It was a blazing hot afternoon in Owasso, Oklahoma, and William was walking home from a particularly hard day at work.
For some reason, multiple people had decided to call in that day, and he and several others were forced to pick up the slack, the effort leaving them and him drenched in a layer of sweat.
"I cannot wait to give those lazy bastards a piece of my mind!"
William gritted his teeth after he said this, his molars creaking and threatening to crack under the pressure.
He let out a sigh and leaned against the wall of his gated apartment complex and lifted one of his swollen feet.
"Hiss..."
The pain flared sharply as he massaged his ankle, feeling as if he had shards of broken glass in the joint.
After a moment that felt like minutes William limped towards the gate, his hand entering his pocket where he kept his key fob.
CLICK...
The gate began opening with the groan of rusted metal and he stepped through, but before he can walk too far into the complex his ears twitch.
"Oh my God help..."
William turned his head towards the source of the cry and saw three men standing in a triangle formation around a woman who visibly shook as she clutched her torn shirt in an attempt to hide her chest from the three men's lustful gazes.
The man on the right, a rotund, pale man with a small knife in his hand, licked his lips as he leered at her bountiful chest.
"Hehehe hey boss, mind if we get a piece after you are done?"
The man on the left, a tall but scrawny man with sunburned skin, held a baseball bat in one hand while the other made lewd gestures towards the woman, all the while his tongue lashed outside his dry and cracked lips.
"Yeah boss, we want to get a taste, they always taste better after giving up!"
The man in the center, clearly in charge of the two men on either side wore a sadistic smirk, his eyes gleaming ominously with rapacious intent.
He slid one of his hands into his suit pocket before sauntering over to the woman and forcibly lifting her head to meet his gaze.
"You should be honored, not every little bitch has the privilege of catching my eye!"
Her eyes flickered between fear and rage after hearing what he said, and after settling on rage, she turned her head forcibly away from his touch.
"Don't touch me bastard!"
Her eyes fell upon William in the distance, and her rage-filled eyes gave way to a pleading gaze that made William subconsciously step forward, ignoring the pulsing pain emanating from his feet.
William felt an insurmountable urge to stop these men and save the damsel, and upon taking a few steps, he spoke with a voice filled with all the authority and bravado he could muster.
"Hey, leave her alone this instant, I'll call the police!"
His voice caused the three men to subconsciously flinch, but when seeing that William had neither a weapon nor his phone on hand, their expressions became vicious.
The rotund man on the right was the first to step forward, knife waving with intent as he approached William.
"You made a mistake trying to be a hero, haven't you heard, no good deed goes unpunished?"
The rotund man came close enough to strike as he said this, his off-hand reaching for Williams' collar.
William did not wait for the knife wielding man to grab him and delivered an elbow to the large man's sternum sending him crashing to the ground while struggling to pull oxygen into his lungs.
The lanky man with the wooden bat rushed up and swung his weapon toward William's head.
"Die bastard!"
William ducked beneath the swing causing the lanky man to overshoot and rushed to tackle the man who had yet to recover.
CRASH...
The man crashed into a collection of metal trashcans causing a uproariously loud sound to echo out through the complex.
THUD...
THUD...
CRACK...
William punched the lanky man in the face three times, the third causing the man's nose to break, blood beginning to leak profusely before suddenly.
BANG...
A gunshot echoed, forcing William to cease striking the scrawny man and look up.
The man who was clearly in charge of the large and skinny man was holding the woman by her slender neck while his other hand held a pistol in the air, with smoke trailing upwards from the barrel.
"You think that you are some kind of hero huh, haven't you read comics before? Don't you know that heroes are meant to suffer?"
The suited man turned his head towards the woman and squeezed causing her to gasp for breath.
William rose off the groaning, skinny thug and was about to lunge at the suited man, but before William could even take a second step, the suited man placed the barrel of his pistol against her temple, causing him to stop abruptly.
"Bastard... Release her now, do you think that the police haven't already been notified about the gunshot?"
The rotund and scrawny man grabbed William on either side and forced him to his knees with a series of blows that left him dazed and bruised.
However the mention of police caused a slight change in the suited expression.
He stepped before William and gestured for his underlings to cease beating him all the while dragging the helpless woman by her throat.
