Running from Himself 2-13

Spaces revolved around their need and those who used them.

That was one of those self-evident things that probably sounded more profound than they actually were. As a person, A-Train had been a newly rich, fame-hungry, drug-using, hip-hop culture loving superhero enjoying the hell out of his twenties. It was for all those reasons that his basement, furnished to hell and back, would probably have deserved at least a small honorary segment on MTV’s Cribs.

An entertainment zone consisting of lounge, wet bar, arcade, dance floor and what you could only technically consider a home theater took up a chunk of the space on its own. Beside that was the gym, literally titled the A-Train Professional Performance Center, which came with its own recovery suite; an entire dedicated wellness area with a Scandinavian-style cedar sauna, a cold-plunge pool for muscle recovery and a massage table, because of course.

Third was, A-Train’s private sanctuary which was, oddly enough, rather restrained in its extravagance, only a quiet corner with a single comfortable lounge chair, a high-end turntable and shelves of records (many of them unreleased), and private pictures of him and his family.

The last part, was of course, the guest wing. Five different fully furnished guest rooms, each one of them the size of at least a high-end hotel room, down to the king-sized beds, smart TVs and mini-fridges. Even with a scant few of A-Train’s memories still kicking around upstairs, he had enough of them to at least recall waking up to find one of the rooms occupied with maybe three to seven different people, each of them with varying levels of killer hangover. So many random girls passed out face-down, man… 

Only the fact that his old self hadn’t been a complete idiot and made sure to stash the girls in one of those rooms before some sick fuck could get handsy had saved him from losing his career even earlier. The life of a celebrity, I guess. 

However, spaces revolved around needs and users and Reggie Franklin needed something different these days. It was for that reason that one of those guest rooms was now a makeshift field hospital doubling as a war room.

Medical supplies he’d had delivered (the real stuff, not the cheap CVS crap) were all neatly arranged on a folding table, a little island of order in the chaos. In the center of the room, on one of those over-large California Kings, lay Little Kim’s brother. 

Kenji.

The twenty-one-year old lay in the bed, as he had been for the last few days, wrists snapped like dry twigs in Stormfront’s too-strong grip. Those hands were splinted and wrapped in gauze, thick and white, looking no different than oversized cotton swabs. 

As fucked up as he was, and he was fucked up with even his face a mess of purple and yellowing bruising, the kid was at least alive. 

More than that, after three days of silence and being spoon-fed Frenchie’s unsurprisingly good soup, the kid was also talking .

Well… he was trying to.

There was only so much they could do between all of them, considering Kimiko could understand but not translate, Frenchie barely knew Japanese as it was, and Kenji was too drugged up on painkillers to even speak the language without slurring it into a mess. 

Slurred Japanese… Reggie shook his head as Kenji let out a slightly pained groan as he shifted in place. Like we could tell the difference.

Either way, with all of them together, it was like a game of multilingual Pictionary only with higher stakes. 

Reggie, however, had one secret weapon.

A dictionary. 

Well, a dictionary and a brain that kinda-sorta-worked on superspeed.

Three days of high-speed cramming, keeping his speed active as he paced around with the book in his face, doing his best to shove as much Japanese in his brain was certainly an idea.

Not the greatest idea though, especially considering the fact that the words and symbols were more a blurry high-speed montage than anything else. It was like trying to drink from a firehose if that made sense; some of it stuck for a while, but most of it just washed away, leaving him with more than one skull-splitting headache and a handful of disconnected nouns.

Ie. House. 

Kuruma. Car. 

Tatakau. Fight. 

At the very least, with the Japanese-to-English dictionary dog-eared in his grip, he was starting to get somewhere.

White Milk and Chocolate Milk had chosen the third day to finally make their way down to the basement, both tall glasses standing off to the side, a notepad in MM’s hand to match Reggie’s dictionary. While the other Black man in the room stayed grim-faced like he was auditing the apocalypse. Hughie just looked only slightly less horrified than usual, face pale as he watched Kimko and Frenchie scuttle around the patient. 

The far corner of the room only had a single occupant, though, with everyone else huddled closer to the bed. William Butcher stood there, the sole member of this team who felt a trenchcoat was suitable wear for every moment of the damn day.

As usual, ever since the argument of three days back, the man hadn’t said much of anything.

Just standing there.

Waiting.

“He says…” Frenchie licked his lips, the man leaning closer as Kenji murmured something else in fragmented Japanese. “He says the name again, Hikari Kagayaku Kaihōgun…”

“Shining Light…” Reggie heard it well enough, his own supe ears more sensitive than most people knew, and his limited knowledge of Japanse did their part in helping him piece the words together. “Liberation Army.” Well… I already knew that much.

“Yeah, we got that part,” MM parroted Reggie’s unvoiced thoughts, the big man not taking his eyes off Kenji for a moment. A smart idea, considering apparently their little demon’s littler brother was strong enough to tear down an entire street without looking. “Mesmer been told us that last year, Frenchie.”

