Since I saw more than one review questioning the Mc's power for unknown reasons I felt the need to do a little recap of his skills and powers.
1. Alabama 3 – Woke Up This Morning
My name apparently was William Forster, born February 16, 1980 in the West Mercy Hospital in Gotham freaking City. I had to shake my head when I read that little tidbit, my situation taking more and more root in my mind.
...
Not a whole lot going on during this June weekend 1986, the Gotham Knights lost against the Boston Colonials, temperatures are expected to reach up to 82 °F …
2. The Traveling Wilburys - End Of The Line
That's how I spent my first six months in Gotham City.
...
It was an unassuming shop, one that I only found by leafing through the Yellow Pages. The front had a large single window and the entrance door right next to it. What interested me however was the cloth spanned behind the window blocking the view inside.
'Desmond's Dojo - Judo and Self-Defense'
...
"Alright, I want to help you out in exchange for an hour of private training Monday to Friday." I said and watched him closely for a reaction.
3. Dio - Rainbow In The Dark
Standing up from my kneeling position at the side I stepped into the middle of our little circle of students and faced my sparring partner. We gave each other the proper bow in greeting and I gladly used the precious seconds to get my giddiness under control.
Despite my better judgment, I had been feeling high on life for the past two years. I had finally said addio to my old 9 to 5 life and ciao to my new, exciting, and somewhat badass life.
Taking an appropriate stance for an opponent of bigger size, I eyed him for any signs or hints of a possible tactic.
Instead, he held back, wary of making a wrong move against me.
I kept a lid on my pride, I knew I was good and there was a goddamn reason why an 8-year-old orange/green belt was sparring with teenaged purple belts.
...
He turned and looked me straight in the eyes. Excitement shining through.
"This stays between us, you hear, not a word to Peppe, alright?!" He said and continued when I wordlessly nodded.
"Tomorrow you going to call your yogi and you will tell him that you are sick for the rest of the week. You will still go outside at the usual times and walk a few blocks in his direction." He instructed and carried on when he saw that I was still following.
"I will get Bobby and a van, and together, the three of us will take a look around the neighborhood for those lowlifes." Suddenly a big smile spread across his face. "We are going to show you the ropes of the family business."
4. Stealers Wheel - Stuck In The Middle With You
"Alright, let's get back on track," Paulie said and ripped me out of my stupor. "You already know about Peppe's little territory down here in Old Gotham. In the west we have the Chinks, in the east we have the Odessa Mob, and north we have Diamond District with all the fat cats. And that's precisely the reason why I didn't pop those fucks right in the open." He explained patiently while keeping an eye out for our targets. I did the same on the other side of the road so Bobby could concentrate on driving.
"Up in East End, where Tomasso and the rest of the Five Families call the shots, if done right I could have easily gotten away with it, but here, things are bit more…," he paused, searching for the right word, while I was hanging on every one of them. This was my introduction to the world of Gotham's organized crime.
"Tense? …Fragile? You get what I'm sayin', right?" He asked and I nodded.
"We don't want to rock the boat too much and invite trouble. If push comes to shove The Five Families stick together when it comes to outsiders." He reassured me.
"But there's always a price to pay and Tomasso is already busy enough to establish us more firmly."
...
"Early lesson, that's a suppressor, makes a gun quieter. Not quiet, just not as loud, still a world of difference, but prepare yourself for the noise." He advised and I nodded faintly, my eyes still glued to the gun in his gloved hand.
"Now, Bobby and I know what to do, but for your sake, I'm gonna talk all the steps through." He said, already focused on the job, but took a second to look at me.
"You ready?" He asked and I sat straighter, this was it, there would be no going back, I would commit myself completely to this life. I held his gaze, there were going to be consequences down the line, all or nothing.
"I'm ready." I finally said clearly and couldn't help but watch Paulie's face split into a satisfied grin.
"Alright," Voice now all business. "Bobby will drive past them and turn further down the street. When we are level with them, I will hop out of the car and shoot them in one go." He began to explain.
"It's just three people huddled together, one person doing the shooting is enough. It will be three quick shots to incapacitate them. In the meantime, Bobby will keep the van running but come out to my side. And I want you to hop out after me and push open the side door as hard and as fast as you can." He paused and leaned back. I heard Bobby shift behind me, but I kept my eyes on Paulie. Was he challenging me?
"I can do that." I stated, just to make things clear.
...
By now he held a shot glass himself and a bottle of Grappa in his other hand.
