frustration and mocked, "Going to fight him would be a death wish... and then who would save you?"
"Mr. Shaw, you should know that the 'Bear-Guard Serum' I injected you with allowed you to survive the crash because it has healing and protective capabilities. The abilities I gain after injecting my serum are more focused on control, illusions, and flight—not fighting."
"I saved you to prove my ability, my value, and my sincerity."
Thomas paced back and forth, remembering Homelander's merciless, destructive blow. If it weren't for this mysterious Anderson, both he and his son would have been fish food by now.
Just then, the little boy groaned and woke up.
He looked around in confusion. When his gaze fell on the dirty Homelander doll on the beach, he screamed as if he'd seen a ghost and kicked it away.
The little boy threw himself into his father's arms, his body trembling. "Bad man, Daddy, he's a bad man... Homelander blew up the plane..."
"Blane, don't worry... we're safe now." Thomas held him, his eyes filled with the determination of someone who had burned his bridges.
He had no choice; or rather, this was a dangerous but potentially life-changing opportunity.
Thomas asked in a low voice, "How do I contact you?"
"88164045557788, remember this number." Wade pulled a satellite phone and two stacks of large-denomination bills from his backpack, throwing the serum box to him as well. "In this box are the other two types of serum I've developed. The instructions are inside... if you're in danger, take a shot."
"Find a place to settle down nearby first, then contact friends you absolutely trust who have no ties to Vought. A 'dead man's' testimony is sometimes more powerful than a living one's."
"Don't show your face easily. If people colluding with Vought Corporation find out you're not dead..."
With that, Wade bent his knees slightly and shot into the sky like an arrow. 'I need to get back to New York quickly. I wonder if Hughie and Butcher are back from Vought Corporation yet?'
Thomas tucked the items into his pockets, took Blane's hand, and gazed at the vast sea and endless night sky.
He could foresee that his life and the landscape of the entire world of Superpowers would be completely transformed because of tonight's high-altitude plane crash.
PS: Support the new book, please!
plz support my patreon
patreon.com/AZofficial
it is 30 chapter ahead