Chapter Text
Police sirens whirred through the air, and the tires screeched across each turn as cop cars swiftly began to almost pile up. Officers stood outside of their car, quickly trying to gain a grasp on the situation. It was a construction site to build a new parking garage, nearly finished too, but now it has become the site of a hostage situation. Masked men with guns swarmed it out of nowhere. Swiftly, they took every worker and brought them up to the top floor of the building. The police were trying to get a grasp on the situation. By their count, there were at least 20 workers working that day, including a few high level business men who funded it. There was no confirmed casualties or deaths, nor was there a solid number on the amount of armed individuals holding the place down. The police were scrambling to get a negotiators on the scene to figure out what the hell these people wanted. Thankfully, someone appeared...kinda.
"Heard you guys needed some help!" An invisible voice spoke beside the police chief on scene, who nearly drew his gun upon hearing a sudden voice pop up behind him. The chief let out a sigh as he realized who it was. Translucent, a member of the best superhero team in the world: The Seven.
"Thanks for getting here, I was hoping they were going to send somebody." The chief thanked the invisible hero.
"Anytime!" He said in a false cheery voice, pretending to sound as nice and as heroic as he could, putting on a pair of glasses so the chief knew that he really was there, "Now, what exactly is going on here?"
"We don't know, armed invaders suddenly stormed this place and took everyone inside hostage. We don't know what they want or even how many of them their are."
"Interesting. Well, I'll go ahead and start dealing with them. Just have some ambulances ready for when I'm done. Who knows what could happen to these guys?" Translucent joked, as the chief laughed with him and nodded in approval. Translucent took his glasses off and immediately began to enter the garage.
The building was only five stories tall, not to mention fairly empty besides one or two men standing guard by the entrances to each floor. Translucent didn't bother to deal with those guys, as technically his job was to deal with the hostages first. He walked all the way up to the fifth floor, shockingly unnoticed. He got a few glances from guards who could've sworn they heard footsteps, but they didn't see anything, so they assumed they were just hearing things or hearing their groups footsteps up top echo down. When he reached the fifth floor, there were a dozen armed men walking around, with three of them standing by a circle of sitting hostages, occasionally aiming their guns at one of them to make them feel scared and threatened. An empty parking lot was not the ideal fighting ground, but it didn't matter to translucent, as there was no way any of them could actually hurt him.
"Boo bitch." He whispered into the ear of one of the guards watching the hostages as he swiftly punched the side of his head, knocking him out instantly.
Immediately, the rest of the armed men in the room were alerted and turned to him. But they weren't quick enough. As the man he knocked out fell, he grabbed his rifle and immediately aimed it at the other two near the hostages. The hostages screamed as sudden bullets shot out and hit the other two men right in the chest, killing them. Then, he threw the gun at the head of one of the men, knocking them out too. The rest of the criminals frantically swung their guns around, screaming and shouting at one another. It didn't take long for translucent to punch through the criminals. Some punch him or hit him with their guns, but they always broke whatever they tried to use. Others, tried to shoot at him, but their bullets always pinged right off of his body. After just a few minutes, all of the criminals were either knocked out or bleeding out. The hostages exchanged a few quick worried glances at one another before translucent revealed his head specifically, and not the rest of his body.
"You guys ok?" He asked with a smile, as relief filled the air. All of the hostages began to clap, which Translucent graciously accepted. "Oh calm down! Just doing my job!" He said with an air of nonchalant-ness, like this was just another ordinary day.
"Keep that face fucking visible!" A shout from the entrance to the floor emerged, as four more men walked in, their guns immediately pointed at the hostages, "One more fucking step, and I'll spray every one of these bitches down like it weedkiller!!" The man shouted as Translucent muttered under his breath a quick, "Shit," before standing still. "Reveal your hands too!! Right now!!" One of the men screamed.
"Ok! Ok!" Translucent complied as he put his hands up and revealed them. His face wore an incredibly annoyed expression. He knew if he didn't care he could rip through each and every one of these bastards before they could even get a chance to run. However, there was a VIP in the hostage circle that needed to be alive, and he couldn't take the chance that one of their bullets would hit them. "What do you guys want?!" Translucent asked, in an attempt to get a clear and easy way out of this.
"A way out. I want clear passage out of this city, out of this state, and gone with no police." Originally, there was a lot more to their demand, however, the man that spoke knew that they were not in the best asking position here. The longer they messed around, the more likely another Supe would show up.
"Sure! I can get you that! Easy!" Translucent responded, putting on a big smile to look more genuine, knowing he has no intention of giving these people anything.
"And no Supes! No Supes either!" Another one chimed in, and they all nodded in agreement.
Translucent rolled his eyes, "Yes! There won't be any Supes following you! You'll be so out of here that nobody will be able to find you! Not A-train! Not even--" Translucent's sentence was cut off by the sound of a sonic boom nearby. Everyone looked up, a bit confused as Translucent quietly finished his sentence, now a question, "...Homelander?"
Suddenly, there was a large impact on the roof, which caused some of it to fall down. Smoke and dust flew upward and around, as the hostages quietly whined and cried, fearing they were about to be shot. But the men and Translucent stayed quiet. Slowly, the dust started to settle, and a figure was seen standing in the center with glowing eyes and a glowing circle on his chest. A man in red and gold metal stood fearlessly, with a flat mask on with just eye wholes and a line at the bottom, looking like a frowning face. The man stood tall with his back up straight and clenched fists.
