Prologue
The comic book was terrible. Absolutely, mind-numbingly terrible.
Radiz turned over another page of Supreme Overlord #47. The artwork was decent enough—clean lines, vibrant colors, professionally rendered explosions—but the writing... Christ, the writing made him want to throw the thing across his cramped studio apartment.
"And now, foolish heroes," declared the villain on page twelve, a generic megalomaniac in a purple cape called Doctor Dominion, "you shall witness the TRUE POWER of my Omega Ray! For you see, I have spent YEARS perfecting this device, years of careful planning and—"
"Just fire the fucking thing," Radiz muttered, sprawled across his secondhand couch with a half-empty energy drink balanced on his chest. The digital clock on his microwave read 2:47 AM, but insomnia had become his closest companion since graduating with a philosophy degree that proved as useful as a torch inside sun.
Doctor Dominion continued his monologue for another full page. The heroes—some knockoff Justice League called the "Freedom Force"—stood frozen in their obvious trap, listening with the patience of saints to their captor's elaborate explanation of exactly how he planned to kill them and why they deserved it.
"This is what's wrong with the world," Radiz said to his empty apartment, sitting up and gesturing at the comic with genuine irritation. "Nobody just 'acts' anymore. Everyone has to explain themselves, justify their choices and make sure everyone understands their brilliant plan before they execute it. It's like they're all addicted to their own voices."
He flipped ahead, skimming through more panels of Doctor Dominion's self-centered speech. The villain had apparently reached peak arrogance, standing atop his doomsday device with arms spread wide, practically masturbating to his own brilliance while completely ignoring the obvious escape route his prisoners could take if they had even half a brain cell between them.
"'You cannot stop me, for I am inevitable!'" Radiz read aloud in a mocking voice. "'I am the superior intellect that will reshape this world according to my vision!' Jesus, does anyone actually talk like this? What kind of shitty cring is this? Has this writer ever met a human being?"
The frustration wasn't new. Ever since childhood, Radiz had been noting the stupidity he witnessed in fiction and reality alike. Bad guys who explained their plans instead of executing them. Heroes who refused to kill mass murderers out of some misguided moral superiority. Politicians who spoke in circles without saying anything. People everywhere, drunk on their own importance, completely oblivious to how transparent their bullshit really was.
But this comic... this comic was somehow worse than usual. Doctor Dominion's arrogance felt particularly grating tonight, his smug superiority so exaggerated it made Radiz's teeth ache. The character stood there in his purple cape, arms raised like some messiah of mediocrity, completely convinced of his own power while being too stupid to notice the giant red self-destruct button literally glowing behind him.
"If I could reach through this page," Radiz growled, "I'd show you what power actually looks like, you pretentious piece of—"
The comic book split down the middle.
Not torn—split. Like reality had developed a crack right through the center of page fourteen, with actual space visible through the gap. Cold air rushed out of the crack.
Radiz dropped the comic, but it didn't fall. The two halves hung suspended in midair, the split widening like a mouth opening to speak. Through the gap, he could see movement—actual figures in purple and red, gesturing and shouting in what looked like an enormous metallic chamber.
"What the hell..."
Doctor Dominion's voice drifted through the opening, tiny but unmistakable: "—cannot comprehend the scope of my genius! My Omega Ray will—"
The sound cut off as Radiz instinctively reached toward the gap. His fingers passed through what should have been empty air and touched something solid—the edge of a metal railing. The moment his skin made contact, the world lurched.
Reality folded in on itself like origami in reverse. Radiz's living room stretched and compressed, his couch becoming a ribbon of fabric and foam that spiraled into the comic's pages. The walls turned transparent, then dissolved entirely, and suddenly he was falling upward through a tunnel of white light and scattered panels.
He landed hard on a metal platform, the impact driving the air from his lungs. Loud horns wailed in the distance. Overhead, massive screens displayed writing in languages he didn't recognize. And thirty feet away, exactly as depicted in the comic, Doctor Dominion stood atop his Omega Ray device with his arms spread wide in theatrical triumph.
"—world will BOW before the might of—" The villain stopped mid-sentence, his dramatic pose faltering as he noticed Radiz sprawled on his platform. "Who... who are you? How did you get past my security?"
Radiz pushed himself to his feet, still in shock from what was happening. This wasn't possible. This couldn't be happening. But the cold metal under his hands felt real enough, and the smell of chemicals was definitely not something his imagination would have added.
"I..." Radiz started, then stopped. A strange calm settled over him as he looked around the chamber. Everything was exactly as depicted in the comic—the imprisoned heroes in their energy cage, the massive doomsday device humming with power, even the ridiculously obvious self-destruct button glowing red behind Doctor Dominion's back.
And there was the villain himself, no longer a two-dimensional drawing but a flesh-and-blood person wearing an actual purple cape. His face showed the same arrogant sneer Radiz had been staring at moments before, but now there was confusion mixed with the superiority complex.
