*??? POV*
*Location: Brockton Bay*
*Date: March 31st, 2008*
With a snap of my fingers, I stopped a car crash, one of this universe's pivotal moments, one that would've sparked a long chain of disasters for one family.
Wasn't that hard, honestly. Distorting space so that a car crashes into a nearby lampost instead is simply enough. Changing the space so that the distance between the two is changed, and bam, tragedy averted.
Some light injuries, but nothing she couldn't recover from, and as people looked at the scene confused, I cracked open a can of...pelz? Some weird Pepsi variant, or at least the stuff that tasted the closest to it.
Gulping it down, I just let them wonder what the hell happened instead of taking credit for it. Well, most people believe their eyes over facts, perceptions over reality.
That and I wasn't in my cape persona right now, so there was that, right now I was just Michael. Average guy with combed dark brown hair that left nothing to the imagination, decent glasses, and average looks to the world, that is.
Which wasn't far from the truth. In all honesty, this was what I used to look like in the past. Back before I came to this reality with this weird set of powers, but in all honesty, I am starting to think some other future version of me gave me these abilties or unlocked them.
Or perhaps it's something else, and I'm just overthinking it. I mean, no one gave me a note or something telling me what to do or what changed. Pretty sure that this was all due to a CYOA styled after Worm. I mean, I had a pretty good idea of what I could do and what skills I had at my disposal.
Right now, my main abilties were Time, Space, and Gravity, nice little setup with plenty of potential under the right conditions. Regardless of the course, alongside rapid learning, and mental barrier.
Whoever was making the CYOA probably realized that you don't need blank when you can manipulate time itself. Even minorily can really affect and distort reality; all three together with mastery over time, well, no one would be able to predict me, no matter how hard they try.
Right now, I was doing everything I could to distort what I look like, all the while checking my smartwatch and checking the time, alongside a few alarms I set. Well, that and put my earbuds in and turned on my Audio player, feeling like a more modern-day (for me anyway) styled song, tuning into 'New Type of Hero.'
No smartphone, but the audio player was enough for me alongside the 5k gifted to me, which got me a nice, cheap apartment. That and a very familiar cape costume, one that kind of solidified the path I would take.
In fact, the most expensive stuff I had at the moment was the seven pairs of black suits I had, not the best quality or fancy ones. Rather, the kind you'd see in an office building, in an accounting firm, which was where I technically worked.
Most of the time, though, I think it was a front for one of the three main gangs in Brockton. Leaning more towards Coil, trying to hide the dirty money he gathered to finance his own operations, or at least one he had a hand in.
Which woudl make sense considering he owned a construction company, and even if it was more about power for him, he still needs money to finance his operations. Giving me a legitimate source of income, well, in my disguise that is.
While I couldn't really do much with my time manipulation right now, at least not until I practiced a bit more, the same goes for my other abilities. After all, practice makes perfect, and all that jazz.
Anyway, for right now, I can only mostly influence myself a little bit, as my other self is a little too out in the open. Don't think many people have natural white hair and a nice suit to go along with, like a certain powerful hero. It's also like I'm trying very hard to hide my identity; if you know where to look, you can find me.
That didn't mean it didn't come with downsides, for example, the Butchers want me, Slaughter House Nine wants me, Endbringers will target me a little more than other people, oh, we have three news one, so that's fun.
I'm wanted both globally and locally technically. With Murphy also hating me, or at least making sure things can inconvenience me or slow me down. That and I'm unmasked, yep, livestream of some stupid kids doing a summong and bam people think I'm some weird cape or lucifer himself given humanoid form.
Didn't really get their names when it happened; all I knew was that one moment I was waking up in my pajamas, getting my coffee for the day. I was yawning as I got out of my bed, rubbing my eyes as I thought I approached my bathroom.
The difference being that, well, that day I was instead inside a dark room with some candles burning, incense, I think. Standing outside of a large red circle, in the shape of a classic pentagram, made me feel like I was in a cliche horror movie.
The problem was, I wasn't alone in that room, which turned out I was being live-streamed by some stupid occult-based YouTube channel. Not analogue horror or anything like that, more like old-school cringe if you watched it long enough. Probably didn't expect to summon anything, either, as the person who summoned me had a gaping mouth.
In all honesty, I was freaking out at that point, thinking I had somehow sleepwalked my way into a prank or something. So I just apologized while the people watching were freaking out, as I later learned, and PHO was freaking out when I finally got my hands on a computer, at the library.
Worm's most well-known conspiracy theorist was not yet on their, but there were plenty of paranoid skeptics, some shut down by our favorite AI Dragon. Which reminded me, I needed to get myself a PHO account, could get some juicy info if I looked in the right threads.
Either a lot of work was going to need to be done before Gold Morning, or whenever Scion may start exterminating humanity. After all i'll eventually become a target for the Slaughterhouse Nine or Eight, it didn't matter in the end, as they wanted me to be part of their group.
I was going to clean this city first before it became a battleground for two extremely dangerous parahumans, well, if I don't figure out a way to take them off the board. The most dangerous things, however, were definitely going to the Endbringers and Scion itself, regardless of its 'emotional' state, if you can even apply human emotions to it.
Right now, I just wasn't strong enough to even take on one of the weaker Endbringers, if there is such a thing. Let alone Scion, or rather its avatar, who could easily take them on and destroy them. Which I'm guessing didn't have all the most powerful abilties accessible to it, it for sure had a lot of strong ones and knew how to use them.
Then you get to ones like Eidolon's High Priest shard, or Queen Administrator, or so on, and you see that a lot of powerful shards. That is, if he had an equivalent to it, if the Thinker one originally had them instead of the Warrior.
Anyway, I'm getting off track, but that always happens whenever I'm walking on a nice, peaceful day with nothing to do but explore. So, when I walked out of the building, I was still internally freaking out, doing my best to remain calm even though I found myself in some strange city I'd never been in before.
With car models I was very unfamiliar with, technology that was not ancient but outdated in 2025 was being used by the vast majority of people. That and finding 5k in my inside pocket, well new inside pocket and my wallet still on me, completed with debt and credit cards for companies that no longer exist in this reality, which, being honest, even if they did, these things wouldn't work.
I technically didn't exist in this world, and even if a version of me did, I doubt he was old enough to get one or even have his own seperate ban account from his parents. Yep, his mine were back home and buried six feet under, something I had long accepted and would rather not dredge up again.
After that, though, I wondered if the city was getting some looks from people who thought I was part of New Wave (spoiler: I'm not) or a new Cape (which, yes, I was, but I didn't know it at the time).
However, instead of having a nice first day in the city, I was attacked by Merchant gangsters. Something most capes wouldn't scoff at, but at the time I was freaking out and had, as I've said before, 5k in my pocket. So panicking, I just held my hands out, freaking out, and felt something pulse within me.
First off, Gravity was light for a split second, well, for them anyway, and then heavy as they slammed to the ground. Then time began acting all weird as I saw a few moments in the future, which was heavily disorienting. Then, when the thugs got up, I already knew where they were going and felt an eerie calm when they did exactly as I saw.
Then my final ability came, space manipulation, which had shifted where they were attacked/going almost immediately. With them slamming against the wall, and I think some of their teeth falling out as they did.
It was so strange and disorienting, so much so that the rest of the day was me going on autopilot, finding a hotel to rest in for the night, and just thinking. By that time, I didn't know I was in the worm webnovel yet, but I knew I was somewhere completly different, and a different time.
No, I found that out much later when I actually went to the library to do some research.