The various fictional worlds, characters and elements that are written about in this fanfiction belong to their various creators, who I'm too lazy to list. This is purely a fan work and not intended to generate any sort of profit. I know that if it does a fair number of bloodthirsty lawyers are likely to make my life miserable. As always constructive criticism is welcome and flames will be ignored.

Well, here's the next part of the story. I've decided to keep the chapters short so that I can get them done faster that way. Though I think that the next one might be a bit of a ways off because writing this has served its purpose and my inspiration for my other works has returned. I think I'll go back to concentrating on GSBW again, then write the next chapter once I'm done with its latest chapter.

On another note I'd like to thank all those that sent me info on the Emperor of Mankind, your help has cleared up a few questions I had and will hopefully aid in future writing.

Lastly I'm taking suggestions as to just when in the timeline my character has been introduced. I already have a rough plan, but if you'd like to tell me what you think I'd be more than happy to give it due consideration.

Play it My Way: Chapter Two

-ICK

The simple sound of me pressing the button on my mouse seems to reverberate around my small office. It doesn't sound like the tap of a mouse; this sounds more like a judge's hammer slamming down as it punctuates the sentencing of a man to life imprisonment.

I have just enough time to glance down at it in puzzlement before the sound fades as suddenly as it came.

Then the lights go out.

I don't mean that the bulb in my ceiling lamp fails. That's quite impossible given that it's a sunny day outside and I don't actually have it on. I don't mean that the cord on my blind somehow breaks and the window is covered. I don't even mean that a sudden and unexpected eclipse has blotted out the sun and I now find myself reading from the light of my computer screen.

I mean ALL . . . THE . . . LIGHTS . . . GO . . . OUT!

I have just enough time to feel my eyes widen in surprise as the pitch black envelopes me, then I'm falling. My chair is gone, the floor is gone, even the ground itself has disappeared, all that remains is the endless darkness and the sensation of falling, even though no wind whips around me.

And then . . . the darkness parts and I can see the universe about me. Stars in the distances, planets equally far off, comets, nebulas, clusters, all of them are spread out around me as though I could reach out and touch them, yet at the same time they remain infinity far away. I can see so much . . . and then it is eclipsed.

The two things are huge, even when seen from this strange perspective I'm in possession of I can tell that their sheer size is vast. They are beyond moons, beyond planets even, the only thing that seems to grant them scale is the sun to which they approach. They don't move like crude things of flesh and blood, in fact it doesn't seem as though movement is the right way to describe their method of propulsion. They insinuate themselves, growing in one direction even as they wither in another, but even that isn't a correct analysis because they remain in an unchanged state despite it.

It's impossible, like looking at one of those paintings of a staircase that leads up to itself, only multiplied into infinity and definitely not some mere illusion or trick of the eye.

And even as they move something is happening, these two huge beings shed parts of themselves. Fragments that have to be the size of cities, countries, even entire continents, yet they were nothing to the creatures that shed them, merely the equivalent of cast off flakes of skin.

I knew what this was. I knew it, but I just couldn't accept it. This . . . this had to be a hallucination! Yes, that was it, maybe the steak I cooked last night hadn't been as well cooked as I thought it had, or maybe the meat had been tainted somehow. Whatever the case might be clearly I had some sort of food poisoning and that, combined with far too much time reading fanfictions, was triggering some sort of delusional vision. Any minute now I was going to come back to myself and find that I'd have to make a dash for the bathroom to avoid being sick all over the carpet.

Any moment now.

. . . Any moment now . . .

. . . Now?

I still clutch onto the hope that that this is some sort of dream, even as my perspective changes and I find myself plummeting to the small blue and green planet beneath me.

-()-

I awaken into . . . darkness isn't the right word, all around me there are colours, flashes, streams. But none of them are seen, the knowledge of them, of what they represent, isn't conveyed through simple light. Comprehension arrives in my mind without the need for organs to interpret it. Energy is . . . it's so clear to me. The trace heat energy about me, the kinetic energy of motion, the ever present power of gravity from the world's embrace. It's all there, all so clear.

And there's more than just that! Life, it's all around me, below, above, all about me in all directions. Tiny, insignificant, and yet as soon as I'm aware of it I instantly know everything about it, its life cycle, its qualities, its age, its lifespan, everything.

I . . . I know that this should be too much, I know that my brain should be liquefying, breaking apart under the strain of assimilating so much information. But it's not; I'm fine despite the massive rush of awareness, in fact I-

I suddenly become aware of a change, of many changes. My thoughts, they don't seem to be centred in my head, my heart, I can't hear it, my breath, it's stopped. The feeling of blood flowing through your veins, the almost imperceptible gurgling and flexing of the digestive system, the constant ever so tiny headache that comes from the simple act of thinking. A thousand and one tiny signals and imperfections that tell you your body is performing the messy and intricate tasks that keep you alive.

