MHA: I Am Homelander

The city glowed below in neon and steel as Hawks stepped through tall double doors into a spacious office, sleek and modern, lit only by the faint hum of city light pouring in through massive glass windows.

Behind a black desk, a woman sits in a leather chair, facing the windows. Her blonde hair is slicked back, her tailored suit crisp. Wrinkles crease the edges of her sharp eyes—eyes that stay fixed on the horizon.

Hawks remains silent at first before speaking shortly after.

"You made a move. Without me."

She doesn't move.

"I gave you a job," she says flatly. "Recruit the boy into the ANBU. You failed."

"We talked about this," Hawks replies. "He's not like me. Not like the others. He's too old to undergo the process we did. Forcing him now would break him...mentally. It'll ruin him."

The woman rises and turns, slow and deliberate. Her face is elegant, worn by authority. She walks around the desk with quiet control.

"Be that as it may," she says, "He has strength, speed, heat vision. Now flight. He set a new record during the exam—and that isn't even taking into account the time he spent day dreaming before that."

"Then there's the ANBU agent. StopWatch. One of our best. Sent to test him. And yet he was neutralized."

"Let me guess," Hawks says. "You're next step is to blackmail him with it. Despite him clearly sending you a message?"

She doesn't respond.

"He can send all the messages he wants. Think about it, when next do you expect for a boy with multiple Quirks like this to appear?" Her words slowly grew more intense.

"That's the problem. You're so blinded by your greed that you can't even ask yourself the important questions. Like why the boy has manifested multiple Quirks so late and if there's more to this than we think."

"I have. I just know how best to organize my priorities. Clearly you don't. With the state of Japan at the moment...I just have to be the one to take that risk."

Hawks stared as the female tilted her head a few seconds later.

"Is this empathy I'm seeing from you?" She asked, finally looking him dead in the eye.

"You told me to bring him to our side, and I will," Hawks says. "My way. The boy is my priority now."

She gives a slight nod, then walks back toward the window, voice calm.

"All I know is that the boy might just be what we need, the next All Might in fact. And I'm going to use them. If we're going to save this country, we'll need more than morals."

Hawks remained silent.

"He's my priority," he repeats.

She glances over her shoulder.

"And if I go behind your back again?"

He doesn't answer with words. His stare says everything. She holds it for a moment, then lets out the smallest smirk.

"You really are a hero before everything else," she says. "But tell me, Hawks—do you really believe that boy is more important than the entire state of Japan?"

No reply. Just the soft thud of doors closing behind him, her eyes growing more intense once more as spoke.

"Who's the blind one now?"

It was night.

Dust drifted lazily through slits of broken light as Loid adjusted a nozzle, twisting it slowly until a faint hiss escaped.

Around him, rusted pipes, tools, wires, and bits of tech were scattered like the remains of a broken promise.

The abandoned warehouse groaned with age. Equipment surrounded him on every side—some stolen, some paid for—but all earned through months of meticulous effort.

This place had become his personal sanctuary. He didn't need sleep, not since his powers awakened, so every night, as soon as Kazuo shut his eyes, Loid came here.

To the silence. To the hum of circuits and the weight of his thoughts.

All for one thing.

He pulled out a small vial—a clear fluid, faintly glowing. He stared at it for a long moment.

"Ten months. I did it." he muttered.

At that moment, Loid bent his legs, then propelled himself into the air with a BOOM, the cracked pavement beneath his feet splintering further as he launched into the sky.

The skyline trembled in his wake—fractured glass, collapsed ledges, all scars from past exits.

He flew at blistering speeds over the cityscape, the wind battering his skin to no effect.

His eyes stayed wide, enhanced irises scanning everything below like a hawk on steroids.

Then he saw them—two thugs lurking in a narrow alley.

One had grotesquely enlarged eyeballs; the other, short curved goat horns jutting from his forehead.

Both were locked in on a woman fumbling for her car keys a few feet away, their twisted intentions practically dripping from their smirks.

