Chapter Text
Nice was broke. (Not literally—yet.) It turned out that Batman and Tony Stark were huge frauds and that the life of a hero was rather poor-paying.
Well, not anymore!
"Don't worry—I watched this in a show once," he informed a random NPC who looked a LOT like him (he supposed same-face syndrome was more common than he thought).
Nice then proceeded to fall off the 75-story building (not that he counted; and only after shooting his signature pose of course).
Too late, he realized that the truck option was probably the better one.
~
Lin Ling was pretty traumatized after watching THE Nice fall of a 75-story building (not that he was counting either) and RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM TOO. Like, hello? He was already planning to do that! How unoriginal.
Peering down the side of the building, he saw that he could make out the incredibly faint outline of Nice. "Yup, looks pretty dead to me," he said aloud. A random snap in his ears echoed his thought.
Lin Ling rose back to his feet, feeling rather disgruntled; NOW what was he supposed to do? That fraud stole all of his originality! He decided not to follow him down out of spite.
He also vowed to become a hero himself to spite the probably-corpse Nice even more because he wanted to be petty for once in his life. "I'll become . . . The UNCOMMONER," he declared to no one in particular (monologuing's an unappreciated art). He then hurried away to go find an innocent (albeit greasy) man to beat up.
~
Yang Cheng's life sucked.
He had no parents, no girl, no house, nothing.
(He DID have an uncle that drank boba but all things considering that was pretty lame.)
It was times like this that he decided the best way out . . . was to become a fraud.
"I think E-Fraud is a great name," he informed Uncle Rock. "Whaddya think?"
Uncle Rock tore off his grey wig to reveal his greyer hair underneath. "Bet. I have a proposition for you . . . also I don't like boba."
Yang Cheng blinked; he didn't know how he didn't see that coming. "What do you MEAN you don't like boba?" he sobbed.
Uncle Rock sighed. "Just play rock-paper-scissors with me."
"Why that?"
Uncle Rock shrugged. "I forgot the name of the other game, so sue me." Privately, he prayed he wouldn't because he had spent the rest of his money on an authentic Zero shrine.
"Sure." E-Fraud shrugged and proceeded to play rock because he was blinded by Uncle Rock's wisdom and (mighty) glory.
Needless to say, he lost.
~
Cyan's life also sucked. (She wasn't very original, unlike a certain commercial-maker.)
She had no parents (wow, shocker), no guy (he was trapped in a basement), and a terrible step-dad.
(She was also extremely lucky and could win the lottery if she wanted but we don't talk about that for plot reasons.)
So. She was broke. Broker than her broken guitar, and that was saying something. She sighed—only one option was left.
She openeded Google and began to type: "How to start an O–" but was cut off by a loud snap. Snapping (heh) her own head up. She saw some NPC (that DIDN'T look like her) flick a coin at her, and she caught it in midair (see: super luck).
She eyed the thing suspiciously—she doubted she could buy a McDonalds's Happy Meal with it. She opened her mouth to complain, but the random civilian was gone. Closing her mouth again, she shrugged—maybe the Netflix option wouldn't be so bad.
~
Loli was bored. (Her life also sucked, but she (currently) had both of her parents living and breathing, a girlfriend, and a house, so she wasn't about to complain in case the narrative decided to mess with her for fun.)
She also needed money—badly. (Mecha suits were NOT cheap.) She had no idea how to get some, though, for she was unemployed (not her fault that no company allowed pink hair).
Sadly, every time she asked her dad for money he denied her right to "borrow" some, which was justly unfair considering the fact that she had saved his life at LEAST once. (She decided she would never do that again to teach him a lesson.)
She though that, since also else had failed, gambling was her best bet (she learned that from Shang De). Unfortunately, no one would let her because she looked too young. (Curse them! Who said young people couldn't gamble anyway?)
Now the only other option . . . was to game (this she learned from Zac, though that was also his only option for literally everything. He was rich though, so surely that meant it worked?).
She cracked her knuckles (this, in retrospect, was not a good idea since she was still in a mecha suit), then flew off to find someone to play rock-paper-scissors with.
~
Ghostblade was depressed.
