ch.8

After leaving the demolished office 6 souls richer and a whole lot more powerful, I walked around the city trying to figure out what to do next.

Ever since becoming Alexander, I had to deal with hunger, powerlessness, and worse of all the beating I got from Satchi and Quan.

The few hours that I spent acting as a tourist and playing games at the arcade, had helped me vent a lot of the pressure that had been building up inside me.

Unfortunately it did nothing for the rage that has been simmering and slowly building in my stomach everytime I remember the mocking faces of the duo as they walked away from my broken body.

I may not show it, but the beating I received from those two had affected me more than I was willing to admit.

Even though my mind was that of a teenager, my body and more importantly my brain were those of an 8 year old kid. A child's brain just wasn't made to withstand what I have gone through without any repercussions or at the very least some trauma.

Having no way to extinguish the raging fire of anger that was burning a hole in my stomach and calling for revenge. I did the smart thing and shoved it to the back of my mind and turned my focus to something more productive like getting more power.

Till a time that I had enough power to get my revenge without having to worry about the consequences. Now that I was flush with souls the time has come for me to do just that.

The problem is that I have no idea where to find Satchi and Quan.

I don't know where they live or hang out , heck I don't even know their last names. Luckily for me I knew how to find out or rather how to make people find out for me.

Money.

As I have stated before, here in Macau money was king. There isn't anything you can't get, if you had enough money that is.

The first thing I did was get the word out that Satchi and Quan had pissed off some very dangerous people and that those people were willing to pay top dollar for any information that could be used to find the duo.

With how many street rats there are out there that hate Satchi & Quan guts and want revenge against them, it was only a matter of time before I ended up where I was now, with a streetrat that the duo had angered selling me their whole schedule.

The duo's day to day life, who their families were, where they live, where they go to school, and most importantly where they like to hang out at night which turned out to be a nightclub that Quan's family owns in the middle of the city.

And this kids, is why you shouldn't be a dick to people for no reason, especially if you are going to leave them alive to take revenge.

They may be powerless to take revenge by themselves but they sure as hell will find a way to fuck you over, whether it be in the present or in the far future.

Like following you around for days, maybe even weeks to learn every little detail about your life and then selling it to your enemies.

- Note to self: don't be unnecessary dickish to people. -

"Are you sure they will be there?"

"Yes, they hang out there almost every day," the kid I was talking to was a little girl named Hina, a tiny 11 year old thing who was the first to come to me with the information I needed.

Well I couldn't really call her little or tiny seeing as she was both older and taller than the current me but you know what I mean.

'I hate being a kid'

Like almost every asian that hadn't colored it, she had black hair which was a ratty mess bound into a ponytail with a piece of cloth, she was dressed in what used to be a nice yellow flower print dress once but was now falling apart at the seams.

What was different though were her eyes. They were a dark seagreen that reminded me of the ocean, an unusual color for someone of Chinese descent.

"You know what happens if you lie to these kinds of people, right?" I asked, staring into her eyes.

Her seagreen eyes widened in fear for a moment, which was a normal reaction when reminded of her situation and what the people she thinks I work for could and would do to her.

What I didn't see however was any deceit or fear from having been caught doing something wrong. Such as selling fake intel to a group of dangerous people.

She nodded to show she understood.

I felt a little bad for scaring a little girl but I wasn't about to waste money and more importantly time buying and then following bad intel.

Not noticing any problems I paid her the 1000 Yuan I promised as a reward for information and turned around to leave.

"What is going to happen to Satchi and Quan, are they going to kill them?" she asked before I could leave.

I turned back around to answer - something which I regretted immediately after - and froze.

Her eyes which a moment ago were unfortunately dimmed by her fear were now hard and cold, her hands were balled in little fists around the fabric of her dress, and lastly she was shivering, not from the cold or fear but from anger.

I didn't need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out that Satchi and Quan had done something very bad to her, I just hoped it wasn't what I was thinking.

"That is none of our business, is it?" I gave her a stern look to drop it. I wasn't about to implicate myself by answering something like that.

"Please, I need to know!"

I closed my eyes before opening them again, I really didn't want to know, "Did they..." Not knowing how to continue, I just looked down at her body.

The look in her eyes that went from fear to anger a minute ago, turned just as fast from anger to shame. Her eyes started tearing up before she quickly looked away from me. That look was all that I needed to answer my question.

'Fuck!'

And just like that the simmering rage in my stomach became an inferno ready to burn the whole world to ashes. I wanted…no...needed to break something, preferably the faces of Satchi and Quan but I held it in…for now.

I may not want to be a Hero and risk my life for strangers, and I may do bad shit like selling cocaine for souls but there are some lines you just don't cross.

Some things that you just don't do, things that are just too unforgivable.

This was one of those things.

Wiping away her tears in anger, Hina turned back to me and glared into my eyes, daring me to say anything.