"I know that look," Loid said, voice echoing as he descended silently behind them.

"The 'let's ruin someone's night' kind of look. All you common thugs are the same."

They spun. "Who the hell—?"

However, the two thugs stared at the boy who leisurely stood with his hands in his pockets, expression bland as if he was almost bored.

In that time, the female was able to get into her car and peel off into the night.

"What the hell, man?!" the horned one growled. "Eyeball! You let her get away!"

"The fuck you mad at me for? I have better eyesight, yeah," the eyeball thug snapped. "Not freakin' foresight!"

"This is on you, kid," the horned one said, jabbing a finger at Loid. "You cost us our score. You better pay up before I cut your tongue out."

Loid raised both hands mockingly. "Ohhh nooo."

A beam of red light burst from his eyes, searing through the eyeball thug's right shoulder. The man dropped with a howl, clutching the scorched mess of flesh.

The horned one looked down in shock—then back up, just in time to see Loid directly in front of him.

CRACK

A casual backhand sent the thug spinning, his neck twisting unnaturally before he collapsed like a broken doll.

Loid crouched beside the brute who was writhing in pain and jabbed a syringe of clear fluid into his neck. Not a full dose. Just enough.

He stepped back, arms folded, watching as the man's body twitched. Pupils dilated. Muscles bulged. Bones cracked audibly.

"Hm. Promising," Loid muttered. "Unlike the regular Compound V, there seems to be no high risk of death after the serum enters the bloodstream."

Then the downed eyeball thug stirred. His sockets throbbed. The wound on his shoulder visibly stitched itself together. Loid narrowed his eyes.

"Accelerated healing, good."

The thug roared, launching himself off the ground at speeds impossible for a regular human, fist swinging wide.

Loid leisurely swayed out of the way, moving just enough for the attack to brush past him, eyebrows raised and pinching his chin.

He blocked the second punch and nodded.

"Strength and speed enhancement confirmed."

He nodded in approval, leaping up as the thug followed. 

"Not bad. You're doing good. You're a worthy guinea pig..." 

However, Loid paused as he watched the thug's body began to betray him before he could throw another attack.

His muscles spasmed, liquefying under the skin. Bones softened, turning to mush. He collapsed, gurgling, his insides breaking down into pulp, soon hitting the ground again with a sickening THUD.

Loid sighed. "2 minutes and 33 seconds."

He spoke, floating forward as he grabbed the thug, a few drops of blood smearing onto his hand as he grimaced.

He wiped his bloody hand on the corpse's shirt, or maybe it was his chest. Who knew, both had the same feel at this point as he then hurled the ruined body into the air—so far it vanished into the night sky.

The other thug followed seconds later, flung in the opposite direction like trash.

Then, without a word, Loid lifted off again, streaking back toward his abandoned building and arriving a short while later.

"Ten months...Ten months for this crap."

He tossed what was left of the vial onto the table.

It didn't break. Just landed with a quiet clink that echoed through the space.

He exhaled as he rubbed his forehead.

"Would've taken longer if I hadn't stolen HMX-11 from HeroTech."

His eyes narrowed.

HMX-11.

A mega accelerant, in this case, a combat stim designed for Pro Heroes.

A failed prototype buried by HeroTech after it proved too unstable—its effects dangerous, unpredictable.

It was meant to enhance specifics of one's Quirk. For example, Enhanced Strength would become super, Healing would turn into Regeneration and so on. 

It simply enhanced what was already there.

Though seen as a failure, it intrigued Loid.

And because it was a failure, between asking questions and snooping, it was easy for Loid to get enough information to know where to start, considering he and Kazuo were given quite a bit of freedom in that building.

It shared too many similarities to the version of Compound V he'd seen in his dreams. Too many to ignore.

Now, it was no longer HMX-11. Not really.

But that was no where near enough. He had reworked it from the ground up. All he had was a vague map.

So, he studied biochemistry until it made his brain throb.

Learned gene therapy, cellular manipulation, neural adaptation. Dug deep into the medical archives, crossed lines no student should be able to cross.

