6 The Assassin Pt. 1 (DC Universe)

It was no small amount of effort, making sure that the TYPE-MOON in his home reality was truly dead so that he could in turn establish a new Moon Kingdom there for Queen Serenity. The process took a few years in fact, mostly due to making sure that no trace of what he'd done could be detected by anyone on Earth, or indeed by Gaia herself. Whilst Brunestead in particular proved difficult to fool, in the end he'd pulled it off.

Which meant that it was now time to head to one of the greatest sources of heroes that he could possibly find. Making his way to his destination, the Sidhe Emperor arrives in the section of Creation that contains the most complete version of the DC Universe with a smile on his lips. His arrival just so happens to coincide directly with the Justice League once again facing off against a version of the Injustice League.

Shirou sits back and watches, enjoying the show, even as other members of the Justice League work all over the world to rescue people from ongoing natural disasters and the like. He'd been very particular when he'd picked out this world. It wasn't right after the establishment of the Justice League, because then there would be several heroes and heroines that he'd have to wait around for years for.

But it also wasn't too far along, because then there would be certain people who would already be dead, or even just temporarily dead and then he'd have to wait around for those people to resurrect and it was… it was all just one big hassle. Instead, having used his extrasensory abilities, Shirou had come to a DC Universe that wasn't too hot, wasn't too cold, but instead was juuuuuust right.

Rather than being one of the particular versions of the DC Universe that he'd experienced back in his home reality, it was a conglomeration of all of them. In a Creation that had an infinite number of realities, finding what he was looking for was never impossible… merely time consuming. But Shirou had all the time in the world, and in the end, he'd succeeded all the same.

For a few weeks, Shirou just spends time watching the world turn. Seeing heroes being heroes, saving the day routinely and beating back the villains that threatened the safety and peace… it brought back a multitude of memories from his childhood and youth. His dream of becoming a true hero… heh, he'd sort of strayed from that path, hadn't he?

Yes, yes, he had… but in the end, it mattered little. He'd strayed from that path because he'd found something more worthy of him, another dream to occupy his time. There were certainly millions of versions of him out there who'd continued down the path to becoming a real hero, so Shirou wasn't all that worried about it. He was who he was now… and he was alright with who he was now.

Still, it was enjoyable to watch the heroes and heroines work so hard to save the day. He loved rooting for them, loved soaking in their actions, their heroic antics, their hard-won victories. The DC Universe was a place where the good guys almost always inevitably triumphed over evil. It wasn't quite as dark as the Marvel Universe, though Shirou had things of each that he liked quite a lot.

All the same, it was probably time to get a move on. Funny that he'd come to this land of heroes with a very specific purpose in mind. On the one hand, Assassin was one of the base classes for the Heroic Spirits that could be summoned by the Grail. On the other hand, there wasn't much heroism in being an assassin, now was there?

And yet, it was DC that Shirou had decided to pick up his Assassin from. Originally, he'd come here to create such a thing. He contemplates moving backwards earlier in time and manipulating Bruce Wayne down a path that would make him into what Shirou wanted, creating a much darker Batman, a much more lethal Dark Knight… but in the end, he stops himself before he can get started.

Frankly, Shirou recognizes that he's been building a set of Paragons, and that could be a problem for his goals down the line. He didn't need all of the Heroic Spirits he'd created teaming up against him upon deciding he was the villain or something. No, he needed at least a few who would be self-serving enough not to care about righteous crap, who wouldn't stand in his way if they found out all of his true goals.

Instead of attempting to sculpt Bruce into what he wants, the Sidhe Emperor takes on a different tact. After all, despite how much the DC Universe could seem like a place of sunshine and rainbows compared to some of the things that people got up to over in Marvel… this world had hundreds of accomplished assassins already.

Perhaps instead of creating an Assassin from scratch, or even from the base material of a hero like Batman, he could simply raise one that was already an Assassin all the higher, increasing their Legend until they gained a place on the Throne of Heroes, rather than simply starting from the ground up.

It's with some small measure of excitement and curiosity into how it will all go that Shirou sends a message to every notable assassin on the planet. A beat later, he sends a message to every not-so-notable assassin on the planet as well. After all, in their line of work, NOT having a reputation didn't necessarily mean they weren't worthy.