“Non,” Frenchie shook his head, a low hum slipping out ofthe man with the motion. “You do not understand. He says… it is not the group. It is a group. One of… of many.”

Kenji spoke again, a torrent of Japanese that came with half-groans of pain. Kimiko placed a hand on his shoulder, emotional pain clearly not something the regenerator handled as easily as the more tangible kind.

Reggie’s brain scrambled to keep up, catching words in the stream, the flashcards he’d made himself flipping in his memory. Sekaijū. All over the world… A-Train did run it all over the world, but… 

He felt something drop into his gut as pieces began to click in place with a sickening thud. I though they were different. Like… like ISIS and and… shit… what? “He’s saying it’s not just them,” Reggie added his own piece. “The Shining Light… in the Philippines… They're just one franchise. Like a fucked-up McDonald’s. There are others. All over the world.”

Hughie’s eyes went wide. “Wait, like… like Al-Qaeda? But with supes? Holy shit.”

“Oui,” their resident Frenchman whispered. “Exactement.”

MM’s focus didn’t waver, the man able to keep his head on straight past almost everyone else’s surprise. “How many, Frenchie? See if the kids knows somethin’ bout that. Where’s the bases, the command structure? Gimme something I can work with, man.”

Kenji just shook his head, Reggie unable to help his frown as he watched the young man shudder in place, sweat pouring down his face thickening. “They… they take,” Kenji stammered out, broken English coming out in a raw whisper. “Take…us. From… everywhere. Make us… soldiers.”

“And they gave you powers,” Hughie said, his own voice barely a whisper. “With Compound V.”

Kenji nodded, eyes welling up with tears as he looked right down the room to stare at Reggie. A single word in Japanese slipped from his lips, quiet and trembling, but loud like a grenade.

“Aoi.”

Blue.

All eyes in the room — Hughie, Kimiko, Frenchie, Mother’s Milk and of course, the Big Butcher himself — turned his way, Reggie suddenly feeling the spotlight like an old guest spot on The Tonight Show. Oh, here we go. The past, a past that wasn't even his, was coming up to bite him on the ass. 

Again.

“Wait a damn minute,” MM blinked, the big man’s low rumble of a voice oddly quiet as he shook his head. Both thick arms crossed themselves over his RUN DMC shirt before he looked back up at Reggie again. “Kid’s not talking about that red shit on the streets, blue’s the pure stuff. The same V you were running for Homelander, Gee.”

Time to own the dead man’s mistakes.

“Yeah,” he said, sighing off the weight like it was a physical thing as he met MM’s gaze. “Yeah, it was. I been told you, though, this old news, man. I was running the shit worldwide. I ain’t exactly know what for at first but I put two and two together quick enough. Besides, Homelander didn’t mind bragging when he knew I knew snitching meant death.”

“So you are ze one,” the Frenchman breathed out, looking more sad and disappointed than anything even close to angry. “You are ze one who gave zem ze poison.”

Poison’s kinda crazy. Reggie bit down on that, knowing well enough that this room wasn’t exactly the stage to talk up the good parts of V, but calling the greatest leap in genetics in the history of humanity a poison was showing your bias more than a bit.

“That’s…” Reggie’s gaze snapped to the side as a choked sound left Hughie, the team’s beanpole looking halfway to tears. “That’s why… Robin… you were on a delivery when you ran through her, weren’t you? That’s what you were doing.”

There was nothing else to say, nothing to hide behind, the memory of tearing through flesh and bone and blood; a wet balloon of meat bursting against his skin for the split second before the world vanished into pain as A-Train shattered himself against a hydrant and then a wall. It was his last memory as A-Train before he had woken up Reggie, chunks of another life superceding his old one, both merging into this fucked-up whole.

“...yeah.”

“See what I told you, boys. Can’t trust a damn one o’ them. Been shacking up with the fuckin’ delivery boy for the devil ‘imself,” Butcher’s voice finally cut through the room, the man pushing off the far wall with a snarl in his voice and vindication worn like a crown. “While we were out there, gettin’ our hands dirty, you were the corporate cunt doin’ his dirty work. You’re the reason this is all happenin’. You.”

Butcher was one thing, he could ignore the bastard, but Reggie felt something in his chest twist as Lil Kim whipped her head around, locking onto Reggie with a glare so cold it could have frozen hell twice over.

“I didn’t know, man,” he finally shot back, an edge of defensive anger creeping into his voice as he tried to plead his case. It sounded weak, even to him especially when exactly what he didn’t know was flimsy as paper. “I thought… Look, I don’tt know what the hell I was thinking. I was literally a different person then. A-Train, he was…” He shook his head, unable to even explain his situation without sounding crazy. Yeah, I had the same name and all, but I reincarnated into A-Train when he died. That make sense? 

Of course it didn’t.

A low sigh slipped out of Reggie’s mouth, swallowing down his pride before he raised his head to meet everyone’s eyes again. No excuses. “I was a mess, okay. An addict, a sociopath, a fucking loser who thought he was better than everyone else cause Vought shoved a needle in my ass when I was a toddler. Homelander said deliver, I delivered. I didn’t ask questions.”

