As convenient as the puppeting flight was—he needed a better name for it—it did nothing to prevent Mason from being launched back when the person slammed into him.
His grip on the door is what saved the day. Though he’d been turned into a flag waving in the wind by the collision, he maintained a strong hold on the guy and managed to pull both of them in.
His luck turned out to be good as no one else flew out during this period. This gave him the needed confidence to thrust himself into the plane with a brief burst of tightly controlled jets, their ephemeral presence providing enough force to bring the two of them in.
The environment of the interior differed drastically from that of the plane’s exterior. However he had no time to take in said differences. Speed was of the essence.
So he immediately set the guy down and looked around. Scores of eyes, old and young—all filled with fear and uncertainty—bored into him with intensity he almost took a step back.
Thankfully, the people, or in this case, the person he was looking for stood out like a sore thumb. Everyone else was strapped to their seats while he stood in the walkway between the two seat groupings, eyes wide like he’d seen a ghost.
The stark difference struck Mason right there and the world slowed to a crawl at his mental command.
If the passengers are strapped to their seats, then why did that guy fly out?
He spun around at super speed to find the guy still on the floor. Only now he had his mouth wide open, a long black tongue the width of a pipe flying from the depths of his… throat?
His head was the target of this disgusting attack, no doubt about it. However, the appendage moved with such speed that the only reasonable reaction he could mount was to tilt his head a bit.
That amounted to nothing when the tip of the tongue hit the right lens in his mask, punched it in, and knocked his entire head back.
Fighting through the flinch and the plethora of pointless emotions and thoughts clamoring for his attention, Mason ignored the cracks blocking his right side and shot an arm up.
He caught the tongue before it fully retracted, resisting the urge to pull it out and probably end the guy. Rather, he maintained a grip on it and flashed to the guy’s side, ignoring the latter’s panicked pleas and desperate hand waving.
BAM!
A straight punch to the face knocked him out and slackened the tongue in his grip, the long, sinuous thing becoming discomforting to hold all of a sudden.
Grateful for the gloves, Mason stood up and faced the hijacker in the walkway again.
A sobbing air hostess now stood in front of him unwillingly, the finger gun he’d placed on her temple and his arm around her neck keeping her still.
Mason narrowed his eyes, casting his gaze across every inch of visible space to get a good understanding of what was happening.
It was then he noticed the corpses. Several people including another hostess and passengers lay in pools of blood.
Why? Why kill the hostages? Did they not intend to leave this place alive? What could possibly be the plan here?
A shout in a language he neither recognized nor understood came his way. The terrorist kept motioning to the open cabin door with his head, presumably asking him to get out.
Mason went toward it and instead of jumping out, closed it instead. The shouts got louder and more intense, but he simply raised his hands above his head and pulled off the mask, dropping it.
“You don’t have to do this.”
More shouts he didn’t understand. Something told him this lack of understanding wasn’t the same for the guy.
“Let her go.” He said and cranked down his weight. It would boost his speed only a tiny bit but he’d take it any day.
“GET OUT!” The guy, finally tired of his obstinance, screamed with heavily accented English.
“I can’t do that!” Mason screamed in response.
With an air of cruel resignation, the terrorist looked him straight in the eye and said something, but he was already moving by then.
For someone who could run a mile in 5 seconds, a meter was nothing. Especially when you factored in his reduced weight. Yet, by the time Mason reached the terrorist and his hostage, a line of crimson was already flying from the woman’s temple.
Angry, dumbstruck and confused all at the same time, he thrust his palm straight into the supe terrorist’s face, flattening his nose with a crunch and throwing him off the woman.
He flew all the way back and slammed back first into the door leading to the cockpit.
Meanwhile, Mason caught the hostess mid fall, shivering with rage as he checked her pulse and found it dwindling to nothing. The world spun off its axis the more he cradled her, but he forced himself to focus.
‘Remember the mission.’ He recited like a mantra over and over.
Carrying the woman over to an empty seat like she weighed a million tonnes, he strapped her in, the heat in his chest rising when her head fell forward limply.
With great effort, he directed his rage and attention at the hijacker. He was on knees, struggling to get up. Yet when he sensed someone closing in on him, he waved his fingers in the person’s direction, making repeated slashing motions.