They're all gone.

Oh god, this . . . this is really happening!

Even as I think that thought I feel as though I should be hyperventilating, as though I should be panicking and thrashing about. But despite my growing horror at the situation I don't feel out of control.

Okay, take this slowly. First off, where am I?

Immediately the strange and alien senses that have been feeding me information supply the answer. No light, there is heat nearby, the dull constant heat generated by volcanic activity. Matter surrounds me, matter in a fluid form, hydrogen, oxygen, traces of other elements and chemicals. Various organisms travel in the matter some the size of a pin head, others almost as large as me. From above I can feel the pressure of the tonnes of the fluid matter pressing down on me, so much weight, so much energy, but it is easily ignored.

The sea. It looks . . . well, not looks, I can't actually see anything. But anyway, I seem to be at the bottom of the sea, quite a ways down if the sheer pressure is anything to go by.

Alright, now I know where I am, the next question is what am I going to do about it?

Even as the question is framed in my mind the answer seems to rise up in response. It comes so easily it's frankly disturbing, like remembering the answer to a question I haven't heard in a long time, but which was successfully pounded into my head a long time ago. I know how to move myself, how to get out of here. It's so absurdly simple it shocks me that I never realized how to do it before.

All I have to do is generate energy like so, and then direct it like this. Once that's done all I have to do is-

Any further thoughts disappear as I take off as though I had been strapped to a launching space shuttle.

-()-

Had there been anyone watching a large empty stretch of the North Pacific ocean then they might have been witness to the sight of a large vaguely humanoid figure erupt from the ocean's depths with such force that the spray travelled for an appreciable chunk of a kilometre before coming down.

Of course, such a sight would have been secondary to the spectacle of watching the multi-armed form spiral in mid air, perform a somewhat wobbling and tilted loop, then come crashing down to the sea once more. Only to have their re-entry to the waves denied as a large section of water suddenly froze into an iceberg, half the figure's body caught in the ice while the free section flailed slightly.

This state of affair only lasted a second or two though. With a splintering crash the ice came apart and the figure was free.

-()-

Alright, perhaps that wasn't the best start to things.

Shaking the ice from my second right arm I turn to look at the world around me . . . only to freeze in realization of what I had just done.

My second right arm? Also for that matter I wasn't looking at anything. Sight, at least in the way that the sense had been to me only a few minutes ago, at least from my perspective, was gone. Yet I still remain aware of the world, I see the shapes and angles of it with greater precision than my eyes could ever have supplied.

Okay, calm down. You're a grown man, think rationally.

This is really happening, it might be bloody impossible, but it really is happening. Well, either that or I'm in such a deep state of delusion that it makes no difference. No, don't think like that, such thoughts are useless at this point. Accept reality as it is, once I'm on firmer footing I can start worrying about it being otherwise.

First, what the hell has happened to my senses? Answer; it said that Endbringers awakened to see the world through alien senses, ones that were determined by what powers I chose. In Worm Behemoth could only see the world in terms of energy, Leviathan could only perceive water and the Simurgh could see the past and future, but not the present.

The energy about me, the form and composition of the matter, that was obviously from the Psychokinetic power. Heat, electricity, gravitation, kinetic, even the vibrations of sound, I can tell each form of energy apart as easily as I could have seen the difference between primary colours when I had eyes. The thing is that I'm not seeing them; I don't really think there's a name for what I'm doing. I know where each energy is, I know the . . . direction, for want of a better word, in which it's moving, I know how strong it is, it should be overwhelming, but it isn't.

The same goes for the new senses imparted upon me by the Shaper. Right now there's nothing near to me other than a few fish, other tiny ocean dwelling life forms and some bacteria carried by the air currents. Yet despite them being so insignificant I can sense their DNA, I know how it can be twisted, rewritten, fed with extra dimensional biomass until a fish the size of my human little finger can become a beast able to swallow the shark from Jaws without even needing to chew. Even the tiny spores and cells landing on my 'skin', just like Amy had been able to do in the original story, I know how to turn them into a disease designed to scythe down all life it encountered. So much, so much life everywhere.

And there's even more than that, more than just the physical. I can . . . see? Feel? Taste? There is no word for it, but I can perceive the idle thoughts of the men in a fishing boat that sailed through this spot months ago. I can't read them, as in I can't see what they were thinking, but the emotions and drives hang in the air despite the passage of time. One sailor had been hungry, another lightly entertaining himself with lustful thoughts; a third had been worrying about something, something that filled him with fear. There were other strands and streams of thoughts and emotions, but I pay them no heed.

This is real; I haven't got any choice but to accept it. Actually the in pour of alien senses is probably the best truth I could have. I don't think I could imagine something like this even if I was delusional. Hell, the amount of information flooding into my mind should have left me a drooling wreck as my grey matter burnt out trying to process it all.

