A/N: This is a thing. So I've been thinking about starting a , maybe idk. Gonna do some more writing, see what people like and see if it's worth it. I don't want to write stuff that I like and have people expect me to write stuff they like because money. Anyways, trying to get my CCNA cert, so that's probably gonna take precedence.

When you're dropped into a new world, given powers, and have carte blanche to do whatever you want, it's basically an Isekai adventure. It's sort of less impressive when you're dropped into a crime infested city instead of an impressive castle with a princess calling you the destined hero.

Of course, that didn't mean being homeless was in any part cool.

"Come on, I'm starving. There's gotta be something edible in here." I said as I dug through the trash behind a chinese restaurant. If there was one thing that was nice about being homeless, it's that I was homeless in the asian district of Brockton. That meant a bunch of random leftover food (trash or otherwise) was fairly easy to come by. Stuff like overripe fruit was the best, especially persimmons were common since it was summer time and they spoiled easily.

Thankfully, my power gave me a bit of a better baseline to work with ( I was still a chubby looking bastard though). It made anything resembling food edible. I guess it was because I was more a mass of changing energy than anything else.

"Oi, Baozi, what you think you doing?" An old man said. He was balding, and had darker skin for an asian man. He looked more like one of those stereotypical rural farmers you'd see out in China than a guy running a restaurant in the city.

"Just looking for some food, Mr. Xi. I'll be out of your hair soon." I griped. It was like the fourth time he caught me behind his restaurant in particular. He just liked calling me Meat Bun because I didn't give him my name. Course, I called him Xi because that was what he named the restaurant. Xi's Palace.

He grumbled something and rubbed his balding head. I winced. Right, he was sensitive about his hair cause he lost it in his twenties.

"Baozi, you scare customer!" I mean, he wasn't wrong. Whether it was by luck or by pluck, Mr. Xi managed to score a location on the edge of the Asian district closer to the boardwalk area. In other words, his restaurant was too close to the nice areas of the city to have a homeless bum digging through his trash. In fact, there were a couple of teens down the street looking curiously down the alley already.

"Sorry Mr. Xi, I just ain't got much going on right now. Bumming around's all I got." And it was the truth. The last ABB banger I met tried to scare me off one of their locations. When I tried to be threatening back, he laughed his ass off. Until I turned into Raiza the Storm Monarch and used hurricane force winds to blast him off his ass. Like I said, I wasn't built or anything because of my powers. I was just a chubby asian nerd who could turn into a solar flare (or the equivalent in the five other elements from Yu-Gi-Oh).

The old man grumbled some more, before sighing. He looked at me, a lot more tired than he was the last time we spoke.

"Baozi, you eat alot? You know how to cook?" The old man asked. I nodded. I mean, I knew a bit from my parents before I got dropped here. I kept digging through the trash as we talked. A man's gotta eat. I mean, the smell sucked, and the fumes made my eyes water, but food was food when you're homeless. He looked me over again, before letting out a deep sigh.

"You come work for me, ok?" That actually got me to stop what I was doing. I looked at him questioningly.

"Look, my son's not interested in the restaurant, and my back's going. Soon enough, this little place we built will be rubble. My wife would kill me if I let a kid like you go on like this when I could help. And I'm not prepared to tell her I messed up her dream restaurant when I die." Mr. Xi always liked to default to Chinese when he had to be more clear. It made sense, it was his home language after all. Apparently he and his wife came to America to try and get a better life back in the sixties (Earth Bet never had the Chinese Exclusionary act apparently).

I nodded. Universe was throwing me a bone, and he kinda reminded me of my own gramps. I wasn't the kind to look a gift horse in the mouth.

I'd been working for Mr. Xi for two months, and let me just say, the man was a taskmaster.

Baozi, you need to do circles! Circles! Lines ruin the pan!

Swap the grease traps. This needs to be done three times a day or the food starts to smell!

Three dishes at a time! You must work on three at a time! Otherwise you will mistime orders!

