Klein Moretti—or whatever moniker he held onto these days—floated in the limbo between realities, his body a flickering hallucination of a Victorian gentleman, top hat rakishly angled, monocle sparkling with secrets unspoken. The rise to "The Fool" had been a maelstrom of backstabbings, ancient imprecations, and the sort of celestial chess that reduced gods to tears. But triumph? It was bitter as ash. The weight of Sephirah Castle bearing down on him, a marble and mist fortress haunted by whispers of roads not traveled. He was the master of marionettes now, strings hanging from his fingers, but the stage seemed too confined, too orderly.
"Why remain?" he whispered to the void, his voice a gentle wave on the turbulence. The outer gods, those eldritch abominations beyond mortal understanding, owed him a debt—favors from a game of fates in which he'd bluffed to victory. They weren't friends; no, ententes with them were akin to dancing on knives. But they enjoyed his temerity, splitting open a crack in the dimensional wall with a negligent flick of their incomprehensible wills. "A new canvas," someone had spat, its tone like galaxies grinding together. "Paint it red, little fool."
And so he stepped through.
The world he was greeted with was a din of lights and darkness, a sprawling city that howled "New York" but tasted. wrong. Skyscrapers cut through the sky like haughty fingers, but among them rose towers that did not belong—Gotham's gothic spires bleeding into Manhattan's steel, Wayne Tower brooding over Stark Industries' shining arc reactor billboards. Mutants roamed the streets freely here, or at least more so than they ought.
Marvel and DC, blended together like some fanboy's dream. Klein had caught glimpses of these stories in his previous life, snippets from books and screens in that far-off, humdrum existence before the mysteries consumed him. Heroes in tights, god-complex villains, cycles of death and rebirth. He had the big picture: Spider-Man's banter, Batman's darkness, Superman's boy-scout glow, Thanos' snap. Details? Fuzzy, like a half-remembered dream. Just right for a fool like himself.
He manifested in a grimy alleyway off Times Square, his shield humming softly—an intangible cloak thanks to the castle's residual power. It would keep the big eyes away from him for the time being: no Eternity snooping, no Spectre judging, until he gets back half his strength. For the time being, he was depleted, powers seeping in like sand through an hourglass. No more all-powerful sleights of hand anymore; he'd have to trust in his wits, in the craft of the con that had gotten him through twenty-two pathways of lunacy.
Klein smoothed his coat, taking in the city's rhythms. Sirens howled somewhere in the distance, a Bat-signal flashing against low-hanging clouds. This was more than a world; it was a web of fates, dictated by unseen hands—writers, fates, whatever you liked to call them. And he? He was the glitch in the story. Not a destroyer, not some maniacal cackler. No, Klein wasn't sadistic; he wanted the unraveling, the secrets that flowered when you pulled on a loose thread. What lies lay hidden in Tony Stark's pride? What mysteries waited in Bruce Wayne's broken mind? He could lead them, dupe them onto new tracks, pilfer a shard of their destiny if they were duped by his lies. A power here, an intellect there—gifts waiting to be taken, if played correctly.
He let out a chuckle, low and sincere. "A new beginning," he breathed, into the neon light. Potential hummed through the air, heroes and villains performing their millennial tango. What if he whispered something else? Disrupt the storylines, twist them until they broke. Antagonist? Perhaps. To Klein, it was a different game.
His first mark came earlier than anticipated. A figure flashed by overhead—Spider-Man, web-slinging across the mayhem, mask glinting with the city's frenzy. Klein cocked his head, catching the boy's knotted web of humor and guilt. Peter Parker, wasn't it? Cursed with responsibility, orphaned, and bitten. A default tragedy in need of rewriting.
Klein held up a hand, a fine marionette string flaring into being, visible to no one but him. Not to command—yet—but to prod. A fool's challenge. As Spider-Man descended upon a nearby building, Klein became one with the darkness, his voice whispering upon the breeze like a lost echo.
"Hey, Peter. Ever think about whether the spider picked you. or you picked the web?"
Spider-Man whirled, senses on high alert. "Who said that? Step out show yourself"
Klein smiled from the shadows. The mystery had started.
He walked deeper into the city, Sephirah Castle a distant anchor in his head, to be called upon if necessary. But for now, intellect would do. He walked by a newsstand yelling headlines: "Superman Thwarts Lex Luthor Again!" "X-Men Battle Sentinels!" Worlds colliding, fates intersecting. Klein's information was haphazard—he remembered Batman's no-kill policy, Wonder Woman's godly parentage, but the mutants? X-Men, yes? Professor X, Magneto, perpetual argument on existence.
A sudden explosion rocked the block ahead. Debris flew as a green-skinned behemoth—Hulk?—smashed through a wall, roaring at a squad of caped figures. Superman hovered, eyes glowing; nearby, Wolverine popped claws with a snikt. Chaos, pure and unfiltered.
Klein sidestepped into a café, watching from a distance. His shield buzzed more powerfully here, deflecting any cosmic probes. He couldn't swipe Hulk's fury yet—too animal, too blatant. But deceive him? Sow the seeds of doubt, cause him to question Banner's mastery? That could unravel threads through universes.
Drinking a stolen coffee (a small trick, nothing more), Klein sat there considering what to do next. Retain power slowly: first, small deceptions to drain intelligence from a genius such as Reed Richards or Lex Luthor. Bigger moves then—steal a destiny from a speedster, for example, by tricking them into a paradox.
The aftermath of the explosion attracted a crowd. The heroes came: Flash in from out of nowhere, Iron Man flying overhead. Klein's gaze became narrow. So many secrets to reveal. Tony's arc reactor—redemption or hubris? Barry Allen's speed force—gift or burden?
He eased out of there, getting lost in the crowd. "Let's see what's going to happen when the idiot joins the deck," he grumbled.
As darkness descended, Gotham's rain infused itself with Metropolis' lights, Klein came alive. No more recirculating maledictions of his past life. Here, he'd lead them off course, not to wreak havoc, but to experience the excitement of not knowing. Antagonist or creator? Time would tell.
But one thing was certain: the plotlines were in for getting fooled.