World 49: Tenchi Muyo Part 3

THE DIVINE FARCE

Previously: Seeds of Darkness

Themesong: Stressed Out by Twenty-One Pilots

I looked at the machine a little bemused. I’d been to two part jumps before… but this felt… odd. Then again, the first of those had been Metal Gear World and my subconscious had made the choices for part 2. The second had been Avatar, and the Banker had “inferred” my choices for me for both parts. Neither time had I been in complete control… and I wasn’t certain I’d be this time either.

“Welcome Back for Part 2 of Tenchi Muyo!” the screen cheerfully announced, “Now with 1000% more Space and 50% less Life Slicing!” I groaned. “You’ll be continuing right where you left off, so we hope you haven’t burned too many bridges on your ride out of town. On the downside, since you don’t need to buy an origin this time, we’ve debited your account 200 CP, but because we’re such nice and caring benefactors, we’ve doubled the Drawback Limit just for you.”

I twitched violently. Oh. Good. Thank you. Just what I needed. Temptation.

“Be aware, all the perks you picked up on your first stint have been reconfigured to Space Opera Mode.” I might have sworn at that… I liked my purchases and had no idea how they’d be changed, but getting preemptively pissed off is every girl’s birthright… even if she’s 13 millennia old. “Don’t worry, once you complete this phase of your stay, your perks will be unlocked in both modes, so kick back and relax… sorry, you did that already… learn to dodge multidimensional explosive attacks… that’s what we meant.”

Huh… that was new. Two part perks… well… could be useful. Hopefully the other halves of what I’d already purchased were useful… wait… did this mean I’d get a chance to pick up some of the stuff I’d passed on before? I searched my memory palace to find the copies of the text from before, just in case the machine didn’t have the Slice of Life entries, half expecting to find that my memories of the event had been redacted… but they were still there. This would take consideration.

First, I reviewed my original purchases for their new effects. “Accepted Cultural Norms”, which formerly made people largely ignore my cultural peculiarities, now allowed me the opportunity to, as the screen put it “attempt to resolve arguments or disputes with non-lethal duels, either as a referee or participant.” So… not something I couldn’t already do, but maybe I’d find a use for it eventually.

“Living Technology” which used to allow me to control some technology with my mind alone, as well as swapping out the interfaces of lower tech for living tech, had been changed to allow me to charm technology into thinking I was the registered/passworded owner. That… was useful, and the fact that it worked on non-sapient systems was both bizarre and amusing. “Hey Baby, who’s a pretty ATM? You wouldn’t want to give me all the money in your dropbox would you? Awww, that’s sweet. Thanks sugar.”

“Smiling Goddess Leaves”, which had saddled me with Seiryo as a Fiance and given me land title I hadn’t really been able to use (Black Jenny was a nice ship… but completely outclassed by practically everything in this setting. She was undergoing refits, as was VIctor, but the process had been unaccountably slow for some reason. I’d spent the last decade in something of a tinkerfunk, i.e. where you mess around with a lot of little odd projects instead of getting any serious work done. I really needed to buckle down and convert the main bay of the Dock into a shipyard, but that would take a very large investment in time and capital… hmmm… Subspace Shipyard… bigger on the inside… huh… Space compression… I wondered… then had VIctoria make a note. “Work on Space Compression for warehouse storage… HP tentcraft plus Subspace Onsen tech… something there.”)… anyway. Smiling Goddess Leaves gave me a house in Slice of Life… which I hadn’t used because I already had a house. This time… it gave me a sapling. A 1st Generation Sentient Tree from the… oh… no… nononononono…

I could hear the Banker laaaughing as my lifeforce connected to the one 1st generation tree I had a personal relationship with. First Gen Trees are the direct children of the Zero Tree… Tsunami herself. Yosho’s Tree was First Gen… and a Tree of Light. It was calm, reassuring… placid. Mine occasionally tried to eat people and needed more hugs (and therapy) than any other tree in recorded history.

On the plus side, I could add its (her) anti-aging properties to, in theory, an infinite number of companions, and Yuzuha could age any linked being back to the prime of their life and keep them there… or, you know, create slightly homicidal daughters for them, fully grown. Did I mention she was a little… crazy. Oh, and now my family was going to host hundreds of parties a year… (hundreds? Not 1 or 2… hundreds implies at least 3. That’s pretty much a party every week day. I’m not going.) “that you are expected to attend as many of as you can afford to.” (my sanity cannot afford 300 parties a year. In the last 13,000 years I haven’t been to 300 parties… have I? Okay, yes, probably. Probably a lot more than that, actually. Call it an average of 1 every fortnight. Jeezu… that… okay, I’ve been to about 300….thousand parties. Have I really? That’s way more socializing than I’m at all comfortable with. I should take a break from parties. Clearly, I have a problem. But back to the issue at hand.

“Redwood Soldier Meditation”, which had given me a bunch of passive buffs in the presence of plantlife, switched over to give me the ability to communicate with and command trees and shrubs, grow trees at will in permitting environments, and augment Sentient Trees. This didn’t suck, even if it was a little… mission specific.

“Pirate Binding Pattern”, which had been a tactical boost, was now a planning skill that allowed me to pick an objective and visualize specific goals and the path to accomplishing said goal. Of course, using it to target and kill a specific individual would be dishonorable. I could see where this special insight might come in handy… I’m not certain I’d have taken it as is, but, at the very least it wasn’t something I felt was completely useless.

“Simple Scientific Solution”, a perk that had allowed me to more easily invent household solutions to problems that didn’t really exist, now halved my research and development window and gave me an instinctive grasp of established methodologies and the ability to draw conclusions and produce results incredibly rapidly. Wasn’t much, but gifthorses and mouths… gifthorses and mouths.

Badge and Weapons, which had previously protected me from the negative side of being quirky at work as long as I got results (work… I did that?), now meant that my badge would be recognized as having lawful authority no matter where I ventured… even to places that didn’t know what the GXP were. And that was that. I noticed that they were all grayed out, indicating I’d already purchased them and couldn’t do so again… which was also different from previous two part jumps.

Still, I had 800 new, shiny, happy, eager to spend CP… and a Tree of Darkness to worry about. Step one… buy the other capstone I wanted… though the text that had original drawn me had changed. It originally said “Your brilliance is such that you can build amazing inventions to solve all kinds of problems, easily accomplishing feats depicted in pulpy science fiction novels. More importantly however, you gain an absolute certainty in your work. Nothing made by your hands or under your complete direction can harm people (or planets) unintentionally. A comically large mess may ensue however.” Which was awesome, but I’d have to wait a decade to test that out. The new (and improved) text said “You can create supertech wonders, past mere conveniences into legitimately useful things like advanced starships, ray guns, and miraculous devices. You can also enhance technology from other jumps with this skill. Note that trying to build an FTL starship from scratch on an undeveloped world will probably take ten years…” The name of this 800 point extravaganza of fun? “The Maddest Science Yet!”

I also wanted “Technobabel Fish [200]”, which had amused me back in Slice of Life with the ability to deliberately obfuscate whatever I was explaining with jargon and buzzwords… or actually explain so people would understand… but I really could do that already. The Space Opera version… that was altogether more useful. “You gain the ability to perform complex formula, ritual action or attempt feats of programming by thought or speech alone. As long as you know the subject, you could dictate a mathematical proof or talk out a computer program (and have it compile on a nearby machine). You also may compose technical or magical diagrams perfectly without error and in half the normal time. You still need to learn the appropriate disciplines.” That… would be extremely useful. Some of my larger magical effects were already taking serious time, effort, and brainpower… not to mention a huge number of icenanites. Anything that cut that down was a good thing in my book.

Unfortunately, that sunk me 200 into the hole and, going back to the main menu to hunt for Drawbacks, I saw I was going to need more than just that, as a Starship section had been added. I considered buying sanely, finding the Drawbacks I could live with first, then shopping for what I could afford… then said screw that and pressed Starships. I had (in theory) 600 points left to spend, if I maxed out drawbacks… and worse comes to worst, I could always return Technobabel Fish… If I had to.

There were 5 Options: Space Ship (which was discounted for the Galaxy Police), Masu Superiority Space-Combat Platform (i.e. cabbit… which was discounted for Space Pirate), and three generations of Jurain Tree Ships… though the First Generation required Smiling Goddess Leaves… which, I had. Well, it would be churlish to turn that offer down, so [200] and my SGL coupon got me a First Generation Tree Ship that was, to quote the offer “like a pet, it will work better for you if you take good care of it and treat it well. Your living ship has a good chance to outrun or outfight any non-living ship in a one-on-one contest, but suffers against superior numbers. If the ship is destroyed, a seed can be found to allow you to regrow it.”

I looked at the rest of the list… then manifested a stylus and wrote “Ziggy?” on the Masu Superiority entry. The screen flashed “Error.” I wrote “You made him a cabbitoid. Plus… chaos.”

“Fine.”

Heehee.. Ziggy is ship… ZIGGY IS SHIIIIP! I’d have to choreograph a new and original dance to commemorate this. The Ziggy is Ship Dance of Unbridled Gleeification? Something like that. Of course, I was now -800 in the red… which didn’t say much for my sanity, but then again… Yuzuha. Then again… Reggy & Caine.

It’s a good thing I was up to -800… because I tell you, in my current mood, “The OTHER Chosin One was looking really… really attractive. It would make me part of the grand experiment to find the Overgod… as a potential / Additional Tenchi… and the Chousin would be stacking the deck against me, hoping that I’d shake the universe so hard, God falls out of it. It was… seductive… it was also 750 CP… and I needed 800. I could, however, get to 800 easy just by taking Hopeless Suitor (twice) again, and then tacking on Multiple Spouses (twice) as well… it would give me 5 suitors all struggling and actively competing to see which of them becomes First Husband… with me caught in the crossfire… Come to think of it it… that sounded less safe. Much… much less safe… Oh… this was going to hurt.

Still, it was my own bed and I was going to lie in it… fuck it… I hit The OTHER Chosin One and one Hopeless Suitor. I just had to dodge fast with this one. I didn’t need 5 people unhappy with me and with each other… hurt feelings were objectively worse than insane people throwing around stars… right? Of course Right. I’m… 20% certain I’m right. I hit confirm.

“You have 150 Unspent CP, Are you certain you wish to confirm?”

I blinked. No.. I didn’t… I mean, yeah… TOCO was 750 and Hopeless Suitor was 200, but the cap was 800… I flipped to the main drawback page to verify… 800… points gained from TOCO are an exception… Oh… shit.

Eh… I mean, sure, I could get a third generation tree ship for that… maybe import VIvian as it… but… did I really… I had nothing I wanted more… did I? No… not really… A sword? Eh. I had a sword. I shrugged, wrote VIvian on the 3rd Gen line.

“House ship?” was the reply.

“More like ‘Library Ship’.”

“I see no way this could go disastrously wrong.”

“Haha. Yes you do.”

“Yes I do. Are you certain?”

“No… this is all a terrible idea and I’m clearly going to regret this.”

“Yes. You are.”

“Let’s do this.”

INSERTION… er… REINSERTION

I walked back out of the Pillars of Time as they sank back into the sand, waving off the quizzical glances from my companions with a “I’ll explain in a bit.” I had plans to make and considerations to consider… all of which went flying out the window in the first 30 seconds as the following happened.

0:10 – a green skinned, furry eared female dropped out of the sky and half hugged, half hid behind me, demanding I protect her from the “Bad Lady”.

0:13 – The sky ripples with colors that don’t normally exist in sane realities as “The Bad Lady” manifested in the sky over the entire hemisphere.

0:17 – two space ships of unknown but familiar design lifted off the planet, each on their own heading, one highly planned, a least time vector from the planet to safe hyperjump distance, the other erratic to the point of pure insanity.

0:22 – Reggy came flying out of the house, wide eyed, green armor covering her skin.

0:24 – Gaius, wreathed in flames, followed her, looking upset.

0:25 – Kagetane and Kohina do not follow.

0:27 – Bad Lady Tokimi shrinks to roughly human size and demands that I force the green skinned “Thieving Tree” to return her Dimensional Anchor.

0:30 – Green Girl retorts that Bady Lady had been using the “Mirror” to spy on me and that She (Yuzuha) had taken it because Bady Lady was a creepy stalker creepy lady and shouldn’t be spying on me… only she called me “Beloved.”

0:34 – Reggy, not in the best of moods, arrives next to me, totally ignoring the impending clash of godlike entities and yells that her babies have been kidnapped and she’s going to burn down the cosmos until they’re returned.

0:35 – Gaius, trying very hard to keep his not quite spouse… co-parent… whatever… under control, says “They weren’t kidnapped… they’ve run away and left notes. ”

0:39 – I swear I can hear the Banker laughing.

While part of me wanted very much to bang my head against something very hard a great many times, I realized that would have to wait. “Yuzuha, Lady Tokimi… chill. I’ll deal with you two in a minute… you can be patient for a minute, you’re immortals. Reggy… You are not burning down the cosmos… your children are living in the cosmos. Take 60 deep breaths and try to get yourself together. Gaius… what? They’re 9 years old.”

“They left notes.” He held up a pair of notes. One, written in Scipio’s print perfect handwriting on a piece of paper that had been expertly trimmed from a notebook and folded into an origami fish, then unfolded by his father, said ‘My Dearest Parentals and Lady Jomei, I have decided to set forth on a grand crusade to bring order and stability to the cosmos. To that end, I have borrowed Lady Jomei’s treeship VIvian and enlisted the assistance of Big Sister Kohina and Officer Shiro, as well as The Brothers Four. We shall be Victorious! Also, I suspect my nefarious brother of some dastardly scheme. Be wary. I shall return when the cosmos is put to rights. I remain, your obedient and filial son, Gaius Scipio.’

The other, on a scroll that looked a little crumpled, written in calligraphic script in red ink and imperfectly blotted, was from Invidius ‘Mother, Father, Jomei-Sama… We embark upon a grand adventure to subdue the heathens and primitives of the universe. With the aid of Generals Kagetane and Yorokobi, and the able assistance of the Sisters, I am certain I shall manage to punish the unrighteous and kick some serious bottom. Oh… we borrowed Ziggy-ohki… Dad, tell mom not to blow a gasket. Hugs and kisses, Omniversal-Tyrant-to-be, Invidius Vord.’

Right… well then… I was down two starships, 12 companions, my main computer, my pet, two god-sons, and who knows how much of my arsenal the little brats had walked off with. I had planet busters in some of my storehouses.

Oh… and three extremely upset females to deal with. “Reggy… they haven’t been kidnapped. They’ve each decided to conquer the universe… before the other one can. You should be proud… 9 years old and already megalomaniacal. Let’s hope they’re not as genocidal as their sisters. Oh, and they’ve stolen a 3rd Generation Treeship with VIvian on board and a Masu Space-Superiority Combat Platform with Ziggy as its… operating system. As well as half of my companions who, for their own sakes, had better not be thinking clearly or I’m going to spend an entire decade lecturing them. We’ll go after them as soon as we come up with a plan… now chill out while I deal with this other problem.”

I turned to face Tokimi. “Why were you spying on me and what is this Dimensional Anchor… and is it the same thing as this Mirror?”

Tokimi, eyes narrowed and reality warping at the edges of her eyes, glowered and said, “Because I suspect you might be the realization of our experiment and yes, the Dimensional Anchor looked, vaguely, like a hand mirror. I demand that she return it and I shall refrain from transforming her into a bug.”

Yuzuha snorted. “She’s lying… don’t let her fool you. She was touching herself and being all pervy and drooling and muttering to herself.”

“I never!”

“Were too!”

“Was not!”

“Yuh huh!”

“Return the mirror or face obliteration!”

“Can’t make me!”

“Can too!”

“Can not.”

“Silence both of you! Tokimi… Lady Tokimi…. owww… don’t dig your claws into me Yuzu… Lady… Yuzu… if you please… that really hurts. Thank you. Tokimi… I’ll get your mirror back. Yuzu, please give the mirror back.”

“Can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I shattered the nasty thing into itty bitty pieces and scattered them across the cosmos.”

I could feel the Chosin beginning to vibrate with growing fury and whispered “Why did you…” but that’s as far as I got before Tokimi went nuclear and tried to smash Yuzuha… within moments the valley was a shattered wreck… I was going to have to rebuild the house from the ground up.

“And that’s why I’m over here, Tenchi. With all the… family… do you mind if we stay here for a few… weeks… while these two,” I slapped the goddess (who it turned out had only limited amounts of power in this reality without the Anchor to focus her might down this far) and the tree spirit (freshly hatched from her seed state) upside the heads, both of them blushing and glowering at each other, “Learn to cooperate while they rebuild the valley? Oh… and could you contact the GXP and Lady Seto and tell them about the impending galactic conquest? We’ll be out to help once we have a reliable ride.”

Next: Brothers Grim

Resources: Build, Document

If you like what I do, please consider supporting me on Patreon.

World 49: Tenchi Muyo Part 2

SEEDS OF DARKNESS

Previously: Under the Domes

Themesong: Sowing the Seeds of Love by Tears for Fears

It really was a beautiful beach. No moonlight, of course, since this was deep space, but there were a lot of stars and that made up for it nicely. The fire crackled softly. The waves lapped at the shore. The Vord Queen was pregnant.

“So, Sextus… or whatever your name is now, anything interesting happen while we were apart?”

He had the good decency to look abashed as he gathered the sobbing Kohina into his arms. “Mikado Mujin… and… Yes. Obviously. I could blame the presence of alcohol and or transference… but we’re both adults and we…”

Reggy (who looked Maori, sans facial tattoos) spoke “Oh, for crying out loud. We fought, we got drunk, we fought some more, then we had sex. Repeat several times. Now… someone help me up, I have to pee.”

Good to put that into perspective. Reggy… er Xotini is often good at that… comes from having only the vaguest idea of what being human really means… despite the fact that she’d been human more often than not. Baseline personas were always stronger than imprints. Imprints were always just you reskinned, as close as possible to your original, just with new (but familiar) experiences. Stack enough lifetimes on top of each other and the new ones made very little impact. But perspective meant very little to Kohina, and Kagetane, already less than thrilled with Gaius’s usurpation of his daughter’s affection, responded as only a psychopathic combat-cyborg would, and attacked the former First Lord of Alera.

Or tried to. He got two steps before Toph encased him in sand. “Don’t.” She said, voice cool, inhuman, and a little wooden (haha. I slay me.). “I’ve had problems with daughters before, and punching out their chosen one, be that boyfriend, girlfriend, or surrogate father, does absolutely nothing to make you seem like the reasonable one. Calm down. Either you’ve lost her forever, which is possible, and no amount of violence is going to get her back, or you have a chance to prove you’re not the monster she thinks you are… in which case, violence is only going to make her think she’s right. Act like an adult, not a warmachine.”

Say what you like about Kagetane, he is a strategic thinker. Batshit insane, but a strategic thinker. Most of my companions are… with a few notable exceptions… but Kagetane had plotted to bring down an entire city state protected by superpowered individuals and advanced technology and nearly pulled it off. He slumped as the sand released him.

A joyous homecoming this wasn’t. And it didn’t get better over the next three weeks. As desperately unhappy as most of us had been apart, we were now feeling like we were camping out on eachothers feet. The Fiji beach, rather than feeling vastly larger than the confines of the Warehouse complex, was feeling cramped. Even with the various groups claiming their own huts, we were all beginning to feel rubbed raw, snapping at each other. The depowering of most of them and the loss of all toys and amusements was wearing on all of us. Something had to break….

And that thing turned out to be Reggy’s water. On the 302nd day of the jump, Reggy gave birth to a pair of bouncing baby boys. Neither looked at all insectile. They did look slightly elfin, with tiny points to their ears, and mocha latte colored skin, but otherwise they seemed like perfectly healthy babies, something that the Command Cube augmented omni-scanner I’d managed to craft out of sand and wood and a couple of bar fridges and magic verified. They were named Gaius Scipio (after Tavi’s alter ego) and Invidius Vord (after Reggy’s first “friend”). We all wisely refrained from commenting… but Invidius? Hope the kid doesn’t grow up to be a supervillain, but I’m not holding my breath. Peering into their hearts and minds got me nothing. They were babies, they barely grokked that they were alive.

Mercifully, before the good will of the births had time to wear off… we were attacked by scavengers. On day 305, a ship loomed over the dome we were in and projected an image of a blue furred muppet who looked like a cross between Grover and Tim Curry onto the dome above us. He demanded our immediate surrender. 57 seconds later, he was begging me not to kill him. Teleportation can be extremely useful at times (No, I couldn’t have used it to explore the domes faster… half of them were buried in the mass and I had nowhere to teleport to outside the domes. The ship… that I could teleport to. I had Line of Sight. Frames of reference are useful.)

Captain Long Jons… yes, that was his name… wasn’t much of a pirate. More of a… well… looter. He’d picked up the wrecks on deep scans and come in for a closer look. We promised not to kill him if he dropped us off on a local Primitive planet.

Finding Earth had been EZPZ once I’d gotten to a dome with a clear view of the stars. The Alpha Centauri system is fairly easy to describe, since it has three stars in a binary plus one distant red dwarf companion configuration. I’d been there a few times, and knew the distances and features by rote. Finding that meant I just had to look for a Main Sequence Yellow Dwarf in the 4.37 light year range from there and I was good to navigate… that, and Captain Long’s ship’s nav comp had it registered as a Jurai Protectorate planet.

My plan was to get there, find the Warehouse, and then make ourselves scarce. No need to get involved in the crazy that was the Masaki household. Fate, or the Banker more like, had other plans. We arrived in High Earth Orbit just in time to be clipped by Mihoshi’s ship as she blipped past us with breaks completely not engaged. She crashed into the lake… we crashed into the next valley over… which, if it previously didn’t have a lake, had one now, as the streams of the area all got rearranged to dump into a single basin instead of winding placidly into a river. It didn’t fill fast, but it flooded the trashed salvager in minutes. Wooo… Rural Japan. Yay.

Everyone survived the crash, though there were a few bumps and bruises to be had. The Captain seemed to take the destruction of his ship in stride… or perhaps he was just scared of all of the lunatics following me around and didn’t want to say. I could have looked, but I’d looked inside him when first we met and he was mostly harmless, the kind of being who’d sell out a stranger, but would have a hard time screwing over even a casual acquaintance. He wasn’t exactly a pillar of the criminal world’s morality, but all things considered, he wasn’t too bad. Plus, he seemed to get along with Dyna which was a little creepy, but cute.

Housing turned out to be not an issue, since, as promised, our luggage… i.e. the contents of the Warehouse… had been delivered to our destination. Just not in the warehouse itself. The House and Apartment building, as well as a garage and many outbuildings and sheds that contained most, but not all of the contents of the Warehouse were laid out on the shoreline of the newly formed lake. The moment we got inside, it started raining, and, in mild fascination, we watched from the deck as the lake filled up. It was, of course, at this point that we discovered that, either through poor craftsmenship or failure to keep the house properly maintained… there were many, many leaks in the roof. Ditto the Apartment building. It wasn’t like it rained in the Warehouse; we’d never needed to check if either building had leakproof roofs.

Come to think of it, the crash of the salvager might have knocked some of the fittings lose as well. Eh, it gave us a project. I threw up a dome of ice over the complex and we went into fix-it mode, getting everything weather patched and dried out (water magic is surprisingly good at drying things off, wouldn’t you know.).

We were just getting things patched when Ryoko showed up, looking around the place as if casing the joint. “What the heck are you people doing here?” she asked, ladylike as always. Ahab promptly drew his weapon and yelled “Space Pirate Ryoko, I, Officer Shiro Kujira of the GXP do hereby arrest you for High Crimes and Misdemeanors.” Joy/Yorokobi flicked his ear and floated over to Ryoko’s side “Ignore him. He’s forgetting that the statue of limitations ran out on all your crimes a few weeks ago.”

I said “Statute. With a ‘t’. Hello Ryoko. Welcome to my home. My name is Sada Jomei, daughter of Shigeru Jomei, who I believe you might remember. As to what we’re doing here… we crashed when someone clipped our transport with her GXP cruiser and we crashed over here in this valley. We were on our way to my vacation house,” I gestured around me, “But now it looks like we’re stranded… unless you have a ship we could borrow?”

She glowered at me “You’re here to bother Tenchi, aren’t you?”

I smirked “Oh, sweetie… of course we are. Why else would the daughter of the notorious Jomei Oyabun be on a backwater planet like this.”

She drew… and by drew I mean manifested that energy sword of hers. “Ah ah ah… not in the house. There are children napping.” I leaped backwards out of the front window, VIvian retracting the sliding transparent aluminum doorwall for me. Ryoko followed.

It was a good fight. Her sword was powerful, I’ll give her that… but she was a bit slower than me and much less experienced. Ryoko has a lot of anger, but not much killing intent for all that. 700 years sealed away had, in fact, changed her, making her appreciate life much more, and making her appreciate simple pleasures more. I, on the other hand, had no intention of harming Washu’s daughter and was fighting almost completely defensively, my few attacks designed to push Ryoko further. It was a good fight.

“Get off me!” she demanded as I sat on her insubstantial butt.

“Nope.”

“How are you doing this?”

“I’m a fifth Dimensional Imp.”

“What?”

“Nothing. I was lying to you. Want some saki?”

“Ummm… yes?”

“Excellent. Elisabeth du Treeface, bring us Saki!”

“What the hell is that?”

“Never seen a Juraian Guardian before?”

“Sure I have, but they’re wooden cylinders… not women made of wood and ice vapor.”

“I shouldn’t show you Tooooooph then.”

“Why?”

“She’s made of wood and life vapor.”

“You’re as crazy as Washu.”

“Washu-chan,” I corrected her. “And that’s no way to speak of your mother.”

“She’s not my- Owww! What’d you do that for?”

“Don’t be an ungrateful child. And you better phase solid again if you want some saki. It’s pretty decent.”

And so it went. We could not but get involved in the hijinks of the Masaki clan, and they could not but get involved in the hijinks of the Jomei Clan. Ayeka’s failed suitor, Seiryo Tennan, ended up becoming my first Suitor… thus settling the “Veteran of some recent conflict” thing. He was handsome, in a boy band way, and clearly suffering from PTSD… Post Tenchi Stress Disorder, because he would not shut up about how his defeat had been the result of cheating.

Tenchi, unfailingly polite, would hike over every so often to bring us carrots, which of course I accepted graciously… and then gave to Ryo-Ohki whenever she came to visit Ziggy. I retaliated in my own passive-aggressive way, by bringing them parsnips… even if it meant having to farm them myself. I’m absolutely certain the Masaki’s had no clue what to do with them. I also supplied a cookbook.

Washu and I got into frequent science-offs, frequently over the most pointless things, such as dishwashers. She invented a machine that could make them spotless in an instant… I invented a process that kept them from being dirty at all. She invented a counter process that cleaned them even before they became dirty. I pointed out that, by default, dishes were clean before they were dirty, and thus she was being silly.

But my favorite member of the family was Sasaki, who kept coming over to play with Mini, Franky, and Kohina… and to see the babies. She was very fond of the babies. Then again, she was pretty fond of everyone. Soul Gazing Washu was, to be honest, a little heartbreaking at times, but looking at Tsunami-Sasami was like gazing into a placid pool of crystalline blue water, only to realize that it was a nuclear breeder reactor. There was so much danger there that lay just below the placid calm. It was a good reminder of just how insanely scary the Chosin were. Of course, being who I am, I couldn’t help poking them in little ways.

“Mmmm… There was a Tsunami in Guam.” I’d say, catching the goddess twitch out of the corner of one eye.

“R… really?”

“No… it’s just fun to say Tsunami in Guam.”

“Washu, I have Chosen to defeat you!”

“Wait, what?”

“Sorry, don’t know why I used english.” Wisely, I did not attempt to needle Tokimi… though I did find ways to almost mention her name in conversation. 

Briefly, I considered sparing with Tenchi, but he wasn’t really anywhere near my skill level unless he cheated… so instead I spent my sparring time mostly against Yosho, either in combat or one of the many abstract strategy games Juraian or Asian culture had developed. We developed quite a rapport. It was the easy friendship of the elderly (even if neither of us looked our ages).

Which, of course, made what happened all the more… irritating. Thing one to remember about Yosho… he might look 80… but he’s really in the prime of his life, maintained by a Juraian tree ship and a powerful one at that. Thing two to remember is that his parents are still alive. Thing three… those parents are Juraian (mostly)… and thus looking to arrange marriages. Originally, Yosho, who is still technically the heir to the Juraian throne, was to marry his half-sister Ayeka (advantages of being clarketech, inbreeding is much less a problem, one would assume). However, with Ayeka now going after her grand-nephew, that freed up Yosho for another marriage… and the Jomeis were quick to jump on this advantage behind my back.

First thing I knew of it was when I received an invitation to my own wedding. Of course, this resulted in me calling my father to yell at him, and Seiryo challenging Yosho to a duel. Yosho, unwilling to harm the young idiot, still easily won the battle just by defending himself. My father, of course, pushed the blame off onto my grandmother, who was enough like my original father’s mother that I found arguing with her extremely difficult. Still, I got them to, eventually, put off the wedding for a couple of years… 7 to be exact. By that time, I’d be gone and wouldn’t have to worry about it. Right? Right?

Of course, this also earned me the ire of Yosho’s first wife, the GXP Academy Chairwoman, who, of course, despised my father as she is also officer in charge of the Jurai sector of the Galaxy Police. There was simply no way I was going to be worthy of being her sister wife… even if she and Yosho didn’t live together and had been apart for centuries. To make matters even more spectacularly uncomfortable, she brought with her her daughter Minaho (sister of Tenchi’s mother Kiyone) and Tenchi’s 80 year old big sister, Tennyo (who looks almost identical to Kiyone)… and, in what I’m pretty sure isn’t canon and is just an example of the Banker screwing with the timeline and making it even harder to keep all these names straight… seriously, every third character is named X Masaki Jurai or Jurai Masaki or has a name beginning with ‘Mi’ (Mihoshi, Mitoto, Minaho, Mikami, Mikamo, Mikumo, Minagi… Misaki Masaki Jurai… seriously? Seriously? Why????)… what was I saying? Oh… right… And Minaho brought her own daughter… her sister’s namesake… Kiyone Makibi… Mihoshi’s partner from the Tenchi Universe series.

