The name's Kai King.
I was sitting back in my chair, watching the blue antimatter wave swallow the city. It was rushing straight toward the castle I was in. You'd think I'd be panicking, right? But nope, I wasn't. Because it's fake. I'm in a video game. A very popular one, actually. It's called Worlds Collide. And right now, I'm just watching it all get deleted.
Worlds Collide had a crazy premise: every kind of character you could think of, superheroes, villains, cartoons, even movie characters, all scattered across different realms. You could make your character however you wanted and train under those legends, picking up their skills and abilities. If you got really lucky, you could even inherit their race after grinding through their missions.
The game's been around for thirty years, and I've been playing for twenty of them. Honestly? It's been the most fun I've ever had with a game. Not just for the powers, the rewards, or the world-building, but because of the people I met here. Almost all of them ended up in my clan. In this game, once you had at least five people, you could form a clan.
I started mine with just five close friends. Over the years, we grew to twenty-nine members. We would've kept going, but the game started bleeding players. Fewer logins every month. Eventually, the developers made the call: shut it down for good.
I'll admit, it hit hard when they made that announcement a couple months ago. But maybe it was for the best. Most of my friends had already stopped playing, leaving me as the only one still logging in. Still, I had this small hope in the back of my head, that before the servers shut down, I'd see everyone one last time. Especially my two best friends, the ones who helped me build this clan from the ground up.
As I stared out the window, watching the blue antimatter wave chew through the city, the door behind me creaked open. I didn't bother turning around.
Two sets of footsteps echoed across the marble floor, steady and familiar. They didn't stop until they were right beside me, one on my left, one on my right. Chairs scraped against the ground as they spun them around, sat down, and joined me in quietly watching the world outside fall apart.
"Long time no see, Kai."
A smile tugged at my lips. "Hey, Hope. Good to see you."
"What about me? Not happy to see me?" Jack's voice carried that same cocky tone it always did.
"Of course, I'm happy to see you, Jack." I leaned back in my chair. "Always."
Hope and Jack. My two oldest friends in the game. Both of them had been here longer than me, which meant both of them were way stronger than I ever managed to be.
Hope's character was a powerhouse, a half-Viltrumite, half-Asgardian hybrid. As if that wasn't broken enough, she'd also unlocked the powers of Hela from Thor: Ragnarok. But instead of green, her conjured blades shimmered in black and white, each one sharp enough to carve gods apart. On top of that, she'd stacked abilities most players could only dream of: a passive skill called azimus IQ that made her an unstoppable tactician, and Technopathy, which let her bend the game's entire tech system to her will.
And she looked the part, too, her avatar's design was gorgeous. Dark, clear skin. golden eyes and hair one side was dark the other side was pure white. She was easily one of the most skilled fighters in the entire game… second only to Jack.
Now Jack, he was on a whole different level. A true berserker. His build was half Saiyan, half Kryptonian. That alone made him a nightmare to fight, but Jack didn't stop there. He'd unlocked the Spartan Rage ability from Kratos himself, stacking it on top of his Super Saiyan transformations, all the way to level three.
And then came the darker stuff, Demon Blood Art: Destructive Death, stolen from Akaza. He rarely used it, but when he did? The fight was basically already over. And if that wasn't enough, he had one last trump card: 100 Justice, an ability from a forgotten hero named Mr. Justice. Any damage he took, he could return one hundredfold.
Jack wasn't just the strongest out of us, he was the kind of player that made legends. The type other clans whispered about and avoided. Deadly didn't even begin to cover it.
And here they were. Sitting with me. Watching the world we'd spent half our lives in get erased, pixel by pixel.
Jack's avatar looked just as intimidating as always, long black dreadlocks hanging past his shoulders, golden eyes burning like twin suns, and deep scars running across his arms like battle trophies.
"You know…" Jack leaned back in his chair, gaze fixed on the city dissolving into blue light. "I regret logging out for so long. But I'm glad I made it back, at least to say goodbye to this old world."
"Yeah," Hope said softly. "We had a lot of good memories here."
I hesitated. The question had been sitting in my chest for years, but I finally swallowed my nerves and asked it. "I hope you two don't mind me asking, but… why did you stay gone so long? I really missed you guys. The game just felt empty without you by my side."
Jack gave me a small, guilty smile. "Sorry for bailing on you for so long, little brother. But… life in the real world started to suck."
"Oh man, tell me about it." Hope let out a dry laugh. "When I logged out, my whole business was falling apart. And now? I've got nothing. I'm barely staying afloat."
Me and Jack both turned to stare at her.
"You had a business?" I asked.
"Yeah. I was the CEO of NewTech."
Jack blinked. "Wait. The NewTech? The biggest company in New York—the one that got shut down for making illegal deals overseas?"
"And the embezzlement scandals," I added.
Hope nodded, her golden eyes flickering. "That was me. My company. I started it to help people, but I got greedy. Too greedy. I stole, I cheated, I made chaos. I was already rich, but I thought I deserved more. Now I've got nothing left. Honestly? I'm just waiting for the government to come knocking. Treason's a heavy word… but I earned it. Logging back into this world, it's the only thing I had left, just a way to remember when life was still good."
