{“*Sigh...* Tell them to clean this up. I want no trace pointing towards me.”}

{“Yes sir.”}

The blurry voice came from Matthias’ computer. The owner was focusing on the conversation between Lex Luthor and his assistant, talking about Carmen Grant being incarcerated.

“So in the end, it was really you, huh.”

After eavesdropping for several minute, Matthias has found out that it is indeed Luthor who has been ordering Carmen Grant to open the black market auction to sell fake artifacts, and it was also him who paid Carmen a small piece of Kryptonite rock for the deal. But out of all that, there was no mention on what he is planning, not to mention anything about the Spear of Destiny.

“There’s no way someone like him would not plan on something big. But right now, speculations are all I have, and I have no time to deal with him yet.”

Matthias then stood up, and approached the workbench behind him. On it were a glass container of Kryptonian material containing two small Kryptonite crystals; one from LexCorp Tower and another from Carmen Grant, and lastly, two small Nth metal rocks and an Nth metal ring.

The most valuable of these? The Nth metal stuffs.

“Whatever amazing properties these Nth metal things have, I can even feel it’s surge of power from here.”

Being so close to the Nth metal rocks and the ring, Matthias can feel it empowering him.

Matthias took the ring and inspected it; it looks very ancient, and the outside part looks extremely crude looking. There were circular markings on the top part which follows intricately along the outer side. Everything about the ring screams ancient Egypt.

But there’s one more thing that made the ring looks special; it glows. No, not just the ring, but the Nth metal rocks themselves are all glowing, all in their red-white-yellowish glow, and even more so when they are put closer together, to which the empowering feelings Matthias felt increases even further.

“Let’s see… effects include: regeneration, power enhancement, … what else is there?”
Trying to remember the full potential of the ring, Matthias recalled his past life as someone from outside the DC Universe. But, he still can’t fully remember what powers and abilities Nth metal-made items can grant.

“Tsk, don’t blame me, alright? I’m not a total nerd for DC Comics. I’m just an adoring fan.”
Much as it is a shame that Matthias can’t remember well, all he can do right now was testing the ring by himself.

“Well… here we go then. *Huff…* this is making me nervous. To think that I can wear some unobtanium accessories that can’t be found on the real world like this one. I can well say that my life is one step closer to completion…”

As he put it on, Matthias can feel as if his body became a lot lighter, not as in he can feel stronger or perhaps healthier, but rather he felt as if there’s no weight on him.

“Gravity negation then, how interesting.”

As he focused to feel the changes on his body, he can sense his body temperature rising a little bit.

“I feel warmer… I guess I set the AC too low in this room. Anyways, this thing can regulate temperature. Noted.”

Matthias then took out a cutter on the workbench, and pulled the blade out. He then breathes in and out to prepare.

“… I really hate pain…” he mumbled, and then he slashed one of his fingers. “Urgh, wow, it hurts a lot more when you do it yourself, huh.”

As the blood drips slowly, Matthias noticed how quickly and noticeable his wound regenerate.

In three seconds, the open slash on his finger closes. No scars at all.

“That actually wasn’t so bad at all.”
Having enough testing the ring, Matthias then pulled it out of his finger.
… Only for it to be stuck.

With groans and moans, Matthias tried to forcefully pull the ring out. He increased his strength and kept pulling.

“Gehh… why is it stuck?”
After a while, Matthias stopped to inspect the ring if there’s anything jamming it from inside.

It was then that the ring somehow shone brighter, blinding Matthias as he fell on his butt. He can feel his head heating up, stinging pains all over his body, all the while Matthias grunts to contain all this strange new sensation, which actually only took several seconds that felt like hours.

Then… Matthias can feel his mind clearing, like the fog that sometimes clouds one’s thoughts and perception were being removed, and that an additional eye that can see another spectrum of colors emerged from within his mind.

Images and visions popping in his head. They are… worlds… similar to this world he’s in. But, they are also different. One vision shows an all-out war against a force not from Earth, and as Matthias kept watching the vision, he can see that this war was fought by the Justice League against the forces of Apokolips’ Parademons and their general, Steppenwolf.

‘It’s… from the DCEU Movie?’ Thought Matthias as he kept watching the vision. The dark scenery from the hordes of Parademons intimidates Matthias so much, he felt like a tiny speck of dust beneath the forces of the Apokolips.

Then, the vision stops, and then resumed once again but on a different world.

