Chapter 12: The Return That Shook Arica
The news was leaked by Vought’s PR departnt.
A single photograph.
No caption, no press release, no press conference announcent. Just a lone photo posted on Vought International’s official Twitter account.
The resolution was low. It was clearly a screenshot pulled from so surveillance footage. In the fra, a man wearing a brownish-green jacket stood on the rooftop of a Brooklyn apartnt building, with the grayish-blue early morning New York sky behind him.
His face was only visible in a three-quarter profile, but it was more than enough. That sharp jawline, those broad shoulders, that posture with one hand slouched casually in his pocket—it was identical to the footage in the black-and-white docuntaries looping at the Vought History Museum.
The photo went up at exactly 7:00 AM. By 8:00 AM, Twitter’s servers crashed. Over eight million quote-retweets flooded the servers within a single hour. Led by TikTok, every platform amplified the exact sa phrase at an exponential rate: "Soldier Boy is back."
The Nasdaq billboard in New York’s Tis Square made an ergency content switch. They swapped out the daily stock market ticker for a vintage photograph of Soldier Boy provided by the Vought Museum. 1944, the beaches of Normandy. He was carrying his iconic diamond-shaped shield with the bald eagle emblazoned on it, behind him burning landing crafts and a sky choked with anti-aircraft fire.
Beneath the black-and-white photo, a line of gilded text scrolled by: "The Legend Returns. Soldier Boy Confird to Return to Vought International."
The crowd gathering in the square grew larger and larger. People held up their phones to snap photos of the massive screen. So dialed their parents on video calls, weeping directly into their screens. Others had rushed straight out of their hotel rooms still wearing pajamas.
A veteran in his sixties, wearing a faded old dress uniform with a few tarnished dals pinned to his chest, stood directly beneath the giant display. He looked up at the black-and-white photograph, tears streaming down his wrinkled cheeks, his lips trembling as he muttered over and over again, "I saw him when I was a kid... I saw him in a parade when I was a little kid..."
CNN cut away from its regular morning programming. An MSNBC anchor, her eyes rimd with red, told the cara, "The significance of this for Arica is beyond words." The comntators on Fox News reached a rare unanimous consensus. They ran the headline "The Greatest Return of the Century" in a font size so massive it nearly consud the entire screen.
Yet the focal point of this entire frenzy was currently walking the streets. He was looking for soone.
The Upper East Side of New York, a well-maintained but unpretentious old apartnt building. The doorman, an Italian man in his sixties, took one look at Benjamin and stepped aside without asking a single question.
The Legend opened the door.
"The Legend"—the forr Senior Vice President of Vought International, the man who once controlled the entire Departnt of Superhuman Affairs. Now, this forr myth lived in an apartnt cramd with vintage posters, old film reels, and expired magazines. He was wearing a pilled bathrobe, holding a martini glass. It was 2:00 PM. He looked far older than Benjamin rembered.
"Jesus," The Legend stared at Benjamin standing at the door, his martini glass shaking slightly, nearly spilling the liquor. "What they’re saying on Twitter is real."
"You haven’t quit Twitter?"
"I did, then I made a burner." The Legend stepped aside from the doorway. "Co inside. You’re Arica’s original hero, don’t let anyone spot you."
The inside of the apartnt looked much larger than it did from the hallway. The walls were covered in movie posters—so originals, so autographed, so rare out-of-print pieces that even the Vought Museum probably didn’t have archived. Benjamin stood in the center of the living room, his gaze sweeping over the posters. His own face stared back at him from several different fras. Warti propaganda from the forties, recruitnt ads from the fifties, and a crudely drawn comic book cover.
"You haven’t changed a bit from those posters." The Legend shut the door and leaned against the fra, sizing Benjamin up from head to toe.
Benjamin turned around. "You kept my stuff, right?"
The Legend fell silent for two seconds. "How did you know I kept it?"
"Because you’re The Legend," Benjamin said. "There’s no way you threw my suit away."
The Legend took a sip of his martini and said nothing. He walked into the bedroom, returning a mont later with a garnt bag in his hand. He laid it on the sofa. Inside were the following: a suit, predominantly deep green, featuring the white star emblem on the chest, and scratches of varying depths scoring the shoulder armor. The fabric felt a bit stiff to the touch, but the overall preservation was near-flawless, down to the polished tal buckles on the gauntlets.
Then there was the shield. However, only Soldier Boy could carry it; The Legend couldn’t lift it. Engraved with a bald eagle spreading its wings, it was Soldier Boy’s weapon. The edges were slightly worn, but not a single rivet was missing.
He walked over to where the shield was stored. Benjamin reached out, gripping the inner leather straps, and lifted the shield. Slipping his arm through the straps, he gave his wrist a quick spin. The shield cut through the air with a low, rushing hum.
Watching this, a complex expression crossed The Legend’s face. "You killed Black Noir last night," he said, his tone making it clear it wasn’t a question.
"My son killed him."
"What’s the difference?" The Legend picked his martini glass back up and sat down on the sofa. "Stan Edgar called this morning. Guess what he said?"
"Spit it out."
"He said you’re starting work at Vought tomorrow. Executive Director of the Departnt of Superhuman Affairs. Authority ranking higher than Holander." The Legend cast a scrutinizing look over the rim of his reading glasses. "Vought tortured your son and packaged you up for the Russkies, and you’re still planning on sitting down to have dinner with them?"