The message is one of competition. Providing a list of villains, as well as villainous individuals who dirty the world with their mere presence, Shirou offers a challenge to the assassins that populate the DC Universe. The one who succeeds in assassinating the most targets on the list with the least collateral damage and without causing a single innocent death… will be the winner and receive a prize.

Shirou doesn't specify what the prize is. Instead, he adds a compulsion to the invite to make sure those to whom his message is delivered feel compelled to take part. Not a single one of them, even those with mystical protections and strong wills, are able to resist Shirou's magic. In all fairness, he's an out-of-context problem for this universe. He slips right past defenses like they aren't even there, and his own presence is not felt either, not unless he wants it felt… which for now, he certainly does not.

Obviously, a lot of the assassins he has sent this challenge to are not used to avoiding collateral damage and the deaths of bystanders. Only a handful at most have an actual code of honor that keeps them steady. Shirou gives those the best chance of winning his competition, but he's also ready to be proven wrong. Still, he's layered in some additional geas into the contract he's forced them all to take part in.

When it comes to the collateral damage bit, any collateral damage will simply come off of their overall score, decreasing their chances of winning. However, any assassin that actually kills an innocent in the midst of all of this will find their place in the competitive unceremoniously revoked… and their name will be added to the list of targets that all of the other competitors are using.

In a way, Shirou is offering a chance of redemption to several of the DC Universe's darkest souls. Some of them actually have a shot, those that were forced into their life of crime, those that regret what they've done and are just looking for some… forced structure. But many kill because of the rush, many kill because they love the blood, they love watching the life leave someone else's eyes.

Those will be the ones who won't be able to resist killing an innocent during this competition. And the moment they do, they'll be marked for death. Shirou… isn't a hero. Not anymore. While he could make a decent go at being everywhere at once, the fact is, he can't stretch himself so thin as to right every wrong in the DC Universe, let alone the rest of Creation.

But he can do this much. Even if he hadn't started this competition between killers, those assassins who cared not for collateral damage or innocent deaths would have gone on to cause plenty of both, regardless of his interference or lack thereof. In this way, Shirou was killing two birds with one stone, giving them a chance to atone… and making them targets when the majority of them inevitably failed.

At the end of the day, he was not stupid. His ultimate Assassin WOULD have to be a killer. That was sort of the job description, after all. But that didn't mean Shirou couldn't pick the right kind of killer. And hopefully, this competition would ultimately result in exactly that sort of person, giving him the perfect Assassin with a Legend that would allow him to bring them forth when he needed them.

In the meantime, while that's all still getting underway, Shirou can't be bothered to watch a bunch of assassins killing villains as well as each other forever. He needs some kind of palate cleanser, some sort of variety. So, as the competition begins, Shirou turns his attention to other things. Namely, his newest hobby… matchmaking.

As it stands, the Sidhe Emperor has a few preferred pairings that he wanted to see happen in this version of the DC Universe. Although, when he really thought about the origin of those pairings, it all came back to the preferences of other people… that is, one person in particular, Taiga. Sometimes, Shirou wondered just how much of his views, beliefs, and preferences for these fictional universes came from her… and just how many of them were truly healthy. Shipping was already a dangerous game… but add onto it the power to travel the multiverse and make such ships a reality, and you had something even more dangerous.

In the end, Shirou shrugs and gets to work… starting with Batman. He might have ultimately decided NOT to go back in time and fuck with Bruce's development, but that just meant he had to deal with the DC Universe's Greatest Detective in another way. After all, while he might be able to hide himself from the senses of this universe's inhabitants, his influence and the things he's set in motion will soon be undeniably visible to all with any modicum of intelligence.

As such, if he wants to keep Batman from interfering with his new competition, he needs the Dark Knight to be distracted. VERY distracted. And what better way to distract Bruce then to arrange for his happily ever after? After putting some thought into how he wants to get it done, Shirou decides that an old literary device would work best in this case, both for the ease of it and for pure amusement. Bruce Wayne… was going to get very drunk one night in Las Vegas.

Easy enough to arrange, along with a few other things… and then Shirou sits back and watches the fireworks with a wide, wicked grin on his face.

