The Boys: Ultimate Multiversal Lifeform

In the restaurant, Billy, wearing a black trench coat, smirked as he toyed with the steel table knife. The crisp clinks rang out, ding ding ding.

"So the Homelander mess was your doing. I was wondering how those spineless pricks at the FBI suddenly grew a pair and went after Homelander. Turns out I gave them too much credit."

Billy grinned. Anyone with the balls to fuck with Homelander was a friend of Billy Butcher’s, and the Church of the Collective’s leader sitting across from him was no exception.

"They wouldn’t dare touch Homelander’s shit. We would."

Alastair laced his fingers, crossed one leg over the other, and leaned back.

"In that case, I’ve got a deal for you too," Billy said with a smile.

"You want to negotiate with me? Depends what you’re putting on the table. Far as I know, the feds already froze your accounts. You couldn’t scrape together a thousand bucks if your life depended on it."

Alastair hadn’t expected a wanted man like Billy to try bargaining. He sneered.

Billy set the knife down without a flicker of nerves. Negotiation meant looking the part.

"You want those psychos out, but once this blows up we’re the ones left holding the bag. And we don’t need your help. It’s a fucking mental hospital. Tight security or not, we’ve got ways in. As for Homelander’s PR nightmare, it won’t last. Vought’s spin machine will bury it soon enough.

You’ve heard of Greevs, right? Ever since he took over he’s handled a ton of media pressure. This Racist incident’s messy, sure, but I bet it’s nothing he can’t handle. We can put money on it if you don’t believe me."

Billy’s words made Alastair’s confident look drain away.

He spoke low. "That’s because you’ve never seen what the Church of the Collective can do. One word from me and tomorrow morning more than ten people of different color will off themselves right under Vought Tower. Then that so-called Greevs, no matter what tricks he has, will have to crawl over and apologize to us."

"That right?" Billy’s smile turned mocking.

Truth was the other side didn’t have the guts to really piss Vought off. If they did, the man across the table wouldn’t be Billy. It would be Vought’s own president or that vice-president Greevs.

"And if I win?" Alastair’s smile was gone. He looked like a pissed-off vulture trying to hide the soft underbelly with a hard stare.

"If you win, me and my crew do one job for you free of charge. Kidnap Vought’s president, jump Homelander in public, whatever. But if you lose, you do me one small favor."

"Small favor? Spit it out."

"Pull someone out of a Vought black site. And you keep her breathing."

"Jesus Christ, you’ve lost your fucking mind. You want me to walk into a Vought secret base and extract someone? No chance. Pick another ask." Alastair’s voice went sharp.

Billy shrugged. "Don’t have the stones for the bet, fine. Figured you didn’t have the balls to go against Vought anyway."

The provocation was crude and obvious, but it worked on Alastair like a charm.

Still seething from the earful Ivan had given him earlier, Alastair stood and fixed Billy with a cold look. "God says I win. I’ll take the bet. My people will move with you later. I’ve got other shit to handle. I’m out."

He left the restaurant looking like someone had pissed in his cereal.

Once he was gone, five well-armed church members spilled out of a side room, laughing.

"Hey, handsome. You look real nice." A skinny guy with dyed yellow hair licked his lips and reached for Billy’s chest.

"Touch me and I put a round through your skull."

Billy drew the pistol from his waistband, stood, and aimed it at the man’s head.

The guy had sunken black-ringed eyes like every junkie on a Philly corner. He stared at the muzzle and threw his hands up in exaggerated surrender. "Easy, little chili. I didn’t even make contact. You can’t take a joke, I’ll say sorry."

"Knock it off, Bomber. Put that nasty little habit away."

Five of them total, four men and one woman. The one who spoke looked like the one in charge.

Sure enough, when he opened his mouth again it confirmed it.

"Name’s Fred. You can call me Slime. As the captain I should introduce the rest of the team. Yellow hair over there is Bomber. The hairy-chested tank is Cat Man. That one who can’t decide if he’s a boy or a girl is Hormone, Bomber’s boyfriend. And the pretty one with the bangs... uh, we just call her Heroine."

Slime actually looked pretty sharp, the kind of face that fit some British-aristocrat stereotype. After introducing the four of them he asked Billy when the op was starting.

"Tonight."

If Billy had a choice he wouldn’t let this pack of third-rate rejects anywhere near the job.

"Hurry the fuck up, I’ve got a party to get to." Bomber dug a finger up his nose, popped the little prize into his mouth, and made a face like it was fine dining. The sight was pure visual assault.

"Fuck you," Billy muttered under his breath.

...

Not long after, Starlight and the others slipped through the dark to the outer edge of the mental hospital. High-voltage fences ringed the whole place, and the only gate was guarded by armed Vought security. The place was locked down tight. A frontal assault would light up every alarm at Vought HQ.

Time was short. They had to figure out what the hell was going on inside Sage Grove before Homelander showed up.

"Billy texted me ten minutes ago saying he was almost here. Where the fuck is he?" Frenchie held up his phone, scanning the darkness.

A black van rolled up a second later.

"These are the reinforcements you called in?"

Billy barely got out of the van before Hughie yanked him aside.

Hughie eyed the Church squad that looked about as reliable as a wet paper bag and hissed, "Seriously?"

"With them around, when we run we just have to run faster than they do." Billy gave a nasty little grin, then turned and shouted at Slime, "Get your people to open that fence. Don’t tell me you can’t even handle that."

Slime nodded at Cat Man.

"Just a fence." Cat Man wore nothing but a ballistic vest. The chest hair made it look like he’d stuffed a sweater underneath.

He strutted up to the high-voltage mesh, licked the brand-new razor-sharp claws that had just grown out, and swung. Sparks and crackling electricity flashed. A hole opened. After he carved out a nice big gap Cat Man couldn’t help striking a victory pose for Billy and the others.

Then he raised both arms and brushed the live fence by accident.

A web of high-voltage arcs swallowed him whole. He started shaking like he was having a full-blown seizure. Hughie took one step forward to check on him just as the big guy who’d been bouncing around seconds earlier coughed out a cloud of black smoke and face-planted right in front of him.

Skin already charred black. Cooked through. Unless God Himself decided to intervene, that one wasn’t getting back up.

"Looks like Alastair never fixed the crazy," Billy muttered.

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Read 12 Advance Chapters—P@t- Captain69