He stood on the rooftop of a skyscraper, overlooking a sleepless city with lights shining everywhere, illuminating the neon signs in the night sky, tinting the dense hot air billowing from the manholes along the streets with a reddish hue.
It was an early spring night, and the bustling metropolis was shrouded in haze. In the slightly chilly wind, one could smell the odors of industrial emissions and wastewater.
What he saw was a landscape of wealth, fame, and power, manifested in the extravagant displays of lights and revelry. Yet, in the darker corners, beyond the reach of sight, perhaps in dim alleys filled with discarded trash bins, in the sewers where vagrants hid, or under the overpasses where gangs gathered, lay a world of discarded firearms and corpses, of sinister laughs and screams in the darkness, of dried bloodstains... a constant reminder that beneath the city's glamorous facade lay boundless evil and madness, ready to engulf anyone who dared to underestimate it.
Where was this? A careful listener to the descriptions of the citizens might guess.
The residents of this city liked to use their familiar terms of villains to describe it.
Some said it was like a killer crocodile, always lurking in the darkness, swallowing people whole without leaving a trace, not even bone fragments, perhaps just a splash or a bubble, but no one cared.
Some said it was like Two-Face, because of its ruthless choices, whether between good and evil, or order and chaos, constantly spinning in madness like a coin tossed in the air, leaving people at its mercy.
Some said it was like a scarecrow, because no matter what beautiful dreams one had before, it would suddenly turn into a nightmare, digging out the deepest fears of people until they went mad, driving them insane, leaving them drooling and wandering the streets.
Some said it was like a clown, because this city, it's simply insane! Hahaha, hah, hahaha!
Of course, there was a good chance that the next moment, this citizen would erupt and thrust a pencil or fork into the eyes of an outsider, then stare with innocent wide eyes, curious about the twitching corpse.
"Why so serious?"
...
As a visitor from another world, he didn't need to ask any of the residents; just by looking up and seeing the bright columns of light leaving bat-shaped patterns in the clouds, he knew where he was.
"Gotham..."
He murmured.
In the next moment, a sudden downpour engulfed him.
With the faintly sour grey rainwater, everything he had seen and heard before was obscured, covering all the sins, leaving only the sound of the pouring rain and the chilling feeling from within.
But this chill didn't come from the rain; he was fully armored, from head to toe, with fine metal armor covering both his head and body.
With a full-cover helmet, his entire body below the neck was wrapped in tightly knit chainmail, with additional armor-like shoulder pads on the chest, shoulders, and limbs, telling him that at this moment, he was no longer an ordinary man.
His name before the crossing was Eugene, just an ordinary person living a modest life.
He claimed to be a nighttime warehouse manager, but in reality, he was a security guard. He wasn't the intimidating type, tall and imposing, but he was young and had some courage.
"What happened? Why am I here? I don't remember."
He reached out his hand, wanting to touch his forehead, but the thick tactical gloves completely blocked the sensation and temperature from the helmet.
Indeed, as a young man, he had seen all sorts of crossings in various literary works.
In novels, he had seen people crossing because of exploding computers, choking on food, saving people and getting hit by cars, falling into toilets, but why himself?
Looking through the rain curtain into the distance, trying to divert his attention from the bat symbol, he just stared blankly at the dark clouds on the horizon, trying hard to remember.
The neon lights on countless skyscrapers became blurry in the rain and mist, everything felt so unreal.
He only remembered returning home from work, answering a call from a middle school classmate inviting him to a wedding.
Then... he played on his computer for a while? The old laptop would make tractor-like noises as soon as it was powered on.
Yes, he liked those fantasy worlds, they always allowed him to briefly forget about the monotony of real life.
There were no explosions in his memory, no strange lights and sounds, just a moment of distraction, and he found himself here, standing on the rooftop of Wayne Tower, the tallest building in Gotham City, inexplicably feeling the evening breeze.
In this damn place, he had been standing stupidly for five minutes. As he gradually accepted this fact, he fell into confusion.
As for who he was, upon realizing that he had crossed into the DC universe, he knew. The night shift was boring, and he had read many novels, then he became obsessed with American comics.
Because even as a small security guard like him, he had heard other young people in the company talk about how"Avengers 2 is good" or"Guardians of the Galaxy is fun".
At first, he didn't understand.
To have a common topic with his colleagues and get along with them, he first watched movies on his broken computer and found them quite good, American blockbusters were exciting.
Then he used the company's Wi-Fi during work hours to catch up on some comics. Although he couldn't tell Marvel from DC at first, after reading so many, he even remembered the names and abilities of hundreds of heroes and villains, as well as the important stories they were involved in.