“Aw, you didn’t ask questions?” The Englishman was a master at weaponizing mock sympathy, sarcasm flowing free like the cheep beer the man drank. “Poor little Mr. A-train, just followin’ orders, was you? Out cashin’ your seven-figure checks and snortin’ God knows what up your nose, all that time on the telly, floggin’ your sob story about findin’ yourself, and you were the one loadin’ the fuckin’ guns the whole time and aimin’ right our way.”

“I told you, I wasn’t me. I didn’t even know he was doing it for this. I just figured the guy wanted his own personal supe army or some shit,” Reggie’s own voice rose, voice going flatter as the patience fled it almost as fast as he could beat feet. “You think Homelander gives his delivery boys the goddamn PowerPoint presentation? It was a package, man! He said take it from A to B, I took it from A to B! That was the job!”

“That was your fuckin’ choice, you filthy fuckin’ wanker!” A finger jabbed itself Reggie’s way with each and every syllable that came roaring out of Billy Butcher’s mouth. “You chose the money, the fame, the cheap fuckin’ thrills over all else! Don’t you stand there and play the victim, you pathetic cunt!”

“Play the victim?” Reggie took a step forward himself, already past his limit when it came to Butcher and tired of pretending it didn’t take the patience of Mother fucking Mary to let this guy stay in his place. “You wanna talk about choices? You were the one just threatening my fuckin’ family. Don’t you talk to me about choices or what’s right, you selfish bastard!”

“Enough!” Hughie’s voice cut through the argument as he stepped right between them, all six-foot-three inches of him a trembling barrier they all knew damn well both men could easily break through. “Both of you, you… need to stop. We need to figure out what next… what our plan’s going to be. Okay?”

“Well, we’re looking at a goodamn supe insurgency armed with Vought’s own product,” Marvin said, the big man pulling focus back to him. “Homelander wanted supes in the military. He’s getting a fucking civil war, more like. Creating the disease so he could sell the cure.”

“But zis Rojo,” Frenchie interjected again, gaze darting between a still-glaring Kimiko to a sighing Reggie. “Monsieur Colibri says he knows nothing of zis. It is… different.”

“Two different kinds of supe-terrorist to worry about?” Butcher cackled, actually cackled like it was the funniest thing he’d heard in a year. “Fan-fuckin’-tastic.”

“More than that, how do we even know shit’s real?” MM asked the question he’d clearly been mulling over. “This red shit could just be a smokescreen for the shit Homelander gave out, you know.”

“Nah… unfortunately, shit’s real.” Reggie confirmed, grateful for something he could actually contribute to as he began to pace in front of Kenji’s sickbed. “V I was running, that was top-tier pharmaceutical grade. Neon-tier Compound V, some high concentration V. About a mil per vial, just to make it.” 

“Jesus,” Hughie hissed out the word like a curse, stunned like he didn’t have his own millions sitting in the bank. Granted, his account was frozen considering he was a fugitive, but even still…

“Yeah, Jesus. It’s about a tier below what they put in the original Seven members, I’m pretty sure,” He wasn’t that sure, but it was his best guess, from what he could remember of some files A-Train had read in Stillwell’s office with super-fast eyes. A-Train was hot-shit and he knew it, especially considering Vought had an in-house valuation for him at around seven fuckin’ billion. 

“This other stuff… this Rojo?” He shook his head slow, turning to meet Marvin’s eyes. “It's a knockoff. Whatever it is, it’s domestic as all hell. Maybe cooked up in a basement bathtub or something. I can tell too, there’s something different about the street-supes. I just feel a whole different… vibe off them.”

“A vibe, is it?” Butcher mocked. “Well, that’s fuckin’ concrete, innit? We can definitely go to war based on your vibes.”

“So Vought isn’t behind the street supes?” Hughie didn’t even look Butcher’s way, outright ignoring the man as he looked at Reggie.

“Nah…” He folded his arms over his chest, half-doubting himself even as he said it. Can’t even give Vought an inch, but this doesn’t… it really doesn’t seem like them. “It’s just way too… chaotic. That’s not Vought’s style. They like their evil organized. Even Homelander worked with actual terrorists. This is just a mess.”

“A mess that’s our fucking problem,” Mother’s Milk finished for him.

Reggie sighed loud as the basement cleared out, everyone heading to their own little section of his mansion. Man, I could really use a beer, the speedster frowned as he milled around his kitchen. And a nap. For like a week.

His phone buzzed in the pocket of his sweatpants, the frown on his face deepening as he pulled it out. Unknown Number. 

Now, who the hell? He had half a mind to ignore it, not really wanting to be bothered, but something made him hit the green button anyway, Reggie putting the phone to his ear. “Yeah?”

“Mr. Franklin. We’ve never had the pleasure of speaking directly before.”

A chill went down his spine that had nothing to do with his air conditioning working overtime.

“Who is this?” he asked, the answer something he already knew.

“My name is Stan Edgar.”