Anthony—former three-time Golden Horse Award–winning actor, now a bankrupt alcoholic—crushed his last can of cheap beer in his trembling fist.
The crumpled aluminum spun as it tumbled off the rooftop's edge, vanishing into the river of headlights and honking horns forty-four stories below.
The evening wind bit through his threadbare jacket, numbing his cheeks, but he barely felt it.
Bankruptcy. Blacklisting. Public crucifixion across every social feed.
He'd been framed—by his own trusted inner circle and, worst of all, by Chloe, the woman he'd called his closest confidante… and lover.
Overnight, they'd plummeted from the stratosphere of fame straight into the gutter.
"Ha… hahahaha!"
His laughter cracked like dry ice—manic, hollow, unhinged.
He used to be someone. Not just an actor—a star. The kind directors bent over backward for, the kind capital loved to prop up. He thought he was playing the game.
Turns out, he was just another pawn—expendable, replaceable, disposable.
He knew he'd been set up. But the evidence? Gone. Wiped clean.
Chloe—the girl he'd built from obscurity with his own hands—had torn him down with surgical precision. No fingerprints. No loose ends.
"Fuck…" he muttered, voice raw. "It's all fucking fuck!"
He snatched the half-empty bottle beside him and took a long, burning swig.
"They're all fucking bastards!" he roared into the void, voice shredded by rage and cheap liquor.
Just then—a streak of light split the night sky.
A shooting star. Brilliant. Impossibly fast.
Anthony froze.
Meteor… Willow Star…?
He stared, wide-eyed, as a slow, twisted grin spread across his face.
With a sharp snick, he unbuckled his belt.
"Fuck you!"
He aimed straight at the streak of celestial fire.
"Screw the meteor! Screw Chloe!" he screamed, voice shredded by wind and fury. "Come on! Fuck me, you cosmic bitch! Hahahaha—I'll do whatever the hell I want!"
And then—it happened.
The meteor, which should've vanished in seconds, jerked mid-flight.
As if insulted.
It turned.
Trailing white-hot plasma, it curved like a guided missile—locking onto Anthony's skull with terrifying intent.
"What the—?!"
Sobered in an instant, his drunken bravado evaporated. His pupils shrank to pinpricks, reflecting the rapidly expanding fireball hurtling toward him.
He didn't even have time to zip up.
"Wait—just kidding! You can't be serious—!"
BOOM—!!!
No scream. No last breath.
Just light. Heat. Oblivion.
Not even ash remained.
---
One heartbeat later.
Anthony's eyes snapped open.
"What… the hell?"
He was floating. Weightless. Suspended in the air.
Before him loomed a skyscraper of impossible opulence—gleaming glass walls reflecting the neon-soaked city like a flawless mirror.
And in that mirror… someone else stared back.
Tall. Muscular. Radiant.
Blond hair perfectly coiffed. A skintight blue bodysuit hugging every sculpted line. Gold eagle-shaped epaulets on his shoulders. And behind him—a billowing cape patterned with stars and stripes.
Anthony blinked.
He twitched a finger.
The reflection twitched back.
He forced a smile.
The mirror-image flashed a dazzling, Hollywood-perfect grin.
"Oh no…"
A cold dread slithered down his spine.
"I… I've become Superman? No—wait…"
The face. The uniform. The aura of manufactured patriotism wrapped in psychopathy.
His mind locked onto the name like a bullet finding its target.
"Shit… Homelander?!"
He'd been transmigrated.
Not just to another world—but into the body of that smiling monster from The Boys.
"I've been thrown into the Boys Universe?!"
The thought of that twisted world—where heads exploded at the drop of a hat and blood and entrails littered every street—sent chills down Anthony's spine.
"Where am I now? Vault Tower? Am I really going to have to face Butcher and his 'boys squad' right from the start?"
He nervously scanned his surroundings.
BOOM—!!!
A deafening explosion ripped through the air, cutting off his thoughts.
Anthony snapped his gaze upward.
Above the city, a colossal wormhole pulsed with ghostly blue light, suspended in the sky like a wound in reality itself. From it poured countless alien warriors astride sleek, hovering machines, their energy weapons lancing deadly beams into the streets below. The once-bustling metropolis was rapidly descending into chaos and ruin.
On the street, a yellow taxi lay overturned. Pedestrians screamed, scattering in every direction.
Then—roar!—a monstrous Leviathan, longer than a subway train and sheathed in metallic armor, burst from the wormhole. Its titanic body smashed through the side of a skyscraper, sending glass and twisted steel bars raining onto the pavement.
"…"
Anthony landed softly, his boots touching down on the edge of a rooftop. Behind him, his star-streaked cloak fluttered in the smoke-choked wind.
He looked down.
On the street below, an enraged green giant seized a police car and slammed it onto a Chitauri soldier with earth-shaking force.
"HULK—SMASH!!"
Not far away, a man in a hood—star-shaped shield raised—was shouting orders to panicked police officers.
"Hold this street! Get the civilians to the west!"
A red-haired woman in a sleek black bodysuit vaulted onto a Chitauri skiff, jamming a wrist-mounted stunner into the pilot's neck. The alien convulsed and slumped.
On another rooftop, an archer nocked a high-tech arrow and fired with lethal precision—each shot "calling out" a target like a sniper's verdict.
Higher still, a red-and-gold suit of armor danced through the sky, pulse cannons blazing from its palms as it dueled two Leviathans in a storm of fire and shrapnel.
"…Fuck." The word slipped out in a stunned whisper—Anthony's first true reaction.
Then it hit him. Something far worse than anything he'd faced in The Black Robe.
"This isn't The Boys…"
His eyes locked onto the swirling wormhole—and the gargantuan green titan locked in a death grapple with a Leviathan.
"This… this is the Avengers. The Battle of New York?!"
A voice chimed inside his mind, calm and synthetic:
"Superstar System activated…
Binding to host…
Binding successful."
System Introduction: This system evaluates your Persona. Popularity is your power. The higher your popularity, the greater your abilities.
Current Character Template: Homelander (Basic Version)
Abilities: Super Strength, Steel Body (Version Bonus), Super Endurance, Super Speed, Thermal Vision, X-ray Vision, Super Hearing, Flight
Current Popularity: 0
Popularity Level: Unknown
Note: When your area level upgrades to "Ultraman," ability boosts from that zone will become permanent.
New Player Mission: A Perfect Entrance
Objective: Become the center of attention during the Battle of New York.
Reward: Unlock the 'Homelander' Exclusive Uniform—indestructible and eternal.
"…The higher the popularity, the greater the ability…"
Anthony murmured the words under his breath. He glanced down at his bare blue bodysuit, then out at the inferno below—flames, screams, alien war machines, and Earth's mightiest heroes locked in desperate combat.
And then… he laughed.
"Haha…"
The sound grew—sharper, louder, freer.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!"
Power. Adoration. Control. The world watching him.
This wasn't a nightmare.
This was perfect.
"Superstar…?" He grinned into the smoke-filled sky. "System… you really do understand me."