The first sensation was the pain. It was a rhythmic throb at the base of my skull, like someone was driving a railroad spike into my cerebellum with a metronome. It was the dry mouthed misery of a hangover that usually followed a night of tequila and bad decisions, yet my memory banks were coming up empty. No neon lights, no burning throat, no taste of lime and regret. Just a blank where the last few hours of my life should have been.
The second sensation was touch, and it was confusingly luxurious.
The fabric against my skin wasn't the scratchy polyester blend of my IKEA duvet. It was silky, cool, liquid, and obscenely soft. It felt like sleeping inside a cloud that cost more than my tuition. I lay still, afraid that moving would shatter the illusion or spike the headache, trying to claw back a memory.
Nothing. It was like trying to catch smoke in a hurricane. One minute, the familiar air of my cramped apartment. Next, this velvet void.
With a groan that vibrated unpleasantly in my chest, I forced my eyelids apart.
The light was the first insult. It was the soft gold of early morning filtering through glass.
It was a cavernous space, a bedroom designed by someone who hated clutter and loved burning money. The furniture was sleek, black, and sharp edged, sitting on plush dark carpets that looked deep enough to drown in. To my left, a door stood ajar, teasing the white gleam of marble. But it was the wall opposite the bed that stole the breath from my lungs. It was entirely glass, floor to ceiling windows offering a panoramic view of a skyline that was decidedly not the one I went to sleep in.
My heart gave a frantic thud against my ribs, kickstarting a drum solo of pure adrenaline.
Hospital? No. No beeping, no antiseptic smell, no nurses in Crocs.
Kidnapping? Why? I was a student drowning in debt with a credit score that made lenders weep. My organs were marinated in caffeine and stress, they weren't worth the cost of these sheets.
I threw the covers off, panic overriding the headache. The room tilted violently, a carousel spinning off its axis, but I ignored the nausea. I looked down.
The scream died in my throat, choked off by sheer confusion.
The body wasn't mine.
My hands were large, pale, and elegant, like a pianist who strangled people on the weekends. I flexed fingers that felt mile-long. I stared at the chest which was dusted with dark hair. I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. They were roped with lean muscle that I definitely hadn't earned at the gym.
I stood up, and the floor felt miles away. I was tall. Significantly, powerfully tall.
Stumbling on limbs that felt like someone else's equipment, I lurched toward the bathroom. The cool shock of marble against my bare soles grounded me slightly. The bathroom was larger than my old apartment, smelling of sandalwood and money. But I didn't care about the rainfall shower or the jacuzzi tub.
I gripped the edge of the twin vanity, my knuckles turning white, and forced myself to look into the mirror.
A stranger stared back. And God, he was annoying.
He was handsome in that mathematically unfair way that makes normal people hate you on sight. High, aristocratic cheekbones, a jawline sharp enough to cut glass, and hair the color of midnight, falling in a messy style that probably cost three hundred dollars to maintain. His eyes were a dark brown.
Right now, those honey-brown eyes were wide with animalistic terror.
I raised a hand to my face. The reflection mimicked me perfectly. I poked the stranger's cheek. I felt the skin smooth, shaved close, and real.
"Okay," I whispered.
The voice was a stranger's, too. A smooth baritone that resonated in this broad chest.
"Don't panic," the baritone said. "Do. Not. Panic."
I was absolutely panicking. My mind was running a marathon on a hamster wheel. Psychotic break? Coma dream? Simulation? I grabbed the black leather wallet sitting on the marble counter, my new hands shaking violently.
I flipped it open. Platinum cards glinted under the vanity lights. I yanked out the driver's license.
The face was the one in the mirror.
Name: Aryan Spencer.
"Aryan," I tested the name. It felt foreign, like trying to chew on a rock. "Aryan Spencer."
I needed context. I needed to know who this tailored mannequin was. I stumbled back into the bedroom, ripping open the closet doors. It was a walk-in, filled with rows of suits that whispered 'executive power.' On a velvet ottoman, I found a pair of discarded trousers and a dress shirt. I rifled through the pockets like a desperate junkie. Nothing but a receipt for a dinner that cost more than my car.
I turned away from the closet, my breath hitching as I looked back at the massive window.
The city outside was waking up. Sunlight glinted off steel and glass, a sprawling metropolis that stretched to the horizon. But my eyes were drawn to the anchor of the skyline.
It was a monolith. A colossal tower of black glass and steel that dwarfed everything around it, rising like a dark needle trying to puncture the heavens.
And near the top, blazing in the morning light, was a logo.
A stylized V.
The air left the room. The temperature seemed to plummet twenty degrees in a second. My blood turned to slush in my veins.
Vought Tower.
My knees gave out. I didn't make a decision to sit, gravity just reclaimed me. I slid down the cool glass of the window until I hit the floor, staring up at that damn tower.
This wasn't a dream. This wasn't a hallucination. This was worse.
I was in the universe of The Boys.
The realization hit with the kinetic energy of a freight train. I wasn't just in a different city. I was in a meat grinder. A world where superheroes were corporate products, narcissists, and sociopaths draped in spandex and the American flag. A world where collateral damage was a line item on a quarterly budget.
Homelander.
The name alone sent a spike of pure dread through my nervous system. A man with the power of a god and the emotional maturity of a toddler who dropped his ice cream.
"Fuck," I breathed, the word trembling. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
I was a normal guy. Well, a rich, and handsome guy now, apparently, but inside? I was prey. In this world, unless you had Compound V running through your veins, you were just an ant waiting for a boot. And even if you did have powers, you were usually just a slightly more durable ant.
I sat there for an eternity, watching the sun climb higher, illuminating the Vought logo like a cruel eye watching the city.
Eventually, the hyperventilation slowed. The crushing weight on my chest lightened just enough to let air in. Panic was useful for running away from tigers, but for existential displacement, it was just exhausting. Freaking out wouldn't teleport me home. Screaming wouldn't edit the script.
I was here. I was Aryan Spencer. And I really, really didn't want to die.
I pushed myself up, my legs still feeling like jelly but holding my weight. I needed to survive. That was the new baseline. Figure out who Aryan is, figure out his connection to Vought, and stay off the radar of anyone wearing a cape.
Just as the resolve began to harden in my gut, a sound cut through the silence.
Ding.
It was a digital chime that resonated directly inside my parietal lobe.
I froze.
A blue light flickered into existence, floating in the air right in front of my face. It coalesced into a semi-transparent screen, the kind you see in sci-fi movies, hovering at eye level.
[System Booting... 10%... 50%... 100%]
[Host's mental state has stabilized. Commencing activation sequence.]
[Welcome, Host, to the Plundering System! Or, as I like to call it, your 'Trying Not to Die in a World Full of Asshole Superheroes' starter kit.]
I blinked. The text remained, glowing with a mockery filled blue hue. I waved my hand through it. My fingers passed through mist, but the text remained overlaid on my vision.
"What... the actual hell?" I whispered, my voice cracking.
A voice answered. It echoed inside my skull, crisp, genderless, and sounding distinctly amused.
[Took you long enough to calm down! I was getting bored here. You humans and your existential crises. Honestly, so dramatic. You stare at a wall for forty minutes and call it coping?]
"Who are you?" I asked the empty air, spinning around, looking for a speaker, a hidden camera, anything.
[I'm the System! Your friendly neighborhood golden ticket, your cosmic cheat code, your tour guide through this star-spangled shitshow. You can just call me System. Or 'Oh Mighty Savior.' I answer to both.]