This threw me for a loop. Kiyone Makibi didn’t canonically exist in the primary canon… but in the other canons she did exist in and Tenchi’s mother was named Achika. Thus, everything I thought I knew about future events was cast into serious doubt. In the end, the only recourse was to assume nothing was canon and simply to roll with events as they unfolded. Of course, with Z, the Counteractor, and Tokimi still out there, this wasn’t optimal… and I had no illusions about my ability to combat any of that trio.

Z was a rival to Tenchi in potential to be the Overgod, The Counteractor was in theory powerful enough to fight said Overgod… and Tokimi was just the craziest of the three Chosin and the one who still maintained the most godlike form… as well as oversight of her various Dimensional Administrators (i.e. nigh omnipotent beings of law and order). Still, worrying about dealing with them was like worrying about how to deal with a Deep Impact if you’re a caveman. I’d leave it to Tenchi and company.

Of course, that didn’t mean I couldn’t have a little fun while I was at it, and by and large, that’s what I did. Very little in the plot of Tenchi needed much in the way of fixing, unsurprising given the general lightness of the subject matter, and I really didn’t need to do much besides get sucked into hijinks and capers on a regular basis.

Many of those hijinks revolved around how big of an idiot Seiryo was, or how much Yosho’s daughter & grand daughter wanted to arrest me for reasons… but I figured, what with having a criminal background and a criminal family and fairly larcenous friends, we might as well loot as much as we could of interesting (read as dangerous) and valuable (read as powerful) cultural relics as possible from this obscenely overtech’d setting.

Plus, I had kids to be a very bad influence to.

I’m certain I could have done a better job. Really. But honestly, with a Vord mother and an Aleran father, and the crazy people we all hang out with, it’s astounding Scipio and Invidius turned out as relatively normal as they did. I blame Tenchi and Sasami… and Captain Long. The kids loved him, viewing him as their own living teddy bear… especially after Ziggy kept hiding from them.

As far as I could tell, neither had any Vord genetics, being mostly humanoid, but nothing really to worry about… at least in as much as my scans could detect. Then again, my scans showed that Seiryo had a brain, even though no evidence of it ever manifested.

I’d like to tell you there was a giant vicious battle to cap everything off… some cosmic horror that team SJ had to team up with team Tenchi to defeat… but there really wasn’t. It was all fairly normal… I mean, Kagato was a dick, and Clay was a dick and Z was a dick… and the Counteractor taking over Sasami’s mommy was scary as hell… but everything got sorted out in the end.

The only thing I really interfered with was the Yuzuha arc. Tree of Darkness my ass. The Juraians may be clarketech master-race types, but they apparently know dick all about psychology, because their method of dealing with Yuzuha showed that they hadn’t even bothered to find out why she was the way she was.

Yeah, sure it was like giving therapy to an eldritch abomination… but honestly, she was more a scared and confused brat than anything else. I briefly considered bringing her along, but decided against it… I mean, what would I do with a Juraian Godtree?

I did manage to avoid all weddings of any kind… it wasn’t easy… but I wasn’t taking any chances. I avoided getting married in real life, in video and board games. I even refused to Queen Pawns just in case that was seen as officiating. Any bridal gown that got within 100 paces of me burst into flames… and when one proved to be fireproof (thanks Washu-chan), it got disassembled at the molecular level. Screw loopholes like that. I wasn’t marrying anyone to anyone with anyone until Tenchiland was safely in the rear-view mirror.

Still, even with all the wedding-paranoia and the hijinks and the craziness and the mega grand theft (we also did some Leverage style stuff… we weren’t complete jerks), we eventually ran out the decade and, as usual, threw a big ol party for those we were leaving behind. Reggy & Gaius had opted to stay behind, to give the kids a bit of stability, and with Gaius staying, Kohina insisted on staying too, having grown close to her adopted brothers. With Kohina staying, Kagetane insisted on staying as well… even managing to resist the Imprinting Egg’s programming enough to demand to be allowed to stay… as if I had any intention of stopping him.

We didn’t tell Tenchi-ites what was going on. If they hadn’t figured out I and mine were outsiders, there didn’t seem any reason to tip the Chosin off about it. Tokimi and Washu were both, in their own way, scary as fuck, and I didn’t want either of them knowing about the Warehouse… plus, it had been interesting being one self for an entire jump for a change.

As the Pillars of Time rose out of the sand on the shore of Jomei Lake, and the world ground to a halt around us, I sighed. This had been a nice vacation. Wondering where we’d end up next, and already missing Reggy and the kids, I stepped through into the Warehouse, except I didn’t. Instead, I stepped into a starscape, the stars formed of musical notes, and Kami-Tenchi floated in the vastness and announced “Round Two… Starto.”

The VMoD appeared before me and I groaned. I had a feeling things were going to be taken up a notch… and I now regretted never having watched GXP or War on Geminar. “Shiiit.” I muttered as the CP keys manifested in my hand. Only 16 of them… huh… 800 CP? Well that’s fine… I guess… shit… I’m going to be the “Wedding Nazi” for another decade? If there had been a wall around, I’d have been banging my head against it.

Next: The Divine Farce

Resource: Build, Document

If you like what I do, please consider supporting me on Patreon.

World 49: Tenchi Muyo Part 1

UNDER THE DOMES

Previously: Sweet Like Copper

Themesong: Yellow Submarine by The Beatles

Caine looked at me. I was still, for the moment, Salty Jones… kinda. “Who… the hell, are you?”

I looked down at myself and grinned, flexing as the massively oversized thong I’d been wearing before fell off onto the floor of the warehouse. My body was… ripped is the word, every muscle defined. I looked back up, totally unbothered by my nudity, waving my hand in front of my face and blasting myself with 1,000 degree fire to burn away the makeup and junk earrings. “I told you. The fatness, the sluttiness, they were… as they’d be called in your world… Flaws. They ended the moment the decade came to a close.”

“And where are we? Why does everything feel… off?”

“This is the Warehouse.”

“Just, the Warehouse? You say that as if there’s only… is that a space ship?”

“That’s VIctor. More a shuttle craft. And yes, there’s only one The Warehouse… at least as far as we’re concerned. And… hmmm…” I decked him, not lightly. He flew into the Warehouse wall, hard enough to dent anything that wasn’t, well, the warehouse wall. He looked a little dazed.

“Oww. W… what was that?”

I grinned maliciously. “That… was pain. And, you will note, I’m not being harmed seven times more than I harmed you.”

“Why did you… to test if the curse was still active.”

“I see you haven’t wasted the last ten years, grasshopper.”

“Gee. thanks. You do know there’s a chance I’m older than you.”

“Not even a little one. Best guess is you’re about 12,000 years old, as old as the oldest cities, since the City of Enoch was supposedly the first city of your world, and twice as old as bible places you as… I beat that total easily. Probably by about a thousand years. Maybe more. Anyway, let’s get me dressed.” I snapped my fingers and a white suit formed as I shimmered and transformed back into my default form. “And get some food.”

“Food? You’re a vampire… you don’t eat.”

“No. Salty is a Vampire. Salty is just one of my forms, my existences. I am SJ. And you are my Ghoul.”

“Uh… what? No… I’m a Vampire, not a Ghoul.”

“Buzzzz… not quite correct. You are, as it turns out, only the Vampire Patriarch. Your blood contains the power of vampirism… but you’re still a human. Just… an immortal, unkillable, blood drinking human. That wasn’t true of your childer. They were undead… you weren’t. God wanted you to live forever. And sure, your generation was higher than mine, so you couldn’t be blood bound… but the VMoD didn’t specify anything about the nature of my Ghoul, just who the default would be.”

“VMoD?”

I waved my hand at the machine, vaguely amused to see it was glitching out. “That thing. It determines where we’re going next… or at least, tells us where we’re going next and what my options are… it’ll all become clearer in a few days or so when it works properly. Anyway, I should introduce you to the others. Some of them are arguably bigger monsters than you.”

He glowered at that “Was that a joke… and why are you so short?”

“Because this is my natural form. 4’10” baby.” I grew a bit “Sure, Thanks to some perks, I can be taller.” I shifted again “or blue.” I shifted again “or an elf.” I shifted back “But this is the form I’m comfortable with.”

“Why didn’t you use any of those forms back on… where I’m from?”

“Didn’t want them catching vampire cooties… and speaking of that… if you bite or try to bind any of my companions… I’ll drop you into a star.”

He gulped “Ummm… right… I’ll just… wait, companions?”

“Oh, yes, doh. Sorry. Total brain fart. That’s what you are now. I’m the Jumper, you’re a Companion. There are 25 of you.”

“If I ask, why didn’t I meet any of them before now, you’re going to say “Didn’t want them catching vampire cooties.” again, aren’t you?”

I poked his nose. “Yup. Well, you did meet two of them. Audrie and Humphrey… Speaking of… huh… where is every… run… oh… crap… nowhere to run… shit… no outside reality.” I hid behind Caine.

“What… in the name of… why are you hiding?”

“They’re coming.”

“Who is?”

“THEM!” and that’s when 22 of my companions burst onto the scene singing Happy Birthday and carrying a cake with a big 50 burning merrily on the top.

“50? I thought you said you were 13,000 years old.”

“I am. 50 is, strictly speaking, how many jumps I’ve been through, though two of them were to worlds I’d already been to and two of them were these double jump thing… well… jumps with an overlay.”

“Should I ask?”

“No.” I stepped out from behind him and acted gracious, introducing everyone and letting everyone judge the questionable nature of me bringing a legendary psychopath along on the ride. Kendra looked upset, Reggy appraising, Kohina smug, and my lovers suspicious. To Kendra I said “He’s not a demon in a human shell. He’s just a murderer.” She nodded, then shrugged, relaxing. To Reggy I said “Yes, he’s more dangerous than you are, no your Takers could not take him… probably. Don’t try.” To Kohina I said nothing, but to my harem I said “No. I didn’t. Not with him. I brought him along to piss off God, or at least Uriel… the arcangel, not the emperor. Now we just have to hope that if we end up in Dresdenverse or DC or anywhere else with an active and megapowered Uriel that they don’t share notes.”

Caine blinked “There are more… never mind.”

“Good Call.”

“So… who are the bigger monsters?” He asked, curiously.

“Reggy and Kagetane in terms of kill total. RayRay and Petra in terms of size. Dyna, Joy, Ahab, Zane, and Me in terms of pure pragmatism. Francy and AJ would kill a planet if I told them to. Kohina might do it if I let her. Franky & Mini, Velma & Toph, Ryoga and Yoiko, Bao and Uriel…. Heh… not yours, just a namesake… Gaius, Kendra… they’re okay and not so… intense. Cirno is an idiot… but titanically powerful. Ziggy is my… hello Ziggy… is this squeaky toy for me? Yes, you’re adorable. Go get some cake now… Ziggy is my buddy. He’s clueless… but he’d trash a city… not because I asked, but just because there was something he wanted somewhere in it. Some of us are, more or less, gods. Others are just demigods. Anyway, let’s party.” And we did.

Four days of catch up and kiss and make up and spanking someone who was pouting… not going to tell you who… and the VMoD suddenly clicked on.

“Signal Interference? Is that the name of a Setting?” Zane asked.

“I don’t think so. It’s not in iconography… just flashing that.” I tapped the screen. Two symbols appeared. One was a Picture of a Planet missing a wedge, like a green and blue Pac-Man, and the other was a Starscape, but instead of stars, all the points of light were musical symbols. I laughed “Slice of Life… Space Opera… cute. Huh… I have no idea what setting this could be.” I tapped the Slice of Life. I could use a little decompression after Pacific Rim and Bloodlines and it would be nice to just chill… I crossed my fingers. Then groaned as the Tenchi Logo appeared. I blinked. “Tenchi Muyo… I hope this means what I think this means.”

“What do you think this means?”

“Ooooh… kay… Tenchi has what is quite possibly the most fucked up timeline of any setting not made by DC or Marvel.” Everyone winced besides Caine and Kohina. “There are, to the best of my knowledge, 4 or 5 canonical timelines that all contradict each other… and at least one non-canon timeline.”

“How does that work?”

“Badly. I’m not being glib… it really is terribly confusing… okay… The primary Timeline is called Tenchi Muyo… Ryo-Ohki. It was the first. 20 episodes of Anime, spread across… I think… 3 series of 6 episodes each with two specials… episodes 7 and 20 I think, though I might be wrong and it’s 7 and 14. TM spawned Tenchi Universe, which was set in a slightly different timeline and was 26 episodes and 2 movies… helpfully called Tenchi Muyo in Love 1 and 2.” Everyone groaned. “Yeah… and it gets worse. There’s also Tenchi in Tokyo… which is much more… less. Different timeline entirely, not space opera at all that I recall, more rom-com… with a hefty amount of drama… I really wasn’t paying attention to it to be honest, it was a little boring after the explosions and silliness of TM and TU. TiT was 26 episodes too, I think. So that’s three… oh… right… the primary series had a pair of sequels about Tenchi’s cousin Kenichi I think. Saw one episode of those… GXP… Galaxy Police… and War on Geminar… No idea what the plot was.”

“Okay… so, you think we’re going to the primary timeline?”

“Yes… maybe… see… while parts of it were slice of life… it was fairly Space-happy… but I don’t know if it was Space Opera… With those two choices… I’d normally assume SoL was TiT and Sopera was Tuniverse. But that’s the thing… none of them cover 10 years time and all of them are SoL… while two of them are also Space Opera.”

“What about the other two… three… Might they fit?”

“Errr… no. Pretty Sasami was two different timelines, one called Pretty Sasami, the other Magical Project Sasami… which were like TM and TU to each other… both had the same premise and both covered similar details, but they’re distinct from each other and each is its own timeline… both canon… which makes even less sense when I tell you that Sasami Magical Girls Club is the Non-Canon timeline… along with the manga called “No Need for Tenchi”. Like I said, it makes very little sense.”

“So? All that doesn’t really matter, once we’re inside the setting, right?”

“If we were going to Tokyo… no. It wouldn’t really matter. That’s low risk right there. Universe… more risk… but not a huge amount. Muyo… there are these three beings called the Choshin…. They’re Capital G Gods… as in so far beyond mortals that the Q would have a hard time dealing with thinking about them. I think at one point it was said that their primary underlings were 22-Dimensional Administrators.”

What followed was a brief spate of the science heads among my companions explaining to the respective non-science heads. I explained to Caine. “Think of a normal Earth as a 4D object. 3 in space, 1 in time. Each D you go up raises the power of infinity. A Q is, in theory, Omnipotent within 4D space. The Chosin’s servants aren’t just 18 orders of magnitude more powerful, not just 18 generations more powerful… they’re 18 powers more powerful… n^4 versus n^22… where n is infinity.”

“Okay, so if we assume,” Velma postulated, “That these beings, these Chosin, are SuperMegaUltraOmnipotent… or would that be SuperDuperMegaUltraOmnipotent… need to work that out later… surely they wouldn’t actually care about the goings-on on one tiny planet in one tiny 4D reality and what am I saying, of course they would be. I forgot how this works, I’ll be over here bibbling.”

“Yeah… see, the trio have a plan. A plan to force the Universe to reveal to the existence of a power greater than themselves.” I said, grinning for no apparently good reason.

“You mean… 3 SMUO… can we change that to SuperUltraMegaOmnipotent?” Zane asked.

“You want to call the Chosin SUMO’s?”

“Well, SUMOB’s, really.” Zane grins, “Can’t forget the Beings.”

“We could call them MUSDOE’s,” suggested Yoiko.

“MegaUltraSuperDuperOmnipotent Entities?” I asked.

“Yup!” She gave me a cookie. It was mint chocolate, I savored it like someone who’d been drinking blood for a decade would savor it.

“How About we just call them ROB’s?” her brother put in.

“Can’t, ROB’s are random.”

“Ah… Fine… and can’t call them MOB’s because that’s the exact opposite of a Rob.”

“MOB?” asked Caine, clearly having grown used to the idea that he couldn’t read my mind and just assuming he couldn’t read theirs… of course, only I had the passphrase for the Mental Shielding inside the Warehouse… had to create it… too many mind-readers spoil Gamenight, even with the ‘no powers at the table’ rule. “As in the Mafia?”

“Gaming term. A MOB is one of the random mooks you kill to gain Experience. Also applies to monsters, animals… anything theoretically dangerous between you and your objective.”

“Ah. So… the Sabbat.”

“Yes. Pretty much.” I turned to the group. “SODs. They’re SODs. Supreme Omnipotent Deities. It implies they’re in charge of other Omnipotent Deities, at the head of the organization, in fact. And yes, Zane, all three of them are important to the plotline… if this is the main timeline. If not… I think only two of them show up and in less important roles. And I don’t think I’ll be able to to… oh… yes… never mind… If the machines don’t spell it out, I remember the divergence points well enough to spot them. They’re pretty major. Still, the reason I bring this up is important. Two of the three of them are light on what we’d call “morals” and I’m not banking on the third not using politics on us… if they discover we’re from outside their reality construct.”

“Won’t they know immediately?”

“If they are in their 22D+ forms, yes, almost certainly… but for the last few hundred million years, they’ve been slumming around in 4D space and aren’t actually omnipotent nor omnipresent nor omniscient. It’s all to do with the nature of their experiment to find out “Who’s their Daddy.”” I ducked the flung pillows.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. Well, they aren’t looking for their creator, so much as something more than they are. More like they’re Bene Gesserit Gods looking to create/find a Kwisatz Haderach God.”

“Do they?”

“Yes. three… no… four of them. Or is it two?”

“What?”

“Each of them have a different plan… three potentials. I’m not going to name names, because, well, I suspect screwing things up is going to be easy, and I don’t want any screw ups, most of these people are pretty nice… but three potentials. Of those three, one turns out to be god.”

“Is it Tenchi?” asked Kohina. “Cause his name means Heaven & Earth.”

Velma added “And the series is named for him.”

“Aren’t you all smart, yes, sigh… it is. Fine… Tenchi is the Kwisatz Haderach. Literally. Product of a 20,000 year breeding program, bumped slightly off the rails at the last generation by someone thinking with their heart…”

“Is there a Galactic Human Empire?”

“Mmmm… Jurians and… whatever race the GXP’s elite are are close enough for interbreeding with Humans… but no, they’re… not Earthlings.”

“I sense there is something you’re not telling us,” Mini said. I blushed, damn those involuntary biological reflexes

“Ummm… Yes… well… Tenchi is a Harem Anime… one of the most infamous, in fact.”

“How bad?” my various inamoratas and Ryoga asked. There was no small amount of menace there. I gulped… keeping them from throttling each other was hard enough at times.

“Tenchi ends up married to, I’m pretty sure… 2 Princesses who are sisters, a GXP Detective who is the granddaughter of the head of the entire organization, a space pirate, her battleship, and the mad scientist who created the ship, is mother to the pirate, and great-grandmother to the detective… also, the princesses are Tenchi’s half-great aunts.”

Everyone just stared at me. I shrugged “Royalty be trippin’, Yo.”

While they bickered, I wandered over to the machine and brought up the lists. “Welcome to the universe of Tenchi Muyo!, where there are at least three gods of many dimensions higher than those of mere mortals, a ‘verse of space pirates, galactic police, and vast interstellar empires. The men are badass, the women even more badass, and unlucky everydudes aren’t always unlucky or merely everydudes. Still, worry not… it’s a time of peace… except for the shipping wars!” Well, that answered that question. Still, I had to wonder why I’d had to decide between Slice of Life and Space Opera. The setting mixed the two so thoroughly. If one was Tenchi in Tokyo and the other was Tenchi Universe, I could see it, but Slice of Life had dropped me into the main storyline? Well, whatever. Maybe the other settings were future jumps.

Regardless, I picked up my CP Keys and bounced them in my hand, considering if I should check the Drawback section first… but I decided against it. Slice of Life Tenchi wasn’t really that dangerous. Instead, I tapped the Origin button and it expanded with options: Random Humanoid Lifeform… Space-Pirate (Ryoko)… Space-Police (Mihoshi)… Supertech-Mago-Scientist (Washu-chan… the chan is very important… and Washu is very scary)… Minor Jurian Noble (everyone else pretty much)… well… hmmm… Science is good. I’m fond of science. But the Jurian stuff calls to me too… plus… hmmm… I checked the previews, then sighed. It was close. But I went Jurian. The perks were a tiny bit cooler, though none of it screamed “You must buy me! The future of the Omniverse is at stake!” Mmmm… I put the keys down and went to grab a steak. Nomnomnom.

Caine was being beaten by Francine in a game of chess and seemed confused about it. “Don’t feel bad. She’s got the brain of a computer. IQ 3000+. She just looks like a tween to make people underestimate her.” She stuck her tongue out at me as Caine scratched his head “This place is very strange. It’s the opulence of a country manor… inside a collection of random junk.” he motioned to the space around the house.

“Eh… not so bad…” I clapped my hands and the holocurtain fell between house and storage sectors. “Not quite as good as the real thing… but pretty decent… maybe I should Washu something better up.” I wandered off as Caine challenged her to a rematch. He’d learn… or not.

My first 100 CP went into the Jurian Origin, making me a minor noble of the largest galaxy spanning empire in the setting. Not really sure there was a second Galaxy spanning Empire (theoretically there could be multiple GSE’s, all interlaced, or stacked like pancakes, but realistically, there could be a maximum of two, if you divided the Galaxy into halves, since spanning pretty much means from side to side.) in this setting, but whatever… The Juraian Emperor were Clarketech Aliens indistinguishable from Humanity, at least on the surface, with a government resembling Shogunate-era Japan, lots of feudal houses all feudalling it up under the watchful and largely immortal gaze of the Juraian Royal Family. Seriously, Sasami was more than 700 years old and barely passed the biological equivalent of 9. Ayeka, the equivalent of 16, had looked that old when Sasami was a toddler… 700 years in the past.

The Jurian Culture was incredibly refined, had tech that really was practically magic, and specialized in living machines, usually made of wood. Jurian families, thanks to longevity treatments, were enormous. There were trillions of Jurian subjects and just the minor noble families numbered more than 300,000,000 strong, all of them plotting and scheming and marrying for advantage, position, or a piece of the pie. As a Minor Noble, I’d be a kind of space-wizard samurai lordling… ladyling? With several decades or centuries of experience in court politics, being landed elite, and various forms of noble combat (Wooo duels!!). I’d have a polite conversational grasp of a thousand terrible important topics and the ability to improvise my way through the rest, with courtly manners coming as easily as air.

Oh, and translator implants came free… or at least came with parental pressure to find the perfect husband(s) and an extremely sheltered upbringing, at least in regards to how the rest of the Universe outside of Jurai live. And, as a scion of a mighty (if relatively unimportant) Jurian noble house, I’d apparently been dispatched to Earth for… reasons. Joy. I do love reasons.

I spun the wheel of ages and got… 511… I… think that makes me younger than Sasami. Or… wait… I think Sasami is actually 9 and has been in suspended animation for 7 centuries… Gah… too many timelines… tooo much nonsense… ah well, I’ll find out when I get there.

As a Jurian Noble, I got “Accepted Cultural Norms” as my gift with purchase… apparently the defining trait of being Jurian is their strange cultural norms. I can buy that… but they carry those cultural norms with them. ACN means that, as long as I’m not doing anything outrageously destructive or hostile to the well-being or values of those around me, any peculiarities involving me and my companions (relationships, modes of dress, dueling, etc) will be seen as normal and everyone will accept it largely without comment, though they might ask for clarification.

Another major facet of Jurian culture is their Living Technology, which set me back another [100] and granted me the ability to control all basic devices of that type with my mind alone, as well as the knowledge of how to operate and construct more of them, given appropriate materials. The sub-ability of knowing how to replace interfaces with living wood input devices seemed like it might come in handy, but the real prize was that in later jumps it would expand to grant an enhanced ability to use and enhance any sentient or organic technology. For 100, it was a decent buy.

Next on the list was “Smiling Goddess Leaves” for [200]… which granted me a small mansion suitable for someone of my stature… on every developed planet in the galaxy. Nice… though I suspected not very useful as I’d be spending much of this jump on Earth, slicing life, and Earth of this era wasn’t just not “Developed”, it would have to be significantly improved to not qualify as “Primitive, Avoid.” The nice bit was that, in other worlds than these, I could add the mansion to my Warehouse (people only it says, though I suspect knicknacks and normal household goods are fine… I wonder if closets would be pushing it?… or I could allow the mansion to place itself seamlessly into the current reality wherever it fit in best (and I’d automatically know where it was). Not too bad… though it came with the “Finest, most beautiful/handsome warrior your family can find as your betrothed… though they are a veteran of some recent conflict.” Woooo. Hope he isn’t a dick.

I skipped over “Pirate-Binding Battle Pattern”, a tactical bump, which seemed nice enough, but I had good tactical skill already and it was 300 I didn’t feel like spending. The same was not true of “Redwood Soldier Meditation”, which was [400], and probably worth it. RSM would make me at home in calm gardens and wild forests alike, drawing health and succor from the flora at need. As long as I remained within 3 yards of even a single healthy blade of grass (or something plant-based and similarly complex), I’d never get lost, never get sick, never suffer any danger from exposure to the elements. If I moved through vegetation, it would get out of my way and hide my tracks completely once I’d gone. And that was just half the story. I could seek refuge inside living trees, which would open to allow me to step inside, then seal up again, hiding me without trace and allowing me to sleep undisturbed. Doing so with a Sentient Tree would allow me to regenerate from any wound… Now all I needed was a Sentient Tree… and an otherwise unhealable wound, I guess.

That left me 200, and I moved on to toys. A Jurian Interface, a wood and crystal tiara/bracelet/random bit of jewelry, came to me free and enhanced my ability to pychically communicate with Jurian tech, including large infrastructure systems at network terminals, and granting basic user access over most sentient appliances… at least for me. If I loaned it to one of the gang, they’d get the advantages of my Living Technology perk.

I also picked up the Subspace Onsen for [100], a wonderful retreat away from… everything, complete with infinite hot water (provided both from normal fixtures as well as a variety of waterfalls), dozens of pools of varying sizes and shapes (and privacy features), as well as a fully stocked kitchen and bathside bar. After the jump, it would attach itself to the Warehouse, where it could be accessed internally, or summoned to my current reality. Attached to the Warehouse, it could service up to 50 people at one time. Outside, it can expand to support a theoretically infinite amount of occupants. Again, there was a warning “Not for storage.”

Looking through the rest of the items, there were only a couple I was really keen on… no space ships on offer, which was a bummer… and I couldn’t back out and pick Space Opera, which was annoying… sigh… ah well… anyway, there were Body Enhancement (magical/picomachine/genetic upgrades giving me 5 times the normal strength, dexterity, and endurance of a professional athlete… and since it was an item, it would apply to all my forms if I wanted it to.) and Control Cube (a pink rubixcube-like thing that can seamlessly interface with any other piece of technology of equal or lower tech level, acting as terminal for a smartphone, tv remote, computer interface, car keys, and whatever else I could think of, all by turning it’s various faces… it also doubled as a dimensional pocket, storing up to 3 cubic yards of non-living stuff. It was able to hide itself dimensionally and to be recalled if lost with a gesture), both of which would cost me 100, which would spend me over… did I really want to overspend on a vacation jump? I sighed, might as well see how bad the drawbacks are.

The limit was pretty low, only +400CP. Thankfully, I could get that with minimal risk by taking Hopeless Suitor… twice. It was a gamble, since it included a chain ending clause, but not much of one. Somewhere, someone will want to marry me. I might know them, I might not. I might like them, they might like me, but no matter what, three years into the jump they’ll appear with a wedding on their mind and terrible timing. If I end up getting married before the 10 years are up, boom… chain ends… though the Banker promises said fiancee will fit awesomely into my life. Well, I’m a big girl, with a harem who would almost certainly kill anyone who tried to marry me before any of them could… I have faith in the near psychosis of my ladies… and Ryoga… well, okay, not much faith in him. That brought me up to 500… then back down to 300 as I bought the two items… which just left me with 300 to spend.

So I bought the cheapest Super-Magio-Scientist perk “Simple Scientific Solution” which was the ability to create supertech improvements to common tools and appliances, up to and including automobiles or similar works of engineering, dishwashers that clean fishes in an instant, self heating plumbing, or forcefield windowpanes that doubled as air conditioning units. For 100, it was a steal… And oddly enough seemed to do pretty much the same thing as the most expensive one (although The Maddest Science Yet had more scope and promised that my tech would be somewhat harmless unless harm was desired)…

Which might go nicely with the [200] Science Police perk “You’d Have to be a Jeweler?” which made me so gosh-darned good-natured / harmless seeming / legitimately attentive that I’d always put the right foot forward. People would be less inclined to think I’m a threat, and a worst be simply confused by my antics as long as my sincerity shines through. It gave me a talent for defusing tense situations with an offhand comment or non-sequitur… which is good, since I say non-sequiturs all the time and so far they haven’t been great at diffusing situations… though they have been pretty good at confusing people. But I couldn’t afford an extra 800.

And I was out of points and primed for my vacation and general wedding avoidance shenanigans. 3 fiancees… wooo… crap… no imports… ah well… no option either. Which just left Ahab & Joy… which was a little bit of a shame, really. It was a nice setting to be from. I wandered over to see what they were planning, then after listening in, wandered back over to the VMoD’s and changed some things around of my own purchases.

I ditched the Onsen for reasons that will become clear in a paragraph, then regretfully said goodbye to the “You’d Have to be a Jeweler” I didn’t really need harmlessness, though it might be nice to have. That got me [300] back and with it I picked up Pirate-Binding Battle Pattern, which would boost my tactical acumen to amazing levels and increase my skill in competitive strategy games to the point where only the grandest of masters could defeat me. Better to be feared than liked, right? Or at least have a plan to be feared.

See, I’d forgotten to note that Subspace Onsen was free for Space Pirates… and hadn’t known Joy was going to take that option (though I should have guessed, honestly). That nabbed her the Onsen (which would be attached to my Warehouse because we only had the one.) and the Jailbreaker Perk, which made it so no jail could hold her long, as unless the prison was built specifically hold her, she’d be out honestly or dishonestly in 6 months or less, and even a custom built prison wouldn’t hold her forever.