There were at least 40 more instructions of the like. All working towards running the restaurant as a one man show with a perfect record. I was fairly sure at least half his instructions weren't technically necessary, but he did them because he wanted his restaurant to be quality and fast. While my power didn't fix my body much, it did give me enhanced endurance and a bit of enhanced strength at the base level. So it wasn't impossible to follow the orders I was given, and we broke into a decent routine over the past two months.

Most of my mornings were spent moving inventory and helping Mr. Xi prep the equipment as he did some accounting on the counter. Followed by the lunch rush, then cleanup, the early dinner and dinner rushes, cleanup again, and finally closing the store and taking inventory. The man ran a tight ship, and I honestly had no clue how he managed to maintain this level of work before.

And the amount of customers was insane! I never realized (since I was a bum for about a month or two) but Mr. Xi had a shit ton of foot traffic through his restaurant; people stopping in for a quick meal, orders going out to delivery services, and I think I saw some mercenary group take a large order to go.

"Baozi, get the fucking door, an important customer is coming!" The old man shouted from the front of the restaurant by the phone. I gave my power a quick poke, and turned into Zaborg the Thunder Monarch. Mainly because I was nearly 7 feet tall in this form. I brushed aside the step ladder I had been planning to use, and brought both boxes of napkins to the top shelf of the store room.

I changed back as I closed the door behind me. Running to the front of the shop, I opened the door and bowed as a group of masked men came inside and Mr. Xi directed them to the only private room we had. I sprinted to my workstation to get to work on cooking the dishes that Mr. Xi prepped before lunch.

Oh did I forget to mention? Apparently, Mr. Xi's restaurant was the preferred food service of the ABB. It was just that good. The old man didn't even have any relations to the gang, they just paid him money to give them food and a quiet place. Near the boardwalk or not, Mr. Xi couldn't exactly say no to freaking Lung showing up on his doorstep at nine and asking for a table.

I stowed my thoughts as I began to deep fry some noodle dough to make a drinking snack that aforementioned dragon villain preferred.

I pushed my way into the private room with an array of their preferred dishes. Mr. Xi had ironed it into me to serve them in a specific way when he was cooking the next series of courses. The dishes were always placed on the Lazy Susan starting from Oni Lee and going clockwise towards Lung at the head of the room.

I placed the dishes slowly, allowing the masked assassin to take a bite from each before rotating it across the table. Once they were satisfied that the assassin had taste tested as necessary, they all began to dig in. It was mostly for Lung's benefit, from what I could tell. Any fast acting poison would kill Lung, but slow ones could be burned out by his power and regeneration. I heard a slow rumble from behind me as I began to take my leave.

"Baozi, make sure the drinks are strong this time." Lung's voice was deep and raspy. Most of the gangsters preferred to use the same nickname as the old man because it was easy. When it came from them, it was an insult to be sure. I turned, nodded, and bowed before leaving promptly. It was expected of my position after all. It ruffled my feathers that I had to treat such a monster with such reverence, but this wasn't the best place to start a fight.

When I relayed the request to the old man he grouched. Mr. Xi's establishment didn't have an actual liquor license, so we usually served them beer that the old man kept upstairs. Unfortunately, Mr. Xi wasn't much of a strong drinker, so even though we kept a lot of beer on hand, there wasn't anything in terms of hard liquor. And as shitty as the Bay was, most liquor stores near the boardwalk weren't open past ten at night.

I mean, so far Lung hasn't done anything unreasonable in the restaurant, but denying the man anything seemed to be a bad idea in general. Like I said before, it wasn't that I was scared (I was 100% sure Mega Monarch Thestalos would roast his ass) but rather that ruining the livelihood of Mr. Xi after he took me in seemed like a shitty move.

At least my power gave me a way to help him. While I couldn't leave myself, I could summon the Monarch vassals and have them do my bidding for me. I didn't really use it often because-

Ultimate one! Your desire is my command! Allow this wretched Lucius to-

No, I clearly am the most favored of the Ultimate one! Sire, I, Escher of the Frost, shall-

Quiet fools!

Garum is the most fit!

