WHEN THEY ALL LAUNCHED I BECAME THEIR GOD

Chapter 2

Maxwell nodded slowly. “Smart. Dead men can't contest anything.” He gestured to the guards. 

“Do it.”

“Wait, wait—I'll sign!" Damian tried to crawl forward, his ruined hand leaving a blood streak on the concrete. "Please, I'll—”

The first punch caught him in the ribs. He heard the snap before he felt it, then the pain hit like a freight train. Another punch to his kidney, and his body locked up. The third one slammed into his sternum, and something inside him gave way with a wet pop.

They weren't just beating him. They were using some kind of technique, each strike hitting pressure points that made the damage spread like poison through his body. Iron Fist, they called it in the underground fights. One punch could shatter bone.

They hit him six more times.

Damian collapsed onto his side, blood pouring from his mouth in thick streams. He tried to breathe, but his lungs wouldn't fill. Something was wrong inside, something torn and bleeding where it shouldn't be.

Megan walked over, her heels clicking on the concrete. She picked up the sledgehammer the guard had dropped.

“This is for wasting three years of my life.”

She swung.

His right hand exploded in a firework of pain. Damian tried to scream, but only a gurgling sound came out. Blood bubbled at his lips.

“And this,” Megan said, raising the hammer again, “is for making me think I'd be stuck with you forever.”

The hammer came down on his chest.

At that moment Damian's vision went white. He couldn't breathe at all now, couldn't even gasp. His lungs had collapsed, or his ribs had punctured them. Maybe both. The taste of blood filled his mouth completely.

Through the haze, he heard Maxwell's voice. “His organs are destroyed. Heart, lungs, kidney, liver. He only has two minutes, maybe less."

“Good.” Megan dropped the hammer next to Damian's head. “Let's go.”

Their footsteps echoed as they walked toward the warehouse exit. Damian tried to lift his head, tried to speak, but his body wouldn't obey anymore.

“Megan.” It came out as barely a whisper.

She stopped. Turned halfway.

“Emma,” Damian choked out. “Please. What's going to happen to Emma?”

For a second, something flickered across Megan's face. Then it was gone, replaced by cold indifference.

“That little brat who carries your worthless blood?” She walked back to Maxwell, pressing herself against him. “If she starves, someone will find her eventually. Or they won't. Either way, she's not my problem.” She kissed Maxwell, long and slow, making sure Damian could see. When she pulled back, she smiled. “We have a private jet waiting, baby. Let's go to New York.”

Maxwell glanced at Damian one last time. “He's got ninety seconds. He'll bleed out internally before anyone finds him.” He took Megan's hand. “Come on.”

The warehouse door slammed shut.

Damian lay there in the spreading pool of his own blood, his broken hands useless at his sides, his chest barely moving. Each heartbeat sent pain through his entire body, and he could feel each one getting weaker.

This couldn't be how it ended. Not like this. Not with Emma alone in their apartment, waiting for a father who would never come home.

He'd promised his mother, before she died. He'd promised he'd take care of them both. That he'd be the man they deserved.

He'd failed.

At that moment hot tears mixed with the blood on his face. “If I could just have one more chance,” he whispered to no one. “Just one chance to make this right. To protect Emma. To fix my mistakes.”

His vision started going dark at the edges. His heartbeat stuttered, missing beats. The cold concrete beneath him felt almost warm now, which he knew was a bad sign.

This was it. This was dying.

The ring on the chain around his neck shifted as his body convulsed. The thin silver band, the only thing he had from whoever had left him as a baby. It had always felt warm against his skin, but he'd never known why.

Immediately It touched the blood pooled beneath him, light exploded behind Damian's eyes.

[SYSTEM ACTIVATED]

[HOST DETECTED]

[COMPATIBILITY: 100%]

[HOST PHYSICAL DAMAGE: CRITICAL]

[INITIATING EMERGENCY PROTOCOL]

A voice rang in his head, cold and mechanical but somehow alive. However Damian tried to focus, but his vision kept swimming in and out.

[HOST BODY FAILURE IMMINENT]

[TIME TO DEATH: 18 SECONDS]

[ACCEPT SYSTEM INTEGRATION TO ENABLE EMERGENCY HEALING?]

[YES / NO]

What the hell was this? Damian's thoughts came slow and thick, like moving through mud. Some kind of hallucination? His brain shutting down, showing him impossible things before the end?

[TIME TO DEATH: 12 SECONDS]

But what if it wasn't? What if this was real? He didn't want to die. He couldn't die. Not with Emma alone out there, not with everything left undone.

With the last bit of strength in his body, Damian thought: Yes.

[SYSTEM INTEGRATION ACCEPTED]

[EMERGENCY HEALING PROTOCOL ACTIVATED]

[RECONSTRUCTING HOST BODY]

Immediately heat flooded through Damian's veins, burning away the cold that had been settling into his bones. The pain in his chest shifted, changed from agony to something else. Pressure. Movement. Like someone was physically putting his organs back together from the inside.

His broken ribs clicked as they reset themselves. The punctured lung in his chest re-inflated with a sound like tearing fabric. His shattered hands burned white-hot as bone fragments shifted, aligned, fused back together.

Damian gasped, and air actually filled his lungs this time. Real air, not blood.

[RECONSTRUCTION PROGRESS: 47%]

His kidney knitted itself back together. His liver stopped bleeding. The internal hemorrhaging slowed, stopped, reversed. Blood that had been pooling in places it shouldn't be got reabsorbed, redirected, put back where it belonged.

[RECONSTRUCTION PROGRESS: 73%]

The pain didn't stop, but it changed quality. Not the pain of dying anymore, but the deep ache of healing too fast, bones and tissue being forced back into place at impossible speed.

[RECONSTRUCTION PROGRESS: 91%]

Damian's heart, which had been stuttering and weak, suddenly slammed against his ribs with the force of a drum. Once. Twice. Three times, strong and steady.

[RECONSTRUCTION COMPLETE]

[HOST BODY RESTORED TO OPTIMAL CONDITION]

The mechanical voice faded, and Damian lay there on the blood-soaked concrete, breathing hard. His hands, which had been mangled ruins five minutes ago, flexed normally, no pain, no broken bones either.

He pushed himself up to sitting, then to his feet. His legs held. His chest didn't scream in agony.

He was alive.

More than alive. He felt better than he had in years, like every ache and pain and old injury had been wiped clean.

immediately a translucent blue screen appeared in front of his eyes, floating in midair.

[SYSTEM INITIALIZATION COMPLETE]

[WELCOME, HOST]