Buying My Way Through the Multiverse

Negan simply stood on the steps of the truck, completely flabbergasted at the sight. He already knew this kid and the group he belonged to weren’t normal, but seeing what Gray had just done took things to a whole new level.

Gray had already pulled ahead and started clearing out the bodies. He would simply grab two different walkers by their ankles and effortlessly drag them off the road at the same time. Negan, seeing this, shook his head to clear his shock and started helping out. He tried to grab two walkers at once just like Gray, but he couldn’t really pull the weight. Instead, he had to grab both ankles of a single walker and drag it toward the edge of the asphalt.

It took them around 10 minutes to drag all the bodies out of the way. Gray did 80% of the work while Negan did the remaining 20%. Thanks to the noise from the gunshots, a few more walkers wandered out from the nearby woods and onto the road, but Gray quickly got rid of them using his Valyrian steel dagger and sword. Now that the road was entirely free, Gray climbed back into the driver’s seat, and Negan joined him in the passenger seat as they finally drove away.

After a few minutes of heavy silence, Negan turned his head and finally asked, ”So, what did you do before all this?”

Gray thought about his answer for a quick second and chose to lie a little bit to keep his secrets hidden. ”Oh, I used to be in the army.”

Negan simply nodded, accepting the answer. ”I see. No wonder you can get rid of that many of the dead without much trouble.”

They continued driving down the clear highway in silence. After driving for five more hours, Gray decided to pull over to stretch his legs. He walked to the back, grabbed a cold Coke from the fridge, and simply started walking around the empty highway. He noticed a few isolated walkers appearing on his system map, so he casually pulled his UAC handgun and shot them down. Negan also stepped off the truck to stretch and look around, checking on his wife every once in a while. Lucille had managed to sleep through almost the entire drive.

As Gray walked, he started thinking about exactly when and how to use Overhaul’s quirk to cure her. He realized he didn’t actually know how to use the ability yet, so he pulled up his system interface and simply bought Overhaul’s full quirk experience. With the knowledge instantly burning into his mind, he now felt completely confident in his ability to disassemble and reassemble her body to get rid of the cancer cells.

To make sure he could be completely alone with her throughout the process, he came up with a plan. He would have Dr. Jenner and his wife put Lucille under anesthesia for a routine medical checkup. Once she was out, Gray would step into the room alone, use the quirk to wipe out the cancer, and then have the Jenners take her off the real chemotherapy bags, switching her to a placebo treatment instead. After a month of her taking the placebos, the doctors could officially tell Negan and Lucille that she was completely cancer-free. This way, they would never discover Gray’s godlike powers and would instead think the prison had vastly superior medicine.

As for Negan, Gray planned on constructing a proper school very soon. He wanted his trusted people to start teaching valuable trades to any survivors who wanted to learn. He also remembered reading about an SCP object in his past life that would be absolutely perfect for education... SCP-5094, Miss J’s Whiz Kid Schoolhouse. Apparently, the software character could teach anyone any subject imaginable and make them an expert in it within hours, rather than years.

But that was a grand plan for the future. For now, he just needed to get them safely back to the fortress. Gray finished his Coke, tossed the empty can into the truck’s trash bin, and climbed back behind the wheel to finish the last leg of the journey to Atlanta.

After about two more hours of driving, Gray finally arrived in Atlanta. He started paying much closer attention to his system map, just in case they ran into a raider group or something similar. If that happened, he was fully ready to wipe them out. He preferred to keep people from finding out about his powers, but if keeping secrets meant putting lives at risk for no reason, he was more than ready to blast the raiders with magic if necessary.

Thankfully, they passed completely through the city without any issues. Gray was around an hour away from the prison at this point, so he glanced back and simply told Negan and Lucille that they were close. Once he was about two miles from the base, his map flagged a vehicle. It was Merle driving the INKAS Sentry, leading a hunting party. Gray slowed down, lowered his driver-side window, and pulled up alongside him.

”Well, well, well, look who finally decided to leave his cave,” Merle said, a massive smirk spreading across his face as he looked at the truck.

Gray simply sighed, amused by Merle’s antics. ”Stop it, Merle. You going on a hunting run?”

”Yeah,” Merle continued, leaning back in his seat. ”We saw a few walkers stumble across the walls, so we’re out here doing some routine cleanup.”

”I see,” Gray said. He then looked Merle in the eye. ”Be careful out there, and protect your squad.”

”Of course! Who do you take me for, kid?” Merle stopped for a second, catching himself. Before Gray could actually say anything, Merle quickly blurted out, ”Nevermind, don’t answer that.” Not wanting Gray to embarrass him or out his past behavior in front of his new squad members, Merle hit the gas and sped off, leaving the Earthroamer behind in a cloud of dust.

Gray simply laughed, pulled his window back up, and continued driving toward the prison. Watching the casual, lighthearted interaction between Gray and Merle made Negan feel a little better. Seeing that people could still joke around like that in the middle of an apocalypse was a massive relief.

A few minutes later, Gray finally rounded the tree line, and the big stone walls made by his max-level Home Garden came into view. Seeing those massive stone walls in person, rather than on a small laptop screen, left Negan and Lucille completely speechless. They had thought the walls would look smaller in reality, but standing at 10 meters tall and 3 meters wide, seeing it in person was a completely different, awe-inspiring experience. They also stared up at all the guards standing watch on top of the walls. To the couple, the T-800s looked exactly like highly disciplined, professional, and well-trained soldiers.

