Chapter Text
“Hey Mija, I have a surprise for you.”
Luz turns to her and forces her face into an excited smile. “What is it Mami?”
“I got us tickets to ConHeroCon.” Genuine excitement fills Luz’ eyes.
“Really? When are we going?”
“Tomorrow after school. We’ll drive up to Hartford, spend the rest of the day at the convention, stay at a hotel, then continue enjoying the con bright and early on Saturday.”
“That sounds AWESOME! Thank you Mami!”
“You’re welcome Mija.”
When they enter the convention center the event is every bit as amazing as advertized. Flying heroes giving piggy back rides, speedsters playing catch with dozens of kids at once, fire and electricity heroes using their powers to cook various carnival food, and speaking of the third category Luz’ favorite hero, Overload, is off to the side using his electrokinesis to roast hot dogs. Luz eagerly rushes over to his stand, “Hi! My name is Luz, I’m a huge fan!”
“Really? It’s rare for me to be a fan favorite.”
“I've seen every video of your heroics and the way you can manipulate machinery is incredible!”
“You noticed that?”
“Yeah! In your factory chase you made the belts stutter at just the right moment to trip up the robbers and in your junkyard gang bust the henchmen’s guns got tugged upwards slightly before they could shoot. Your judgement in combat and precise control are brilliant! I couldn’t find any merch of you so I made my own.” Luz hands him a poster she created depicting her favorite scenes from his hero career and a large sharpie. “Can I get your autograph?”
“Sure thing kid.” Overload writes his name in cursive across the bottom of the poster and Luz squeals in excitement.
“THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!!! This is already the best day ever!”
“Glad to hear it.” Camila is about to lead Luz to the piggy back flights when Overload continues, “Hey, if you wanna see what I can really do I’ll be practicing at Colt Park behind Dillon Stadium around seven.”
Luz smiles, “Can we go Mami? Please!”
“Sure.”
“YES!” Camila leads Luz away and mouths thank you to Overload, getting a thumbs up in response. Luz and Camila have a great time enjoying ConHeroCon and as 7pm approaches they head to Colt Park to meet Overload. They walk behind the Stadium to see Overload standing before dozens of remote controlled toys set on a small stage.
“You made it! And early too.”
“Luz has been excited for this all day.”
“Then I won’t delay any further.” He turns to the crowd of toys and raises his hand, the assembly of toys roaring to life. Helicopters rise into the air, cars line themselves up on the track, robots adjust their footing, and with a flick of his wrist the toys dance in a complex and coordinated dance. Luz and Camila watch in wonder as the toys whizz around and even interact with one another, the robots balancing on speeding cars and hitching rides on helicopters. After several minutes Overload offers his hand to Luz, “Wanna see what it really looks like?”
Luz notes that Overload’s voice sounds a little strange but once she takes his hand she can see the electricity in motion, circulating through the entire assembly like a living organism. A few minutes later Overload retracts his hand and returns the toys to their initial positions, the electricity fading from Luz’ vision. “That was incredible! Thank you!”
Luz hugs Overload’s leg and he ruffles her hair, “I’m glad you enjoyed it. I’ve never actually shown it off before.”
“Thank you for doing this, it means so much.” Camila offers her hand and Overload shakes it.
“Honestly, this was a blessing for me as well. I haven’t been doing great lately and knowing I could make someone smile has healed me more than words can describe. I have to return to Mystic tomorrow but I always come for the first day of ConHeroCon. I’ll be sure to prepare an even bigger show for next time.”
“I look forwa-*yawn* -excuse me, I look forward to it.”
“C’mon Mija, let’s head back to the hotel. Thank you again.”
“G’bye Overload!”
“Bye Luz.” Camila leads Luz back to the car and they head to the hotel. Camila tucks Luz into her bed and Luz falls right to sleep, dreaming of the main events scheduled for tomorrow.
Luz jolts awake, she initially thinks it is time for Day 2 of ConHeroCon but when she glances at the clock it isn’t even 1am. She hops out of bed and makes herself a glass of water, sipping on it and hoping that the frenzied energy keeping her awake will subside. “Hey Luz, are you awake?”
Luz whips around, eyes scanning the dark and empty hotel room. She whispers, “Overload?”
“Yeah, I’m talking to you through electrical signals.” That explains the slight buzzy quality to his voice. “I’ve been thinking a lot about tonight and I wanted to ask, do you want to be a Hero?”