That. Because that. They were all like a bunch of overly excited puppies who didn't get to go out enough. I would let them out more often, but unfortunately it drained my energy reserves. And if my energy reserves drained, I would have to eat more. Which would normally be fine, but "more" had the context of dumpsters of food, rather than plates.

Tenma, if you would. I commanded nonverbally. The monster Tenmataitei was more like adjacent to the Monarchs than a vassal, but my power had him recorded as my own vassal, which honestly didn't make sense, but he was super quiet so I didn't question it.

As you command. And with that, I sent Tenmataitei to the liquor store. As I began to cook the third and final set of dishes, a thought occurred.

I just sent an imposing masked man covered in armor on a super horse to a liquor store. In Brockton Bay.

Shit, I hope he doesn't get arrested.

Turns out, he had no trouble at all. Man, it was amazing to have competent minions.

I sensed a feeling of smugness sent back at me from Tenma. It proceeded to rustle the jimmies of all the other Monarch Vassals. Tuning them out, I focused back on the current predicament.

An assortment of hard liquor showed up on the kitchen counter courtesy of Tenma right before the old man walked back into the kitchen. It showed how long he lived in Brockton Bay, as he didn't even question it. He just grabbed a few of the more expensive looking ones, and put them on his food cart before grabbing the tumblers that Tenma had provided.

He gave me one searching look before speaking.

"You have powers Baozi?" I wasn't really sure how to answer that question other than a shrug. He nodded.

"Stay away from the shop when you use them. I don't need more trouble. Cleanup then you're off for the day." I nodded, wide-eyed, and he wheeled the alcohol off.

It took me a few moments to realize I had gotten his approval. Moving with a swiftness I didn't realize I had, I finished up the rest of the chores for cleanup. It took about a good hour to really get the kitchen sparkling as per Mr. Xi's requirements. I finished cleaning the dishes that were left from Lung's group, and Mr. Xi nodded at my progress before going to bed.

It was going to be my first night superheroing. Or something like that. I wasn't sure yet, because the end goal of this world was a depressing mindfuck.

Either way, I was hyped to use super powers!

This was boring as shit. Using my powers of course, was super not boring, but when one expects an Isekai adventure, usually the adventuring part is the thing they focus on.

I'd been lazily flying over the south side of Brockton (far and away from ABB territory, and more into what I assumed was the Empire given the amount of skinheads). I mean, Raiza the Storm Monarch was a hawk-helmed knight covered in green with a giant green cowl.

You'd think someone at some point would look up and see this green affront to nature. But, it was not meant to be. So, as of now, I was just perched on one of the taller buildings in the district. I was Batman'ing it up. Now all I needed was-

My head cocked to the side. Most of the Monarchs came with a suite of enhanced abilities associated with their forms. Mobius was a fast healer. Thestalos was obviously immune to heat.

Raiza had enhanced senses beyond that of the other Monarch forms. I wasn't sure what I heard, as it was hard to parse over some of the noise from the boardwalk, but I was pretty sure that it was something illegal.

I took a nosedive off the edge of the building, air rushing past my helm in a loud screech as I dropped with style. Raiza didn't exactly use his aerokinesis to fly. I still didn't know how I could fly, but it felt more like invisible wings than anything else. One large gust of wind later, I was soaring over the city, heading towards the south side of the boardwalk.

As I got closer, I could make out the sounds I had been hearing that weren't normal to a city. It was a firefight. As I got closer, my eyes caught the muzzle flashes of weapons. Then I heard the shouting.

"Merchant fuckers!"

"Suck my 8 incher you-" I tuned them out. So gang on gang violence was today's pick. Alright. I gathered the wind around me, a small tornado gathering around my body. I wasn't above the cloud covers yet, so there would be no visible sign that my attack was coming. Once the preparation was complete, a full on air drill was surrounding my body. I dove like a peregrine hawk.

