Chapter 1: A Hostile Takeover of Self
The last sensation was the searing contempt in Lorenzo Bellini's eyes, a fleeting mirror to his own, just before the world dissolved into a cacophony of screeching tires and the percussive, final punctuation of automatic gunfire. Betrayal, in the end, was just another business expense, a lesson he'd taught often enough. He'd been on the verge of consolidating the European shipping lanes, a multi-billion-euro enterprise built on blood, fear, and an unparalleled understanding of human avarice. His last conscious thought wasn't of regret, but of the unfinished ledger, the untallied gold.
Then, nothingness. A void.
Until the ache.
It began as a dull throb behind the eyes, rapidly escalating into a splitting headache that felt like his skull was a too-small container for a vigorously shaken brain. Groaning, he tried to lift a hand to his head, but the limb felt heavy, unresponsive, like a waterlogged piece of timber. Panic, a rare and unwelcome visitor, flickered. Had Bellini's men been sloppy? Left him a vegetable? The thought was more infuriating than terrifying. A non-functional asset was a worthless asset.
He forced his eyelids open. They were gritty, reluctant. Above him, rough-hewn wooden beams crisscrossed a high ceiling, unfamiliar and primitive. The air was thick with the scent of old stone, woodsmoke, and something vaguely… unwashed. This wasn't one of his sterile, climate-controlled recovery suites. This wasn't even a hospital.
With a monumental effort, he pushed himself up. The world swam. He was on a bed, a surprisingly soft one, piled with furs that stank faintly of animal and damp. His body… Gods, his body felt wrong. Too large, too powerful in a raw, untrained way, yet also sluggish. He looked down at his hands. They were massive, calloused, scarred in places – a brawler's hands, not the meticulously manicured instruments of a financial puppeteer.
A wave of nausea hit him, accompanied by a disorienting flood of… memories. Not his own. Images, sounds, emotions – raw, boisterous, and utterly alien. A laughing girl with flowers in her hair, the sting of wine on a cold morning, the thrill of a hunt, the booming voice of a stern but kindly older man, a burning, obsessive rage directed at a silver-haired princeling. Lyanna. Ned. Jon. Rhaegar. Names and faces swirled, fighting for purchase in his already overcrowded mind.
He stumbled off the bed, his legs an uncoordinated mess. The floor was cold stone. He lurched towards a polished metal plate on a nearby table that served as a crude mirror. The reflection was a shock that nearly sent him reeling.
A young man, perhaps nineteen or twenty, stared back. Tall, built like a bull, with a thick mop of black hair falling into eyes of a startling blue. Eyes that were currently wide with a mixture of primal fear and confusion that was not his own. This was Robert Baratheon. The Demon of the Trident. The future drunken, whoring, bankrupt king from those ridiculous fantasy novels his one nerdy analyst had been obsessed with. Game of Thrones.
His IQ, a meticulously tested 293, kicked into overdrive, sifting, categorizing, analyzing the impossible. Reincarnation? Transmigration? Some elaborate, dying hallucination? The vividness, the sheer sensory input, argued against the latter. He was here. In this body.
A tremor ran through him, but it wasn't from shock. The very floor beneath his bare feet vibrated, a low thrum that resonated up his legs. A tankard on the table rattled, its contents sloshing. His gaze snapped to it. He focused, a flicker of understanding dawning. Whitebeard. The old man from the manga and anime, the one who could shatter the world with quakes. Another piece of pop culture knowledge surfaced, aligning with the impossible power he felt coiling within this new, young frame. Strength that dwarfed anything humanly possible. The Gura Gura no Mi.
He took a breath, then another. The psychopathic calm that had served him so well in countless boardrooms and back alleys began to assert itself. Panic was inefficient. Fear was a tool for others. This was… an opportunity. A vast, untapped market. A world ripe for exploitation, unburdened by pesky modern regulations and international oversight.
"Robert Baratheon," he murmured, the name feeling foreign and ill-fitting in his mouth, which was currently dry. His voice was a deep baritone, a stark contrast to his own measured, precise tones. He probed the memories again, Robert's memories. The boy was a creature of passion, of fierce loyalties and even fiercer hatreds. Currently, his dominant emotions were grief for his "stolen" Lyanna Stark and fury at Rhaegar Targaryen. These were… inconvenient. Emotional responses were liabilities in business.
The knowledge from the Game of Thrones books and show – he'd skimmed summaries, finding the political machinations mildly amusing, the economics laughably primitive – now became invaluable data. He knew the major players, the resources, the future conflicts, the hidden cards. Wildfire. Dragons. Valyrian steel. The Others.