Ahab, being contrary I suspect, went Galaxy Police, which not only got him a Command Cube and Body Enhancement for free, it also got him “Badge and Weapon”, a perk that meant he’d always have the tools of a Law Enforcement Officer ready to hand (A weapon, Armor, handcuffs… anything short of a spaceship really… and the skill to always, somehow, possibly indirectly, to make quotas… be it by skill, coincidence, dumb luck, or simply having a hard working partner. As long as Ahab (and team) continued producing results, he’d never have to deal with the negative repercussions of being quirky, ditzy, or downright blithering. 

I blinked at that… A Command Cube cost 100, but so did Badge and Weapon, and B&W came with a Command Cube Free? I hadn’t noticed that. I quietly edited my purchases while no one else was looking. Never look a freebie in the… coin slot. Never mind.

INSERTION

What can really be said about slice of life comedies? There’s life, you slice it, it’s still life. There’s a fair amount of lazing about, talking to each other about things, and generally going on about the task of living. It’s working jobs and doing chores, and not fighting wars, engaging in intrigue, or being a superhero/villain.

We entered the setting 298 days before the events of the first episode, i.e. the accidental release (by Tenchi) of Ryoko from the cave where she’d been sealed by Yosho 700 years earlier. Which would have been hunky-dory, except for two facts. First, we had no way of knowing the relative Earth date… or (second) of getting to Earth.

Let me preface this by saying that Subspace Onsen’s are very nice… Joy’s certainly is and, well,if you’ve seen the show, you know all about Washu/Ryoko’s. Is very nice. Of course, it’s much better if it’s floating above a serene mountain lake and not, say, drifting driveless through the depths of space. Ours was doing exactly that. To be specific, it was doing exactly that in the void between Proxima Centauri and Sol… surrounded by the wreckage of what had once been a Pirate Ship, a Jurain Cutter, and a Galaxy Police Cruiser and it was currently being used as a lifepod / hunting preserve as Joy’s, Ahab’s, and my pre-jump selves were engaged in a battle of wits against each other.

“I’m not coming out until you agree I can have access to the Wine Bar!” Joy yelled.

“No, we’re not letting you out until you agree we can have access to the Kitchen!” Ahab retorted… or rather, that was the first thing I heard as I entered my body, becoming aware as I did so that I was named Sada Jomei… Virtuous Dawning Light, first daughter of Shigeru Jomei, lord of the Jomei… the closest thing the Juraian Empire had to Yakuza. Yes, papa was Oyabun of the Space Ninjas & Space Gangsters.

Which meant that Yorokobi the Pirate was hunting me for reasons of profit, and Detective Second Grade Shiro Kujira, was hunting me for reasons of trying to get family secrets. Of course, Shiro and Yorokobi didn’t like each other, and I wanted Shiro dead for snooping into my family’s affairs and Yorokobi dead for VENGEANCE! It was… the good, the bad, and the ugly… except all three of us were pretty, crazy, and hyper-aggressive.

I shook my head, remembering all my previous existences… this was always harder to do when the Jumpself was more than a few decades old, then parsed the names of the others. Shiro Kujira was White & Whale… Ahab… Yorokobi is Joy… right… “Hey, dippy dog and yappy… err… yam… knock it off and come to yourselves. We can bicker later.”

There was a long pause, then Shiro said “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Yorokobi chuckled “The Banker is a Bastard.”

“Can I assume you two won’t try and murder anyone if we all come out and try and figure out what’s going on? As best I can figure, we’re stranded in deep space without a way to send a signal asking for rescue. We could get in VIctor and floor it for civilization, but as long as we have access to the warehouse we aren’t going to starve… hell, this Onsen is supposed to be able to support people just fine.”

Shiro / Ahab peered out from behind the bar, “I can vouch for the booze… which is nice… how about the kitchen, Yorok… Joy?” “Call me Yorokobi. I like it. It’s got panache. The Dread Pirate Joy doesn’t have the same ring as Pirate Lord Yorokobi. Anyway, the kitchen is nice. Not as nice as the warehouse, but good. Very industrial… in a refined Juraian kind of way. Bleh… this me has a lot of disdain for Juraian stuff.” “This me has a lot of disdain for Criminals.”

“Yeah? Well this me has a lot of disdain for my allies hiding from each other. Come on, you twits, you’ve been knocking boots for centuries. And you can’t actually kill each other, so get out here and act your ages.”

The two came out looking hangdog and glowering at each other. Lovely. “Just so you know, I’m not marrying either of you. Nor am I going to be marrying anyone this jump… nor officiating at any wedding… and anyone who tries to make me do either will spend the rest of the decade in a block of ice. Now… damn… that is a skimpy outfit.” Shiro was wearing a bodysuit that left approximately nothing to the imagination. It hugged every curve and bulge and I whistled appreciatively as his toned form flexed and… expanded… in interesting ways as his eyes tracked Yorokobi’s ass, covered in what might generously be referred to as “wispy” fabric. It was as if the memory of a thong bikini had mated with the idea of a lace teddy. It was like viewing her curves through slightly thick fog that moved as she did.

“Ahem… yes… very nice… Joy… put on some real clothes.”

“Can’t. Can’t get into the warehouse and there isn’t anything in here besides towels.”

“What?” I reached out and found that I couldn’t access the warehouse at all. I tried Requipping but that was blocked too. “What the heck?” A piece of paper fluttered from the sky “Your luggage has been delivered to your destination.” I growled softly. “bastard.”

“So, all three of our ships are trashed, our friends somewhere on Earth, and we’re utterly out of contact for what could very well be the next… three years.”

“Why three and not ten?” Shiro asked, tugging his attention away from Yoro as she slid into the water with a soft, deeply disturbing sigh.

“Because the Hopeless Suitor Drawbacks I selected stated that the Suitors will show up 3 years after the jump begins. That pretty much guarantees someone will find us in that time… though nothing guarantees they won’t be stuck with us here… but I suspect watching us go slowly spare will get old eventually.”

That was the first day. By the end of the first week, the squables were getting on even my nerves. By the end of the first month, actual blows had been come to no less than 8 times. Part of the problem was that there wasn’t much to do. I could make things out of nanomachines and hyperice, and I could pull the carbon out of the various foodstuffs and turn it into all manner of things, but doing more than making games out of would have requiring teching up to a working fabrication facility… and possibly dismantling part of the systems keeping us alive.

To alleviate the stircrazy, we began to explore the onsen, which was far larger inside than three astral castaways would need… and by far larger, I mean that it had dozens, if not hundreds of domes and spread across at least 600 square kilometers. It was gigantic, and each dome had its own theme, environment, and flora. Some of the domes were so vast and overgrown that it was quite easy to lose track of where we’d entered from. But in each dome there were drinks and food to be had around each pool.

Deep into the sixth week, we discovered that we were being followed as we made our slow, often drunken, trek through the endless jungles and swamps and forests and gardens of the Onsen. On the slope of what seemed very much like a snowy mountain, we made contact.

“Mommmaaaa!” a small furry object squealed as it impacted with my chest at mach two. I lay stunned on the cedar boards surrounding a steaming sulphur spring. “Ziggy?” I asked, groaning as my chest reverted back to flesh. “What are you doing here?”

“Ziggy find momma!” the hyperactive hyperferret squealed, bounding around me in paroxysms of happiness. I patted his head, relieved to see him… and already suspecting the worst.

“Have you seen anyone else?” I asked my gleeful pet, studying him for changes and finding (rather suspiciously), cabbit-like markings and fluffiness. Ziggy-ohki… heh. If he started liking carrots, there was going to be trouble… both with Ryo-Ohki who loved them beyond all reason, and with me, since I loathed them to roughly the same degree.

“Seen doggies!” he announced proudly. Doggies were Ziggy’s collective name for the other pets and familiars. I smiled and hugged his squirming form, sitting up as Yorokobi and Shiro wandered over to verify I was uninjured. Well, Shiro wandered. Yoro floated vaguely meward, listing somewhat from all the saki and plum wine.

With the swarm of worried familiars, mounts, and personal assistants in tow, we continued onward… after sobering up a little of course, and verifying that the animals had remained well fed thanks to a basic understanding of how to kitchen (the advantages of semi-sapience, am I right?), or at least enough to open the fridges and eat the replenishing stores. I worried about cleaning that kitchen, then shrugged. Worse came to worst, we could always burn it down and replace it.

This time, however, we had a goal beyond simple exploration. If Ziggy and the legion of super pets was here, there would almost certainly be others. I wanted to find them before they went even crazier than they already were. Someone of them (like Toph or Ryoga) could take the isolation… others (like Bao and RayRay) wouldn’t even notice they were alone… but the majority of my companions weren’t nearly that stable… and the easily bored ones were the lowest risk. Velma, Mini, Yoiko, Gaius, Uriel, and Francine would be getting to the clawing at the walls stage, but Kohina, Kendra, and AJ would be verging on ferality… and Reggy… if she believed she was alone… could be extremely problematic… What Kagetane might do if he’d been released from the stasis egg and lacking commands to the contrary didn’t bear thinking about. I didn’t want a omnicidal battle cyborg trashing our life support, especially with the Warehouse mysteriously sealed away. And then there were Cirno and Lucchini… who knew what those lunatics would get up to.

Still, now that I knew Zane was about, finding him was as simple as following our Chala bond… or should have been, but the convoluted way the various domes interlocked was anything but intuitive. As it was, we located Uriel and Cirno first, both of them in what I can only call the Skyrim Dome, as it was a 1:1 scale version of that province as depicted in the game of the same name… which wasn’t all that big, covering about 37 square kilometers.

Of course, neither of them recognized each other, as Uriel, now wearing the form of a… whatever Mihoshi’s race is called (and looking fairly elfin) had assumed he’d been trapped inside a recreation of his empire’s frozen northern realm by a vicious and quixotic dremora of Sheogorath. Cirno (who’d also gotten a make-over, in her case into something that looked like an Ice Spriggan), obviously hadn’t liked being attacked and the two of them had apparently spent the last 40 days trying to gleefully murder each other across the vast uninhabited landscape of pseudo ruins and lake-sized hot springs.

Hell, I wouldn’t have known who either of them was without mind reading or the Third Eye of Satori (Let’s me know what’s in each person’s heart and mind, very useful.). As it was, I had to force them both to sit down and act like reasonable… entities.

“He started it.”

“Shut up, Cirno.”

“My name is Elisabeth du Treeface.”

“No, it’s not. You made that up.”

“It could be.”

“Fine. We’ll call you Elisabeth du Treeface for this jump. Now shush. Uriel?”

“My name is Kaisar Arthas… and why do we keep her around? She’s a lunatic.”

“Yes, well, if we went around kicking people out for being crazy, we’d have to start with me and I don’t wanna be kicked out. Now, can we act like a sensible quasi-immortal, or do I have to have Ziggy sit on you again?”

The former emperor grumbled, but sighed “Fine… any idea what happened?”

“I have a couple of ideas, yes. 1) The Banker is being annoying. 2) I accidentally hit some kind of drawback I didn’t notice… to be honest I didn’t even read all of them. 3) Trelane is having a laugh. 4) the Choshin or one of their sub-administrators noticed our attempted arrival and decided to divert us. 5) Kami Tenchi reached backwards through time and space to keep us from arriving on Earth before he’d met all his future wives because he was afraid I might steal one of them. 6) something went wrong with the Warehouse when we tried attaching Joy’s Onsen to it. 7) because reasons.”

“Well then… why are we here and not in the warehouse?”

“That I can’t say. Nor can I figure out why you’ve got… nativish forms. There wasn’t an import option that I saw. Do you have any new abilities?”

“No… in fact, I don’t seem to have full access to my normal abilities. It’s like I’m wearing some kind of limiter. Little miss Ice too, if the fact that I’m not an Empsicle is any indication.” Cirno shrugged, not looking up from where she was tracing little frost swirls in the dirt.

“Right… well… I don’t suppose you two knuckleheads have any idea how to get out of this dome?” Cirno tilted her head “Dome?” I looked up, then sighed.. Of course the sky was too cloudy to see anything. “Right… this is a dome. One of many. Fuck…”

As it turned out, we had to go through Blackreach to get to the next dome. I hate caves… though without the Falmer, it was somewhat nicer and, as a bathhouse recreation, it didn’t smell of chaurus droppings. The hum of the Crimson Nirnroots was very nice actually. Of course, this wasn’t really Skyrim… the water was all very comfortably warm… even in that lake in Riften, and pretty much everything had been smoothed out to maximize comfort and minimize things you wouldn’t want to step on. It was, in almost every way, a bathhouse / theme park version of Skyrim. If only there were yetis to give you a massage or dragon-priests to bring you beverages.

After crossing the Avatar themed baths (five different baths for each nation, each a different theme… the Kyoshi Island was nicer than the Lake Laogai, but the Moon Pool was the nicest, in my opinion) with exits at the polar spirit portals, the Hogwarts baths (castle and lake) with exits at the Hogsmeade train station and through the mirror of Erised in the dungeons, and the Middle Earth Baths with exits at the gates of Cirith Ungol and the Mines of Moria (the Lothlorien bath was lovely, even if the scale was a little off… okay, very off, Minas Tirith was 3 stories tall, not 30)… we passed into what could only be the Dagobah Swamp Baths… and heard screaming.

Rushing to the scene, we found four pre-teens wearing Hogwarts-style bathrobes struggling and flailing against the vines that were wrapping around them. I swore briefly, then yelled “Tooopphh… Let Franky, Mini, Petra, and Kohina go!” Another spriggan-like entity floated up out of the muck that was probably supposed to be a rejuvenating mudbath, but looked pretty gross to me. Two of them… huh… must be Juraian tree tech or something… or at least aiming for a similar theme.

“Wooo issss thissss Toooooph?” the creature asked, aiming for spooky and missing so hard it ended up in Scooby-doo goofy. “IIII aaaam Elissaaabeth du Treefaaaace!”

“Riiiight… I can see into the hearts of beings and you’re not fooling me. Only you, Toph, would sic plants on random tweens to make a joke. And we already have an Elisabeth du Treeface. You can be Margaret du Treeface instead.” The wooden face was quite expressive, but I wasn’t fooled by the pout. “Fine. You can be Tooooooph. Better?” She nodded. “Look, the sooner we get everyone together, the less bored you’ll be… and I know you, you great misanthropic goon. You may claim to despise everyone, but you missed us. It’s been almost 90 days since Insertion… not that day and night mean much here.” It was true. The Hogwarts Dome had perpetual twilight… The Dagobah Dome had gloom. The Skyrim Dome never got that dark, and several of the more mundane domes never had sunlight at all as far as I could tell.

I helped my (sadly de-aged) lovers, and Kohina… who was perpetually bouncing between 12 and 22 it seemed, yo-yoing back to the start of her arc with every jump for some reason… out of the vines and looked them over. Kohina was Juraian or Japanese, hard to tell which, but judging from the purple Anime hair, I guessed Juraian. Franky & Petra were Masu if the white hair and facial features were any indication, like Ryoko… and Mini looked like she was a member of Washu’s race. Petra, Franky, and Mini looked to be about Sasami’s age… The Banker or whoever was screwing with my love life… probably to make the suitors more… appealing. They too had new names, Yuri (Kohina), Yuki (Franchesca), Yumi (Mini), and Yuni (Petra)… le sigh.

21 days and 16 domes later (not to mention quite a hefty bar tab), we found Zane, AJ, Ryoga, and Bao. They’d built a treefort… because of course they had. They were also about 8 and lobbed fruit at us and called us icky… especially after I identified us to the quartet of Mihoshi-like boys (they looked virtually identical, little blond brats with tanned skin, only the various war paint marking the difference). They called themselves Melanosis, Leucosis, Xanthosis, and Iosis… which essentially meant they were the four alchemical phases (as seen in Harry Potter’s Albus, Rubeus, Sirius (black), and the Wesleys (orange-yellow) and in XenoSaga with Nigredo, Albedo, Rubedo, and Citrine.) At least their facepaint matched.

AJ and Zane were glad to see me, once they got over their temporary brattitude. Ryoga was sulky… but he always is, and Bao was more interesting in snuggling with Uriel and telling him all about their grand adventure in the Neverland Dome.

On the 133rd day, we found Dyna and Yoiko, Tarzaning it up in the Disney Jungle Dome (the 8th Disney Dome to date)… I could tell it was the Disney Jungle Dome and not a standard Tarzan dome from the trees. Yoiko was a Warthog named “Yogo”… Dyna was a Monkey named “Pogo”. I banged my head against a tree so hard I broke it. The tree… not my head. The tree protested and I had to heal it and apologize. If I wasn’t insane already, I think I might have seriously started losing it at this point.

Finding RayRay took 3 more days, even though she was in the same dome, since she’d crawled deep into the warm rocks and fallen asleep. She was a massive anaconda. Kan you say Kaa, boys and girls? Well, at least she wasn’t Sogo, as she was Ajagar. There was probably a joke in that.

On the Isle of Beginning, ala Kingdom Hearts, we found Francy, Kendra, and Velma. It was day 160 and they were very very drunk. Velma, trapped for more than 5 months without anything to read, had gone a little spare and started throwing coconuts at me… hard. She finally broke down and hugged me so hard I heard my ribs creak… when did she get so strong? At least she was adult… though she was massive, towering 9 feet tall and looking very much like a Cabbit-Human hybrid… on steroids. Her name had been changed to “Vex” and she calmed to be a Cabbit-Ogre… whatever that was.

Kendra initially refused to come with us, claiming that we’d abandoned her and that she wanted nothing to do with us and that she had all she needed here and continued adventures were stupid and we should all go away and leave her since she should be dead anyway and her boyfriend was 7 and she couldn’t tell him apart from the others and she hated all of us… Or at least that’s what I’m pretty sure she said… I’m only about 70% fluent in extremely drunk Caribbean French. Word to the wise… do not telepathy a drunk woman. She looked human, except for her eyes, which were endless purple vortexes of madness and despair… her skin was also a black so dark it was edging into the Vanta range. Her name was, assuming I parsed the syllables correctly, “Kasharana Yuko” and she was a Nervash… I wondered if they were related to the Vashta Nerada from Dr. Who… she was almost dark enough to be a living shadow.

Francy was a birdwoman. She had beautiful blue plumage and was so drunk she made the other two look sober. Apparently the local coconuts were about 70 proof and she’d been eating nothing but for 5 months. It seems the booze was super effective. She was a Paradisan… Bird of Paradise? and her name was almost 300 syllables long, mostly trills and caws that I’d have trouble converting into standard symbols. I decided to call her “Shikari” which was close enough to the first three sounds.

Day 204 found us on Windwaker Sea, on a small island with a cave on it, in which we found Caine and Kagetane. They hadn’t shaved in the entire time, and had spent most of it arguing philosophy. It was… in a word… bizarre. Two psychopaths at the end of the world discussing moral relativism and the place of the individual in society. Nihilism vs Post-Nihilism. Altruism vs Enlightened Self Interest. Will to Power vs Determinism. Existentialism vs itself. It was almost a shame to break them apart… but they seriously needed a bath. Since both were, apparently, completely human (Caine / Samraat Aziz was, of all things, Urdu, while Kagetane / Khando Lai was Tibetan) and both appeared to be in their mid to late 60s, though still in fighting trim, it wasn’t much of a challenge to fling them into the nice warm sea (it was only about 12 feet deep).

As the days passed and we wandered further and further afield, nomads of the Onsen, drifting from one oasis of food and comfort to the next, we spent a lot of time in silence and more time talking than we had in literal ages. No one really felt up for much. There wasn’t anything pressing besides finding our last two members and waiting, possibly in vain, for rescue. More than half the others felt my estimate of three years was optimistic and that we’d be stuck here forever… or at least until 10 years were up.

They were all relatively despondent to a degree about their reduced power level… except Kagetane, who had had a bit of a shock when Kohina told him off for being a terrible parent and that she thought of Gaius as her father now. She was, more than any of us, the one who kept us going, forcing us onward so she could be reunited with the former First Lord of Alera.

On day 281, we finally found them. It was in a night dome, one that looked out on the stars in all their extra-solar glory, undimmed by competing light. The dome was designed around Fiji, with all those huts out in the sea, the air redolent with salt tang and floral scents and humid without being too hot. We followed the scent of woodsmoke, Kohina getting more and more excited and Kagetane more and more irate with each passing furlong, until, at last, we rounded a headland and saw, out in the darkness, along the beach, the fire.

It wasn’t very big, but around it were two forms. One standing, one sitting down. As we got closer, Gaius’s features were silhouetted against the firelight, and Kohina ran forward, half stumbling over the ground. He looked remarkably similar to Yosho, though somewhere between the Juraian Prince’s true age of about 24 and his apparent age of about 70. He looked good…

Kohina, on the other hand, looked stunned and had stopped about 10 feet away, skidding to a halt in the sand, eyes flashing to the other figure who had to be Reggy. She gasped, then looked to Gaius… then broke down sobbing.

I rushed over to have a look, to gage what had set the youngster off… and stared. Reggy was fine… she looked… good… healthy… pretty… tanned skin… green eyes… very very pregnant.

I gulped, then looked to Gaius. He looked back, apparently knowing exactly how I felt.

What had he done?

Next: Seeds of Darkness

Resources: Build, Document

If you like what I do, please consider supporting me on Patreon.

World 48: Vampire Bloodlines

SWEET LIKE COPPER

Previously: Perfect Storm

Themesong: All I Wanna Do by Sheryl Crow

The note on the VMoD said “Since you enjoyed being a monster so much.” I peeled it off and swore. Fuck, I hate it when I’m right.

“Crap crap crap crap crap.”

“S’wrong, short stuff?” Ahab asked.

I pointed the machine.

“Don’t see what’s so bad about hunting Vampires. Didn’t you do that in Buffy, or am I remembering that wrong. Crap… it’s been a few… centuries.”

“Nothing wrong with hunting vamps. But this isn’t about hunting them. It’s about being one.”

“Crap.”

“Indeed. And it’s about being a fairly squishy newbie vampire in a world full of psychopathic nasties. Shit. Shit shit shit. Mages. Fuck… There are… wait… no… Bloodlines… shit… um… Bloodlines… damn… it’s a videogame. It’s… crap… I didn’t buy it. It’s… I want to say 2010? 2012… something like that. It’s a videogame version. Based on the TV show I think.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“Vampire the Masquerade is an RPG. One of the five Flagship RPGs from White Wolf Games that make up The World of Darkness. Vampire was the first, followed by, in descending order of quality, Werewolf the Apocalypse, Mage the Ascension, Wraith the I’m drowning in darkness oh god help me help me glub glub glub, and Changeling the Dreaming. They also had a couple others… Hunter the Reckoning was the one I remember sucking the most but there was a Demon one too… I think… and a Mummy supplement and an actual book for Chinese Vampires who were cool, but not as powerful as “Real Vampires”. It was all doom and gloom and heading for a coming apocalypse and none of the systems worked well together, even though they were in the same world. And there were a zillion splatbooks and they all contradicted each other because the whole world (see Mage) was actually a bit of consensual reality and history kept changing depending on how many people believed whatever to have been true.”

“Sounds ghastly… that wasn’t really the title for Wraith, was it?”

‘The Oblivion.”

“Cheery!”

“Tell me about it. Anyway, they eventually brought the apocalypse and scrapped the entire setting and released New World of Darkness… which I think they then changed to “Chronicles of Darkness” to keep from confusing everyone… it was Modern Gothic instead of Gothic Punk like the oWoD and scrapped a lot of the vagueness and “no one really knows, but one story says” parts of oWoD. CoD… oh… right… it was CofD because CoD in gaming terms is Call of Duty… god… that’s lame… anyway, CofD had three flagships, but subtly different. Vampire the Requiem, Werewolf the Forsaken, Mage the Awakening, and 4… no… 5… smaller runs… let’s see… Promethean the Created replaced Wraith… it focused on Frankenstein’s Monsters and Golems I think, bought the book, never read it… know exactly which shelf it’s on too. Sigh… Changeling the Lost was more about madness than Changeling the Dreaming’s focus on hopeless. Hunter the Vigil was, from all reports, less craptastic than the original… Then Geist the Sin-Eaters, which was marginally less depressing than Wraith, and another Mummy, but I don’t think I ever knew the subtitle.”

“Classy. I take it this reality was more concrete?”

“Yup… the players ummm… were divided.”

“How divided?”

“The new owners of the company that made all these games rebranded nWoD to CofD when they bought the company and spun off a division to publish it, relaunching it with all new books under the “God-Machine Chronicles” heading. They even scrapped calling it Vampire the something and changed the name to Blood and Smoke for the second edition. They then reestablished White Wolf to develop a second edition of the classic World of Darkness.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah. The nWoD was a little too cookie cutter… but honestly, it was all urban fantasy type nonsense… and I’m hoping absolutely none of that matters.”

“How so?”

“Because this isn’t the world of World of Darkness the roleplaying game. It’s the world of Bloodlines the computer game.”

“How are those different?”

“I’m hoping that this means that we’ll only be dealing with the Vampire setting. Remember, Old World of Darkness settings weren’t all that compatible. As long as we don’t have to run into reality bending Mages, and I don’t have to deal with Paradox every time I cast magic or use powers, we might… might… be okay.”

“Why do you say might? Are these vamps bad news?”

“Oh, hell yes. But they’re not the issue. The issue is Caine and the Antediluvians.”

“Caine? As in Caine & Abel?”

“That’s the one.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Story time then. Caine killed Abel, right?” he nodded and I realized I was attracting a crowd. “Well God in this universe turned Caine into the first Vampire. Blood for Blood… cause apparently, one murder wasn’t enough for God. Caine can’t be killed. Fiat on that. Word of Motherfucking God. Caine cannot be killed. The God of this particular universe has made it so it’s just not possible and anyone who tries had better be able to fight big G himself over it.”

“Makes as much sense as any of your religions,” Reggy commented. I ignored her.

“Anyway, Caine had, depending on who you ask, either 3 or 13 children, in the Vampiric sense, which in this world are called “Childer” because they’re stupid. Those Childer had more Childer. Possibly as many as 100, but other numbers say 27 or 13. Regardless, those vampires are the forebearers of all the clans of vampires. And they’ve been asleep for thousands of years and will be awakening soon for something called “Gehenna”, the vampiric Apocalypse. They’re so old, they can no longer feed on human blood but must, instead, feed on other vampires.”

“Doesn’t sound like a bad thing if you’re not a vampire.”

“Sure… except that the non-Antediluvian vampires aren’t going to go down easily. They’re going to need Vitae, blood, to power their defenses. If the mages get involved, they’ll start tossing around nukes to stop all this crap. If they don’t exist in this version of the reality… then we’re only marginally screwed, because every freaking Antediluvian is a conceptual enemy. They’re all as broken as Yhwach and twice as mean.”

“Sooo… what’s the plan? Head for the hills? Head for Mars?”

“Yeah. If Gehenna breaks out, that’s the plan. I am not going out on a futile attempt to save the world from something I can’t win. But hopefully, it won’t. I have no idea of the timeframe or if Gehenna will occur within the ten years. If the Time of Weak Blood begins… well… we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. But the big sign is the election of Caitiff Princes.”

“Who is-”

“Not who. What. Vampire society is divided into clans and further divided into bloodlines. But no one clan controls an entire major city and even if they did, there’s lots of mixing and… anyway… There are two organizations that control almost all Kindred… that’s what vampires call themselves collectively… The Camarilla and the Sabbat. The Camarilla are essentially the Illuminati of Vampires. Old, boring, rule bound, and extremely political. The Sabbat were created in reaction to how annoyingly bossy the Camarilla are, and are essentially the First Anarchist Church of Vampirism.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Joy commented

“Role Playing Game.”

“Right.” She shook her head in disgust.

“These Camarilla gits sound like the Volturi from Twilight,” Velma added.

“That is almost assuredly where Meyers got the idea. Just… imagine there are about a thousand of them, none of them like each other, and they’re spread across all the major cities of the world.”

“Fuuuun.”

“Right. So, these local leaders are called “Princes.” they’re usually mid generation… oh… I haven’t explained Generation. Caine was the First, his direct Childer are the Second. The Antediluvians are the Third. The current clan leaders are 5th or 6th generation… the average Prince (the title is gender neutral) is about 8th, maybe 9th. 13th is where the character creation process in the RPG begins. 14th and 15th are barely more powerful than humans.”

“And Caitiff?”

“Clanless Vampires… usually ones so weak they can’t get into a Clan or so weak they lack the markings of their clan.”

“So, 13th is bad… seems to be a running theme,” said Gaius, “Is there a way to improve your generation, or is it just about the waiting game?”

“Age is less important than generation. An 8th Gen vampire, as powerful as you could be in character creation, Turned (that’s what they call being made into a vampire by your Sire… also gender neutral) yesterday, would be roughly as powerful as one turned 200 years ago, but the 200 year old would have a lot more experience and thus better control over their powers and skills. Generation is more about hardcaps than raw power. Age just gets you closer to your cap. Age can’t increase your generation.”

“Can anything?”

“Yes. It’s called Diablerie or Amaranth… and no… not a good thing. To do it, you drain… you drink… all the blood of another vampire, one more powerful than yourself, absorbing their power… and their essence. It marks your aura for years, and can corrupt your soul. And other vamps can sense it. And it’s kinda gross. And super evil. You lose Humanity doing it.”

“Ummm…” AJ raised his hand.

“It’s a metric of how close you are to the Beast… to letting the hunger control you… or how far. Look, I could probably tank it, maybe even tank the taint of draining an Antediluvian, but I’m going to be trying my best to abuse Diplomatic Immunity in this jump. Granted, the major vulnerabilities of vampirism are meaningless to me… actually… all of them are. No stake is going through my skin, fire is snackfood to me, and I can shift to a different form that isn’t vampiric in the day time… or maybe not… at least in this jump, it probably enforces staying a vamp. Eh. Fuck it. Still don’t see the need to get involved in vampiric politics. I might anyway, but realistically, not much point unless I feel like hunting down and destroying all the Sabbat. Regardless, let’s do this thing.”

Without even turning around, I spun the wheel of senility and got… 24. Excellent. I generally enjoy my 25th birthdays. Only one place to be, LA, so that’s sorted. Now, who shall I be this time? Drop-in? Tough? Nerd? Or Socialite? Hmmm… Socialite… more charming, easier time making friends, reasonable notoriety. Sounds good. They’re all free, so there’s that.

