228 Gantz.

I landed on a roof, overlooking a massive screen where a japanese man was offering some advice to people.

'Stay inside.'

'Lock your windows.'

'The government is working on it.'

Yada yada yada.

The usual disaster stuff.

The difference here though?

There were giant towering mecha that looked like the pixar lamp's older brothers, roaming around the streets shooting lasers into the buildings, shops, destroying the city, shaking the earth with each step.

One of them even bitch slapped the Tokyo Tower to the ground, leaving it to crash through a nearby building.

Alien dropships buzzed around like flies across the skies, kidnapping people off the streets who were unfortunate enough to still be left outside.

Below me, the streets were silent, people could be seen hiding in the office buildings lining the street, shaking in fear.

Up above us in the sky, a massive alien colony ship loomed over the world like a watchful titan, a new god of this world.

And I couldn't help but sigh.

This.

This is how it happens?

And now? When I'm being chased?

I had portaled to this new world relying entirely on the geass's predictions but seriously, it just had to be this world.

Gantz.

Gantz was a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Hiroya Oku. Gantz tells the story of a teenager named Kei Kurono, among others, who die but find themselves brought back in perfectly healthy bodies and forced to participate in a "game" where they must hunt down and kill aliens by a man sized black ball of advanced technology. Those who die on missions are quickly replaced by others in following missions until finally in the last arc, they are sent to fight the alien invasion of Earth, the one I was currently walking through.

I rubbed my temples and groaned.

"Fine. At least they have matter replicators."

No time to waste bemoaning my fate.

I already have a program in my code that skews fate and destiny making me a truly free agent so this was probably not a destined encounter anyways, just a function of the time loop.

Still, I am not looking forward to completing the time loop.

Something about having a rogue clone just doesn't sit right me.

I'll just break it here. Kill him before he can be free.

I jumped off the roof, sliding down a pipe in the back into an alley by the side.

Exiting the alley, I spread out my technokinesis all across the planet, seizing control of all technology on world, shutting down everything, even the giant killer robots, causing them to freeze in place like colossal statues, while the alien dropships dropped like puppets with their strings cut, crashing down to the ground.

Finally, I raised a hand to the sky reached up into space, my power pushing into the alien colony ship looming in orbit, taking control of it.

In a matter of seconds, I had not only taken over the world but also thwarted an alien invasion, with barely a finger raised.

I couldn't help but break into a grin.

Technokinesis is truly one of the most broken superpowers.

"Now then, let's suit up."

Patching through to the nearest black ball, or Gantz ball as it was called in universe.

The Gantz ball was a matter replicator created with advanced technology sent over to Earth by some other advanced aliens to help humanity fight against the current alien invasion.

Confused yet?

Good.

Let me explain!

The world of Gantz has two major alien factions.

The first was the God aliens. A highly advanced type 4 civilization that ruled the immediate observable universe to the best of humanity's knowledge.

They were a wise, supposedly benevolent and atheistic species.

It is unknown who they are or what they want, or even what their true forms look like.

They appear as chimeras of human bodies in a big, empty white room in a pocket dimension where they address the main characters in the story.

I suspect they were using that form to put humans at ease the same way panda caretakers in zoos wear panda suits to care for the young bears when their mothers leave them to die.

Except they probably went with some lunatics impression of what humans are supposed to look like or they were tripping bad on some mad kush because what they ended up appearing as was a 12 foot humanoid with faces of famous human people popping in and out from different places in their bodies like a who's who whack a mole machine in the shape of man.

They had fought a war against the other alien faction and won, sending them fleeing straight to earth.

Knowing what was coming for the human race though, they sent over a coded message in a string of number, broadcasted via the body of an autistic, paralyzed german girl which contained the blueprints of some advanced technology - matter replicators, high tech power armor, gravity guns, laser sword and of course the Gantz balls that made it all possible - that we could use them to gain a fighting chance against the coming invasion and the subsequent armageddon.

Then, there were the other aliens. An alliance of various alien factions from across the known universe.

The alien invasion of Earth, representated by the Katastrophe aliens. A coalition of many alien civilizations that had had lost their homeworlds and were basically refugees, a violent alien immigration that travelled the universe looking for a place to set up shop and restart their new civilizational order.

They had fought and lost against the God aliens and had been routed completely.

Facing imminent extinction, they decided to lower their standards and chose a new target.

