Live Broadcast

Homecrest, Brooklyn, New York. A disguised digital satellite news-gathering van sat parked at the curb in a predominantly Southeast Asian neighborhood, while the director inside ran final checks. "All cameras, audio, engineering, and crew, report status!" "Camera One ready!" "Drone Two ready!" "Audio feed normal!" "Uplink on hot standby!" "...Bronze?" "Wind's a bit heavy up here. Boost my mic volume... yeah, ready to move whenever you are." "All systems go. Quiet on set." "Ten-second countdown. Ten, nine, eight... three, two, one, action!" The moment the countdown hit zero, Vought Television, Vought Online, Vought Streaming, Vought Short Video, and major social media feeds abruptly cut away to a one-minute promotional video. "We are under attack!" A voiceover rang out, dripping with terror. Transoceanic Flight 37 hijacked by terrorists; passengers (actors) trembling at gunpoint; a little girl tearfully clutching her teddy bear... a barrage of harrowing images flashed across the screen. "Who will save us?" The scene shifted. Passengers praying in sheer panic; snarling terrorists roaring at innocent hostages; the little girl bawling her eyes out; NORAD issuing frantic orders; F-22s scrambling skyward. "But all hope was lost." Wreckage from the plane washed ashore on the waves; the teddy bear lay motionless on the sand; F-22s circled uselessly high above; a NORAD spokesperson stood before the cameras, repeating that same worn-out refrain: "We did everything we could." "Who CAN save us?!" The voiceover surged with impassioned fury. Portraits of Homelander, Queen Maeve, Starlight, Deep Sea, and a host of other Vought superheroes flashed past in rapid succession. Finally, the frame froze on Qi Li's youthful face. A rapid-fire montage of the previous night's pier battle unfolded. Backed by the narrator's dramatic exposition, scene after scene of Qi Li mercilessly striking down terrorists with sword blow after sword blow burned into the minds of countless viewers. At the climax of the promo, the last surviving member of Shining Light (an actor) cackled hysterically: "So what if you kill us? We won't back down! Cut down one wave, and another will rise! We will cross the ocean in endless tides, marching right here until your homeland is reduced to ashes!" Qi Li calmly raised his sword, pointing the tip straight at the screen, and replied flatly, "Then we will wipe you out to the last man." With that, his blade swept down! "NO COMPROMISE!" "Vought Pay-Per-View is broadcasting live right now: Bronze in the hunt for the Shining Light terrorist leader!" The Vought International logo flashed at the end of the clip. A second later, the feed seamlessly cut to the live scene. Boom! Clad in his blue-and-gold battle suit, Qi Li dropped out of the sky with overwhelming force, landing dead-center before the lens. "Is this live?!" "Whoa! We're actually watching a superhero bust criminals in real time!" "It's Bronze! That's so sick!" "Wipe every last one of those damn terrorists out!" "Relax, Bronze is on the job. This guy is a beast..." In the Vought Pay-Per-View chat room, comments flooded past like a raging torrent, scrolling far too quickly for anyone to read. In under a minute, millions of viewers had poured into the stream—and this was only the opening, during regular work hours no less. Terrorists, superheroes, Bronze, combined with that ruthless, decisive combat footage—the formula was practically engineered to detonate internet traffic. Wearing a cold, hardened expression, Qi Li glanced sideways at cameraman Joseph, who was lugging the camera while clad in a steel helmet and flak jacket. Without a word, Qi Li kicked straight out, blowing the heavy iron rolling shutter clean off its tracks. With a deafening crash, he strode boldly toward the run-down, two-story factory building across the yard. Vought knew full well that the viewers tuning in right now wanted one thing: terrorists dying in pools of blood. Any filler or pointless chatter would only test their patience. So they cut straight to the chase. Through on-screen text graphics, every viewer watching the stream already understood that this factory was the hideout of Shining Light's local leader. Bronze had eliminated a cell of terrorists overnight, and here he was this morning, pursuing them relentlessly without missing a beat. A true superhero! Protecting their safety around the clock. Naturally, there were dissenters. "Well, well—is our favorite 'idol' putting on a little reality show? Round up some poor gangbangers and slap terrorist labels on them or something?" Inside a covert safe house, Butcher watched the live television broadcast, sneering with his customary malice toward anything involving Vought and superheroes. Hughie, having gained a different impression of Bronze, was about to speak up. Beside them, the sudden, violent rattling of chains broke out. He turned his head. Kimiko was glaring intently at the television screen, straining her entire body forward as if desperate to leap straight into the broadcast. Back when Frenchie let Kimiko go, Butcher and his crew had kept looking for her, convinced that this Asian female superhuman was deeply entangled with Compound V. That search led them to discover A-Train interrogating her. So they had hurled a bottle of high-concentration halothane his way. A-Train had inhaled a couple of lungfuls before he knew what hit him and stumbled off in a daze. Kimiko had become their prize instead. Yet because the Asian woman couldn't speak and was ferociously violent, they had no choice but to keep her chained up for now. Frenchie, who cared the most about Kimiko, walked over and asked gently, "What's wrong?" Kimiko merely stared unblinkingly at a Southeast Asian man appearing on the screen. She recognized him—he was a member of Shining Light. "Fuck! Who the hell are you?" Gun in hand, Jacob barely had time to raise his weapon toward the arriving Qi Li and cameraman Joseph before a dark streak whipped through the air with a sharp whistle, punching straight through his chest. He died on the spot. Striding past him, Qi Li casually pulled his bronze sword from the man's chest. Pointing the tip down, he let the warm blood run along the fuller, and pressed forward. At the same time, ticker text scrolling along the bottom of the stream quickly outlined Jacob's identity, prompting viewers to erupt in cathartic cheers and applause. "Badass—" "Fuck yeah! This is so damn exciting!" "Kill every last one of those sons of bitches!" "Bronze looks so hot pulling out that sword..." Bam! Qi Li kicked the warehouse door to splinters. Joseph was about to poke the lens inside— —when Qi Li reached out and yanked him back. The next second— Bang! Bang! Bang! A hail of bullets poured furiously from inside the doorway. Qi Li stepped directly in front of Joseph. Bullets pelted his blue-and-gold battle suit like a rainstorm, yet he didn't budge an inch. Just then, Drone Two zipped overhead and darted inside. With an agile sweep, it brought the snarling faces of the Shining Light terrorists—surrounding the entrance with assault rifles and handguns—into crisp, unmistakable focus for everyone watching the stream. Now, even the fiercest skeptics had no grounds to question the legitimacy of this raid. After all, what law-abiding Southeast Asian civilian would hoard this much ordnance and lay down blanket suppressive fire at a moment's notice?