Late at night, faint moonlight filtered through the clouds and spilled across a stretch of building ruins. Yellow police tape was strung everywhere around the site.
Several sneaky figures slipped through the tape under cover of darkness. One look told them the place was a complete mess. Signs of deliberate searching were everywhere.
Hughie couldn't help sounding discouraged. "We're late. This place looks like an apple a dog already chewed. Nothing but construction junk. I can't even find half a scrap of paper. Might as well go ask Ms. Mallory. Maybe she got something useful."
Just as he was about to slack off, he spotted half a soda can under a pile of rocks. Out of curiosity he bent down and pulled it free.
The can wasn't whole, only the bottom section left, and the break showed clear high-temperature cutting marks. "Guys, look what I found."
"Half an empty soda can?" Starlight, wearing a gray baseball cap, stared at the piece in Hughie's hand.
"Looks like two bastards were involved in this attack."
Butcher walked over, took the can, and analyzed it.
"I already asked Mallory before we came. She said the police didn't find anything valuable either. There are laser-eye burn marks on some of the debris, but that's not enough to prove Homelander did it."
"Not that they can't prove it. They just don't dare. Even if they had solid evidence it was Homelander, they still wouldn't go public against him." Hughie, full of resentment, couldn't hold back the complaint.
Anyone dragged out of bed in the middle of the night to work was going to be in a shit mood.
"Quit the bullshit. Right now the priority is finding the Church of the Collective's archive room. There might still be Stormfront's old files in there." Butcher shoved the can into his pocket and headed toward the areas the police hadn't searched yet.
Compared to the cops, their only real advantage was having two supes.
Ten minutes later Kimiko suddenly signed something to Frenchie.
"You're saying there's a special smell of burned paper under here." Frenchie's face lit up.
Kimiko nodded.
The group quickly gathered and worked together to move the concrete slabs, bricks, and rebar piled on top.
Finally… they saw a heap of ash left from burned paper.
"Shit!" Butcher's face turned ugly as he dug through the ash. All he found were scattered scraps of paper. From the remaining words it was clear these had been blackmail files on supes.
But with just this, it was completely useless. If they got nothing else tonight the whole trip was a waste.
The thought of working their asses off only to end up with a pile of ash made Butcher want to curse out loud.
Luckily Hughie had the goddess of fortune riding him. He actually pulled a corner of a photo out of the ash. He held it up.
The person in the picture was Stormfront, and it was a group photo. Hughie didn't recognize the other person, but he immediately understood how important the picture was.
"Guys, let's guess who the lucky bastard is tonight."
Hughie raised the photo with a smug look.
"Stormfront and Goebbels. Hughie, sometimes I just want to plant a kiss right on your face." Butcher snatched the photo out of his hand. Looking at the people in the picture, a smile spread across his rough face.
The photo had been burned down to less than half, but it already confirmed his guess. This was extremely important dirt. If they had gotten it before it was burned, Stormfront's Nazi connections alone would have finished her for good. Even Vought's PR machine wouldn't have been able to save her.
"Keep looking. If we find a complete photo she's dead. Jesus himself couldn't save her, I mean it!"
Butcher dove into the thick ash like he'd been injected with pure adrenaline. They kept searching until the sky started to lighten, but they never found a second photo of Stormfront.
"You contact Maeve. Tell her to search Stormfront's and Homelander's rooms. I'm certain the original exists, and it's definitely with one of them."
Butcher's face was completely unrecognizable under the ash. He stood up and rubbed both sides of his lower back, trying to ease the ache from holding the same position for so long.
"I get searching Stormfront's room, but why Homelander's too?" Hughie didn't understand.
Butcher shot him a look. "Their relationship suddenly got this good and you don't find it strange? You don't even need Vought's propaganda. Anyone who's not blind can see they're a couple.
Don't forget, not long ago Homelander still asked us to take Stormfront out like they had a blood feud. Now he wants to fuck her any time, any place. If Homelander didn't know something, would his attitude flip that fast?"
"Makes sense. But why don't we just secretly tip Stormfront off that Homelander wanted her dead? Then when they go at each other we can sit back and watch." Hughie's eyelids kept drooping from exhaustion. If the environment allowed it he would have collapsed and slept right there.
"Got any evidence? Between us and Homelander, who do you think Stormfront is more likely to believe? Don't be naive. Even if she finds out Homelander once wanted her dead, with her strength she still won't dare do anything open. At most she'll swallow it and keep quiet."
...
The next day at noon, a new face appeared in The Seven's conference room inside Vought Tower.
"By unanimous decision of the board, Starlight has been expelled from The Seven. Her seat will be filled by Lamplighter. In addition, A-Train's sudden death has left another vacancy. Next I will introduce your new colleague. Her code name is Pure White Witch."
Edgar walked into the room and gave the brief personnel announcement.
At the same time he looked at Homelander and said in a low voice, "Regarding Ryan's whereabouts, we are still investigating…"
While he spoke, Ivan standing behind him turned his head toward the window. A black sedan sped past the front of Vought Tower at high speed.
Bang.
A black sack was thrown out of the car.
Pedestrians on the sidewalk curiously gathered around the sack, but none of them dared open it.
What if there was a corpse inside?
The whole scene looked exactly like a Hollywood gangster movie.
Were terrorists trying to provoke Vought this way?
What the onlookers didn't know was that inside the sack, after taking a heavy blow, Ryan had already opened a pair of scarlet eyes.
____
[]~(￣▽￣)~*
Read 12 Advance Chapters—P@t- Captain69