Transmigrated into The Boys, Starting as Soldier Boy

Kimiko’s lips moved. She badly wanted to curse, but she couldn’t.

For several seconds, Kimiko used silence to express her anger, her resentment, and how goddamn unhappy she was with this outcome.

But there was nothing she could do to change it.

Benjamin held all the cards, while she had next to nothing.

All she could fight for was keeping Kenji alive, making sure he had a place to stay and food to eat, so he wouldn’t end up living like some stray dog.

She took a deep breath and forced down the helplessness rising in her chest.

Then something occurred to her, and she kept writing.

[Once you trust me enough, I can keep my brother in line.]

She lifted the tablet.

Benjamin read it and said, "Then I’ll need to trust you first. Start as a second-tier Supe."

Second-tier Supes were below The Seven. They almost never got nationally televised autograph events, and they had none of that shiny, glamorous PR bullshit.

Second-tier Supes handled the hard jobs, the exhausting jobs, the dirty jobs. The kind of work The Seven wouldn’t bother touching.

Of course, it was even worse for third-tier Supes.

Third-tier Supes were even lower on the food chain. Forget dirty work or hard labor. Generally speaking, all they could do was endorse some product, spend the entire day hawking it, and then hand most of the money over to Vought. Like that dog and that Catwoman.

Benjamin’s judgment wasn’t wrong. Kimiko was strong. Her Self-Healing ability was almost top-tier, and with the combat skills and tactical awareness she had honed since childhood, her overall strength would not lose out even inside The Seven.

But she came from The Boys. She had been an enemy, a defector. No competent operator would put someone like that straight into The Seven and hand her a place at the company’s core.

Trust took time.

Kimiko understood that.

She set the stylus back beside the tablet and wrote nothing else.

Her silence was also a kind of acceptance.

Benjamin looked at her. A few seconds later, he turned and walked toward the cell door.

"Someone will come take you to register. Don’t let me down."

With that, he stepped out of the cell.

Starlight left after him. She hesitated at the door for a moment, then looked back at Kimiko.

The cell door closed again.

...

...

Inside Vought as it was now, there was a somewhat vague hierarchy among Supes.

And standing at the very top of all Supes, the only one in the first tier, was Benjamin himself.

His title was "Director of Supes at Vought." It sounded like nothing more than a high-ranking executive position, but inside Vought, he held the highest authority.

He not only managed every superhero under Vought. He was also the true ruler of this vast empire.

After checking on the little wolf-girl Kimiko, Benjamin went to a meeting.

"Mr. Benjamin, these are the third-quarter financial statements and merchandise sales data..."

The current CEO of Vought, Ashley Barrett, stood in front of the desk. Even though she wore an expensive business suit, she was painfully submissive in front of Benjamin.

Beside her, Vice President Anika kept her head lowered. The same went for several other executives who had been promoted but had no real power.

To the outside world, Ashley and Anika were formidable women in the business world, but they knew damn well they had to answer to Benjamin and Homelander.

"Leave them there," Benjamin said.

Ashley looked like she had been pardoned. She quickly set the documents down and left Benjamin’s office with Anika.

Next came the second tier of the Supe pyramid.

That tier belonged to only one person: the current captain of The Seven, Homelander.

He was Benjamin’s bloodline. His son.

John also held the power of life and death inside the company. Other than Benjamin, no one in all of Vought dared say half a "no" to Homelander.

When ordinary employees saw him walking down the hallway in his Stars and Stripes cape, there was admiration in their eyes, of course, but also fear.

With father and son working together, they had completely cut off any possibility of overthrowing Vought.

The third tier, naturally, was made up of the other members of The Seven.

And under Benjamin’s forceful push, Vought’s fourth tier, the huge group of second-tier Class B Supes, underwent a full military-style reorganization.

Benjamin abandoned the old Public Relations approach and instead divided the second-tier Supes into several major categories strictly according to combat ability and tactical role.

First were combat-type Supes.

The selection criteria were brutal.

They had to possess at least two of the following: Super Strength, Super Defense, or Super Self-Healing. They also had to have some combat skill.

According to the strength evaluation system, their overall combat power had to remain steadily between Lv3 and Lv4, second only to the monsters in The Seven.

The little wolf-girl, Kimiko, had terrifying Self-Healing and immense strength, so she naturally qualified.

Of course, there was one other person who qualified too: Blindspot.

Blindspot looked like nothing more than a gimmick meant to cater to "political correctness" and diversity.

But Benjamin had personally reviewed his test data. Blindspot’s muscle density and explosive power had actually just barely reached Lv4, and he was proficient in all kinds of lethal martial arts.

Of course, if Blindspot really only had sharp hearing, Ashley would not have been stupid enough to try bringing him in back then.

Blindspot going to The Seven was basically asking to get wrecked, but across Vought’s entire registered superhero roster, ranking him in the upper-middle range for actual combat ability was more than fair.

Next came the second category: elemental Supes.

These people were like mobile artillery and special units on the battlefield.

For example, Lamplighter, who could manipulate flames. He was timid by nature and had once been used by The Boys, but when it came to suppressive fire, he was genuinely damn good.

Lamplighter had originally been a member of The Seven, then later retired and went to Sage Grove Center to help Stormfront manage the place.

Of course, at Benjamin’s request, Sage Grove Center had temporarily halted its experiments. The Supes inside had not been released, but at least they were no longer being tortured through experimentation. The main focus now was psychological evaluation.

Supes with normal psychological states could return to society. Those who were not quite normal would remain locked up.

Of course, Benjamin could also go there and erase their Superpowers, but that would be something of a waste, especially since one of them had very powerful abilities.

For now, Lamplighter was still helping manage Sage Grove Center. Once matters there were wrapped up, he could return to Vought.

Of course, Benjamin was not sure whether Lamplighter was still in contact with The Boys. Logically speaking, he probably was not.

As for another representative figure, there was "Ice Princess."

Who was Ice Princess?

Ice Princess had once fallen in love with a rather talented Black writer.

Their relationship had been extremely passionate for a time, until one night.

They were in a penthouse apartment, getting intimate.

Ice Princess became too emotional, and her Superpowers went out of control.

It was a terrifying kind of absolute zero.

The poor Black writer didn’t even have time to scream.

One part of his body froze solid in an instant.

And, well, you know how that went.

By the time Vought’s medical team rushed over in the middle of the night, even the most advanced technology could do nothing about necrosis at the cellular level.

Ironically, even though the Black writer’s love for Ice Princess had turned into hatred because he had lost his dignity as a man, leaving him in agony every day, deep down, he was still madly in love with her.

Unfortunately, the world of Supes was realistic and cruel.

After losing that crucial part, the Black writer had become a complete "useless wreck" in Ice Princess’s eyes, and she kicked him aside without the slightest mercy.