He wasn't just smart anymore. He was dangerous.

And...he did it.

He perfected HMX-11, or Compound V1 as he now called it.

Not only was it a mega accelerant that enhanced, but it now enhanced natural traits of the human body, not just what one specialized in.

Strength. Speed. Durability. Reflexes. It worked. It pushed the human body further than anyone imagined.

But...it came at a cost. Strain. Risk. Pain.

Because the Serum was based off a Mega Accelerant, it moved and worked through the body far faster than the human anatomy could handle, soon leading to death as he'd seen with the thug.

And even then, it still lacked the one thing he needed.

The superpower given to all those who had Compound V running through their veins.

He stared down at the vial again, bitter.

What he had...was a perfected version of a failure. A better failure.

It wasn't enough.

He dragged a hand down his face.

"So what now?" he asked the silence.

The more he worked and learned, the more he felt like he was chasing shadows. Dreams....well, he literally was, but he really felt it now.

He didn't even know if Compound V could be created, all he had to go off was a world he wasn't sure even existed.

A world where the only reason he hadn't forgotten about it was because shared so much with Homelander.

Everything he knew—everything he had—was either stolen or built from fragments he barely understood. HeroTech data. Scattered notes. Bootlegged tech. Half-truths and buried research. None of it should've gotten him this far.

But it did.

"What to do..."

He eyed the sky, his mind playing tricks on him as the clouds formed a face.

Daiki.

"Do I give HeroTech and Daiki the Kiyoshi treatment?"

He shook his head almost instantly.

"No. Not yet. Me and Kazuo still need them. They've got too useful for us that I shouldn't do anything to jeopardize that...well, not yet. I do have a clear plan for them after all."

He slumped into the chair, rubbing his temple. He was running out of time. Resources. Motivation.

Social media fame didn't pay for much—not the kind of work he was doing. And school? That was about to begin.

"One week left," he muttered. "Until the U.A. results come in and I enroll. Then the real game starts."

He reached into his pocket as he pulled out a folded piece of paper.

He stared at it.

"Thought I'd ignore this," he murmured. "But maybe... maybe this is exactly what I need right now."

The paper trembled slightly between his fingers as he unfolded it. The words written inside caught the light.

***

~Four days later~

A ruined building stood silent beneath the night sky, its roof half-caved in, shattered concrete and broken support beams littering the floor like bones of a long-dead beast. 

The silence broke as two figures stepped into the ruined space, boots crunching over gravel and glass.

The first was a bald man whose eyes remained hidden beneath the thick shadow of his brow, a plain surgical mask stretched over his mouth and nose. 

The second wore a filthy white pillowcase over his head, holes cut crudely for his bulging eyeballs, the makeshift mask tied tight at the neck with fraying rope.

Between them, slumped forward with his arms bound behind his back, was a ragged man in a bloodstained white shirt, his face obscured by a cloth sack. 

His legs dragged, his body mostly carried by the two men who laced their arms around each of his.

They stepped through the rubble-strewn hall, finally approaching a man seated casually atop a crumbled pillar. 

One elbow rested on his raised knee, the other hand toying with the cuff of a brown fur-trimmed coat. 

A beaked plague-style mask obscured the lower half of his face, and a pair of cold, calculating eyes peered from beneath tousled reddish-brown hair. 

Around them, a half-dozen more stood still in the shadows, forming a loose circle. The two escorts shoved their prisoner forward, and he landed hard in the dust and rubble.

"Here he is, sir," said the bald one.

The man on the pillar didn't move at first. Then, calmly, he said, "Take it off."

The sack was yanked away.

The dim light revealed a young man—blonde hair, messy and matted with sweat, blue eyes narrowed with confusion. 

His gaze scanned the room, the strange figures, the crumbling walls, not to familiarise himself with his surroundings, but his expression looked more like he was double checking for certainty. 

Then finally, he locked onto the man in the mask.

Silence.

Then, before anyone could say anything, the boy spoke.

"…Who the hell are you?"