'Oh boy.' I thought with some apprehension as he wordlessly filled our glasses to the brim.
"Salute!"
"You want to learn how to shoot?" I couldn't keep my wheezing coughs from turning to laughter as I saw Bobby take the whole bottle, showing us quite clearly what he thought of Paulie's offer.
5. Paul Engemann - Push It To The Limit
Breathing deep and steady, arms and my whole posture ramrod straight. I quickly repositioned my hands, now facing the other direction, and relaxed my wrists.
Shifting my balance the tiniest bit forward I let gravity do its job. Legs together and angled slightly to the right, I relaxed my grip and vaulted over the right bar…just to fuck up the landing…again.
"So eine Scheiße!" I cursed, now glad that the coach was currently handling someone at the high bar.
I wasn't really annoyed, but it still rankled me the teeniest, tiniest bit, that some little boys were showing me up.
Three years and I was still bang-average. There hasn't been the same meteoric rise as with my judo skills, but it would have to do, I guessed.
Funnily enough, it had been judo, that had got me into my school's gymnastics club back in the day.
It had been 1988, Summer Olympics were in full swing in Seoul, and my manly pride had demanded that I show Uncle Peppe that Judo was really serious business.
He had been…thoroughly unimpressed by the men's final. To him, it had looked like grown men ruffling each other's clothes while stumbling around.
I had pursed my lips something fierce but had quickly forgotten my bruised ego when I had seen the sports news that had followed.
It had been a quick, like really quick, highlight reel of the men's gymnastics events, given that the Soviet Union had dominated by an almost obscene margin.
But it had been more than enough to make me sit upright then and there on the couch.
Best of all, it hadn't been necessary to change my schedule.
I just spent one and half hours three times a week longer at my school in the gym and tagged the time that I lost from my lunchtime shift in the pizzeria on to the end of my evening shift. Easy Peasy.
Stepping back into position at the springboard, I took a final calming breath again and flung myself between the bars. Grip firm, I let my momentum turn into a series of swings until I was back in the center of the old contraption, keen to work on my overhead balance and smoother transitions.
7. Kenny Rogers - The Gambler
Tip of my toe and thumb on the upper edge of the handle pointing at the target, grip fairly loose, I swung my arm back and forth and let the old scratched-up steak knife fly.
I watched dispassionately as it slid quite a bit off the mark into the two ratty dartboards, that I screwed together and hung up on the side of the stairwell leading up to the roof, where I was currently trying to relieve some stress.
The knife-throwing had been a spur of the moment thing, easy to learn and more than a decent time waster. To be honest, I had no illusions, that I would ever throw my own knife away should I ever find myself in a pickle, but still, it would be a ridiculously badass powermove in the right moment. I more than once daydreamed about casually flinging some steel into some unfortunate gangbanger while out with Paulie watching and learning for the job.
...
My presence, it had multiple facets. It was a sign of utmost trust and appreciation to be allowed anywhere near that table today. I was, and this scared me a bit,…incredibly proud. Mandragora, the boss of bosses in Sicily, probably didn't even know I existed, signore Galante, the boss in Gotham after Franco Bertinelli got killed, might have heard of me, but I, a 14-year-old boy, was allowed into the inner circle of the Panessas', one of the Five Families.
...
I squared my shoulders and pulled out my hand with the knife.
"Disregarding guns," I began, and flipped the knife open, eyeing the blade for a heartbeat until I looked Tomasso directly in the eyes and said with absolute certainty. "I could kill every single man in the pizzeria below us."
For one hair-brained, exhilarating second, I toyed with the idea of tossing my knife into the wall opposite me just to make a point, and the thought alone made me chuckle.
I was already turning into a proper nutjob, I thought with supremely inappropriate mirth.
Finally, knife still in hand, I gave a shrug.
"I'm a healthy, highly trained adolescent male. I don't drink, I don't smoke, and I am perfectly willing. What more can you ask for in a human guinea pig?" I asked openly.
8. Adriano Celentano - Il ragazzo della Via Gluck
"I put a modified hemodialysis machine inside the room. For the next hour, the machine will steadily insert a small dose of my Dionesium into your bloodstream. I plan to use the next three weeks by continuously increasing the doses." He explained and it slowly dawned on me, that this was going to be a highly uncomfortable experience.
"Dionesium only unfurls most of its unique properties under the influence of a reasonable amount of heat. Body temperature being the minimum." He finished and opened the door quickly. He grabbed me roughly by the shoulder and steered me inside, just to quickly close the door behind him again, obviously trying to trap as much of the heat in the room as possible.