A grim smile, utterly devoid of Robert's usual boisterousness, touched his lips. This body was young, incredibly strong even before accounting for the new, earth-shattering abilities. Robert's established relationships – Jon Arryn, Ned Stark – were pre-existing assets. The impending conflict, Robert's Rebellion, was a catalyst, a chance to reshuffle the deck, to acquire significant capital and power quickly.
His mind, a super-cooled processor, began to run scenarios.
Asset Assessment:
* Physical Form: Robert Baratheon. Young, peak health (though prone to future excess, a flaw to be corrected). Potential for immense physical development.
* Supernatural Abilities: Powers of Edward Newgate. Devastating offensive capability. Potential for resource extraction (mining, terraforming), intimidation, large-scale construction. Requires testing and control.
* Knowledge Base: Personal memories of a 21st-century ruthless businessman. Encyclopedic knowledge of Game of Thrones lore and future events. Robert Baratheon's memories and social connections.
* Current Standing: Lord of Storm's End (titularly, as he was fostering in the Eyrie with Ned Stark under Jon Arryn's care). High nobility. Key figure in an impending rebellion.
* Liabilities: Robert's emotional impulsiveness (to be suppressed). Existing enemies (Targaryens). Primitive technological base of this world (an opportunity for "innovation" and monopoly). Lyanna Stark obsession (a major distraction, to be managed or discarded as a motivator).
His former life's obsession with wealth, with the sheer, unadulterated accumulation of gold and power, surged back, amplified by the scale of the opportunity before him. He had run out of world to conquer, financially speaking, in his old life. Here? An entire virgin territory.
"The first order of business," he thought, his new blue eyes glinting with cold predatory light, "is a hostile takeover of Robert Baratheon. Full assimilation. Then, a leverage buyout of this continent."
He walked back to the bed, the slight tremor under his feet now a conscious, controlled hum. He sat, the frame groaning under his weight. Robert's grief for Lyanna felt like a distant, annoying whine in the back of his skull. He acknowledged it, analyzed its potential utility (a useful casus belli for the masses, easily exploited), and then ruthlessly suppressed it. There was no profit in pining. Lyanna Stark was an asset or a liability, nothing more. Her current status as "abducted" simply meant she was an asset currently in the possession of a competitor.
He needed to get this body into peak condition. Whitebeard's powers likely had a physical component or toll; efficiency dictated optimal physical housing. Robert's current physique, while strong, was unrefined. It needed to become a weapon, an instrument of his will, not a pleasure barge for wine and women. That could come later, if desired, once the empire was built. For now, discipline.
Next, a systematic inventory of the Stormlands' resources. Timber, ore, manpower, arable land. He'd need ledgers, surveyors, men he could trust – or, more accurately, men whose loyalty could be bought and guaranteed. The Baratheon lands would be the foundation of his first corporation. "Baratheon Consolidated Resources," perhaps. BCR. It had a suitably impersonal ring to it.
The rebellion itself. It was coming. Aerys Targaryen had murdered Rickard and Brandon Stark. Demands for Ned's and Robert's heads were imminent, if not already dispatched. War was expensive, messy. But it was also a fantastic opportunity for wealth redistribution and asset acquisition. The Crownlands, the Targaryen treasury… these would be his seed capital.
He ran a hand through the thick black hair. This world operated on a primitive feudal system. Honor, loyalty, oaths. All exploitable vulnerabilities. They thought in terms of glory and chivalry. He thought in terms of profit margins, market share, and return on investment.
A knock on the door. "My lord Robert? Lord Arryn requests your presence. And Lord Stark is with him."
The voice was that of a maester, probably.
He stood. The transformation was subtle but already beginning. The slight slump in Robert's shoulders was gone. The gaze that met the door was not that of a grieving, enraged young lord. It was the cool, appraising stare of a predator sizing up its next meal.
"Inform Lord Arryn I will be with him presently," he called out, his voice already firmer, deeper, with a resonant quality that hinted at the power thrumming just beneath the surface.
As he moved to find suitable clothing – Robert's wardrobe was appallingly lacking in anything resembling a tailored suit – his mind was already drafting the initial prospectus for his Westeros venture. The continent was rich, its people naive. The game was the same, only the pieces were different. Knights instead of capos, castles instead of shell corporations, dragons instead of derivatives. But gold was still gold. And he would have all of it.
The thought that had been forming solidified into a core directive, a mission statement for his new existence.
"This world is an untapped asset. And I am here to liquidate it."
He found a tunic and breeches that were plain but serviceable. As he dressed, a tremor of excitement, cold and entirely unlike Robert's hot-blooded passions, ran through him. It wasn't the thrill of battle or the pursuit of a woman. It was the thrill of the ultimate deal, the grandest acquisition of his long, ruthless career.
Planetos was open for business. And he was about to launch the most aggressive, hostile takeover in its history.