This was real! Accept it and move on!

First things first, curse the heavens that I had to try to be smart and go for interesting powers. Screw interesting! I want Alexandria invincibility, I want Eidolon broken powers, I want the Kaleidoscope 'I win' option, I want unlimited Tinker bullshit!

Alright, that was cleansing. Now that that's out of the way let's get back to basics.

Just as with my senses my body no longer feels anything like what I've lived with my entire life. There aren't any muscles responding to nerve impulses, there isn't even any sensation of touch, not really. Yet at the same time I am in total control of my new body, as though I had been living in it all my life. Layer upon layer of exponentially dense matter, musculature totally different from a human, a circulatory system that makes no noise and serves no function other than appearance, a totally different centre of balance. My thinking is done by the hardest part of me, my core I can feel it resting in the thickest part of my body where the three torsos join. There are two other cores, one in the skull of my middle head and one behind where my navel would be if I was human again.

It doesn't matter, I can still move as easily as ever.

That makes sense, whoever has set this up clearly didn't want me fumbling around and trying to learn how to simply walk. The same seems to be true of my powers in that they are firmly under my control. I needn't fear setting the atmosphere on fire or unleashing a plague by accident it would seem.

Whoever put me here . . .

The email was addressed from R.O.B, obviously someone's idea of a joke. Random Omnipotent Being, how many times had that old plot device been used in the fics I'd read?

Well, I am here now, and I'm equipped with some serious power. I haven't even had a chance to fully test it out, and already I'm damned sure that if I wanted to I can split atoms and trigger a nuclear detonation with minimal difficulty. And then I can go on to do it again and again.

If I still had a head then I'd shake it, as things stand all that happens is that my main core shakes slightly where it can't be seen.

With an almost absent flex of my power the ice melts beneath me, several tonnes of ice returning to a liquid state in an instant. I remain floating above the ocean beneath me, my form suspended by my power.

So much power . . . the thought ripples through my mind as I contemplate what I have just done. The kind of power needed to shift water from solid to liquid so fast is considerable; probably enough to reduce a car to red glowing slag, but it came to me so easily. And beyond that I could feel more power behind it, like an eager dog straining on its leash and wanting to run free.

If said dog was the size of a mountain, and had just shifted a claw barely an inch.

God, it's like that with all the powers, I can feel them waiting, like oceans of water waiting behind some monumental dam. I must be careful, very careful in their use. It would be so easy for that power to run riot if I'm careless.

But I have these powers, and that means that I have an obligation to use them. The world of Worm had far too much screwed up in it that needs fixing. The question is; can I do anything to help?

Well, yes I can. I can blast the Slaughterhouse Nine into their component particles. I can bury Coil in the middle of a volcano. I can fight against the other Endbringers, hell; I'd have to since I'd chosen Sibling Rivalry. I could see about stopping Cauldron's more atrocious actions. I could rescue Taylor, expose Sophia. I could-

Gods, what am I thinking? I'm actually seriously considering the murder of the Slaughterhouse Nine. Alright, granted that for the most part they're either monsters that need killing or sadly utterly broken people that needed putting down, but actually killing them . . . ? The most violent thing I've ever done in my life was get pissed off and vicious during a fencing match, and even then I'd felt bad about the bruises I'd given my opponent. Now I'm genuinely considering the deaths of them and Coil?

Is this a side effect of Invictus? Or is it a result of my new body? I don't have brain cells of cerebral chemicals to do my thinking now, could that be altering my personality? For that matter could I still consider myself to be me given what had happened to me? Am I just a copy of myself that's been dumped into this body? Am I an Endbringer that thinks it's human rather than a human that has become an Endbringer?

The thought is an insidious one, and for an unknown amount of time my mind chases itself in circles. In the end though I come to a simple conclusion.

Do I think I'm me? Answer; yes I do. Well, for now that will have to do. Honestly, it doesn't really change things if I'm the genuine article or a duplicate, either way I'm still going to act as I see fit.

Right, existential crisis dealt with; at least for the time being, what's next?

Oh yes, I was trying to plan what I was going to do. Before I could plan anything like that though, the first thing I needed to find out was just when I was. The program hadn't asked me to specify at what point in the continuity I was going to be placed in, so that that left three options as far as I could see.

I could be inserted at some point purely at random, I could be placed at the 'start' of Worm, meaning just before Taylor goes out in costume for the first time, or I could be placed at a time of 'my' choosing. When I'd begun running the program a number of options had been running through my head as to when my character could appear. If whatever force had placed me in this world had used those idle thoughts as prompts then there were a further three spots I could be at.

