Lord-Campione
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Chapter 01: Shot Dead
🕑 Added 2024-09-19 17:17:43 +0000 UTCI’m fucked,’ That was the well-thought-out conclusion of one Ethan Cain.
Now some positivity guru with books to sell and courses to promote might chastise him for thinking like this and damaging his psyche, tell him that success starts with successful thoughts.
But as he laid down on the pavement, with three bullet-sized holes in his chest and his blood leaking out like Kool-Aid, Ethan would still find the strength to flip them off.
‘How did I even end up here?’ He couldn’t help but ask.
Now unlike what Karen and the rest of the far-right rally, pointy white-hatted, pure-blooded Americans might think, despite him being as dark as it got and built like a tank, he was not about that life.
His biggest crime was pirating overpriced video games and a couple cases of jay-walking.
So how did he end up shot dead?
Man, this is America.
Even school kids somehow end up being shot in between classes, the same thing could and did happen to a young man coming back from his night job only to encounter a few stray bullets coming right out a poorly aimed revolver’s barrel, flying right past its target and his red bandana-wearing face and ending up in a cozy spot between Ethan’s lungs and heart.
He wasn’t a doctor, no matter how many times he played it, but he had enough common sense to know that losing a bucket’s worth of blood probably meant that he would most likely die.
Or worse, survive and face the mother of all medical bills.
“Haha,” He couldn’t help but laugh at his own final bad joke, so dark that a cop would shoot it on sight.
With his laugh came a few coughs of blood, and in a twisted turn of events, he ended up choking on it until his world went black and the final burst of pain ended his time on earth.
Just like that.
Now he expected many things, mainly a bunch of demons and sinners waiting for him, given the state of his internet history, but what he most definitely didn’t expect was to come face to face with a giant.
Now he did want to scream, which he did, though the reason why it sounded like an infant’s wails was beyond him.
The same thing went for his inability to move his…his small and pudgy limbs?
‘What the fuck?’ He wanted to say.
But in yet another misfortune, it came out as a simple.
“Guh?”
That was just about too much for his brain to handle, and so it did turn off.
For five long years, it repressed his memory and consciousness, sparing him madness after thousands of diaper changes and hours of tit-suckling from a giant lady.
Now that last one might be somebody’s kink, but it wasn’t all that good for the mental health of a transmigrated infant who could not get it up.
All was fine, until it wasn’t.
Ethan’s memories stirred awake on the morning of his fifth birthday. It was sudden, like flipping a switch, and he wasn’t prepared for the rush of awareness that slammed into his mind.
The sound of his own breath, the softness of his bed sheets, the smell of breakfast wafting from downstairs—it was all overwhelming.
Immature memories, more akin to a fever dream than anything else collided with his mature mindset, both of them struggling to fit into his five-year-old brain without frying it.
His first conscious thought after years of blankness?
‘I’m not in hell.’
He sat up in his bed, his little body reacting automatically as muscle memory took over, but his mind was screaming in protest.
Five years.
Five years of oblivion. He struggled to process everything. His memories of being Ethan Cain, the 20-year-old guy shot dead on the street, crashed into his new reality. This wasn’t a dream, and it wasn’t a nightmare.
‘Shit, I really got isekai’d, didn’t I?’
The word didn’t feel right. He wasn’t transported to a fantasy land with swords and dragons. No, this was something else. His surroundings were painfully normal, nearly the same as his past life.
Save for the unironic Captain America toys in his room.
Or the Stark TV in the living room.
Or how his father often let him play with his Frost-Phone.
The Marvel Universe.
The place where a single city faced doomsday twice a year, where some alien warlord was so down bad for a gender-bent Skeletor that he decided to wipe out all life on earth.
Where something as cursed as Wade Willson existed.
And not the sanitized one with quippy heroes and big-budget effects. No, this was the real deal—where violence had consequences, heroes weren’t always heroic, and things—people like him… well, they had a hard time.
Ethan Cain, the accounting student, a hidden nerd with muscles so big nobody cared about his opinions on the way Star Wars became utter crap, or why Naruto was a complete moron.
Stuck in this mismatch of Marvel worlds.
Except now, he wasn’t just that Ethan anymore.
He was Ethan Cain, the five-year-old black kid in a world where mutants existed. A world with super soldiers, aliens, and power-hungry villains lurking in every shadow.
And apparently, a world where he had an X-gene.
Or at least, that’s his assumption.
Why? Well, the fact that he was levitating his shoe did clue him in.
thump
And in an instant, the spell was broken, the shoe fell down and he felt that familiar headache his younger version experienced each time these ‘accidents’ happened.
Now Chibi-Ethan did tell his parents, but they just took it as a little boy’s wild imagination.
