Garrett Orion was twenty-one years old, but he looked like a ghost who'd missed his turn at the afterlife. His skin was whiter than paper left out in winter, his veins showing like a delicate blue road map beneath the surface. His hair, prematurely gray, gave him the permanent look of someone's grandpa trapped in a young man's body.
He was, by all accounts, a medical miracle. Or, depending on who you asked, a medical abomination. Garrett himself preferred the term "miracle," since it sounded kinder and he already had enough to mope about.
The truth was simple: Garrett Orion had every known disease in the world. Every. Single. One.
Cancer? Yes, in four places, all benign and too distracted by the competition to spread. Diabetes? Absolutely, but type one and type two hated each other so much they kept canceling out like bickering siblings. Tuberculosis? Yep. Polio? Yep. Scurvy? Sure, why not. Even rabies, which should have killed him a dozen times over, sat dormant like a bored dog waiting for its owner to throw a ball.
The diseases fought inside him like gang members in a turf war. None of them could kill him, not because his body was strong, but because each illness wanted the honor of finishing him off. Their endless infighting made Garrett the world's most fragile immortal.
Which was why he spent most of his days indoors, in silk pajamas, in a penthouse where the walls were thicker than bank vaults and the windows cleaner than surgical glass.
Tonight, he was in his usual spot on the couch, wrapped in a blanket despite the central heating, watching The Simpsons on a massive screen that stretched wall to wall. A crystal bowl of soft cookies sat on the table in front of him, alongside peeled bananas wrapped in plastic. His nurse, a kindly old woman he called Granny Chip, had brought them.
Granny Chip was his monthly visitor, a retired doctor who checked in on him every four weeks. She never asked for money, not even when he offered obscene amounts. She just smiled, poked at him with her stethoscope, and reminded him to "eat something other than sugar for once, dear."
Garrett both adored and pitied her. A woman of kindness in a world as rotten as theirs didn't last long, but somehow Granny Chip had endured, much like he had.
Right now, she was sitting in the armchair beside him, her wrinkled hands folded neatly in her lap. Her glasses rested low on her nose as she peered at the screen, her lips twitching at the antics of Homer and Bart.
Garrett coughed weakly, one of those dry little hacks that rattled his ribs but passed in an instant. He leaned back further into the cushions, whispering with a grin, "I think I see myself in this episode, Granny."
On-screen, Mr. Burns—gaunt, skeletal, the very definition of fragile greed—was being informed by his doctor that he had every disease known to man.
Garrett's lips curled into a smirk. Well, now, that's a familiar diagnosis.
The episode continued, Mr. Burns looking smug as the doctor explained the reality.
"So I'm indestructible?" Burns asked, his voice crackling like an old phonograph.
"Well, no, technically n—" the doctor started to explain, only to be cut off.
"I'm indestructible!" Burns declared, marching out with Smithers scurrying after him.
Garrett laughed, the sound breaking into a wheeze halfway through. He paused the episode right there, the frozen frame of Burns' bug-eyed smugness staring at him from the screen.
"Funny," Garrett muttered, turning his head toward Granny Chip. "That's me. I'm the real-life Mr. Burns."
Granny Chip gave him one of those indulgent smiles only grandmothers and saints could muster. She stood, brushing imaginary crumbs off her skirt. "Don't compare yourself to a cartoon fossil, Garrett. You're kinder than that."
"Am I?" Garrett asked, though there was no real bite in his voice.
She packed up her bag slowly, humming some old tune under her breath. "I'll be back next month. Try not to terrify the maids again with your fake heart attacks."
"They're not fake," Garrett called after her. "They're micro heart attacks. Very serious. I could die in one!"
"You'll live," Granny Chip said fondly, patting his shoulder on her way out. "You always do."
He watched her shuffle to the door, her spine still straight despite her age. Before leaving, she placed the bananas and cookies on the coffee table. "Eat. They're soft enough for you."
