Four days.
That’s how long it took for the itching in my bones to finally settle.
Swapping your DNA with an alien conqueror’s?
It’s slow, ugly, and painful.
My teeth pulsed with this deep ache, muscles seizing out of nowhere—left my arms and legs blotched up with bruises under skin that used to be just regular.
Not that there was anything left of “regular.” I looked human, sure, but all I could feel was this dangerous charge inside—like walking around with a gun you can’t unload and can’t give away.
So that’s where I was.
Sometime after midnight, hunched up in a cracked vinyl booth at a greasy 24-hour diner that tasted equal parts fryer oil and bleach.
That day alone, I’d eaten there three times.
Meatloaf, a mountain of mashed potatoes, and probably a whole river’s worth of water.
After the second meal, I saw the waitress decided it was just easier not to look at me.
Fine by me.
I wiped the sweat off my face with a flimsy napkin, slumped back, and pulled up the System.
No sparkling noise, no anime special effects.
Just cold blue light digging into my eyes.
I could see the diner around me, but the text?
Sharp enough to hurt.
[Host Status: Normal Viltrumite Bloodline] [System Points: 0] I swiped a finger through the air.
For anyone watching, it’d look like I was waving off a fly.
The menus jumped in front of me.
Skipped past ‘Status’ and went straight for the ‘Store.’ I wanted to see how nuts this could get.
What’s godhood go for in this joke of a world?
The list looked endless.
Viltrumite stuff, sure, but more—every superpower, hack, and fantasy cheat code that some sleep-deprived nerd ever dreamed up.
[Kryptonian package 5,000,000 Points] [Optic Heat Beams (Max Output: 10,000°C) – 750,000 Points] [Quantum Teleportation – 1,200,000 Points] [Diamond-Carbon Skin Matrix – 500,000 Points] I exhaled—long, rough, bordering on a growl.
Five million points for Superman.
And me?
Zero.
Just another broke guy, staring through the glass at all the Ferraris.
So I filtered everything out except Viltrumite upgrades.
[Upgrade: Soldier Viltrumite Bloodline] [Cost: 10,000 Points] [Description: Base cellular density multiplied.
Mach-level atmospheric flight unlocked.
Kinetic impact resistance scaled to Class-4 Artillery.
Vacuum survival threshold increased.] Ten thousand points.
That’s all.
Soldier means going from “pretty strong” to “hell yeah, try me.” Normal Viltrumite?
I could tear open car doors, shake off a baseball bat, act like gravity’s rules don’t apply.
But take a headshot from a psycho with a laser?
I’d rather not.
Soldier?
Now I’m outpacing fighter jets, staring down the likes of Homelander without instantly becoming mist.
So, how do you get those points?
No charity from the System.
Definitely no trophies just for “doing good.” Caught on to that when I broke up a mugging—got rough, sent two guys home spitting teeth.
The System did nothing.
Zero points.
Didn’t care about crime.
Didn’t care about right and wrong.
“Plot Changing System” spells it out—change the story, break the rules, that’s how you get paid.
I killed the overlay, left a crumpled twenty, and stepped into the rain-soaked night.
Time for homework.
Didn’t even think about going back to the motel.
Just wandered through the industrial district, after midnight.
Rust-stained shipping containers, fences, maybe a couple stray dogs who still remembered how to bark.
I needed to know—what could I do, really?
No cameras, nobody around.
Just me, some rusting metal, and physics.
There was a dead sedan, gutted, sitting on cinderblocks in a lot.
Still must’ve weighed two tons.
Squatted in front, dug fingers under the rusted frame.
Didn’t bother psyching myself up.
Didn’t even breathe deep.
Just lifted.
The metal screamed, but it moved.
I took it up to my waist, over my head, held it there like a box of old clothes.
Heart rate didn’t even tick up.
My joints stayed quiet.
So I threw it.
Not dropped—threw.
It sailed fifteen feet, crashed onto its roof, metal screeching, glass popping, dust everywhere.
I stared at my hands.
Not even warm.
Alright—durability.
A concrete pylon nearby, probably propping up half the city.
I made a fist and let old instincts take over—hips turn, drive, follow through.
