[Friday, January 01, 2010 - 0600 EST - Captains Hill Park, Brockton Bay, New Hampshire]
From my perspective I stepped out of my shower into a park on top of a hill. That was odd enough. What was weirder is that I was in a different body, on e that was still six feet ten inches tall, but was now blonde, with deep emerald green orbs eyes, and was so muscular that one would think I was a professional football player. I still wore the set of gray sweats suit I went to sleep in, but they were now tight enough to display my new bodybuilder physique. The on difference was the fanny pack circling my waist, and plain white running shoes on my feet.
"There you are!" shouted a fairly tall white young lady with blonde hair in a classical school girl outfit, her hair swaying in the breeze as she stepped out of a portal. It snapped shut behind her, but I still got the impression of a small high-tech lab on the other side. The familiar looking woman was wearing a black pull over that covered a white dress shirt, cut a very flattering sight alongside with black pleated skirt and knee high white socks.
"They said you'd be here."
"Fuck! That's Brockton Bay. No Tower, but there's the Rig. We must be at least three years back in time." This was the reaction of a second woman stepping out of her own portal. It closed before I got a glimpse of the other side. This woman was taller than the other one, with long black hair. Her tightfitting purple and black bodysuit was reinforced with strategically placed armored plates and had a full-face mask that left only her mouth and chin visible. Her eyes were covered with a high-tech visor. She had a cutlass or saber on her left hip and a crossbow pistol on the right. Several blades were stored in silver thigh and shoulder sheathes.
They both looked deadly in their own ways. The first one looks like she can go calm to Karen level over nine thousand in a heartbeat, plus I have no information on who they are and rushing in any conflict without any information is as dumb as Trump getting elected for president of the Unites States of America.
Wait hold up, upon closer look she kinda sorta looks like a slightly older version of...
"Um. Hi?" I muttered. "Aren't you Mary Elizabeth Kane?" I asked the blonde haired girl in surprise.
"No," she replied, her posh accent more noticeable with her longer speech. "I'm Elizabeth Mary Kane, I changed it a few years ago after finally managing to convince my Father that it sounded better than Mary Elizabeth." Huh? In a way she's right as it does kind of sound better, rolls of the tongue better too. She offered me a flippant grin and shrugged her shoulders as she probably noticed my moment of contemplation and finally agreement.
"Try not to think about it too much, sometimes names have a way of making things more complicated than they should be. Though if you want, you can call me Betty or Bette either or is fine really just try not to use Liz please, I've had some...very bad experiences with people going by that nickname for my liking." She said with another smile
"I know what you mean," said the other woman as she tugged off her mask. She was young, with flawless Asian features. "My name is Lily, but in Japanese it's Yuri and growing up, my foster mother did her best to remind me of my ancestry as much as possible. It wasn't until way later in my teens that I got comfortable enough to not mind the name Lily, thought I would have preferred being called by my middle name instead which is Cassandra by the way but hey what can you do." She finished with a shrug of her shoulders in resignation and after a brief pause, continued in a more subdued tone of voice.
"Thought, I should probably mention that there is probably a younger me in New York or Hoboken right now. And depending on the date, she might not even have triggered. Only she's not really me. I am."
"I don't understand," I replied confused. As I searched for meaning, I felt her mind supplying the answer. She was from an alternate universe and from the future. A future where she had fought in a multiversal battle to destroy a golden monster once thought to be the greatest hero in her world. Her power was essential in his eventual defeat.
I realized several things. I was not in my world. I was in Worm. I had read parts of the original story and enough fanfiction that I recognized the name of the city we were overlooking and the final battle against Scion. I also realized I was a big hunky blonde rather than a fity-two-year-old retired middle-school teacher from Oklahoma City with all the abilities of both the Martian manhunter, as well as many other comic book characters and let's not forget that I also had the ability to take, copy, create new ones as well as grant others powers too.
My mind was processing the information more quickly than I would have expected given the huge mental shocks I was facing. I was also not feeling much of those shocks. Something was tamping down the panic I should be feeling. Another change.
"Oh crap, I've been isekai'ed." I snapped. I'd read or watched enough of them that I knew the signs. "New body, fictional setting, outworld companions, special powers." I counted on my fingers. "These usually come with a meeting with the power responsible. Why don't I remember that?"
