Hello party people!

Just dropping off another story from that list I mentioned in other stories that I posted today. This one, though actually has two chapter in its queue. So, yay! Let me know what you think.

Thanks for reading and I'll see you all in the next chapter.

Bye~

Standing in the empty space, the realization hits me that I've been given a chance, either by God or the Universe or whoever else might have the power to do so, to live a second life in the world of my choosing. I'm not talking about other planets in my home universe, though. I mean worlds I originally thought to be nothing more than works of fiction.

Harry Potter, One Piece, Marvel, Twilight, Star Wars, and so many more worlds and universes just waiting for me to make my mark on them. All were viable options given my heavy interest in all genres ranging from fantasy to sci-fi.

It was…amazing. I had half-expected Hell to be my final destination given the…less than saintly…life I had lived. I wasn't a total scumbag or anything, if that's what you're thinking. I did good things all the time.

I stepped up and took care of my ex-girlfriend's kid like she was my own when her mother was in rehab, I played music to the elderly whenever I went to visit my mother and her friends at the home, and I even helped put together a neighborhood watch when the area I lived in started to get targeted by some assholes who stole jewelry and television sets from hard working families.

Now, given all that…It wouldn't be incorrect to say that I played a major role in some of those situations. Such as me being the one who got my ex-girlfriend into drugs in the first place a few months before I myself went cold turkey.

Or that I was the one who went around robbing the neighborhood I lived in and then organized the watch so that I could use the gaps in the schedule to rob people of things I saw when I went to visit them.

So, it really was surprising that I got this amazing opportunity when I know for a fact that there are other people who deserve it far more than me. But all that aside, I've chosen to go with one where there are superheroes and supervillains.

Now, I love Marvel and the people it has, but DC is where I feel like I'd stand a better chance if I were to choose to be a supervillain. Superheroes just don't have the same appeal. At least as a villain I'd be able to make some real money. If I don't get caught, that is.

After making my choice, I was given another.

Choosing my superpowers, of which I could select up to five. Three of them passives and the other two actives. This is where things got tricky. Because there were so many goddamn choices I could choose from, it took me a long time to go through the entire list.

I'm pretty sure it took me a few weeks to decide. Time is tricky here, wherever I am.

The way I think it works is that the passive abilities would automatically take effect while the active abilities would need me to do something specific to get them going. Maybe a motion or a word. For example, flight might be something I'd need to raise my arms and jump to activate but super strength is naturally occurring whether I want it to be or not.

So, with all this in mind, I chose Ultimate Healing Factor, Superhuman Constitution, and Advanced Intelligence as my passive abilities.

The extensive list of powers floating in the empty space before me displayed a brief explanation beside each name. Useless, since it only showed up after I selected them, but whatever. My Ultimate Healing Factor essentially made me Wolverine without the claws and adamantium bones. My lifespan was longer, and my injuries healed almost instantly.

Though I'm unsure if this means I can regrow or reattach lost limbs or not. In the comics Wolverine couldn't because his Adamantium skeleton stopped it…somehow. I think in one of them he was able to survive getting his head cut off, but I don't really remember much beyond that one detail. Which has more risk than potential reward, in my opinion.

Superhuman Constitution made me stronger, faster, and just better than the average, baseline human. Whether that puts me on Batman's, or even Deathstroke's, level in terms of raw physical power I won't know until I fight one of them.

Which I don't plan on doing ever if I can help it. I may have powers now, but Batman is one of the people in this universe I don't want to fuck with unless I really have to.

Sadly, Advanced Intelligence did not put me on Lex Luthor's level. The man's genius was unparalleled on Earth. His success was only really held back by his arrogance. But it did make me much better at understanding concepts and recalling certain lost memories and ideas I've had. Ideas that now seem much more likely to be turned into reality with the level of technology on Earth at any given point in time.

Like the last time I had a lucid conversation with my mother…huh…

Anyway, for the active powers I painstakingly chose out of all the badass options I was given, I felt it best to go with Healing and Broad-Spectrum Psychic Powers.

Now, the part where I can heal someone of just about anything is something I chose because I'd rather not see someone I might get close to in this universe die because stupid me wanted to make it slightly less cloudy outside and chose Weather Manipulation over something infinitely more useful. Like Healing.

I can also use Healing to win the hearts of some of DC's more tragic characters. The first such character that comes to mind is Victor Fries (Mister Freeze). If I could cure his wife's sickness, I'd probably have a friend ready to help me with all the science-y stuff.

Just because I can process information a lot faster and with much less fuss that doesn't mean I know everything all of a sudden. It just means I understand more of what I already know and can make connections to what I don't know through that understanding. Also, I now have a photographic memory. Fuckin' sweet!

As for Broad-Spectrum Psychic Powers, the trade off with choosing a broad-spectrum of mental manipulation over a specific area is that I'm more like a jack of all trades instead of an incredibly powerful master of one, single trade.

Why would I not want to be as greedy as I can with this?

So, now I'm able to read someone's mind and lift a car up at the same time. And while I'm not going to be the grandmaster of telekinesis or delving into the recesses of peoples' minds, I'll still be pretty damn powerful in both fields.

Before you ask, I am going for the overpowered self-insert cliché. Why? Simply because monsters like Darkseid and all the other assholes of the Multiverse just as strong and stronger are going to be definite threats to me when they invade Earth.

And I plan on all of the people I enjoyed reading about being alive at the end of all that bullshit.

Then the third and fourth questions appeared: Where? When?

Where?

That was an easy question. While the DC had a lot of great characters with exciting backgrounds, amazing powers, and interesting plots, none of them held as much of my interest as Gotham. The perfect city to start my new life.

It didn't hurt that I know more about Gotham than anywhere else. Gotham, for all intents and purposes, is a generalized constant. Meaning I'll still know the characters in play even if their histories, powers, and personalities are different. Though, that may not be the case at all, hopefully.

As for when? I don't know.

Hmm…I guess the best time to start would be sometime before the Justice League forms but after Batman's started his crime fighting. It's probably better that I get in on the ground floor of both of those things if I can.

After that, the floating words and the empty space around me began to fade away and a new setting started to fade in. Was that it? There wasn't anything left? I half expected a lecture on how not to squander my second chance by being me in all my glory or some shit.

Guess it was a 'get in and get out' kind of deal. I like it. Nothing sounds better than short and sweet situations where I come out on top.