-x-X-x-

A low groan leaves Bruce's lips as he wakes up feeling like his head is going to split open. The billionaire philander by day, caped crusader by night can only squeeze his eyes shut in pain. He's not all that surprised that he has a hangover, he remembers getting drunk the night before… but he is unimpressed with himself for just how drunk he got. Honestly, he deserves this punishing headache, because really, what the heck was he thinking?

Most of the time, Bruce Wayne was simply an act. In truth, he really identified as Batman more than his birth identity. Batman was who he was… Bruce Wayne was the mask he wore when interacting with the majority of the civilized world. As such, Bruce tended to keep things rather calm… even if he'd developed a reputation as a partying billionaire in his civilian identity, he didn't usually drink overly much, only pretending to most of the time.

But last night, he'd started drinking heavily, and he honestly couldn't remember why… until he shifts and realizes he's not at all alone in the bed he's laid out in. He hadn't really considered the fact that he was nude to be that alarming before, given he slept naked anyways most nights. However, now that he realizes he's both nude and covered in warm, soft, feminine flesh… well, that's no good. It looks like he got blackout drunk last night and ended up sleeping with someone.

Once he realizes that he has someone in bed with him, the Dark Knight forcibly gets himself together, fighting back the hangover headache he's suffering from until it's naught but a minor ache in the back of his mind. He grimaces, gritting his teeth as he focuses on coherent thoughts. In the end, he's able to do so… because he's Batman.

Once he has his head on straight, Bruce turns to his bedmate… only to realize there's more than one of them. It's a rare moment in which the man who strikes fear into the hearts of every criminal in Gotham blanches upon recognizing the three women he's in bed with. The first face he sees belongs to that of his on again, off again lover, Selina Kyle. Who also just so happens to be Catwoman, an accomplished thief of international infamy.

Second is Talia Al Gul, arguably even more infamous than Selina, given that she's the daughter of Ra's Al Gul, the leader of the League of Assassins. She's also another of his ex-lovers, though again, they tended to be on again, off again, much to his shame and chagrin. However, the third and final is a true surprise… mainly because she's not a criminal, which probably says something downright awful about Bruce's sex life. Zatanna Zatara, the magician, a member of the Justice League… and also an ex, though they weren't quite as on again, off again as Selina and Talia.

Unfortunately, before he can even really put that beleaguered but brilliant mind to use to begin figuring out just what had happened between the four of them… the three women begin to stir thanks to his movement, all of them groaning and bringing hands to their heads in unison. Their left hands, which ends up resulting in Bruce getting an eyeful of the absolutely gorgeous identical wedding bands that each woman is sporting.

Upon seeing the rings, Bruce hurriedly lifts his own left hand and groans upon realizing that he has one on as well. Inwardly, the Dark Knight swears off drinking ever again. He'd only ever done it as an act anyways, or so he said… but clearly, things had gone way too far. Even Batman was going to have trouble untangling THIS mess…

-x-X-x-

Which was exactly why Shirou had gone with this route for Batman's distraction. Watching from afar, Shirou can only grin as the media he tipped off to the situation catch Bruce and his bickering new brides all trying to sneak out of the Las Vegas hotel together. Shirou hadn't even had to influence any of their minds. All he'd done was search for a point where Bruce, as well as the three women must pining after him, were all at their weakest.

Of course, he'd also pulled a few proverbial strings in order to make sure the four of them were all in Las Vegas at the same time, and he'd played the night before like a beautiful symphony orchestra, making sure that Bruce got drunker than he usually would, and that he met each of the three ladies at the right moments in the evening.

Okay, so maybe Shirou's part in the act had been a bit bigger than he'd let on. But at the end of the day, while a lot of alcohol had been involved in making all three women willing to share Bruce Wayne for the night, there was no other mental influence. This was simply a case of three lovely ladies all wanting Bruce to themselves, and Bruce having unresolved feelings for all three lovely ladies.

As such, none were willing to just let this go… now that they were all somehow married to Bruce in a shotgun Las Vegas wedding, the trio of gals were aiming to get the other two to relinquish their holds on Bruce so that they alone could have him all to themselves. That was why none of them thought to be more discrete as they left the hotel at Bruce's side. They had no idea that the media would be waiting for them, and the deer in the headlights looks on the all of their faces is hilarious in its own right.