And then she was gone.
The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the hum of the TV. Garrett reached for a cookie, biting into the delicate, sugar-soft dough. He chewed slowly, savoring it like a man condemned to execution savoring his last meal.
Then he reached for a banana.
That was when he saw it.
A faint shimmer in the air.
A flicker.
And then—
[SYSTEM BOOTING…]
Garrett blinked. He rubbed his eyes, wondering if this was the hallucination stage of rabies kicking in. Wouldn't that be something? Die foaming at the mouth after all this time.
But no, the text hovered in his vision, crisp and unshakable.
[BLOODLINE SYSTEM ACTIVATED]
Garrett froze, banana halfway to his mouth. His jaw went slack. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me."
A system. A real one. The kind he'd read about in fanfiction, the kind nerds fantasized about when their lives sucked. It was happening. To him.
He leaned back, heart thudding in his chest—half from excitement, half from the fact that it skipped beats on a daily basis.
A panel opened in his vision, text scrolling neatly:
[Absorb DNA → Integrate Bloodline]
[Note: Due to user's unique medical condition, integration is limited.]
[User can only access 1% of any bloodline's potential.]
Garrett stared. Then laughed so hard he started coughing again.
"One percent?!" he choked. "Are you serious? I get the dream system, and I'm capped at one percent? That's… that's hilarious. That's tragic!"
He wiped tears from his eyes. "So what, if I inject Spider-Man's DNA, I'll just… climb a ladder slightly faster?"
His laughter died into silence. He frowned at the panel.
Still… one percent of anything in this world was better than what he had now. In a world where Superman played boy scout in Metropolis and mutants were hunted like rabid dogs, Garrett barely qualified as human. He didn't even have the mutant X-gene. Just money. Mountains of money. Enough to make most problems go away with a flick of his checkbook.
But not enough to buy health. Not enough to fix this.
Garrett set the banana down. He tapped the panel mentally, scrolling.
[Insert DNA Sample?]
He chewed his lip. Then chuckled nervously. "Well… it's a good thing I already spent stupid money on something, isn't it?"
From the drawer beneath his couch, he pulled out a refrigerated case. Inside, suspended in fluid, was a tiny vial.
Wolverine DNA.
He'd bought it years ago through contacts who didn't care about legality. The price tag had been obscene, even for him, but the idea had comforted him. Someday, when technology advanced, maybe they could splice Logan's healing factor into his wreck of a body.
But science never got that far. And no one cared about saving him. If they had the chance, they'd have taken his money and used the sample on themselves.
Garrett rolled the vial in his trembling fingers, the faint red glimmer of Logan's blood swirling inside.
"Well," he whispered, his grin sickly but sharp. "Time to see if one percent is better than nothing."
He tapped the panel again.
[Insert DNA: Wolverine?]
"Yes."
The vial in his hand disintegrated into motes of light, vanishing into his chest. Garrett gasped, clutching his ribs. Fire spread through his veins, a warmth he hadn't felt in years. Not strength, not power, but… a soft hum of vitality. Like his body was remembering what it meant to be alive.
The panel blinked.
[Integration Complete: Wolverine Bloodline (1%)]
[Effect: User's cells regenerate slightly faster. Minor immunity boost acquired.]
Garrett exhaled shakily, collapsing back onto the couch. His heart fluttered, skipped, then stabilized. His breathing eased just a fraction.
It wasn't much. It wasn't even close to the fantasy of being unkillable. But it was something.
And for Garrett Orion, the frailest rich man alive, "something" was enough to dream about.
He pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders, closing his eyes as exhaustion took him.
"Guess I'm indestructible after all," he murmured, smiling faintly.
And then he fell asleep, the hum of his new system lingering like a promise.
A/N: I know its kinda random, but im gonna enjoy this, I have much planned.
PS, my Game Creator fanfic, will be updated, just let me enjoy this :)