Yes, I know I should prioritize 'The Fourth Beast'. And I will. But this had been stuck to my head for quite some time.
A different style from my usual one. I always wanted to try Gamer fic and first person point of view. Let's see how it goes,
Disclaimer: I do not own DC, or any other characters from other franchise.
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Chapter 1
Who's laughing now?
The pain.
It was excruciating.
There was this myth, that one would get glimpses of his or her life flashing by during their last moment. But I did not have any of those flashes. Nothing. It seemed the myth was wrong. Or maybe that I was a lunatic who did not mind embracing his own death. Or maybe that there was nothing left in the world for me. Just an empty cold apartment, and…
I gasped for another breath.
The pain.
It was unimaginable.
Still, the sight before me was a wonderful one, seeing the shooter clutching his neck and choking on his own blood. His gaze, which was livid just a moment ago, had nothing but fear in it. It seemed, the bastard understood. He was also not going to make it.
One more futile gasp.
I knew people were swarming him, calling out to me. Telling me something.
But, I could not hear them…
I could not feel them…
I could not see them…
I could not breathe…
One last gasp.
One last blink.
… And I could breathe again.
I blinked few more times, my mind still not registering what was happening. Alright, first things first, I checked my wounds.
Okay, they were gone. And so was the blood and pain. No complaints there. And then I realized, I was… on top of the sky, I think?
"Is this the Heaven?"
"To plain to be the Heaven, do you not think so."
The voice was old, gentle, and soothing. Regardless, I still got freaked out. I might have gotten a whiplash because of how fast my head moved toward the voice. The person in question looked quite ordinary, middle-aged, slightly shorter than him. While he was wearing all formal clothes, they looked quite outdated. But then a few images flashed in my mind.
I blinked once. Twice.
The image in my mind became clear.
"Apologies if I sound rude, but are you…?"
"Yes James, I am the Presence."
I opened my mouth and closed it. My mind completely stopped working for few seconds. And then the gears finally started turning, "What! Stop! Pause! You are the Presence! As in the Big G from the DC universe?!"
"The one and only," The Presence chuckled, "Deep breaths, James. Even though you have already died, at this rate, I would not be surprised if you pass out."
Yes, he was totally right. I closed my eyes and started to take deep breaths. I was having a meltdown right now. I was not a fanatic, but I was quite passionate when it came to comics, manga, games, and so on. In my defense, people with similar interests as mine would have a similar reaction. I was sure of it… I think.
Suddenly, something came to my mind. And, I started to freak out more.
"Alright, deep breaths, James, deep breaths," I cleared my throat and looked at the Presence. Well, call me a fan or a coward, but I could not meet his eyes, "Okay, so umm, I hope I am not jumping the gun but is this one of those scenarios where I get to reincarnate in another world."
"This is why it is always a pleasure to chat with people like you, James," He could feel the amusement in the Presence's voice, "Yes, if you want, you can reincarnate into the DC universe."
I could not describe how I felt at that moment. I could go the world of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Joker, Trigon, Darkseid…
Suddenly, I did not feel so enthusiastic.
It was the DC universe. Yes, it was the world where my favorite heroes resided. It was also the world where my 2D crushes resided. But it was also the world where the worst of the villains resided, both power and cruelty-wise.
"Of course, I will not be sending you there empty-handed."
My eyebrows shot up, "Really!" Seeing the amused look on his face, I cleared my throat again, "I apologize if I am being forward, but may I know what powers I shall receive?"
The Presence chuckled, "Let's make this interesting, shall we? Since you are a fan of many things, you can choose any fictional character or any fictional item, and I shall grant you similar powers. Of course, you can only choose a single character or a single item, and they cannot be from the DC universe."
I felt my shoulders sagging, "Seriously?"
"It makes things interesting, no?"
The answer only made me sigh. The Presence was right, I suppose. I immediately shook his head. I needed to focus. One character or item. The safest choice was Goku, no doubt, or any Saiyans from the Dragon Ball universe.
"Wait a minute," I cleared my throat again, "I have a question."
"No, you will not get, how to say, end-level powers right from the start. And yes, you will have somewhat similar restrictions for power-ups. And no," The voice sounded highly amused now, "There will be no plot armor supporting you in your power-ups."
"Fuck."
And there went the DBZ universe. Powers of Goku, or any of the Saiyans, required 24/7 hellish type of training and many many life-and-death matches to evolve. And if there was no plot armor, then I was not sure how I would get the 'Ultra Instinct'. There was, of course, an exception. Broly. But his power-up was very uncontrollable, similar to Hulk. I also did not remember reading any theories on how to control the Legendary Super Saiyan form. It would be counterproductive to have so much power but zero control over them.
