Chapter 83: Chapter 83: Red Unit (Bonus Chapter)
Homelander stepped out of the ruined blast doors and ascended the concrete ramp back into the night air.
The Appalachian valley was bathed in the orange and yellow hues of a hundred localized infernos. The smell of burning scorched earth and incinerated flesh hung thick in the cold wind.
He floated a few inches off the ground, his arms crossed over his chest. He surveyed the destruction his team had wrought.
Queen Maeve stood near the burning husk of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, wiping a streak of blood from her cheek.
A-Train was a vibrating blur near the perimeter, pacing back and forth amidst the scattered remains of a platoon.
The Deep was cowering behind a stack of concrete barriers, hands over his ears, trembling.
Starlight was on her knees near the armory, her glowing hands dimming as she stared at the broken bodies she had thrown against the brick wall.
"Is that it?" Homelander called out, his voice echoing across the courtyard, loud enough to be heard over the crackling flames. "Is this the grand military replacement? A bunch of human meat sacks in camouflage?"
"They didn’t have Supes, John," Maeve yelled back, her voice tight with exhaustion and disgust. "They were just soldiers. We just slaughtered a base full of normal people."
"They were traitors, Maggie," Homelander corrected, his tone adopting that paternal edge he used for PR statements. "They were stealing our property. They were trying to... "
Pop.
Pop.
Pop.
Pop.
Pop.
The sound was the vacuum sealed snap of air being displaced.
Homelander stopped speaking. He slowly turned his head toward the center of the courtyard.
The flames from a burning watchtower illuminated the asphalt. There, standing in a V shaped tactical formation, were five figures.
They wore matte black tactical armor. It absorbed the light of the fires, making them look like voids torn out of the night. On the chest plate of each suit, painted in a glossy crimson, was a single word: RED.
The courtyard went entirely still.
"Well," Homelander smiled, a terrifying stretching of his lips. He lowered himself until his red boots touched the asphalt. "Speak of the devil and he shall appear"
"They look like fucking robots," A-Train sneered, stopping his pacing to stand twenty yards to the right of the armored squad. "Look at that armor. They gotta weigh half a ton. They’re too slow."
Red Five, the figure at the far left of the formation, turned his helmet toward A-Train.
"You want to test that, track star?" a deep voice projected from Red One, the giant standing at the apex of the formation.
"With pleasure," A Train laughed.
He dropped into a runner’s stance. Blue lightning crackled around his boots.
BOOM.
A-Train broke the sound barrier from a standstill. He was a streak of kinetic energy aimed directly at Red One’s chest, intending to punch straight through the ceramic plating at Mach 1.5.
Red Five vanished.
A-Train, moving at blinding speed, suddenly shrieked. His forward momentum abruptly halted as something impossibly dense and infinitely small struck the underside of his chin like an anti aircraft round.
A -Train was launched vertically into the air, his jaw shattered, blood trailing from his mouth in a crimson mist.
Red Five instantly reappeared at his six foot armored height exactly where A-Train had just been standing.
He didn’t even look up as the speedster crashed into the roof of the barracks fifty feet away, groaning in agony.
"Who’s slow?" Red One asked.
Homelander’s smile widened. He didn’t care about A-Train. He was watching the sheer efficiency of the strike. "Size alteration. And retaining mass. Clever. Very clever."
"Don’t underestimate them!, John" Maeve shouted, drawing her sword from her back scabbard.
"I never underestimate anyone, Maggie," Homelander said softly. He gestured toward the Red Unit with an open hand. "Show me what you’ve got. Entertain me."
Red One moved with the terrifying momentum of a freight train. He closed the distance to Maeve in three massive strides.
Maeve swung her sword in a horizontal arc, aiming for the gap between the helmet and the chest plate.
Red One raised his armored forearm. The unbreakable steel of Maeve’s sword struck the carbon nanotube plating.
The impact rang out like a massive church bell. The sword bounced off, sending a jarring shockwave up Maeve’s arm.
Before Maeve could recover her guard, Red One delivered a front kick to her abdomen. The Tier 1 Strength behind the blow folded her in half.
She flew backward, skipping across the asphalt like a skipped stone until she smashed through a concrete barricade, burying herself in rubble.
"Hey!" The Deep yelled from his hiding spot, trying to sound brave. "You leave her alone!"
Red Four turned his faceless black helmet toward the aquatic Supe.
"Sleep," Red Four commanded, his synthesized voice echoing across the courtyard.
The Deep’s eyes rolled to the back of his head. He let out a snoring sigh and collapsed onto the ground, instantly comatose amidst the roaring fires.
Starlight, her face streaked with soot and tears, raised her hands. Her eyes flared blindingly bright as she drew ambient energy from the surrounding flames.
"Stop it!" she screamed.
She unleashed a concentrated beam of photon energy directly at Red Four.
Pop.
Red Two materialized directly in front of the beam. He reached out and grabbed Red Four’s shoulder.
Pop.
Both armored figures vanished a microsecond before the blast of light incinerated the space they had just occupied.
"Where did they... " Starlight gasped, spinning around.
Pop.
Red Two appeared directly behind her. He swept his armored leg, taking Starlight’s feet out from under her. As she fell, Red Two grabbed her by the collar of her bodysuit.
Pop.
He teleported her fifty feet into the air and let go. Starlight screamed as she plummeted, crashing hard onto the hood of a destroyed Humvee, the metal buckling under her durable frame.
She lay there, groaning, the breath knocked entirely out of her lungs.
Homelander stood completely still. His team, The Seven, the greatest heroes on Earth had been dismantled in exactly forty five seconds.
"Beautiful," Homelander breathed. He began to float slowly upward, ascending ten feet into the air. "Finally. Something that isn’t made of wet tissue paper."
Red Three stepped forward. He raised both of his armored hands toward the floating god.
Red Three unleashed the void. A beam of absolute zero energy, a visible distortion of localized winter, erupted from his gauntlets. It struck Homelander squarely in the chest.
Instantly, a massive block of opaque ice encased Homelander, freezing him mid air.
The block fell to the ground with a tremendous crash, a two ton glacier sitting in the middle of a burning military base.
The Red Unit stood in formation, watching the ice.
