There’s a palpable sense of fear and awe that runs through every single combatant in the field the moment Superman-shaped J’onn–whom I will now call Fake Superman–descends from the sky. He drops the bomber assassin that was waylaying him earlier and stands tall and proud in the middle of the battlefield.

“Stand down, soldiers.” Fake Superman orders sternly, crossing his hands over his chest as he scans the assassins.

When a fire rings out from a trigger-happy cop, Fake Superman’s head turns towards him and stares him down before muttering, “I said… Stand. Down.”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.” The cop nods furiously as he backs up and hides behind his vehicle, away from Fake Superman’s gaze.

“There is no need for further violence.” Fake Superman says, a soft smile on his face. While he’s placating both sides, Fake Superman keeps beeping in my head.

‘They are after the diplomat’s daughter.’

‘I know. Just keep talking to them. I’ll handle it.’

“We have no hostility to you, Superman.” Lady Shiva says, keeping the fear back in her throat. Although she tries to hide it, the sudden arrival of the big blue seems to startle her. I suppose Ignition was supposed to block metahumans but is ill-equipped to fight off against planetary-level heroes.

“Well, I have. Because you just killed a bunch of people,” Fake Superman growls, barely hiding the threats in between words. “Now you have two choices here. Surrender peacefully or be like your friend over there.”

‘I am testing their latent mental resistance and I think I can knock out all of them, but the woman holding you is dangerous and unstable. I will not be able to affect her that much without isolating her.’

‘I can handle it. Dick and Peng Deilan are the problem since they can’t take any more beating.’

Lady Shiva snaps her fingers, urging the assassins forward in a fan-like formation. Their movements cause the police to aim their weapons in fear of resuming combat, but all Fake Superman has to do is raise a hand and both sides halt whatever it is that they are doing.

“Why must you make this difficult?” He asks.

I know Lady Shiva answers, but I tune it out at the last second. The only thing in my mind is how to get out of this situation without the death of Dick or the capture of Peng Deilan.

‘Wait. Why should I save Peng Deilan? They’ve reiterated that they need her many times. If the League wants her, then their real target is her father. They can negotiate for themselves. But…what if their real target is her? Say that Ra’s Al Ghul wants something with her and we just let them take her, would that be so bad? The Justice League is forming up and battling Ra’s with Batman’s info on him will be a piece of cake. Then again, the Justice League is forming up and their respective villains ain’t just gonna take that lying down. They may be tangled for days or weeks. Jesus fucking Christ!’

An inkling in my heart threatens to unravel my rationale. What little regard I have for Peng Deilan’s safety is being magnified by a sensation I once felt when I saved those women, Rachel, and mother from the Scythe back at the restaurant.

Truth be told, I was never one for rational and smart decisions. Hell, I’m dumb as fuck given the relative situation. I could have just sat back down and let Olgar protect my mother, which was and still is the better decision in the whole situation.

Yet I have been given a choice whether to save ourselves or risk getting my closest friend killed for her.

‘I promise to make it up to you, Dick. J’onn, listen to my words.’

“You know what? Because you gave us two choices earlier… I’ll give you one, too.” She slides a knife from out of nowhere against my neck and nods for the others to do so, too. All of a sudden, all three hostages now have a blade on their necks. “Either you let us go with the diplomat’s daughter or we kill these two brats. What do you choose?”

‘I want you to knock out the guys holding Peng Deilan and Robin.’

‘That… I cannot do. I cannot risk your lives, Edmund.’

‘Yes, you can. You’re a soldier, J’onn.’

‘A detective.’

‘And detectives do what is necessary to fulfill their obligation and duty. Do what is necessary, J’onn.’

‘Friend Edmund. I must save you. I have a duty.’

‘Trust me. Please.’

“So? What’s your choice, Superman?” Lady Shiva presses the blade into my throat as she signals for the assassin holding Robin to do so too.