There was a better alternative, Marvel Universe of course. Unfortunately, I cannot leverage anything from there. I loved Marvel Cinematic Universe, but could not say the same thing about the Marvel universe itself. I knew that there were quite a few characters in the Marvel universe, Mutants especially, who have some really sweet hax powers. I should have at least watched some series.
I cursed, internally of course. No way I was showing my potty mouth to the Presence.
I needed hax powers if I wanted to make it out alive from the DC universe. Let's just say the 'Justice League Dark: Apokolips War' scarred me. Like lying-down-in-my-bed-and-questioning-the-existence-of-the-world kind of scarring.
Then, it hit me.
Most of the characters that I know of, major protagonists, needed to go through a tragic and or gruesome life. In a way, it was understandable. The struggles, the pains, the losses, these would help their powers to evolve, to surpass. It was also the same reason why we loved them as characters.
I could remember some unique cases, but of course, many of them came with unfavorable conditions. For example, even Sung Jin-Woo from Solo Leveling needed to kill living beings to turn their corpses into his minions. And again, he had to train and fight almost all the time to get such power-ups. Also, unlike the world of Solo Leveling, the DC universe would not have the dungeons that I could exploit.
Wait…
Minions…
I frantically started to backtrack. Why was I thinking only about the popular mainstream series? There were others, non-mainstream, silly types. I suddenly remembered the one I recently watched.
Today, for the first time, I smiled.
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Gotham City
Barbara Gordon, who had her Batgirl suit and persona on, knew something was wrong the moment they stepped inside the shopping mall. It was a gut feeling. And in their lines of work, they learned long ago to trust their instinct as much as their knowledge.
It was not just her, even her teammate Robin and their mentor Batman felt the same, she clearly saw it.
And the fact that they were here for Joker made things worse.
Joker and his cronies had taken everyone inside the Gotham Shopping mall as hostages. And as usual, the Clown Prince of Crime had challenged the Dark Knight. They had reached here as fast as they could but when it came to Joker, they would never be fast enough.
There would always be casualties.
But so far they had seen none. What was more surprising, the cronies they had faced until now looked and acted like they were high on drugs, not the kind that would give them a boost of any sorts.
It was bizarre.
They immediately separated to cover more grounds. Batgirl and Robin started to cover the lower grounds whereas Batman went for the upper levels.
They approached near the food corner. A large open area, where many of people were tied down and were being watched by Joker's minions.
Her teammate, Tim Drake, Robin, signaled her through hand signs and then stealthily went toward their target. A moment later, he struck and knocked out all the thugs swiftly.
Batgirl did not join because she wanted to see if she could find any abnormalities.
There were none.
"What's going on," Robin told her through their communicator, "Their guns had safety lock on."
Batgirl did not know how to respond to that. But before she could say anything, Batman's grim voice came from her communicator, "I have found Joker. Topmost floor. I am going to engage him."
Batgirl and Robin looked at each other and rushed forward.
They were not surprised by the sound of the gunshots on their way, they were not surprised by seeing not a single hostage alive upon entering the floor. And they were definitely not surprised by seeing the crazed look on Joker who was fighting Batman.
But the moment they prepared to help out their mentor, their surroundings started to shift. It was as if a fog was lifted. A moment ago, the people were lying on the ground, motionless and with a forced smile on their face. And now, all of them were alive. Bound and terrified, but alive nonetheless.
"Why are they not dead?!" Joker screamed.
Her sixth sense flared. She turned to the side, so did Robin. But Batman and Joker were faster. Batman threw a few of his batarangs and Joker emptied his gun.
Their target was floating at the edge of the room.
It was not a human. It was a bipedal, humanoid-looking creature with feline features. It had gray skin with a long, purple tail. On top of its head were two short, blunt horns, and it had large purple eyes. A tube extended from the back of its skull to the top of its spine. Its chest and shoulders resembled a breastplate. It had three fingers on each hand, tips of which were spherical.
And it had purple transparent energy running all over its body. Energy that easily deflected the batarangs and the bullets.
It was then, she noticed.
She could not move. She could see from the corner of her eyes that Robin was the same. And to her surprise, so were Batman and Joker.
"Who are you?" Batman growled.
It did not say anything. Just raised its hand.
There was a loud snap.
For the first time in her life, she saw such an expression on Joker's face. He looked… surprised. So were they. After all, Joker's head was now facing his back.
"NO!" Batman roared. But he still could not move. Neither could they.
The thing waved his hand again. Another snap. And now Joker's head was facing forward again.
Batgirl had seen some dark and brutal scenes. It was Gotham, after all. But she had never seen someone's head taking a 360-degree turn. And in such a way.
She could feel her lunch coming back up.
Then she heard its voice,
"You're welcome."
With that, it was gone.
