Chapter Text
There's no sacrifice too great.
At least, there isn't for Billy Butcher.
When he has a goal, he's willing to sacrifice anything to achieve it, even Terror.
He once had a mission, and he completed it. His conscience considers this a problem, because the mission was given to a combat team, and he was the only one to complete it.
The bodies of his comrades were left there forever; Billy hadn't listened to his conscience for years, so that old bitch shut up long ago.
So, he once had a mission, and he completed it. Period.
This new task required many years of his life, significant risks, complex planning, titanic persistence, and cost hundreds of lives.
All those unimportant ones who merely helped the wrong side a little, who suffered on the periphery of William's confrontation with Homelander.
Billy loves to give the team pompous speeches about justice for the victims, about liberation from the main evil... empty talk, even if it sounds good. He doesn't have to lie to himself.
In reality, he doesn't give a shit about the victims.
He doesn't care much about Frenchy's death. It doesn't affect him.
Here's the ugly truth: he gets pleasure from beating up Homelander.
He even gets a hard-on at the sight of the bloody blonde slut pitifully crawling on her knees before him, but it's not hard enough for Billy to listen to her dying whine.
Homelander's death is his goal, and today it will finally be achieved.
Not for the world.
For Billy Butcher's personal triumph.
"It's for Frenchy!" He's lying, but it sounds powerful. As they say, it's on point.
He delivers a series of hard blows until Homelander falls, still whining pitifully.
William doesn't pay much attention to the dying cries of the would-be god.
He finds and picks up the crowbar and walks toward his victim.
"...You can't do this to me. I'm... I'm... Homelander!"
"No," Billy protests. "You're nothing. And this... this is for my Becca."
The mention of his dead wife evokes only a brief emotional response in William. The emotion vanishes before it can take shape.
"No... no..."
Billy raises the crowbar and strikes him in the head.
Homelander's gaze freezes.
The body falls to the side, lifeless, dead.
That's it.
Goal achieved.
A winner doesn't feel like a winner.
He feels as gutted, as broken, as empty... as hollow as a clay bowl set out to collect drinking water in the desert, empty, parched to the point of cracking, unable to hold water even if it were to one day receive it.
A shattered vessel, a shell of a man...
He nods slowly to his men.
MM, Starlight, and Hughie, who have arrived, help Kimiko to her feet.
The next moment, the room is illuminated by a searing crimson light, blindingly bright, hot, like the flame in the heart of a neutron star that has outlived its endless life. Now, what once gave light is turning into a black hole.
A singularity, it will feed on suns...
Such associations flash through Billy's mind as a single, continuous crimson glow blazes before his eyes.
And then he feels PAIN.
He has never experienced such pain in his life.
When Billy's vision returns, he sees the corpses of his comrades all around him, in the ruins of what can no longer be called an office. Not just unconscious bodies, but dismembered bodies and pools of blood beneath them.
What he sees leaves no doubt that none of the team survived.
Billy himself lies surrounded by hot red liquid, unable to move.
The last thing he sees is a figure hovering ominously in the air, its eyes glowing red so brightly it's painful to look at.
The revived Homelander holds Ryan's head in his hand.