Before our throats get slashed, however, the world slows to a crawl.

‘Thank fucking god.’

In fact, this one seems slower than the past crawls combined, which gives me a brief moment to do what is necessary, at least on my side.

I close my eyes and, for the first time since that initial experimentation in the Batcave, I reach out to my metahuman ability. It rejects me still, even my deep-seated anger does not placate its will.

Yet I try, so long as the world crawls from one second to the next, I try. I don’t have much experience in psionic telecommunication, but every living being–no matter the origin or base molecular build–responds to sensations. Sensations that I inject all at once, be it emotion or memories that I have accrued in this life and the previous one.

When that does not happen and Lady Shiva pierces my skin, I move on to the next plan. I plead for mercy, for help. It has a semblance of consciousness, one that I intend to exploit. I don’t need full control over it, just a portion of its abilities.

I inject the faces of Peng Deilan and Richard Greyson. I tell it that they have parents who love them so much, about Richard’s propensity to make his adopted father proud so much that he will be turning rebellious in a few years. About Peng Deilan chipping her teeth because she thought she could bite a gold medal harder than I do. I tell stories at the speed of thought, faster than the tick of a clock.

Just when the blade tears the last muscle fiber in my throat and pierces through my larynx, a tendril of something reaches into my brain. Not approval, no. It’s more like begrudging acceptance. As if it had enough of my incessant whining and opens a floodgate of information that seeps into every fiber of my being.

My eyes open, and so do two portals at the back of each assassin. The good thing about giving Martian Manhunter a choice between hostages is that each hostage is within three meters of each other, just enough length for a professional assassin to leap and skip without a second waste.

That also means that I don’t have to expend much energy based on their distance from my body.

‘Knock them out.’

Although I know J’onn can’t hear my thoughts, the slowly opening Optic Leaps on both sides seems to give him the idea. In the very next millisecond, a twitch reverberates through every assassin within a thirty meter radius and does Lady Shiva’s body, causing the slow thrust to jerk and slice a wider part of my trachea.

Here comes the worst part. With my metahuman ability fully on board, I reach into my well of energy–metaphorically, of course–and conjure two more portals on top of the first two. This time, however, I place it on the opposite side of J’onn’s arms so he can reach into the portal and grab Robin and Peng Deilan from their respective assassins.

At precisely the time when Lady Shiva severs my vocal cord, my senses dulls, and the world resumes at normal speed. My breath is quite literally stolen out of my grasp as both a bottomless pit replaces my stomach and a large part of my small intestine while Lady Shiva finishes slicing half of my neck, leaving only the brain stem unsevered.

As I fall to the ground, my eyes delightfully catch sight of Fake Superman pulling his unnaturally long arms out of the portal, along with those arms are the sorry figures of Robin and Peng Delian.

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“Shit. Fall back.” Lady Shiva bears down on me, crushing my left leg with one stomp before throwing her knife at Fake Superman.

Surprisingly, the knife ricochets off of Fake Superman’s chest and clangs down the ground. That becomes the signal for a mass activation of smoke bombs which creates a cloud of dark smoke. I can hear their footsteps retreating as the vibrations of their feet recede from my ears.

That’s the extent of what my senses can pick up as the loss of blood absorbs what remains of my concentration. Breathing is hard enough, breathing to live? That in itself is a whole thing.

“Your body is healing itself. You must close your eyes and rest.” Fake Superman’s voice tears my concentration away from the agony.

J’onn–now in his Green Martian form–uses his psionic ability to gently pick me up and deliver me into his arms. While I know he loathes fire, his skin is quite warm and fuzzy. It really helps ease the pain.

‘That’s a nice dump of irony, or isn’t it ironic? It's like ra~in on your wedding day. It's a fr~ee ride when you've already paid! It's that. Sage. No. go~od advice that you just didn't take. There we go. And who would've thought–’

“Might I suggest halting your song about literary devices in favor of healing?” J’onn admonishes calmly.

