“Bro, what’s wrong?” Seeing Dean looking a bit off while holding his number plate, Harry and Peter, who were waiting nearby, stepped forward to ask.
Dean didn’t say anything.
He just casually tossed the number plate into Harry’s hand.
Harry took a closer look and his eyes went huge.
“What the fuck!
Number 342?
Are you kidding me?
Doesn’t Vought only have five hundred contestants total after the preliminary screening?” Peter looked just as confused.
“Yeah, and those five hundred are from all over the world.
How the hell could so many people already be here and have drawn numbers on day one?
That doesn’t make sense.” Their confusion was fair.
Earth is huge.
Flying to New York from outside the United States takes about a day for most countries.
Vought had only announced the selection yesterday.
Logically there was no way this many contestants could already be on site.
Dean only needed a second to figure it out.
He sneered.
“Heh.
I bet out of those five hundred, Vought stacked four hundred local American supes and only left a hundred spots for the rest of the world just for the ratings.” It was not a wild guess.
Every person he had seen walking around the venue so far spoke with thick northern or southern American accents.
Almost no one was speaking any other language.
Pretty damn obvious.
“Holy crap, isn’t that a completely rigged game?!” Harry’s face was pure disbelief.
He looked genuinely disillusioned with Vought.
Peter’s expression was pretty much the same.
Both of them were still in their early teens—around eighteen—an age where they still had infinite fantasies about superheroes.
Finding out that the only superhero company on the planet was just as dirty behind the scenes hit them hard.
Dean shook his head.
You two can’t even handle this little bit.
If you knew that most of the superheroes you watch on TV are just products packaged and marketed by Vought, your whole belief system would collapse on the spot.
Faith in today’s society is truly foolish and fragile… He still did not dump that cruel truth on them.
Because starting today, now that he was inside Vought, a savior had arrived.
With him here the hypocritical Vought was going to go through a real revolution.
He was going to build a Seven in this universe that actually deserved the name—real superheroes, not a bunch of actors who only knew how to put on a show.
The past did not matter anymore.
What mattered was the future.
Of course he was still going to keep Vought’s fine tradition of taking sponsorships and making a nice little fortune along the way.
To do any of that he first needed to join The Seven as fast as possible.
Number 342?
Who the hell knew how many days he would have to wait for that.
He did not have that kind of patience… So… he was going to cut the line.
“Harry, Peter, you two head to the family seating area first.
I’m going to get ready to go on stage.” With those words Dean walked straight off, leaving Harry and Peter staring at each other in complete bewilderment.
“Isn’t my brother number 342?
Will it even be his turn today?” “I don’t know…” … After leaving Harry and Peter, Dean walked into the contestants’ lounge.
Everyone inside was scheduled to go on stage today.
They had all drawn numbers in the top fifty.
With five hundred contestants total, Vought planned to run fifty people a day.
Factoring in five rest days, the whole selection would last ten days.
What Dean planned to do next was obvious.
He was going to swap number plates with someone.
His eyes swept freely across the plates pinned to every contestant’s chest.
50… 34… 21… 11… He walked the entire lounge and the lowest number he saw was eleven.
Nothing better.
So he stopped looking around and headed straight for the guy wearing number 11.
And that guy was someone Dean actually recognized.
It was the great Lord of the Seven Seas, commander of all marine life, the Boys version of Aquaman himself—The Deep.
Dean walked right up to him.
The Deep was sitting in a chair, legs bouncing nervously while he waited for his turn.
A shadow fell over him and he looked up on instinct.
He stared at the tall stranger in front of him, completely sure he had never seen this face before.
“Uh, bro, what do you want?” “Fish-fucker.
Swap your number plate with mine.” Dean’s tone was pure command as he tossed the 342 plate onto The Deep’s lap.
The Deep: ???
He looked down in a daze at the 342 plate sitting on his thighs and found the whole thing completely ridiculous.
What the fuck are you joking about?
Swap 342 for my number 11?
Why don’t you just disqualify me right now?
Who the fuck do you think you are, the CEO of Vought?!
Rage hit him hard.
The Deep shot to his feet, puffed his chest out, and slammed shoulder-first into Dean.
The second The Deep stood up a thick fishy stench rolled off him.
Dean even noticed a sticky, unidentified liquid still coating the seat and the back of The Deep’s pants.
“Fuck!
Did you just finish an orgy with an octopus and get your brains milked dry?
You reek of octopus slime from head to toe!” Dean could not help himself.
He pinched his nose and took several steps back with pure disgust written all over his face.
This time he did not bother lowering his voice at all.
The words carried through almost the entire lounge and every head snapped toward them.
Dozens of eyes locked onto The Deep’s ass in perfect unison.
Feeling those stares, The Deep felt like a fucking piece of takoyaki about to burst into flames from pure shame and fury.
He clenched his fists and shouted at the crowd, “This bastard is talking complete shit!
He’s slandering me!
I didn’t fuck any fish and I sure as hell didn’t get fucked by an octopus!” “Then what’s that mystery liquid stuck all over your ass?
Did Translucent take a transparent shit in your pants?” “Didn’t expect you to not only love fucking fish and getting fucked by fish, but also swing both ways!” Dean crossed his arms and kept poking.
The second those words left his mouth the watching contestants started pointing and whispering with pure disgust.
Their words hit The Deep from every direction like knives, turning him into a full-blown porcupine fish.
His remaining sanity dropped like a rock.
His neck, face, and eyes all went blood-red.
“It’s all because of you, you bastard!
I’m going to kill you!” Using whatever scraps of reason he still had, The Deep locked onto Dean.
His green fist, complete with little fin decorations, swung hard at that handsome face that pissed him off just by existing.
Do not let The Deep’s creepy, idiotic look fool you.
His stats were actually solid.
In the original show a casual punch from him could punch straight through a regular human.
At full strength he could shatter stone.
But Dean had been trained by top martial artists the Osborn family hired since he was a kid.
His combat experience was light-years beyond a self-taught supe like The Deep.
In pure strength, the body he inherited from Soldier Boy was something The Deep could not even dream of matching.
The instant The Deep threw the punch, Dean had already read the exact landing spot.
He raised one hand and caught the flying fist clean.
Dean’s face was pure disdain.
“Fish-fucker, your fist is as soft as a boneless eel.
You’ve fucking disappointed me.”