I looked at the three character cards I got and then at the two Assimilation slots given by GACHA. So who should I pick? Well, it isn't even a question. I immediately chose Spider-Man and Damian. One makes me super, and the other will make me cautious and prevent me from making mistakes. Choosing a human over a super soldier might seem stupid to most, but Bucky would only give me killing methods compared to Damian, whose skill set contains much more.
I wanted to check the rest of the cards, but there's no need to rush. First, I want to take a shower and fill my tummy.
Leaving the bed, I went to the bathroom. It didn't take me long to stand under the flow of hot water. I felt a little calmer now. Although I was trying to behave as normally as possible, it isn't easy to ignore the fact that I am now in someone else's flesh, someone who was a year older than me. It feels a little creepy when I touch this body.
Reminding myself to get used to it, I took the towel, dried myself off, and went back to the room. Opening the wardrobe, I took a T-shirt, trousers, and undergarments. As I picked the last one, I felt a little disgusted the same thing I felt when using the toothbrush. Okay, I am changing them all soon, no matter how suspicious someone gets of my behavior. Although they are Harry's and I am Harry now, I still can't get used to everything.
It makes me wonder how other transmigrators cope with situations like this, or am I the abnormal one?
Wearing the clothes, I looked in the mirror. Not the most handsome out there, but good-looking. He is a little taller than me, but then again, I was a year younger than him.
Whistling, I left the room and stepped into the large hallway. There are many doors, but most of them are empty since nobody lives in this penthouse other than Harry and Norman, if we exclude the butler.
Well, Norman is a busy man, so there are many times he isn't home. It's mostly Harry here, like today. It's been over two weeks since he last saw his dad.
It seems he is trying to upgrade himself since a few days ago Goblin lost badly in his fight with Spider-Man.
"Master Harry, you woke up early today," the butler noticed me coming downstairs.
"Well, I slept enough," I said while checking the memories. Hmm… Harry usually doesn't leave his bed until noon on Sundays.
"Anything to eat?" I asked while looking at the butler. He is quite old, even older than Norman, and has worked for three generations of Osborns. No blood relatives, not much of a social life. I don't know if it's because of the Damian template, but I feel like I need to check if that's really true or just a façade.
He nodded and moved toward the kitchen while I started checking some news.
Hulk and Abomination were shown fighting. It's a recap of yesterday. The destruction they caused is far more than what was shown in the movie… more like the comics. There were even guest appearances from Iron Man and the Fantastic Four.
The timeline is a little similar to the MCU but not completely, since the events with Vanko were already dealt with two months ago. Also, it's currently 2006, and the movie's plot started three or four years later. Then there are many unstable factors like the Fantastic Four and mutants.
Speaking of mutants… well, they are hated like... I can't even find the right word. Their situation is the worst. Feared, discriminated, protested against, debated on every news channel like they're some kind of walking plague instead of people.
The most famous one is Magneto.
Wow… he looks so much younger. That's what everyone's talking about right now. A month ago, he was seen in Utah, and nobody even realized it was him at first. Apparently, he didn't look old enough to be the same man who fought in half the major mutant incidents over the last decades.
Well… he's de-aged multiple times in the comics, so who knows what happened here.
Still, if Magneto is active and rejuvenated, that means the mutant situation is only going to escalate from here.
And as much as I don't want to get involved in that or in the rest of the incidents I know are bound to happen, it's impossible to stay away from all of them.
Maybe soon there will be an invasion by Thanos, Kree or the Skrulls and the fight will escalate to a planetary scale. Or maybe Hulk goes mad and claps once too hard, and an entire continent, no, the planet pays the price.
I am literally scared because all of that is possible.
This isn't a story anymore where destruction is just panels on a page or CGI on a screen. This is real now. I am real.
Maybe it would be safer to stay far away, hide in the background, and get stronger as time passes with GACHA. Slow growth without unnecessary risks.
Or maybe I should be active rather than passive and participate in events while I still know how some of them unfold. Knowledge is an advantage, at least for now.
There's a chance my intervention could make things worse. Butterfly effects are real, especially in a universe where time travel and reality manipulation are too casual.
But leaving my fate in anyone else's hands, heroes, villains, governments, anyone other than GACHA, is impossible.
If I'm going to survive this world, I can't just pray someone else wins.
And now that I actually have the chance to meet the characters I liked in real life, to fight alongside them, talk with them, it's out of the question to live an ordinary life. There's just too much to explore. Space travel, looting demons, teasing heroes and some smashing.
It seems I really can't ignore the temptations.
"Master Harry, you can come now."Oh, finally something to eat.
A few minutes later
After filling myself properly, I moved back to Harry's room. Sitting in front of the PC, I started surfing the internet. I'm going to check some famous figures, but not too specifically to get under someone's radar.
I started with the top companies in America.
Stark Industries is at the top, obviously. Then there's AIM, Hammer Industries, though it's currently in legal trouble because of the incident they caused at the Expo. Oscorp is there too. Pym Technologies. Roxxon. And many other familiar names.
I decided to dig a little deeper, starting with AIM. Nothing sensitive, just general public information. I remember they were linked with HYDRA in the comics, or at least part of them was. As for Killian, in the comics he was part of a different organization rather than being the founder of AIM like he was in the movie.
It seems this one is the comic version, since there's no mention of Killian being associated with AIM, and the current CEO is someone named Alessandro Brannex. Taking mental note of that name, I moved forward to check other companies and tried recalling some key details before I got bored and started looking into the vigilante activity in the city.
Other than Spider-Man, the most famous name is Daredevil, who is known for fighting criminals in Hell's Kitchen. But many people believe it's nothing more than rumors, since that place is still what it used to be, with no visible change.
There's no news of the Punisher. Is his family still alive? Or maybe he exists, but the media simply doesn't report on him because of how brutal his methods are compared to other vigilantes. If I think again, maybe that's not possible. It's more likely that the cops don't let news of his actions leak. A man who leaves dozens of bodies behind isn't just a vigilante, he's a public panic trigger.
Easier to label it gang violence and move on than admit someone is waging a one-man war in the streets.
I closed the tabs and started checking for some famous cities and organizations like Gotham, Metropolis, Vought International, and a few more. The common factor in those searches is that none of them belong to Marvel, so there shouldn't be any possibility of their presence here, but confirmation is always better than assumption.
And soon enough, it was confirmed.
This world is pure Marvel.
That's the conclusion I reached after finding absolutely nothing beyond it.
Which is quite reassuring, since I don't think I could handle more than that at a time.
Now then let's check the card's.
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