The punch cracked like a gunshot.
My arm zinged for a second—sharp, but gone.
The pylon?
That thing was ruined—a gaping crater, cracks splintering everywhere.
I checked my knuckles.
Not even red.
Mobility check.
Every Viltrumite memory in me said gravity is a suggestion.
I looked at a warehouse roof, four stories up, and just—chose to be there.
Kicked off the ground, boots splitting the asphalt.
The wind roared past.
Ten feet above the roof, I stopped.
Dead still.
Hung there, weightless.
Drifted down.
Landed so quietly it felt fake.
I could fly—easy as breathing.
Still, ‘Normal’ came with limits.
I was fast, yeah, but not close to sonic boom territory.
More like a flying cinder block.
Out past the warehouses, Vought Tower glowed, all neon and arrogance.
I needed that Soldier upgrade.
And for that, points.
Which means break the story.
I jumped off the roof, floated to the ground, and moved toward city lights.
No mysteries here—I knew exactly where the match meets the fuse.
Hughie Campbell.
Robin Ward.
A Vought speedster on the warpath.
That’s the spark.
A-Train burns through her, leaves Hughie panicked and screaming with blood on his hands.
Vought wraps it all with apologies and hush money.
Classic corporate rot.
But what if, this time, A-Train hits something that doesn’t move?
Robin walks away.
A-Train’s left shattered and bloody, and every phone’s pointing at him.
That’s a plot break.
That should be worth my points.
Took two days to track them down.
New York’s huge, but people?
Creatures of habit.
They always circle back.
I spent my last dollars on street food and cold coffee, watching the tech district.
Eventually, there he was.
Hughie Campbell.
King of anxious nobodies, wrestling with some cheap AV cable.
A couple blocks later, he found Robin.
They were so normal it made me tired.
Hugging, laughing, floating on their little planet.
I watched them from an alley, floating a few inches off the ground, totally silent.
No guilt—they’re background extras to Vought, meant to be victims anyway.
They started down the sidewalk, holding hands, isolated from fate.
I stuck close, not too close.
Half a block away, senses stretched out to pick up everything.
Most of it was street noise, but I filtered for what counted—a heartbeat going too fast, the air yanking itself apart, that thin scream right before a supersonic hit.
At the light, Hughie stepped down from the curb.
Robin followed, her hand slipping out of his.
Something buzzed through me—full body static.
Way down the block, a new sound—too high for a normal engine, almost unnoticeable if you weren’t listening.
A-Train.
He was coming hard, out of control, not even really seeing.My body jumped before my brain could catch up.I surged off the ground—no warning, just there.
Everything went slow.
People paused mid-step.
A pigeon hung, frozen.
I crossed the street.
Hughie was looking back; Robin still smiling.
That blue blur—pure violence—closing in.
No way I was letting that happen.
I stepped in front—no shoving, no drama—just planted my feet, braced my body.
And time snapped back into place.
The hit was brutal.
Like a passenger jet into a wall.
Windows all along the street shattered.
Glass flashed everywhere.
People’s jackets ripped off by the force.
I took the impact straight on.
It felt like getting shoulder checked by a pickup, but I barely shuffled back.
My boots grated two grooves into the pavement.
A-Train?
He broke.
He slammed off my chest, pinged into a parked cab, tore up the hood, bounced along the street, and stopped in the gutter, twitching.
Silence, thick as concrete.
My chest steamed, jacket ruined.
Robin was on the ground in shock; Hughie gaping at me like I’d just landed from space.
A-Train’s leg looked like a corkscrew.
Blood everywhere.And now?
Sirens.
Screaming.
The phones came out.
Only some people ran.
That’s when the System hit—bright, freezing, impossible to ignore.
[Critical Canon Event Fractured.] [Major Plot Alteration Detected: The survival of Robin Ward.] [Major Character Humiliated: A-Train.] Notifications fired off in a blur, numbers racing higher and higher.
[Calculating Rewards…] [Reward: 12,500 System Points.] I grinned.
Couldn’t stop it—sharp, wicked, dirt under my teeth.Ten thousand for Soldier.
Twelve five total.Looks like Vought’s finally got a real problem.