...
He had started by pulling out a scalpel and had happily slashed along my left forearm, to my vocal disagreement to be honest, and had made me watch the wound bleed and bleed and bleed some more until slowly but surely my skin had started knitting itself together under my very own eyes.
And suddenly there had only been blood on unblemished skin. I had still been ogling like an idiot when he had slashed a haphazard cut into my right arm and had pointed a burning infrared lamp on the wound. I hadn't even finished my cursing when the wound had already started to close again.
...
"Tomorrow I will proceed with phase two. It will give your body the means to supply itself with the necessary amounts of Dionesium on top of the copious amounts already in your system." He announced and revealed a small laser pointer.
"I will surgically insert highly concentrated Dionesium implants into your bone marrow here," he helpfully pointed out with the red dot, while I went paler by the second. "in the sternum, here," the red dot jumped to another spot, and I felt a bit of bile rising. "into your pelvis and here," another jump upwards and I felt my little buddy trying to shrink into itself. "into a vertebra of your spinal column."
I still stared at the projection in faint disbelief and horror, when Dr. Dekker turned to me.
"I will perform local anesthesia," he said, and I felt the tiniest hope blossom. "on the upper layers. You will be awake during all three procedures to ensure the necessary blood pressure." And my hope just withered and died.
'Dude was fucking with me, right?' I thought with abject horror, surely, he was bullshitting me.
...
"Patient tore his right musculus biceps brachii," Did he just chuckle?! "fascinating, the body seems to be already reacting to the damage. As theorized, heightened blood pressure can potentially stimulate the Dionesium to above base level."
BZZzzz
"Correlation between Dionesium and Adrenalin demand further investigation."
BBBZZzzzzzzzz
'I'm going to KILL him!'
9. The Lovin' Spoonful — Summer In The City
Back in the chair.
I stared at Dr. Dekker unblinkingly.
…while it may not be my area of expertise, it is still tissue. Just like muscle tissue, the skeletal tissue is metabolically active and constantly being remodeled, thus being the foremost scientist that I am, I was even able to ably the properties of my Dionesium to the subject's bone structure." I let him wax about his genius into his little recorder while keeping my gaze on his pacing form.
I was agitated.
"Recovery rate is also extraordinary. Using a steadily increasing but controlled nutrient supply and daily exercises in the heat chamber the subject was able to recover his previous base form within the week. Dehydration is still an issue that needs to be addressed." He went on, clearly unaware of my rising blood pressure.
I was livid.
Yes, it had been nice to leave the wreck of a body, that I had become behind, and recover my old self.
What hadn't been so nice however was the fact, that I did my exercises in a blood-soaked sauna. Dr. Dekker hadn't minded the bodily fluids, which I had left behind after my surgeries in the days before.
"Just this morning, August 4, 1994, I discovered another breakthrough. I removed the subject's right digitus medicinalis. Upon applying three epinephrine autoinjectors and constant exposure to the infrared lamp the body managed to regrow the digit within one hour. Influence on the DNA's code has to be researched more thoroughly posthaste."
What a way to wake up this little episode had been. I couldn't help but glance at my regrown ring finger and note the slightly pinker complexion.
Enough!
"Are there any negative side effects?" I asked loud and clear, interrupting his monologue.
He whipped around, eyes wide, and for a single moment, he looked like he was going to leap over the desk and murder me. Oh, how I wished he did.
"There are no undesirable side effects, you imbecile." His disgust and derision almost dripping out of his voice.
'Good enough.'
10. Hall and Oates - Out of Touch
"Yeah, it's me. I need a van and a cleaning crew, the whole shebang!"
…
"I'm not joking, Peppe. The guy just…really pissed me off."
…
"Listen, I will foot the bill, but this is serious. There is a lot of blood, my blood. I will explain it to Tomasso myself."
…
11. George Harrison - Got My Mind Set On You
Here, 1994, I had been glad for my various jobs, because it had helped keep the crushing boredom somewhat at bay. Since I was just a mob enforcer from now on and I had zero plans of going out day and night looking for trouble I was stuck in a pickle when it came to passing my excess time.
...
Talking about gear, I wasn't sure about the handful of EpiPens I had helped myself to when I had gone through Dr. Dekker's laboratory. According to what the doctor had said in his monolog I should be able to use them as some kind of low-level stimpak. The question was, did I want to keep them here for emergencies or did I want them close at hand during missions and make my life significantly more comfortable. I guess, it all came down to their general availability and costs, which was another point I had to figure out in the upcoming days.
