The Boys: Viltrumite Bloodline Panel

To be happy, you must eliminate two things. The fear of a bad future and the memory of a bad past.

~ Seneca

____

Ryan watched the entire broadcast on television.

He had always liked The Guardian’s image.

Now he liked him even more!

He even felt like his father, Homelander, was always butting in from the side like some kid desperate for attention, and it was starting to piss him off.

...

[Ryan — Emotional State: Extreme adoration, yearning, aspiration, determination, growth]

[Ability Points Gained: +21,340]

...

Ashley stood backstage in the press conference hall, staring at the real-time data on the big screen.

She clenched her fists so tight it looked like she had just discovered the perfect PR template in Hillel.

That’s right. That’s exactly it.

If Homelander could just stick to her plan without fucking it up, the end result would be The Guardian.

What a dream boss. Never causes his people any headaches.

As Vought International’s PR Manager, CEO, and The Guardian’s personal secretary, Ashley had been in the game for over a decade and had never seen numbers like this.

Within thirty minutes of the press conference starting, The Guardian’s approval rating had jumped from 85% to 94%.

The overall favorability for The Seven shot up from 72% to 91%.

Vought International’s brand trust climbed another 11 percentage points.

One single interview had covered ground that would’ve taken Vought years to cover on its own.

Of course, if Homelander had been left in charge... those years probably would’ve turned into decades.

This was a fucking miracle.

Tears welled up in Ashley’s eyes, and it wasn’t just because her career was looking up.

She remembered when she first got into the industry, she was still some young idealist who believed in justice.

Later she got ground down by the supes until she turned into a data-obsessed machine.

But that little bit of kindness she used to have hadn’t completely died.

She felt like she was coming back to life.

...

[Ashley — Emotional Shift: Shock, adoration, sense of career peak, reignited faith, sense of belonging]

[Ability Points Gained: +16,780]

...

In an apartment in New York, Hughie and Robin sat on the sofa staring at the TV.

The Boys had taken some heavy hits lately.

Butcher’s operations kept getting shut down by Hillel before they could even start.

Dealing with Homelander alone had already been a nightmare, and now The Guardian was an even bigger shadow hanging over them.

It was rare for Hughie to get sent home for a quiet night with his girlfriend.

Only... the mood was pretty fucking awkward.

After watching the interview, Robin was crying her eyes out.

"Hughie... those kids... the youngest was only ( ) years old..."

Hughie didn’t say anything either.

Deep down he was a decent guy, one of the few actually decent people left in America.

Didn’t do drugs, didn’t smoke, no bad habits.

The only reason he ended up on the anti-supe path was pure bad luck.

After the interview his head was a mess.

Butcher had always told him that supes were monsters, that Vought International was pure evil, that every single one of them from top to bottom was a soulless piece of shit in human skin, and that The Guardian was no different.

But... those rescued kids were real.

Everything that got exposed on the island was real, and every major news outlet was running it.

Half of America was tangled up in it.

Vought definitely didn’t have the pull to fake something this big.

So the question kept nagging at him.

If The Guardian was really a bad guy, a fascist, a racist piece of shit, would he have saved those kids?

Would he have gone after Congress on live TV? Would he have let his own team members admit their past fuck-ups and try to start over?

"Butcher’s take on supes... might be too extreme," Hughie muttered.

Robin wiped her tears and turned to look at him.

"Hughie, are you still running around with that Butcher guy?"

"I..."

"Look at what The Guardian has done, then look at that Butcher of yours!" Robin’s voice had an edge to it now.

"The Guardian is out there saving children. What the fuck is Butcher doing? Some anti-social piece of shit who spends all day slandering my idol. How the hell is he supposed to be a good person?"

Hughie wanted to push back, but he had nothing. She was right.

Even though Hughie had never told Robin exactly what he was mixed up in, she had met Butcher. Anyone who spent five minutes around that guy came away with a bad impression.

Hughie picked up his phone. Seven missed calls, all from Butcher.

...

In a bar, everyone was glued to the television, where The Guardian’s speech was still looping.

Butcher sat at the counter with a bottle of whiskey. "Cunning little bastard," he muttered.

But his voice didn’t have the same iron in it anymore. There was a crack in it now.

If you wanted to call Butcher a prick, you’d be right. If you wanted to call him a bad guy, that worked too. But deep down, the man still had some decent intentions left.

He knew this shit was real. It wasn’t some made-up story.

But Butcher had to deny it anyway. The only way he could keep the hate burning hot enough to finish his revenge was by pretending none of it was true.

He called Hughie, looking for some kind of comfort from the kid who reminded him so much of Lenny. But Hughie wasn’t picking up. First time that had ever happened.

"Fuck!!" Butcher took a long pull from the bottle.

Frenchie walked over with a laptop under his arm. "Hey! You miserable bastard, we’ve been looking for you for three days! Hiding away drinking horse piss?"

"Spit it out, Frenchie!" Butcher snapped.

Frenchie dropped the laptop on the bar. "I found a new lead. Recent terrorist attack. Group of suspected well-trained supe criminals took out a local official..."

"...I tracked their movements through security footage. Look at this mark on their clothes. What does that look like to you?"

Butcher leaned in and studied the screen. "Looks like that terrorist group Raynor’s been shitting herself over. What was it called... The Shining Army?"

"Right!"

"Based on their escape route, I’m guessing part of The Shining Army’s territory is right around here."

Frenchie tapped at the keyboard, zooming in on one city block.

"If we can find their hideout, maybe we can dig up some real proof that Vought International is making supe terrorists. Then we can flip this whole fucking situation on its head!"

Butcher turned around, the gloom gone from his face. The corner of his mouth twitched into something that almost looked like relief.

"Good work. I’ll go squeeze Raynor for some gear and, obviously, some operating cash."

...

"The Guardian, what does Vought International plan to do for the victims going forward?" The Vought News Network reporter kept pushing.

Vought International wanted to milk this disaster for every drop of PR it was worth. By blowing the lid off the Rhode Island thing, they were putting themselves in the crosshairs of a lot of powerful people.

But Edgar saw an opportunity. More than half of Congress was knee-deep in this mess. Those seats were going to open up soon. He could slide his own people in. Hell, he could even get popular supes to endorse certain politicians and grab a whole new chunk of political power.

Hillel answered the question without missing a beat.

"On my own behalf, I’m donating three hundred million dollars in relief funds. The full amount. No charity foundation bullshit. We’ll set up a proper oversight program, and the whole process will be real-time, public, and completely transparent. All of it going toward treatment and recovery for the victims."

"On top of that, some of the money will also go to soldiers and veterans dealing with trauma, the ones who can’t take care of themselves anymore or ended up on the streets."

Edgar had only signed off on a hundred million. Daddy Hillel thought the old bastard was being cheap. If you’re gonna buy yourself a reputation, at least spend like you mean it!

Anyway, it wasn’t his money. As for who was going to actually watch over how the cash got spent, Hillel already had the perfect person in mind.

____

Early access to 12 advance Chapters.

P@t: MilkLoverFanfics

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!