Prologue

I'd think I was dreaming if I wasn't so sure about all of my senses being in working order. Even did the surefire tests of pinching myself and trying to read a book. I felt pain. I could clearly read the words in the book. The book happens to be mine, it's Volume 16 of the light novel Overlord by Kugane Maruyama.

Last thing I remember was going to sleep in my own bed, in the safety of my own home. And when I woke up fully, I realized I was somewhere else. Holding onto my book (the one I was currently reading before I got transported to another world) dressed in a plain green shirt, dark khakis and my favorite black jacket (Tokyo Ghoul Kaneki Ken's) and some black and white Converse. And a system window in front of my face, looking like something out of Borderlands 3.

I did not recognize where I was right away. Once I got my bearings however, I noticed I was still in some sort of bedroom. I immediately began to investigate. Everything I owned in my previous reality, that I kept in my personal room anyway, was all here. I only knew for sure I was in another world because of the posters and family pictures I definitely had never seen before.

Posters of heroes. From the Protectorate. And family pictures wherein I saw myself (still with my natural hair color of black) alongside a blonde woman, a blonde girl and a brunette. That's when the memories of a second life rushed into my mind. Paradoxically, it felt like it was over in a moment and lasted an eternity.

I'm the second adopted child of Carol Dallon. Victoria and Amy are my sisters. I was adopted when I was six years old, with amnesia that I never recovered from. Due to the amnesia, I was given a new legal name: John Dallon. I am physically 21 years old (got confirmed by PRT doctors and Amy). Due to my memory loss and some shenanigans in the education system, because sure, I ended up in the same batch as Vicky and Amy. That is to say, senior year in high school. I had meta knowledge, so I knew relevant characters had been aged up. I do not wear glasses anymore. I am close to my new family. Always have been. Oh, and the men of New Wave are all dead besides me. Everybody refuses to tell me the reason why.

I'm taller than before, I'm like six feet tall, exactly. And I am buff, with tight muscles from intense martial arts training and working out at the gym. Like, if Gamin Yoon from Study Group was slightly bulkier and with muscles that somehow looked even sharper. And like Gamin Yoon, I was a practitioner of Jeet Kune Do. I wasn't a carbon copy of his specific JKD, every practitioner develops his own approach to growing in the style after all. I focused on making sure mine was brutal and efficient. Wing Chun, Muay Thai, Kyokushin Karate, Kali/Arnis, Boxing, Tai Chi, Taekwondo, Tiger Fist and Taekkyon were all mixed together to form the most brutal, quick and efficient JKD I could personally pull off.

And I think the most important point for now is: I have powers. Not a typical shard-based grab bag of powers from Worm however, I have a System. The aptly named Hero system. I got to make some character creation decisions when I was a fresh trigger from the point of view of the outside world, the trigger event being the cause of the amnesia. So yeah, when I was adopted at six years old by Carol Dallon, I exhibited extraordinary abilities from the get go. From my synced up new memories, we were surrounded. Carol and I, that is, she left her daughters with her sister at the time.

She found me by chance, during solo patrol because she needed to be alone or something at the time, and I was just some kid wandering the dead of night. Alone in the dark streets of ABB territory. She approached me as soon as she saw me, asked me pointed questions about where my parents are and whatnot. Once Carol realized I was an orphan with lost memories, she took me into her arms and the warmth I felt made that night the happiest memory of my new life. Has been ever since as well. Then, a demonic ninja showed up with a bunch of gang members wielding all sorts of bladed and blunt weapons, oh, and guns. It all happened so fast, and to my young mind I had no idea where they even came from.

Carol could have just flown away, she could have entered into her breaker form, or brutally slashed down all the hostels using the laser swords she was known for but… She couldn't do any of that with reckless abandon and protect me at the same time. And the gang members with the demon ninja, Oni Lee I of course knew right away, noticed that and took advantage. Carol Dallon, Brandish as she was in uniform at the time since it was a solo patrol after all, got overwhelmed and was panting on the ground next to me with only some small cuts and bruises to show for it, thankfully.