"Answer me, interloper!" Doctor Dominion demanded, pointing dramatically. "State your business in my inner sanctum!"
These words made Radiz flare up in anger.
Even faced with an impossible situation—a stranger materializing from nowhere—this megalomaniacal moron couldn't deviate from his script. He had to make it dramatic. He had to pose. He had to use words like "interloper" and "sanctum" because apparently talking like a normal human being would diminish his self-image.
And in that moment, looking at Doctor Dominion's confused but still arrogant expression, Radiz understood something about the situation. This wasn't just some bizarre dream or hallucination. This was also an opportunity.
"My business?" Radiz said slowly, testing his voice in this new space. "I'm here to watch you superb work, Doctor. Please, don't let me interrupt your brilliant plan."
Doctor Dominion preened at the compliment, his confusion instantly forgotten in the words of compliments. "Yes... yes, of course you would want to witness my triumph! Even my enemies recognize greatness when they see it!"
The villain immediately launched back into his monologue, explaining for the thousandth time how his Omega Ray would reshape the world according to his vision. But Radiz wasn't listening anymore. He was thinking.
If this was real—and the evidence suggested it was—then he was standing inside a fictional universe. Not just observing it, but actually present within it. But what did that mean, exactly?
Radiz stared at the energy cage holding the heroes, remembering how he'd always thought those containment fields looked ridiculously fragile in the comics. Almost like they were held together by nothing more than the writer's need for plot convenience. What if...?
He focused on one of the energy conduits, imagining it flickering. Just a small test.
The conduit sparked and died.
Doctor Dominion paused mid-monologue, glancing at the failing power relay with mild annoyance. "Minor technical difficulty! The brilliance of my plan remains—"
Radiz's heart hammered in his chest. That wasn't coincidence. He'd made that happen. But how far did it go?
He imagined the entire left wall of the containment field simply... not working anymore.
Half the energy cage vanished like someone had erased it from existence.
The heroes stumbled forward in shock as their prison partially collapsed. Doctor Dominion spun around, his dramatic pose forgotten. "What? How is this—my quantum matrix is flawless!"
"Not quite," Radiz whispered, and it all came to him like a revelation.
He wasn't just inside a comic book. He was inside a world where he could change reality itself.
The realization should have been terrifying. It Should have sent him into shock or denial. Instead, Radiz felt a cold sadistic joy settle over him as he tested the limits of his newfound ability.
The remaining energy cage? Gone with a thought.
Doctor Dominion's cape? Now bright pink instead of purple.
The Omega Ray's targeting system? Randomly cycling through children's cartoon channels.
Each change felt natural, like he was simply correcting obvious errors in a badly written story. Because that's exactly what this was—a badly written story that he finally had the power to fix.
"Impossible!" Doctor Dominion shrieked, his voice cracking as he watched his master plan crumble around him. "My calculations were perfect! My genius is unmatched!"
"You dumb fuck," Radiz said, walking closer as he experimented with small reality adjustments—making the floor ripple like water under his feet, turning the air around the villain into a light pink mist, "By the time you finish monologuing, everyone else would have died of old age."
With each step, each casual demonstration of power that made the self-proclaimed genius look like a confused child, Radiz felt something dark and satisfying uncurl in his chest. This pompous fool had spent pages upon pages declaring his superiority, his inevitable victory, his intellectual dominance.
Now he was just another confused character in a story that Radiz could rewrite at will.
Doctor Dominion was building toward his crescendo now, arms raised toward the ceiling as he proclaimed his inevitable victory over all who opposed him. Peak arrogance, exactly like the comic had depicted. But now Radiz was here to witness it in person.
To reshape it entirely.
Reality bent to his will like clay in the hands of a master sculptor. The entire chamber transformed in an instant—walls became mirrors reflecting Doctor Dominion's confused face back at him infinitely. The Omega Ray device twisted into an water gun. The ceiling opened up to reveal not the sky, but the pages of the comic book itself, giant panels stretching into infinity above them.
"What... what is this?" Doctor Dominion gasped, no longer floating upside-down but instead standing on a platform that had become a massive chessboard, with pieces that looked exactly like him scattered across its surface.
With a gesture, he created a pocket dimension around the villain—a space where Doctor Dominion's "brilliant" monologues would echo back at him for eternity, where every word of his grandiose speeches would be the only sound he'd ever hear again. A perfect prison for someone addicted to the sound of his own voice.
The heroes of the Freedom Force stood frozen, not by any containment field, but by the sheer impossibility of what they were witnessing. Reality itself was being rewritten.
"Don't worry," Radiz told them casually, snapping his fingers to restore the chamber to its original state—minus the villain, who now existed in his custom-made hell. "I'm not interested in you. You're not arrogant enough to be worth my time."
And in that moment of absolute power, standing in a space he had reshaped according to his whims, Radiz understood exactly what he wanted to do with this gift.
Find the most arrogant, self-important villains across every fictional universe he could access.
And teach them what real power looked like.