His wife had left him, his daughter didn't know he existed, and his daughter was also dating an Ironman fan. Tragic, really. Anyone else in his position would surely turn to murder as a coping mechanism, but not him! (He just murdered for fun.)
Ghostblade also couldn't talk, so he could lament about his problems to anyone else. That is why he bought a diary instead (unfortunately, they only had pink ones; he now was an avid pink hater for reasonable reasons).
Ghostblade sighed. (Well, he made a sigh-like gesture because sighing apparently counted as speech which he wasn't allowed to perform.) What was he going to do? The only thing he could think of . . . was murder.
Or maybe money; money solved everyone's problems, right? At least, that's what his victims thought before he killed them; they always tried to bribe him with bitcoin or whatnot; whatever that was.
But maybe they were onto something (he'd sadly never find out, because they were sort of, well, dead). He decided that he would have to find out, for he was kinda running out of people to murder.
~
Little Johnny and Big Johnny were poor.
(That is, they were actually quite rich, but for narrative purposes they were homeless and orphaned and oh wait that's canon compliant.)
Little Johnny was also tired of being called weak when he was ranked number five—FIVE! That was pretty good, all things considered. (After all, didn't Earth have like 8 billion people on it?)
On the other hand, Big Johnny didn't particularly care about being strong (probably because he was already very much so) and would rather chill or eat or fish or do literally anything besides obsess over rankings (to be fair, he WAS an alien).
Little Johnny was still disappointed in his son—he thought had had taught him better than that! ("That" being disagreeing with him, or at least not actively upholding his goals; at least he assisted (somewhat) with them.)
Still, considering the fact that he could become a giant jackal kaiju, he should at LEAST be a LITTLE more motivated (oh, the irony).
He decided Big Johnny would have to shape or ship out (back into space). It was a difficult decision to make, but tough love was key.
And in order to ensure that Big Johnny stuck to a strict regime, he'd participate with him! (He was such a great dad, he knew.)
~
Dragon Boy really really REALLY wanted to take out trash; it was a primal urge—no, DESIRE—to do so.
Unfortunately, people didn't really like it when he simply tried to assist the community by cleaning up vermin. It was sad, really; society has really fallen from the times of the Great Zero. (He blamed Rock.)
Luckily, he had heard whispers (well, screams of pain really) about somewhere where there was a LOT of trash—in other words, it was paradise for trash-eliminators such as himself (the title was self-proclaimed yet nonetheless important).
So of course he would join up, under the guise of trash, in order to clean up the place! He was such a considerate person, really; it was a shame others couldn't be as helpful as him.
~
Ahu was a dog.
He barked.
He saved people (mostly Xinya).
And he could shape-shift, but that wasn't very important compared to his heroic feats (that mostly included saving his owner from harm, especially from clones; clones were the worst).
The thing was, Ahu was poor. That's because he's, as previously established, a dog, and dogs sadly don't get paid (neither do regular heroes but that was besides the point).
He decides that, in order to become rich to buy a mansion for Xinya, he would have to get involved in some pretty shady stuff. (He wasn't about to inform Xinya, though; she'd only worry.)
A dog had to do what a dog had to do, though. (This was his only choice, and no, that hadn't been said like 5 times already, but if it has then it's only to reiterate its importance.)
~
X was a chill guy.
He also HATED working overtime (in all caps).
He also liked eating, thank you very much, and it wasn't something he took for granted. But, alas, food wasn't free. That's why he had to occasionally work overtime (key word being "occasionally").
Deep down, though, he knew that there HAD to be an easier way to put food on the table without actively working for it (no, he couldn't magically make food appear out of thin air with a snap, who do you think he was?). (He would've done so already otherwise as well.)
So. The Game was his only option (make that 6 times now).
(Hopefully, this didn't count as overtime.)
~
Oh right Queen exists too (I didn't forget her I swear). She was kinda rich, so she had no reason to participate, but she also wanted to be first in SOMETHING so she decided to join anyway; that would teach X that she couldn't be messed around.
After all, SHE was rhe one who single-handedly defeated a fear-induced person with ease! (No matter that everyone had basically done that lately at least once; Bowa was the hardest to defeat.)
She'd win the game, and then FINALLY take her rightful title!