Disclaimer: I own nothing but my original characters and works; all other characters and worlds belong to their respective owners.
Lux strolled through the gardens of his private dimension, the infinite branches of his mind effortlessly monitoring the countless realms he'd conquered.
He smiled. It was always nice to reflect on the many hard-fought battles and the effort it took to conquer reality in its entirety. Okay, it wasn't that difficult, but he was the only one at the pinnacle of existence and beyond, so whatever he claimed was the truth, right?
But even firmly at the top, there was always the chance that something stronger than Cthulhu or some shit would pop up and ruin his week. Lux figured he could use this time—one of the few opportunities he had for himself—to begin plotting how to further increase his power. And by increasing his power, he meant shirking his duties onto others while he enjoyed his eternal life of leisure and debauchery.
As he thought, Lux happened to glance off into the distance at the decorative golden pyramid, surrounded by an oasis of palms and flowing waterfalls.
He snapped his fingers, a metaphorical lightbulb shining above his head. Why didn't he think of this sooner? He could increase his already infinite power while barely having to do anything.
Yes, yes, it was all coming together in his genius mind. It was so good that he didn't even bother holding back his maniacal laughter.
A company to put all others to shame; the greatest pyramid scheme to ever exist. After all, everyone knew that pyramid schemes were a wonderful idea… as long as you were the one at the top.
But just creating a company was too simple. There was also some entertainment that could be had in its execution. Even as a being standing above all, Lux still enjoyed the occasional shitty system novel and he had no qualms about plagiarizing the idea as a sort of entry test for his soon-to-be company.
Now the only question was, who would be the first sucker he'd force to join? There were many options: his many godly children, his wives, or his trusted generals.
Lux felt giving the first position to someone of his blood was only right, but gifting more power to his children who already had everything handed to them wouldn't be as fun to watch.
Luckily, Lux had plenty of other options. After reaching an honestly ludicrous level of strength countless years ago, he'd visited many of the parallel Earths similar to his first life to mess around a little. And of course, he'd tasted the many fruits those worlds had to offer. Many of those he encountered took him up on his offer to leave their mundane planet, though quite a few preferred the simple life.
Flipping through the mental list of children raised without knowledge of the supernatural world, Lux found the perfect candidate: a feisty little brat he'd had to step in for on his mother's behalf on multiple occasions to rein in the troublemaker.
Company of Conquest
Haven Berry skulked down the busy streets of Manhattan, wearing a large pair of sunglasses, a hat, and a small medical mask to hide his appearance. He was in no mood to be swarmed by the media today.
Why was he skulking, you ask? No, it wasn't because of the unfortunate first name he was stuck with—the woes of being the offspring of a celebrity who wanted their child to have a "unique" name. No, it wasn't that; rather, it was far simpler. Once again, his plans for world domination had been mysteriously thwarted by his mother.
Haven could admit that his mother was an intelligent woman, naming sense aside. As the wealthiest person in the world and the top entertainment mogul, it was only natural. But there was something fishy about how she always caught on to his schemes.
He sighed. With everything the world had to offer just a button press away, there was really no reason to continue with these megalomaniacal plots of his.
Unfortunately, everything had just become so utterly boring. Sure, he loved the life he lived, but it was simply missing that spark he felt was needed.
The only thing keeping him sane was the long list of supermodel-tier beauties he had on speed dial. When your mother ruled Hollywood, it was inevitable that many women looking for their "big break" would throw themselves at you, and being no saint, Haven had no problem having his fun before tossing the whores to the curb.
Of course, this had the downside that he couldn't ever trust a woman enough to begin a serious relationship. So, Haven could admit to himself that for this reason, he was somewhat of a mama's boy, with his mother being the only one who had his heart.
And that was the only reason he hadn't gone too far with his machinations. Once his mother stepped in, he'd easily give in to her demands.
Haven smiled at the thought, but before he could continue, the alarms on his smartwatch blared before the cultured voice of his AI came through. "Sir, I've lost connection with my servers."
"Don't worry, buddy, I'll look into it later," he waved his loyal assistant off.
"Sir, I can no longer connect with the surrounding Wi-Fi. I'm completely blind and deaf," his AI piped in again, making him frown. Okay, now this might be a problem. There should be nothing created for the next fifty years capable of so much as detecting his AI. What the hell was going on?
And things only seemed to get worse as he looked up from the watch he'd been fiddling with to notice a speeding delivery truck, seconds away from turning him into minced meat.