“Hero?”
“I have a way to give you superpowers.”
“I thought Supers were born with their powers.”
“We are but there is a way to turn people into Supes. I think there is something special about you and I think you deserve to have superpowers just like me.”
“I could be like you?”
“Definitely, do you want to be?”
“Yes!-” Luz covers her mouth and peers over at Camila. She sighs in relief as Camila remains fast asleep.
“Then come outside, I’ll be waiting for you by the south exit.”
Luz quietly sets her empty cup in the sink and sneaks out of the door. She makes her way to the south exit but just as she opens the door a thought occurs to her. “How did Overload know where to find me?” Luz thinks no more as she blacks out.
When Luz wakes up again she is in a cage with her right arm strapped to a table just outside of it. “I’m glad you opened the door before second guessing. Losing out on you would have driven me mad.”
“Overload?” Luz sees him standing a few feet away, wearing a lab coat and sterile gloves.
“Yep. Sorry for knocking you out, I couldn’t take the risk of you running away or screaming for help.”
“Please let me go.”
“That’s the most polite rendition I’ve ever heard.”
“You’ve done this to others?”
“I have.” Overload turns around and brings over an IV stand laden with dozens of IV bags full of various unknown substances. “They were all assholes, cutting in line, calling me useless, standing me up, so I used them as guinea pigs. Loading them up with every variation of Compound V I could think of. I didn’t care if they lived or died as long as they gave me data. But you’re different. I don’t want you to die. I want this to work, for you to get superpowers just like I promised.”
“Compound V?”
“I’ll admit I lied a little. Supes aren’t born with their powers, they are given a miraculous medicine called Compound V when they are newborns. That is what gives us superpowers, unfortunately it just kills anyone over a year old. Which is why I have been trying to make a new version that can work for adults.”
Luz looks at the stand, “Which of those is it?”
“Hm? Oh, all of them. Each one is a variant of Compound V that actually granted superpowers to the subject. Sure the test subjects all died shortly afterward but they were all in their late twenties to early forties. You are much younger than that so it shouldn’t be as lethal for you. I’m hoping that by giving you a mix of all thirty-seven marginally successful variations their flaws will cancel each other out.”
“Am I going to die?”
“Probably, but I have to try and I can’t keep you here long enough to find a safe variation.”
“Why? Why do you have to try?”
“Because you deserve to be special. I can feel it in my bones. All my life I’ve only wanted to hurt people, to watch them writhe in agony and despair. But not you, I want the opposite for you, even if I can’t exactly visualize what that entails.”
Luz goes slack, “Go ahead.”
Overload smiles but winces at the despondence in Luz’ expression. “Thank you for cooperating.” Overload inserts the needle into the vein of Luz’ right arm and opens the valve. “I’ll be back to finish the treatment in an hour. If you live, you can be my sidekick, and we can be Heroes together. So please, please, please survive this.” He reaches into the cage to ruffle Luz’ hair then leaves. Luz tries to reach through the bars but her hand runs into a transparent shield. She whimpers in terror as the prismatic swill slowly but surely enters her bloodstream.
Overload steps out of his RV and clutches his chest, trying to calm his racing heart. As much as he hates seeing her look so upset this is a necessary measure. No one has ever made him feel like this before, people draw his ire so easily but this is the first time he has ever loved someone. Wait! No! Luz is a child, he’s not a pedophile! Is he? No, pedophilia is sexual and he doesn’t feel sexual attraction. No this is different, he doesn’t want to use her, he just wants to see her smile at him every day, to look at him with wonder in those beautiful hazel eyes. *BEEP BEEEP* Overload belatedly notices the car barrelling straight toward him and reflexively flings it aside… and straight into a police station. “ON THE GROUND NOW!”
“Goddammit.”
Luz gasps for air and wipes the sweat and tears from her face. She has no idea how long she has been here but she can barely stay conscious. Her blood feels like it is boiling and she can feel her heart rate falling. To counteract her falling heart rate Luz supports herself on her elbow and starts doing suspended leg raises to try and keep herself awake and her heart rate up.
“Just get me out of here ASAP!” She turns off the recording.
“Seven hours ago Overload called Vought Legal from a holding cell in Union.”
“So what am I doing here, Hannah?”
“Overload has been very careful to hide his illegal activities and he has chosen not to confide in us. Whatever he is up to is clearly time sensitive so we want you to bail him out, follow him, and report to us what he has been doing.”