Looking into the immediate future, Shirou smiles at the pregnancy revelations that would soon occur. While in another timeline, Talia had managed to beget a son from Bruce that she'd then raised for several years before sending off to his father, in this one, she, Selina, and Zatanna would not be able to keep such things a secret. It would all come out, and Bruce would know right off the bat that his three new wives… were all pregnant with his child.

At the same exact time that this is happening in Las Vegas, a killing takes place over in Gotham City. As far as killings go, it's actually a fairly good one. A man who's family was killed by the Joker… shoots the Joker in the head for revenge, killing the Clown Prince of Crime dead, right there in some back alley. The Joker was being his usual overconfident self, and like that… he was gone.

More oddly, the man didn't stop there. He collected the Joker's corpse, and over the next few days he made sure the clown's remains were cremated and stuffed into an urn made of silver blessed by every priest and priestess he could find. After which, he'd go on to turn himself into the proper authorities, handing over the urn and begging them to find something permanent to do to it so that the Joker could never return.

A glance into the future tells Shirou that the urn and the Joker's ashes will eventually be turned over to Star Labs, who will shoot it straight into the sun. And not just some copy or decoy while the Joker's actual remains are spirited away for some miraculous return down the line… no, this time around, this Joker… is well and truly gone. Good Riddance, in Shirou's opinion.

Regardless, with all of that going on, with Bruce scrambling to get a hold of his new domestic situation, even as Gotham begins to shift and undulate like a living organism in the wake of Joker's removal, his infection now gone, Shirou knows he has Batman well and truly distracted… allowing him to go on to begin the matchmaking of his boldest pairing yet.

First of all, he has to start up by breaking a pairing. Unfortunately, to get a world this perfect for his needs, Shirou had to settle for a copy of the DC Universe where Lois Lane and Clark Kent were a couple, and she knew all about his secret identity as Superman. They were supposedly in love… but Shirou knew better than that, or at least thought he did.

He was going to have to break them up anyways to get his OTP for Superman going. So, without another thought, Shirou tracks the female reporter down and begins feeling around her head for any infidelities she might have already committed. This would be much easier if she turned out to be like he thought she was. However, even with Shirou's preconceptions regarding Ms. Lane… it comes as a bit of a surprise when he finds far more than he expects.

It seems that a minor byproduct of a DC Universe that is this… intact and full for lack of a better word, is that the Lois Lane of this DC Universe has very little scruples and morals. This Lois Lane had given out sexual favors aplenty to low level officials and security guards alike, just so that she could gain access to areas and people, seeming to revel in what she could do with her admittedly gorgeous looks and fine ass body.

To her credit though, she'd never given out her favors to directly gain an interview, but she was still fucking quite a lot of men in order to propel her career forward, both before and now during her relationship with Superman. However, she'd never had an affair or even a one night stand that wasn't connected to her job while in a relationship with the Boyscout… but feeling around her head some more, Shirou could see that she'd definitely considered it.

Apparently, Lois and Clark were exactly as bad of a match as Shirou suspected, and for some of the exact reasons that he (meaning Taiga) had believed they were a bad match. Namely, Lois was frustrated because Superman treated her like glass and never really got rough with her while they were being intimate. That wasn't to say the human woman didn't understand why though. While Clark had enough self-control to have sex with a human despite his overwhelming might, if he let up on that control for even a moment, he was liable to literally tear his bed partner to pieces.

Superman was the Man of Steel, and Lois was the Woman of Kleenex. It was both tragic and a little hilarious. But given that Lois regularly sold her body to overweight security guards with anger issues over not being good enough to become actual cops, she was used to rougher sex, and had even grown to like it, her body acclimating to being treated like the slutty whore she 'pretended' to be long before she and Clark finally got together.

The fact of the matter was Lois Lane had not been able to reach a single orgasm while engaging in sexual intercourse with Superman. And that… that was just an affair waiting to happen. It really didn't take Shirou much effort to push Lois into such a thing. A simple nudge in her mind, and she decided she was going to fuck one of her colleagues, Jimmy Olsen. Shirou didn't even have to nudge Jimmy there. As much as the young man respected Superman, he was still a red-blooded male at the end of the day, and Lois was… well, Lois.