Looking for his best path of escape, he locked eyes with the cutest little girl he'd ever seen, who'd been merrily scooting along on her little scooter just seconds ago. Now, she was directly in the runaway truck's path with no escape in sight. With death looming, Haven had no chance of getting them both out alive. No, the only chance the girl had to survive was for him to throw her out of the collision course, no doubt sacrificing his life for the child.
Without hesitation, Haven ninja-rolled the hell out of the truck's trajectory, ignoring the bloody smear near his previous position as he looked around for any further suspicious threats to his life.
Just as he was starting to think it might be a one-off event, the tires of an indistinct SUV squealed as it drifted around the corner, four obvious government goons hopping out with their weapons drawn.
Haven decided this wasn't something he wanted to deal with head-on and skedaddled down the nearest alleyway to avoid his possible pursuers, only to look ahead and find a group of honest-to-god ninjas rappelling down the fire escapes like this was a video game.
Pulling out the one-hundred-percent illegal strap from his waist, Haven unloaded a magazine at the lead ninja with his katana drawn. Of course, the bitch simply waved his weapon around, perfectly deflecting each bullet.
Fuck, there was no way he was going to go out like this, not to a bunch of dudes playing dress-up in their pajamas.
Now, Haven had always been leagues above the rest in terms of his intelligence, but that wasn't all he had going for him. There was no physical task that could even make him break a sweat, another of the oddities he'd brought up with his mother only for her to beat around the bush. Fortunately for the professional sports community, he never had an interest in their little games.
But this was different. It was obvious that these ninjas weren't normal either, considering the superhuman feat of slicing bullets out of the air. Haven gritted his teeth, speeding up his sprint toward his attackers. Maybe this would be what finally pushed him to the limits he'd never quite reached before.
Nearing the man's sword range, Haven beamed his spent handgun at the ninja's face, not expecting anything more than interrupting the first attack.
Now close enough to be easily stabbed, closer to death than he'd ever been before, Haven noticed the world seemed to slow down. It might have been the adrenaline coursing through his veins for the first time, nothing ever pushing him to these levels before, or this may just be another one of his unanswered questions. Either way, Haven wasn't going to complain, not when he had a bunch of goons aiming to turn him into a pincushion.
After deflecting the gun, the lead ninja raised his arms, preparing for a signature overhead cut that Haven had no intention of allowing the man to complete. Instead, he shot his arms forward to grab the super ninja's wrists.
With the ninja's arms locked above his head, Haven sent his foot out with all the force he could muster between his attacker's legs, a sickening crunch and squelch echoing through the alley as the black-clad figure collapsed, only able to let out barely audible wheezes of pain.
Unable to keep the wide grin from his face, Haven picked up the dropped blade before jumping and rotating himself ninety degrees vertically, the coordinated attack from below and above harmlessly sailing past his now-horizontal body.
Landing and performing a quick flourish with his new blade, Haven ducked, dodged, and countered the many attacks sent his way before finally feeling confident enough to copy their techniques.
In a whirl of steel and blood, the group of ninjas fell to the ground, lifeless and in various states of dismemberment. Haven flicked the remaining blood off his sword before picking up a matching sheath.
Haven laughed as he scrounged through the deceased's belongings, finding a pouch of real-life kunai and shuriken. He attached a bunch to his belt before hearing running steps from the direction he had come from and decided to get a move on.
Sprinting at a speed he had only just discovered, Haven neared the light at the alley's exit when a van screeched to a halt, its rear door facing him. Haven rolled his eyes. "Fucking great, what now?" he muttered before the two back doors burst open, his eyes widening at the sight of a heavy machine gun now pointed at him.
"Don't fail me now, super reflexes," he prayed as he drew the katana from its sheath, feeling dumbfounded when the spray of bullets came at him in slow motion, easily deflected by his blade.
Still, Haven didn't want to stand around playing fly swatter. He ducked away, sheathing his blade again before hopping up to the nearest fire escape and weaving through the hail of bullets as he bounded up the spiral stairs.
"God, this fucking sucks," he thought, winded for the first time as he tried to catch his breath on the rooftops. Unfortunately, his rest was cut short when a legitimate legion of armored mechas landed from the skies on every side of him.
Haven deadpanned. Okay, this was getting out of hand. There was no way that weaponry this advanced could exist without him knowing about it.
Looking down at his sword, he sighed. Yeah, he didn't think this thing was going to cut it. "Heh, pun not intended," he chuckled.
"Screw it," he thought, throwing all the weapons he had plundered. He watched them harmlessly bounce off the metal frames, and as one mecha stepped forward, raising a beefy arm with a goddamned piston contraption attached, his newfound superhuman abilities weren't even enough to dodge the hulking blow.