Of course, given that I'm on a pretty heavy power trip right now, I decided to show off. I wasn't more than a thousand feet above the gang fight, but Raiza wasn't called the Storm Monarch for nothing. I let off a sonic boom as soon as I dove. Of course, at that speed, no human, enhanced or otherwise, would be able to react in time to land safely. Thankfully, I wasn't human anymore. Raiza's enhanced senses kicked into overdrive, allowing me to sense when I got too close to the ground. I gave my mental wings an equally hard flap as a brake, and applied visceral use of my aerokinesis to slow me down.

I still cracked the pavement when I landed.

Turns out, my superhero landing was for naught. Apparently, releasing a sonic boom followed by an actual tornado knocked out every gang banger in the nearby area. I looked around the street where they were having the shootout. Every single one of them was on the ground, either knocked out or in the process of vomiting since their inner ears were destroyed. I looked around some more.

I winced. I think that one got wrapped around a telephone pole.

Note to self: Take it easy. Full Monarch strength breaks things.

Well, as a man who was previously homeless two months ago, I didn't exactly have a cellphone, so I just walked over to one of my knocked out victims and started looting. I didn't bother with looting the Merchants, since I was neither interested in easily traceable drugs or catching their diseases. The E88 side wasn't much better, but at least they didn't look like they crawled out of a dumpster. And I would know, I did that a shit ton in my first few months here. About twenty minutes later, I was done with my looting.

A handful of hundreds in cash, a nice leather wallet, a decent watch, and what looked like a burner phone.

I looked at the phone. I was pretty sure 911 was still a working number here?

"Hello, this is the Brockton Bay Police, what is your emergency?" I let out a sigh of relief.

"I would like to report two groups of incapacitated gang members. They were having a firefight and I thought fit to intervene." Like all the Monarch forms, Raiza had a voice that was imposing and deep. Though, unlike Zaborg's cheerfulness or Granmarg's apathy, Raiza's inflection was more akin to amusement.

I heard the woman on the other end of the line stop typing.

"Excuse me sir, are you implying that you stopped the firefight by yourself?" I blinked. Oh right, if a cape is involved it has to go to the PRT or something according to cape law. Super weird distinction for this world honestly.

"Yes, I am a cape if that clears things up." The woman on the other end sighed. It was the sigh of dealing with too many idiots in too little time. I frowned. Did she think I was stupid? I just didn't know the number for the PRT! The number that every American in this timeline probably knows. Probably knows to call too.

Hmm. Maybe I am stupid.

"Please hold as I redirect you to the PRT emergency line." Right, this will probably take a while. I looked around. Might as well cleanup a bit. Creating two tornadoes, I gathered up both groups of thugs and piled them on top of each other as lightly as possible. A few of them seemed to be waking up, so I used some creative manipulation of air pressure to knock them back out. Apparently a fierce enough pop in the ear canal can cause people to become extremely nauseous. Who knew? I certainly didn't until five minutes ago.

"Holy crap! Look, a cape!" Wait, what? My head snapped to the voice. A group of teens was pointing at me excitedly. How did they even-

Riiiight. Sonic booms can be heard from the ground when an airplane does it. Even my contained one inside my aerokinesis probably sounded like a bomb going off. I watched as the group of civilians took pictures. Which was then followed by more civilians pouring onto the side street in the Downtown coastal area. Well, this wasn't really how I wanted to make my debut.

"This is the PRT Emergency line, what is your emergency?" Rang in my ear. I almost forgot I was still on hold.

"Hello, this is an independent cape. I would like to report that I have incapacitated two groups of gang members that appear to be affiliated with the Merchants and Empire 88. I am on Monroe street downtown." I stated calmly. Once they confirmed a team would be on the way, and that I was a cape, I hung up. Jeez, you'd think people would turn their cell phone flashes off when it's nearly midnight. I glanced back at the growing crowd. It seemed that the people were coming from the Boardwalk directly. I guess it must have closed down when the sonic boom went off.

I watched as one of the civilians broke off from the crowd. She seemed to be a woman in her early twenties, and she was followed by a young man carrying what seemed to be a camcorder. I guess she was a reporter or blogger of some kind? I pinned her with my stare, and held my hand up to stop her.