A throaty chuckle escapes me. “Y-you can… still h-hear me-?”

“I can. Your brain has developed a rapport with mine and is allowing backdoor access to your thoughts.” My eyes widen as he reports with candor. “Do not worry, young one. I cannot surf your memories as freely. Only now that you are weakened can I read your thoughts without your approval. Rest assured that your mental defenses are the same as they were at our first meeting.”

Seeing as my throat is still fucked up, I answer mentally.

‘That’s good. Do you think I can create a mental switch to let you in whenever necessary?’

“That is certainly a possibility. However, such a mechanism can only be done by a master of one’s mind.” J’onn informs me as he returns to his Fake Superman form and appears in front of the police officers.

He addressed them with his faux Superman voice, “The enemy has retreated. You can go inside now. There are dozens of civilians waiting for your rescue.”

Dozens of SWAT and normal-uniformed officers enter at Fake Superman’s behest, leaving only a few first responders that take care of us and the wounded that will be rescued by those who went in.

To my surprise, Fake Superman meets up with a disheveled and bloodied Lieutenant Gordon. Their conversation was privy to me, but from the nearly welling eyes of the future Gotham police commissioner, I would surmise gratitude and a little of fanaticism.

“Holy shit!” The EMT that is assigned to me curses hysterically as she leans in and inspects my most grievous injury. “How are you still alive?” She mutters to herself.

“I… good enough.” I inform her, to which she responds with another curse. “Check others. I can heal.”

“O-Okay. I’ll set you up with an IV so that you don’t dehydrate or something. God, that’s a lot of blood.” She hurriedly injects the needle into my arm and sets me up comfortably on the gurney. As she leaves to attend the other party-goers, I hear her mutter, “God, these vigilantes are getting younger and younger.”

Minutes pass by as more and more civilians are rescued from inside of our smoldering home and partially destroyed hedge maze. A retinue of SWAT officers escort Peng Jin and his remaining bodyguards towards her daughter.

Peng Deilan hugs her father immediately after being removed from her restraint. His father’s face lighting up as they wrap each other in a warm embrace brings a comforting feeling in my stomach, slightly ceasing the pain in my throat and stomach.

Robin, too, can’t help but bark a boisterous laugh as he nearly passes out in James Gordon’s arms. It brings another smile to my face knowing that today is the day he figures out his vigilante identity and today is the day Robin the Boy Wonder is born.

As swift as the cold front is, my mother is swifter still as she traverses the bodies of assassins as if they’re detritus and cradles me with a sob. Her mascara has been ruined, although she probably won’t notice given that the rest of the estate is ruined, too.

“Edmund, can you hear me?” She asks worriedly.

I clamp down her mouth, much to her relief and confusion. A grin breaks through my bloody face as I mutter with a sickeningly gravelly voice, “Shhh… You’ll break… my secret… identity.”

“I’m so sorry, baby.” She giggles through her sobs, wiping away the blood that gushes out of the large, gaping wound in my throat. “You can rest now… hero.”

I finally close my eyes, letting my powers regenerate and heal whatever is left in my body. As I do so, I stop by my mind and thank the metahuman ability for its help. I know it’s technically not alive and is controlled by my subconscious and whatever magic left behind by the Court of Owls, but the fact is, the son of a bitch helped me out a lot.

‘Don’t worry. I’ll make sure to feed you a lot of energy on my next birthday.’

* ••

Waking up to the screams of parents mourning their children is something nobody wants, yet the moment I do, echoes of their wails reverberate through my ears. I’m lucky that not one of my family is dead from this assassination, even more so given that we were technically the target of said assassination.

Sure, Rork whom I saved from the highschool bullies earlier, is on his way to the ICU due to the shrapnels in his heart and one of the girls that Barbara Gordon was talking to in the pool was decapitated, but does that truly matter in the long run?