"I don't know," Betty replied. "All I can remember was getting zapped fighting Black Adam and his insane family while we were in Egypt. Next thing, I was in some sort of lab. Faceless women cleaned me up, showed me a movie about the multiverse and my place in it, then showed me a picture of you and threw me through the portal. No one ever said a word."
"Pretty much the same for me. We had just taken down Zion and people were starting to celebrate. I blinked and suddenly I was in the lab. Watched the video and was shown your picture. Out comes the portal and now I'm here."
"Lily, right?" I asked. I had gotten her names when I accidentally browsed through her memories. "Or do you prefer Saber?"
"I think we're going to be working together so you might as well call me Cassandra or Cass for short since after all, my full name is Lily Cassandra Okada."
"As I said earlier, I'm Betty. No other name. Might as well get that straightened out now that I've got the chance." She grinned and her ran her fingers through her blond mane of hair before shrugging with a slight smirk.
"Ok. Well for starters, my full name is Cryston Marvin Payne. Or at least I was. I have the feeling that I'm something different now, but here," I tapped my head. "I'm still me."
"Great!" Betty said. "Now what?"
Both women looked at me expectantly.
"Whoa! Why are you asking me? Isn't this your world?" I demanded of Cass.
"Not exactly. Besides, I can advise, but you're the boss," she replied with the casual certainty of someone saying the sky was blue. Betty nodded in agreement.
"Why am I the boss?" I squeaked, my deep, melodious voice cracking.
"Dunno," Betty shrugged. "You just are. And I'm ok with that. So...?" She trailed off, raising one eyebrow much further than it should go.
I see. This is a harem isekai, I thought to myself. Or at least a party adventure, with two members already selected. I wondered if there would be more. Someone was driving this train and it sure wasn't me.
Alright, I forced my inner dialogue to focus. I can be the leader if that's what they want. What's first? Air (or first aid), shelter, water, food. Based on the rule of threes. But air was not an immediate risk. The other three priorities would require money.
"Information, money, and shelter are our immediate needs." Again, I was counting on my fingers, a habit I had picked up teaching. "From what I know of this world, which is not a huge amount, the risks are gaining the wrong attention and getting involved with the villains. My appearance will draw attention. It's also possible that Cass might be recognized, which could draw attention. Betty doesn't know this world at all." I looked at her for confirmation and she nodded.
Suddenly I stopped as a thought struck me. "I just realized that you're both characters from fiction in my world. I think it likely that I am as well, at least this body is. Do either of you have a mirror? I need to see my face."
"Sure," Betty waved her wand and levitated a stick from the ground. Another wave transfigured it into a hand mirror. She offered it to me with a mocking bow. How did I know it was mocking? I realized I was passively reading the emotions of others. "Here ya go."
"Thanks." I looked into the mirror and saw a very handsome teenager with unholy good looks, with a frown I tried using the shapeshifting ability I had written down as one of my powers. And lo and behold, Now I looked like bald green head with a prominent brow, while the entirety of my new experience scream of a clone of J'onn J'onzz, the Martian Manhunter. I also noticed an unfamiliar logo on my sweatshirt. A closer look revealed nothing. With a frown, I started going through all the choices I had written down for powers and abilities since I just thought that If I was J'onn, or at least in his body, that would mean that theoretically I could also have access to the telepathy as well as all the other odd sensory input that Martians instinctively have in the DC universe.
In the mirror I willed the face to change. I was picturing the face I had before and just like that, I felt movement and the face in the mirror swirled to become what I had previously looked like, a teen no older than sixteen or so. I guessed that was the age category the company thought we would be able to make a difference, or they were just fucking with us for their own amusement. With a sigh, I continued to admire my new appearance in order to fully memorize it in case I need to make a quick change in the field, and her I was with close-cropped platinum blonde hair that almost looks silver like those of Valyrian ancestry in ASOIAF, my light gray eyes that looked as if they were made of granite gave me that exotic look that I know will get me in trouble down the line, and add them along with my high cheekbones, along the rest of my aristocratic like features and my face will most definitely get in some hot waters in the foreseeable future that is for sure.