"Who the fuck are you?!" One of the men asked, instinctively aiming his gun at the metal man.
He didn't speak, he didn't even move a bit. Translucent was even confused. He was supposed to be the only supe sent out on this mission, nobody else was supposed to come unless he specifically requested it, and he was certain he did not. He didn't even recognize who this was, this was a new Supe.
Suddenly, some of the plates shifted on the mans shoulders, and out shot four small bullets directly into the chests of the men all at once. They all fell bleeding as the hostages screamed in reaction to the sudden gunfire, but they were slowly catching their breath. Slowly, the metal man's head turned towards a very confused Translucent. "You missed a few," The metal man said, looking over his shoulder. Slowly, he raised his hand up and a blue circle in his palm, much like the on his chest, but smaller, lit up. It whirred for a moment before a blast of energy shot out of it and through the wall. The sound of a scream told everyone that he hit his target, "and that one," the metal man added on to his original statement.
"Hey man, who the fuck are you?!" Translucent parroted the question the criminals had before not getting an answer.
"The guy who just saved the day," He responded as he turned back to the hostages and walked forward, "You guys are free to go, there's no more of them left," He gave a thumbs up as all of them scurried off and out as quickly as they could, being careful not to step in any blood or on any of the bodies. Before the metal man could fully turn around, translucent went fully invisible and punched the side of his face, which knocked back the metal man.
"What the fuck?! That was my mission!! You fucking asshole!! You ruined it!!" Translucent angrily shouted at him as soon as the hostages were all out of the rooms. However, the metal man swung back and struck Translucent right in the face, which shockingly hurt him, "The hell..?" Translucent grabbed the side of his face. It felt sore.
"Don't blame me you didn't do a headcount." The metal man rolled his neck and his shoulders and stepped back, "Leave it to Vought to fail at something kindergartener teachers do every day," he sighed as he positioned himself right under the hole he made in the roof. "Oh hey, word of advice next time," The man opened his hands as energy whirled in the circles in his palms and on the bottoms of his feet, "If you're going to fund some shady stuff and make a crime scene, at least hire some professional criminals!" He said right before blasting off and flying through the hole he made. Just as quickly as he had shown up, he left.
Translucent was gagged, there was nothing he could he could say or do. The only thing he could do was get back to Vought Tower as quickly as he could.
As soon as he could, Translucent, fully clothed and visible, stormed right into The Seven's meeting room. A room with screens along the side walls, and a wall of windows facing out into the city. The room also had a large V shaped table, with three chairs on each side, and one at the center, making seven in total. There, as he normally was when he wasn't off on whatever mission he got or whatever he felt like, was Homelander staring out the windows. A tall white man with short blonde hair, in a suit with a blue chest and legs, and a golden belt around his waist with the buckle of an eagle. On his back wore a cape of the American flag. He was the leader of The Seven, and one of, if not THE strongest Supe in the entire world.
"Homelander!" Translucent shouted as he entered the room, quickly marching towards him.
"Translucent," Homelander greeted, not bothering to look over his shoulders, "How'd that job go?" He asked calmly and in a friendly manner, which sounded like he genuinely cared, which Translucent knew by now was pretty unlikely.
"Fucking terrible," Translucent grunted as he stood behind Homelander towards his side, "We need to talk. Some other Supe showed up today. Someone new. He fucking flew out of nowhere and came crashing in and shot a laser or some energy blast or--" Translucent stopped as Homelander turned around and fully faced him. He could feel the air get more tense and quickly. He felt like all of his breath left his lungs. That cold blue eyed stare that Homelander had was enough to make anyone shake a little. You could feel the madness. Homelander stepped forward and laughed, his straight face morphing into a large smile.
"Ha! Oh, that's a good one. Some new Supe with similar powers to me showed up out of nowhere and..." Homelanders voice trailed off along with his smile as he looked closer, and noticed the bruise on Translucent cheek.
"H-he did that to me while I was invisible," Translucent stated as Homelander made sure that it wasn't just some makeup to trick him. Homelander listened to his heartbeat, though it was fast, he could tell he wasnt lying. "A-And...And! Get this, he also knew the entire thing was an inside job somehow!" Translucent added the most damning piece of information, as Homelanders face slowly shifted from interested to a hint of rage.
"What?! How?!" Homelander asked, "Who is he?!" He suddenly stepped forward and stared down at Translucent.
"I-I don't know!! He just left and there was no way I could follow him!!" Translucent said as Homelander rolled his eyes and pushed him into the ground.
"Fucking useless!" He muttered, his eyes singed with red fury, "Go find someone from make-up or costumes to cover that up, and then get back here to tell me the whole thing!" He commanded as Translucent slowed stood up.
"Yeah! I'm on it!" Translucent nodded his head and sprinted off.
Homelander stood there, angry, and yet wondering everything about this new supe. Since it was a supe, Vought had to have some data on it. Though, he was certain he would've known by now of someone with powers even remotely similar to his own, and one that is seemingly going against Vought and the Seven. He stood there and looked out the window, as it slowed dawned on him: Opportunity.
This was his chance to get a true villain. An arch-nemesis. So he could truly be seen as a hero by all. With this thought in mind, he smiled outward into the city. This was his moment. This was his time.