Chapter 1: A good thief is a dead thief.

Michael Cordato woke up with a hell of a headache. He didn't even try to open his eyes and just let out a long groan.

The last time he felt like this was after the New Year. At the celebration, there was enough alcohol for a hundred people and only ten guys… They ended up having to buy more anyway.

He rubbed his eyes with one hand in an attempt to drive away from the pain. It helped a little but made him understand that he did not fall asleep on his comfortable bed, the hard floor could not match the softness of his mattress.

'What the fuck? Did I fall out of the bed?' He frowned. His hand returned to the floor and he stilled. The floor in his apartment was wooden and warm. What he was lying on now was as cold as stone. But the strangest thing was the perfect smoothness of the material as if it was freshly polished glass.

His eyes – well, eye – immediately opened and he got to his feet with amazing speed for a guy with a hangover. His body got itself into a fighting stance. But as soon as his mind was able to realize where he was, he stopped.

There was endless darkness around him and the only thing that Michael could see was the white floor. How he could see the floor in such darkness, he didn't know, but he knew for sure that this floor was white as snow. He also realized one interesting thing: he was completely naked.

'So. I am God knows where. My prosthetic is nowhere to be seen and I'm standing here with my bare ass. Wonderful. Just perfect.' Michael took a deep breath and slowly let it out. He closed his eye and pinched his leg. When he peeked around the darkness was still there.

His eye twitched in annoyance. He began making a mental list of everyone who would like to get his ass handed to him but stopped when he the list reached a second dozen. There were too many people he had pissed off.

"Just wonderful." He rubbed his forehead and dropped his hand down heavily.

"Oh, you’re awake?" A woman's voice sounded from somewhere above. "Wait a bit, I'm dealing with another problem."

Michael’s head snapped up where a familiar black void met him.

"... What the fuck?"

This time no one answered him. The teen took a deep breath and let it out to calm his nerves. He closed his eye and slowly counted to ten. Unfortunately, his eye was still twitching.

'Dealing with another problem.' He mused. 'I guess it means I'm a problem too. Well, at least it's nothing new.'

After a couple of minutes of waiting, Michael heard that voice again.

"This can be a little disorienting, so get ready."

The space around the teenager immediately changed and he found himself in someone's office. The first thing he noticed was a woman sitting at a dark wooden table. She had the most ordinary face that you will forget in a couple of seconds after watching away. She was so ordinary that her white pupilless eyes looked very out of place.

"Well, now that you're here, we can start. Where do you all keep coming from…?" The woman murmured to herself as she placed her hands on the table and intervened her fingers.

Michael just kept staring at her for a couple of seconds. "Okay. I'll say it again. What the fuck?" He said trying to keep his voice calm.

"Let me explain and don't try to kill me. You wouldn't be able to, even if you tried, so don’t waste our time."

The teenager tilted his head and narrowed his eye. The woman simply waved her hand and some clothes appeared on Michael's body. Well, now he was pretty sure he was on hard drugs and everything here was just a hallucination.

"Not a hallucination – a mental projection. If you saw my regular office, you'd go crazy. Now, I won't keep you waiting any longer, you're dead." The woman said in a conversational tone. You would think that it was just a business meeting. Well, for her it certainly was.

Michael’s eye stopped twitching. Small miracles.

"Usually in such cases, you go under the supervision of the God in whom you believed. Christians go to hell or heaven, atheists go into oblivion because they do not believe in any God, and so on. You would have gone to Loki, but unfortunately, this is not possible."

Now he was one hundred percent sure that if it wasn’t a hallucination then at least some very fucking weird effects of concussion. No one knew about his belief in the Scandinavian God. He never told a single soul.

While the woman spoke, Michael decided to look around. The left wall was filled with completely black books, but other than that, there was nothing in the office. The woman had a gold plate with her name on the table.

{Jasmine. The Grim Reaper.}

Michael blinked.

Jasmine sighed heavily and turned her head slightly in his direction. Michael's headache immediately disappeared, as if it had never existed in the first place. Unfortunately, this didn't fix the mess in his mind, bits of his memories were still missing.