Earth.

That brings us here.

The Gantz ball.

With a thought, I connected to one of the many Gantz balls left lying around in the middle of Tokyo Plaza, and walked up to it.

"Let's see. First things first, I need a boost to my physical parameters. So ... power armor." I said, inputting the blueprints of my personal one into it and a beam of vivid, flesh colored light shot out of the black ball, patterned as if it was under water, flickering shades of light waving across it's length as it began to print out the power armor over me.

"Then, I will need ....I don't have any hand held weapons that can kill the worms. But..." I looked up at the giant mechs and smiled.

Connecting the Gantz ball to the alien ship, I ripped out all of their knowledge and began to alter the mechs' designs.

Beam after beam shot out from the Gantz balls altering the giant mecha one by one as their structure changed.

"A central battery, with a dark matter engine...." I muttered, operating the Gantz balls according to my will, "A matter annihilation charge in the middle. Let's add a diffusion box to it to increase the radius of destruction....."

Soon, their pixar lamp shaped heads were gone, replaced by finer sensors and forcefield projectors.

Their arms sported disintegration cannons and their shoulders hosted FTL railguns, with a prehensile tail at the back supporting the recoil.

Inertial dampeners lined their chassis.

On their backs, a propulsion pack for easier manueverability. Even their overall weight had shrunk by over half, making them lighter yet with my new design far sturdier than anything the dumbass immigrants could accomplish.

And the coup de grace?

A red matter insert paired to the space extension engine on the alien colony ship in orbit, laying down the perfect trap for them.

Basically, a pocket dimension trap with a black hole bomb in the center.

I snapped my fingers and a forcefield propped up over the city.

Now it's time to wait and watch.

Getting back to the Gantz ball, I refilled my portal fluid and made a suitcase sized matter replicator for myself, getting ready to dismantle the whole setup before it could create a clone of me.

One by one, I reached out across all possible connections to the Gantz ball system, mapping it out in it's entirety so I could shut it down, all at once.

And it was only then that I noticed it.

A thin signal, headed out somewhere into the universe and a chill ran down my spine.

It's them. The God aliens.

They've been spying on me. Waiting for me to fuck and and reveal my hand. And I just did, refilling my portal fluid.

Immediately I tore into their systems, reached straight to the core of their homeworld and a quick scan revealed a portal gun prototyoe already in research.

Fuck no!

You ain't getting shit from me!

This is why I hate tangling with type 4 civilizations.

They have redundant defence protocols out the wazoo.

This research probably wasn't even a conscious choice for them.

Just regular protocol for their A.I. to create countermeasures against and copy any technology that might pose a threat to them as soon as it spots it.

Their officials probably haven't even gotten wind of any of this.

An A.I. monitoring the comms channels probably spotted it and automatically began a counter research track in it's programming.

Not too late then.

I hacked into their systems, infiltratong the entire network of their civilization and found their superweapons.

Gravity beams, spatial distortion guns, datk matter scythes.

Pretty decent stuff.

Too bad they fucked with me.

Let's wipe them out before they can make a clone of me.

With a thought I crushed their A.I. and disabled their defenses, turning their weapons against themselves.

"Into the dark annals of history you go!" I snapped my fingers and then, they were no more, black holes swallowed up their planets, waves of dark matter ripping their extra-planetary settlements to shreds as a universe wide anti-teleportation field trapped them smack dab in the middle of it all, unable to escape, only watch as their empire crumbled before their eyes, turning to cosmic dust.

Shame they tried to steal from me.

Now for that clone.

Every being created by Gantz has a bomb implanted in their heads as a threat, forcing them to follow orders.

The solution then is simple.

"Make their heads go boom." I ordered the system, and through it I could see all across the world men and women in black bodysuits dying, headless, blood shooting out of their heads like a fountain.

Unfortunately, no clone yet.

I frowned.

Where's that goddamn clone?

Did I...did he not get created this time since I destroyed their civilization?

No. Can't be sure about it.

But if he's not here then....

He mentioned being trapped in a pocket dimension. Like an art piece. Seeing as how I clearly haven't done it yet, it must mean they created him in one- Oh.

Oh. Shit. So that's where he was!

In the pocket dimension where they convened with the protagonists of the manga before the final battle.

That easy then.

Scanning through the logs, I can find some coordinates.