The first is just before or after Riley is forced into Slaughterhouse Nine. If that is the case and I move swiftly enough then I might be able to save her before Jack's brainwashing really sets in. It would also put me just before Leviathan sank Newfoundland, meaning that I could see about saving Dragon's creator. Or, if I failed that, make sure that Saint never got hold of the Richter's last will and testament.

My second option was before Taylor's mother died. If I could save Annette Hebert then there was a good chance I could upset many of the dominos that end up making Taylor's life a misery.

The last option that I'd been considering was just before the Simurgh's attack on Madison. If that was the case then I could hopefully do something to save the Travellers from a lot of grief. Noelle in particular doesn't deserve what happens to her. And Trickster might be an asshole, but for all the boneheaded mistakes he made he'd been damned loyal to her all the way through to the end, and that meant that at the very least he didn't deserve to end up as one of Teacher's sock puppets.

I can start worrying about how I can make this damned world even worse by accident as soon as I know just when I am. Until then such thoughts are just a waste of energy.

Now that that's decided my next challenge is just how to find that information. I mean, it's hardly as though I can stroll into an internet café and use a computer.

Okay, the first logical step is getting to ground; it isn't as though I'm going to find much where I am. The problem with that is that I haven't a clue where I am; I can't feel the temperature or feel the climate. I know how much heat there is in the air and just how much moisture it carries, but that doesn't translate into something I can use. For all I know I could be in the middle of the Indian Ocean or a few miles off the coast of Mexico. I suppose I could just choose a direction and head towards it. The sun is over there and it looks to be setting, so that must mean that's the general west. If I head for it I'm bound to hit a landmass eventually.

And I'm sure that will work out just fine, it's not as though I have 'Endbringer' written all over me after all. If I did head off in some general direct then by the time I make land I'll most like have a small army awaiting me, one including the Triumvirate. Granted I can probably take them, but there's no point to doing that now, indeed it will probably generate no end of difficulties for the future.

I would have to be fast, that would be the key. Get there before any resistance could be mustered, get what I need and leave before anything can happen.

Actually . . . I don't even need to do that. All I need is a newspaper with a date I can read, and if my Psychokinetic power is a strong as I think that shouldn't be too hard at all. I can snag a discarded paper and bring it to me from miles away. At least in theory anyway.

Of course to do that I have to find an English speaking country first. The knowledge imparted by Emperor of Man might include an understanding of languages, but I'd rather leave finding that out until a less crucial point. A map would certainly be useful about n-

Ah.

Ahhhhh.

Of course there's a map I can use. I'm standing right above it after all.

With a flex of the same power that keeps me from falling into the sea I begin to rise, slowly at first, then with greater speed as I grow more comfortable with the use of my power. For a moment I consider raising my arms in the classic 'Superman flying' pose that I've seen so often in comics and films. Then I discard the idea, with this strangely inhuman form it would look more absurd than anything else. Instead I let my arms hang at my sides as the air pressure pushes them down.

The world spreads out beneath me, a massive carpet of energy, matter, life and thoughts. I can't see it, not as I once would have, but what I can perceive matches my memories. The difference between liquid and solid forms the familiar outlines of seas and continents.

Okay, now I have a general idea of where I am. Over that way was Japan and Asia, and off in the other direction was the west coast of North America. I continue to ascend higher and higher, even as I angle my flight so that I'm moving over the United States.

By now I must be in low earth orbit, hundreds of miles up and I feel neither the cold nor the void. To me the freezing lack of atmosphere is simply a lack of energy just as the lack of air is nothing more than a lack of molecules or tiny lives. If I wanted to I could remain up here indefinitely, just as the Simurgh does between her own attacks.

Brushing such wandering thoughts aside I turn my attentions to another matter, namely the constant flow or waves and streams of energy I can sense passing all around the world in a sort of endless current. So many of them that it should be an incomprehensible mess, yet despite it all I can see some sense to it.

Radio waves, transmissions, the lifeblood of the world wide information services. I can se them, and with some time I'm sure that I can work out just what information is being sent through them. Maybe later though, after I have some more practice with what I can do. The last thing I want is to accidentally mess up some transmission and end up being responsible for some vital message not getting where it's meant to be.

There's more though. I 'see' the individual minds even from this great distance. Even amidst the sea of matter, energy and genetic material of life the power of their thoughts stands out like stars in the night sky. It would be so easy to reach out to those minds, to take what I need, but even as the thought occurs to me I draw back.

I have instinctive ability in the use of my new powers, but as demonstrated by my first attempt as self propulsion it isn't perfect. If I try to simply draw out the knowledge I need the results could be a disaster. At best I might damage the mind of the one I try it on. At worst I could accidentally lobotomize a city. No, it's most sensible to do this by the inconvenient but mundane route.

I cease my rising and start to descend slowly. How close do I have to be to be able to sense something as simple as a newspaper?

Oh well, how hard could it be?