This time, the scenery was actually almost the same, with all the Parademons flooding the skies, and the world shrouded in their shadows, and this time it was not the Apokolips general who’s leading them… but gigantic figure of Darkseid, the supreme leader and one of the new gods himself.

Against all the forces of the true apocalypse like Darkseid, Matthias can’t see nor detect any sort of opposition against them. No Justice League, no Superman, … none.

Except…

One person was actually fighting him. In within the vision, he focused his eyes to look into the one person facing Darkseid. He was young… very young. He could very well see that he could the of the same age. But, he also looks uncannily similar as him.

‘He… he looks just like me. Another me from another timeline? But, how?’

The booming battle ends, and Darkseid appeared from the shattering clouds with his hand holding someone by his head. It was the young man who looked like Matthias.

“... there is only one of you on this planet. You cannot hope to defeat me. And now, your world will watch as I destroy their only hope!” Declared Darkseid as his voice booms the sky. Matthias tried to focus to hear him, but he can only hear some part.

Just as Darkseid let out his menacing grin with his eyes glowing with the surge of the Omega Beam, the vision stops.

‘Wa-wait! NO! I must see what happened then! DAMMIT! Did Darkseid ended up winning? Who’s that young man who fought him? FUCK! Is my Earth also going to be Darkseid’s target?’

Frustrated from being unable to see the end of the fight, Matthias inwardly cursed. The vision of an enemy as strong as Darkseid invading Earth made him more and more paranoid.

And then, another vision pops up. This time, it was the vision of this Earth, and it was sometime in the past. Matthias see firsthand the scene of his rampage on Suicide Slum but from a third-person view, and it was gruesome and terrifying. He felt as if that time he let himself embracing vengeance as a tool to kill was extremely ugly and corrupting.

But then¸ on the sky above him, some sort of a rift or a portal opened up, revealing in the inside someone who… looked like him?

‘Wait… it’s him isn’t it?’

Before Matthias can focus, the portal closes too quickly.

But…

The scar that opened the rift was still there, somewhere in the Slums.

‘That might be some sort of an interdimensional scar or something. Perhaps one day I can open that to pay that other ‘me’ a visit.’

Just after that thought end, the vision stops. And then, before there can be another visions popping up, Matthias tries once again to forcefully pull the ring off of his finger.

*Plop*
And the ring was removed.

On the floor, Matthias held his head with both of his hands, and he puked.

“Eugh… Argh…” he heaved and puffed to catch his breath. “So… what now.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Several days later…

Matthias went to campus with his friends, Robert McCormick and Annie Morton.

After class; Matthias, Robert, and Annie were on their way around the campus to head for the cafeteria as per-usual. The walk past the campus’ stadium, and find out that it’s almost packed with people.

“It’s really stacked up nowadays… the football stadium, I mean.” Annie stated.

“Well, it’s a given that it’s gonna be packed, considering that one of the famous local footballer is visiting the stadium.” Robbie explained.

“Oh? Who’s that?” Matthias asked.

“I mean, did you not read the sports news? It’s Victor Stone, dude… the High school football star. I heard that he received many football scholarships on several Universities; one of which was the Metropolis University, and another was in Gotham I think.” Robert explained with a hint of excitement.

“… you sound like you’re a fan of him.”

“What the hell do you mean ‘I sound like’? I AM a fan!”

With Matthias and Robert’s banter, Annie can only laugh on the back.

‘Victor Stone, huh? One day you’ll be Cyborg. I know I could save you from becoming it, but I’d rather the world have one more hero than losing it.’

After several minutes of walking around the campus, Matthias excused himself to go somewhere else.

“Oh come on, you’ve been so distant lately. We haven’t even had our lunch yet.” Moaned Robert.

“Matthias… is there something wrong? You’ve been looking like you’re always thinking of something.” Said Annie.

Matthias scratched his head,
“Ummm, well…”

“Heeeere’s the thing, buddy-o’-mine,” said Robert he wrapped his arm on Matthias’ neck, “We are always here for you… so if there’s anything we can do to help you, we will, ‘kay?”

Annie nodded with Robert’s statement, and Matthias can only smile wryly seeing how genuine his friends are.

“*Sigh…* thanks guys. I promise to ask for your help the next time.”

As Matthias left his friends, he made a personal list of “People he must protect” in his mind.

‘They may not be relevant characters in the DC Universe, but they sure leave an impression of great friends.’

With that, Matthias dashed away from the campus.