The next choice to make was Clan… also free. Only 7 choices… though not all choices are created equal. I automatically discounted the Orlok-Look-alike clan “Nosferatu”. Creepy, ugly, and reclusive is not really my schtick… well, not all at the same time. Ditto insanity in a clanshell “Malkavian”. Didn’t enjoy being insane last time, and I’m not sure what my Psi powers might do if I went completely bonkers. Last thing I needed was a disintegrated city on my conscience; I was still dealing with emotional fallout from some of the things I’d done from time to time and didn’t want more of that. Tremere use blood magic, which is… creepy and waaay too powergrabby for me. That left the thuggish, militant, anarchic Brujah; the feral, wolflike Gangrel; the moody, artistic, and easily bored Toreador; and the classist, elitist, smug-bastard Ventrue.

Oddly enough, those were 3 of my favorite clans (playing a Malkavian is fun, being one… less so, I’d imagine.). Still, a Socialite Gangrel didn’t fit, so that was out. It was pretty much a toss up. Toreadors got Celerity (Vampiric Speed) and Auspex (Vampiric Senses). Ventrues got Fortitude (Vampiric Toughness) and Dominate (Vampiric Mental domination). Both of them got Presence (Vampiric Glamor). Huh… the effects of those powers were different from the ones in the RPG… or at least couched in different language. Heh… imagine the metaness of running a group of vampires in a vampire campaign. “This is soo realistic!” they’d say. Or maybe not.

Regardless, I realized I’d forgotten that Toreadors and Ventrue had their own little quirks as well, to balance out the insanity, ugliness, rage issues, or physical frailty of the other clans. Toreadors gained and lost humanity more easily… and Ventrues were snobs who only fed from upper class people. Fuck it. I was going to be doing most of my feeding from my massive bloodbank (Proper Planning Prevents Puncturing People). Ventrue was not the way.

Toreadors were the most connected to the mortal world, especially the arts and entertainment, which was doubly important in LA where everything is arts and entertainment. I locked that in and checked on freebies. Gotta have freebies, right? “Vampirism” topped the list. No duh, thanks for that. “Sharper senses, tougher body, the potential for eternal life, and a maximum capacity of 30 Blood Points when sated. Weeeee.” But what good is Blood if you can’t use it on stuff, right? So I also got “Blood Buff” (a temporary boost to strength and dexterity/agility, at the cost of some stored blood) for free. And as a Toreador, I got the first ranks of Celerity (the ability to spend blood to run faster), Presence (the ability to spend blood to make anyone within a meter suffer a strength, wits, perception, and speed debuff.), and Auspex (the ability to spend blood to increase my thinking speed and see the auras of the living and undead within 10 meters). The powers were fairly meh, but they had great growth potential… if I chose to embrace them. Ha! Embrace! I slay me! Badumtish!

But wait, there’s more! As a Vampire of Caine’s lineage, I could use the Blood Bond to transform the living into my willing Ghouls (not the eat corpses kind). A Ghoul was an obsessively loyal minion, bound to you because they’d taken three sips of your blood (the first imparted strong feelings for the vampire in the drinker, the second imparted a powerful sense of the vampire’s importance, and the third was stalker territory… and vamps did this for fun!). Ghouls also didn’t age as long as they could sample a vamp’s blood once a month, healed incredibly rapidly, and gained some basic access to any vampiric disciplines their master had. Animals could become Ghouls too, and it tended to make them… grow bigger, fiercer, and more dangerous.

I also gained access to “The Embrace” (Hence the terrible joke above), the ability to transform mortals into fellow vampires. It wasn’t a pleasant process for the prospective blood sucker, as it essentially involved draining them to the point of death and then giving them a small about of your own blood. The transition took several days usually and wasn’t happy fun times… and the nascent vampire usually went into Frenzy at the first sight of blood. As a GM, I’d always wondered what would happen if a sample of a Vampire’s blood was used on a freshly exsanguinated body that hadn’t been drained by a vampire. Would that still work? And what if the ghouling process was done with intravenous blood, not drunk? Could I steal some vamp’s blood and addict someone else to that person? What if I mixed a whole bunch of blood from other vampires…. The science was calling to me… as a doctor.

The last vampiric freebie was my own personal Ghoul, a fanatically loyal servant that could either be someone named “Heather” or anyone I described. They’d be extremely loyal regardless of how I treated them or if I left them as a ghoul or not… and they counted as a companion. Huh. I could, in theory, pick someone from the real world… my world, Origin Earth, since this was close to that world. Hell, I could probably get a copy of one of my friends, or my sister… or my dad… I’d have to check the year of the jump to see if it was before he died… but no… it wouldn’t really be him… or them. It would be a copy. And if I ever found a way to get the real people, I’d have to explain “Oh, this is your Earth-Bloodline’s copy. They were just filling in for you.” That might work, but I’d feel weird about it. On the other hand, I could get Johnny Depp or Christian Bale or Rachel Weisz or… or Tilda Swinton! I love Tilda Swinton!

But that would be creeper stalker lady of me. Bad SJ. Well, I don’t know who Heather is, and so I have no real desire to have her follow me around like a lovesick puppy… or really to have anyone follow me around like that. My companions might not be my equals but they come closer than most… except Ziggy who is clearly a superior lifeform since he gets all the snuggles and petting and treats and I have to do all the work. I’ll pass on this, at least for now. If someone actually interesting presents themself… or, you know, I can find Justin Bieber… oh… that’s tempting. “Justin! Fling yourself into this furnace for me!” “Yes Mistress!” Nooo… bad SJ!

So that was it for the Vampire freebies… but Socialite got me Haggling (the tendency to always get the best possible prices – buying and selling – as long as I have even a vague sense of the value of something.) for free. Not that I needed it, as I usual either paid whatever the price was or used mind control, but sure, why not. The other two Socialite perks were Seduction [100] and Persuasion [200]. The first made me able to talk the pants off of even the most prudish… and made it come naturally, instead of me feeling like a little girl asking Santa for a pony or a tween demanding to know why she got a D+ on an A paper (stupid biased asshole teacher. Grrrr.). It went well with “The Voice” from Pervert Bride. The second made me insanely good at persuading people to do… pretty much anything I wanted them to, plus it gave me the gift of sizing up a mark and lying quickly and smoothly. They weren’t the best abilities, but, they fit the scene and nothing better seemed to be on offer. It too went well with “The Voice”. I was a charisma machine!

In the gear section, I found such useless tat as a Fire Axe, a Revolver, Leather Clothing, circa 2010 Body Armor, a refilling fridge with enough blood to keep me going for 1 week (but not at full tilt), an assault rifle, a shotgun, something called the “Odious Chalice” that sounded about as pleasant as root canal, “A Group of People Who Aren’t Assholes” which would allow me to take up to 8 chucklefucks from this world as companions but which wasn’t an import option, a magical katana, a blob of amber that boosted the time limit on my disciplines by 50%… and the only thing worth buying, a green thing that increased my learning rate by 1/3rd. It was called the “Saulocept” and cost [300]… which left me with 400 and nothing to buy with it. Fuck.

Drawback time, I guess. 600 CP limit. The 300 pointers were all out. Plaguebearer was gross and exactly what it sounds like. Twice Damned changed the blood drinking to eating fresh human flesh. And Gehenna started Gehenna within the first 2 years. Fuuuuuck. Of the 200s, one would make me a coward and one would make me a sycophant to someone named “Lacroix”. The only one that seemed at all interesting, and indeed, possibly fun, was “To Be Continued” which would stock the world with all sorts of weirdness (landsharks, vampire hunting strippers, Justin Bieber being a not-douche…). The 100’s… had a theme. The letter “F”. Fornication (you will spend a disproportionate amount of time seeking sex and dress like a stripper), F.A.T. (a weight problem. Comes with Afro.), and Frenzied (anger control issues). I took the first and second. A fat, slutty, artistic, socialite vampire. Sure. Why the hell not. That brought me to 800… now I had twice as much and nothing I wanted. I know, I know, you’re wondering why I took drawbacks then? Literally for the hell of it.

I could buy levels of the disciplines, but it would be more fun learning how to use them than just buying them. Wait… what generation am I? That’s a kinda big thing… I read through the entire thing. No comment? Wait… blood pool is determined by… 6th Generation! Well fuck me sideways and call me Bruce! You couldn’t even buy 6th Gen in Dark Ages. 8th was the starting limit in standard, and 7th in Dark Ages. 6th generation limited everything in the setting to 7 dots… out of 5. 7… out of 5. And as a vampire, I could boost anything. Stats, Skills, Disciplines. Hell, the Toreador level 7 of Auspex was the ability to create custom personalities for myself at will. And the level 6 was mesmerific storytelling… from a sense boosting power. Level 7 Celerity was essentially pulling a Flash and doing multiple things at the same time. Level 7 Presence could numb people’s emotions to nothing or remove their ability to feel empathy for others. Scary shit.

Eh, screw it. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to unlock the clan disciplines I didn’t buy, so I might as well buy 5 more level one disciplines. Couldn’t buy them all… not even from the limited pool available (11 out of more than 30 if I was remembering correctly.). I opted for ones that offered the most interesting potential effects, stuff I couldn’t normally do on my own. That was Obfuscation (Vampiric Invisibility), Animalism (Animal Control), Protean (Gangrel specific Beasting Out), Dementation (Malkavian specific inducing insanity), and Thaumaturgy (Tremere specific Blood Magic). I could probably learn Potence (Vamp Strength), Fortitude (Vamp Toughness), and Dominate (Vamp Mind Control)… all of them were common and not clan specific.

That left me with 50 and I splurged and bought a Fire Axe with it. It was either that or the gun or the leather. Fire Axe… eh… don’t leave home without it?

“Ahab, Joy… you sitting this one out?” Neither one had picked up their Tablets of Destiny. Joy nodded. “Not really…” She trailed off, but Ahab continued “It’s a little creepy, you know?” I nodded.

“Your choice. I’m locking the warehouse into timeless while I’m gone. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

Franky elbowed me and grinned “And it’s not ‘cause you don’t want us seeing you all gross and skanky?”

I shuddered. “Yeah… that too. I’m going to try and not be… fucked up… in this jump. But I’m not counting on it. And if anything goes wrong, I don’t really want any of you getting fanged, ghouled, or worse.

Joy laughed. “Well, if that’s the way you’re going to be, I can’t see how I can pass this up.” She plucked her tablet up and logged in, announcing her choices as she went “Nerd… Ventrue.” I groaned. Blood Buff, Blood Bond, Embrace, Ghoul, Fortitude, Presence, and Dominate… Plus “Hacking” (The ability to hack weird 90s era computers… except they all turned out to be 80s era, so hah!). Ahab smirked “Fine! If you’re going, then so am I! Tough Brujah!” I groaned. They were going to be bickering the entire damned jump! I banged my head on the VMoD. He got Melee (oh, so useful, Mr “I-Invented CQC.”) instead of Hacking, plus Celerity, Potence, and Presence. Great. The trifecta of Presence Clans. Intimidation, Glamour, and Majesty. Just what the world needed.

INSERTION

I didn’t mean for things to go like this. I really didn’t. I assume this is how the game begins. You wake up in a bed in a dive motel, another person sitting across the room watching you sleep and smoking. Some goons smash down the door, grab you both, and drag you to this theatre where everyone who’s anyone in Vampiric LA (at least on the Camarilla side) is there for your Sire’s trial for unauthorized vampirization. He or she, in my case He… He said his name was Lester or something… is executed, and the Prince, a douchenozzle named Lacroix is about to order the same done to you when one of the Brujahs protests and Laxative changes his mind (Lacroix Baby, Lacroix) and gives you a reprieve, at which point the game begins and you get to act. I assume this, because that’s pretty much how things went for me. I had no control of my body for over an hour. I blame that for what happened next.

I couldn’t speak, couldn’t exert external force on anything… but my senses worked fine and I read the hearts and minds of every single person in that theatre, Camarilla, Anarchs, Sabat spies… Kuei-jin sympathizers. Sure, some of them had mental defenses… but not against anything like me. I’d read the hearts and minds of Vampires dozens of times more powerful than these idiots. Which is why it came as such a shock, because I’d never read minds as inhuman as theirs. Christ! I’ve been inside Reggy’s head! She was utterly non-human, but these… beings… I wanted, in that moment to destroy them all… they were all murderers… well… not all… some were guilty of manslaughter more than murder, having killed only once or twice when totally out of control from hunger, often their first kill… but there wasn’t a single person in that theater who hadn’t taken human life at least once… including the drunken (and all too human) janitor asleep in the basement… wow… what a dick.

I got angrier and angrier as my enforced immobility dragged on and on… and the second they released me I… may have snapped and turned everyone in the theater into vegetables… mentally speaking. Okay, yes, I psychically lobotomized everyone in sight… and sensory range really. I looked around as, one by one, they toppled like ten-pins, thrashing and drooling. I swore. “Fuuuuuucccccccccckkkkk…” I was reasonably certain none of them would die if I did nothing… at least not until some humans came by and took them out into the sunlight… but the VMoDs had said that, if I played nice and, in general, followed the plot (it was a fairly sandboxy game I guess?) I’d get more “power up potential” than just executing everyone for being vampiric scum.

I rolled my eyes, then ate the last 3 minutes of history. It tasted… smoggy, but went down easy. I only had to undo a very very recent event in a very localized area. I could eat a decade old event on a global scale without too much trouble. This was… an amuse bouche by comparison.

Everyone blinked, looking around as if trying to figure out what had happened, but, for once, the nature of the WoD meant that reality snapped back around them and they forgot it almost at once. Right… Fucking consensual reality. Still wasn’t sure I was safe from Paradox, but no witnesses, right?

I have no idea how closely what followed reflects the game. I never played it, I don’t know. But in general, there was an utterly bullshit tutorial section involving some Sabat and some gang bangers. I lumbered my… absolutely staggering 540 lbs body, 7 feet tall, dressed in stripperific clothing that… I should not have been wearing a thong!!!! Anyway. I lumbered my way through that section, letting the core persona for this jump (Salty Jones… part black, part hispanic, part chinese, part… Salty was LA in microcosm. He, yes he, was bound to offend… everyone. Transvestite, omnisexual, blimpoid, and a little bit of almost every ethnic group on the west coast. He was also a massive smart ass, a personal chef, and a nightclub singer. I liked him… me… despite myself.)

For the next few weeks we acted like a normal… if very large and oversexed vampire. I even tried drinking from a mortal, but it was… gross. Really really gross… it was… hot… and ugh… blech… cloyingly sweet. Just how much sugar was in one of those things? People… whatever. I mean, sure, the beast within was all “Gnarrrr Feeed me!” but really, Silent Judge was about ten times scarier than this nebulous hunger that didn’t even have an identity. It was a secondary ID really, but that’s what Silent Judge essentially was at this point. There were too many of us, of me, to let a frustrated hunger monster shape our identity at this point.

Met some interesting people. Some Thin Bloods down by the beach… I gave them a place to crash when I took out some jackasses who’d beat up this ghoul named Mercurio. He sent me to get meds for him from the local clinic, and to get some high explosives back from the douchebags who beat him up… I considered just healing him… but he asked for pain meds and mentioned a clinic and I know a plot hook when I hear one. So I went… found out who Heather was. Injured girl, room all alone, bleeding to death. Seriously. Fuck this. I was being handed Ghoul Girl on a Gurney? She didn’t have any plot hooks, so I stuffed her into the medbay. She could be grateful later, but I was not turning her into a ghoul just to save her life.

Anyway, got the drugs for Mercurio, headed to the beach to get his not-semtex back, met the thin bloods… turned the thugs into seagulls, then gave their house to the Thin Bloods I’d met getting there (E, Rosa, Cooper, and Julius). They looked like they could use a pad. And some blood. And I could use a few test subjects, to see if curing the vampirism was actually possible. Who knows, it could be.

Each of them had their own little questline potential, it seemed. E wanted to find his Sire, Lily, who must be gen 14 if she made him and was thin-blooded herself… gen 15s can’t sire as far as I know. Cooper was an idiot who thought he could return to being human if he killed the head vampire like in Lost Boys or got a blood transfusion like in… huh… never heard that one before. Naive, but still… an idiot. Rosa wanted to get out of town, but that wasn’t safe… not that staying was much better. Julius was apparently breaking the masquerade to sell Vampire info to a screen writer named David; I’d have to erase David’s memory but in the meantime I explained about the masquerade to these little yutzes… and the Jyhad, the Sabbat, the Camarilla, being Thin Blooded… I gave them the 20 minute powerpoint presentation (about as long as I could spare by teleporting back to Mercurio instead of driving. Bet the game version of LA was smaller. LA is fucking huge!). “Stay here, don’t kill anyone, and try not to act like vampires.” I told them.

Getting back to Mercurio with the RDX (what else could it be, it was in two bleach bottles and smelled homemade), he begged me not to tell Lacroix about this. “Chill little man, I ain’t telling Lacock more than the time of day. Dude be tripping, killing that nice lady like that.” Then he sent me on the next step of the quest, which was to blow up some Sabbat warehouse… but I couldn’t just take it out personally, I had to get some dillhole named Berty Tung to get me in… and that meant getting some bint named Teresa and her sister Jeanie to drop some kind of feud… it was all getting do A to do B to get C to blow up D… but at this point it was like LARPing, and I’d done enough of that IRL to not really mind. I was actually getting into character a bit.

Get to “The Asylum” the nightclub run by twin bitches T&J Voerman, and T wants me to help her unhaunt some hotel… and the only way to get to the Ocean House Hotel is through the sewers… really? What, the, everliving, FUCK? Why? Can’t I just take a fucking cab? Screw this, I’m taking a cab. I didn’t even bother to scan her; she was just a quest giver, right?

I took a cab. Turns out the sewer reason is cause the doors are boarded up. Riiiight. I have a fucking sword that can cut between spirit particles… matter is not going to stop me… no… no.. no destruction of private property. I turned into a snake and slid through a broken window, fully expecting this to be a bullshit fake haunting.

Not so much. Fuuuck. Bits of things kept exploding. Fucking Wraiths! Shit… shitshit… if they were here, Werewolves, Fae, and Mages were too. Screw this noise. I turned spectral and drew my Zanpakuto. “Here ghosty.” I said, voice full of menace. “Bakudo 44. Big Trouble in Little Seireitei.”

At my words, the entire hotel was sealed, cut off from the outside world, both physically and spiritually. “Bakudo 88. Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice.” There was a screech and lighting fixtures exploded all around me as the ghost was pulled out of the immaterium and physically manifested by my highly unorthodox sealing spells. “Bakudo 69. Who You Gonna Call?” A rectangle of light appeared beneath the ghost, actinic tendrils of energy reaching up and wrapping around its spiritual form.

“This is not your place, spirit.” I said, drawing Soul of Ice. “Time for you to move on.” And I pressed the base of my… overly large machete… someone was having funtimes… but to be fair, her normal slender forms would have looked like a toothpick in my massive mits… against the ghost’s head and, with a scream of rage and anger and hate, the ghost was dragged into the darkness beyond. A moment later a second ghost coalesced, looking tired but ultimately satisfied. She nodded silently to me, then dissolved into a pillar of light and rose through the ceiling, leaving behind a pendant and a diary. I read the second, learning about the asshole father (ghost 1) who killed his daughters and wife (ghost 2) then tormented her for decades. Fucker… he got off… probably not easy, come to think of it.

Getting back to Terry V, I found her missing and her twin sister Jennie had a quest for me… in the form of vandalizing some paintings at a local gallery. That took me twelve minutes, most of it because doing so summoned some fucked up blood… thing. Get back and Terry’s sends me to some diner to make up with Jeanette… Fuck it, if I’m going to be running errands for these two, I’ll take the time and do the reading…

Well, fuck. Not twins. DID. Multiple Personality Disorder. Thanks to a fairly fucked up childhood and the Malkavian Madness… ooohh… this is what I get for treating people like people. The two of her were in full on meltdown mode. There was a psychic war going on between the two of them, plus Jeanette was planning to have some thugs shoot me at the diner. Oh, and Theresa had Lily tied up as a blood donor at the local blood bank, courtesy of one of her ghouls.

One jaunt into TJ’s mind, a lot of cleanup and a rather disturbing bossfight later, and the two were… talking to each other instead of plotting cerebral sororicide. “Now, you two behave, call Tung, I’m getting out of here. And you want to be Prince of this city so bad, start acting like it. A Prince does not plot to assassinate herself, got me? Oh, and that one ponytail on the side of the head look? Not you. Makes you look like you forgot to balance your look.”

I sauntered out, heading for the gas station where the Nosferatu Tung lived… how the fuck long were the nights here? Long enough I guess. But it was getting pretty close to dawn. Tung gave me the skinny on the warehouse… why I needed to do all the other bullshit I dunno, but fine, juuust fine. Padding, introducing stuff… whatever. This jump was 2 days old and I already needed a drink… not that it would do much besides make this form sick. “Sneak in, plant the bomb, yaddayadda.”

I rolled my eyes. I could do this blindfolded. I didn’t. But I could have. Instead I flew up to the roof and cut my way through the ceiling, dropped the bomb and walked away. Building went boom. I’d scanned it, nothing but humans who wanted to be Sabbat. Not a nice group of people.

As I was doing the post explosion walking away from the flames bit, a Gangrel wolfshifter named Becket showed up, wanting to wax all philosophical about the Book of Nod and its “Secrets of Vampirekind, shhh sooo secret.” history / myth… whatever. Him, I read. Not Cam, not Anarch, not Sabbat. Just a 300 year old loner… with some interesting information. He acted cryptic, I acted weird… it was all good.

Get back to Berty, report the deed done, he calls me a Cab… that’s… when things go off the rails. I suspect things would have been different in the game, is what I’m saying. I walked to the cab, just passively scanning everyone I ran into if I was going to be spending more than a few minutes with them, and I stumbled. The driver wasn’t human. Fair enough, this was WoD. But the Driver also wasn’t just any old vamp. The driver was freaking Caine. His eyes tracked to me and he had the same stunned expression on his face as I would have had if I’d had worse self control.

“We should talk,” we both said at the same time.

“You first,” I said.

“Not here,” he said.

“Fine.” I climbed in the back and he drove to an underground parking facility.

“No two day old fledgling should be able to keep me from reading him,” he said as he pulled into a spot.

“No. I imagine not. Except, I’m older than you are, Caine.”

“That’s not possible, unless you’re my father.”

“Oh, it is. Well… probably. I doubt either of us really has that firm a grasp on just how old we are.”

“How is this possible?”

“The God that Marked you is not the only God.”

“Obviously.”

“The how isn’t that important. The why is. I’m here for a 10 year… let’s call it an audit. I’m here to watch things play out, maybe to interfere, maybe not. Like you, I could easily wipe out every Vampire in this city… besides each other. I can’t hurt you, obviously… and you cannot reasonably harm me. At least that’s the assumption we should both go on. According to legend, If I harm you, I’ll receive the same wounds, only worse. Let’s not test each other’s limits, shall we?”

“No. I suppose not. So, you just… show up places, and watch?”

“Sometimes I show up places and kick ass. I imagine the same goes for you, though I’ve seen… many more places than you have.”

“Oh? Do tell. I love a good story.”

I laughed. “Yeah, yeah. You don’t believe me. Want to see a trick?”

He chuckled. “Sure. I love… tricks.”

And with that, I drew him into my Mind Palace. “Welcome to Sunny California.” I said, throwing open the doors leading from the foyer to the outside. Caine looked around at the vista, a crowd of palaces atop a hundred mountain peaks, each surrounded by a nimbus of cloud and bathed in sourceless light. “Where is this… and who are you?”

I smiled, “I’m the same person who’s sitting in the back of your cab. This is just what I really look like. And this… is the inside of my mind.”

“How?”

“How do you reflect damage? Call it the curse of a vengeful god.”

You don’t sound bitter.”

“It’s been a while. I’ve adjusted. Can’t go home again and all that. I guess I should be asking why you’re in LA at this time, but I’m here, so I can only assume something major is brewing within the next four to eight years. Gehenna, or something like it.”

“Something like it? What’s like Gehenna?” He seemed incredulous.

“Believe it or not, the mortal Apocalypse and the vampiric Gehenna aren’t the only doomsdays rolling out around these parts. The lycanthropes, mages, changelings, and even the wraiths all have their own ends of the world. It’s a right clusterfuck of Doomsdays.”

“Well… isn’t that just lovely.”

“Gets worse than that.”

“Worse than doomsday? days?”

“Has to do with why history is all fucked up.”

“Do I want to know?”

“No. You really don’t. I have multiple post doctoral degrees in high level math and it makes my brain hurt just trying to deal with it.”

“Wonderful. So… what now? I mean, I was all set to be super cryptic and drop hints about destiny and how you were shaping it and how we’re all fortune’s fools… but I think you might understand that as well as I do.”

“Yeah… learned that the hard way. I could and have been a major plotbuster… but only when I know what’s coming… in detail. This time? All I know is the power level.”

“You sound worried.”

“Your children scare the crap out of me.”

“But I don’t?”

“Aside from being a murderer, you’re fairly reasonable. And there’s only one of you. I have no idea how many of these Antediluvians there are, where they are, or what their motives are. And their power level is, I think, higher than yours in some ways. An awful lot of your power rests in being… unkillable.”

“Accursed.”

“Yup. That. I’d love to be able to tell you I have a solution to that, but, while I know solutions are out there, I don’t know how to get to where they are.”

“Lovely. Well, if you find one, do drop by again and spare a thought for Caine.”

“If there’s a world left when I’m done here…. But for now you should take me to see LaCock, and I should report in. There’s a plot to unravel here.”

And there was. It unravelled slowly over the next month and a half, a month that largely focused around a massive practical joke being played by a local anarch called Smiling Jack involving an ancient sarcophagus and an Antediluvian rumor…. And about eleven pounds of C-4. The city got a new Prince (not me), the Anarchs had a good laugh (not at my expense), and all the Kuei-Jin in the city ended up very very dead (those who didn’t flee when I gave them the option… I don’t like people trying to play me for a patsy.)

That was how I spent the first 2 months of the jump… call that the tutorial. The rest of the time I spent largely with Caine as we tracked down the Antediluvians one by one and I explained (between battles) the nature of the world to the vampiric progenitor. “So… everything in this universe is some kind of… illusion?”

“More like an agreement on what happened, is happening, and can happen. It’s what causes the mortals to largely forget everything they’ve seen of the supernatural, no matter how often it crops up.”

“And it’s all coming crashing down?”

“Yeah… pretty soon. The Final Nights are coming within the decade.”

“And you know all this from playing games?”

“Parallel universes. Some more parallel than others. In my world.., my homeworld, all of this world was merely a rule set for bored people to pretend to be Vampires, Werewolves, or Mages.”

“I’d ask why they’d want that, but I have a feeling I wouldn’t understand even if you told me.”

“Yeah… pretty much. It’s a mortal thing. I still enjoy it, but I get regular doses of mortality every decade or so. I’m not really sure how far into the immortal range I am. This is my… third? Fourth… fifth? Time being something that will, in theory, live forever. I’m a racial / societal god, a pagan goddess, an elf a couple of times over, a half-dragon… dunno if they die of old age… and a vampire, of course.”

“And there are more vampires out there than just the kuei-jin that have no connection to me?”

“Oh, a good hundred or so. What did you think of those Twilight Audiobooks I loaned you?”

“I think the Volturi sound like what the Camarilla wishes it could be… and their Embrace sounds like the torment of the damned. I would not wish it on my worst enemy. Still, they sound like fierce warriors… when they aren’t moping. Much better than that Louis, and his child bride. Dracula I liked. He had style… but I could not figure out which clan he might be.”

I laughed. “Yeah. I do that too sometimes. If I had the Darin Shan books, I’d loan those to you, but they’re on backorder. Vampinese… I dunno… sometimes people amuse me. I never read them myself. Just saw the first movie… prissiest vampires ever. But Vampire Fiction is essentially divided into three groups. The Vampires are People, Vampires are Monsters, and Vampires are Monster-People.”

“How does that work?”

“Well, VaP works try to limit the power and play up the humanity. VaM works tend to nerf both the humanity and the power pretty heavily so that normal people can badass their way to killing them… that’s what Buffy the Vampire Slayer was all about. Most of your descendants would rip through most of that world’s vamps like a sawblade through balsa… And VaMP works tend to play up both factors, showing how hard it is to be a demi-god of murder without giving in to the hunger.”

“You don’t seem to have a problem with it.”

“First, I source all my blood ethically… I have a jar that makes blood. But mostly. I think blood tastes disgusting. Too coppery too sweet. Of course, that means everything tastes ghastly to me these days besides mint gum. I drink it because I need it, but honestly I just close my eyes and think of England.”

“What?”

“What they used to tell puritanical British women to do with regards to sex. You don’t seem bothered by the hunger either.”

“Just practice. When I’m not angry, I barely feel it anymore. It doesn’t sustain me. The Curse does that all on its own. All I feel is pain if I don’t eat.”

“Ah. That makes sense.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask… why do you wear that… ridiculous form?”

“Salty? It’s the form I was given this jump… and for this jump, all my forms will be… rotund… just like I’ll be incredibly slutty… It’s the price I pay for more power. I inflict… hardship upon myself.”

“Huh… just out of curiosity… is one of those hardships an explanation for why we’ve been attacked by Vampiric Were-Chihuahas every night for the past week?”

“Heh… Could be.”

ENDGAME

Nine years and change. That’s how long we managed to put off Gehenna. Four of the Antediluvians were willing to listen to reason. Ennoia, Malkav, Ilyes, and Saluot… and not a single one of them was sane. Ilyes had been driven mad by abuse of time travel. Saluot and Malkav by the conflicting nature of their precognitive gifts in a world where even the past was fluid… and Ennoia from being half-vampire, half-werewolf. That these four were the sanest of the lot should tell you much.

Still, nothing could save a world bent on destroying itself, and even holding Gehenna at bay wouldn’t stop the Ascension or the Apocalypse or the End of Days. The World of Darkness was being cancelled and the world was coming to an end regardless of what I or Caine might do about it. I’d never actually read the Gehenna sourcebook, since my World of Darkness Campaigns were always set in the future past the point they’d have occurred (and I’m not a big End of the World fangirl), but I’d surfed wiki’s and talked to people enough to know that the book didn’t paint any absolutes. Just… scenarios… mutually exclusive ones at that.

“Are you certain this will work?”

“No. Not even a little bit.” I said, pulling out the syringe and handing it to him.

“Then explain again.”

“There is a thing called the Withering. It showed up in some of the scenarios.”

