Super Power as Compensation

Have you guys ever played any of the Assassin's Creed games? Remember when your character died, how it got desynchronized, with the space cracking up, reality getting fragmented with the portion where your character lay separated from its surroundings by the cracks, while the rest of the world continued in an ordinary fashion but the small space where your character lay was separated; which turned dull, with the colors fading and sounds receding, with all the components fading and turning featureless, until all that was left was the loading screen. 

Well, something like that happened with me. As I laid there, partly drowning, partly burning, but mostly dying; with pain overriding all my senses, as I prepared to give in and lose myself in the pain, it suddenly stopped.

My senses, previously overcome by pain, returned with painful clarity, still plagued by phantom pains. It was the marvel-ous out-of-body experience, with the only difference being that my body lay there burning, rapidly turning into an unrecognizable mass of charred, smoldering flesh.

I stood or rather floated above the blazing ruins of the closed pawn shop in a small area enclosed with cracks in reality, different from the surroundings in the sense that the colors were faded, senses dull, feelings muted and emotions frozen, watching my body and the rest of the shop burn with disturbingly unnatural calmness. There was a sense of dissonance with the entire situation, as if this entire thing was happening to a stranger and I was just a casual bystander looking at this mess in glee. It was as if there was something which unnaturally calmed my emotions, forcing me to be calm for normally I would be hyperventilating if even half of this shit happened to me. 

A few moment later, or it could have been hours, my attention was distracted from the blazing bonfire raging in front of my eyes to the blue screen which suddenly appeared in front of me.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

[You Died!

(Un)Fortunately, your application to the Multiversal Questers Agency had been successfully filed and on the recommendation of the World Will you have been selected to participate in the Rookie Rumble from your world. Successfully surviving the Rookie Rumble will grant you the qualification of an Inter-Dimensional Quester and make you a part of the M.Q.A. 

However, be warned for this is your second chance, and death while on a quest, or as in this case, a test, shall lead to your soul being annihilated and your existence erased. So, be smart, be devious, and don't hesitate to fight- for only the fittest would survive.

As a kind of tool to aid your survival in the test (or compensation for your sacrifice for the sake of the world), you will be granted a super power of your choosing as your basic ability or skill, subject to certain limitations:

>No overpowered or broken powers allowed-if the power is too strong certain limitations or negative traits will be granted

>Powers should be properly defined to get the specific effect you desire, if power is too general it would be granted as per understanding of the World Will

>Powers containing word or concept –Omni like Omnipresence or Omnipotence or the likes would be completely ignored

Note: The Power would be granted by your World Will, that is the Will of YOUR World. So M.Q.A. is neither responsible nor answerable for dissatisfaction with your powers. However, M.Q.A. does provide for opportunities to gain superpowers in quests. But for that, you need to survive.

Your Superpower: _______________ ]

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

To say that I was surprised would be a gross understatement, but even with my frozen emotion and unnaturally calm mind, I could confidently say that I was expecting something like this from the very moment I met the mysterious lady, who now I am willing to bet was the World Will, or her agent or avatar or something. How did I know that? Well, I was a certified gamer, a vivid reader of fantasy, fiction, comics and novels, a movie maniac and a person who could be called genre savvy, so yeah, if I was reading the hints right, then she was pretty much who I thought she was. 

Ignoring her identity for the moment, one emotion which could simply not be frozen, which broke through whatever unnatural effect had kept me calm and infected me was excitement, sheer unbridled excitement and anticipation, at the possibility of having an interdimensional adventure. I won't lie, I won't say that I was confident because I knew I was going to win, because I was a born winner or any of that rubbish. I am not that narcissistic. 

I was scared, at the sudden situation which was sprung on me. Even though I was partly responsible, I could have never expected such an ending to my day, and surely not that I would die that very day. So, I was thankful for my artificially calmed mind, for it helped in controlling my fear. My second emotion, the more dominant one was excitement, for who doesn't like a fantasy adventure, especially when you get to choose your own power. Often had I wished for a chance to live a life different from the monotonous reality, a life of swords and magic, with fantastical races and mana and dragons, if not worlds like Marvel, Harry Potter, or games and animes. In fact, even dangerous worlds plagued with a multitude of problems and dangers held a certain appeal for me, not because risk was my middle name or any of that shit, but for the simple reason that they provided you with a second chance, to live a life as per your discretion, without being bound by law, by society, by responsibilities, a chance to be free; and if it came at the cost of higher risk of death, so be it.

Another emotion which occupied by mind was one of anger, anger at the unfair situation I was placed in, anger at the parties responsible for my untimely death, anger at my powerlessness, but all these things were out of my reach, and hence was bottled, waiting patiently as it slowly but surely converted into wrath, waiting for an opportunity to come out burn down the world. Okay! That's getting too chunnibyou, depressing and edge-lordish for my taste.

So there I stood, facing a blue screen similar to the numerous webnovel, asking me for my preferred power; I mentally was referring to each of the possible superpowers and techniques and abilities which I had read or seen before in the games, novels, animes, movies and comics which I had devoured, rapidly selecting, surfing, comparing and rejecting numerous power, trying to find a perfect blend which could raise my survivability, provide certain means of defense as well as have sufficient lethality to deal with threats. Too overpowered abilities have multiple cons- most common one being too much gestation time required, like certain time for the bloodline to mature or strict conditions to be fulfilled before their full power can be displayed.

Bloodline abilities like the Ajin Bloodline, Saiyan Bloodline or the likes may be powerful, but are not suited to my purpose as they provide either power or survivability, but not both which I require to thrive. And god forbid some crazy bastards like Hydra or Dumbledore or people like them find me while I was still getting familiar with my powers, I would be utterly fucked in all senses of the word, with my mind shattered and me being experimented on ceaselessly.

Similar is the case with abilities and manipulation type skills- they grow with practice, but practice that could put me at risk of exposure, which would lead to capture, but to evade capture I needed to practice. This was simply a paradox. 

I considered systems as an option for a moment. But then I realized what a bad idea that would be. It was like basically leaving an open invitation to the World Will to enter your mind and try to control your life, especially through a system which controls everything you do.

The thing about powers with great potential was that they started small, but grew with the user. Thus, they had a wider applicability. But, they also needed a lot of practice to master and a certain amount of innovation.

Then there were powers with limited potential, but they could not grow. However, even they had a chance of being broken. Even if they could not grow, if the user was smart, and not afraid to exploit a certain loophole, they would approach an undiscovered territory and tap into the previously hidden potential and make it even more overpowered than any conventional super power.

As I stood there, thinking about the most optimum, suitable superpower which was perfect for me, I came across a sudden inspiration which actually came from a certain item which was burning below in the pawn shop. I wonder, if this was how Archimedes felt when he first discovered the method to weigh any object using water, knowing that this was going to be the start of something big. I now knew what power I wanted, and yes, it was overpowered as hell.