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X
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Gotham City, Wayne Enterprise Building
"Hahaha," It was a brutal execution, I was not going to deny it, but at the same time, it was beautiful. Seeing the fucker's smile disappearing like that… Oh~ The joy~
"Who's laughing now?"
"Again, with the cliché dialogues?"
I put down my binocular and turned my gaze to the side, "Mewtwo."
"We need to leave."
Just like that, one moment, we were on the roof of Wayne Enterprise building, enjoying the view using the stolen military gadgets. In the next, we were back in our humble abode. Well, not so much on humble. It was a luxurious apartment on Metropolis.
I really love this kind of teleportation. No walking through or failing to portals or extra visual effects that could be seen or noticed from miles away. Just a simple blink, and bam, we would disappear.
"A job well done," I threw the heavy binocular but instead of crashing onto the table, it gently landed on top of it, "Psychic powers rules," Then I turned toward Mewtwo, "Come here bro, give me a hug."
Mewtwo gave me a flat look but I dismissed it and gave him a bear hug. Today was a wonderful day.
"Are you done?"
I chuckled and let him go, "Why so grumpy?"
Mewtwo sighed, "Because of your illogical decision, now I have to undo my months of carefully planned works to remove our tracks."
I blinked, "Oh~"
"Yes, oh. We also have to be careful using our powers. The fallout of our actions is not something Batman can contain. So, the heavy cavalry will be coming. The Justice League will be here in Gotham, tonight by earliest or tomorrow by latest."
"Yikes~"
Mewtwo gave me another flat look. I just chuckled and raised my hands in surrender. With another sigh, he went to his room. It seemed like he would be working overnight.
But I know, he was not truly angry. After all, it was Joker. The Joker. The same fucker who was the key figure for creating many of the darkest variants of the DC universe. So, yeah, there was no way I was going to take any chances on him. I saw the sweet opportunity and I took it. No binding him down and giving a speech, no torturing him to make a statement, nothing to give the fucker a second to think.
Quick, effective, and using the perfect timing to take him out. Truly, a perfect assassination.
But Mewtwo was right, we needed to go underground for some time.
Smiling like a lunatic, I went downstairs. Time to sit back, relax and bask in today's achievement. It was a freaking big one. I sat down on the comfy couch and looked ahead, "Status."
A transparent screen appeared in front of me, something I know that only I and all those associated with me could see.
Name – James Bryan
Class – Human (Metahuman)
Rank – B (low)
Equipment – None
Title – The Reincarnated
Blessing – Annihilation Maker (view), Gamer's System (Lite)
Powers – Reader's Knowledge (Advance), Psionics (Basic), Melee combat (Basic)
I could feel my lips twitching as I pressed on the 'View' of my 'Blessing'.
Annihilation Maker (Longinus of High School DxD)
'Annihilation Maker, also known as Demonic Beast Creation, is one of the original thirteen Longinus from the High School DxD universe. The Annihilation Maker grants the user the ability to create any creatures based on his imagination, emotions, and efforts. The more powerful these resources are, the more powerful the creature is upon its creation.'
Special Summons (view)
Balance Breakers (view)
Grinning, I pressed on the 'View' of 'Balance Breakers'
Balance Breaker: The Firstborn
Mewtwo
Mewtwo is a creature from the Pokémon universe. In many variants of the Pokémon universe, this genetically engineered and legendary psychic Pokémon is considered to be one of the strongest Pokémon ever.
Status
Name – Mewtwo
Race – Pokémon
Rank – S (High)
Powers – Reader's Knowledge (Advance), Psionics (Master)
It had been two years almost… No, twenty months to be exact, since I had met the Presence, the Big G of the DC universe. Twenty months since I had been reincarnated. Twenty months since I had received all of these 'Gifts'.
I closed my eyes and tried to relish that memory… again.
The first 'Gift' was my core power. 'The Blessing' as I would like to put it. And for it, I had chosen 'Annihilation Maker' from the High School DxD universe. Were there any other better or more unique powers out there. Definitely. But, to me, it was one of the best hax powers out there, considering my situation. The power to create any creature and since I had the knowledge of so many worlds, let's be honest, this was quite broken. And another plus point was, I did not need to be in the front line for it. I could just create many creatures and send them out to the battlefield. Of course, that did not mean I was slacking off. I was training, gathering knowledge, and doing my best to become better and stronger.
I was nowhere near strong enough to go out and face the world of heroes and villains, but I would definitely reach there soon.
As for my second 'Gift', the Presence wanted to give me the 'Gamer's System'. According to him, this would allow me to protect myself from all the higher and cosmic forces. They would be unable to control my fate and my future. I had a hunch that there was more to it but I did not press further. But there was a condition. I told him either to tone the power down or change its settings.
This was purely personal, but I did not want to define the people around me by numbers. I did not want to measure the life of a living being through 'Health Points', to determine a person's value by 'Levels'. Most importantly, I did not want to mute my feelings by using 'Gamer's mind'.