Jack whistled low. "Damn. And here I thought my life was bad. Makes me think I got off lucky."
"What happened to you?" I asked.
"Well…" Jack rubbed the back of his neck. "I won the lottery once. Ninety-six thousand bucks. Best day of my life. I went a little crazy, bought a nice house, even got myself a girlfriend. Thought she was the one. We got married two weeks later."
I already saw where this was going.
"She was a gold digger," Jack admitted, voice dropping. "When the money ran out, she bailed. Divorced me. Took everything. Now I'm stuck in a crappy apartment, working a dumb job that barely pays the bills. Everything's too damn expensive."
I sighed. "Wow. You two's lives really hit the shitter. I guess my life is not that bad but it still kind of suck."
Hope arched a brow. "Oh yeah? What about you, Kai? What happened?"
I leaned forward, elbows resting on my knees. "Well, I finished college. Joined the police force. Tried to be… I don't know… some kind of hero. But the whole system was rotten. Everywhere I turned, corruption. I tried reporting dirty cops, going up the chain—didn't matter. Every last one of them was a corrupt piece of shit. I kept fighting until it nearly broke me. Eventually, I quit. Walked away."
I let out a tired laugh. "Now I'm just another factory worker, grinding away. This game… it's the only place I felt like I could actually do something. Be something. That's why I never let go. Why I kept logging in, even when everyone else stopped."
The three of us fell silent, watching the blue wave devour another district of the city. A world ending, not with anger, but with shared memories and regrets.
"Wow… we all have crappy lives," Jack muttered, shaking his head. "The only place we were ever actually happy was in this game."
"You know," Hope said quietly, "you two were like family to me. The whole clan was, but you two—" she glanced between us, "you were my brothers. Especially after my real family disowned me the second my company fell apart."
"I feel the same," Jack added. "I never had a family. Orphan from the start. But I found one here. With you guys."
I took a breath. "I did have a family. A big one. But they're all gone now. I was an only child, and… my mom passed not too long ago. I'm the last one left. So yeah… it's nice to have two siblings beside me. An older brother who's a bit of a battle maniac—" Jack smirked at that, "—and a sister who's way smarter than both of us and kinder than she'll ever admit."
Hope shook her head. "You think I'm kind? I literally committed treason."
"Yeah, and I doubt you did it all on your own," I countered. "Someone you trusted must've pushed you into it."
"My COO. And most of my board."
"See?" Jack said. "Not evil. Just trusted the wrong people. Should've wised up, yeah, but it doesn't make you a monster."
Hope smiled faintly. "Maybe. Still… if I had one wish? I'd wish I could live in a world like this instead. It's simple here. Peaceful. Not like the real one."
"Yeah," Jack agreed.
"Same," I admitted.
And then—
"Do you really mean that? Do you truly want to live in a different world?"
The voice came from everywhere at once, shaking the very castle walls. The three of us shot to our feet, eyes darting around.
"Who said that?" Jack barked.
A ripple of light shimmered in front of us, and then, just like that, someone stood there. A being. Not human.
"It's was me," he said with a calm smile. "The name is Tet. Tell me—did you truly mean it when you wished to live in another world?"
We exchanged confused glances.
"Yes," Hope said carefully. "But… what are you? Some kind of game master? I've never seen you before."
"You're definitely not in our clan," I added. "We know every member."
Tet laughed. "No, no. I'm no game master. And I'm certainly no human. I am a god. And I've come to make you three an offer."
"What kind of offer?" Hope asked, narrowing her eyes.
"To live. In a new world. With the looks and powers of your characters. To be something more. To be better."
"What world?" I asked, heart pounding.
"The world of DC."
Our jaws practically hit the floor. We all knew exactly what that meant. We'd done missions there before, trained under its heroes, fought against its villains.
"That world's… insanely dangerous," Jack muttered.
Tet only smiled. "Yes. But none of you are weak. You're maxed-out avatars. Gods among mortals. You'll survive."
"He's got a point," Hope admitted. "We really are maxed out."
I frowned. "You're actually considering this?"
Hope looked me dead in the eye. "Yes. Because if I go back to the real world, all that's waiting for me is prison. This… this is a second chance. A fresh start. You don't have to come if you don't want to. But I need to go."
"There you go," I said. "If you're going, then I'm going too. You're my best friend—like a sister to me. And hell, I already know enough about DC to guide us through it. Comics, shows, movies, you name it."
Hope's smile widened. "Then I'll be glad to have you at my side."
Jack crossed his arms, golden eyes glinting. "Well, fuck it. I'm not letting you two run off to some dangerous world without me. Somebody's gotta keep you alive when the big guns show up."
We turned as one to face Tet.
"We accept," I said. "We want to go to the DC world."
Tet's grin was radiant. "Glad to hear it. Don't worry about your backgrounds in that world, I've already arranged everything. Now… good luck. And remember, have fun."
He clapped his hands. A blinding flash swallowed us whole. And then—darkness.