“And it does… what?”

“It makes vitae useless. Forces vampires to eat each other.’

“And this concoction of yours?”

“It’s technical… but the biggest theory of the Withering is it was caused by something taking you out of the picture.”

“And…”

“Remember in Lestat, when all the vampires got burned because Akasha was put out in the sun?”

“Yes.”

“What happens to the father happens to them all.”

“Them? Not you?”

“Eh… maybe. But my powers will work in other worlds where you don’t exist… at the worst I’ll lose all the Vicissitude and Obtenebration and Quietus and the other powers I picked up from the minds of those who opposed us. Everything else I should keep. And if I don’t… I’ll always have Paris.”

“You’re very strange… I still do not-”

“I think I have a way to make anyone who has your blood in their system turn into a mortal again… It’s… it’s fucked up, but it’s essentially a combination of a lot of science, a lot of magic… this curse from Buffy… some powdered Phoenix Down… it’s complicated… Just… stick yourself with the needle. Worse that can happen is you die, right?”

“But the world is still going to end?”

“Yes.”

“Then… what good will this do?”

“Endings are just beginnings as seen from the other side.”

“And this will remove the curse?”

“Almost certainly not.”

“Then… why?”

“Because it will end everyone else’s Eternal Night.”

“Ah. It will be as if I’d never disobeyed Uriel.”

“Well… everyone your children have ever killed will still be dead… but yes. They’ll grow old and die, just like everyone else.”

“And this is for the best?”

“What the hell do I know? I can see a few seconds into the future… Ask those two.” I pointed at Malkav and Saluot who were playing chess against each other… two seers, predicting each others’ moves in real time.

“Fuck.” The father of all vampires said, then jabbed himself with the syringe. His heart (yes, he still has a heartbeat… he’s not undead.) lurched as the bolus of magic hit it like a ton of bricks and there was a flash of light and an Angel of THE LORD stood in front of us.

~WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?~

“Ah. Good. Thought that might get your attention.”

“What?” asked Caine. I might have left out this bit.

“Sit down Caine… you’re dying,” I said, then turned to the Angel. “What I did was very simple… I had him inject a tiny chunk of anti-matter into his body along with the cure which might or might not work”

~WHY?~

“To get you to show up.”

~WHY?~

“Because I want you to make this whole thing go away.”

~THING?~

“The ends of the world.~

~AND IF I DON’T?~

“I erased the gods of a world that wasn’t ruled by consensual reality once. Do you really think I’d have a problem convincing everyone on this Earth that Blue was Green? I like this world… it’s fun. But the End of the World shit has got to go. I don’t know if you can do much about the nature of the world, but between the Christians and Muslims, you and your people have got the pull to stop the end of the world cold. So do so. Let things play out on their own. Stop pushing for a final resolution and enjoy the ride. It’s not what you were made for, but it’s the more interesting story.”

~I HAVE REMOVED THE ANTI-MATTER. HE’LL BE FINE.~

“I know. I knew you would. God can’t have Caine just keeling over, now can he?”

~YOU TREAD A VERY DANGEROUS PATH, MORTAL~

“Fuck you. You’re playing dice with the fate of the world. Grow up.”

~YOU DARE.~ It wasn’t an accusation.

“I do. You’re the fire of god. Hit me with your righteous fury. Give in to the anger. Judge me, big boy.”

~DO NOT TEMPT ME.~

“Then act like you’ve grown some over the past fortnight. The world took a long time to build… it’s pretty fascinating. Shutting it down now… that spoils all the fun.”

~DO NOT DO THIS AGAIN~

“Do we have a deal?”

~YES. DO NOT DO THIS AGAIN~

18 weeks later

“Oh, come on Caine. I knew they wouldn’t let you die.”

“That’s not the point. You lied to me.”

“Hah. If that’s my biggest crime, I’ll take it.”

“And you’re asking me to trust you? After getting me to stick Anti-Matter into my body?”

“Ayup.”

“This is a terrible idea.”

“Ayup.”

“You’re mad.”

“Ayup.”

“And we’re having this talk inside your mind palace because?”

“No eavesdroppers here… probably.”

“This will never work.”

“You’re such a worry wart. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Oh… please stop saying that.”

10 minutes later

~CAINE. DO NOT THINK YOU CAN ESCA~

And the pillars of time rose out of Santa Monica Beach.

Next: World 49 – Under the Domes

Resources: Build, Document

 If you like what I do, please consider supporting me on Patreon.

World 47: Pacific Rim

THE PREFECT STORM

Previously: Killing Me Softly

Themesong: Deliver Us from The Prince of Egypt

I think the Banker may have decided I had too easy a time in my last jump. It’s just possible. Of course, jump order could be all but random and I’d never know, but going with the assumption that the Banker had some control over order seemed harmless enough. And in this case, seemed indicated. “Pacific Rim… giant, freaking, monsters.”

AJ looked to me. “Like Groudon or Tyrannitar?”

I laughed and patted his head. “No sweety. Like Godzilla’s bigger, angrier, blue-blooded toxic brother.”

“Godzilla… he’s the Tarrasque but in Sci-Fi, right?”

“You’ve been reading D&D manuals again. That stuff will rot your brain.”

“Hey, just because you have to invent or rewrite or ‘be creative’ with your enemies doesn’t mean I have to be!”

“Awww… AJ… you actually stepping up to run a game?”

My brave little soldier blanched at the idea. “That wouldn’t be super effective.”

I sighed and gave him a hug. “Yes, I know you don’t have STAB with GMing, but it’s the effort that counts.” He shook his head. Man, I needed a way to instill public speaking confidence in people without actually brainwashing them or editing their personalities. Friends do not edit each other’s personalities. It’s totally a party foul. Instead, you just tease them and encourage them to grow as individuals. Of course, if they’re having serious neurological issues… then you offer to help. One of Joy’s incarnations had had a serious case of bipolar disorder that had had to be fixed, but that was neurochemistry run amok and even then, one asks.

Reggy and Kohina’s father… they weren’t friends, at least not when I’d picked Reggy up. She was growing on me. But speaking of people who weren’t friends… I think I’d finally found a world they could be useful in. I’d drop them off first thing.

Still, first I had to figure out how I was going into this world, and that meant accessing the VMoD. The presentation was, in a word, flashy. Lots of blacks and reds, very aggressive. Good, powerful score too. “All the troubles began on K-Day, August 10th, 2013… The Jump Begins January 1st, 2016”  Three years into the mess, too late to stop things… and honestly… I wasn’t exactly sure how well I’d be able to fight a Kaiju. I’d fought a Zodiac Gastrea… a couple of them actually, but they didn’t have toxic blood and both times they’d been cored by Railguns. Still, if they could be killed by being punched in the face by giant robots, I had a giant robot to do the punching. This wasn’t my first Rodeo.

I spun the Wheel of Localization… heh… that would be funny. Not where you start, but what language your dub is in? Heh. Anchorage, the Alaskan city that would be home to a Shatterdome by November, guardian of the Pacific Northeast, currently host to the prototype Jaeger “Brawler Yukon” and someday home to the Mark III Jaeger “Gipsy Danger”. Just like the movie. I saw no reason to change it. Not like every other city wasn’t just around the Pacific Rim… funny that… might make a good name for a movie.

The Origins were… holy shit… Experimental Human/Kaiju Hybrid? I vaguely remember there being other options, but who the fuck would take them? Okay, I lied, I have a perfect memory… but seriously, aside from the ever present Drop-In (boring), there was a Jaeger Technician, a Kaiju Science Expert, and a Ranger… i.e. a Jaeger pilot… oh, right, Jaegers. German for Hunter. If Kaiju are the giant monsters… Jaegers are the giant (and I do mean giant) robots designed to hunt and kill them to keep them from destroying Earth’s cities.  

The typical Giant Robot in fiction is about 12-18 meters tall. 35 to 60 feet. Some (Patlabors) were a little smaller, some (Gunbuster) were a lot bigger. Jaegers weren’t quite in Gunbuster’s range… but then again… what is? While Gunbuster was 240 meters tall… most Jaegers were only 240 feet or so. Still, that’s a 20 story building walking about. Nothing to sneer at. The shtick with Jaegers was they, like Knight of Gold and Iczer Robo, need two people to operate it, though unlike Five Star Stories (The Hetero version) or Iczer-One (The very not Hetero version) one of them was not “the Emotional Core” or whatever. No, if anything, Jaeger pilots had to be even closer than empathically linked lovers… they had to be capable of Drifting… that is, they had to be able to exist in total Sync with each other, more so even than that lame episode of Neon Genesis Evangelion where Shinji (the Angst to end all Angsts) and Asuka (the Brat ne plus ultra) had to learn to dance together… Drifting meant sharing each other’s memories, thoughts, everything. Being in the same moment, operating in total oneness with each other. Yeah… no. Even with Zane I’d be leery of going that deep. I had enough crazies in my head as it was. Also, there was a good chance that contact with the inner workings of my psyche could permanently damage someone’s mind.

Still, I was going to be be a giant freaking monster! Wooo! Who knew the next time it would be offered… but even then… hell, I couldn’t pass it up. Yeah, I already had a monster form… but The Silent Judge was more “Eldritch Abomination” than Kaiju, and wasn’t much bigger than man-sized. I had to revel in the insanity. So I took Experimental Human/Kaiju Hybrid [600/400/1000]. It came with a bit of history “A few months ago you were a Kaiju research scientist for the PPDC, but now you’re a monster. Apparently, one of the other researchers somehow figured out how to transform humans into Kaiju. He chose you as his first test subject, and now you have the strange ability to switch between human and Kaiju form at will.”, some rules “This new body has a number of special qualities: 1) Regardless of how humanoid or monstrous you decide it looks, it has rough gray skin, blue bioluminescent markings (and innards), a tail, and is of Category III (200-300 ft tall.) in size. 2) Even in human form, your blood is now Kaiju Blue. If something cuts you, this will be a dead giveaway as to what you are. After ten years, you’ll be able to alter the toxicity of your blood at will. 3) This will not save you from Kaiju attacks.” and a warning “The hive mind constantly tugs at your will, and if the Precursors (the aliens responsible for creating the Kaiju) can’t convince you to join them, they’ll send your brethren to drag you back to the Anteverse.” Well, that was nice.

Origin settled, it was into the Perky Woods. As I’d imagined, I got the almost obligatory score perk for free. Apparently the Banker thought Background Music was awesome, considering the number of jumps that tossed in something like this. I usually turned most of them off. I had “Here’s To You” from the Metal Gear Solid Jump; it could play any song I’d ever heard on either my mental speakers or any sound system I touched. Everything else was just… lesser. Still, “Djawadi’s Favor [Free]: There will always be a well-composed rock/electronic soundtrack for your fights, unless you choose to substitute a specific song during a given battle” might come up with something I’ve never heard before.

Since Hybrids started out as researchers, it made a certain sense that they got “Kaiju Behavioral Studies for free.  An innate knowledge of how Kaiju act and adapt to situations, the ability to form plans and strategies to combat them that would extend to cover all non-sentient aliens and monsters. I sighed. “Oy! Banker!”

“What?”

“Non-Sentient?”

“Yes?”

“So, incapable of experiencing sensations?”

“What?”

“Sentient doesn’t mean ‘Human Level Intelligence’.  It means ‘Sensate’… as in can experience the world around it.  You mean Sapient or Sophont, right?”

“I mean Sentient in the way it’s usually used, not in the strict dictionary definition, you pedantic little goon.”

“Oh, Good.  So, essentially, as long as it’s Animal level or lower, I’m good. Because dogs, horses, and dolphins are all pretty much animal level and they’re pretty smart.”

“Whatever. Stop bugging me.”

“Buzzzzz.”

“How can you be such a brat at your age?”

“Perfect Recall of all my lives, buddy boy.”

“I’m going back to watching one of the others now. Go away.”

“Ha!  I knew there were others. How many?”

“Never you mind. Jumpers don’t mix until after…”

“Until after what?”

There was a very, very long pause. “After the Endgame.”

I paused this time. “End… game?”

“Yes. There is one… you’ll learn about them… in time… if you stay the course.”

“As in… Don’t get sent home or decide to stay somewhere?”

“Yes.”

“Well, don’t worry about that. I’m utterly unlikely to stay anywhere… not when I can go… everywhere.”

Also free was the Kaiju Medkit, a small black and blue box containing 5 rolls of medical gauze that could absorb Kaiju blood with an instruction pamphlet in the box showing how to make more of the gauze. What… the… actual fuck… was this for? Bandaging a 300 foot tall monster’s ouchies? A small box? Small, for a Kaiju? So… several city busses side-by-side? Or was it small for binding the wounds when I shifted back to human-sized? That seemed reasonable… but it was like giving a sponge to a fish. Utterly useless. I healed in real time. Even at the speed I could bandage a wound, it would be healed practically before I finished.

But it was free and who am I to argue with free. There were however, things that weren’t free and at the top of that list was “An Extra Pair of Hands [500/-100/1000]” which would spend me over my un-drawbacked limit. Still, had to have it. “Time to call in some backup.” it advertized. It was the standard 8 companions, but that’s where the standardization took a veer into crazy town. As usual, each got the identity and history and free boons associated with their background… but it was dependant on whatever I’d bought. If I was a Ranger, they’d be Rangers and get crappy baseline Jaegers. But I wasn’t. I’d gone Hybrid… and that meant they would too. And that meant Kaiju Forms. Nine Kaiju. I thought about that, then entered in all the Monsters I had on my team. My six Mon, Zane, and Reggy. It was time for All the Monsters Destroy You.

Of course, I was over. Time to make myself pay. The CP limit was 600 and a maximum of 2 Drawbacks. If I wanted the full load (and I did) there were only two ways to get it. “Jumper Alpha Vs. The World” would place me into a solo battle against the Precursors and their beasts, with Australia gone, the PPDC gone, Stacker gone, and both Japan and China overrun. Category Fives pouring through the break daily, one city left, and a Category Ten Kaiju to deal with. I could just say fuck it and hie for the hills, but that wasn’t my way and someone had to show those genocidal fuckers what’s what and who’s who. The other way was, marginally, better.  

“Heavy-Hansen’d” made me a walking talking obnoxious stereotype, a total jerk of the kind most people just wanted to punch in the face.  But then again, I’d deserve it because I’d be treating them with disdain… Ah well, the price of power I guess.  That was half the pool. The other half was “Top of the Wall” which would mean I’d have to spend 5 years building the Anti-Kaiju Wall in Anchorage, haunted by the knowledge it will fail. And five years in, in the last week on the wall, a Kaiju would attack my location. I’d have nothing from this world to fall back on and would have to face it on my own. So half the jump I’d be locked out of the new stuff… but keep my old. That was interesting. I was reasonably sure I could fight a Kaiju on my own. But I’d have plenty of practice long before Year 5. I did the math, then realized that that would have to shift my date of entry from 2016 to 2020. The wall didn’t begin construction until after Gypsy Danger got chomped and didn’t fail until 2025, a week before the Triple Event. I’d enter the world January of 2020, 5 years and 1 week before the Double Event.

That brought me back to 500 over and it was time to customize my shiny new Kaiju Form. It started with all the usual size, strength, toughness, and pressure resistance of a normal Category Three Kaiju and scaled all my physical capabilities up to my new size. And came with three basics and my choice of three of the mid-grade powers… er… adaptations… free. The Freebies were Might (the ability to hit harder than most Kaiju), Speed (the ability to move faster than a normal Cat III), and Toughness (toughness above that of most Cat IIIs, the ability to shrug off the punches of most Jaegers). I added Invisibility (the ability to change colors to blend in with my surroundings), Wings (big enough to get me to Low Earth Orbit), and Sonic Wave (the ability to unleash a powerful sonic attack, capable of damaging a Jaeger and disorienting its crew). And, because I felt like being even more of a giant tank (and because Victoria would not fit at that size), I picked up “Iron Skin” for 200. It covered everything but my eyes in a metal-like layer of flesh that was so durable that nuclear weapons would merely piss me off.

Most of the other adaptations were too destructive on a large area for my tastes, and most of them weren’t just indiscriminate but actually toxically polluting. Atomic Breath like Big G might sound nice, but it was weaponized pure radiation. Who knows what kind of Cancers and Fallout it left behind. I could have traded in the Invisibility or Wings for a Carapace (even more heavy armor) but I thought that was a little much. Living Breach would have made me a spawn-point for Cat Zeros, but was too expensive. And if I wanted to spawn more Kaiju, there was an affordable way to do it.

In the Item’s section was “Strange Notes” for all my remaining points. It was a highly technical and somewhat lunatic set of research notes written in 5 different kinds of code. It promised to take decades to crack (or I could just give it to VIvian and have her dedicate processor time to it), but practically promised to be an instruction manual on how to either create more Kaiju or allow a person to take over one’s body. The first seemed more likely. And that was it for me.

As for the minions, Ahab & Joy went Ranger as a pair. Zane wanted to do that too, with me as his pair and was arguing for a change of plans. Each Ranger got a Flare Gun (With unlimited Flares), Djawadi’s Favor (the background music thing) and Drift Compatibility which was essentially useless outside this setting… And each got a Jaeger. I thought it was a bit of a waste, since each Jaeger only came with a barebones Mk. 2 Jaeger hull and a Foghorn for free. That’s it. Then Zane pointed out that each of the Jaegers (sure, we only had 1 drift team, but each Ranger got their own Jaeger) came with a Shatterdome Button… which, when pressed, would have Carryalls deliver the Jaeger in roughly 3 minutes. I pointed out that that was pointless, since we had the Warehouse for instant delivery, but Zane pointed out that we could upgrade each of the ~250 foot high mechs as we saw fit.

“Sure… where?”

“What?”

“We don’t have room in the Warehouse for one of those things. We’d have to put it in the Ship Bay… and that means getting them from the ground to Lunar Orbit, since we can’t summon them like we can the Zords… but we’ll see what we can do.” I patted his head. Even Mega Dragonzord Genesys was only 220 meters tall, and it had the advantage of breaking into 6 smaller parts. Still, not sure why we’d need a Jaeger force with the MDG (which would now be known as Kaiser Mystery) and it’s progressively upgraded systems, now having been upgraded to Uru-Metal armor and Asgardian Destroyer Cannons, with 3rd generation Bastion Cores and so many enchantments I was beginning to lose track. But then again, Kaiser Mystery could only be in one place, fighting one Kaiju at a time.  

Thankfully, that managed to convince Zane that, as cool as the two of us piloting a giant mecha might be, he could just use Kaiser Mystery while I was out punching all the things… or he could go punch all the things and I’d kick my feet up and relax. Either way, it was better for Zane to evolve into Lukaiju-o… like the rest of the Mon brigade and Reggy. This was a monster jump, we were going to send in the monsters.

In addition to being blessed with Might, Speed, & Toughness, each of the monster squad had their own Megamonster forms based, essentially, on their mon form, only much, much less cute. Zane picked up Invisibility, a massive Chestblade, and Pneumatic Spine Shooters mounted on his arms. Francy got Acid Spraying Spit, Acidic Whiskers, and a trio of Spiked Tails. RayRay got the Sonic Wave Attack, a heavily armored Carapace capable of shrugging off all conventional weapons and of holding up against a Jaeger for hours, and a pair of massive blades flanking her head. Dyna got a second set of smaller arms for more delicate smashing and grappling, a trio of bladed tentacles, and the ability to spray a slurry of highly flammable petroleum derivatives. Ooo yummy. AJ got Bladed Arms and the armored Carapace. Petra got Crushing Pincers (grrr squish), plus the Carapace… and then tacked on Ablative Bio-Armor atop that. Reggy got the ability to spray aerosolized Kaiju Blue in a Poisonous Gas Cloud, Wings, and the Carapace. And last, Ziggy got the Carapace, the Pneumatic Spines, and a perk called, “Wait, I Died?” (Your cognitive skills suffer a bit of decay in your Kaiju form, but it takes the obliteration of your limbs and/or the utter annihilation of your brain to stop you from fighting at full strength. You are literally too dumb to go down when you should.) Sounds perfect for the silly little goofball. Ziggy used Grow… it’s really, really super duper effective!

We named Ahab’s Jaeger “Whaler Vengeance” and Joy’s “Foxtrot Tango”. Since Zane got a Kaiju Name, the others felt they deserved them too (even Reggy, though I think she felt conflicted about it.). Ziggy was War Weasel (not that he wasn’t already), Francy was Avada Kaidabra. RayRay got dubbed “Zizz” after the hebraic sky beast (Leviathan is Water, Behemoth is Land), AJ got “DaiGallade”, Petra “Bugout”, Reggy “Waxer”, and Dyna “Domani” (which means tomorrow, not anything cool.)

INSERTION

It was strange coming into a jump without anything new besides personality. Also, apparently Guillermo del Toro has a thing about internationalism or something, because all of us are some fairly minority races. I’m Inuit, Zane’s Filipino, Ahab’s a Maori Kiwi, AJ’s half Chinese half Salish from Vancouver, Reggy’s a Bushman, Francy is an Australian Aboriginal, Joy’s Srilankan, Petra’s a Kazak, RayRay’s Mayan, Dyna’s Suomi, and Ziggy… is an arctic wolverine. We’d have to wait until W-Day five years off, the day the Wall of Life failed in Australia in the Movie, seven days before the breach was sealed, to transform and end this nightmare.

And wait we would have to, unless I had a brilliant idea to close the breach before hand. The movie had made it crystal clear that until the Precursors started sending double events (2 Kaiju at a time) the breach wouldn’t be stable enough to nuke it shut. So it was a holding game. But that didn’t mean I had to play by the rules. In fact, not playing by them was kinda my thing.

So, first things first. I dropped the Kihara’s off at the nearest Shatterdome and told the people inside that these two were psychopathic lunatics but brilliant scientists and that, if they were kept on very tight leashes (not a problem, since they were also wearing Aleran Slave Collars) they could probably help the war effort. I got some strange looks at that, and asked who I was, but I just told the people in charge I’d explain later (in about 5 years) and, since I was telling the truth, they believed me. Nice how that works out. Maybe they’d be useful.

Meanwhile, I said fuck it to manual labor and started redesigning the wall. It was early enough for that and when I make defenses to keep someone out, they tend to work. Nano-reinforced, self-erecting, protonic shielded walls, 30-stories high, capable of generating photonic cannons… i.e. ones where the barrel is actually made of solid light, anywhere along its surface.

I also took the time to work on some things I’d been tossing around inside my head for the past century or so. The first was what I called “The Mental Arsenal”. By using pre-constructed Enchantments that I stored inside my Memory Palace, and the ability to craft almost any shape out of Hyperfractal Ice, I was reasonably certain I could craft magical arms, armor, and devices essentially out of thin air. My first attempt was a railgun. It blew up in (and blew off) my hand. But as disastrous as that sounds, it was a proof of concept. I worked at it night and day for several months before I could get even a pistol to work, but once I’d mastered moving parts with close enough tolerances, I moved on to enchantments, basic things at first, but growing progressively more sophisticated as I gained finesse and confidence. The beauty of laying elven runes into a frag grenade, all of it made from ice harder than diamond was a thing to behold. This one was set to glow (and then detonate) in the presence of seagulls. It made a very satisfactory boom.

The second was even more insane… I called it Project Nascent… Nanite-Swarm Summoning, Casting, & Enchanting. By shaping slaved nanite swarms to my cybernetic systems, I could craft spells, summoning circles, and enchantments in mere moments. The power fluctuation meant that the nanites used in the system (at least in the first five generations), fuzed solid, but that was merely a matter of finding the right conduit material.

In the meantime, I also did some experimentation with more metals. Psychonauts had provided me with Psitanium. I’d already figured that it could Feruchemically store psychic energy, and I was right. What I’d figured about the results of burning it, that it would augment psychic powers wasn’t… quite… correct. It didn’t augment them… it allowed me to instill them in others. They had to be sentient, and the younger the better, but I could do it. It took… a lot of psychic power. The process made me dizzy for almost an hour and that was just giving some little boy the ability to read the minds of small animals. And I didn’t even do it on purpose. He was nearby and that was the power his mind… picked from a list… I guess. I definitely need to do more research, but the ethics of it bother me. Maybe in a different reality… or on one of my companions.

The next batch was a trio of stuff I’d been screwing around with from the Elder Scrolls Jump. I didn’t have a lot of any of it, since I’d not exactly been planning any of my activities, but I did have a few mugs made from Dwemer Metal and Zane had picked up a few Ebony and Malachite blades. And yes, I know what you’re thinking. Ebony and Malachite aren’t metals… but they are in The Elder Scrolls. Ebony should be a wood, but in TES, it’s a black glass-like substance said to be the crystallized blood of the gods and refined from Ebony Ore in a smelter. Malachite is another glass-like substance refined from Malachite Ore in a smelter. Yes, it was possible they weren’t “Metal” enough, but no glass was that strong and no glass was worked with a smithing hammer. But Dwemer Metal… that was metal through and through. I didn’t have any TES Moonstone to experiment with, nor any Quicksilver or Stalhrim (Which was a shame, since Stalhrim is a form of magical room-temperature stable Ice apparently).

Still, I wanted to give them all a try. The worst that could happen is I poisoned myself and spent a few days in my own med bay… I’d already learned the hard way that while Cobalt, Nickel, Titanium, Iridium, Osmium, Gadolinium, Silver, Platinum, Tungsten, and Lead all had Allomantic properties, figuring out the alloy mixtures wasn’t easy (and none of them were useful.) Nickel made my hair grow. Lead was a laxative. Titanium made my skin depigment. Gadolinium made me burp. Tungsten made me extremely ticklish. Cobalt gave me energy like caffeine… at the cost of making me go blind while burning it. Iridium was an acid trip on an acid trip. Osmium a cure for insomnia. Silver gave me the ability to taste what color things were. and Platinum, good old platinum… made my muscles go completely limp. Useful… not.) And that was just Allomancy. I hadn’t figured out what I could store in them yet, aside from Mercury (yes, yes, I’m crazy. I also have state of the art medical facilities.) Mercury made me pee. A lot. Like… enough to dehydrate myself pretty quickly. Which made me think… and yes, as it turns out, it stores up the need to… use the bathroom. Wonderful. As long as I was storing, I didn’t have to go. Tapping it was… not a pleasant experience. Unfortunately, I had to freeze the Mercury to make it wearable, which created a massive cold field around that area, so it wasn’t practical.

First up was Dwemer Metal. It turned my body into a charged energy cloud. Poof. I could feel myself pulling apart and I had to very quickly stop using it. Still, I was all in one piece once I’d finished. Apparently it can be used to store Static Cling… for some reason.

Ebony was burnable too. Made me extremely angry, turned my skin black with red veins, and made me yell deeply disturbing threats at anyone nearby (Yes, apparently, that’s how one becomes a Dremora Lord).  It can be used to store sadism and hatred. How… delightful.

Malachite… Gave me heartburn like you wouldn’t believe… it also did something… but I have no idea what. It was something optical, but whatever it would allow me to see… wasn’t around, apparently. At least as far as I could tell. As for what it stored… I have no idea. It was storing something and I could tap it, but what I couldn’t figure out. Much like most of the other metals.

Anyway, back to the monster punching. Kaiser Mystery was making headlines. I’d set up my own early warning and tracking radar… including seeding the Breach area with 20th generation armor piercing tracker mites. They couldn’t hope to damage the beasts, but they made damned sure I knew where the hell those things were (and their exact size and shape), long before they could make landfall. The movie makes it seem like it’s instant, but unless the breach is off the shore of Hong Kong (which it wouldn’t be if the first landfall was San Francisco), it would have taken hours to get to Hong Kong. And, in fact, I’ve yet to figure out how Hawaii got avoided so well… then again, ocean topography is all screwy in this world. When dealing with ocean depths, 100 feet isn’t that deep.

As it is, the breach is (though the movie does a very very bad job of showing this) at the bottom of the Challenger Deep of the Marianas Trench. It is very close to Guam and about 3,400 kilometers from Hong Kong. Don’t get me wrong, Kaiju are fast in the water… but they aren’t supersonic. It takes one about 8 hours to swim from Guam to Hong Kong… much, much more to get to Anchorage (7,400km) and even longer to get to San Francisco (10,000km). That was enough time for me to drop whatever I was doing and show up in Kaiser Mystery.

And the governments of the world were going batshit. Publicly, they were all very very grateful for the help… but off the record, they were pissed as hell someone was demonstrating more flexibility than their handpicked robojockies, showing them up, and making them look bad. I’d fought Emerald Weapon barehanded, Fighting Category 1 and 2 Kaiju in a 240 foot tall mecha wasn’t hard. Often I left it to Zane… we showed up, kicked butt, and never gave any interviews. And we flooded the market with Kaiser Mystery toys.

The market wasn’t the only thing I flooded with something, though. Kaiju Blue is fucking evil as shit. Someone had to clean it up. So I created a system of bots that would do exactly that. Soak it up, reprocess it into something useful. Biofuel to be exact. Biofuel and glow sticks.

I sold it all, the bits I didn’t need, to Hannibal Chau… though I was getting sick of working on this idiot wall. I had to, you see. At least 6 hours a day I had to spend futzing with a pointless megastructure that was never going to be any good. Sure, the Alaska-California wall was completed way ahead of schedule thanks to my innovations, but I kept obsessing. It was a 200 feet wide strip of unusable ground located anywhere from 80 to 120 feet offshore (yeah, I built my wall under the sea, because building it on land was idiotic, pure publicity, and it could expand upwards to a height of 400 feet, rising out of the water in sections as needed. As I said, the land stuff, that was all to make people feel secure. It was useless and an eyesore and would have to be scrapped in a decade’s time anyway. I wasn’t worried about this wave. I was worried about the second wave… Pacific Rim 2. I wouldn’t be there and, though I had no doubt that Humanity would once again triumph in the face of adversity, I also had no doubt as to the appalling escalation of casualties.

Anyway, I liked Hannibal. He was my kind of asshole. He was the only one who knew that Sapper Mason, the obnoxious, supercilious, and hugely egotistical jagoff who’d commandeered the entire Wall of Life Program through a combination of brilliance, insults, and apparent voodoo, was also Kawasaki Glass, one of the two pilots of Kaiser Mystery. He didn’t ask, and I didn’t explain how I was able to be quite so mobile. Of course, no one knew I was also sliding in and out of the Breach at will by now.