Looking in her eyes I didn't see the eyes of an angry kid, no, I saw something different, I saw the eyes of a pitiful child that was practically begging me to answer her.

I groaned and did something that usually got a lot of stupid bad guys caught, "Lets just say that they are going to be begging to die after it's all done."

The smile that she graced me with made me feel a little bit better about my stupid ass decision.

I left quickly after that before those eyes could make me do more stupid shit.

According to their schedule Satchi and Quan won't be at the nightclub until 10 tonight and it is only 5pm right now.

The deals that had left me brimming with power took less than an hour to make and finding information about Satchi and Quan had taken only 2 hours, with most of that being me walking around getting the word out.

That left me with 5 long hours to think and wallow in what I have just learned.

'Screw that!'

It is about time that I do some research to figure out which Dc universe I have found myself living in, where in the timeline I was, and what was happening outside my corrupt little city.

Hopefully I'm in one of the more mainstream universes where the heroes are good and competent, and not any of the dozens of universes where the heroes lose or become evil.

Which is a lot more common than I would like to think about and just as bad for my health.

At first I wanted to go to the library and make use of the computers there but I ended up passing 3 different internetcafés while searching for the library and figured out that an internetcafé was just as good for my purposes.

I don't even know if there is a library in Macau, Alexander for sure hasn't ever been in or even seen one for that matter.

The internetcafé I ended up choosing was one that was made to look like a karaoke bar with private rooms and even a public room for those unwilling to pay a ridiculous price to just use a computer.

On the upside you could order food and drinks if you had a private room.

Walking inside I watched dozens of teenagers play games in the public room, the computers were a lot more modern than I was expecting and the games graphics were a lot better than they should have been in the year 2003.

Which is strange because just a few hours ago while I was playing in the arcade everything was as I expected them to be for the year 2003. It was like this world had 2 sort of tech levels, what you would have expected from 2003 and then the super modern tech that is years more advanced.

'Weird.'

It seems like even if it's 17 years in the past from my old universe, the tech that has been released to the public is almost as good as it was in my previous life.

That makes sort of sense, I guess, this world is full of super geniuses and mega corporations with geniuses like Lex luthor and Bruce Wayne at the head, that are furthering the technology of the world.

And that is without mentioning all the aliens/alien tech that this world has been in contact with that has irreversibly affected the development of technology or the super science that shouldn't work but does in this universe.

Shoving the thoughts of this world confusing technology standards aside for now, I continued checking out the cafe. There was a counter connected to the public room with a Chinese woman in her 20s sitting behind it in front of a computer, she had straight black hair, black eyes, and a nice oval face.

All in all she was a beauty and could have been stunning if her face wasn't set in what looked like a permanent scowl.

I guess, that is where I should go.

The moment the cashier? notices me walking up to the counter, her eyes get a little glare and she looks behind me, no doubt trying to find my parents. Not seeing my parents, she opens her mouth, probably about to tell me to turn around and leave.

I don't give her the chance.

Letting soul-energy flow through my body is something I have been doing since the moment I woke up this morning. I was trying to get my body and mind accustomed to the feeling until it was second nature and I can do it instinctively.

I even practiced with the amount of souls I could connect with at once. At the moment I could connect and channel 4 souls at once. Which means that I didn't need to do anything more than imagine the effect I wanted to happen and spend soul-energy on it.

"It's alright for me to be here, treat me like any other customer!"

The cashier's eyes glaze over for a second before returning to normal. It was so fast and subtle that if I wasn't watching her closely to see if my magic had worked, I wouldn't have noticed it.

As I finished my walk up to the counter, I saw her glare vanish and get replaced with a polite smile that couldn't be any faker.

"Good afternoon, welcome to the Cherry internetcafé, how may I help you today?"

"I want a private room, how much for 5 hours? "I replied, her forced smile became a tad more genuine after hearing this. Greedy bitch.

"A private room is 140 Yuan an hour, 5 hours will cost a total of 700 Yuan."

'How the fuck is it that expensive?!'

I reluctantly handed her the money. I had a little more than 10k Yuan over, if things continue like this I'm going to be broke in a few days. She took the money and after making sure it was all real, she pressed a button on her desk.

"An employee is on the way to escort you to your private room."

I nodded and stayed quiet, the manager/owner on the other hand did the opposite and tried to sell me every premium service she could think of.

At first I assumed that she was just a cashier but with how hard she was trying to suck me dry(and not in a fun way), she had to have some stake in how much the store makes.

No minimum wage cashier is going to go this far out of their way to make a few extra bucks for the store that they wouldn't be receiving.

Luckily for me the employee arrived before I could strangle myself or better yet the manager/owner.

The employee turned out to be another beauty, this one in her late teens, she had pink dyed hair and was wearing what I assumed was the store's uniform.