The guards at the outer gate recognized Gray instantly, pulling the heavy gates open and letting him pass right through. Gray drove for another five minutes through the courtyard before finally reaching the next set of walls.

During the past two months, Gray hadn’t simply upgraded the prison buildings... when he mentioned putting up new walls, he didn’t mean he got rid of the old ones. Instead, he had massively expanded their living space. He had constructed a giant stone square that surrounded the original prison, stretching a massive 5 miles in each direction. He had spent a long time working in secret at night to clear this entire massive zone of trees and walkers. Thanks to his Minecrafter physiology and Merlin’s magic, clearing that land gave him millions of leftover blocks to build whatever he wanted. He had big plans for this land.

And also, thanks to the grueling 650-mile drive he just had to do, he finally made up his mind about the future. He was going to build another secure fortress just like this one in Virginia, and eventually in other states too. Once they were built, he would connect each outpost through a massive underground tunnel system. He was absolutely not going to make that 10-hour drive every single time he wanted to save characters from the show.

Gray drove up to the main courtyard, where the Council was already standing and waiting for him. Climbing down from the driver’s seat, Gray formally introduced Negan and Lucille to the group. Seeing how pale and sick Lucille looked, a few of the council members briefly exchanged worried glances. Negan didn’t miss those looks, but he chose to keep quiet and tightly hold his wife’s hand.

Gray turned directly to Rick. ”Get the Jenners to check on Lucille as soon as they can. Do we have a place for them to stay?”

Rick nodded immediately. ”Yeah, we have an apartment completely ready for them. It’s already fully furnished and ready for people to move right in.”

Gray then looked over at Carol. ”Carol, can you make sure they get some supplies brought up to the building?”

”Don’t you worry about it,” Carol said with a reassuring smile. ”I’ll send someone over with enough fresh food and essentials to last them a whole week.”

Gray turned back to Negan and Lucille. ”You guys are in safe hands now. Go on up and get some real rest. The doctors will come up to get Lucille for her checkup as soon as they possibly can.”

Negan looked visibly relieved, nodding to Gray in appreciation. But before Gray could walk away to his own quarters, Rick stepped forward and stopped him.

”What do you want to do once the Jenners take Lucille down to the lab?” Rick asked quietly, keeping his voice low so Negan wouldn’t hear.

Gray looked at Rick, his expression serious. ”Come get me the exact moment they have her down there. She needs help asap.”

After a few hours, Gray heard a firm knock on his door. He opened it to find Glenn standing in the hallway. Glenn let him know that the Jenners had just taken Lucille down to the subterranean facility. Gray thanked him, stepped out, and started walking toward the underground area.

When he arrived at the massive, state-of-the-art lab, he saw a few lab assistants carefully prepping Lucille on a medical chair. Dr. Edwin Jenner and his wife, Candace, approached Gray the moment they spotted him.

”Gray, if she has advanced cancer, there is very little we can actually do to help her here,” Dr. Jenner admitted, looking frustrated.

Gray nodded calmly. ”I know. But I have a way to cure her. I just need complete privacy, so I need you to put her under anesthesia so I can do my thing.”

The Jenners looked at each other for a second, before nodding in agreement. Candace stepped up to the medical chair and administered the sedatives, gently putting Lucille to sleep. Up on the surface, Negan was waiting around anxiously, but security protocol meant he wasn’t allowed down into the high-tech lab.

Once Lucille was fully asleep, Gray walked up to the chair. Dr. Jenner and Candace chose to stay in the room to watch the procedure. Even the White Queen AI directed her full sensor network and camera focus onto the station... she always recorded every single laboratory experiment, and getting to witness a miracle cure would provide incredible data for her future medical projects.

Gray didn’t mind the audience, but he offered them a quick warning. ”Just so you know, this is going to look a little bit gross.”

Dr. Jenner shook his head. ”We’re scientists, Gray. We don’t mind.”

Gray simply shrugged. ”Suit yourselves.”

He reached out and touched Lucille’s shoulder, instantly activating Overhaul’s quirk. In a literal fraction of a second, her entire body was completely disassembled down to the molecular level and simultaneously reassembled right back together, only this time, Gray completely excluded the cancer cells from the final build.

Lucille looked exactly the same as she did before, resting peacefully in the chair. The raw power and perfect precision of the quirk took almost no time at all.

A moment later, the White Queen’s smooth voice chimed through the lab speakers, verifying the results. ”Biometric scan complete. The patient’s cellular structure is perfectly stable. Lucille is now one hundred percent cancer-free.”

The Jenners looked incredibly pale, staring at the chair in absolute, breathless shock. They had just witnessed a living human body completely deconstruct into floating particles and snap back into a flawless, healthy state in less than a blink of an eye.

Gray broke the silence. ”Alright, here’s the plan. You need to take her off the real chemotherapy bags and switch her to placebo meds. Let her keep taking them for a while, and then eventually tell her and Negan that she is completely cured. That way, they’ll just think our medicine worked.”

Without anything else left to do in the lab, Gray activated his Jumper ability and instantly teleported back into the quiet comfort of his home, leaving the doctors to process the miracle they had just witnessed.