Him being a mutant was never considered, they were wild, bloodthirsty abominations after all, born wicked with the sole desire of ending mankind and everything it represents.
Their cute little baby boy couldn’t possibly be part of that wretched, sinful race!
It was ignorance, but probably for the best.
His parents might be decent people, but in a world like this, he’d rather not assume.
Ethan breathed out shakily, rubbing his temple with small fingers. Telekinesis. He didn’t know how he knew, but it was like the knowledge had always been there, nestled deep in his psyche.
A gift from whatever twisted fate had decided to drop him into this reality.
Or instinct, this one was much more likely.
He could feel it still, that new muscle that he could neither touch nor see, yet it was there all the same. Strained by the smallest of efforts, but there nonetheless.
‘At least I didn’t end up as a powerless scrub.’ He thought, rubbing his pale blue eyes as he tried to process all the information.
Alas, he didn’t have much time.
His door creaked open slightly, breaking his thoughts. His new mother, a kind-looking woman with deep brown skin and warm eyes, peeked her head in. “Ethan, baby, time to get up. It’s your birthday! We’ve got pancakes ready!”
The sight of her tugged at something within him. Even if these people weren’t his real parents, their love felt genuine. And that… that messed him up more than he cared to admit.
He offered her a small, automatic smile. “Coming, Mom,” he said, his voice tiny and innocent, but his mind was already trying to find an angle.
A way to learn their habits and opinions, to see what makes them tick, then use it to change, twist and create the best possible outcome for himself.
They didn’t deserve it.
Unfortunately, deserve got nothing to do with it.
. . .
Breakfast passed in a blur. His new father, a hardworking man with a booming laugh and an unusual passion for grilling and playing retro video games, joined them at the table. They were the picture-perfect middle-class family. Ethan couldn’t help but wonder how long that would last once his powers made themselves known.
His dad was a giant of a man, built like a wall and was thus obviously just about the softest, kindest man Ethan knew.
A salt-of-the-earth, union-job kinda guy who still insisted on working a night job to give the best for his family.
The fact that said job involved spending the night in an Arcade might’ve influenced said decision.
Ethan could respect that.
His mother, was every bit as wholesome, a bank worker with actual morals, a knack for cooking, and all the temper of a piece of pudding.
As he munched on a syrup-soaked pancake, he stared at his hand, trying to focus. The sensation of his abilities felt like a quiet hum beneath his skin, extending beyond like a disconnected limb. With some concentration, he could almost feel the invisible threads of the world around him—things he could control, if only he learned how.
But how? He was just a kid. And not just any kid—a mutant.
The optics weren’t really all that good.
Mutants didn’t exactly have it easy in this world. The X-Men might be cool, but the discrimination was real. He wasn’t about to let his family or himself be put in danger because of that.
And those willing to help?
You have an uber-powerful terrorist with more backstories than the Joker, a man who’s sixty and thirty at the same time, is more shredded than he ever was, and routinely threatens to destroy the world if the governments try to do something about him.
Now he wasn’t opposed to all that, but Erik founding the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants was a deal breaker.
Who puts evil in their name? That’s just bad marketing!
The other side was somehow no better, with a mind-raping baldie with a knack for picking up and training child soldiers who he sends off to do his bidding with no regard for their safety.
Yeah, Ethan was no fan of Chuck Xavier.
The wheel-chair bound Dumbledore with half the style and twice the gay vibes…why do all mind rapists have a thing for their evil friends?
Barring his unique relationship with Magneto, he also had a thing for a certain red-headed chick he basically raised, a red-headed chick with a bigger, more fiery chick insane who just happens to be a cosmic-level being.
And he messed with that shit…
Yeah, Ethan had his work cut out for him.
Later that day, while his parents were both at work, and his teenage babysitter stuck in front of the TV watching some drama, the young possible mutant took the opportunity to have a quick nap.
Now that wasn’t him being lazy, but strategic.
He was still feeling that headache after depleting himself, and the best way to restore whatever energy you depleted was to have a nice sleep.
Especially if his suspicion were correct, and his telekinetic powers worked similarly to a muscle, being strained by intense effort and growing stronger as it is used.
Half an hour later, Ethan found himself alone in his room, staring at a toy car. He sat cross-legged on the floor, his eyes narrowed as he willed it to move, using that not-quite-muscle to pull it toward him.
The hum beneath his skin stirred, and the car trembled slightly.
His heart raced in excitement.
‘C’mon… just a little…’
It moved an inch.
‘Hell yeah!’
A thrill shot through him as he watched the car wobble forward another few centimeters, and then it dropped. His concentration broke, but the excitement didn’t leave him.
He didn’t try to lift it up, not wanting to risk needing yet another nap when he could be practicing instead, but he still managed to move it!
This was the start. This was how it all began.