"I don’t have that much of an appetite." Benjamin leaned the shield against the armrest of the sofa and began to strip off his clothes.
"Jesus," The Legend stared at his physique, pausing. "They used you as a lab rat."
"Yeah. A lab rat for forty years." Benjamin put on the undersuit, his movents unhurried. "But that’s beside the point. I have sothing to ask you. Where’s Crimson Countess?"
The Legend’s fingers froze on the rim of his martini glass. "You didn’t co back to catch up. You ca back to settle scores."
"It’s both." Benjamin fastened his breastplate, then began buckling the gauntlets. "Give the address."
"She’ll run."
"She won’t get far."
"Even if she does run, with Vought in play, how long can she hide?"
The Legend fell silent. Then he set his glass down, picked up a pen from the coffee table, and jotted down a few lines on the blank margin of an old magazine page.
"Vought isn’t entirely made of bad people," The Legend said slowly as he handed him the scrap of paper.
Benjamin took the paper, folded it, and slid it into the inner pocket of his suit. Understanding The Legend’s aning, he countered, "I know. You aren’t a bad guy. Maybe my pussy son isn’t either. Neither are the working class, the low-level staff, and so of the normal Supes... That’s why... I’m going to rebuild a brand-new Vought rather than completely obliterating it. You need to rember, I’m a superhero. I’m not the bad guy."
Strapping the shield onto his left arm, he walked toward the apartnt door. Halfway there, he halted, turning his head back toward the old man on the sofa. "Where are the guns?"
"What guns?"
"My guns. There’s no way you only kept the clothes."
The Legend stared at him for two seconds, then walked over to a corner piled high with cardboard boxes and rooted around for a bit. First, he pulled out an M1911 pistol, followed by the iconic eagle-head knife, and a few other weapons. He laid these items out one by one on the coffee table.
"I loaded the ammo myself. It still fires," he said. "You owe four hundred bucks. For the ammunition."
Benjamin slid the knife into the hidden sheath on the side of his combat boot, tucked the M1911 into the holster at the back of his belt, and slung the Thompson strap over his shoulder.
"I feel like you’re a bit different, Ben," The Legend stared at Benjamin, his eyes flickering slightly.
"Forty years," Benjamin straightened up. "A lot of things change."
"Yeah," The Legend muttered to himself. "A lot of things change."
He just hadn’t expected Benjamin to care so much about this son he barely knew.
------
Sunlight stread at an angle through the dust-coated window at the end of the apartnt corridor, hitting Benjamin’s back. The deep green shoulder armor of his suit reflected the daylight, casting a barely perceptible, matte sheen.
Pushing open the apartnt building’s main door with his free left hand, the early autumn New York wind rushed over him. Vought Tower was waiting for him over in Manhattan, where the superheroes in the conference room were about to accept a set of rules they had never seen before. Out in the far suburbs of Pennsylvania, there was also a woman who owed the original owner of his body a debt spanning nearly half a century.
But right now, he was heading to Vought to see his son.
As for Crimson Countess—no rush. He’d already waited forty years. A day or two wouldn’t make a difference.
------
The forty-second floor of Vought Tower, The Seven’s main conference room.
Inside, the remaining mbers of The Seven had arrived, while Ashley stood off to the side by the wall, auditing the eting.
A-Train sat in a wheelchair. Though his knee was mostly healed, he insisted on using the wheelchair under the pretext that "it makes look more like the victim." An exaggerated stabilizing brace was still clamped onto his right leg. Because of his near-fatal incident yesterday, A-Train had been entirely consud by PR damage control over the last two days, keeping him incredibly busy. However, this look also garnered plenty of sympathy from certain fans. After all, supposedly he had only ended up like this by accident while hot on the heels of a fleeing suspect.
Translucent sat at the far end of the long table, fully visible, looking rather tense. The Deep sat next to him, a glass of water resting in front of him as usual, his expression even more bewildered than ordinary. He had already heard about Black Noir, but didn’t know the details; he only knew that Noir’s lounge had been permanently locked down since last night, and nobody had told him why. Did Noir go to Orlando? The Deep wasn’t exactly a genius, so he couldn’t figure it out.
Queen Maeve stood by the window, her arms crossed as she leaned against the floor-to-ceiling fra. Only one person was capable of killing Black Noir... Maeve thought to herself. What the hell is that psycho planning now? Granted... there was one other person, but that man hadn’t even been at the company yesterday.
The conference room doors opened.
Holander walked in, his cape kicking up a small slipstream behind him. Sporting a faint smile, he walked over to the head of the long table, but instead of sitting down, he stood to the right of the main seat, placing his hand on the back of the chair.
"Everyone," Holander’s voice was clear, carrying far less of his usual press-conference theatricality and a layer of solemnity. "Before we begin today’s agenda, I want to introduce soone to you."
He turned toward the conference room doors, extending his hand.
Every single gaze shifted to the doors at the exact sa mont. They all knew exactly who was coming.
------
A/n: If you want to read ahead and find out what happens next right away, you can read up to 20 Chapters ahead on my p@tr~on: /ForgottenDaoist (@ = a, link is in my profile).
User Comments
0 comments from readers