Follow the Path
Getting booted into another reality after burning to death is really not my idea of a good time. Neither is finding myself in a world where alien invasions are treated as a mild inconvenience. Still, it could be worse. At least my power is completely broken!
YAY, its not a Worm idea! It does however take a bit of inspiration from it because Worm Powers are so cool! Enjoy!
Chapter 1
Time for a quick lesson in Caveman 101. Fire hot, ow! And now for another obvious statement. Dying sucks. Trust me, I know both of them first hand since I was burnt to death, flash fried in a fireball that quite literally came from nowhere. Fortunately, it didn't take long for the fire to kill me since, for the few seconds I was burning alive, it REALLY FUCKING HURT!
What I wasn't expecting was to wake up. When I next opened my eyes, it was to find myself standing in a perfectly circular chamber with a large number of mirrors and screens of various shapes and sizes covering the walls, each showing a different scene. In the center of the chamber was a swivel chair surrounded by keyboards and control panels, each of which was connected to an arm that allowed it to be moved.
Lounging in the chair, fast asleep with a string of drool leaking from his mouth was a man with short, brown hair that looked like it hadn't seen a brush in weeks, a five day beard, pale skin and a pair of square, black framed glasses that had fallen crooked. He was wearing tired looking jeans and a tatty shirt that had once been white, but had long since turned grey from to many washings.
I hesitated for a moment, before deciding that there was no point in standing around all day, so I walked over to the sleeping man and gently shook his shoulder. He snorted and tried to roll over, only to fall of his chair with a crash, before shooting to his feet with his glasses on upside down.
"I'm up, I'm up!" he shouted, "I wasn't sleeping on the job, honest!"
His accent placed his nationality as british and his awakening showed his eyes to be green.
"Wait, you're not the boss," said the man as he spotted me, "How did you get here?"
"Thats a very good question," I said, "Last thing I remember is burning to death."
The young man raised an eyebrow and turned in his chair to face his many control panels, bringing up a file on screen with my face on it.
"Hmm, lets see, Daniel Hebert, age 16, species human, scheduled to come up here never. Huh, interesting."
He turned to me.
"This is you isn't it?"
I nodded.
"Why is species on there?"
"There are more things between heaven and hell than appear in dreams of men," said the young man, "I watch over a lot of worlds and many different species so its kinda necessary."
"What do you mean?" I asked, "Who are you anyway?"
The man looked up.
"Oh, sorry," he said, "I should have introduced myself. I'm Dis Lexic, an Overseer of the Multiverse. Its my job to keep this segment of Creation working and making sure that any issues are dealt with before they get big enough for the man upstairs to get involved."
"So what, your an Angel or something?" I asked.
"Not exactly," said Dis, "I'm more like a technician. The Angels are the Almighties strong right arm, his police force if you will."
"Right," I said, not quite sure what to make of the explanation, "So why am I here exactly?"
"Because you died before your allotted time," said Dis, "It happens occasionally and always makes a total mess of things."
"Why?"
"Because the Souls can only go to heaven or hell after their allotted time has past," said Dis, "You were supposed to live for another 20 years and die when your homeworld was attacked by an interdimensional space whale."
I blinked a couple of times and raised a finger.
"Ahh…"
"Yes, I do mean Scion."
I put my finger down. Well, that was one way to go I guess.
"So what now?" I asked, "Are you going to send me back?"
"Your body in your old dimension was nearly completely destroyed," said Dis, "Besides, time passes differently here and you've already been buried. You can't move on and you can't go back to your old dimension, the only thing I can do is shift you sideways."
"Sideways?"
"Into a different dimension," explained Dis, "It'll be one you recognize and I expect you won't end up being entirely normal."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"When people get shifted sideways, they tend to change," said Dis, "I still have no idea why. Just be thankful you won't be an Outsider. They always get screwed over by Fate."
I gulped.
"Soo, where am I going?"
"Pick a door," said Dis, indicating to a pair of identical doors that hadn't been there before.
"Where do they lead?" I asked.
"Your new home," said the Overseer, "Not even I know where they lead. Don't worry, though, I've already taken steps to make sure you don't get consumed by whatever power you gain. You'll start again with a clean slate, new memories and a new life."
I paused, my hand inches from one of the door handles.
"I won't remember my past?"
Dis shook his head.
"You will," he said, But those memories will be overtaken by new ones and suppressed. They'll be there, but they won't be important. Its how we prevent those we have to shift from getting homesick."
I swallowed and turned back to the door.
"Alright, you can do this," I muttered and opened the door.
The next thing I knew, I had tripped over a crate and landed in a muddy puddle with a splash. I sat up spluttering and looked around. I was in a back alley somewhere, behind a bar or something if the empty barrels were anything to go by.
"Greaaat, where the hell am I?" I muttered.
I got to my feet and headed to the end of the alley, only to freeze as I stepped out, my eyes wide.
"Um, is it too late to pick the other door?" I asked weakly as I stared at the T shaped tower out in the bay.
There was a flash of light and a note appeared in my hand. I quickly unfolded it and started to read.
Dear Danny,
Well, you lucked out and I don't mean by landing in Teen Titans. Normally, I'd give you a place to stay and tell you to be a good boy, but that new power of yours makes that pretty much unnecessary. I don't even need to give you any real ID or anything, so thats one less thing to do!
Now, before you head off and break the world, there are a couple of things you should know about. One, you cannot tell anyone you're from another world and two, you can't tell anyone what you know about the future. Both are sealed away behind barriers to keep you from accidentally telling or a telepath from pulling the information from your mind.
I think thats everything, have a good life!
From,
Dis.
I went white. I was stuck in the DC universe with nothing but the clothes on my back and a power I didn't even know how to use. I was going to KILL that…
ERROR, CANNOT FIND TARGET.
