Chapter Text
I woke up.
Now that in and of itself is not an unbelievable thing, however, the fact that the first thing I saw was a ceiling I have never seen before was incredible. Of course, being who I am, my mind jumped to a myriad of options, ranging from 'Oh god I've been kidnapped!' to 'I'm tripping balls!'.
I carefully sat up and started looking for cameras or possible viewpoints in the room, but as far as I could see, it looked like a normal bedroom. I swung my legs out of bed and began walking around the room. I spotted some clothes on a chair next to a cupboard, a chest of drawers, and some personal items on the bedside table. Walking over to the window, I carefully peeked through the blinds. I was met with a sight that at first I couldn't quite grasp.
It was obviously a city. A big one at that. However, it didn't look like any city I'd ever heard of. It looked like someone had taken an emo kid's thoughts and given them to an architecture council along with a healthy dose of drugs; gothic arches, sweeping buttresses, pointy roofs topped with gargoyles... For one heart-stopping moment, I thought I had been reincarnated into Bloodborne and nearly threw myself out of the window. But no, as I saw a tower in the distance with a massive 'W' on it, I realised, I'm in Gotham City. Fuck my life.
Suddenly, as though a cork had been removed, memories flooded into my brain, roaring and screaming as 18 years of life were shoved deep into my skull. I collapsed onto the ground, fearing that I might perish from this overwhelming pressure. I tried everything, deep breathing, attempting to disassociate, anything, ANYTHING to clear my head of this dreadful, all-encompassing pressure. Eventually, I gave up and started to cry, and carried on crying until I could only choke out sobs. After what felt like an eternity, the pressure stopped, leaving me with a monumental headache, the kind that makes you wish you were dead. After trying to get up a few times, I gave up and curled up in a ball on the floor, waiting for the pain to go away.
I was woken up again by a feeling of...Rightness in my mind and body. Slowly opening my eyes, I realised that, while I still had a headache, it was manageable and unlikely to kill me. Heaving myself to my feet and stumbling my way to the kitchen to grab myself some water, I couldn't help but feel as though something was off. It took me downing two glasses of water to realise that I had just gotten myself some water in a strange house on autopilot. Carefully pouring myself another glass of water, I began to slowly look around and realised that I could identify everything in the room.
A horrible suspicion began to dawn on me as I finished my water. Deciding to face that problem later, I dragged myself to the shower, turned it on, and climbed in. Several minutes later, feeling much better, I began looking through my memories as I got dressed. Sure enough, I had taken over someone's life, and that someone was me in the DCU. Just kill me now. I'm not sure how it happened, but my body and mind replaced the version of me that was here, only leaving behind his memories, which explains that soul-crushing pressure earlier.
Reviewing my memories showed that past me was a pretty average dude, with a couple of minor scuffles in school. No university, no known family, and currently working at a bar. All in all, a pretty normal chap. But no matter where I looked, I couldn't find a single memory of why I was here. No vague inclination, nothing. Needless to say, I was angry, quite scared, and all-around confused.
'Whoever or whatever sent me here had better start running, because I will find out who you are and I will make you regret doing this for the rest of your miserable experience!' I mentally screamed.
The entity winced, not out of fear, but rather out of shock at its own incompetence. How could it have been so careless as to yank a random soul out of their multiverse and force them into another one? On the upside, there would be more happening in the universe now, it supposed. And it would be rather amusing to see this mortal attempt to find out who had relocated it.
Some time later, after getting dressed and having some breakfast, I was standing looking out over the city and contemplating what I should do. My first instinct was to pack my shit and leave this hellhole. Because nothing good comes from staying in Gotham; you know, with the psychopathic mass murdering clown, the psychopathic plant lady, the psychopathic dude with a bag on his head.... and all the other flavours of psychopaths.
Perhaps Central City would be better. I wouldn't have to worry about crime, I could have a more stable job than working in this universe's Bar With No Name, and maybe the Flash could hook me up with some magical person to help me find out how to find the being that threw me into this world.
Unfortunately, looking through my memories shows that this is apparently a universe where the heroes are overly lawfully good, such as Batman believing Joker could be reformed, Superman not killing, Flash only locking rogues away rather than beating them up. That, coupled with the fact that this universe seems to be a comic verse (with all the bullshit power scaling that that entails, like Superman being able to punch time backwards and Wonder Woman being nearly as strong as him), makes me very hesitant to even try and contact a hero. The likelihood of one of them helping me instead of immediately deciding to detain me was infinitesimally small.
