1 The End
The first things that hit the U.S. were the EMPs.
A bright flash of white light, a massive concussive blast, and the eerie silence of every electronic device in the country going dark.
What came after, to no one's surprise, was mass panic.
Grocery stores were overrun with scavengers, vehicles were siphoned of their gas to use as fuel sources to cook, furniture was repurposed as kindling to keep warm, communities began to barricade themselves inside their own neighborhoods, and many used homemade weapons to fend off against looters and roaming bandits.
Then, as if the it wasn't already bad enough, next came the nuclear bombs. A row of bulbous bright orange lights in the sky above every major city, and a shock wave that practically leveled every building in sight.
However, despite the chaos, the number of survivors were surprisingly many. Enough knowledge about what to do in such an emergency had been hammered into most Americans' skulls ever since the rise of global tensions with Russia, Saudi Arabia, China, India, and North Korea. The repeated commercial breaks with how to interact with radiation, where to find your local bunkers, and how to correctly start your own home gardens airing even on kids and reality T.V. shows.
To no one's surprise, the apocalypse started when a nuclear test from the oh so glorious North Korea went wrong. The result being Taiwan wiped off the face of the map, China retaliating in kind, and the coming conflicts between the two becoming an open invitation for a war to start that no one wanted to fight.
Thankfully, they didn't have to, the bombs did it for them.
The apocalypse had come swiftly, and with it, came pure carnage and death. Although, in a sick sense of things, to have died during the first few days was seen as a blessing for those who lived.
That was because what happened next was worse than death.
Hell on earth is a statement one might associate with this new world, as oceans were set ablaze, skyscrapers mimicking mountains made of piles of cement and rebar, and the once bright lights which once illuminated the became nothing more than a distant memory.
Particularly, in the expansive city of Austin Texas, or what was left of it, Marcus King had been unfortunate enough to have been cooped up in his parents basement when the bombs hit.
After the sanctioned forty eight hours passed to stave off the worst of the radiation, he dragged his overweight self to the surface. There, he saw the destruction first hand, and as he stared at his living room where his parents should have been along with dried pools of blood, it was officially clear he was now an orphan.
The coming days were hard, but thankfully Marcus was a shut-in, his double sized mini fridge stuffed to the brim with energy drinks and his drawers packed full with an assortment of snacks and junk food.
Marcus King, a pathetic excuse for a functioning human being, had somehow survived the initial fallout.
The reality really settled in as he sat in the basement of his house, tears no longer able to fall, and the regret that had formed a lump in his throat already swallowed as the first few days practically passed in a blur.
However, when he thought most of the attacks were over, he was gifted with sight of the bioweapons China so graciously gave his homeland releasing clouds of thick gas upon all major cities. An airborne parasite that festered and fed itself on plastic and unsurprisingly, humans, causing the amount of survivors to dwindle significantly within a few months.
With that, it seemed to seal the deal that the United States of America and probably most of the world was done for.
Marcus had no way to know if anyone but him was experiencing the apocalypse, but he could only assume that at the very least the United States would not take anything lying down and would dish out some revenge in kind.
And so, more days passed, then weeks, and then months; time unrelenting in its march to the future.
Marcus currently sat within the basement of his house, reminiscing aimlessly about anything that happened to cross his mind. The time in which he had first built his PC and forgot to put the IO shield on, how he had played his first D&D playthrough with his 'friends', and the time he had stupidly confessed his love to Jessica Rivera.
Of course, a fat slob and nerd like Marcus got rejected, but enough time had passed since it happened that he could laugh at it and cringe without reopening the wound on his heart.
He also, for the first time since the apocalypse started, realized he had never opened his Amazon package that had come on the day it all began.
The nukes had taken priority then, to no surprise, so the package he haphazardly stuffed underneath his desk on the first day finally resurfaced back in his mind.
Marcus got up slowly, trudging over in complete silence like usual, and grabbed the heavy cardboard box and slid it out. Dust fell off of it, causing Marcus to cough and wave the dirt clouds away as he got out his hunting knife.
Opening it, he could not help but smile as he saw the yellow spines of the manga he had ordered so long ago when the world had been normal.
My Hero Academia.
The smile stayed on his face as he hurriedly took out the volumes, grabbed his lit crayon candle that was on his desk, and got comfortable in his racer themed chair. He spun a few times in said seat as he felt a wave of familiar shivers, the feeling he always got when he would start a new series.
Although, this would be his first time reading something more light hearted. Marcus was a fan of the stories that were gut punches and reality checks all bundled up with a depression bow. Things like Berserk, Tokyo Ghoul, Death Note, Made in Abyss, and many others of the like adorned the shelf on the far wall.
He preferred seinen, but after the bombs had dropped, he would much rather read anything else. Being alone for half a year had been tantalizing, and he had plenty of his own dark emotions to sort through than to resort to reading Berserk again to pass the time.
He hadn't gone that insane yet.
Focusing back to the manga in his hand, he remembered he had ordered My Hero Academia to share something in common with Jessica and use it as a topic they could hopefully talk about to grow closer. It was during the month of the manga volumes shipping that she had rejected him, so he had kind of pushed it to the back of his mind when it had arrived, dissociating with the idea of her as much as possible.
Plus, the apocalypse happened and all that stuff.
He had the time now, more than he would like to admit, so Marcus slowly cracked open the first volume and readily began his journey through the world of My Hero Academia.
