(Soul POV)
"Alright, I'm ready," I said to Twister as he sent me away. But what I saw was not what I expected.
Darkness.
I blacked out and woke up again, trying to figure out what happened. Where am I? Oh, right, I'm... a soul and... huh, that's all I remember. What is going on? Before I can do anything about it, I suddenly see light. I looked around and saw a different world. I was inside ... my own body, but ... I couldn't move. My body is moving for me. Everything was happening on its own.
"Rick, come eat," someone calls from downstairs, and my eyes widen.
"Coming!" I say.
But it's not me who says it, but my body. I am inside my brain. The brain of Rick Sanchez ... as a child. Wait, who is that?.
.
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(3rd Person POV)
The soul had his life experiences taken away from him by the Twister. He was a blank slate when he started experiencing the memories and life of Rick Prime. He had chosen not to fuse the different Ricks into one, simply because he didn't want to lose one template. When he made his decision, he knew that choosing Rick Prime might not have been a good idea from his standpoint, since he would later become Bruce Wayne. But he had figured out a way to circumvent all the negatives he may pick up during this process by choosing Constantin Valdor.
Constantin Valdor was a good pick in the soul's mind.
Beyond his absolute loyalty to the Emperor, Constantin Valdor was known for his stoic, observant nature. Despite the claims by outside observers, he did not experience emotions such as pride or arrogance, or really any feeling at all besides his sense of duty to the Emperor. The Thunder Warrior Ushotan expressed pity for Valdor, stating that he had all humanity sucked out of him and had become numb. Valdor did not disagree with the sentiment, however, and he seemed capable of taking a fondness for certain individuals.
Valdor's battle prowess was legendary. His reaction time was to the point where it seemed as if he could see time itself come to a halt. A warrior of superlative skill, it was said that Valdor could match even a Primarch in single combat. Indeed, such was his badassery that there were those, even in the Imperial Court, who called him a "Primarch" in all but name.
This drive, willpower and martial prowess were what the soul saw and wanted. It would ground him, no matter what other templates he chose.
.
The first template the soul was to experience the life of, was Rick Prime. The first Rick to invent interdimensional travel. He could feel his arrogance and his wish for more and more knowledge. He could feel his disappointment when Rick C-137 refused to travel with him, seeing something as pathetic as love, a chemical reaction in the brain, as more important than what they could accomplish. He didn't love Diane here, or not as much that it mattered. Nothing mattered more than what he wanted. He loved himself and science much more than her or anything in existence. What did she matter anyway? There were limitless versions of her, but only one such as him. That is also why he left his home dimension.
The taunting of C-137 was a cool thrill. The killing of C-137's Diane was meant as punishment, but to see it fuel him, that was great. He felt like they were meant to be the two who travelled the universe and explored science together. That was what he truly believed, and when he saw him chasing after him, he felt a thrill. All those plans he made to tease him were funny in his mind. That was what mattered, that was singular in all of the endless dimensions, only this.
The soul experienced all the different thoughts and memories, as well as the technology he created, because he was either bored or wanted to tease someone. The time and effort he spent in creating something that didn't really help humanity or reality as a whole, but was convenient, and he did it simply because he could, he saw all of it. In the truest sense of the word, the soul 'became' Rick Prime.
When Rick C-137 punched him to death, Rick Prime saw himself in him. It seemed like... he truly made C-137 into who he was, and that ... was his ultimate accomplishment. He died laughing at the irony.
.
It didn't stop there. The relatively short life of Rick Prime was nothing compared to what came next.
The next template was Azmuth. And this one took a long time. Azmuth had lived for 2000 years, and he had never been idle. The smartest being in 5 galaxies in the Ben 10 storyline, but his IQ was like 1 nonillion or something. Azmuth never bothered to calculate it precisely, since it grew over time, and he was already the smartest. He couldn't even begin to say how disappointed he was when he looked back at himself from before the fusion with this template.
He looked at his life as Rick Prime and could only shake his head. It was true that he was an incalculable genius, but what had he done with it? What had he achieved but terrible pain and suffering all across the central finite curve? But that wasn't all. After living through his life as Azmuth, he also had to shake his head in exasperation.
