บท 54: The Facility [3]
Homelander landed heavily, his boots sinking into the cracked floor of the containment wing.
His eyes scanned the rows of glass cells, where grotesque, half-formed beings, barely recognizable as human, languished in their artificial prisons.
Limbs twisted into unnatural shapes, eyes glowing faintly in the sterile light—each one a failed experiment, a perversion of life.
As he moved through the corridor, he heard it.
A soft, trembling voice, almost a whisper, breaking the silence.
"Are... are you here to save us Homelander?"
He turned toward the sound. Behind one of the reinforced glass cells stood a grotesque creature—a childlike figure with the body of a twisted wolf.
Its glowing antlers shimmered faintly, casting eerie shadows across its furred face.
The voice was a bizarre mixture of innocence and animalistic fear, high-pitched and uncertain, as if clinging to a thread of hope.
Something in Homelander froze.
The voice... it broke something inside him that he didn't even know was there.
It wasn't just the sight of the creature, but the sound of that desperate question.
It clawed at him in ways he hadn't felt ever—an unexpected strike at the cold walls he'd built within himself.
He didn't answer.
He couldn't.
His vision darkened, his mind clouded by an unfamiliar emotion.
It wasn't rage or disgust.
It was something far deeper, unsettling him to his core.
Without a word, blue flames—cold as death—began to swirl around his body.
They expanded outward, engulfing the entire wing.
But unlike his usual power, these flames didn't burn.
Instead, they froze.
Everything.
The grotesque beings, the monstrous experiments, even the wolf-child with its glowing antlers—all were encased in stasis, preserved in an icy grip.
He had frozen them.
Not to end their suffering, but to pause it.
To buy time and think of it rationally.
Homelander stood there, staring at the rows of frozen creatures, his mind swirling with conflicting thoughts.
He would come back.
He would find a way to deal with them later.
But right now, all he could do was stop everything—just for a moment—because the weight of it all was too much to bear in his already raging mind.
The wolf-child's voice still echoed in his head, as if it had reached into the very fabric of his being and pulled something loose.
Something he wasn't sure he could ever repair.
---
Homelander strode through the final stretch of the facility with an unnatural calm, his very presence lowering the temperature of the surrounding air.
His expression was unreadable, cold like the icy flames he had unleashed before.
Ahead of him, he could sense the last living beings in the compound.
The sterile white room was disturbingly clean, with the figure of a calm scientist standing tall amidst the wreckage of his twisted experiments.
Adam Harkins—the man responsible for all of it.
The mastermind behind the facility. And, in the corner, restrained to the wall, was a girl that looked like Laura Kinney, X-23.
[IMAGE]
Homelander walked toward Harkins with slow, deliberate steps, the silence between them suffocating.
Harkins, surprisingly composed, didn't flinch at the sight of the figure whose rage had wiped out his entire operation.
Instead, he held his ground, speaking in a calm voice that belied the gravity of the situation.
"You don't have to do this," Harkins began, his tone measured. "This girl—you can save her. You're a hero, right? You care about life, about making the world a better place. That's why you're here. "
"...These experiments... they're a means to an end. You understand that, don't you?"
Homelander said nothing, his icy blue eyes locking on the man like a predator sizing up prey.
His pace remained steady, purposeful, until he stood directly in front of Harkins, his towering form casting a shadow over the scientist.
Harkins, still maintaining his composure, continued, as if reasoning would somehow spare him.
"She's a success, you know," Harkins said, gesturing weakly toward X-23. "A breakthrough. You can't throw it all away for a moment of anger. Think of the possibilities, of—"
Homelander's hand shot out, gripping Harkins by the head.
The scientist's words stopped mid-sentence as his body went rigid, his eyes wide with sudden fear.
For the first time, the scientist realized the magnitude of the monster before him.
Homelander's grip tightened, but it wasn't enough to kill. No, he had something far worse in mind.
With a simple thought, Homelander activated his power—New Order. Silent and deadly, the reality around Harkins began to shift.
"You love turning people into monsters, don't you?" Homelander whispered, his voice dripping with cold malice. "Let's see how much you like becoming one yourself."
Harkins tried to speak, tried to beg, but the transformation had already begun.
His skin rippled and contorted, muscles twisting and growing in grotesque shapes as his body warped.
Bones cracked, elongating in unnatural ways.
His human form was ripped away piece by piece, replaced by something unrecognizable—something inhuman.
His screams began, but they were cut short, replaced by gurgling noises as his vocal cords shifted into something unfit for speech.
But Homelander wasn't finished. With every twist of Harkins' body, Homelander wove more rules into his existence.
Every breath Harkins would take would bring him agony.
Every thought, every movement, every blink of an eye would result in searing pain.
His very existence was a prison of endless suffering—an unrelenting torment from which there would be no escape.
"You wanted to create monsters," Homelander murmured, his voice cold and detached. "Now, you'll live as one. Forever."
Harkins' new form—an abomination beyond recognition—collapsed to the floor, writhing in endless pain.
His screams were no longer human, a twisted cacophony of agony and despair.
But no matter how much he writhed, no matter how much he begged for release, there would be no death for him.
Homelander had ensured that. Harkins' soul was cursed, trapped in a body that would know nothing but Eternal suffering.
Not even death would come to his soul.
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