I still had all my memories from my old life. So, I knew I was still an extremely angry guy when it comes down to it. While Brandish was fending off our attackers, I was finalizing my character for lack of a better term for it. I needed to be fast and strong to take down these bastards, and I needed versatility to be able to handle all sorts of horrors down the line in Earth Bet. I won't go too deeply into my System right now for the sake of expediency but, the important thing to know right now is that I made sure to choose an appropriately overpowered hybrid race and class for myself.

Race: Daximite-Titanian hybrid. As in, if a comic book accurate Mon-El/Valor married Imra Ardeen/Saturn Girl and had a child with all of their powers combined, none of their weaknesses and developed powers of his own and whatnot, then you'd get me. Class: The Spectre. Like, if Spectre status was a thing in the Borderlands universe. My specialty being level 14 intellect with a penchant for weapons and armor. And full Thinker/Master/Stranger immunity came from my specific hybrid status.

I could have just used a psionic blast of some sort to take down these guys. But I was angry, I saw red. Literally I think, because I could in fact feel heat gathering in my eyes. But, my instincts screamed at me to beat the shit out of them. So, before Oni Lee could drive a dagger into Brandish's eye, I flew up high enough to grab his wrist in a steel grip, then punched him in the face hard enough to break his mask. He got knocked out, I was too fast for him to teleport away, then I noticed the deafening silence.

I looked around and saw the shocked looks all around me. Brandish and all of the remaining mundane attackers were just staring at me. So of course, I took the initiative. I tested out my psionics next, I generated green energy from my hands and my eyes glowed the same color. In about a second or two, because I lacked control being the young child in body if not spirit at the time, several twisting and sharply turning emerald laser beams shot out of my hands. Like, if I had a version of Darkseid's Omega Beams but could shoot as many as I wanted and not just two. Having the beams move in any direction and angle was the same though.

And, because even now I knew killing is heavily frowned upon and I did not have it in me to go through with that kind of act anyway, I made sure my psionic laser beams were set to just disable. With broken bones being the worst of it. Just in the extremities. They'll all live, but they won't be happy about it.

Things moved fast after that. Carol fast tracked my adoption, had me registered as an affiliate with the Protectorate since I was then officially part of New Wave and so on. I had to go through power testing and answer questions about my powers. I gave everybody such a headache they ended up sticking me with a Trump 10 classification and called it a day. Because my powers would grow without limit. I was able to convince them due to Armsmaster's lie detector and confirming I was telling the truth when I improved in strength and speed during the testing itself.

Anyway, that's enough about my rushed superhero origin story. I was currently dressed for going out, if you'll remember.

That was when the door to my room burst open. And I had my arms full of a blonde bombshell wrapping her legs around my waist and her arms around my neck.

"John! What's taking you so long?!" My sister, Vicky, demanded to know with a furious pout on her face.

"Vicky! You shouldn't stick to him like that!" Amy rushed in with a deep blush and jealous expression, trying to pull us apart.

I then heard some cute giggling by the door to my room and noticed Crystal was there too. Looking at the three of us with a wicked expression. "Yeah, Amy and I want some of that!" Then she flew in and made sure all of us were in a group.

It sounded like she was teasing, but I did have rather strong telepathy and empathy as part Titanian. So, I'll have to go through my assimilated memories in depth at some point because… I somehow became an overpowered harem protagonist and my new family is filled with beautiful women that want to sleep with me in my new life as a superhero? Sounds like a light novel that I would have loved to read and watch in my old life. Also, it seemed like a super accurate synopsis for this start of a new life of mine. Well, I can work with this.

AN: I love reading Worm stories. It was either this or starting a Mass Effect story. I decided the Mass Effect story can wait. I really wanted to romance a lot of Worm waifus, and play around with a superhero System. My other active story of Loving Bonnie Like a Love Song will continue every weekend as much as possible, if any of my regular readers see this. Thanks for reading and please be kind.