"Yes! Found you~ Here comes your end~ And I say, It's all right!" I hummed to the tune of Here Comes The Sun by the Beatles, and locked on to it.

I can't see the clone in there either but given that I have killed everyone in the other places, I guess this is it.

It has to be. It fits that inescapable cage thing he talked about. And with the people's head exploding, painting the walls red, it looked like some macabre imitation of a Picasso or Jackson Pollock.

Fits the bill completely.

And almost as if on cue I could see a pair of very familiar feet being printed out in the bloody pocket dimension growing into some gorgeous legs if I do say so.

I preened narcissistically.

There he is!

A bit late to the party aren't you?

"Little darling~, it feels like years since we've been here~ And I say, Goodbye!" I hummed happily, tapping my foot to the tune.

I had just begun inputting the coordinates into the portal gun, intending to flood the whole place with molten gold, keeping in theme with his art motif, when suddenly something pinged on my spatial sensors.

"Dammit!"

I leapt back as a bolt of energy slammed down where I was just standing, liquefying the entire plaza beneath me.

More importantly, it cut off my connection the pocket

My power armor's FTL movement array activated, ready to escape, as the worms flooded into this world.

"You guys sure know how to pick the most inopportune moments to interfere, don't you? Trapping me in uncomfortable situations?" I glared them down as they slammed into my forcefield.

"Well have a taste of your own medicine!" I said, disappearing into a portal as they shrunk back, trying to retreat into another dimension having just figured out my trap.

Too late!

With my technokinesis I grabbed the alien colony ship in orbit and snapped my fingers.

Boom!

The spatial expansion engine in the ship blew up, destabilizing spatial folds in the whole solar system, stopping them from leaving the way they came in, via dimensional travel.

Meanwhile the mechas emptied their entire load into the now trapped worms, slaugtering over half of them, while the rest tried to run.

To no avail, again!

When they tried to fly out of the solar system, finding themselves unable to teleport out, my forcefield generators hidden in the giant mechs trapped them on Earth.

Now, it was too late for them.

"Hasta la vista baby!" I cackled, blowing up the red matter bomb even as they came down onto me, their blows hammering down on my personal forcefield trying to follow me out the portal I was using to no avail.

The portal closed behind me just as the red matter burst into a black hole, pulling everything in.

Including the giant mech it had spawned in.

Almost immediately, another explosion rocked the planet, as my matter annihilation charge blew up from the pressure of the black, tangling with the black hole in a furious storm of burning yellow and cold, all consuming black, swallowing it and the entities whole, crushing all of them to death while simultaneously atomizing them.

The perfect trap, something I had fogured out while testing out my new weapons.

A matter annihilation charge mixed with an infant black hole creates a weird sort of singularity that collapses in on itself and disappears taking out everything in a moon sized radius along with it.

A cheap and cost efficient weapon of planetary destruction.

Not something that would usually work on the entities, given they can teleport. But that's where the the space expansion engine worked it's wonder as it exploded, destabilizing spatial folds around the solar system, preventing them from teleporting out.

That, and my forcefields trapping them on Earth was just enough to wipe out a good chunk of them.

But I knew that wasn't all of them.

It had killed maybe a couple thousand.

I emerged on the moon, and looked over the planet just as the black hole disappeared, leaving Earth looking like the apple logo.

More were coming. I knew it.

This wasn't going to be some blaze of glory.

No.

This was a battle of attrition.

And I had to keep moving lest I be surrounded.

I looked at the logs of the portal gun and sighed.

I had lost the coordinates to the pocket dimension, the black hole took out the Gantz balls and now the clone was free.

"Uaaargh!" I stomped my foot on the moon, creating a crater a mile wide on the surface as a dust cloud rose up around me.

Fuck it.

At least the time loop is over.

I can always hunt that clone down once I'm a god.

I disappeared into the portal over to the next world.

10000-ish worms left. Or 5000 if half followed Wanda as planned.

The fight continues. And I must prepare.

__________________

The extra chapter for 200 powerstones as promised.

A bit off this chapter.

Sorry.

Two more chapters till Magicians now.

MC speedruns Gantz in under a minute.

Wrecks the worms' shit.

But fails to kill his clone, from Chapter 10.

Now the time loop is completed.

That plot thread ends here.

Next extra chapter at 400 powerstones!

Thanks for reading!

Bye~