All it took was a suit made of Kaiju flesh (suitably cured) and no one noticed, on either side, a human-sized blip sliding through the breach. The Precursors certainly didn’t, sanctimonious little bastards. I was careful not to do more than read the surface of the psychic morass that made up their Hive Mind, but that was enough to learn all I needed of how they built their Kaiju, layer upon layer of bio-tech grafts and cloned tissues. They had a whole world to explore, but it was used up, destroyed, all to serve the ever growing Precursor Hive. For super advanced aliens, they were spectacularly unadaptive. They trashed homeworld after homeworld, ignoring the rich bounty of resources off planet because they couldn’t be arsed to space travel. Morons.

It was practically a relief when the wall did fail. Not my tech, no… my tech was good. No… it failed because the freaking government had stolen some of the parts to analyze and in doing so sabotaged an 800 meter long stretch of coastline that, somehow, the idiot Kaiju crashed through. Somehow, this Category 3 (Codename Skullcracker) had managed to slip past all my sentries to get at the wall. This was the Banker’s doing, no doubt. But it was all the same. Black Jenny dropped from the sky like the Word of God (We’d kept her in High Earth Orbit as a back up) and punched Sister Ray clean through Skullcracker’s spinal column. Say goodnight, Gracie.

I was about to head for the breach to do some housekeeping myself, when something very much like a tranq needle hit me in the arm and I went down faster than you can say “The Banker is a Cheating Prick”. I woke up in the middle of the ocean, floating there, naked. Of course, I was in Kaiju form and the thing that had woken me up was a small group of fighter planes hitting me with 500lbs bombs.

My Kaiju form was… much taller than I’d been promised… well… not so much taller… as longer. So much longer. I was a giant freaking serpent… or rather a Sea Serpent, four massive finned appendages (two of which could unfurl into wings), a tail twice as long as my main body, and sprouting from the top of my head was Soul of Ice… a massive horn of ice. I must have been 1350 feet long from tip of horn to tip of tail. I roared with annoyance, then chuckled and rose out of the sea entirely, just hanging in midair, not using my wings.

“People of Earth, your attention Please.” I thundered in flawless English. “Stop shooting at me or I’ll get very angry.”  They didn’t. Ah well. They probably couldn’t hear me. I flexed, then dove into the water. Weee… this was fun!  I swam around for awhile, then teleported myself to Hong Kong. Right next to the Shatterdome.

“Hellooooo Stacker! Yoooo…hoooo!” I waved a flipper at the base as the humans scurried around like bugs. “Ahem. I have come for your tea. Bring me the finest dim sum and fried rice in the land.” Some guards were shooting at me as the people inside tried to figure out what the hell was going on as they scrambled to scramble a Jaeger.

“Take your time. Don’t hurt yourself. I’m not here to fight.” That made several of them realize I was speaking to them. One of them, it was kind of hard to focus down that small, and I couldn’t really hear, tried asking me something. “Sorry. I can’t hear you. Ear drums too big. Probably takes something like 60 decibels to even register. Try using the loudspeakers.”

“What the hell are you?”

“Ah. Good question. I am, it would seem, a Renegade Kaiju. Well, not really. But explaining would only confuse you. Let’s just say that I’m not here to smashysmashy. I am here to close the Breach, however. I’m just waiting until Leatherback and Otachi to show up. Or whatever you’ll end up calling them. A double event. Should be soonish. I think I’ve completely fucked up the timeline on this side of the portal, but the Precursors are probably running about true to form. If they could have sent Category Vs before now, they would have.”

“What are you talking about? And how come you speak english?”

“I speak swahili, french, esperanto, yupik, turkish, hebrew, russian, czech, estonian, swedish, norwegian, spanish, latin, klingon, vulcan, etruscan, greek, cantonese, mandarin, tibetan, hawai’ian, navajo, tagalog, telugu, tamil, urdu, italian, finnish, asari, krogan, and japanese… plus a few dozen others you’ve never heard of. I even speak LEET. As for what I’m talking about… hmmm… how do I… oooh…. This is sooo not comfortable.” I shimmered, squished, and flexed, body rippling as I transformed, slowly by my standards, back into a human form, using my shapeshifting to make sure it didn’t look anything like Mason or Kawasaki.

“Hello. I am Sunny James. I seem to have been transformed into a Kaiju. I am not sure how, but it seems to be so. Anyway… tell your security to stop aiming weapons at me or I’ll turn back into big scaly and eat them. First, no, I’m reasonably certain that the Precursors lack the ability to do what just happened. If they could send smaller agents they would have long ago. They’re not actually that socially savvy. Hive Mind and all that. Smashysmashy is their modus vivendi.”

“How do we know you’re not one of them?”

“Well, first… I am not one of them.” I smirked as their spokesman nodded slowly. “Second, you can put the mic down, I can hear just fine now. Third… I could use some clothing. And fourth, if you bring me a syringe I’ll show you how you know.”

I was a 6’6″ incredibly buff and very naked black woman. Just because. It had been my form from back in Infamous and it had served me well enough. They brought me a trenchcoat and a syringe, but kept me surrounded by armed guards at 100 paces. The scientist looked familiar and nervous. “Oh, Hiya doc. Just an FYI, if you Drift with a Kaiju Brain… the hive mind will know you the same way you know them. Two way street.”

I took the syringe and drew some of my own blood. “Blue. Just like a Kaiju. And yes, I can hear the Hive Mind at the edge of my awareness. They’re not happy I’m ignoring them, but they can go bite me. Anyway. Double Event. Then a few hours later, Triple. And the first Category V. But that’s your window. Or rather… mine. I could let you boys and girls handle this, but Kawasaki Glass and Ragnarok Redemption (yes, that was the name Zane picked for himself) have spent too much time over the last 5 years making sure that no cities got munched what didn’t have to get munched. So I figure I’ll leave the holding the line to you kids while I go and blow up the breach. Sounds good?”

Stacker Pentecost, the Marshall of the whole damned Jaeger project showed up then. “You’ve got quite the Ego, don’t you? Ordering us around.”

I smiled at him. “Not only that, but I’ve got something for you.  It should be arriving… ah, here it comes.” Kohina trotted up, wearing a Jaeger Drift Suit (Apparently, Ahab and Gaius were drift compatible and Joy and Kohina… strange… I would have guessed they’d pick each other.) She smiled at Stacker “Whaler Vengeance and Foxtrot Tango reporting.”

Stacker blinked “What is this? And who are you?”

I smiled “Courtesy of Kawasaki Glass, two new Jaegers. Mark 8s.”

“There’s no such thing as a Mark 8!”

“There is now.” I hadn’t had access to them, but I’d built them anyway. Five years and a lot of infrastructure, and Mason had had a lot of infrastructure. I’d build Whale Vengeance and Foxtrot Tango as I’d wanted them to be, upgrading machines I hadn’t possessed by starting with a stolen copy of the Mark 2 Jaeger Plans and then… improving, building, refining. Then, apparently while I’d been unconscious, the Shatterdome buttons and name plates had arrived, with a note saying “Cheater.” My crew had diligently welded on the plates and suited up.

The two massive Jaegers, 280 feet tall, were a matched set, designed out of the best tech I could throw at them. One had a huge Harpoon Gun, the other a Jaeger sized Shotgun. They looked like a cross between a Chess Knights and a Space Marine and were covered in scintillating carbon nanotube plates.

Kohina handed him a box. On it was a note that I already knew said, “Meds. For the Big C. Feel better.”

He looked at me. “Not going to ask. But… if you’re going to close the Breach… don’t you need a Nuke?”

I grinned. “Oh, sugar. I have nukes the likes of which only God has ever seen.” I whistled and VIctor dropped from the clouds and landed next to me, already dropping the hatch.

“Five Gigatons.” I said, pointing to the protonic fission device. “Clean atomics. I want those Precursor bastards to know they’ve been kissed. And it’s laced with something called Psitanium. I figure it’ll short out their Hive Mind good and proper.”

As it was, Leatherback and Otachi came not because of Newton (The science nerd) drifting into one of their brains (he did that anyway, little git) but because of my presence. The Precursors wanted to test me. Have to wonder what they got out of a fight that short.

Words can’t really describe what went down after that. It was… chaos. All battles are, but battles at the bottom of the sea in three dimensions are especially chaos. Scuner, Raiju, and Slattern were waiting for us when we hit the Ocean floor. But it wasn’t two Jaegers against three Kaiju. It was 32 Jaegers against three Kaiju. My goal all along had been to keep Jaeger Numbers up, even if it made them individually less experienced.

Of course, the Precursors were waiting for me. They had to be. They knew I was coming for them. Except… I wasn’t. I was in Kaiser Mystery, close to the breach, but definitely not in Kaiju form. “You ready for this, Petra?”

All I got was a menacing growl. “Good girl.” Her armor scintillated with the nanite armor I’d covered it with and even in the mirk she gleamed. She lept into the Breach, a truly epic bomb strapped to her belly, her arms wrapped around it as she plunged into the Anteverse.

“Kawasaki to all Jaegers. Fire in the Hole. I repeat, Fire in the Hole.”

And then the Breach burped. “Zane. Did you get her?” I asked over the closed frequencies.

“Yeah. The Party Handling System worked as promised. She’s a little banged up, but we’ll get her into the med pod as soon as she shrinks back to normal.”

I sighed. “4 years 51 weeks to go. Who wants a Mai Tai?”

Next: World 48 – Sweet like Copper

Resources: Build, Document

If you like what I do, please consider supporting me on Patreon.

World 46: Princess Bride

KILLING ME SOFTLY

Previously: Diplomacy in Real Time

Themesong: Eternal Flame by The Bangles

And so it was, that after 10 years of playing nursemaid to a republic of very annoying people, I handed over power once again and stepped, gratefully, through the Pillars of Time. Why would anyone want to put up with this nonsense I asked myself, not for the third time. But then the myriad Magi God-Kings that made up the majority of my other selves pointed out that we had the advantage of having ruled nations for longer than most civilizations lasted. We had long since grown blase about the perks of power. Hopefully my next jump wouldn’t be political.

That hope lasted mere seconds, as I saw the words “Princess Bride” on the VMoD. I was about to scream “Again!!?” when a memory swam out of the darkness and I laughed. “Oh. Right. The Movie. Duh.” hadn’t watched that film in… huh… Not since Origin. It hadn’t been on my computer and, while I almost certainly had a copy somewhere in the media archives, I’d largely forgotten it. Which was a shame, because it used to be one of my favorite films… and one none of my companions had ever seen… even in all the time we’d spent in WestWing and Gargoyles. A few minutes talking with VIvian, getting her to clean up the visuals and edit the ROUS’s so they actually looked like rodents and not men in rat costumes, and we set about clearing up the problem, post haste.

The randomizers showed that I’d begin this trip in the Fire Swamp (Woo! Excellent, I could build a house there, since the threats weren’t so much threats as perks for me and mine… Fire Spurts were clearly natural gas pockets which could be tapped for fuel, lightning sands were ignorable since I had All Terrain Hiker and could walk on damned clouds if I wanted… and so could my companions… and the ROUS’s were probably tasty when cooked properly) and at 27 years of age. Oddly enough, the Companion Import Option was upfront and center, before even the origins… 50CP got me 2 of them… I plunked down for 6 [150/850/1000], then threw them out into the bullpen to let the savages fight over them. They’d only get an origin and a free perk.

The choices? Bard, Mercenary, Noble, and Man in Black (You are worldly and experienced with a broad skill base but a painful, trying past that got you those skills. You’re a walking, talking epic, well read, dabbled in piracy, with an air of mystery. Your history is one of survival despite the odds. You boast serviceable skills in anything adventuring; scale cliffs, navigate swamps, fence capably, etc. Jack of all trades, master of none. Epic love story optional.) were an interesting quartet, but I went with MIB, simply because the freebie made me laugh. “As You Wish: You have a catchphrase. So total is your ownership of this sentence that you may substitute it for any other sentence and convey the replaced phrase to your allies… i.e. ‘Well, that can’t be good.’ could mean ‘Lookout! Monkeys!’ or ‘Now is the time on Sprockets when we dance!’” ‘Woooo’ was mine.

Of course, the next two were nice as well. “I’ll Most Likely Kill You in the Morning” [100/750/1000] meant that nobody could quite find it in them to kill me in cold blood. They’d continue to find excuses, reasoning that there is personal gain to keeping me alive that one extra day. This didn’t mean that they’d keep me comfortable, of course… an interrogator might take care to keep me alive but still torture me (which, thanks to 80’s Action Movies, would just make me tougher and more sarcastic). It wasn’t much, but a protection like that for a measly 100 CP I could get behind. And “Dread Pirate Roberts” [200/550/1000] gave me the uncanny ability to approach just about anyone, even a fearsome violent soul, and convince them to be my mentor (Darth Sidious maybe?). I’ll rapidly master any skills they can teach you, until they’ll retire and I can flawlessly take on their identity… Dunno when I’ll use it, but the thought of using it to replace some Big Bad was just too amusing… and potentially useful, considering some of the IPs out there.

Oddly enough, not only did the Man in Black… Woman in Black… capstone fail to appeal to my sensibilities, but none of the capstones seemed worth it to me… well, except “Death of the Author”, the Bard Capstone, which allows the recognition of plotpoints and defining moments… I was tempted, but I worried it would make things too boring. Also, too meta.

There were more perks I wanted… at least 600 CP worth… and I didn’t have that much… so Drawbacks it was…. Or rather “Complications”… and for the first time, they were upgraded if they matched my Origin. That meant, if I took all three MIB discounts I could get 900 CP. Castaway [+150/700/1150] I could cope with, as it just screwed up any trip I took that was longer than a day. So, space travel was right out… but I could circle the world in about an hour and cross Europe in minutes. Why Won’t My Arms Move? [+300/1000/1450] was a little more irritating (At midnight each day, one of my arms, legs, or neck would go limp and remain so for the next 24 hours, at which time it would repeat. For the entire jump.) but I could easily overcome the problem by using VIctoria… seeing as how she doubled as a powered exoskeleton… or by using TK. It would be annoying as hell puppeteering myself, but, challenge is good and this one would only inconvenience me.

The same could not be the same if I took the last one, which would set Florin and Guilder at war with each other, setting Westley as the long lost Prince of Guilder and see Buttercup married to Prince Humperdink in order to raise morale. Not only would people die because I took that, but I’d have to get Westley and Buttercup married and the two kingdoms united under them or the chain would end. 450CP wasn’t worth the lives of others, and certainly wasn’t worth risking a fail state.

The other 3 capstones were insane: Count Rugen empowered with every form of Swordsmanship I’ve ever encountered with a collection of the finest swords around, a Vissini complex (Inconthevable!), and a literal metafight between me and the author over the fate of True Love in the story. The 200s included a fixation on solving every problem with love or Mawwage or kissing, a case of the screaming alcoholisms… and a seriously nerfed sense of empathy. That… could be actually fun. Being a bitch to everyone for a decade. “You Mock My Pain” [+200/1200/1650] horribly muted my empathy for others, making it difficult to relate to them, and also killing their empathy for me, meaning they’d immediately label me a sociopath. Eh. Not optimal, but not terrible. It was based on Rugen, it wouldn’t mute my charisma, just make me a jerk.

As for the 100’s… one would make me broke, one would give me a decade long head cold… and the last would make people interrupt me to make puns or rhymes off of what I said. No wonder I’d have no Empathy. ‘Anybody Want A Peanut? [+100/1300/1750]” Hurray for Fezzik!

That brought me back to flush, so I could buy “Hello” [100/1200/1750] which made me fluent in every significant style of fencing to ever grace the small sword, a poet of steel and violence… which was just… delicious. A swordsmanship and style upgrade. I could also get a feat that was just… oh… my… god… it was rapturous. It was the greatest thing ever… it was the thing original me would probably have gleefully killed for. It was “Speed Reading” [200/1000/1750] and it meant that, on touch and at will, I’d gain the effects of having read a novel, document, webpage, movie, etc with deliberation and thought. Sure, it didn’t work if user input was required, but who cared?! It even said that, at will, I could mute the memories of a story to enjoy it without spoilers. Mute, not erase! Every reading of my favorite works would be new, varied, and unique.

Oooo… this was orgasmic. It was a one two punch of awesome. With my memory, this was instant memorization of any static media… and that it came with the ability to get new enjoyment of my favorite media. I’d have paid 1000CP for it… but I was glad I hadn’t had to.

Before I spent myself back into the danger zone, I checked the Gear list. Everyone got appropriate dress, a month’s worth of currency, and (if not a noble) a Tenfold Bag, which was, as it sounded, a bag with a capacity ten times what is suggested by its size and a weight a tenth of what it should be. As a Woman in Black, I also got my very own Mysterious Mask, which was a terribly comfortable mask that had an occluding effect; my own lover wouldn’t be able to recognize me with this on without further clues… to up the insanity, I made it a black silk eyepatch with a silver rose pattern inlaid upon it.

The other discounted items were amusing in the extreme. Iocane Powder [50/950/1750] was a small vial of odorless, tasteless poison that dissolves instantly in liquid… to which I had perfect immunity (even without my immunity to poisons in general)… it is fatal within a minute to all others and the container refills upon being stoppered. That could come in handy… but C.O.U.S. [100/850/1750] was a Collar of Unusual Size… that magically resized and could be used to allow either me or the wearer to resize said wearer at will, ignoring the squarecube law and other fiddly bits of physics and biochemistry. Worn by a mouse it could outsize a man, or make a man the size of a mouse… The Collar could make Ziggy into a huge riding Ferret! Which was just… Squee inducing! And the jump even provided the perfect saddle, as in perfect… Soreless Saddle [50/800/1750] even said “This is the perfect saddle.” While made for a horse, it could easily fit it on another riding beast, and it prevents any and all discomfort from the ride itself. Can’t do anything about the environment. Hahah! Behold the Ferret Cavalry! Granted, it was a Cavalry of one… but still! If you needed reinforcement beyond me, you were seriously boned.

Unfortunately for my Perk purchasing plans, there were two 200 CP items I had to have. The Adaptanator and Miracle Max’s Medicines. The Adaptanator was a richly decorated box with dimensions roughly twice that of a shoebox. By placing a piece of recorded media… a novel, a VHS movie, DVD box set, a videogame… etc. … into the box and announcing the form of media I want an adaptation of, the Adaptanator would scry the multiverse and produce the best version it could find. The fun just didn’t stop with that little toy. As for the MMMeds, it was a regenerating supply of chocolate bonbons that could bring a man back from mostly dead to totally alive. They were more or less physical hunks of life force, inducing regeneration and purification in the subject. It could even treat, and with time, cure degenerative conditions. But that cut me down to 400.

Which would have been fine… but I just had to have the “Informal Polling Data: [100/300/1750] a fillable form with a section for demographic, a question, and six answers. Upon filling it out, a percentage breakdown of how that demographic would answer the question would appear. It would then reset. Sure, it would be based on how they would answer, not necessarily truthfully, but it was still interesting data.”

With only 300 left, I couldn’t take one of the 400s, let alone a Capstone… but I could have a 1 and a 2… So that’s what I did. Storyteller [100] made me a storyteller without compare, giving me a lovely voice and the oratory flair and skill to inspire the imagination, keep my audience on the edge of their seat, or quickly and easily lull them to sleep. It even made editing on the fly trivial. For a veteran GM of… thousands of campaigns, hundreds of thousands of sessions… the idea of this perk was… I might have danced a bit.

The other one was “My Name is Inigo Montoya” [200] which meant I’d know precisely who I am and have the willpower to dedicate my entire life to a single purpose without even a hint of meaningful progress and the integrity to be unswayed by offers of wealth, social influence, or other mundane temptations. Extra Willpower is never a bad thing and anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something.

In addition to Ahab & Joy, Bao, Mini, AJ, RayRay, Yoiko, and Dyna all managed to ace out victories in the various games of chance and skill the group collectively decided on. Bao won the Historical diorama competition (Done in lego, 24 hour time limit). Mini won the “Why I should get to go” essay contest. AJ won the Darts Tournament. RayRay the minicar races. Yoiko the pickup-sticks contest. And Dyna… Dyna won the Mortal Kombat bracket after Reggy got angry and broke the controller in half. I was frankly astonished she cared enough to bother playing, but apparently the genderless alien warrior had gotten rather fond of romance novels while I wasn’t looking.

Ahab, AJ, and Dyna all went as Mercenaries, making us the four musketeers in all but name, as each of them picked up “Hello”, though they each got a Small Sword (AJ a Saber, Dyna a Foil, and Ahab an Epee… leaving me to wield Soul of Ice as a Rapier). Each Small Sword was a mastercraft version of its kind (oddly enough, since all the swords in the movie were rapiers) and were self repairing and self-maintaining. Which kinda explained why Dyna and AJ were so keen I guess. They also got Tenfold Bags. Which probably had nothing to do with it.

Joy and Bao both went the Noble Path (and what a joke that word is in this setting), snagging “Statesman: Born and raised in the courts of the kingdom, you’re a skilled and capable administrator, and could run a nation – or corporation – as easily in war as in peace.” They also got the Soreless Saddle and “Modest land holdings” but no bag.

Mini and RayRay (A teacher and a dragon) went Bard, netting them Storyteller, the Bag, and the “Library: An updating collection filled with the locale’s local literary classics, fables, and children’s fiction. Includes the original Princess Bride novel and screenplay, signed by author and crew.” Huh. I guess I knew what I’d be “Reading” First. And speaking of, I gave Mini my 18x Galeforce Glasses… now I just have to find something nice for Frankie to sleep on.

Yoiko joined me in the land of MIBs, getting “As You Wish”, The Tenfold Bag, and the Mysterious Mask. And then it was off to the races.

Or not.

Let’s be clear here. There was exactly one plotline in this world, one that very much would be resolved on its own without my intervention and with only two real casualties, those being Vissini and Rugen. It wasn’t that I was overpowered… I’d have been over powered for this setting after Pokeworld version 1. The “Hello” Perk pretty much made one the equal of the most dangerous fencers in the setting all by itself. Clearly the Banker knew that, because the second I hit confirm, a wheel came up on the screen saying “Double or Nothing”.

There were 13 pie wedges on the wheel: 1 of them was Nothing, and the others said Dungeon Crawl, 80’s Action, Fighting Game, Parenting, Zombie Apocalypse, Western, Medical, Lewd, Horror, Sugar Bowl, Hentai, & Magical Girl. Zombie Apocalypse and 80’s Action were grayed out… apparently because I’d already been to both. I guessed that meant there was a little less than one in four chance of getting Nothing. I wondered what Double meant, as I spun the wheel.

The wheel spun into a blur of color, the individual words shifting into unrecognizable symbols that flowed and shifted, even when I slowed time. It landed on one, but I had no idea what it said. The machine dinged and I felt something shift and squirm across my consciousness. It was as if a pollster was… polling my Selves without actually doing it. Oh… shit… The VMoD was using the Questionnaire on me to determine what I’d buy. That was dirty pool! “Subconscious Sampling Complete. Perk Allocation Complete. Enjoy your stay.” What version of Princess Bride was I going to and what had I just inflicted on myself?

===INSERTION===

Oh, for the love of…

At first, I couldn’t quite put my finger on what seemed out of place. It wasn’t a Western… there were no high plains, no guns, no cowboy boots. I had no kids, so it probably wasn’t Parenting. Everyone was fairly innocuous (Princess Bride is a Fairy Tail) so it probably wasn’t a Sugar Bowl or a Horror. Ruling out Dungeon Crawl, Magical Girl, Medical… those would have taken longer.

The first thing I noticed, however, were the… shall we say… scandalous outfits. It was like everyone was dressed for the slutty RenFaire. Second, every sentence seemed to be laced with… suggestion. And no, I wasn’t just imagining it. Third, and perhaps more worrying, everyone was a lot more… handsy. A lot. And rude. And didn’t listen when you told them that if they grabbed your ass one more time they were going to need a churgeon to remove their hand from their own throat. Even some of the local fauna were giving me and my friends the eye. It was… all a little too suggestive.

Just my luck, I’d landed us in the porno-verse version of Princess Bride… but probably the Lewd one and not the Hentai one, seeing as how restrained things were being. At that realization, a scroll fell out of the sky and bonked me on the head. It had three rules:

• 1. Carlin’s Law applies. You’re not allowed to kill anyone this jump, though accidents won’t end the chain.
• 2. Freud’s Law applies. Not only does everyone speak in innuendo and think like they’re in a porno (yes, that includes the wildlife), but anything you bring out of your warehouse will get a little more… suggestive. Expect swords to become more phallic, maidbots to get demure, and artwork to get more scandalous. If you use it in the warehouse, this will not apply.
• 3. Dredd’s Law applies. The laws of the land still apply… to you and your companions. Don’t get caught breaking them… you won’t enjoy the results… or maybe you will… who can say. These Rules go into full effect in 10 minutes.

Underneath that was what I had, apparently bought. I was now a Devoted, a citizen of one of the towns of one of the various lands of this world, raised and influenced by their particular habits and practices. This me would place more emphasis on the emotional nature of relationships, rather than the physical, economic, or political I guess. As a Devoted, I’d always have a rough idea of the location and condition of my companions and anyone else I have strong positive feelings for… which wasn’t so bad. Could be damned useful if it persisted beyond this realm.

As a Devoted, I gained the perk “Fertility Control”, which meant that, regardless of whether I was male or female, I’d have total control over my ability to get or get others pregnant… and when female I’d have total control over my menstrual cycle… which… Yay! That was, let me tell, you, the best damned thing about spending decades as a male… that and the whole pee standing up of course. TK took care of reaching things on high shelves, and those are pretty much the three reasons to be male, right?

Devoted also, as far as I could make out, contributed “Light Touch” and “Devoted to Freedom”. The first meant I’d never bring injury to someone if I didn’t wish to. Even my most mountain-cracking, city-busting destructo-beam would be damped down to allow only as much force as to be safe without causing real harm, though it only worked on sources of damage that were part of me or under my direct control. Which would make sparring and practice much safer for others, and potentially save me from accidentally killing people… though I’d have to watch it… Firing off a hail-mary last ditch attack only for it not to kill the Big Bad because it would also harm innocent bystanders wouldn’t be great if it cost me my chance to end something before things could get worse.

The second would make me instantly and consciously aware of any outside influence acting on my mind, no matter the source, as well as helping me to resist those effects. It also would allow me to recognize when others were being manipulated as well, and (with a slap or sharp word) sober a drunkard or purge a mind of hypnotic suggestions. With time, practice, and exposure, it would even give me the know how to correct the effects of even the most powerful mental influences.

From the general pool of abilities I got “Self-Awareness” which gave me active control of every muscle in my body, as well as control over normally uncontrollable bodily processes, such as my heart-rate, the appearance of goosebumps, or any other unconscious responses my body might make to outside stimuli. “Knowing Gaze” would allow me to instantly recognize the desires of others, no matter how carefully they tried to hide their intentions. With practice I’d be able to tell when they were even thinking about something they desired, or mentioning it in casual conversation. Contrary to popular belief, I wasn’t constantly deep scanning everyone with Telepathy and my Third Eye. Passive scans were useful as well, especially ones keyed to such primal things. And some people were resistant to Telepathy, or Spiritual scans, or being read (as I was, thanks to Occlumency). Redundancy wasn’t a bad thing.

“The Voice”, far from being a horrible TV show, was the ability to imbue my words ring with the air of authority, causing people to carry out my commands on sheer reflex, though unlike the Bene Gesserit Voice it couldn’t make them perform obviously suicidal acts or those that violated a personal code… at least not directly. Not sure I’d need it unless direct mind control failed… or if it would be useful on those people mind control didn’t work on… but the universe is full of people and powers. And getting allies to follow commands instantly would be excellent in combat.

“Tricky Fingers” increased my manual dexterity by an order of magnitude, allowing me to make precise moves at high speeds… such as completely disrobe a person wearing ordinary clothes in less than three seconds. Heh. Cool. Must resist urge to learn how to stack a deck.

“Crack the Shell” was a weird one… it allowed me to decide if my attacks harmed a person’s body… or just the things they’re carrying or wearing. Such attacks cannot be made to damage specific objects that are fully integrated with a body, like cybernetic implants or a robot’s casing, but… Omni-slash Induced Instant Nudity might be funny… oh, yeah, I’d totally copied Cloud’s Limit Break… Tifa’s too come to that. I’m a horrible friend, stealing all my allies’ best moves just because I can. Hell, I could even mimic some Shinigami’s Bankais with a little effort. It’s just moving Reiatsu around, after all.

And speaking of clothing damage, “Shedding the Tail” would allow me to do the exact opposite of “Crack the Shell” and shunt the damage of an incoming attack onto whatever I happen to be wearing at the time. An article of clothing will take the hit for me, exploding away like a layer of ablative armor. Nigh-indestructible clothing made of adamantium or such can take repeated attacks, but will still eventually shatter under the strain. That was just… hilarious. I wonder how Darkseid would react to seeing his Omega Beams stymied because I was wearing 40 t-shirts.

Unfortunately for my jocularity, I’d apparently gone over whatever the allowance was for that section of the Jumptree, as there was a list of Drawbacks to go with the perks… and none of this had point totals so I had no idea what poll me had wasted points on or how screwed I’d made myself for what I’d gotten. Still, looking at the drawbacks, I was cringing already. This was going to be… disturbing.

The least of them was “Bow-chika-wow-wow” which made it so everything was a little more pornographic. Pants would be tighter, shirts would have a few button always left undone, and people would be faster to… ahem. Standards would definitely be lower, and some things would still off the table… unless I was persuasive enough, in which case I (or other magnificent bastards) could get away with almost anything. This was porn… there would be other magnificent… and probably malevolent, bastards.

“Innuendo” was also pretty mild. It simply meant that every other sentence to come out of everyone’s mouth would be laced with double meaning… and it applied to all other forms of communication as well, making gestures vigorous and writing just a shade purple.

Continuing the theme of just how… wrong this place was… “Freudian Nightmare” meant that anything I brought out of my warehouse into the jump would be permanently changed so as to be more… suggestive. Plasma cannons firing in spurts, power armor with sculpted nipples, starships… ahem… well, you get the idea. It also applied to any and all technology in this world as well… which, this being the fantasy renaissance, wasn’t likely to be a whole lot, but still! Remind me to inoculate everyone with antivirals… everybody!