Company of Conquest
Haven opened his eyes to the glare of clinically bright lights reflecting off the shiny white tiles he was staring at with his head slumped down. He felt like shit—like his face was one giant bruise. It probably was, considering the last thing he remembered.
Groaning, he raised himself in the seat and only now noticed that his hands and ankles were shackled to it.
"Welcome back to the land of the living," his presumed captor said. Haven noted the indistinct military uniform, trying to place the many badges on the man's chest but coming up short.
"I don't suppose you're going to tell me what this is all about," Haven asked, already feeling the pain in his face fading.
"It's simple, boy. Tell us where your father is, and this doesn't have to get rough," the man offered an easy way out. Unfortunately, even if he wanted to hand his deadbeat dad over to these gentlemen, he had no information to give.
He guessed he'd have to get himself out of this mess. After all, he doubted his captors would be understanding enough to let him off if he claimed ignorance.
"What was that? Speak up, boy," his captor ordered as Haven mumbled nonsense under his breath.
"You better start talking before this gets painful," the man threatened after Haven continued his inaudible ramblings, this time leaning down, trying to make out the words.
"I said, suck my cock, bitch," Haven spoke clearly this time, right before jerking his head back and caving the bastard's nose in with his forehead.
"Argh, fuck… You son of a bitch," the man cursed in pain. Haven narrowed his eyes at those words; the man would regret that.
Grunting, Haven internally swore vengeance as the soldier got his payback by giving him a few solid punches to the gut. But as the man finished working out his anger and turned around, likely to go get himself patched up, Haven smiled a bloody smile, dropping the pin he'd stolen from the man's chest out of his mouth and into his shackled hand.
With a little finagling, his right hand was picked free, and he easily unlocked the rest of his bindings.
Fucking idiots, Haven scoffed, waiting behind the door that didn't even have a direct view of where he'd been held. It didn't take long for him to hear the beep of the electronic keypad—the same man entering with a bandaged face.
The man didn't even have the chance to react, falling to the ground with his neck bent in all the wrong directions. "Hah, say that about my mama again, you dumb fuck," Haven laughed, kicking the fresh corpse before acting like the little loot goblin he was, yoinking the high-tech revolver-looking thing off the soldier's belt.
Haven fiddled with the weapon, coming to the conclusion that, while it looked like it came straight out of a science fiction movie, the gist of the matter was the same as he was used to: point at what you want dead and pull the trigger.
Walking through the halls, Haven couldn't believe his luck. The chuckle fucks had all the advanced technology he could only dream of, yet they didn't bother with any cameras. He'd already stealthily taken out half a dozen soldiers, and now he was standing in awe, looking over the walls of the room he'd wandered into, lined with all the weaponry he could desire for a breakout.
"I'll take you and you, oh, and I'll definitely be taking you," he mumbled, wishing he could take more than what he was already strapped down with.
Just as he was wrapping things up, the base's alarms finally rang through the halls. Haven rolled his eyes. It was about time they figured out something was wrong.
Laughing like a loon, Haven sprinted through the corridors, gleefully sending arcing blasts of energy downrange with the super sweet future guns, finally finding himself in some sort of hangar where rows of unmanned mechs waited while the pilots buzzed around preparing for combat.
"Say hello to my little friend!" Haven shouted, pulling the big-ass bazooka thing off his back, obliterating the piles of scrap responsible for bringing him here in the first place.
The screams and shouts of pain and agony were music to Haven's ears and it seemed all the explosions weren't simply for his satisfaction—an entryway leading up was now exposed after the blasts.
Haven didn't wait for more goons to find him, running up the slope that was likely his best chance out of this pop stand. After nearing another large door at the end, he simply sent another bazooka blast its way, clear skies now in sight.
Whistling a jaunty tune, merrily strolling through Central Park with his armaments still in hand. Haven was dumbfounded that such a base had been underneath his stomping grounds all this time but shrugged it off, happy that this terrible day was starting to look up.
And of course, just as he thought that, the bright and sunny day went dark. Haven looked up at the sky only to see a flaming meteor the size of a building blocking the sun.
Finding a tree to slump against, Haven let out a sigh. Seems today really wasn't his day, he thought, simply thankful that his mother was currently on the other side of the country. A meteor this size would likely wipe out the Eastern Seaboard.
Company of Conquest
Haven was surprised to find himself plopping onto a comfortable office chair instead of experiencing the eternal void. From the day he just had, though, he wasn't nearly as affected by the strange turn of events as he felt he should have been.
Looking at the familiar man across the desk, Haven tilted his head. "Dad?"
"Ya know, son, this would have been a whole lot easier if you'd just died saving that little girl."
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