In a blink of an eye, and twenty four hours and eleven volumes later, he finished it. Accompanying the feat were puffy eyes from consonant use, dry lips, and an oncoming headache. Despite the latter, Marcus was glad he had ordered the series, truly he meant it.
The series was light hearted, had the high school drama he despised because of his own experiences, but was endearing in its own right.
Izuku was kind of a stick in the mud that needed heaps of confidence but he was getting there, Bakugou was an oncoming avalanche of anger issues and insecurities waiting to explode, and All Might was truly embodying the American spirit by using violence to solve most of his problems.
Marcus chuckled at the last quip, setting down volume eleven that showed the aftermath All Might's amazing fight against All for One, and just let it all soak in.
"The world actually fucking ended hasn't it?" Marcus talked for the first time in weeks, voice rasp and akin to gravel. "Damnit, what a waste of a life."
He really was a bottom feeder in this world.
Marcus had been raised in a household without a mother till he was ten, had to deal with his father remarrying a retired prostitute who only wanted his money, and had very few friends who shared his love of anime and such till the 2010's rolled around when it was suddenly socially acceptable. High school was a nightmare of bullying and depression, college had been taken online to avoid social interaction, the only girl he had an inkling of an interest in and was not 2D had rejected him, and to top off his shit cake of a life with a rotten cherry; the apocalypse just had to come along and ruin any chance of it getting better.
His parents were definitely dead upstairs, if the flies and stench were any indication, and he could only assume his friends were like them too since phone lines had been taken out first. He knew where they lived, but traveling through the main roads was just asking to be killed by the savages that got lucky enough to survive the fallout.
The nukes had exploded farther out, but Marcus could take a wild guess he had been irradiated in some way too, plus the parasitic bombs did little to help.
'Who in China had the glorious idea to drop Bio weapons like Oprah?' Marcus thought, snorting at his own horrible attempt at humor to cover up how horrible his life had become.
However, after he had snorted, he could feel something trickling down and dripping off his upper lip. Slowly, he brought a finger to it and dabbed the liquid, bringing it up to his eyes to see the crimson blood that stained most of his index finger.
He had been infected.
Honestly, he knew days before when he accidentally stepped on a human corpse in the Home Depot, and especially so when the spores of it escaped from the collapsed rib cage.
He should have been desensitized to death by now, but it never ceased to make him take that sharp breath, the sole reason which would spell the end of his apocalyptic adventure.
However, he refused to suffer for months before his inevitable death, so he had other plans.
"This is it huh?" Marcus asked as he gazed upwards, eyes seeing past the ceiling toward the night sky that was surely there. "Why do I care? I should have died at the beginning anyways. A nobody like me, outlasting millions of others, and for what?"
Marcus laughed, louder than he probably ever had in his life, hand on his belly as tears dripped down his nose and chin.
"Damnit!" He screamed at the top of his lungs as he stood up and grabbed his temples. "Fuck you, fuck every one in this damn world!"
Then, abruptly, all of his anguish ceased immediately. His eyes landed on the stack of My Hero Academia volumes before him, then slowly his gaze went to the Marvel and DC comics, then a few other lesser known superhero graphic novels as well.
"A hero… as if I could be one." Marcus exhaled in defeat.
Now content with what was to come, he grabbed the .357 Smith and Wesson his father had previously owned and sat in his chair for the last time. He glanced at his gaming setup that had collected so much dust by now, and then he looked at his Akame Ga Kill poster hanging above.
He saw the main male character there, looking heroic and all as he pointed toward whoever might be looking at the poster with the main cast of side characters stoically standing behind him. Marcus had forgotten his name, but he would never forget what had happened to him.
He was a hero too, one that died for a cause, unlike what Marcus would do.
"Welp." He put the barrel of the revolver to his head. "This is the end of my story, whoever might be watching me, God or not. I hope you enjoyed it."
Marcus sported a small smirk at his words, taking a sharp breath as he no longer hesitated to pull the trigger, darkness consuming his vision once and for all.
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[ A/N: Important, plz read.
Uhh, let me be clear.
This is not going to be another Gamer fic where the MC will be a Mage/Assassin who somehow also has enough strength to tango with someone like All Might with relative ease. I have read about fifty plus gamer fics and 9 times out of 10 its exactly that. I get it, magic is OP and cool as frick, but I'm looking to create something a little different.
The Gamer System will have caveats, and in chapter three you will see how, but not to the point it's unusable or nerfed to hell. I am letting you guys know now so there isn't any surprises of disappointment later on.
The MC in MY FANFIC will be a Brawler who will fight with fists and get right in the thick of things. His hands are gonna be Rated E for everyone and he will not have the go to answer to every conflict. Warning, it's called character development.
No Mary Sue, sorry, maybe next fanfic.
Also, the MC is not going to insanely overpowered(keyword insanely), and will not win everything, but he won't give up either.
I know this sounds crazy, but be prepared to see the MC lose sometimes. He will learn form his mistakes, better himself, and hop back into battle to crush his enemies throughly so don't worry too much.
Another thing is that the MC is no beta when he gets his bearings, but he won't be the Alpha who needs to have a dick measuring contest every five seconds.
He will have an aggressive personality like Bakugo but without the insecurities, need to bring down others, or God complex. He also has a bit of a personality like Izuku, so be warned that he wants to help people eventually.
Lastly, I'm not really decided on the romance, Miriko is the closest to his personality, but I might go for the whole opposites attract thing with Momo. Idk, let me know, but it's not going to be a harem because after this I plan on writing one that is a harem.
Alright, that's all for now. PenguinMage out.]