But then I got to the less… savory parts of the Drawback list. “No Means Yes” was bad enough… as it meant… well… yeah… it was that kind of world… grabby, pervy, and rapacious. Ravishment wasn’t exactly uncommon in the literature of the time, so it wasn’t a huge surprise… especially since this was also the age of piracy and slavery… but “Foul Beasts” meant that even the wildlife would be… problematical… seeking the pleasures of the flesh as much as they wanted food. Even tame or otherwise harmless animals… hell… even inanimate objects that shouldn’t have a sex drive would be humping our legs or making bedroom eyes at us. That was more than a little… terrifying.

“Greaaat… Just… Great. Well, Welcome to the Pervert Bride everyone.” I was beginning to suspect this train had no breaks. Good thing we were in the Fire Swamps… full of potentially unspeakable rodents and vines. And I wasn’t sure if the prohibition on killing anyone applied to the ROUS’s… but I suspect that it did. Carlin’s Law… replace all mention of the word Kill with the word Fuck. As in… I’m gonna kill you sheriff… But I’m gonna kill you slow.

Step one was putting everything back in the Warehouse before it could be used and mutated by the world… except our clothing. If anything in this world could damage me without Victoria, I would be surprised… but there was no way I was wearing a fullbody parasite in a world of perversion and debauchery.

Never fear. I shan’t go into details. I scarcely wish to remember them myself. Oh, not that some of it wasn’t fun… and a lot of it was just… hilarious… but it wasn’t exactly fit for general consumption…

I did have to burn Count Rugen’s Machine to ashes. If the normal one was bad… look… don’t use your imagination. Nothing’s worth that kind of mental scarring. I will say, however, that Inigo looked mighty fine without his shirt on… Mmmm yummy. And even Fezzik had taken a level in hunk… or so it seemed at the time.

Humperdink was still a dink. I made him dance naked in front of the kingdom to “I’m too Sexy”… but it didn’t really satisfy. I think he enjoyed it too much. Little pervert.

I didn’t mess with the plot. It was too much fun. I mostly just trailed along and patched up Westley and Inigo at the end. No relapses, no infections. Nothing happening. I did mind whammy the priest guy so he kept saying “Maaaawaaaage!” like fifty times in a row during the ceremony. I’m not sure why… it just seemed funny to me. Eventually it was like that video on Youtube where they made a song out of “This is SPARTA!” except more ‘This is MAAAAWAAAGE!”

I could go on and on. The whole thing was like the Canterbury Tales… or the Decameron… meets Princess Bride. Aside from having to break a few bones and crack a few heads, the whole experience wasn’t horrible. Still, this world’s version of the Dread Pirate Roberts… Think Julia Roberts… dressed like slutty Captain Jack Sparrow… and very, very interested in Booty. She tucked Westley in every damned night, let me tell you.

Next: World 47 – Perfect Storm

Resources: Build, Princess Bride Document, Lewd Document

If you like what I do, please consider supporting me on Patreon.

[Note… Yes, I set this all up for a horrible pun. I’m terrible. I was torn between making Princess Bride a Western or a Lewd, but the joke just set it up too well for me. Princess Bride honestly could be the easiest jump in the entire folder. The threat level is pretty much non-existent, and (since it’s a fairy tail) everything turns out okay in the end.]

World 45: Divinity-Dragon Commander

DIPLOMACY IN REAL TIME

Previously: Meddling Fool

Themesong: Just Dance by Lady Gaga

I think I might have pissed the Banker off. Either that or he’s just fucking with me. I have literally never even heard of the next world. I’ve been to jumps where I knew almost nothing going in… but I actually do know nothing at all about whatever “Divinity: Dragon Commander” is.

I read the intro blurb “With great machines of war, the old Emperor bound together a fractured realm. The Emperor married and sired many children. He even had a love-child with mysterious Aura, an ancient dragon in a woman’s guise. Once united, peace was declared in Rivellon and bloodshed soon forgotten. This peace was shattered when the Emperor’s sons and daughters rose against him. Desperate to safeguard the Emperor’s legacy, the wizard Maxos sought the help of the one child that never betrayed their father. They would be the one to save the empire from ruin and, to aid him in his quest, Maxos delivered unto them the Imperial Command Ship known as “The Raven”. This is your story, Dragon Commander!”

Great. I see from the footage that there are airships and stuff. Dragons and Airships, wizards and emperors and asshole siblings. I was 23… and had to choose between Human (Politics), Elf (Nature), Dwarf (Business), Lizard (Military), Imp (Technical), Undead (Luck), and Drop-In (bugger all). The canonical MC was a human male… well… half-human, half-dragon male. But it was clear that whatever I picked would be the half that wasn’t dragon… that was new… must be a video game jump. Only Video Game Jumps (and not all of them) placed me into the role of MC instead of being added to the canon. Human or Lizard were both tempting. I’d come back to this. Either one would cost me 300 CP for their racial perk.

But before that, I got Dragon Form and Political Marriage as freebies. The first gave me a dragon form that I could slip into and out of at will. While in that form I’d gain considerable passive health regen while not in combat (huh… wonder how that would stack), the ability to shoot fireballs (from my mouth, I assumed) and (obviously) flight. While in other forms I’d lose the regen and flight, but could keep my Dragon Skills… and as a Dragon Knight my lifespan would be much longer than it would be otherwise.Not sure how useful any of that would be aside from the whole being a fire-breathing giant lizard, but that wasn’t nothing.

The Political Marriage was just lovely. I was, apparently, going to have to marry in order to bind together the peoples of my empire. Whether princesses or princes, I’d have an option from each of the 6 civilized races. I could choose to take my new spouse as a companion… or I could import a companion as one of my prospective spouses, giving them a race of your choice and history for free. It was, in a word, a disastrously bad and nearly pointless perk. It offered nothing besides an insider in in-world politics… while at the same time creating a potential rift in my companion group’s internal politics. I didn’t need precog to already be able to hear the squabbling over who was going to get that coveted slot.

Zane would demand (half jokingly, half seriously) that he’d make the best possible ally and that the marriage would be political, not sexual or emotional. AJ would want in simply out of fanatical loyalty to me. Francy would want in because of the dresses, she was the biggest clothes horse in our group aside from Bao. RayRay would object to anyone besides her being picked as Dragon Princess… if she woke up. Uriel and Bao were two shades of politician; both were almost certain to toss their hats into the ring to defend their claim on the post of second in command in Imperial Politics. Cirno would be a pain just because she was one… and she wouldn’t give up because seeing logic wasn’t her just not her strong point, it wasn’t in the same universe as her.

And all that before my actual lovers got into the debate. Decades are a long time and we were a close knit group, but relationships are fluid, changing and evolving and convoluting. We were family, most of us, Kagetane notwithstanding. Yoiko and Ryoga were as competitive about me as only siblings can be. Velma seemed to view our relationship, never super serious, as a challenge, constantly coming up with ways to surprise me, though of course I wasn’t the only one, since she did the same with Kendra and even Cirno from time to time. Mini & Franky… well… outside of the military’s rules… don’t ask and I won’t tell. Yes, this perk was going to be sooo much fun. I needed a place to hide before I was forced to take sides. That wouldn’t go well.

Aside from the racial perks (one each), and the freebies, there were two general perks, one for recruitment, one for production. But instead of an item list, there were dragon form upgrades. Oddly enough, I wasn’t particularly thrilled by any of the drawbacks… and with nations at my beck and call, I didn’t exactly feel like upping the challenge by, say, making myself a drunk, a coward, a snob, a straw feminist, or a demonic thrall, nor did I feel like inflicting saboteurs, mercenaries, or bad luck upon my forces. That left “Phantom Limb” which would merely deprive me of a limb and give me frequent, intense, and incredibly unpleasant surges of pain. A decade of pain, fighting a massive war… I’d consider if the 300 CP was worth it after I looked through the Dragon Form upgrades.

There were three different Draconic Forms; Sabre, Mountain, Zephyr. Sabres were versatile, Mountains were powerful, and Zephyrs were magical. I went with Zephyr, Proud and highly gifted, hands off and supportive. The Zephyr form came with Purifying Flames (Your dragonfire turns blue and can be used to heal you and your allies.) and Friends with Benefits (A shield you can cast on an ally, reducing all damage they take by 50%. Any hit inflicted on this shield also heals you for 100% of the damage done.). Zephyrs also got a discount on Ray of Power (You may choose an ally within 2,000 meters of you. This ally will become roughly 75% more powerful in both physical and ability strength.), Mass Restoration (You fully heal a friendly target and all friendly units within a 500 meter radius around it. 30 second cooldown.), and Charm (You can charm an enemy unit so that it temporarily fights for your side. After 150 seconds, it becomes an enemy again. 30 second cooldown.). All that cost me 500 CP, and it was kinda nice to see concrete numbers for once… even if they apparently offered no room for growth.

I considered that, if I took drunk I could get another 100 and swap it all for a second racial perk… but I wasn’t feeling it, and a mass charm, mass heal combo wasn’t anything to sneer at.

That left me with just a race to pick. The Lizardman’s Tactical Genius was incredible… it really was. “Your plans are so brilliant, elegant, and complex that even history’s greatest tacticians could never understand them in full.” But it had two counter indicators. Lizardmen in this world were fugly… (as were the Imps)… though attractive in an alien sort of way. I wouldn’t have a problem looking at one across the table… but I certainly didn’t want to look at one in the mirror. The other problem was the limited scope. Tactics are battlefield level. Strategy is campaign level. If it covered both, I’d be all over it… But I couldn’t tell if it did, and the battlefield was too small a context to take it over the Human’s “Politician” which said “You are the consummate politician, capable of gaining and keeping support of even the most ornery and diametrically opposed parties. As well as clear judgement, this requires charisma, which you have in spades. You are a master manipulator, capable of always having the perfect line, tone, or expression to best facilitate getting what you want.” A charisma boost fit with my general theme. One that came with clear judgement and a manipulation booster, especially when getting opposed forces to work together… that was almost cheating! And so that’s what I took… plus, I like having human ears, Elfin ears keep catching on things.

My last 200 went into Mass Production “Factories and other areas of manufacturing under your control are strangely efficient. There are no accidents, they produce little waste, often work under cost, and produce things very quickly.” Couldn’t pass that up.

As it turned out… Cirno won the battle for Dragon Princess. Never play poker against an idiot fairy apparently. Luck, huh… though I can’t tell if that’s her good luck or my bad… especially since she picked Imp because “They’re soooo kyoooot!” I can’t believe I’m not getting CP back for this.

Ahab went Undead, picking Mountain Dragon as his dragon form, and Joy completed the trifecta with Sabre Dragon, in her case Elfin. The Mountain Dragon had Acid Blaze (highly corrosive, sticky, acidic fireballs.) and Rejuvenation (improved regen in both dragon and normal forms). Sabre Dragons had “Advance!” (all allies within 1600 meters more 60% faster for 10 seconds, 1 minute cooldown) and Soar (50% faster flight speed.).

What made me laugh was who’d ended up winning the lotto to be their respective Ducal consorts. Zane was paired with Joy (only he and AJ had signed up for it), and Toph was paired with Ahab (Petra was sulking a bit at that). Zane had picked Dwarf for the beer… and Toph had chosen Lizard simply to complete the six-pack. All it got them was a history, friends & connections in this world, and a new alt-form… but it was better than being a nobody.

=INSERTION=

I appeared on the bridge of a massive armored airship, being talked to by a dude with glowing eyes. He was rambling on about great generals and how I’d have to reclaim the empire from my brothers and sisters and I held up a hand. “Whoa, dude. Chill. Ain’t gonna happen.”

“What?”

“Look, I have approximately Zero interest in ruling an Empire right now. I have… things… I need to work out. It’s nice that you think I’m all that, but really, my qualifications to be Emperor, as far as you can see, are… One… My daddy was Crownhead and Two… I didn’t betray him. These are not good qualifications to choose a leader. Granted,” I said, forestalling the old guy’s sputtering protest, “My idiot siblings have even less good qualifications, seeing as how they did betray dear old dad and shatter the empire into feuding fiefdoms. But we’re not going to repeat a cycle of civil wars every time the Emperor gets old. No. We’re doing this up right. Head towards my nearest sibling.”

“But… the enemy fleet is in the way.”

“Heh. Right. Sure they are.”

Collecting my erstwhile siblings took a month. Fuck a duck dad had a lot of kids. They were, to a man and woman, not pleased at how me and my crack squad of miscreants had disabled every airship we’d come across. They also were less than pleased that my command ship, The Raven”, had impenetrable shielding (thanks Star Trek… if Romulans are having a hard time getting through it… ain’t noooo way Steampunk Elves are.)

“You assholes are assholes,” I said as I entered the very comfortable council-room slash prison cell I’d locked them all in. “I can’t trust any of you, and the people would have to be insane to trust any of us after the bullshit you just pulled. Which is why each and every one of you morons and patricides are going to help me turn the Empire into a Republic.” They all looked confused and outraged. I explained my plan. They looked more confused and outraged. I explained that each of them was free to challenge me to single combat anywhere, any time. Then I applied fists to faces as they tried dogpiling me. I think Dad might have been a carrier for some neurological problems.

Three weeks of much the same nonsense later, I’d finished giving each of the sociopathic heirs of empire so much needed Psychosurgery. Might not have been entirely ethical, but good god… these people were assholes!

Putting out the fires they’d started took a couple of years, but then again, teaching the subjects of the Empire about Republican Government took pretty much the entire decade. Yeah, I could have spent it gloriously at war, crushing all who stood in my way… but where’s the challenge? At least this way I got to wear a silly hat, pound a desk with Mjolnir, and yell “No! You’re out of Order!” a lot.

Being Emperor is hard work. Being Prime Minister? Now that’s fun! Also, the sex is better when you’re not trying to establish a dynasty.

Egg hasn’t so much as twitched. Dunno if I should be doing something about it.

Next: World 46 – Killing Me Softly

Resources: Build, Document

If you like what I do, please consider supporting me on Patreon.

 

 

World 44: Mistborn

MEDDLING FOOL

Previously: Broadway Bound

Themesong: Mado Kara Mieru by Christopher Tin

Apparently, the Banker decided that there’d been enough fun and games, because the VMoD that awaited me upon our return to the Warehouse was Brandon Sanderson’s “Mistborn”. Ever go into a world looking for a fight? Yeah, that was me and Mistborn. Don’t get me wrong, great book, interesting characters, fascinating magical systems… but it also featured lots and lots of death, a brutal tyrant, a psychotic god, and ultimately a “They Died for Us” ending that fed into the sequel series where the massively powerful “Mistborn” were no more, but had been replaced with the terribly focused “Twinborn” or whatever they’re called.

See, there are two things anyone going into Scadrial (the world of Mistborn) needs to know about. One is the magical systems of the world… of which there are three. The Metallic Arts; Allomancy, Feruchemy, and Hemalurgy. Allomancers burn metals that they have ingested to produce a specific result. It is net positive. Feruchemists store things in metal objects for later use. It is net neutral. And Hemalurgists steal traits from one person then install them in another by use of metallic spikes. It is net negative. The traits vary a little from Metallic Art to Metallic Art, but the metals are always the same… 8 pure metals, 8 specific alloys of those metals, always in pairs, and then in quartets, 16 metals. In the era of Mistborn, there are Mistings and Mistborn. A Misting is an Allomancer who can burn 1 metal. A Mistborn can burn them all. The other two arts are rare and largely unknown. In the sequel trilogy, Mistborns are unheard of, a legend out of the past, the bloodlines too diffuse. But so too are the other Arts strengthened. And that’s where the true power of this setting comes into play.

Combined Arts. Take a Feruchemist’s stored reserve and burn it using Allomancy, and you Compound the power drawn from it by an order of magnitude. Store the new, boosted supply, repeat. Geometric returns… but Twinborns, those who can burn and store in the same metal, are unheard of in this era. Only one twinborn exists in this time, a Compounder, a Mistborn and a Full Feruchemist (a single element Feruchemist is called a Ferring)… And his name is… well, that’s a secret, and much of the plot of the series is tied up in discovering it, but he is called “The Lord Ruler” an immortal living god who has enslaved most of the population of this ruined world for over a thousand years.

A thousand years ago, The Hero of Ages travelled to the Well of Ascension to gain the power of Preservation and save the world from the Deepness. And he… kinda did. Spoilers here, but the real Hero was betrayed, murdered by his asshole guide, who did horrible things to his own people, the Terrismen, and who turned his people’s long time rivals into the Skaa, the hereditary slaves that make up 99% of the population and have no rights. None.

With the power of the Well, he changed the world, reshaping the land, leveling mountains, and even moving the planet closer to the sun… only to realize that would kill everyone… so he created volcanoes to blanket the world in ash… then modified plantlife, animal life, and even the people to survive in this horror. The Lord Ruler is an idiot, an asshole, and a tyrant of epic proportions. And through it all, he was being played by one of the two gods of this world, Ruin, trapped within the well of ascension by his counterpart, Preservation. But before you give the Xanatos Crown of Ages to Ruin… Preservation had plans of his own, plans that involved playing an even longer game in which not only was Ruin a pawn, but Preservation used himself as a sacrificial lamb. That, dear friends, is serious Keikaku Dori.

I had instant plans for this jump. They wanted exciting? I’d give them exciting. But the forms had to be obeyed, and there were things I wanted from this jump.

First thing’s first. Maxing out my CP. That means Drawbacks and looking through the list I instantly see the two I want. First, Public Enemy #1 [+300/1300] which makes me the enemy of the Lord Ruler’s Final Empire, making my face and name known to the Luthadel city guard, the Ministry of Orthodoxy, and their Steel Inquisitors, nearly immortal Hemalurgic monstrosities. To be sure, the Steel Inquisitors would be a threat… if I didn’t know how to kill them and only had the resources of this world to deal with… but any self respecting pyrokinetic, telekinetic, or anyone trained to kill monsters without using metal weapons who’d read the books should be able to deal with them… plasma rifles, plasma grenades… anything that kept you out of their immediate range… crystalline weapons… as long as they couldn’t catch me, they couldn’t kill me.

And speaking of the Inquisitors, the reason I wasn’t concerned with having them as my enemy is because I’d already planned on making their boss into my enemy… The Lord Ruler himself. And there was a Drawback for that… either for the Lord Ruler (their apparent boss) or Ruin (their real boss). Both were 600, but the limit was 800, so either one would put me over. I could take them. I was pretty sure I could deal with the fall out… but it would have been insanity to do so. Both of them provided my enemies with knowledge of who I was and what I could do. While it was fun to imagine the Lord Ruler bowing to me and begging for his worthless life, I knew he wouldn’t and he might do something horrible just to spite me.

No, there were safer paths. Inquisitive [+200/1500], which Public Enemy #1 didn’t rule out, would sic a particular Steel Inquisitor on my path, one with the ability to punch through Allomantic anti-tracking abilities or perks. If I was going to have to kill them all, one more wouldn’t make a difference. And Destitute [+300/1800] would make me broke… though it didn’t say anything about keeping me destitute, just that I’d ended up without money or status. If it did, it did. I had more important things to worry about than money. And that was that.

I toggled the menu display to Companions… and got a blank screen. Fuuuuuck. Now I had to figure out how to get the damned Lerasium beads from the Well of Ascension, as those were the only way to turn any of my followers into Allomancers. Granted, those beads would turn them into first generation Allomancers, not the weak ass Allomancers of this era. I was hoping there was more than a single bead in the Well.

There were four origins; Skaa (which you’d have to be a masochist to take), Cultist (which you’d have to be insane to take), Noble (which was the sane choice), and Terrisman (which you’d have to be extremely pragmatic or have a plan to take). Since Noble’s had Allomancy and Terrismen had Feruchemy, it was pretty much split between them. As I wasn’t male, I didn’t have to worry about being a eunuch, though there were no canonical female Terris Stewards… I mean, they existed, that was canon… they just never showed in the books. But since it was possible to become an Allomancer by consuming Lerasium or by absorbing enough of the mists somehow, and there was no known way to become a Feruchemist besides being a Terrisman… and Feruchemy was arguably more useful on its own… Terrisman [-100/1700/1800] it was.

Because of the climate of Scadrial, everyone got “Choked by Ash” for free , the biological alterations required to survive in the harsh environment of Scadrial, guaranteeing I’d suffer no ill effects from the massive amounts of ash in the air, and could survive off the meager food grown on the few plants that continue to thrive. Useful in this setting, not so much elsewhere… and the lack of it for my companions meant that, if they wanted to help me, they’d need breathing gear… though food supplies from the warehouse were ample. And as a Terriswoman, I got “Classically Trained” as a freebie, which made me literate and well read, knowledge on many topics, having read books by many a well regarded thinker. It also gave me a thorough grounding in proper etiquette, with knowledge of how to conduct myself in sophisticated company.”

Unfortunately, the next two Terrisman perks sucked. Above Your Station was a boost to my social standing… in this jump only… and Ferring was just a watered down copy of the capstone, 1/16th the power for 2/3rds the price. Insanity. So I skipped them and spent the extra 100 CP to get “Feruchemist” [-300/1400/1800] which gave me the “unique abilities of a Keeper, known as Feruchemy.” It meant I could store attributes in a metalmind… a hunk of elementally pure metal… reducing my abilities now for a boost in ability later. Steel stored physical speed, Iron physical weight, Pewter physical strength, Tin the senses, Zinc mental speed, Brass warmth, Copper memories, Bronze wakefulness, Gold health, Atium age, Aluminum the sense of self, Duralumin the ability to connect with others (charisma), Nicrosil stored Investiture (whatever that meant), Chromium luck, Electrum determination, Cadmium breath, and Bendalloy nutrition and hydration. And best of all, what was stored didn’t have to be removed at the same rate. Store 2 hours of strength and you can be double strength for 2 hours… or triple strength for 1 hour… or quintuple strength for half an hour… it was an excellent power, especially if one was well prepared, though a Feruchemist could only tap their own metalminds. That was half the package.

Allomancy was the other half… and I could have it for 600… or buy the Lerasium Bead from the Item list for 800… Both were terribly expensive. I could, in theory, claim this power in jump, one of two ways. But if there was only one bead in the Well? What if I couldn’t claim it? I could try and figure out a way to absorb the mists… but if I did that, I’d run the risk of becoming the Shard of Preservation and claiming either Shard was a chain ender. Of course, I had to actively claim a Shard for that to apply. I was pretty sure that actively fighting off the possession wouldn’t count… but still.

And speaking of that… I scrolled back to the Skaa list and double checked something “Aluminum Mind” [-400/1000/1800]… Aluminum is the only metal known to be allomantically inert; it cannot be effected by any form of Allomancy. Buying this was useful in this world, since it made my mind similarly impervious to Allomancy… including detection by Bronze burners or having my emotions Rioted or Soothed. It was also useful beyond the borders of Scadrial, in that it wasn’t limited to Allomancy either… unless I chose to allow it, my mind could not be affected nor detected by any mental abilities going forward. It was similar to being protected by a Coppercloud… but could not be pierced by even the most powerful of Allomancers. Mental defense and invisibility? Get! For the price it was a steal.

The Item list was a hilarious mix of the insanely useful and the titanically worthless. In the second category included “non-metallic wooden & leather armor”, “obsidian daggers”, “perfectly normal horseshoes”, “a single object made from aluminum”, “an easily replicated cloak”, and a pathetically small amount of money that respawned as long as you didn’t actually spend it. The first category had the single, expendable, irreplaceable, Lerasium bead… a pet warband of 20 monstrosities, a pet shapeshifter… and a regenerating supply of Atium. If I hadn’t just come out of Strike Witches and gained combat precog, I would have been all over that… as it was? I didn’t care too much. The primary counter to Atium Precog was to burn Atium yourself, since two precogs cancelled each other out… but I was effectively invisible to precog and had my own without burning anything.

So the Lerasium [-800/200/1800] was it. It was 200 more than just buying Mistborn straight up, but it was orders of magnitude stronger than that ability. Lerasium was the single rarest metal in Scadrial, even rarer then Atium. It was solidified essence of Preservation, just as Atium was solidified essence of Ruin. According to the text, only a scant few beads of Lerasium existed hidden in the Well of Ascension… but somehow, buying this meant I had one. If the bead was consumed by someone who was not an Allomancer, they became a Mistborn of unparalleled power, many times stronger than any modern Mistborn. I didn’t have to consume it myself, but I would have to be very, VERY careful about who I did give it to, and letting it out of my sight was ill advised! I wouldn’t get a second one if the first was lost or stolen, and the text stated that it could not be reproduced by any means. It did, however, indicate that this bead was, functionally, identical to the ones in the Well of Ascension, which meant that, yes, stealing those would give me more beads with which to create more Primordial Mistborn

I’d have to be very careful with it… and with the other beads I got my hands on. Burning Lerasium when you already were a Mistborn was said to be able to rewrite your own spiritual DNA… somehow. Of course, burning enough to become a Savant (the ultimate and often disastrous result of Allomantic over use) of Lerasium would make me the Shardholder of Preservation, and that would be chain-endingly bad. Not sure that much Lerasium existed, but taking a chance seemed… unwise.

Regardless, a Mistborn could use Steel to sense all nearby metals (besides Aluminum) and push it in a form of TK called “Coinshot”, either to move the object if lighter than the allomancer or to move the allomancer if they were lighter than the object or the object was blocked from moving (say, by being wedged in place. Didn’t work on metal in the body unless the Allomancer was terribly powerful. Iron did the same, but pulling instead of pushing, i.e. “Lurching”. Burning Pewter, “Pewterarm”, enhanced all your physical abilities (Strength, speed, balance, endurance, pain threshhold, healing rate, stamina, and resistance to hunger or thirst.), while burning Tin, “Tineye”, enhanced the senses and made the mists appear transparent. Zinc allowed the Allomancer to boost (“Riot”) the emotions of those around them, while Brass “Soothed” them, but neither granted the ability to read them.

Copper-burning “Smokers” create a metaphysical… (or was that metalphysical?) “Cloud” that hid Allomancy usage from Bronze-burning “Seekers” who could hear Allomantic pulses and track them back to the Allomancer. Copper not only rendered one immune to emotional Allomancy, it would protect against any form of supernatural detection or mental influence while being burned. Bronze , I was assured, would allow me to detect any form of supernatural power… at least once the jump ended.

Gold-burning “Augurs” got to see a brief vision of the people they might have been. Electrum “Oracles” could predict their own actions in the immediate future… which made it useless except to block Atium-burning “Seers”, who could see several seconds into the future, as long as the Atium lasted (it didn’t last long)… and could be countered by any other form of immediate precognition.

Aluminum was useless, since burning it simply burned out all the other metals in your body… but Duralumin, which was useless on its own, was anything but to a full Mistborn. When burned with another metal, Duralumin would burn the entire store of that metal in one massive jolt, giving a huge boost in power for a few seconds. Chromium-burning “Leechers” could do the Aluminum thing to anyone they touched… and in future would be able to drain the power source of any supernatural ability. Nicrosil (a nickel chromium alloy) burning “Nicrobursters” could do the Duralumin trick to any others, and would be able to supercharge any one supernatural ability at a time… though doing so would utterly exhaust the target and/or empty whatever power supply that ability used.

And that brought us to the Cadmium-burning “Pulsers” and Bendalloy-burning “Sliders”. The first created a bubble of slowed time around themselves, the second created a bubble of accelerated time around themselves. The bubbles were typically only a little bigger than the user was tall, visible and tangible enough to interfere with the vector of projectiles. All in all, it was a useful and highly flexible powerset…

And that was before Compounding entered the picture. If a Compounder burned their own metalmind (i.e. a chunk of metal they’d stored power in), the results were amplified by magnitudes. Store a bit of strength in Pewter, burn the Pewter, store the new superstrength in a second bit of Pewter… burn it to get megastrength… have fun breaking all the things.

I considered what to do with my final 200 CP. There were a number of somewhat useful 200 CP items and perks… but ultimately, I snagged two 100’s. The first was the Noble’s “Privileged” [-100/100/1800], which meant I’d be treated deference and respect by anyone who was not demonstrably my superior. People, even my peers, would take pains not to offend me, and give me all the respect and privilege due to whatever my current rank was. People who had good reason to hate me, or who were noticeably superior to me, wouldn’t defer of course, but they’d still treat me with at least a modicum of respect even if that respect was merely a thin veil hiding a vicious, seething hatred. It wasn’t much, but I had a feeling that very soon I’d be demonstrating my superiority to most, if not all, of Scadrial.

The second… was the Cultist’s “Ruinous Font” [-100/0/1800], which gave me the power Hemalurgy on my own, rather than calling upon the power of Ruin to do so. In this world, one didn’t have to belong to a specific bloodline to use Hemalurgy. All one needed was the desire to do harm and to draw on Ruin… which allowed the god to influence the Hemalurgist and actively manipulate the beneficiaries of Hemalurgy towards his own destructive ends. Ruinous font gave me the smallest sliver of Ruin’s power, just enough to fuel my own Hemalurgy without Ruin’s help. Hemalurgic spikes I created would have no connection to Ruin, and their users could not be controlled by him or by emotional Allomancy. I also could make Hemalurgical spikes outside of the jump… asuming I found a source of knowledge on Hemalurgical processes… Ha! I figured, let’s make the lunacy complete. Fuck Sanity. Fuck playing it safe. I was going to rip the entire crumbling edifice of this sorry world apart. I was gods-be-damned scanning tunneling mind reader. If I wanted knowledge of Hemalurgy, I’d snatch it from the skulls of the members of the Canton of Orthodoxy as I tore their heads from their necks.

I stepped back from the machine, blinking. I was… angry. Huh. I hadn’t even entered the world and I was seething for a fight. I needed to meditate on this.

When I emerged from my contemplation, feeling calmer but no less worried about why I was getting so deeply and personally upset, Ahab and Joy both presented their plans to me. Joy decided to import herself as a Noble (Privileged, Choked By Ash, Coin Pouch (500 boxings, pocket change to a noble, a vast fortune to a skaa, useful for transportation or ammunition to a Mistborn, regenerates coins used as other than currency)), while Ahab decided to go Skaa… just because it came with “Beneath your Notice” (You are unimportant, or are very good at seeming so. So long as you make no effort to draw attention to yourself, the majority of people will regard you as beneath them, and not worth bothering with. You blend in with the background easily. Note that if you do something attention-grabbing, such as attack someone or try to enter a restricted area, no amount of unimportance will hide you.)