William felt the cold steel of the gun press against his head and unconsciously shivered.
"You know what, you are right!"
BANG...
William's felt as if time had slowed to a crawl, he saw the woman scream out for him as his body fell over sideways, tears streaming down her cheeks as she rushed over to hold him in her arms.
The last thing William saw was a downpour of tears falling onto his neck before his world went completely black.
He could no longer feel the warmth of her touch, nor could he hear the sound of incoming sirens.
He also could not see the incoming paramedics who desperately tried to stem the bleeding, but to no avail.
William was gone, shuffling off his mortal coil in a desperate bid to save just one life.
As the final embers of life ebbed out, William snapped awake to find himself floating in a vast white expanse, the world so blank that direction and even time seemed more of a suggestion than a tangible reality.
Suddenly, William felt a pull on his very being.
Unable to even turn his head, if he even still had one, he had no inkling that he was merely a soul.
An indeterminate amount of time passed before William caught sight of a table with two chairs on either side, the table seemed to be made of condensed cosmic filament and the chairs made of galactic superclusters.
William was forced to sit in one such chair, his thoughts running wild as he wondered if he was in heaven, hell, or somewhere altogether different.
Suddenly, a person, if it could be called that, appeared in the opposite chair.
The being shone with a golden light that made William want to look away or shield his eyes but was unable to, despite his best efforts.
"Hello William, welcome to my realm!"
William felt as if the voice was inside his head, echoing both without and within.
As William pondered on this the golden figure reached out to the side and a glass made of what appeared to be a star appeared in his grasp and he took a sip.
After savoring the flavor of whatever godly liquid swirled within the cup, he set it upon the table and refocused on William.
William finally built the courage to speak.
"Are... Are you God?"
The golden figure seemed to smile at the question.
"I'm a god, one of many, all-powerful within the world of my own creation, like many others!"
He twirled his hand and a book appeared within his grasp a book made of everything and nothing all at once.
"A friend of mine, choosing to forsake his divine nature to live life as a mortal, has passed from the world, within his last embers of godly will he gave me dominion over his creation, a world he called the Dragon Ball world!"
His golden, sun-like eyes became distant, a hint of deep sadness coming through before he regained his godly composure.
"Anyway I'm fusing the Dragon Ball world into my world, the Marvel world, and you will be reborn into this new world!"
William felt as if his head was about to explode from all the information, but a single thought continued to scratch at the walls of his mind.
"Wait... Wait... I'm from a completely different world, is this okay?"
The golden figure grinned and used his hand to stifle a chuckle.
"Don't worry, the one you know as God and I go way back. We even fought together during the dark ages of creation."
As he spoke, his eyes seemed to lose focus, as though he were recalling a period filled with both dreadful and amazing events.
However, his bright, direct gaze quickly returned to William.
"He has already given me the thumbs up after seeing you sacrifice yourself for that woman!"
The golden figure snapped his fingers, the act causing golden sparks to ignite, and a screen appeared on the table, showing the entire event through some eagle-eyed vantage point.
William flinched as he witnessed the fateful gunshot that ended his existence in that world, and if he still had a body, his mouth would be agape.
"Was he watching the whole time?"
The scene continued after William fell, and groups of people who had heard the gunshot gathered around his body, some praying, others crying, and some with eyes filled with hatred toward the trio who had executed him.
The screen disappeared after showing the image of police roughly arresting the three men who were responsible.
"It's time, your mortal soul cannot exist in this place for too long!"
He reached out towards William's being, his finger curled into his thumb.
"I look forward to watching you find your way in this new world, young William!"
BOOM!
FWOOSH!
The deity's finger flicked into the spot where Williams' head would have been if he were not in soul form, and William was sent flying at speeds so great that he effectively went blind and deaf.
Suddenly, the white gave way to darkness once more and William lost consciousness.
In an inconceivable amount of distance away, the golden figure held his finger like a gun as a brilliant blue series of lights floated above his finger.
"I'll hold on to these memories, can't have you spoiling the plot can I?"
He puffed air at his finger as if it were a gun barrel, and the lights vanished like smoke.
"I shall enjoy seeing how you make your way through my worlds, hopefully you put on quite the interesting show!"
He took another sip of the godly liquid in his cup before he faded into golden mist along with the table and chairs.
"See you soon young William..."