There was no pain.
There was no light.
Only the slow drift of consciousness in an endless black sea. A nameless, bodiless awareness hanging weightless between what was and what might be. Memories—fractured and unanchored—floated around him like dying embers. The crash. The fire. The silence.
And then a voice.
"You died well. Better than most."
It was warm, but not soft. Strong. Immense. It didn't echo, because there was no place for it to echo off of. It was simply there—like gravity, or truth.
He blinked. Or rather, something in him blinked. He became aware of eyes, of limbs—slowly returning like old clothes rediscovered in a long-forgotten chest.
"Who... are you?" he asked.
A figure materialized before him, sculpted from radiant starlight and shadow. Man-shaped, but far more. He looked like everything and nothing—ageless and agelessly powerful. A celestial contradiction.
"Call me God, for now," the entity said, smiling without lips. "Though I've gone by many names. I'm the one who keeps the ledger of your soul."
"I'm dead."
"You were," God nodded. "But your death was not... complete. You linger in the space between. And I have a proposal."
He remembered more now. Earth. His name—James Shelby. Born to a Romani, raised in the mountains by gypsys orphanage, and taught early that strength was survival. His only clue to his lineage had been a single name scrawled on the back of a photograph: Arthur Shelby Sr. A man who vanished before he was even born.
He fought. He bled. He served in wars. And when death came—trapped in the wreckage of a burning vehicle while saving a mother and child—he accepted it.
And yet, here he was.
"Why me?" James asked.
God's tone shifted, deeper now, like the sound of storms moving across the ocean. "Because your story is not finished. Your world is not your only world."
A vision burst across the void—gritty cobblestone streets slick with blood and rain, Birmingham's steel heart pounding beneath layers of soot and crime. Men in flat caps and sharp suits. The roar of industry. The whisper of war.
"The world of Thomas Shelby. Your half-brother. A universe where the lines between right and wrong blur into survival and sin."
James felt it stir in his chest—an ache, a pull—as though part of him belonged there.
"I want you to go back. To that world," God said.
"And do what?"
"Change it."
God stepped closer now, his form radiating more brilliance than James could bear. "But you won't go as you were. You'll carry power. The strength of the First Avenger. The mind of the Dark Knight. A soldier's heart with a tactician's mind. Superhuman strength, agility, senses. Genius-level intellect. Resources beyond mortal comprehension. All hidden beneath a name the world will forget—until it cannot ignore you."
James staggered back, overwhelmed. "You're making me a god among men."
God's gaze pierced into him. "No. I'm giving you the tools. What you do with them is yours to decide. The Shelby blood in you may burn with ambition, but it's your soul I'm interested in."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then you fade. Back to the void. Peaceful. Forgotten."
James clenched his fists. He could feel power blooming in his chest already—like coals in a furnace. Strength, yes—but more. Purpose.
He saw a war-torn city on the brink of collapse. He saw a brother he never knew he had, straining beneath the weight of power, grief, and ambition. He saw a crime empire. A family in ruins. And perhaps... redemption.
"I'll go," James said.
God smiled. "Then rise, James Shelby. And remember... even gods must bleed."
In the next heartbeat, the void shattered.
And James fell—flames licking at the edges of reality as he plunged into a new world, reborn.