This time, Alex opened the door.
He was bare-chested, with a bath towel wrapped around his waist, holding a bottle of beer.
"Ashley, Dear Ashley."
"If you've come to admire my well-defined abs, then you've achieved your goal."
"But I'm sorry, you're not my type, so I'll have to ask you to leave."
After saying that, Alex started to close the door.
Ashley shoved her phone into Alex's hand as fast as she could and spoke as quickly as possible.
"It's Secretary Wilson!"
Only then did Alex stop. He smiled, took the phone, and walked into the living room.
"Being up this late makes it easy to get sick, Mr. Secretary."
Wilson's voice came from the phone.
["How thoughtful of you, Homelander."]
["But now isn't the time to worry about my health."]
["If you turn on the TV, you'll see there's a disaster in New York."]
["If you look out the window, you'll see that several city blocks are already covered in dense fog."]
["Of course, you may not have noticed any of that. That's fine, I've told you now."]
["So when are you going to take action, Homelander?"]
Alex dropped onto the sofa and laughed.
"Considering that I'm a notorious butcher and murderer, Mr. Secretary, I'm afraid I'll have to refuse your request."
"After all, I can't guarantee that I'll be able to accurately distinguish allies from innocent civilians during the operation."
Wilson was silent for a few seconds before saying, ["My God, Homelander, are you really going to argue about this at a time like this?"]
Alex's expression turned cold, "Argue?"
"Why shouldn't I?"
"Don't think I don't know what happened inside Willis Pharmaceuticals."
"You were probably researching some new toy again, weren't you?"
"Since this disaster is something you created yourselves, why should I clean up your mess?"
"Besides, I asked you to deal with that video, and it doesn't seem like you took it very seriously."
"Otherwise, why haven't I seen even a single explanation by tonight?"
Wilson said with barely concealed frustration, ["Since you know what Willis Pharmaceuticals does, then you know I didn't have time today."]
["Homelander, can we deal with this first?"]
Alex said with a grin, "Same answer as before. Clean up your own mess."
"As for tonight's incident, you'll have to excuse me."
He hung up. Alex tossed the phone back to Ashley.
"Listen, Ashley."
"This is the last time today I'll tolerate you ringing my doorbell."
"If there's a third time, I hope you're prepared."
Alex smiled, "You can go now."
———
She walked out of the room and into the elevator.
When the doors closed, Ashley grabbed her hair.
"He actually hung up on the Secretary!"
"Does he not want this job anymore?"
———
[Air Force Base]
Wilson put down the phone.
He did not notice that the phone's camera had turned on by itself and was now aimed at him.
Beside him, Dr. Kyle hurriedly asked, "What did Homelander say?"
Wilson covered his face, "That bastard refused to go."
"That lunatic didn't even give me a chance to negotiate this time!"
Dr. Kyle couldn't help blurting out, "Then what do we do? The number of Chimeras created by Compound No. 6 is probably already over a hundred thousand."
"And that number will keep rising."
Wilson snorted, "In that case, we can only prepare to destroy all of New York."
He paused before continuing, "Maybe this will be a good thing."
"If Homelander refuses to act, then after this is over, all we have to do is expose it, and he'll have no place left in the Federation."
Dr. Kyle hesitated.
"We should still find a way to get him to act."
Wilson remained unmoved.
Dr. Kyle said in shock, "Mr. Secretary, if we don't persuade Homelander, the number of people who die tonight could exceed a hundred thousand, or even a million."
"Sacrificing so many lives just to deal with Homelander... isn't that..."
Wilson said in a deep voice, "This is a war."
"A war between us and Homelander."
"In war, people die."
"Besides, shouldn't their sacrifice, their deaths, be counted as Homelander's responsibility?"
"As for the truth?"
"The media will only report what we let them report, and the public will only know the truth we want them to know."
"So there's no need to worry about it."
He turned to Ryan, "Haven't you always wanted a chance for real combat?"
"Now you have it. Go. Kill as many Chimeras as you can."
"Treat it as a warm-up before fighting Homelander."
Ryan nodded, shot into the sky, then turned in midair and sped toward the city.
Dr. Kyle sighed, stepped aside, and made the sign of the cross over his chest.
"May God forgive us."
Wilson let out a cold laugh, "If there really is a God, then we're definitely going to hell."
———
[Seven Tower]
A stream of information flowed from Alex's fingertip. It twisted and transformed into a moving image.
In the image, Wilson looked at Dr. Kyle with a cold smile.
Alex smiled and withdrew the stream of information.
He looked out the window again. The gray fog in the distance was still spreading.
"Hmm, judging by the wind direction, it won't reach Chinatown."
Alex lifted his beer bottle, "Then there's no need to worry about Caitlin."
He tilted his head back, took a few swigs of beer, then walked into the bedroom.
———
[New York City]
Starlight was running while monsters kept charging out of the dense fog.
Just as Dr. Kyle had predicted, there were far too many Chimeras.
Residents who had failed to escape the area covered by Compound No. 6 experienced genetic mutations shortly after inhaling the gas.
They kept transforming into Chimeras, then, driven by their instinct to attack, began assaulting other living creatures.
Now, Starlight was the only member of the Seven's reserve team left.
She fired another stream of light, blasting away several Chimeras.
Just then, a gorilla-like Chimera lunged out of the fog and wrapped its arms around her.
Starlight's body was very tough. Even if someone fired a sniper rifle at her from point-blank range, it would only hurt her without killing her.
But with the gorilla Chimera squeezing her body and forcing the air from her lungs little by little, Starlight could still suffocate to death.
Just then, a huge mass of lightning descended from the sky. It struck not only the gorilla Chimera, but also blasted the surrounding monsters back.
Starlight and the gorilla were both thrown away by the lightning. Her combat suit was charred, but her skin showed no sign of being burned.
"I think I hit someone."
"Are you okay?"
As Starlight broke free from the gorilla and coughed violently, she heard a voice from above.
She looked up and saw Stormfront, dressed in a black-and-green combat suit, descending from the sky.
Right after her, Ice Princess, Electro, Element Man, and the other members of the Seven arrived as well.
Seeing them, Starlight relaxed. The tension left her, and she fainted.