I say uniform but it sure as heck wasn't a standard one, the blouse she was wearing was two sizes to small, furthermore the first two buttons were undone showcasing plenty of cleavage for the world to admire, her skirt was so short that if she was to bend over or I was a little shorter I would see everything.

The only thing it had in common with a normal uniform was that it had the store name embroidered on it.

Not that I was complaining.

'That explains why this place is so expensive.'

"Chu Yi, take this customer to room 4, he has booked it for the next 5 hours."

Chu Yi looked around the room and even looked behind me before finally letting her gaze settle on me, when she couldn't find anyone else.

"Isn't he a little too young?" she asked, pulling her eyebrows together in confusion.

"What-" the manager/owner started to say before her eyes glazed over again.

Sighting, I used my magic again, this time imagining a field around me that makes it normal for me to be wherever I am.

Something I should have done from the beginning, the only problem was that how more people notice that I don't belong or how more I don't belong somewhere, the more power I need to use to keep the effects going.

Looking back at me, Chu Yi's eyes glaze over before returning to normal.

"What was I….whatever, let's go."

She started walking without saying another word, leaving me to quietly follow after her long exposed legs and swaying ass.

Nope, not complaining at all.

Walking past the public room, Chu Yi takes me into a hallway with rooms at both sides of the corridor, before stopping at the one numbered 4.

Opening the door Chu Yi gestures for me to enter.

The room wasn't big, maybe 3m by 3m. There wasn't much to see either, just a computer, the desk it was on, and a comfy looking computer chair to sit on.

"Here you go, is there anything else I can help you with before I leave?"

"Nope, I'm good, " I replied, already sitting at the desk on the chair that was just as comfy as it looked.

"Alright then, if you have any problems or want to order something please use the phone next to the door," Chu Yi continued, before leaving and closing the door behind her.

Looking back I see that there is indeed a phone hanging against the wall next to the door. I must have missed it on my first look-over of the room. Booting up the pc, I saw that everything was ready for me and that a 5 hour timer had started counting down.

It is still weird that I can read both simplified chinese and chinese numbers this effortlessly. I know from Alexander's memories that he had never learned more than the basics of the basics so I certainly didn't pick it up from him.

'Whatever, I'm just going to accept it as a perk of being reincarnated'

I started my research with something I already knew about, the founding of the Justice League a month ago. The Justice League may be new but that didn't mean that there weren't any Heroes before them.

Heroes, Villains and people with powers have been showing up more and more as early as the 40s, there was even another League before the current one called the Justice Society of America(such a mouthful).

After the Justice Society of America disbanded and a new generation of supers started emerging in the 90s, there was an unspoken rule for Heroes and Villains to stay in their own cities(turfs) and not interfere with each other.

It wasn't until the whole world was in danger of invasion by the Appellaxians that the 7 founding members of the Justice League came together to fight the threat.

'Appellaxians...'

Wasn't that the alien race from the Young Justice series, I remembered the name because it sounded similar to the name of the race of Rath, the Ben 10 alien.

After doing a little more research it looked more and more likely that I was in the Young Justice universe aka earth 16 but I also noticed a few differences, either I'm totally wrong and I'm not on earth 16 or it's a mix of universes.

Either way, now I can't rely on my foreknowledge as more than a guideline and even then I need to practice caution. I can be more certain of which it is when the Young Justice team gets created in 2010-2011, if they get created that is.

If this is mainly the Young Justice verse I have 7-8 years before everything starts going to total shit with the light and alien invasions. That is if nothing changes the timeline, I'm looking at you Flash!

Having kinda figured out in which universe I was in, I turned my attention to what was happening in the wider world.

In one sentence, it was a total shit show.

With individuals with enough power to take over countries surfacing and getting into the spotlight, it has become clear to the countries around the world that they needed to do something.

That something turned out to be trying to make or get their own so-called Supers to 'protect' their country. Which started a new arms race on earth but this time with superhumans and aliens as the weapons.

The world wasn't a nice place for people with powers that couldn't protect themselves right now, with gangs, secret societies, and shady government agencies all searching for them to either use or experiment on them.

'Ironic'

A group that was made to make the common man feel safer from unknown threats, had kicked an ant hill and jump started an age where people like them, people with powers, were nothing more than merchandise.

"Groowl!"

My stomach that has become accustomed to eating regularly, let me know that it was time to take a break and order something to eat.

Looking at the time I saw that it was almost 8.

Closing the open forum tab that was discussing the observed powers and weaknesses of the most popular Heroes and villains in the world, I walked up to the phone and called the front desk to order a pepperoni pizza.

There was one last thing I wanted to do before my showdown with Satchi and Quan and here where no one could see me was a good place to do so.

I waited till my pizza arrived and I was done eating, so that I had no more distractions.

It was time to give myself permanent abilities!