The Boys: Evil Ryan, Plundering The Metaverse Chapter 5 5: 05: Ryan's Grand Scheme

Holander's fake "loving" smile hadn't even finished sliding off his face when he got that answer.

He let go of Ryan, pointed at the stupidly luxurious lounge area tucked in the corner of his office, and said in a voice he thought was gentle but ca out pure steel, "Ryan, starting today you're staying right here. Don't step foot out of this office until I co up with a good enough excuse to feed the board."

He paused, clearly trying to sound more like an actual dad. "Every floor in Vought is wired with caras—eyes and ears fucking everywhere. But this? This is my turf. Nobody dares stick their nose in, ok?"

A smug, god-like edge crept into his tone. "I'll sort it out fast so you can live here out in the open as my son."

To keep the kid busy and patch over that clumsy burst of "fatherly love" he didn't even understand, Holander snatched the internal phone off the desk.

In his usual bossy bark he ordered his assistant to haul up every top-shelf snack in the city, the newest ga consoles, plus every sugary drink and dessert a kid could want—all inside ten minutes.

"Go play for a bit, eat whatever," he said, forcing his voice softer. "Dad's got stuff to handle. I'll be back soon."

Before the words were even fully out, he spun on his heel and practically bolted from the office. The heavy automatic door hissed shut behind him, cutting Ryan off from view but not from the way his heart was jackhamring against his ribs.

He clutched those few strands of fine golden hair so tight his palms were already slick with sweat. For a guy who could tank missiles with his bare skin, suddenly having a son felt like the weirdest fucking trip of his life.

...

Hundreds of ters below Vought Tower, in the ultra-secure genetics lab, everything was dead quiet.

Dozens of white-coated researchers bent over their stations, instrunts humming in perfect rhythm.

Then the massive alloy door—triple-auth locked—exploded inward like it weighed nothing.

Holander stord through the wreckage like a goddamn wrecking ball.

All the researchers in the lab froze mid-motion like soone had hit pause on their lives. Faces went bone-white, mouths clamped shut tighter than crickets in winter. Nobody even dared to breathe.

Holander didn't say a word. He just swept that ice-cold stare across the room.

In the next second his eyes flared bright red. A dozen razor-precise heat vision beams lanced out from different angles at once, slicing into every corner of the lab.

Hidden mini-cams in the ceiling, walls, and even inside the instrunts lted into slag at the exact sa instant, curling up into thin wisps of smoke.

Whatever the fuck was about to happen here, no one else was ever going to know about it.

Job done, he marched straight up to the middle-aged guy wearing the "Chief Researcher" badge on his chest and slamd the sweat-damp strands of golden hair down onto the lab bench.

"At the fastest speed possible," he said, voice flat, emotionless, and heavy enough to freeze blood. "Run a comparison report between this sample and my DNA."

The chief researcher's legs turned to jelly. He nearly crumpled to the floor right there.

He stared at those few strands of hair—more valuable than solid gold—then back at Holander's dead-eyed face. His voice ca out in a pathetic stutter.

"H-Holander… this… this doesn't comply with regulations! Any genetic test involving you has to… has to be reported to the board and get the highest level of approval before—"

"Now."

Holander didn't bother saying anything else. He just locked eyes with the man, the red glow in his pupils burning hotter and brighter.

A raw, suffocating killing intent slamd into the researcher like a tidal wave.

It felt like an invisible hand had clamped around his throat, squeezing until breathing beca a goddamn luxury.

Under that pure, undisguised death glare, every "company regulation" suddenly looked paper-thin and fucking laughable.

"I… I'll do it right away! Right away!" the researcher squealed, scrambling like his ass was on fire.

With shaking hands he scooped up the strands of hair like they were the last winning lottery ticket on Earth and half-stumbled, half-ran toward the DNA rapid-sequencing machine buried in the deepest corner of the lab.

The whole laboratory dropped into graveyard silence. Only the low, steady hum of the instrunts remained.

Holander stood dead-center like a statue carved out of pure nace, radiating pure death energy.

His super-hearing—strong enough to pick up heartbeats clear across the city—was now locked onto every tiny click and whir of the machines.

He could also hear his own heart, the one that had never known fear or backing down, now hamring away like a war drum from nerves and raw anticipation he'd never felt before.

He had never been this fucking nervous in his life.

...

Upstairs in the office, Ryan didn't even glance at the ridiculous mountain of premium snacks and brand-new ga consoles that had just been delivered.

After confirming Holander had left, Ryan walked straight to the massive ebony desk that scread ultimate power.

He reached out with his small hand and casually tapped a few keys on the computer that held the highest clearance in all of Vought.

The screen lit up instantly. The entire ocean of Vought's internal intelligence files swung wide open for him.

Ryan dropped into the ridiculously comfortable boss chair, leaned back, and let his ice-blue eyes gleam with a calm, sharp intelligence that had no business being on a kid's face.

He started ripping through the company's classified docunts, data and reports flashing past in a blur.

Using mories from his previous life plus the superhuman brain he had now, he sliced through the bullshit in seconds, zeroing in on exactly what he needed.

It didn't take long before two heavily encrypted incident reports jumped out at him.

The first one was titled: "Follow-up Report on The Seven mber 'A-Train' accidentally causing the death of civilian Robin Ward during a criminal pursuit."

Ryan opened it. The file laid out how Vought's PR machine had crushed the whole thing fast—bribed the dia, slapped a nice "unavoidable collateral damage" label on the innocent girl's death, and moved on like nothing happened.

The second report was a full publicity plan: "Regarding the debut ceremony of new mber 'Starlight' Annie January.

Ti: This weekend.

Location: Vought Tower Plaza."

Staring at those two reports that looked completely unrelated on the surface, a cold, knowing smirk slowly spread across Ryan's face.

He knew Robin's death ant Billy Butcher—the psycho who swore to burn every supe to the ground—had already caught the scent of blood and was moving like a starving wolf.

And poor, lovesick Hughie was about to get dragged straight into this at grinder.

Starlight joining The Seven, on the other hand, ant the first real crack was about to split open inside that shiny, "unbreakable" team.

The main plot of The Boys had just kicked off right in front of him.

Ryan sank deeper into the boss chair, the ultimate symbol of power, and let himself relax completely.

His fingers drumd a slow, steady rhythm on the polished desktop—thump… thump… thump.

His brain was firing at an insane speed.

There is no point in thinking about it, Butcher needs to die. Hughie gotta go, too.

Haah.. Starlight. The Deep. A-Train… I as I'm right now.. with the additional powers of Starlight, who could rule over the seven seas and can be faster than my father.. there's no helping it.

All of you are gonna die by my hand, Ryan thought. Every single one of you will be nothing but stepping stones for to get stronger.

He already had the whole plan mapped out.

Multiple parallel lines running at once.

On one side, he'd keep playing the perfect "Son of God."

Use Holander as his ultimate trump card and slowly tear Vought apart from the inside—dismantle it, infiltrate it, then take total control.

On the other side, he could secretly give The Boys a little push.

Feed them key intel here and there. Stir up so convenient chaos.

Let those crazy bastards bite into Vought like a pack of rabid dogs and rip open bigger holes for him to exploit.

Ryan's eyes left the computer screen and drifted to the glittering New York skyline outside the window, alive with millions of lights.

The corner of his mouth curled into a cold, amused smirk.. like a god staring down at his personal chessboard.

He wasn't just going to play the ga.

He was going to write every fucking rule.

And right now, down in that underground lab, the so-called most powerful man in the world—pacing restlessly while he waited for a DNA report—was nothing more than the sharpest, most important chess piece in Ryan's grand sche.