How could he have been so blind? He could see so much after integrating with all his memories. All of this recklessness nearly killed him. That would have to change, the soul told himself. Not only did he create something as dangerous as interdimensional travel, but he also gave it to ALL Ricks ... that is the dumbest and most reckless thing he could have done. He will have to make changes and put in place contingencies from now on. Then he created a dangerous weapon that wiped out millionsof lives, only to try and make amends and then realise that the Omnitrix had also turned out to be a weapon.
He had to think more about the consequences, rather than losing himself in the scientific process.
.
After the Azmuth template, the Doctor Who followed. This, as it turned out, was a bit of a can of worms. The soul hadn't specified exactly what he wanted, and that was a mistake.
"The Doctor", a title embodying their promise to the universe, was the main alias used by a mysterious traveller of both space and time, also known as Doctor Who and seemingly a renegade Time Lord from Gallifrey. The Doctor adventured with numerous companions in an obsolete and "borrowed" Type 40 TARDIS. The Doctor was "the universe's greatest defender", having saved the cosmos thousands of times across a long life, becoming a legend throughout the universe, and a complicated space-time event of unparalleled complexity.
That was the problem.
The soul went from one incarnation to the next, all seemingly the same being, only across space-time... or was it? It didn't matter, since the soul had to go through all of them, and saying it was 'strange' was an understatement. The soul seemed to change, becoming a bit brighter. Whether that was sanity or the ultimate form of insanity, he wouldn't say, and it didn't matter anyway.
Despite the varying personality traits of each incarnation, the Doctor always retained "a bit of adrenaline, a dash of outrage and a hint of panic", which helped define who they were, and a questionable fashion sense, according to many, along with the promise of sticking to everything that their name stood for: duty, compassion, and resourcefulness.
The memories and experiences of an untold time as the Doctor, fused with his soul, affected him, balancing the grim and nihilistic parts of his character more than enough. After this part was finally over, it was time for the soul's final and undoubtedly most grim set of experiences.
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Constantin Valdor, the First of the Ten Thousand, the Chief Custodian to the Emperor of Mankind and Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes at the time of the Unification Wars, Great Crusade, and the Horus Heresy.
The origins of Constantin Valdor were less than lovely, but Constantin didn't bother about them later on; they didn't matter. His original parents were killed by the Emperor, who moved entire armies across continents to locate and retrieve him. Valdor himself knew about his past, but ignored it as it mattered very little before becoming the Emperor's servant.
While commonly accepted as the first Custodes, Valdor was not truly the first Custodian, but simply the first successfully produced one.
Constantin Valdor was not just a witness to history; he was the Emperor's most silent, loyal and unyielding blade. From the Unification Wars of Terra onward, he endured endless bloodshed without illusion or the need for even a fraction of glory, fighting not for conquest but for his Emperor's vision. Where others burned with ambition or faith, Valdor was cold, hard purpose incarnate: disciplined, incorruptible, and aware of the cost of his Emperor's dream. He felt no doubt, however, or moral unease. He never disobeyed; that never crossed his mind. Such a concept was the same as losing... foreign to him.
Only in death does duty end.
He stood at the Emperor's side as the empire rose, and he endured watching them rot from within. He survived psychic assaults that shattered lesser minds, walked unflinching through daemonic warzones, and cut down warriors who believed themselves unstoppable. On Prospero, he butchered elite psychic swordsmen with such precision that time itself seemed to slow around him. During the Siege of Terra, he held the Palace against the apocalypse, fighting traitor Astartes and daemons alike, his skill rivalling the Primarchs. He boarded the Vengeful Spirit, faced the greatest monsters of the age, and lived to remember it.
What he endured most, however, was not battle — it was watching the Emperor fall, the Imperium twist into something cruel and stagnant, and the future he bled for become a cage. When he finally vanished into the night, it was not in defeat, but as a man who had seen the dream born, broken, and seemingly buried and chose to walk on, undefeated, carrying its weight alone. He went on to do what his Emperor had tasked him with and never stopped for 10'000 years.
A bulwark against the terror.
Prior to the Horus Heresy, Valdor had earned 1932 names. By the 41st Millennium, a book that apparently had his full name written in it took up an entire volume, but he didn't know that personally.
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The soul had experienced all the templates' lives one after another. He had become one with them, meaning he was now an amalgamation of their characters, choices, and experiences. This would change slightly again soon. As in that moment when he was finished with fusing with all of the templates, something happened. The Twister went through with the deal they had made and sent him away, to the DC Multiverse, where he fused with the young Bruce Wayne.