"I don't blame you for not trusting me, but that's the truth."

Michael sighed again and sat down opposite Jasmine. If this was a hallucination, then he would wake up soon, if not, then fuck.

"Why can’t you send my soul to Loki?"

"Because your soul ended up in the wrong universe. The world itself wanted to get rid of you, so now you are here." Jasmine raised an eyebrow. "Since you were born in that universe, and not in the one you should have been originally, I cannot send you further."

The eye twitching was back. Not good. "How did this even happen?"

Jasmine rubbed her temples and looked down at the table – not that it was so noticeable, no pupils and all that.

"The God who watched over your universe decided to experiment and accidently erased himself from existence. Therefore, when your soul left the regular cycle of reincarnation and entered his universe, no one knew. For a hundred years no one noticed the God's disappearance. And then you died. So, the Divine Office is quite a mess right now."

Michael couldn't help but laugh at the words 'Divine Office'. He quickly removed the grin from his face when he felt Jasmine's glare at him. How the fuck she could do that without pupils, was a mystery. But Jasmine serious and it made the situation even stranger than it was before.

"Even Gods have bureaucracy." She stated calmly.

Michael shuddered. If that’s what was happening in the ordinary office, he could not even imagine what was going on in the Divine one.

Jasmine didn't need to imagine this. She knew perfectly well how… unusual their office was.

"So," Michael started, "what now?"

Coking her head, Jasmine looked at him hard. "The best I can offer is for you to search for your original universe. We don't know what world you were supposed to be born in, your paperwork was destroyed along with that God, so…" She trailed off meaningfully.

You are reading story Journey Home – Starting Line at novel35.com

For the first time in their conversation, sympathy appeared on Jasmine's face. Michael just slumped in his chair and stared at the ceiling.

"You have to find your universe if you ever want to die normally and go to rest." Jasmine said, surprisingly soft.

Michael's head lolled back to look at her. "What happens if I die again in another world?"

An unreadable emotion flickered in Jasmine's eyes. Not really fear and not hate, but… uneasiness? Michael couldn't say for sure.

"The Void."

The very word made Michael's insides turn, so he decided that he did not want to be there. He did have some instinct of self-preservation. "And if I refuse, I will be sent to this Void." It wasn't a question, not really.

"Yes."

He fell silent and the room was quiet for several minutes. "How am I going to travel through universes? I doubt that you can just give me an ability to rip through time and space." He said sarcastically.

Jasmine gave him a look. Michael curved his lips in a semblance of a smile. Jasmine sighed. "In each universe, there is a World Gate that leads to other universes – be it a machine or an ancient door, anything can be a Gate." She tilted her head and added. "A few people can overcome time and space and travel between universes and take you with them. They are Gods to some extent, so they are capable of this from birth. You need to find one of two."

Michael nodded in understanding. "Luckily, your body was not destroyed, so I can repair it and send it to another universe. Unfortunately, this may result in minor changes."

"Can you regrow my arm?" He asked in hope. Jasmine tilted her head and looked with interest at his stump.

"I can, but I was under the impression that you would’ve preferred to keep your metal one?" She sounded almost curious.

Michael wrinkled his nose. "Only for sentimental reasons, really. But if I end up in a medieval kind of world, then I’m fucked. So, thanks, no thanks, I’d rather have my arm back."

"Of course, I can do it." Jasmine said flippantly. "Anything else?"

Grinning internally, Michael celebrated his small victory. He was hoping that he could restore his arm, but now he didn't even have to do anything!

"Can I choose which world I will start my journey in? Any special abilities?" Michael leaned forward.

"Yes, and yes. However, you can only choose two abilities belonging to the world you choose."

This made Michael frown. Yes, he could choose some world full of OP powers, but then his chances of survival will be close to zero. For example, if he chose some Marvel world and two abilities from there, then a bunch of people would immediately notice him – he had never been interested in Marvel much and therefore he knew very little, so that's another problem. It also took away all the worlds that he knew practically nothing about.