She was also very smart, and Shirou had no desire to take that away from her. So, he didn't influence her to be particularly dumb or stupid about her sudden decision to have an affair. Lois took every sensibly precaution to keep the Man of Steel from finding out about her and Jimmy, mostly by making sure that Superman was far away and incredibly distracted by the latest threat to Earth's existence when she finally made her move.

As a result, it took all of a week for Shirou to arrange for Superman to stumble upon Lois and her new lover. The fallout was… somewhat disappointing, but at the same time expected. Clark wasn't the kind of man to get mad. Worst of all, he was understanding. But in the end, he also had enough self-respect and pride that their relationship certainly couldn't survive Lois cheating on him for anything that wasn't his job. And with one of his best friends as well… in the end, Shirou got what he wanted.

Which meant that it was time to set Superman up with those better suited for him… as well as restart an entire species.

-x-X-x-

Clark was depressed. There was no if, ands, or buts about it… Clark was struggling with overcoming his grief at the loss of his and Lois' relationship. Even if, deep down inside, he felt like this was the only way this could have ended… at the same time, he simply wasn't happy about it, in the end. His long-term girlfriend, the woman he'd loved with all his heart… had been having an affair with his best friend, Jimmy Olsen, behind his back.

It didn't matter if it was only going on for a week, as Lois tried to protest when Clark finally discovered them. In the end, what mattered was how much they'd been enjoying each other's company as he'd been approaching, before he'd made his presence known. He'd heard every moan; he'd listened to every impassioned cry… it was unconscionable. But it was also inevitable, he knew that now.

Likewise, he had always known about the sort of things Lois did to gain access to both places and people for their stories. He'd known before their relationship even started, ever since he first began working at the Daily Planet alongside her. It was kind of impossible not to notice something like your colleague dropping into a crouch and sucking off a security guard down the hall and around the corner when you had something like X-Ray vision letting you see through walls.

He'd borne with it though, simply because he was well aware that he couldn't give her what she truly needed. He could barely feel her when they had sex, and when he did cum, his orgasms were more from his own self-control and edging then anything Lois did. Meanwhile, he was painfully aware that Lois had never came when they'd fucked, simply because Clark couldn't give her the sort of sex she needed to reach climax, not without losing control and killing her outright.

He'd thought that Lois Lane was the love of his life, but the longer they'd been together, the more Clark had privately begun to wonder if this 'Match Made in Heaven' was in fact a match made in hell instead. He'd begin to wonder if he was truly meant for romance with a human woman, especially when they were all so delicate and fragile. He'd loved Lois for her mind… but most romantic relationships had both emotional and physical components, at the end of the day.

Still, he'd been able to accept Lois' dalliances because there was no emotion in them for her. Oh sure, she got off on fucking security guards and low ranking officials more than she'd ever gotten off to him, but that was an entirely biological release. She didn't feel anything for those men, she didn't love or even like any of them.

But that wasn't the case anymore. Clark had heard the way Lois screamed Jimmy's name as he'd approached. She might not have said it, those dreaded three words… but he could hear them all the same in her voice, even as Jimmy had fucked her through orgasm after orgasm, the two humans going at it like animals, roughly and savagely, without a care in the world for self-control.

Honestly, more than anything… he was jealous. But at the same time, he was trying to be happy for them. He'd given them his blessing, though whether their relationship would survive his discovery and his and Lois' breakup, Clark couldn't say for sure… frankly, he wasn't sure he wanted to know, though given his abilities, he would probably be unable to resist checking in on them from time to time from afar.

As it was, he would no longer be seeing them face to face any longer. With his and Lois' break up, and the fact that Jimmy was the one Lois had had an affair with… Clark had resigned his position at the Daily Planet and taken an offer to become an editor for an online magazine operating out of Washington DC. He would have to do only a few face to face meetings a few times a year on a very flexible schedule, and most of his work would now be online rather than in the dying print industry.

It would give him more time to be Superman, he supposed… even as it allowed him to slowly fade Clark Kent into the background of society while at the same time letting him keep up his writing skills and continue scratching his investigative journalism itch. At the end of the day though, it still felt like the end of an era, regardless. The Age of him with Lois Lane was over… and he really had no idea what was coming next.