My head snapped up as what can only be called and error message popped up in my head as soon as I started plotting to murder the Watcher.
"What the fuck?" I muttered.
I stood still for a moment, waiting to see if anything was going to happen. When no other odd messages popped up after a few seconds, I relaxed.
"Well, I guess I ought to see about finding some money and a place to sleep," I muttered, "I really don't want to end up on the streets…"
I was cut off again as my brain did...something and I suddenly knew exactly how to get what I wanted with a handy step by step guide to getting it. My eyes went wide.
"O-oh you have got to be kidding me!" I breathed, "Did I get…"
I quickly attempted to come up with a plan for killing Superman. It would take over three thousand steps and a penguin, but it could be done. Then I tried Batman. Then the entire Justice League. Then Darkseid, the Joker, Sinestro, hell, even Magneto worked and that plan required acquiring ownership of Star Labs to build an interdimensional portal.
"Oh hell, I've got Path to Victory," I breathed, slumping back to lean against the wall.
Well, that certainly explained why Dis didn't bother giving me anything to start with! I could probably become a millionaire within a week...oh no, a month for the least amount of time, although that path would result in a lot of dead bodies.
"Hmm, I wonder if I can see Scion and Eden?" I muttered.
Then, my eyes widened as I discovered that yes, I could. And holy fucking SHIT, Contessa was holding back! If her power worked anything like mine, all of the atrocities that the Cauldron committed were barely worth mentioning compared to what was required to pull off the most efficient plan. I swallowed down my bile and quickly discarded the Path. It wasn't relevant for me and I didn't want to give myself nightmares.
Instead, I turned my attention to my more immediate problems as my stomach gave a loud rumble.
"Right, money then food," I said.
I turned on my heel, walked ten paces and plunged my hand into the skip. A moment later, I pulled out a blue backpack in a plastic bag covered in rotting garbage that was full of money intended to pay for a drug drop. Someone wouldn't be getting their fix and would likely be getting their kneecaps smashed instead. However, since my power helpfully informed me that the man in question was an amoral sociopath who was planning on kidnapping and doing horrible things to his five year old neighbour, I found it hard to really care. This way, I got what I wanted and a horrible man would be caught and locked away before anyone really got hurt. I pulled the backpack out of the bag, dropped the foul smelling plastic back into the trash and left the alley, whistling a happy tune as I went.
After pizza and avoiding getting caught up in one of the Titans scuffles, I headed out in search of somewhere to live, preferably without shooting someone in the head. I ended up with a small studio apartment over a bookshop I acquired for a steal after helping the original owner with a dispute with some gangsters and suggesting that he get out of town. My power is complete bullshit. You can keep your super strength, flight and stupidly large amounts of cash, I'd take this power any day of the week!
After acquiring groceries and sending the cops after the scumbag I'd 'helped' (he was as bad as the thugs I'd saved him from), I sat down in my new home and had a very long think. DC wasn't quite as dangerous as Worm since the heroes actually did their jobs (mostly) and prevailed in the end, so there was no real need for me to become a hero and try and change things. My power was complete bullshit, I could easily use it to do whatever I wanted. Hell, I could become king of the entire world with the Justice League at my beck and call in all things within 10 years and without spilling a drop of blood if I wanted to! But taking over the world didn't really appeal to me. I could use my power to play the system like a clarinet, but eventually I'd be found out, Path to Victory or no. Once that happened, things would get messy and I had no interest in getting tossed into prison or in slaughtering most of the Justice League and turning the rest into my playthings, Harley Quinn style.
I violently tossed away the Path before the images helpfully provided could change my mind with the sheer amount of skin on display. I would NOT become a world destroying Villain because I couldn't keep my hormones under control damn it!
I sighed as I took a sip of tea. I suppose I should try thinking more short term. I knew I was in the Teen Titans cartoon by the appearances of the Titans themselves, but I had no idea when I was. That was quickly fixed by a brief web search that revealed that Slade was still at large and Terra hadn't made her appearance, so as long as the timeline followed the show as I remembered it, Trigon was still due to invade at some point. Hmm, I wonder if…Yep, I can modal Trigon. That would be handy.
I wrenched my thoughts back on track. OK, so Slade and Trigon were my main problems. The rest of the standard villains were just that, but Slade could match Coil on being a complete dickhead and Trigon was...Trigon. If I wanted to have any chance at surviving this world, I would need to deal with both of them. Mainly because I didn't want Slade to find out about me and chain me up in his basement with enough drugs in my system to turn my brain to mush.
Plan now established, I set my power to work, discarding the paths that would end in massive death tolls until I finally found one that would first job was to...steal the X suit? The fuck?
Well, this should be interesting. Sticking a character with a practically unlimited version of Path to Victory into any world is guaranteed to end in tears for someone.
I called him Danny Hebert on a whim. He doesn't actually have any relation to Taylor. I just like the name.
Despite all the references to Worm, I don't actually plan for it to become a full on crossover. I admit, I had a few ideas of him allying with the Cauldron, but I won't be using them.
Yes, Danny will be becoming X, but he'll also have a second alter ego that he'll use when helping the Titans later down the line that will be more in line with Contessa, complete with classy dress sense. I'm not sure what to call that version though, so ideas are welcome.
His power isn't completely unlimited of course, but most of the things it doesn't work on are either not relevant due to being in a completely different universe or so powerful they could erase him from existence with a casual thought. That said, he isn't technically OP because hes just a perfectly ordinary 16 year old under that power. He doesn't even have any real training like Robin does, although I suspect his powers would probably make that moot. Oh, he could definitely beat the entire Justice League if it came down to it, but it would take a VERY long time.
Anyway, that'll do for now. Don't forget to leave a review on the way out!