Raising my empty hand, I at first decided to try and make a few major improvements of my current appearance. But upon further thought, decided against it since it didn't really matter at this point. Nah, I did the smart thing and went for the little changes since their the ones people in this city will really pay attention to anyways. So, I change my skin color and gave it a slight tan a few shades darker than the current one I was sporting. Heck I was so pale that I could have substituted as a double on the set of Twilight. And as the color change continued down my body. I raised my shirt to find my torso was white, but still ridiculously well muscled. I had never been that swole in my entire life, not when I played both high school and Division 1 College football or had marched far too many miles as an infantryman in the army, nor my brief stint in the special forces either.
"Well, it sort of worked."
"Looks good to me," Betty said with a leer.
"Me too," Cass replied.
"I thought you were gay," I said, surprised. Then I realized how rude that was. Before I could apologize, she had responded.
"Really? I like women well enough, but I was with Alec, you probably know him as Regent, for almost two years before he was killed."
"Differences from the story I read, then."
"Who was I with in the story?" she asked.
"Parian," I replied.
"No! She paired up with Amy pretty early on. Saved her from her sis-con programming." Cass smiled fondly. I realized she was definitely from an alt-world. It sounded like it might even be a better one than canon. At least for Glory Girl.
"Ooh! What about me?" Tonks started bouncing up and down. "Who was I with in your stories?"
"Robin."
"What! No really? Please tell me I wasn't stuck with that little shit."
"I'm guessing things were vastly different in real life?" I asked. That did not fit my take on the character.
Oh, yeah things were a lot more different compared to what you read. Sure much of the same things happened plot wise when it came to the timeline but relationship wise, a few things were different. Things like, Harley ditching the Joker and shacking up Ivy after three years of being 'in love' with him. Another one that came out of left field was, Alfred and Doctor Thompkins getting married Or Static and Rocket getting together after her boyfriend tucking tail after she got pregnant. Her eyes actually turning into pinpricks at that last statement.
"So who were you with?" I almost reached for her mind unconsciously but I violently squashed that desire, since did not want to get in the habit of casually browsing the thoughts and memories of everyone I came across. If this was Worm, I knew I'd need to use my telepathy for our safety, but I needed some guidelines I could follow.
"I dated around a bit, and they were mostly all girls and a few older college ones too. But never really mesh with the guys around me, true some of them were hunky beefcakes but I didn't wanna shit were I ate. Plus I saw enough inter league dating drama for my taste. Black Canary and Green Arrow's torrid whirlwind romance was stressful enough to navigate for me to even try to get in a relationship with the other sidekicks. The closest I got to any of them was that weird threesome Barbara, Karen and I had after getting plastered that one new years party when they were trying to get over both of their break ups."
She cocked a cheeky grin. "I even 'experimented' with Vixen once or twice too while we were drunk but that was it, I like men and women just fine really but I hadn't had the luck in being around stable and normal men without prior strings being wrapped around everything you know? I mean, I get it I am a superhero, 'Normal' sailed out of the window at the first exist but Jesus were those guys broken and carried some serious baggage with them."
"I don't think that was in the comics," I muttered. Her grin got wider Another alt-world, I thought.
"Anyway...," Cassandra interrupted. "I think that look is good enough not to get you immediately pegged as a Case 53. Though, you will be definitely be catching some eyes, but in a good way instead of in a bad way." She pulled a small pouch out of the back of her armor and removed a money clip. Counting it, she said, "I've got around two hundred. Hopefully none of it's dated after whatever year this is."
Prompted by her actions I opened my fanny pack and found a phone and a wallet. The wallet had one hundred dollars and a plastic card. As soon as I touched it, the card became a New Hampshire driver's license with my current face and name on it. The address was fuzzy so I could not read it.
That's useful. But what if I change faces?
I looked in the mirror and changed into Brad Pitt in that movie Fury, except I was about a whole few decades younger. Looking back at the license I saw the face had changed.
I quickly changed back.
No idea if he was known here, but I did not need to take the chance.
"So, I've got a phone, a hundred bucks, and a magic adjustable ID card." Putting my thumb on the screen of the phone, it opened to a semi-familiar icon-based interface. A note with the logo that was on my sweatshirt popped up. It said -
Welcome to Worm!
Winning Condition - Survive Gold Morning!
Bonus I - Prevent Gold Morning by taking out Zion early!
Bonus II - End the Endbringers!
Special Prizes await when you claim your victory!
I read it aloud.
"It seems like whoever sent us here has a purpose."