As the target of these attacks, Mason finally understood the nature of the terrorist’s powers when his ultra durable suit got sliced in multiple places. Same for the curtains and walls around him.
He touched the edges of the cuts on his suits but maintained his stride till he reached the guy.
There were no questions asked, just a kick to the side of the head, one that bounced the piece of shit’s head off the cockpit door and dropped him in a heap.
Just to be certain and certainly backed by a storm of vindictiveness, Mason crushed both of his hands with hard stomps before focusing on the door.
A slight shove broke something and forced it open. It hit someone on the other end—the hijacker holding the pilot hostage—he noticed upon entering.
Unlike his friends, this one held a gun, one he immediately raised to fire when the door hit him in the face and knocked him back. A thin line of blue cut through the firearm and its front half dropped to the floor.
While he stared at the incredulous scene, a straight knife chop to the throat crushed his windpipe and a slap knocked him and some his teeth out.
Grabbing him like a garbage bag, Mason pulled the unconscious terrorist off the dead pilot, resisting the urge to lash out. Instead, he gave his attention to the person he’d just saved.
“Are you injured? Are you alright?”
The pilot took off his headphones with shaky hands. “N–no. I’m–I’m… fine. Wait, who are you?”
“I’m here to save…” The dead hostess flashed past his mind. “I’m here to help.”
“Well…” The pilot took his eyes off his dead partner with great difficulty. “Thank you. Those guys wanted us to reach land as soon as possible.”
“Why?”
“Dunno. But they’re terrorists. What they want isn’t hard to guess.”
Mason gave the other pilot a hard look, staring at the dried blood staining his uniform and the cut on his neck. It was so clean and deep that it almost took his head clean off.
His chest rose even more at the sight and the flame demanded it be let out. With a few deep breaths, he held back the murderous urges and left the cabin, dragging the gunman and the slasher supe on his way back to the common area.
Immediately he emerged, he found himself in a minefield of stares, questions and even a few phones. Thai was too much, so he silenced everything with a raised hand.
“Everything’s going to be okay.”
He wanted to smile, but he just couldn’t find it in him to do it. By his count, eight people had died. This included the hostess he got killed. However, he understood the importance of calm in a situation like this.
“The pilot has reassumed control of the plane and the terrorists have been dealt with. Now please, if you’ll all remain seated, I need to secure them so they don’t cause anymore trouble. This way we can all get home safe. Am I understood?”
The little nods and responses of assent got him moving again. He didn’t get far before he got stopped by a hand grab on his forearm.
“Thank you. Thank you so much.”
It was a dad and his little girl.
He deflated as some of the heat left him.
“You saved us.” Another person on the other side said, drawing his gaze. This time, he found not just a person, but multiple of them staring at him with smiles and their phones up.
More and more people began to rise from their seats, each one offering words of gratitude. They clamored around him and soon he heard clapping.
That’s when he decided he’d had enough and resumed what he’d been doing; securing the terrorists.
When he reached the tongue guy, he tossed the slasher on his shoulder before bending down to pick him up. Totally unencumbered by the weight, he reached the end of the walkway and crossed the doorway into a tiny, closed off space.
The clapping faded to nothing and he set the three of them down before dropping to the floor himself to lean against the wall. To make sure they’d be no problem if they woke up, he broke their arms and legs before relaxing completely.
They were supes. They’d be fine.
Just when he deployed heat sense, leaned back and closed his eyes, Rayner’s voice crackled in his ear.
He’d forgotten about the comms again.
.
.
.
.
Of all the things Maeve expected to find when she entered the hijacked plane, the kid who came back from the dead certainly wasn’t one of them.
He must’ve heard the cabin door open and the wind rush, which is why he came out of where he was hiding, his intent clear as day. Just like her and Homelander, he was here to save the passengers. Only he’d beaten them to it.
Homelander wasn’t going to like that. She needed to get ahead of this.
Sparing a glance around, she smiled back at the plethora of faces preening in excitement, deftly ignoring the discomfort so many cameras gave her.
“You. What are you doing here?” That was a voice she and everyone else on the plane knew all too well.
She spun to face Homelander, hoping the kid would be wise enough to keep his mouth shut and leave it to her.
“I stopped the hijackers.” Mason decided simple and short would suffice.
Vought had proven they had more brazenness than brains. He wouldn’t put it beyond them or Homelander to sacrifice this whole plane if it could maintain their image or boost their agenda.