“You want me to narc on my buddy?”
“Cooperate and you’ll receive a hefty bonus. Refuse and we will inform the Mystic Newsletter that you are indeed completely nude.”
“I don’t take bribes.”
“Then we’re done here.”
“Hold it! I’ll do the job. I’ll fold to blackmail, I just don’t want your dirty money soiling my wallet. I’ll go immediately.”
“Wait to post his bail until tomorrow at three pm. We need him frantic enough to be careless.”
“Fine.”
Shit! Shitshitshitshitshit! He should’ve pre-mixed the formulas instead of counting on himself to return in time to stop the infusion. A whole hour was pushing it but it’s been almost thirty! She can only be dead by this point. No! She mustn’t be! Luz must be alive! He already told her the truth so what’s the harm in deluding himself a little? “Hey Overload. Need a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ Card?”
Overload looks up to see a man seemingly made entirely of bronze and an officer reluctantly opening the cell door. “Bronze David? What are you doing here?”
“Vought sent me. They’re gonna handle the settlement. Wanna grab a drink?”
“Later. I have a prior commitment.” Overload slips past Bronze David and sprints out of the police station in too much of a hurry to notice that Bronze David is following him. He barrels into the RV lab and his heart drops when he sees that all 37 IV bags are completely empty. He frantically removes Luz from her bindings. “Please be alive! Please be alive!” He checks her pulse and sighs in relief. “Oh thank god! Strong pulse, steady breathing, complexion is a bit ashen but that should recover quickly.” Overload hugs Luz tightly, “Don’t worry Luz, the hard part is over no-ooww!” Luz is yanked from Overload’s arms and he is punted into the opposite wall.
“Really man? Kids? That’s what you’ve been up to?”
“That’s not what this is!”
“Save it! I wasn’t planning to narc on ya for real but this is crossing the line! I’m calling the police on your ass.” Bronze David holds an arm between Luz and Overload and dials 911. “This is Bronze David, I’m in an RV parked nine miles south from the end of Alistair Dri-.” *Thud* Bronze David’s attention returns to Overload and he sees him laying in a pool of his own blood, unconscious, with four small puncture wounds on his shoulder. He looks down at Luz and dark spots fill his vision as he registers that Luz is currently biting down on his arm. “Uh-oh.” Bronze David topples over, unconscious as well.
“Hello? Sir? Are you still there? Officers are two minutes away.”
Luz continues gulping down Bronze David’s blood, oblivious to the world. It isn’t until something small tears through her head that the fog choking out her thoughts subsides slightly. In her addled state all Luz can make out is shapes and the electricity flowing through them. More of the small fast things rip through her body and she retaliates, lunging at the nearest blue blob and tearing it in half, some start feeding her electricity but others continue hitting her with the small fast things so she keeps fighting back until her body is too damaged to reach the blobs before they back off. Seeing no way to win, Luz runs, ignoring the small things that continue tearing holes through her body until she can’t hear them chasing her anymore. As Luz’ head regenerates her faculties rapidly return to her, now she can identify the small things as bullets, the electricity feeders as tasers, and the blue blobs as policemen. Realizing the danger she is in, Luz resumes running, now following her Dad’s lessons on evading an attacker. Luz continues running for days until she reaches the coast, finding a washed up storage container to hide in.
Hannah storms into the hospital, all she asked for was blackmail on Overload and now she’s in the hole for the medical bills of two Supes, one of which just so happens to be the world’s most inconvenient man to find a blood donor for. She walks straight into the room where Overload and Bronze David are being tended to and when she finds them asleep she uses her airhorn to wake them up. Both supes nearly fly out of bed, “Can either of you explain what the fuck happened? Seven cops got their entrails tossed like a salad and both of you were bleeding out in an unregistered RV.”
Bronze David glowers at Overload, “Sparky here turned out to be a pedophile.”
“I’m asexual jackass!”
“I don’t know what the fuck you were doing with that kid but it really doesn’t matter you’re still going to prison.”
Hannah interrupts them with the airhorn, “No one is going to prison. It has been identified as a hostile alien that attacked unprovoked.”
“No! I gave her powers so she could be my sidekick!”
“Gross.”
“GET YOUR MIND OUT OF THE GUTTER! You know I don’t do sex things!”
“Experimenting on children is way worse.”