At this moment, his helmet only had a left-side view. He lowered his head, looking at the small puddle that had formed at his feet, in the ripples, he could see his current appearance.
The metal helmet, divided into black and yellow halves, shaped like a hockey mask, with two long thin straps flying in the wind like Rambo's headband, the left eye on the mask was a red rhombus lens, while the right half was completely black with no seams.
He became Deadshot.
His real name was Slade Joseph Wilson, one of the greatest mercenaries and assassins in the DC universe, a master of strategy and tactics, a master of combat, and a master of all weapons.
Originally, he was a modified soldier of the US military, with 90% brain development, just a bit inferior to the protagonist of a certain superheroine; he also had surpassed the peak human physical qualities, with the ability to heal most wounds.
Later, because his superior betrayed his friend, causing the friend to be captured by the enemy, although Deadshot rescued his comrade and fought his way out, he inevitably fell out with the military, leading him to become a mercenary, doing dirty work for money with his superpowers.
The key was that he inherited everything from Deadshot, except for memories... Of course, at least driving and using firearms, such as body memory, he learned for free.
He looked at himself on the water's surface again, now he knew everything about Deadshot from comics.
Actually, he was quite happy at first after discovering that he had become a person with superpowers.
Becoming Deadshot was great, under prepared and planned conditions, he was not afraid of anyone, even against protagonists like Batman, he had over fifty percent chance of winning.
As a villain, he could easily defeat Robin and the Teen Titans, in the recent New 52 comics, he even fought Wonder Woman head-on without Kryptonite and escaped from Superman.
However, after the initial excitement, he felt a lot of pressure.
Why?
Because Deadshot was a mercenary, working for money, no matter what it was for. So, regardless of which world, he had offended almost all the superheroes and supervillains of the DC universe... Helping the Penguin against Two-Face, helping Two-Face against Black Mask, helping Black Mask against the Penguin, and occasionally accepting missions to deal with various superheroes.
In Deadshot's view, there was no difference between superheroes and supervillains, only employers and targets, they were all people.
No matter who gave him a task, as long as there was money to be made.
"Now, this is troublesome..."
"First, we need to determine which parallel universe of DC this is, and then determine the timeline and where the story is at." He sighed and wanted to smoke a cigarette, but the mask blocked him:"There are many worlds with Gotham and Batman in the DC universe. If it's a movie universe, the upper limit of the world's abilities isn't very high, in the latest Justice League movie, Steppenwolf was beaten like a ragdoll. But if it's a comic universe, no matter which one, the danger increases significantly..."
"Earth 0, the main world of the New 52 comics; Earth 3, where all heroes and villains switch identities; Earth 10, a world ruled by Nazis; Earth 38, the original world of DC comics..."
Eugene wiped his mask, rainwater pooled at his feet like a stream, there were no other clothes inside the armor, now he felt very cold, his whole body soaked in water.
But he had never felt that his brain was so clear, the comic world settings he had only glanced at before, he could recall them all in full detail, was it because of Deadshot's super brain? But memories should come from his soul, right?
Now this body was filled with an explosion-like sense of power, something he had never experienced before, it seemed that he was possessed by a soul, this was Deadshot's original body.
The problem was, although Deadshot had healing abilities, they were not strong, they couldn't recover severed limbs, so his right eye was always blind.
When the high-speed regeneration was activated, it would also consume a lot of his physical strength, and even make him lose his sanity.
Deadshot was over fifty years old, his son and daughter had become superheroes, wanting to kill him at any time, and there was also an immortal old man, a super villain with telekinesis, who also wanted to kill him.
Fortunately, he was strong enough, they couldn't kill him.
"A young man in his twenties, turned into a man in his fifties... Finally had a family, but the relationship wasn't good..." Eugene shook his head helplessly, Deadshot had great abilities and intelligence, but obviously lacked emotional intelligence.
"By the way, why did he run here before, did he receive a task? Fully armed, he must have been planning something."
Eugene gave up trying to think further, although his current body was enhanced, habit still made him want to find a place to hide from the rain, not just because the early spring rain was too cold, but also because of the severe industrial pollution in Gotham, this rain had a nauseating sour smell he had never felt before.
Leaving the edge of the building, he turned his head intending to leave, although he had an umbrella bag, he'd better take the stairs, he had never played with a parachute before, what a joke if he fell to his death.
The world-renowned mercenary jumped off a building in Gotham last night, suspected to be related to emotional entanglement with Batman.
Eugene could already imagine that if he died from falling, tomorrow's headline in the Gotham Daily would definitely be this, he didn't want to die, even in a dangerous world after crossing, he didn't want to die.