What am I thinking? Of course it does. Fuck, it’s even safe to say that it’s my fault that they have died. If not for my existence, would this party have existed?

I checked my medical records a few months earlier–the Batcomputer having access to John Hopkins in New Jersey–and, sure enough, I was stillborn for a few while. I should have died then and there, but I didn’t.

I lived and they died. That’s the rule of the world, the law of the jungle.

A procession of eight body bags goes past me, as if mocking me about my thoughts. Telling me that what I think does not make any damn difference to what has happened.

A scoff escapes me, training my awareness to the pain in my throat. A millimeter more and I would have been suffocating in my own blood.

“And yet I will still live.”

I sigh in exhaustion, even if my powers have refilled what was consumed, creating four portals at the same time. Since it's still the middle of the afternoon and I can gather that we’ll no longer be doing a soiree, I better join an ambulance before they leave me to ride in an uncomfortable car.

“How are you doing, birthday boy?” Mother’s voice startles me into staying put, planting my butt once more on the comfortable beach chair.

“I, uh, I’m fine now. Thank god you’re fine.” I say before she plants a kiss on my forehead, wiping away the soot and blood that had stained my skin.

“There’s a lot of dead people today, honey.” She remarks, uncomfortably. “Have you seen a lot of dead people?”

I hesitate to answer, but nevertheless do, truthfully. “I… have. This doesn’t even crack my top five.”

“What? How–” I purse my lips at her first question before a look of realization hits her. “We should really limit your internet browsing. But I bet this is the first time you’ve seen one in real life? Or are you moonlighting as a dictator when you’re with Bruce?”

“They call me Admiral General Aladeen.” I perform a mock salute, much to her amusement.

Her smile turns forlorn after a while, seeing the litany of corpses being brought out by the first responders. Tears roll out of her eyes when a few of those bodies are revealed to be her friends, some close to her.

“Could… could we have saved them?” I ask, out of the blue.

“Of course not, Edmund.” She responds readily. “Not even Superman was able to save them. And not because we’re weak or because we didn’t know… It's be-because this is the way the world works.”

A scoff escapes me. “And due to the fact that we’re weak and stupid, we’re just supposed to lie down flat and let the world work its way?”

She nods exhaustively, a shaky breath coming out of her mouth. “Even they can’t do anything about it.” She said, referring to the heroes that exist within this world.

The realization sticks true. This won’t be the worse of what's to come, that I can attest. I may not be the most knowledgeable geek in my past life, but I was still a geek.

From Darkseid to the criminal version of the Justice League to a fucking god who created the multiverse, all of that will be coming down in the years to come and there ain’t no Dragon Balls to bring back the casualties of that event.

In that time, would my paltry year-long training from Batman would suffice? Would I be able to save my mother and those I vowed to protect from an increasingly powerful enemy intent on eradicating those who I love?

I’m powerless at the moment. That much is true, but I’m far from helpless.

I have nine more souls in my body and, if one of them is already this powerful and versatile, I can expect the others to be as much or greater than it is . If I can train them, If I can exceed what the world thinks of me to be, then maybe this event will no longer happen.

These people–Batman, Martian Manhunter, the League of Assassins–they’re characters with a set of flat personalities that develop not by gaining experience in their daily lives, but from the will of their creators. They can’t change who they are. They can’t change their predetermined destiny and the sacrifices they have to make just so they can learn an invaluable lesson.

I turn towards my mother, a sad smile on her face as she rests her head on my shoulders.

‘She’s the only one I have in this life. The only person who truly loves me for who I am, not someone I will be. Do it for her. Save her from a life of pain and suffering. Be the hero she thinks you will be.’

“Penny for your thoughts?” She pokes my cheeks as a smile blooms on my face.

“Mom.” I voice out.

“You never call me ‘mom’. You’re planning something, aren’t you?” She smiles cheekily. “Out with it.”

My smile falters, so I breathe out and voice my thoughts.

“I want to be a superhero.”