Turning around, I blasted all the gang members against the building using a strong wind blast. It wasn't clean, but it kept them locked in place and away from endangering any civilians. The crowd ooh'd and aah'd as I formed restraints. This was the really hard part. Being basically pure energy and the ultimate air manipulator gave me a lot of leeway, but I still needed concentration to form air based constructs. The restraints took the shape of miniature tornadoes that dug into the walls around each gangster's limbs. I had to consciously keep it active, but once it was setup, my power kept it autonomous.

I waved the reporter towards me.

This was it! This was her big break! Brandi Richte was shaking in her flat tops as her anxiety ate at her. She gave her hair a quick tug with her fingers to make it somewhat camera presentable as she and Mitchell walked up to the new cape. Even though capes were a constant in Brockton Bay, being able to interview a newcomer was an easy way to get recognized. She straightened out her skirt once she was able to stand next to him.

He was more impressive close up. Green knightly armor, a cape, and his stance exuded strength. The kind of hero that would make her journalistic career! She motioned for Mitch to get the camera rolling.

"Hello! My name is Brandi Richte, junior affiliate with the Brockton Bay News Network! Now, as much as everyone here, I would like to know a bit more about Brockton's newest cape. Name? Powers? Goals?" She said, like she had rehearsed a thousand times before. However, now that it was in front of a camera, it seemed a bit too prepared. Maybe it was too preppy? Not casual enough?

The hero simply stared her down, his imposing gaze not breaking from her inquisitive one. He was tapping his fingers along his folded arms. A nervous tic maybe?

She cleared her throat politely, trying to get him to speak. God forbid she got an Armsmaster. As impressive as he was, he was an interview anchor. Like squeezing blood from stone according to all the reporter's who've worked with him.

"Raiza." Oooh, that voice. Charismatic, and with a tone of laughter. Deep too, clearly an adult. A big step up from the teenagers that usually showed up.

"As for goals…" He brought a had up to his helmeted chin, as though in thought. And on that note, Brandi had to admit the armor was sleek. In addition to the knight motif, now that she got closer, she could see the clear avian inspiration. A hawk like helm, combined with the light feather pattern across the metal chest plate and limbs made him appear like a fantasy knight. His cowl took inspiration from owls from what she could tell, as it wrapped around him like a noble cloak.

"I suppose-" He began, before abruptly stopping. His stance quickly shifted, his gaze focusing on a spot in the air. The air began to whip up around him, and Brandi had to take a few steps back. She turned to Mitch once they were clear.

"I swear to god if you miss a single second of this-" She whispered harshly away from her pinned microphone. Mitch nodded vigorously, keeping the camera steady and on the hero. He zoomed out as the hero launched a blast of air skyward.

Whatever had been there had been blown away, as some sort of smoke peeled away to reveal a knight like figure. Except it was cute? Brandi watched as the little knight was pulled towards the hero trapped in an air bubble. Once it was closer, Brandi could see that it was fairly short. Not anything impressively small but more like it was physically short. Maybe five feet? The proportions didn't really help either.

"Ah! My Lord, this Lucius apologizes for interrupting, but we must be on our way if we wish to make it in time!" Oh god, it was a little girl. No wonder the knight costume was designed like that. Brandi guessed she must have been like Vista's age! It was to be as non-threatening as possible. And the edginess in the costume didn't convince her. It was something a kid would call cool!

"Of course Lucius," The hero said as the hero collected the girl from the air bubble.

"Lucius, please join Tenma. I shall be along shortly." The hero placed the little girl down. He patted her on the head then motioned her to move along. She began grumbling as she walked past the crowd towards a particularly dark spot.

"This Lucius will do as Lord Raiza says, but wants it to be known that she thinks Tenmataitei is a smug prick." Brandi heard as the little girl was wrapped in shadows and vanished. The hero turned towards Brandi, but it was clear the interview was over as far as he was concerned.

"As for your question, Ms. Richte, my intention here is my own. Farewell!" He said as he launched from the ground into the air. Though, not as one would with traditional flight. A small tornado manifested as he launched himself upward, and Brandi could have sworn she heard the beat of wings.