“I experimented on adults! She is the culmination of my work!”
Airhorn again, “Sorry doctor frankenstein but your little science project is in the ground, where it belongs.”
“She’s-
“Dead, I called in The Inspector. He notified me of its death two hours ago. If you pull a stunt like this EVER again you’ll be joining it. And David? You should buy yourself a wardrobe, you’ll be needing it.” Hannah leaves, firing the air horn one more time for emphasis.
Tracking the target was pathetically simple. It has followed all of the textbook evasion techniques which are fundamentally worthless when the pursuer is an expert on the subject. The Inspector finds the abandoned shipping crate the target is hiding in and pulls out his tranq gun. Once the target is asleep he can toss it into the acid pool he keeps in his trunk. Based on the reports and his recon the beast only has sharp fangs and rapid regeneration so there is nothing for him to worry about. The Inspector steps into the tilted shipping container, pressing his hand against the wall of the container for balance but he freezes. As he is trying to figure out why he can’t move, the creature crawls around the large pile of computer waste, keeping at least two of its appendages pressed against the container at all times. Everything he knows flashes through his mind at once and time slows to a crawl as he tries to piece together what is happening. As the creature painlessly sinks its teeth into his leg he finally puts it together, consuming the blood of Overload must have granted the creature his electrokinesis. Overload’s electrokinesis is pathetic, he can only utilize pre existing electricity or electricity he has stored. Without a source to draw from… the creature should’ve run out several seconds ago. How is it- the tasers, the officers on the scene tased the creature dozens of times and they must have struck it repeatedly with their electrified batons. Taking everything into account… he was dead the instant he touched the conductive surface of the shipping container. Unless someone interferes with the creature’s hold over his nervous system he is going to die. No one is coming, nobody would ever know to look for him. Worse, the creature’s electrokinesis will allow it to bypass all of the security on his phone and black book. It will be able to deceive Vought into believing it is dead. All of these years gathering dirt on every Supe will go down the drain!
“Thank you for laying out your assets. I’ll be sure to make good use of them.” Darkness overtakes The Inspector’s mind as he dies of blood loss. Luz drags his body into the container and pulls his phone out, confirming her death to Hannah Oleander then resetting the security to work for herself instead. After a few more moments of awkwardly frisking The Inspector while his ankle is still in her mouth she pulls out the device he called his Black Book. The device is four inches wide, seven inches tall, and an inch thick with one of every port known to mankind and a leather flap to cover the touchscreen. She bypasses the thumbprint scan, eyeball scan, voice lock, 11x11 pattern lock, 256 character password lock, combination lock, and biometric lock to access The Inspector’s massive library of corrupt Supes, their misdeeds, and the addresses of safe houses across the country where he has stashed the evidence. Now that nobody is coming for the time being Luz devours The Inspector’s corpse and the tantalizing pile of e-waste she has been too anxious to dive into. To replace the shredded and bloody clothes she discarded Luz puts on the Inspector’s thankfully unblemished trench coat and hat. She lacks the essentials but for the moment she is sufficiently covered. Luz makes her way to the strong electrical signals coming from The Inspector’s suped up 1951 ZiS and uses her electrokinesis to open it up and start it. Luz initially sets the GPS to home but before she enters the address she hesitates. She grabs the Black Book and starts browsing, seeing hundreds upon hundreds of names, each with long lists of crimes and victims. In his final moments The Inspector lamented that this information would go to waste, maybe he had a point. Who would even do anything about this? The government wouldn’t, the Book lists every Supe’s run-ins with law enforcement and Vought’s rapid cover-ups. Vought enables this behavior, even encourages it in many instances so they’ll never stop them. Maybe she could pass this off to someone else but who would she give it to and what could she even expect from them? Realistically, the only one she can guarantee will act on this information is herself. It’s not like she would gain nothing from it either, with every Supe she consumes she can gain some of their powers. However, Luz can’t fight hundreds of Supes on her own. Her regeneration is powerful but she can’t imagine it would endure forever against the power of someone like Homelander. Luz stares absentmindedly at the electricity flowing through the vehicle. Maybe she can make help? Robots that can hunt and kill Supes so that she can take their powers. Electrokinesis, Metal Metabolization, Metallic Skin, Super Senses, and Accelerated Cognition, she can already think of some ways she can use these powers in the manufacture of robots. Luz returns her attention to the Black Book and creates a new folder.
[Operation Kronos]