In that moment ... the Twister intervened one final time. He could have just left our MC to live that way, as he had done his part, but technically wasn't responsible for our MC after that. The Twister still did it. He sent some of his energy out. It began flowing into the soul and healed all the slightest damage that might have remained. It slowly healed and truly fused all of the templates, making the soul a completely new existence.
.
.
In the DC Multiverse, on a specific Earth, Bruce Wayne opened his eyes and looked around. He realised he was in a hospital bed, alone in a single room. And then, his mind started working.
It was as though time had lost all meaning, standing perfectly still. His thoughts raced at inhumane speeds, to say the least. It would take a being of a higher dimension to even attempt to understand what went through his mind at that moment. But not even Mister Mxyzptlk would manage that. Everything that had happened to Bruce went through his mind at once. He knew who he was and what he was supposed to become, thanks to the special knowledge he had gained. 'Meta Knowledge' is what it was called.
For a brief moment, he considered acting the part—confused, fragile and harmless. Then he dismissed the idea. That kind of performance had belonged to the old Batman, to Bruce Wayne as he had once been. It wasn't his style anymore.
He would be a different Batman.
A scientist and a warrior of unheard of proportions. That was his passion, his duty, and that was the path he would walk.
With his new memories and experiences, there was nothing he couldn't accomplish given enough time. His mind felt like it was moving through time, ideas piling up faster than he could sort them. Training crossed his thoughts, important and inevitable, and at the same time not. Would he truly need it? Who could normal humans possibly teach him anything he didn't already know? Was there something Ra's al Ghul could teach him that the Master of Mankind hadn't already done?
Why waste effort on a journey when he could teach his body what was already ingrained in his very being? All he needed was growth, and everything else would follow on its own.
Money was a more short-term concern right now. Not making it, but keeping it.
Wayne Enterprises entered his mind. He could already imagine the board members circling like sharks, eager to undermine him, to strip away control and consolidate their own power. They would try, of that, he was certain, but they would fail.
They had chosen the wrong target. How unfortunate for them.
Visions of punishment, of crushing vultures and greedy politicians beneath an unstoppable force, entered the mind. Killing them was simple, too simple. Surprisingly, he didn't feel any anger or disgust at the prospect of killing them. It was merely inefficient.
He caught himself and exhaled slowly. Was he overreacting? No. That kind of response was preprogrammed, a leftover reflex from a lifetime of disgusting Lords of Terra and future enemies, as well as endless conflict. Bruce recognised it for what it was, the result of his new existence. And that was alright.
What was life without a little trauma? It gave momentum, direction. And now, with his mind perfectly fused with those experiences, it would no longer be a weakness. It would be a tool, the greatest weapon that would crush all those who sought to harm humanity and exploit it for their own personal gain... Bruce caught himself and exhaled again.
He shifted slightly in the bed, restless. Staying here any longer was a bad idea. Left alone with his thoughts, he risked spiralling too far, planning catastrophes on a galactic scale before breakfast. He needed movement, stimulation for his mind. He already had a purpose.
There was time. Plenty of it. The original Batman hadn't even begun his true journey until he was eighteen. That timeline no longer mattered. Bruce wasn't bound by precedent. He would decide his own pace, his own order of operations.
He closed his eyes, centring himself, running a silent diagnostic on his physical body and current situation again. He searched for lingering damage, hidden complications, anything that might surface later and derail his plans.
Thankfully, he found nothing. Not that it mattered anyway. Give him a screwdriver and a garage, and he would become a Custodes in a week.
'No, that wasn't true. I should get a better handle on the metric of time.'
Bruce's body was perfectly healthy. According to his memories, he hadn't been shot, stabbed, or otherwise injured badly enough to justify a hospital stay. All that happened was that he fell unconscious after seeing the people closest to him in this life get shot in front of him.
Bruce opened his eyes again. He had a plan.
And now, it was time to get to work.
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His character is an amalgamation of all the different templates. Naturally, since he 'lived' as Constantin Valdor the longest, that one has the strongest influence and grounds all the others. But the no nonsense of the Custodian is slightly grounded by the Rick and the Doctor Who templates.
As the author, I still want to enjoy writing it.