A few minutes from the house there was a shop robbery. The guys who'd done it were making their getaway by car, but the police had lost track of them. Now they were hiding in an old building somewhere in the area — but the AI had been monitoring and calculating their likely hideout the whole time.
Two normal criminals.
Jack slipped through the broken side entrance, boots barely making a sound against the cracked concrete floor.
The building smelled like dust, rust… and cheap cigarettes.
Voices echoed from the next room.
"…told you we should've ditched the car, man—"
"Relax, nobody followed us. Cops already lost—"
Jack leaned slightly against the wall, peeking through the half-broken doorway.
Two guys.
One sitting on an old crate, counting cash.
The other pacing, gun loosely hanging in his hand.
Unfocused. Sloppy.
Jack exhaled slowly.
"Yeah… this'll take like ten seconds," he muttered under his breath.
He stepped in.
The pacing guy turned first — too late.
"Yo, wh—"
Jack closed the distance in a blink.
A sharp strike to the wrist —
crack.
The gun dropped before the guy even registered the pain.
Jack didn't stop.
A quick pivot —
Elbow straight into the jaw.
The man collapsed instantly, body hitting the floor with a dull thud.
The second guy froze, eyes wide.
"What the—?!"
He scrambled up, knocking the crate over, cash spilling everywhere.
"Stay back, man — I got—" Seeing a guy in a full armored suit made him stutter.
Jack tilted his head slightly.
"You were saying?"
The guy lunged forward in panic.
Bad move.
Jack sidestepped casually, grabbed his arm mid-swing — twisted.
Not enough to break. Just enough.
The guy yelped, dropping to his knees.
Jack tapped the back of his neck —
Clean. Precise.
Lights out.
Silence.
Just the faint sound of money sliding across the floor.
Jack looked down at the two unconscious men.
"…yeah." He shrugged. "Simple."
He called it in through the suit. Advanced tech — untraceable. Voice changer running.
"NYPD dispatch, what are you reporting?"
"Yeah, quick tip. The Street XXY robbery guys? They're hiding at Building XXXX."
"Sir, stay on the line and identify—"
Click.
He cut the call and left.
[Hero Points +2]
Available Hero Points: 2
Next hero unlock at: 400 points
He stared at the number.
400 points. Double the last threshold. He ran the pattern in his head — 50, 100, 200, 400. Each one doubling the previous. Which meant the next would be 800. Then 1600. The numbers would get very large, very fast.
"System — at this rate, when do I unlock all the aliens? And is there any other way to earn points besides this?"
Silence.
He wasn't surprised. It wasn't the first time he'd asked something like that and gotten nothing back.
"At least tell me how you calculate the points for each action. Sometimes you give more, sometimes less — even for the same kind of event. I genuinely can't figure out the pattern."
He expected silence again.
Instead —
[Points are calculated based on how the action affects the future. The significance of the outcome determines the reward.]
He frowned. "I don't fully understand. Can you be more specific?"
[——]
Then, after a pause —
[Host — even if you had not stopped those two criminals tonight, they would likely have been caught within a day or a week regardless. The change you created was minor. The world was not meaningfully altered. That is why only 2 points were given.]
He thought about that for a moment.
Then slowly asked, "So… if I had killed them instead, would I get more points?"
[Host will not be awarded points for actions aligned with villainy.]
"What if killing one person saved thousands?"
[——]
Seeing no answer, he didn't push it further.
"Okay. Different question." He kept his voice even. "If I save canon characters — people who were supposed to die, heroes, villains, people whose deaths actually change things… events that affect others — would I get more points for that?"
[Yes, host.]
He went quiet.
That was basically the system telling him to get involved. To step into storylines he barely remembered, pull on threads he didn't fully understand, and gamble with whatever butterfly effects came after.
"I hope that doesn't create any 'What If' series effects."
Thinking about some of those events made him uneasy. But feeling the Omnitrix on his wrist settled him a little.
He pushed the thought aside, his expression steadying, and flew on.
He'd been cruising above New York in invisibility mode for about twenty minutes when the warning hit.
[Power level dropped to 50%.]
He sighed.
"Half a charge. For twenty minutes of flight." He shook his head. "I need a proper power source. Something like what Stark uses — otherwise this suit is never going to run at full capacity."
He made a mental note and flagged the issue for the AI to factor into the next round of improvements.
He was still thinking it through when a rush of wind cut past him out of nowhere — a dark figure moving fast, slicing through the sky without slowing down. Gone almost before he registered it.
Jack turned and watched the figure shrink into the distance.
That was Chris. Darkhawk form.
He hesitated for just a second.
Then he turned and followed.
A/N: The Patreon version is already updated with 10 advanced chapters. If you'd like to read ahead of the public release schedule, you can join here:
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