...
Copious amounts of heat patches on the job and an electric infrared heater at home, that was the plan for my all-around carefree package for the time being.
12. Twisted Sister - I Wanna Rock
You see, I wasn't the sharpest tool in the box, but I tended to use my common sense whenever possible and think things through to the best of my abilities. And that's exactly why I usually didn't like surprises, I wanted to know what I could expect in any given situation and be absolutely sure that I could handle it.
I knew I could dish out the violence. Increasingly intense training meant, that I could now move with my armor and helmet as if they weren't even there. As long as I could support my muscle growth with the required nutrient supply, which, to be honest was noticeably starting to eat in my dwindling funds and studiously underwent my heat treatment to promote the accelerated healing and prevent any and all fatigue in my muscles I would keep getting stronger and faster every single day.
It had gotten to the point where I had decided to buy a couple of heavy security chains to function as additional weights. Either to wrap around the head of my axe or around myself to make the most of my enhancements.
...
Two were side by side, the third nary a thought directly behind, I saw the first two leap and swung my axe with every single shred of strength and desperation horizontally across.
I felt resistance and I thought I managed to smack them both into the wall, but every conscious thought was ripped away as pain exploded in my right forearm. Jaws dug deep, flesh was torn and punctured, bone was broken under the pressure and I cried out in desperation and blind panic.
Through a watery gaze I saw a snout and punched it with my left fist. I missed, I dropped to my knees in pain, and punched again. This time I felt something soft give away and heard a pitiful yowl. The pressure on my arm lifted for a heartbeat and I blindly grabbed for anything.
I managed to get a hold of something thin and hard. A leg? It didn't matter, I swung it around and threw it behind me. Hearing the shattering of glass and the yowls silenced I staggered to my feet.
Suddenly I heard a quiet growl before me and blindly swung my axe, once, twice, a third time, until I couldn't hear anything over my own heartbeat.
Eyes closed in exhaustion, I slumped against the wall. Dimly I already felt my body respond to my injuries. No wonder, given that I was practically drowning in adrenalin.
...
Shots still flying, I grabbed my axe and made my way down the stairs like an avalanche.
Something pinged off my helmet, something bit into my thigh and I stumbled, but then I heard it 'click, click'.
My axe sliced through the air, no rhyme no reason, until finally my right leg gave away and I awkwardly staggered into a forward roll. Glancing behind me I finally collapsed completely in pure relief.
I heaved myself into a sitting position against the nearest wall and tiredly dug around in my coat pocket for my Epipen.
Eyeing the blood that was leaking out of my thigh I decided to inject the epinephrine into the biggest muscle I could reach in the side of my neck.
13. Billy Joel - We Didn't Start the Fire
I saw Paulie and Bobby step into the backyard with wide eyes and turned my gaze to the ripped leather on my right forearm. Time and adrenalin already did most of the work on that front, but I was still going to point my lamp on it when I was home because the bone under the repaired flesh still felt wrong.
My gaze slid down and finally settled on the hole in my thigh. Who would have thought that I was going to end up bloody in my own bathtub so soon again?
I was sooo not looking forward to peeling my own leg open and search for that bullet. I guess it was better than letting Professor Valentin get his grubby hands on me. Plus, I was going to get used to this whole pain-business a lot quicker. Hooray!
...
No, I didn't want that yet, I even had asked Tomasso to refer to me as 'the boy' as it sounded condescending enough, that it could mean any young man in his service. Only my family, Paulie, and Bobby knew who was behind that black steel helmet and I wanted to keep it that way.
Long story short: Mc is currently 14 years old.
The Mc has the potential to reach MCU Steve Rogers levels in strength, speed, durability, and agility depending on training.
He has a base healing factor inferior to MCU Extremis, it can be boosted however with adrenalin and even supercharged when body temperature is increased accordingly.
He has a steadily increasing pain-tolerance
He is highly talented in Judo and practiced it rigorously between ages six and 14.
He has average talent in men's gymnastics, which he practiced from the age of eight up until the age of 14.
He throws knives as a hobby and to pass time since the age of 13.
He was taught how to handle and shoot small firearms in his childhood.
He can drive.
He speaks Italian, English, and German.
He knows the rules and intricacies of the Mob in Gotham.
He has a general idea of where somebody is to find and a broad idea of Gotham's criminal territories.
He worked as a busboy in 'Uncle Peppe's Pizzeria' from age of six to 14.