Thinking quickly, the young reporter combed her hair back down and flicked Mitchell in the arm, their shared sign to refocus on her.

"I think that raised more questions than answers! Knightly, mysterious, member of a possible team? The new Brockton cape Raiza is looking to blow us away." She motioned for Mitch to cut before she groaned.

Blow us away? God that sounded so corny. If she was going to go corny, then she should have had Mitch say something to offset it. Ugh that was so embarrassing!

"So, what do you think Bran?" Mitch asked, connecting his camera to his phone to make a second copy of the video.

"I think that guy is our meal ticket. I also think I'm standing in a pile of throw up - gross, gross, gross!"

I watched the camera footage the next morning.

"We'd like to thank our junior affiliate Brandi for her great reporting! Now, let's turn to our Parahuman expert, Richard Lee for a more in depth analysis of the video-" I turned it off.

Smug prick?

This Lucius has no regrets. Tenmataitei is- agck! Mercy! Mercy! Mithra help!

No, thank you.

God, it's like a Looney Toons' episode in my mindspace. Thankfully, a few things actually came from that experience yesterday besides me making myself seem utterly pretentious. I guess that was part of Raiza's nature leaking out. He was basically a hawk meets an owl, so preening was to be expected.

Anyways, the good news was that apparently while in my Monarch form, I had absolutely no energy constraints when it came to summoning my vassals. I had been rifling through the list mentally while I was trapped with that reporter and apparently summoned all of them. They all answered the call of course. Thankfully, I was able to bullshit my way out of it using Lucius.

The other was that I was so blatantly overpowered in terms of elemental manipulation that I could probably just no-sell an Endbringer if I decided to use all my forms and vassals.

I was going to break so many things-

"Aya, Baozi, get the fucking pot-stickers, if they burn that's out of your pay!" I shut the TV off.

Work first, play later.

A/N: So that was a thing. Idk, I'm not great at writing SI fanfics, but they're sorta maybe easier than actual plot structure since it's just sorta wish fulfillment to a certain extent. And since I haven't written anything in awhile I just thought that this would be the easiest way to cut my teeth again so to speak. Now, I won't make any promises to updates for my other stories, as work and life has caught up to me goofing off so it's a bit hard.

Anyways thanks for reading.

Tenmataitei goes to the Liquor store:

"Give me your money punk!" Tenma had been patiently waiting in line atop his horse at the nearest 24-hour liquor store. Which, for reference, was nearly a quarter of the city north of where his master resided. He had the money required to purchase a few bottles of what his master described as "hard liquor" that these humans sell. How he got the money had been a rather quick trip that involved shaking do- appropriating, yes appropriating, the funds from those shifty-eyed humans who stood in alleyways.

"Are you fucking deaf?" Tenma stared down the craze-eyed man who was haphazardly waving his weapon at him. Tenma knew little about firearms, but those Duel monsters he met that used them were generally professional in their use. The D.D. army, many of the cybernetic beings that roamed Caius' lands. This man was... not.

Of course, everyone else in the store was staring at the man like he was an absolute moron (Which he was, it just happened to be that everyone else knew as well). Mainly, because waving a gun at what was obviously a professional "cape" was an easy way to get your ass kicked.

"Uh sir, if you get him out of here, the owner is willing to offer you half off anything you buy." The clerk said. Tenma looked at the grocery basket he had in his hands. His ill-gotten gains had only gotten him some of the mid-priced bottles. He pointed to the top shelf liquor the young man had behind the counter. Understanding Tenma's intention, the clerk ran through the door to the backroom. A few minutes later he was back out.

"Uh, he can't really give you half off if you want to buy those, but he'll give you half off anything else and one of those on the house." Tenma nodded. That was a fair trade.

Tenmataitei unleashed the absolute power of one blessed by the two primeval Monarchs. In other words, he had his noble steed donkey kick the Merchant thug out of the store.

"Would that be cash or credit?"