No, the best option is most likely to find some villain or random person to train me in magic of some kind, or perhaps to find a Lazarus Pit, which would unfortunately mean dealing with Ra’s and by extension, Batman. 'Yeah, never mind, I’ll find someone to teach me magic rather than deal with all of that stuff', I thought as I floated back inside. Wait, floated? What?!
Looking down, I see the floor a few centimetres from my feet and nothing between me and it.
Okay, either I really am tripping balls or I have powers. Please tell me it’s the latter and this isn't a result of something they put in the water here. After briefly panicking and flailing about in midair, I calmed down and realised that if I hadn't dropped out of the sky yet, then I wouldn't now. I promptly plummeted to the ground like a drunk seagull.
After picking myself up and dusting off my bruised ego, I carefully reached inwards, mentally looking for something that wasn’t there before. It wasn’t hard to find. I felt a sort of energy that I could push, and so, of course, I pushed it. This resulted in me shooting up and whacking my head on the ceiling before I could stop myself. I slowly released the pressure on the energy, lowering myself back down before I flew through the ceiling.
I carefully, so as not to give the upstairs neighbours a new floor decoration, pushed up, floating just off the ground. This changed everything, even if it was only a flight. There were so many opportunities that could come from this. So many potential ways to thrive. But first, I had to test what powers I had. And that would involve somewhere to train first.
I checked the recent news shows finding out that Killer Croc is in jail and most of the other rogues are in Arkham currently, which means that Batman is probably going after the mobs and leaving the sewers alone for the most part, making it the perfect place to test out what powers I have.
I took some time to change into some scruffy clothes and find the nearest sewer entrance that wouldn’t get me caught on camera when I climbed into it. I climbed out of the fire escape and walked the incredibly long distance of five steps to get to the sewer entrance. I hopped down into the hole and caught myself with my flight before I became a splat.
Marking my way with chalk that I brought with me, I cautiously made my way through the maze of Gotham's sewers, the ground underfoot was caked with dark gloop that smelled as though someone had taken their worst thoughts and given them form.
Eventually reaching an open area, I stopped in shock. I knew that logically Gotham would have a big sewer system, but this room was easily as big as a cathedral. The perfect place to train for a while.
I sat on a dry bit of ground and concentrated on that weird energy inside myself, gently touching it and feeling where it flowed to in my body. I got progressively more excited as I continued, as the energy seemed to be flowing to my entire body and flowing off it, as well as being concentrated in my eyes.
Naturally, my first thought was that I was a Kryptonian, but I quickly realised that I couldn't be, as I wasn't hearing the whole planet all at once nor seeing through every wall. However, after a bit of pushing this energy, my senses suddenly skyrocketed, and I nearly fell over at the sheer amount of information.
I could hear the creaking and grinding of the walls around me and clearly hear conversations that people were having on the pavement above me. The smells that were bad enough before were now almost unbearable, acrid and vile. While the air felt alive with vibrations that I could now feel. And the things I could see! All the tiny bugs on the walls, the individual grains of sand that made up the bricks in the floor.
The thing I was most excited for, though, was my physical stats and how much stronger I had hopefully gotten. I hyped myself up a bit and stood up, dashing forward, and slamming my fist into the wall. Immediately, two things stood out to me: one, that I had crossed a distance of a few meters so fast there was a small shockwave, and two being that I had sunk my fist into the wall up to my elbow, and upon pulling it out, I didn’t have even a single scratch. “WOOOOO! HELL YEAH!” I whooped. “This is incredible, I can live without worrying about dying to one of Joker's schemes or Ivy’s rampages!” Needless to say, I was very happy with my surprisingly good fortune for once.
As I was grinning slightly maniacally, I felt my eyes get hotter and hotter, and then all of a sudden-laserburningintowallcan’tstopohfuck-I closed my eyes and waited for the heat to recede, before carefully opening them again. Okay, well that was scary, I need to learn to control that before something horrible happens and I start cutting through crowds like Homelande..r….FUCK!
I’ve got his powers, don’t I? God fucking dammit, why him? Of all the people, it had to be him, because I can't think of anyone else with these powers that isn't Superman off the top of my head. Well, I’m going to have to make sure that no one gets hold of any of my DNA in this case, because people like Amanda Waller and CADMUS will try and make clones for sure.
Well, now what? I’m not really sure where to begin. Do I become a hero? A villain? Do nothing? Well, as much as I would like to sit back and use my powers for my own exclusive gain, I know myself well enough that I can’t do that.
Hmm, what to do when I’m a discount Superman?