Maeve stepped up to Homelander and conferred with him while the huge manchild engaged in a staring contest with the kid. She’d seen that look in his eyes before. They almost always produced red lines of death towards the object of his wrath.
There were many obvious questions both parties wanted to ask. For instance, both wanted to know how the other got wind of this news so quickly.
Mason had the C.I.A. in his corner, while the Superman and Wonder Woman over here had a corporation that had proved time and time again to be too big for its britches.
It wouldn’t surprise him at all if they had sources in some if not all governmental bodies. Copious amounts of money was a superpower all on its own.
After a period of deliberation where even the passengers had begun to hold their breath, Homelander scoffed loud enough for him to hear and turned away. “I’m going to check on the pilot.”
His walk down the aisle generated a much more animated and joyous reaction than Mason’s. The latter could hear the smile in the man’s voice as he spread his arms wide and soaked in the veneration.
He even said cringe things like “No you’re the brave one,” “You’re the real heroes,” like he actually meant it. How is it possible the people could not hear how fake it sounded?
Mason wanted to hurl. He wanted to get as far away from these people and this place. However, he also didn’t get into this line of business to be comfortable, so he sucked it up and took out his phone.
Back in the sanctity of his little corner, he kicked one of the hijackers in the head when he noticed the guy shifting into consciousness. That made him recheck the others, confirming that they were indeed out for the foreseeable future.
Now that an enemy supe with super hearing had entered the mix, talking over the comms was just asking for trouble. That’s why he resorted to texts, updating Rayner on the situation since the arrival of Vought’s poster boy and girl had cut them off earlier.
The deputy director expressed surprise at their presence. Her strongly worded warnings about not pissing off Homelander swiftly followed and he okayed them. She didn’t need to tell him twice.
He closed the messaging app and brought up the timer. He’d forgotten to ask the pilot but Rayner had come through. It would take about two hours for the plane to arrive at its destination.
Two hours with the enemy and about a hundred vulnerable civilians. No pressure.
Far away at the opposite end of the plane, Homelander finished chatting with the excited and grateful pilot, tapping the man on the shoulder before leaving to join Maeve outside.
Before he said anything, his fellow supe waved at him to wait and leaned closer to the cockpit’s door. Curious, he looked back and heard the pilot radioing someone, informing them about him and Maeve’s presence.
That’s what she wanted to hear?
Oblivious of her leader’s inner thoughts, the heroine motioned with her head for him to follow. They entered a corner and he beat her to it this time, venting his frustrations.
“You should’ve let me kill him. We could say it was a mistake. That we thought he was one of the terrorists.”
Maeve chose her words carefully. “After, he saved everyone?”
“Ugh!” Homelander waved her reasoning aside and turned, hands on his waist. “How did he know about this anyway? How did he get here?”
“I don’t know. The government maybe? We know they don’t want us in the military.”
“And what? They want him? He’s–he’s-he’s a kid. Some wet behind the ears supe. He’s nothing. I’m the Homelander. You’re Queen Maeve. We’re The Seven.”
“Well, he did expose Compound V to the world and give Vought a permanent black eye. And The Seven isn’t the Seven anymore. Remember?”
“Hm. Translucent.” Homelander stopped pacing and interlocked both hands behind him. He looked through the wall, deploying his X-Ray vision all the way till he could see Mason.
“You think that’s why Edgar wants him?” He asked, thinking of the man whose status in Vought was no smaller than his own, despite having none of the power or fame.
“Well.” Maeve started opening the cupboards and drawers in the little kitchenette they found themselves in. “They did try to kill him.”
“They didn't do a good enough job.”
“I know what you’re thinking. Don’t. It’s too risky. If he survives again somehow, we’re done for. Okay?”
Homelander stared at the red haired heroine before snorting and looking elsewhere, sweeping his cape into his arms so he could sit down.
Buffeted on all sides by the pressure of juggling this man-baby, the boredom awaiting them, and sheer sobriety, Maeve swung a top drawer open and offered profuse thanks to God at the sight of the wine bottles.
She grabbed one, yanked the cork off and took a long swig. As for offering Homelander a bottle or even a drink; it never once crossed her mind. Killing people was fine, but alcohol and drugs was where he drew the line.
What a special fucking kind of nutcase.