So, Michael chose a world he knew enough about to survive and learn how to control his abilities before going on to the next. "Avatar: The Last Airbender. Waterbending and Airbending." He chose this particular world and abilities for several reasons.

Michael still remembered ATLA's history well enough to know that most Benders couldn't kill him with one hit – he was too experienced for that shit. His chances of meeting someone at the Fire Lord level were slim, and his chances of meeting Spirits were even less. His Bendings were chosen for their potential. Michael remembered theories that with Waterbending one could strengthen their body through blood, and with Airbending he could fly…

Yes, he chose Airbending for that sole reason, sue him.

He could also learn Healing and Hyper Sensitivity from these styles. His senses would be so good that only Stealth Gods could sneak up on him. He would be able to achieve much more with enough training. The only problem was time.

Jasmine hummed. "An interesting choice. You will be ageless after twenty-one and until you reach your original World, so don't worry about that. Unfortunately, that means you'll be stuck at this age."

And so, his time problem was resolved. How convenient…

"Oh, can you give me some things I'll need on my journey? I wouldn't want to wake up naked in the middle of nowhere." Michael grimaced. "Again."

A rather large black bag appeared in front of Michael. He peeked inside. A couple of regular black outfits – 'Wow, even the Grim Reaper thinks I have no taste.' – a tent, money from all four Nations, several knives and a maintenance kit, a first-aid kit, a few meters of rope, a lighter, and a pack of cigarettes – an endless one at that. He raised an eyebrow seeing the pack.

"Can I die from cancer?" Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back, after all. In this case quite literally.

Jasmine shook her head slowly, as if amused. "Not anymore."

Michael startled. "Wait, you mean I had cancer?" Now, that was a bummer.

"Yes. I told you – the world wanted to get rid of you," she shrugged, "you were just too lucky."

Michael looked at his stump and remaining arm, full of scars. "Lucky. Yeah… That's one way to put it… Why can't I remember parts of my life?"

"You were shot in the head; your brain was damaged. It's a miracle that you remember anything." He decided not to ask about the Wolverine-level explanation.

Thinking for a few moments, Michael cocked his head. "Will I be able to bring other beings with me to other worlds?"

Jasmine nodded. "You can, but only if they truly want to leave their world. This requires either an immortal loyalty to you or a strong hatred for the world. I think you know what is better."

Michael nodded and began to think. In order to survive in the multiverse, he needed strength. Lots of power and control. This could be achieved in two ways: he had to become so strong that it would be impossible to even touch him without premission or to create an army for himself. And seeing that he couldn't bring a whole army with him to another world, he would need training. Well, he could do that. If he didn't get killed as soon as he appeared in the new world, then everything would be fine. Hopefully. "Well, I think I'm ready."

Jasmine smiled and got up from the table. She walked over to Michael and put her hand on his head. Her fingers lit up with green light that absorbed into Michael's head in a couple of seconds. It took him a moment to realize that his remaining memories changed. Now he could every language he had ever heard – and that one Frenchman had called him a bitch. Bastard. Michael should have punched him when he had the chance.

"If you ever meet Siri and Luna, tell them that I'm happy for them. Goodbye Michael Cordato." Jasmine snapped her fingers.

Michael didn't have time to say anything as the world in his eyes began to darken until it turned black.

Her eyes ran over the indescribable shapes of her real furniture and walls. The mental projection did not convey the real horror of her surroundings and, if she had a choice, she would also prefer to look at something else. But alas, her gaze could see through any illusion.

"I need a vacation." She muttered. Jasmine was again left completely alone in her office.

"HEY! IS ANYONE HERE?!" A panicked voice yelled.

But not for long.

Jasmine sighed heavily and sat down at her desk again. Her problems weren't going to end anytime soon. Well, at least this soul wouldn't reincarnate, it was a relief.

You can find story with these keywords: Journey Home – Starting Line, Read Journey Home – Starting Line, Journey Home – Starting Line novel, Journey Home – Starting Line book, Journey Home – Starting Line story, Journey Home – Starting Line full, Journey Home – Starting Line Latest Chapter