A crisp knock on the door of his new DC apartment startles Clark out of his inner monologue and his sense of melancholy, making the handsome alien man blink as he looks up and without thinking checks to see who it is. Smiling as he recognizes the beautiful woman on the other side of the door, Clark rises and makes his way over, opening the door to reveal who he already knew was standing in the hall… Diana, Princess of Themyscira, but more importantly to him, his colleague Wonder Woman, of the Justice League.

She steps inside without being invited, but Clark doesn't mind, because at the end of the day she's one of his closest friends as Superman, and he trusts her implicitly.

"I just heard the news. I'm sorry that things had to end like that between you and your lover, Clark. I… hoped I might be able to cheer you up."

Clark just smiles at that.

"Diana… I appreciate the thought, and the company as well. Coffee?"

Biting her lower lip as she glances around, Diana ultimately nods and the two make their way over to the kitchen. Unbeknownst to both of them… this too was orchestrated by a certain unseen and undetected Sidhe Emperor. As well, Shirou had gone ahead and transported a certain god from the shattered ruins of its original world over to Earth. Namely, he'd taken the Kryptonian Sun God Rao, rejuvenated him to something akin to full power, and brought him over to Earth.

Rao and Aphrodite had had a little chat and made a little deal with one another. As a result of this, Diana begins to feel somewhat hot and bothered as she follows Clark into his new kitchen. Her eyes trace over the muscled lines of her fellow hero in a way they never have before. No, that's not precisely true. Diana was not blind by any means, and she'd been living in Man's World for long enough to develop an appreciation for the male figure.

Clark Kent, otherwise known as Superman, was the epitome of the male figure, for all that he was not technically a human. He was gorgeous and handsome in a way few other men could hope to match, with a muscular body, a chiseled jaw, and the sort of genetics that any woman would want to pass on to their children. Diana has certainly had all of these thoughts before… but she's always suppressed her desire for Kal-El because he and Lois were together, and Diana was NOT a homewrecker.

Now that they're no longer a pair though… why shouldn't the Princess of Themyscira shoot her shot, in the end? Now that Lois Lane is out of the picture… the playing field is wide open. When Kal-El turns with two cups of coffee in his hands, one held out in offer to Diana, it's only his Kryptonian reflexes that allow him to swing the hot beverages out of the way to either side as the gorgeous Amazonian woman launches herself forward into his chest and kisses him soundly, right then and there.

The Kryptonian's eyes widen for a moment at this, before he sets the cups of coffee down and scoops Diana up, embracing the Princess quite readily and deepening the kiss between them most eagerly. He'd never… no, never was the wrong word. He hadn't allowed himself to imagine what him and Diana together would be like, because he'd been so focused on Lois and trying to make something work between the two of them.

Now though, now Lois is gone, and Diana is in his arms and-

C-CRACK!

The both of them abruptly pull apart as a sharp cracking sound fills the air. They blink dumbly, and then look down at their feet, realizing that in their moment of passion, their oh-so-important self-control had slipped. The floor of Clark's small kitchen has spider-webs of cracks going through it now, all of them originating from two pairs of footprints… his and hers.

Looking back up at each other, both of them blush prettily in embarrassment, but before Clark can think better of all of this, Diana is leaning into his chest, licking her lips lustfully.

"I… I want you, Kal-El. I need you. D-Do you feel the same?"

He can't bear to hurt her, even if the right thing in this situation might be to reject her. But then why would that be the right thing to do? Why should he be rejecting Diana when they're both single and fully unattached?

"… I do."

Diana's megawatt smile at his answer is more than enough to make Clark happy he told the truth. Caressing his face, the Princess of Themyscira licks her lips again, and he can feel her trembling with need as she presses her body up against him.

"Then take me away from this place, Kal-El. Take me somewhere where we can let go and be ourselves with one another."

In the end, Clark knows exactly where to go. In the end, he pulls Diana close, and then activates the teleport that will transport him to his Fortress of Solitude, whisking her away alongside him. Built out of Kryptonian crystal, the Fortress will be able to withstand whatever they might do to it… allowing them to let loose without destroying a city, or even the planet in the process.

-x-X-x-

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