I already lived a life without truly living it. I did not want to do the same mistake again.
The Presence accepted it. And so, I was given 'Gamer's system: Lite mode'. Instead of using levels, attributes, and all that other stuff similar to an RPG game to define everything around me, it used very basic and minimal stats to show me what I truly needed to know.
It was perfect. Now, of course, like any other normal person, I made sure I got full clarification on how to improve my 'Rank' and how to gain more 'Power'.
The latter one was simpler. I just had to learn and train. Unfortunately, since I rejected the full version of 'Gamer's System', it would not be as easy as just absorbing a book or scroll, or punching a pole 100 times. I really would have to shed sweat, blood, and tears to learn and evolve my powers.
As for the improvement of 'Rank', it depended on my power and the completion of 'World Quests'. Yes, I would not be receiving quests like 'Do my laundry' or 'Run a marathon or 'Do 100 pushups' or any of that nonsense. I would only be getting huge event-altering quests. Quests, where my participation would change the outcome of many events to come. Some, as I was told, would even impact the future of the current world.
Talk about pressure.
It was unfortunate, yes, but still, I stuck to my decision. To me, it was better than the usual 'Gamer's System' that I had read in many novels and in some manga.
The last 'Gift' that I had received was how I would reincarnate. And I chose not to start as a baby, but as a teenager who had a loving family. This one was supposed to be the simplest one. Unfortunately, it was anything but that.
The Presence told me that it was something that I had to take for myself. I did not know what he meant, not until I reincarnated.
My soul merged with the sixteen years old James. Same name, same appearance. But a different life. Since my soul merged and not replaced his, I learned everything about him. His family, friends, everything. In a sense, he became a part of me. And I was glad about it.
He had a loving family, good friends, humble lifestyle.
But then I realized where I was. I was at the hospital, in Gotham. Our car crashed, caused by a gang fight. I was the least injured, but my parents were in a coma.
I took a deep breath.
Even now I remembered what I had felt back then. I had parents, I had loving parents. For someone who grew up without one, it was something I wanted more than anything. Maybe if my soul replaced his, maybe if I had 'Gamer's mind' it would have been different. But I knew these people… I felt their love, their care, their joy.
And I wanted more.
I did not want to go back to another empty cold room.
And then I let it out.
My first use of 'Annihilation Maker', was to unlock my 'Balance Breaker'. The first creature I had created using 'Annihilation Maker' was Mewtwo.
Remembering the moment made me smile.
As a child, Pokémon was the very first series that introduced me to the world of cartoons, games, comics, manga, and so on. It was also one of the series that had left a strong impression on me. And watching the first Pokémon movie, watching Mewtwo for the first time. To that innocent part of me, Mewtwo felt like a Pokémon who could do anything. The strongest one out there.
I remembered having many childish drawings and notes of Mewtwo. Not just how Mewtwo looked like, or what powers he had. But his characters, his origins, what he could be, the possibilities. I used those memories to fuel my imagination.
As for my emotions, I thought about my parents. No matter who would say otherwise, these two people were and would always be my parents. I would love them with all my heart, I would cherish all the memories I would make with them. And so, I needed tomorrow to come. The tomorrow where we would all be back in our home.
I opened my eyes and chuckled.
I still did not know what I did. But I, who at that time was Ranked 'C', created Mewtwo who was ranked 'S'. Now if this was not a hax power, then I did not know what was.
Yes, he had healed my parents. But after that, he wanted to have nothing to do with me. It seemed he retained the original personality too well. At first, I was at a loss on what to do. And then I took a shot at 'Talk-no-Jutsu. I did not know what I was thinking, but surprisingly, it worked.
Well, to be fair, my version of 'Talk-no-Jutsu was just to tell him the truth. I even allowed him to read my mind, to show him that I did not tell a single lie. And, then his behavior took a complete 180-degree turn.
The ring from the clock broke me from my reminiscence. It was seven in the evening. With a smile, I turned on the TV.
"Breaking News: Earlier today, Joker, the clown prince of crime, was murdered in cold blood. According to the witness…"
I could not help it, I started laughing, "Who's laughing now, fucker?"
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Done
Short, I know. But I just wanted to get this out of my system. I already had planned out till 6-7 chapters, just need to write them when I have time.
And, yes, I know, there are many other better and more unique hax powers out there. But I always thought 'Annihilation Maker' was really cool. And if written properly, it could have unlimited potential.
As for the 'Game style fic', I decided to tone it down… a lot. I mean I know that if I dump pages of info blocks, many of you will just skip them. I know I would have. So yeah, a very light but unique style on 'Game fic'.
Let me know what you guys think. As usual, feedbacks are always appreciated.