I signed off on them, hit confirm on the VMoD, locking my choices in… but didn’t drop immediately. Instead, I spent just over two weeks crafting a complete set of metalminds, as well as prepping hundreds of vials of allomantic metal flakes and numerous metallic beads. The alloy balance for all the Metallic Arts metals was the same, and my Feruchemy made sure I knew them back to front. I also made myself an enchanted Mistcloak (good for moving through the mist, hiding in the mist, and having no metal in it), Carbonfiber Hazekiller Gear (no metal weaponry), and just under 80 score diamondoid knives… fuck this low tech bullshit.

Once my cadre and I were outfitted (the backup squad had metal-free envirosuits that would have fit right in with HYDRA-shock troopers), I dropped.

INSERTION – SCADRIAL

Luthadel, capital of the Final Empire – 1016 FE, 6 years before the book’s begin. I was 19 and I had a plan. It was a good plan… or so I thought.

Step 1 was locating the Pits of Hathsin, the place where the Lord Ruler’s Atium was mined. That this would also be where Kelsier (first of the doomed heroes of this tale) and his wife Mare would end up in a few years… assuming I couldn’t find them first… was just a bonus. It was also the location of the secret Kandra Homeland, hidden in the cave networks deep underground… and inside that network, the Trustvault, the Lord Ruler’s massive stash of Atium. A stash I had every intention of stealing.

Finding that information was as simple as… finding the home of Straff Venture, the richest noble in Luthadel… and the man in charge of the Pits. Also father of Elend Venture, a bookish reformer and second of the doomed heroes of the novels. Straff was a monster and I snatched the information from his mind, giving him a migraine that left him bedridden for a month.

While I was dealing with that, Ahab was searching for Camon’s crew among the skaa thieves of the city. Camon was a tool, but his crew contained the now 11 year old Vin, an Allomancer and the third doomed hero… or heroine as the case may be. Joy, it should be said, was officially my Mistress, since I was, under the law, a slave and her servant. She knew better than to take advantage of that. Also, thanks to my drawback, her boxings were fake and we were pennyless… until I stole 5,000 boxings from Straff. Solution set for being broke: earn money, steal money… very simple solution set.

The pits were not far from Luthadel, and I decided to walk the distance, seeing the world of Scadrial in all its depressing unsplendor. Mist, Ash, brown plants… poisoned water, poisoned sky… a thousand years of this? No wonder everything sucked. It was on the road to the pits that two things happened. One was the arrival of my Steel Inquisitor stalker. Two was as a result of me cutting his head off.

I received a flicker of awareness of thought moments before he smashed out of the nearby trees, steel spike filled eye-sockets fixed on me as if he could see like normal people. He was fast, very very fast, superhumanly. But so was I. He was reaching for my metals, for my emotions, for anything to use against me… I was reaching for my Zanpakuto. Hyperfractal Ice is essentially strange matter. It can’t possibly exist. It was Ice so cold it was negative Kelvin, its edge was monomolecular… it cut through steel and bone like paper.

As he fell, I wrenched the lynchpin spike out of his back. Inquisitors are much less scary when one knows how they work and what their weaknesses are (Beheading, removing the lynchpin spike). That was two problems solved… and another one gained.

I watched in, at first fascination, and then mounting horror, as Soul of Ice began drinking the Mist. What one mist… er… must understand is that the Mists of Scadrial aren’t normal. They’re persistent over centuries. The Lord Ruler rose to power because he was searching for a way to end something called “The Deepness” a perpetual choking mist… which now covered all the world. That mist was the body of Preservation… its mind trapped in the Well of Ascension to keep Ruin’s mind trapped as well and thus keep Ruin from destroying the world.

Those mists were pure Preservation… I slammed my sword back into the scabbard… then cringed as it kept drinking up the mists. I could feel the power building in me, feel… Preservation noticing me. A god, noticing me. I had to stop it before I became incapable of action at all. That’s Preservation’s curse. It couldn’t destroy. I stuffed my sword into the warehouse, feeling instantly a little naked… part of my soul was cut off from me.

Then another sense of horror washed through me… this wasn’t the first time I’d encountered soul mist. It was, in fact, the third time. The first wasn’t a big deal. The mists of the Spiritworld in Bleach were essentially harmless, just spirit particles forming mist. No different than the spirit particles that formed trees or rocks or buildings… The second time… that was Demon’s Souls. And that… that was the Colorless Gray Fog. It was… shit… how much of that stuff had gotten into me?

I had to find… Shit… I apparated back to the safehouse in Luthadel, pausing long enough to steal all the spikes and store them in blood filled jars, then cremate the body. Once there, I sealed the place with every spell I could think of, threw up a force bubble, then stepped through into the warehouse. Once there I entered my private workshop, that room no one but me could enter. The bead was where I’d left it, still unconsummed, sealed in elemental ice. Soul of Ice was pouting on a workbench.

“How much of the Gray Fog did you drink?” I demanded. She flinched. I tempered my words “It’s poison. It’s…. It’s pure selfish megalomaniacal evil.” She grumbled “It tasted good!”

I sighed. “Crap…. Crap Crap Crap… you’re… you’re a power junky. We… we have to find a way to get it out of us.”

“Whyyyyyy?”

“Because I think it’s been making us do less than completely rational things. I think we’ve been… I think…” I sat down. “A little pragmatism is good. It’s fine. A little arrogance is good. Also perfectly natural. But we’ve been going off the deep end a bit. Shit. I… I’ll have to think about this. I don’t know how to get the corruption out. But you can’t come out unless you promise not to drink the mist.”

“But it’s all yummeeeeee.”

“Right. And if you drink too much of it-”

“You become an Allomancer!”

“And we run the risk of becoming the Shardholder of Preservation and getting stuck here. Forever. I don’t like the Cosmere enough to stay here. Certainly not with Odium running around trying to kill Shardholders. And Hoid being fucking creepy.”

“Boring!” my inner hollow said, manifesting herself as well… thankfully in her less eldritch horror Resurreccion state. Pretty was not the word for us in Silent Judge Released form.

“Hush you. No… wait… do you know how to get rid of the Gray Fog we’ve absorbed?”

“No. Of course not. We don’t know what you don’t know.”

“Right… of course.”

VIctoria, the fourth part of our quintet of me, my symbiotic clothing, armor, wand, personal computer, tricorder… wasn’t any help either, which wasn’t really surprising. Atura, as always, simply watched, considered, offering support where possible, but seldom interfering.

Still, now I knew… and knowing was the first step… though I had no idea how to get rid of this contamination.

Long story short, I found Hathsin. Many slaves, lots of crawling through pitchblack cracks in the ground looking for a geode that contained a bead of Atium, reaching through crystals that scratched and scarred. Find a geode a week or you were beaten to death. It was not a life that lasted long and no one got out alive. I flowed into the pits as a ribbon of darkness, releasing mapping microspiders as I went, each programmed to locate part of the cave system and map it, to tag geodes and the crystal deposits where they grew. After dropping off a couple thousand of them, all rigged to self destruct if captured, I headed back to the city.

Finding all the players, Vin, Kelsier, Mare (his wife), Marsh (his brother and eventually the primary Steel Inquisitor of Ruin), and Sazed (the prophesied Hero of Ages, the one who would unite Ruin and Preservation into Harmony… a Terrisman and Eunuch.)… it took 4 years. Luthadel isn’t huge, but it’s not exactly tiny and, to be honest, I wasn’t moving fast. The well wouldn’t be ready until 1024 FE, and, while people were suffering and dying, they’d been doing it for a thousand years and more. It wasn’t very nice, but I wasn’t going to be the one to put the world back together again, bring back the sun, all that happy horseshit. I was just going to be the one who eased the transition.

Getting Vin away from Camon was easy. Getting Mare away from the Pits of Hathsin before she could be beaten to death before Kelsier’s eyes was only slightly more challenging (dopplegangers for the win, woo woo). Waiting for Kelsier to show up in Luthadel and put together a team to lead the rebellion… that was nerve wracking. Mare was anxious to see him, but was more than happy to play mother hen to Vin… who’d had the hemalurgical spike her mother had implanted in her, and which Ruin had been using to shape her into his prison key, removed and stored away in a vial of blood. Those vials were necessary to preserve the enchantments on the spikes, which would otherwise degrade over time if they weren’t in a host.

I’d studied the minds of dozens of Hemalurgical experts, and their documents, gleaning everything I could find. I’d also mapped the entire Kandra homeland by now and replaced all the shiny Atium with titanium ballbearings. They wouldn’t be able to tell the difference unless they actually tried to use them. I had an empire’s ransom of Atium in my warehouse. Now all I needed was Sazed. And once he arrived in the city, all my plans could begin.

I arranged for Vin to join Kelsier’s crew, since she and Elend were a cute couple, and Vin needed training. I spent long, long hours talking with Sazed, explaining everything I could about the Cosmere and about the prophecy and the Kandra and the Kollos and the Lord Ruler and the Shards. I could also have restored his manhood, The Medbed is one very nice piece of tech. All I needed now was The Slab…. But I explained it all to him, showing him the prophecy I’d etched into metal, the text of the book that would be written in another world. I explained that we had to find Ati and Leras and he must claim their powers and remake the world. I promised him my help in all this.

And then, I entered Kredik Shaw, the Lord Ruler’s Fortress. I made my way through the Steel Inquisitors like they were nothing to me, and they weren’t. They had no protection against my elemental control, which could melt and shape the spikes within them without touching them, pulling the Lynchpins as if they were nothing but offswitches.

The Lord Ruler was… displeased to see me. He was also displeased to realize I had no metal for him to use, no emotional state for him to twist… and then terrified as I began pulling his hemalurgic spikes slash metalminds from his body one by one with deliberate cruelty. “You are a horrible person, Rashek. A thousand years of tyranny, out of hatred for the Khelenni people… a thousand years of brutal murder, slaughter, and repression against your own people. Has it made you happy? Has it done anything but made people suffer? A world choked in ash. You’ll go down as evil beyond any other, you know that?”

He growled that he’d done what was needed, that he had saved the world “You saved it from what? The Deepness? The Deepness is all around! You saved the people by enslaving them to your own twisted will! I hope you rot in hell, but I don’t believe in Hell and I’m pretty sure the Cosmere lacks an afterlife!” And I ripped out the Atium spikes he was storing youth in, watching as he aged into dust in moments.

Yes yes, I’d stolen Vin and Kelsier’s thunder, but in the books, the battle had claimed many lives and been fairly one sided until Vin exploited the single weakness in The Lord Ruler’s defenses… stripping him of that which made him unbeatable.

And then I opened the way to the Well of Ascension and showed it to Sazed “This is the prison of Ruin” I commented “What happens next is for you to decide.” Preservation’s Mist Spirits objected to my twisting of the prophecy. I shrugged. “Your way killed a great many people, Preservation. Plunged a world into darkness and decay for a thousand years. How many died in suffering? I know you had no other way. And that life would not exist here without your actions… But now you must help us. We must draw out Ruin’s Shardholder and you… will be the bait.”

The events that followed were… transformative. Sazed remade the world in all its splendor and, to a certain degree, I helped, offering suggestions where I could and providing references from my travels where possible. Harmony, as Ruin and Preservation were when combined, had nearly unlimited local power. He was a god of creation and recreation. Better him than me.

I spent the last few years helping the transition of power from Final Empire to newly born nations, all trying to adjust to life amid the greenery and warmth of the sun, green plants, animals, and more.

I realized how close my meddling had come to throwing the world’s balance totally off. I could have looted everything and ruined Preservation’s plans. They were delicate enough. I wondered if there were other jumpers in other versions of this world and how much damage they’d done, even as I attended the Coronation of Elend and Vin as Emperor and Empress.

I’d found 7 beads of Lerasium in the Well, given one to Elend, one to Mare… that left 5, plus the one in my lab. I consumed one from the Well, feeling the power awakening within me. It would bear experimentation. Sazed laughed when I asked him if he could create more… or what, exactly, would happen if I alloyed Atium and Lerasium? Would they make Harmonium? For the first, he could, but wouldn’t… not yet. He didn’t know about the second. I nodded. I gave Zane the original bead. I wasn’t sure if the others would turn someone not native to this world into an Allomancer. That left four. Four beads with which to experiment.

And other metals too. Vibranium & Adamantium… Uru-Metal… Mithril… Valyrian Steel… Oh… those were interesting. Vibranium could store loudness when used by a Feruchemist, and when burned made the skin of the Allomancer absorb light. Adamantium stored durability, and when burned transformed the Allomancer’s bones and nails to metal. Uru-Metal stored creativity, and burning it allowed for storm generation powers, wind, lightning, thunder… that kind of thing. Mithril stored grace, making one clumsy and awkward when storing, but fluid, smooth, and beautiful when tapping it. Burning it allowed the user a sense of where to go next, though the more certain you were of what you were looking for, the stronger the pathway became. Valyrian Steel allowed one to store anger and passion… a strange thing… storing it made one apathetic and listless. Burning it allowed one to breath fire. Much more reasonable. Aurium, of which I had a tiny amount, I didn’t want to burn, but I could, of course, store aura in it, which would be damned useful if I ever went to a Dragonball type setting. I still hadn’t experimented with the Hemalurgy, so I wasn’t up for messing with spikes of ultra rare metals, and I certainly didn’t want to exhaust my supply of any of those limited things before I had a way to acquire or produce more.

I was also looking forward to getting my hands on some Orihalcum at some point. That could be most interesting.

“Sazed. Harmony. One last thing. Can you sense the presence of any of your mist within me? Or of another mist, possibly darker and nastier, a colorless gray mist?” Sazed shook his head somewhat sadly.

“I can sense you want those removed from you, but they are part of you now and if you want them gone, you will have to remove them yourself.”

“Doesn’t me having some of your mist weaken the part of you that is Preservation?”

He considered, then smiled. “It does. Would you be willing to take part of Ruin within yourself?”

I gulped…. then nodded. “Just enough to balance out the Preservation. A little Harmony would probably be a good thing.”

The passing of that tiny fragment was beyond what I had imagined. The three soul mists shifted, twisted, merged, the Gray of Discord mediating between the forces of Ruin and Preservation. The sensation was… unpleasantly like being stuffed back into an eggshell. If Sazed was Harmony, I was… Melody? A counterpoint woven into the fabric of the song. I was an element of contrast, drawn to extremes. Atura flowed into the mixture and… the whole thing thunked into the atrium of my Mental Palace, an egg the size of a minivan.

I was not at all certain I’d enjoy what eventually hatched.

Next: World 45 – Diplomacy in Real Time

Resources: Build, Document

 If you like what I do, please consider supporting me on Patreon.

World 43: Gargoyles

BROADWAY BOUND

Previously: Danger Zone

Themesong: Candyman by Christina Aguilera

The second I stepped through the Pillars of Time back into the Warehouse, I noticed that the new VMoD had finally been installed. It was very fancy… and looked like a pizza making machine. There was a slip of paper attached to the surface. There were also a number of animals flying, running, and lounging around. They looked familiar, but it took me a moment to realize they were our collective Strike Familiars. Ziggy looked like he was freaking out from sensation overload. Two foxes, five dogs, two cats, two birds, a sheep, and a beaver were making themselves at home in the normally quiet warehouse. Joy’s horse, Sorrow, was flicking an ear and looking annoyed as the smaller animals ran round and round. Fliagor, the oldest of the pets, was resigned to all this and didn’t bother getting up from his patch of grass. Of course, aside from Sorrow and Fliagor who were horses and Ziggy who was a Mon, the others were familiars and thus mostly sentient.

I’d seen the ears and tails of those creatures many times over the last decade, but never seen most of them manifest. My own Alegra, an italian red fox who was white (not albino, white… yes that happens) was poking Ziggy as the two of them tried to establish dominance… or rather, the fox did and Ziggy yawned hugely. Alegra was smarter and magical… Ziggy was a Mon and a ferretoid at that. A full grown male ferret can bring down a full grown male fox seven falls out of ten… Ziggy could take Alegra, but he wouldn’t hurt her. He’s a good boy. The others, though, might be a problem.

I eyed the massive bald eagle, then wandered over and very pointedly told the Eagle “They aren’t prey.” The eagle just flared his wings and fluttered. I hate birds. But that was for later. I wandered over to the machines and snatched the note.

“Sorry for the delay. On thinking about it, Have decided to change my mind. An exchange is acceptable. Therefore, we have refunded your purchase of Flawless Awareness and replaced it with something you’ll enjoy more. Please press the change return button to receive your refund.”

I quirked my eyebrow “What? Wait! I like Flawless Awareness! It’s useful!” but no one answered. I pulled the coin return and two thunks echoed from the dispenser unit. I fished around in the slot and found a pair of wristbands with a computerized display. Hmmm. The tag Identified them as Universal Locator Beacon Bracelets. The display on each was a list of names. I blinked… those names were the names of everyone I’d met in the last world! I scrolled down the list, then selected Francesca. “Francesca Lucchini, confirm?” I mmmm’d, then hit yes. Lucchini, looking exactly the same as she looked at the party not ten minutes earlier, appeared, looking around “Whaaa?”

I held up a hand. “Hold on, let me just…” I hit confirm on the second and Mini McGonagall appeared, 20 years old and gorgeous and equally confused. Explaining took… a few days. Getting them over the culture shock would be an ongoing thing… but first, I had to boot up the new VMoD and find out what the next Jump was going to be. Turns out it was Gargoyles.

I recognized the font but it took sifting through tons of millennia old memories to remember that that was the name of a Disney cartoon show about some winged monsters who turned into stone during the day and fought some guy named Xanatos. I’d seen maybe a third of an episode and only knew about Xanatos because of an old trope called a Xanatos Gambit… i.e. the American version of “Just as Planned!”

I knew nothing about the story, except that there was a love story triangle between the head Gargoyle “Goliath” and some human cop lady and a crazy evil female gargoyle… and that Commander William Riker played Xanatos. The blurb was pretty much the same info; “The world of Gargoyles is mostly just like your own. Mostly. Scattered around the globe are a few clans of winged humanoids called gargoyles, technology is significantly more advanced for those who can afford it, and the Children of Oberon occasionally meddle with human affairs. Magic and aliens are real, but rare enough that most people don’t know they exist yet. The year is 1994 and the Manhattan Clan have just woken from their millennium long slumber.”

I really had no interest in any of this, not being a fan of the show, but the 1990s in the US was an interesting time and I could use a bit of a vacation in a world that wasn’t in the midst of post-war reconstruction. The wheels of age and location gave me 23 years old and NYC. I could cope with both, so I started with the companion import options and drawbacks.

Importing 8 was [-400/600/1000] and gave each of them a race, an origin, and 400 to spend. Not bad. Could get it half price if I was a drop in but I really didn’t see any particular advantage to that.

Crash Artist [+100/700/1100] made it so that any non-CP vehicle I built or acquired would go up in flames within a day. New York City, home of the Taxi and Subway. I didn’t think I’d have to worry. Friendly Enemies [+200/900/1300] made it so all my enemies would team up with each other, creating a snowball of enmity… so I just had to avoid making enemies.

But then I hit a snag. There were three things total I… wanted is a hard phrase to use… could use? No, that’s not right either. There were two things I felt like paying CP for on the perks and items list. Undiscounted, they were 400 points. That left 900… and I wasn’t feeling it. And I wasn’t feeling like being a “Super Snooper”, “Business Man”, or “Warrior” either. Screw it. I took Drop-In, which changed my total to [1100/1300]. Then I pressed Import Companions option again. “Error, option already selected.”

“I’m aware. I’d like to import 8 more companions.”

“You can’t.”

“Why not?”

“…”

“No answer?”

“That is the way things are done.”

“That’s boring.”

“Still, that is the way things are done.”

“Awww… come on… I’m willing to pay the CP cost. Just let me have 16. You dropped a Neuroi version of my Assault Shuttle on me and cloaked a Neuroi Hive just to give me a hard time last time.”

“…”

“So, that’s not a denial?”

“I might have… nudged the scenario. Slightly.”

“So…”

“I also gave you Mini. Twice.” I could swear the words were almost plaintive.

“Mmmm… “

“And Lucchini.”

“This is a point. How about this… I promise not to use any of my companions in combat during this jump.”

“You’re not planning on getting into combat this jump!”

“Seee! There you go! No combat, No group beatdown.”

“You think you’re clever.”

“I am clever.”

“Give me one good reason I should bend the rules for this.”

“It’ll be amusing.”

“How so?”

“SJ’s crew does New York City? How could it not be?”

“I… hmmm… Why can’t they just swap in and out like normal?”

“Parties. Plays. Shopping. Ice Skating at Rockafeller. Hanging out in Central Park, playing football.”

“Doesn’t seem like a great reason.”

“No. It’s not. It’s a terrible reason… Of course, I could just move to Idaho and play farmville for a decade. I’m certain it would be riveting.”

“Could send you home.”

“And how would that be entertaining?”

“Look. Just spend the CP, you obnoxious blonde!”

“Ooooo… is the big bad Quasi-omnipotent being getting grumpy?”

“Grrr…”

“Would it help if I said please?”

“Your entire argument hinges on the “But, I wanna!” defense!”

“Not entirely!”

“Yes it does!”

“It also hinges on the I’m bored defense!”

“Oh, that’s sooo much better!”

“It’s your reason for doing all this, as far as I can tell… unless you’re selling viewing rights to other bored QOBs.”

“QOBs?”

“Quasi-”

“Oh, right… fine… this once… just… just don’t do it again.”

“Cool.”

I pressed the button again. It pinged in a most satisfactory fashion. [-200/900/1300]. Then I pressed it again.

“You don’t have 24 companions!”

“I wanna give my companions 400 extra CP.”

There was a noise very much like a QOB banging their head against a desk.

“Is that a no?”

“Why would you think that?” The Banker’s voice dripped sarcasm all over my floor… so that’s what it looked like… eww.

“Please?”

“I have a meeting-”

“Pretty Please?”

“What good does making a please pretty do?”

“Dunno. I’ll wear Ziggy as a hat?”

“You do that anyway.”

“Come on… what could it hurt?”

“They’d be able to buy things they normally couldn’t, for one.”

“Only Grey Goo, Eye of Odin, and The Arcanum Grimoire. Everything else that costs over 400 has a discount and could, in theory, be acquired if they picked the right background. So how about if they can’t get anything they normally couldn’t with 400?”

“I suppose… wait, you’re trying to trick me into saying that that’s okay.”

“You just did.”

“I did not.”

“Did too.”

I kept poking the button. For 19 hours.

“You’re going to keep doing that until I say yes, aren’t you.”

“I might take a nap eventually. I’m very patient. Something about spending 12,300 years as God-King of the Magi… Something I haven’t abused nearly enough.”

“What do you mean?”

“My Magi were a star spanning hyper advanced empire, ones who I bootstrapped to Star Trek / Mass Effect Level tech in under 3000 years and who only got more advanced from there. I should be able to find their ruins in every jump, right? I could go looking for lost Magi artifacts.”

“Err… their artifacts?”

“Dude… were you sleeping while Trelane was tormenting me? It was a 12,000 year old culture that had a functioning star empire 3300 years in. 9,000 years is a damned long time to build stuff. On thousands of worlds.”

“Oh… well, right…”

“I could go find lost Magi colonies… make an empire… invade earth and outlaw pizza.”

“You’re not taking this jump seriously.”

“It’s a Disney TV cartoon about talking rocks and a bad guy named Xanatos. What’s to take seriously? It’s only slightly less goofy than Gummy Bears. Ooo! Can I do that instead?”

“No.”

“How about Kim Possible. I would make sooo much better a supervillain than Draken… ooo… oo… I could totally get Kimmie and Shego to-”

“You’re a KiGo Shipper?” The horror was palpable.

“Ayup. You didn’t read the contents of my drive before handing it over, did you? I have dozens of KiGo fanfics there. Hell, I spent a year or so animating one of them during my imprisonment just because.”

“What? Where? I don’t remember that!”

“Memory Palace. I don’t need to have copies of anything I’ve ever read or seen. And I don’t need a computer to animate things in my head. Hell… I’ve got like fifteen seasons of The Lesbian Adventures of Korra and Asami, plus an additional 12 seasons of Ranma in my head. Also World War Smurf. And the Aliens Musical. And Carehammer 40k-”

“What is Carehammer?”

“Warhammer, except the Space Marines and the Emperor were all Carebears. They attack with Carebear Stare out of their tummy plates.”

“You’re insane.”

“Dude, you’re just figuring this out now?”

“Fine. Just… Hold on.” A machine appeared in front of me. It looked suspiciously like the dream recorder from Red Dwarf.

“What’s this?”

“Memory Capture device.”

“How’s it work?”

“Bring up a memory, focus on it, run it through as sharply as you can. It will record it.”

“Oh. Cool… If I do this?”

“Yeah, sure, whatever. No extra CP or anything, but I’ll bend the rules. Give.”

So I traded nearly 60 years of animated daydreams for a bending of the rules. I’d have to build myself one of those… or go to Red Dwarf and steal one. Hummm… how hard could it be?

Fifteen hours later I finished uploading the first season of The KiGo Chronicles to the Banker’s server… I know he’d be horrified… but he hadn’t specified what he wanted, thus leaving the upload order to me.

Of course, that means I’d spent 800 of my 1300 on the minions. 500 left for me… hmmm… now I actually had to spend them. I considered buying the Grimorum Arcanorum, which claimed it contained almost every spell a human mage has ever created and the energy to cast it… but it didn’t say it would update… and that was a dealbreaker.

Instead, I snagged Pragmatic [-100/400/1300] which would give me a supposedly accurate idea of when someone could be useful in the future, as well a similar sense of when it was time to cut my losses. Know when to hold ’em, when to fold ’em, and when to run. It guaranteed I’d pretty much never show more of my hand than necessary for a plot to succeed. It was manipulative, but it wasn’t like that was anything new for me. A small boost to my instincts, one that didn’t rely on mind reading, couldn’t be blocked by shielding… it wasn’t nothing.

Add to that Suspicious [-300/100/1300], a sense of when someone is lying to me or being manipulative… even if it’s my most trusted friend or partner, I’d recognize the tell-tale signs that someone wasn’t being forthright with me… and it worked even if the creature wasn’t human… or even sentient. How cool is that? AI’s are insidious. Even a technopath isn’t going to know if one is lying most of the time. Demons likewise. Reading non-humans is not easy. I know from experience.

And finally, Machinist [-100/0/1300], a general boost to my practical engineering and toolwork skillset. Rebuild and improve a helicopter in half a day or build a functional motorcycle from spare parts. If honed, should let me make nearly anything from incredibly advanced robots to nanite swarms in only a few months time. It wasn’t a beat down boost to my tech skills, but it was one, and for the price it was right.

And, though I nearly missed it, as a Human, in this world I got Tech-Adapting for [Free] which meant that a few moments examining a machine would allow me to figure out its most basic functions and how they worked, and the longer I spent studying a device, the greater my understanding would grow, obviously… but even so, it promised I’d be able to pilot craft I’d never been in before or operate alien computers with relative ease.

Now the problem was deciding who got to come with. It wasn’t an easy thing to say to someone that they couldn’t join in the fun and games. Well, I could say it to Kagetane, who I still hadn’t bothered letting out of the egg. And I could say it to Dyna, who wouldn’t care. Ditto the often aloof Rayray, could tell Cirno she couldn’t come… in fact, keeping the monumentally foolish fairy locked in the warehouse seemed the best idea I’d had in ages. So she wasn’t coming. Kohina too. Stability wasn’t her strong point in any way shape or form.

Wow… I was considering taking a Vord Queen to NYC over a highly unstable… borderline psychotic… young woman. Say what you want, but Kohina did not play nice with others. Reggy at least understood the concept of restraint… and was, astoundingly, more human and more humane. She could use more time socializing, though I knew I was taking a risk. It was either her or Rayray… I flipped a coin… Reggy won… for certain values of the term won.

While I meditated on the Dream Machine, one by one my chosen companions filed through, though I had to help Reggy, Mini, and Lucchini figure it out, and do the picking for Senior von Squirm.

Zane opted to be a Human Businessman, then bought The Phoenix Gate (a medallion that allows a bubble 3 yards in diameter to be projected back in time to create a stable time loop where the past could not be changed)… it wasn’t the best time machine, but it could be invaluable for observing past events.), a Personal Assistant (stone-faced, serious, loyal, practical, well rounded, might be a secret fairy/demigod), and pocketed the $400,000 that came with his background. In the perk arena, he snagged Pragmatism and Tech-Adapting for free, then picked up the troperiffic Xanatos Gambit (i.e. master planner and detailed contingency anticipation) and Machinist. He named his PA “Sabrina”… I instantly didn’t trust her.

Gaius also went to Human Businessman school, getting the Personal Assistant, Pragmatic, Tech-Adapting, and $400k… heh, should have been 401k… He also plunked down the CP for Teamwork (a kind of sixth sense team flow perk) and Doing Machiavelli Proud (a manipulation and scheming perk) even though he really didn’t need the second and the first he was spectacularly unlikely to use. He named his PA “Juno”… I looked back and forth between Gaius and Zane and glowered “Ha… frickin… Ha.” They pretended to be innocent, but I didn’t need mind reading or suspicions to see through their little show.

Joy, importing herself, followed in their footsteps, which bagged her all the same freebies and brought our spending cash to $1.2 million.

On the flipside of the racial divide, Velma and Ahab went to Our Lady of Stone Business School for the Gargoyly inclined. They traded Tech-Adapting for Durable (a toughness boost that turned their skin to leather armor, but guaranteed it was suede soft. Which was nice. Smoooooth.) $2 million dollars. It was a drop in the ocean of our ever expanding Bank Account at First Warehouse, even before we sold the gold and gems we had in shipping crate safety deposit boxes stacked 6 high. Velma too got the Gambit of Xanatos and the Prouding of Machiavelli, but tossed in Gargoyle Strength (Toss cars), Well Read (versed in all the classics of fiction and philosophy), and CEO (ownership of a largely self-running company, and the business acumen and luck to keep a business chugging along and progressing, complete with bonuses… Often. And it applied to any business she acquires or builds in the future.)

Francine, Toph, and Reggy all went to The Academy of Human Super Snoopers, nabbing 9mm Glock 19 Pistols, Lucky Badges (which was a defensive perk against small objects like bullets, darts, & throwing stars), and of course Tech Adapting. Francine and Reggy picked up Mad Biologist, a mastery of genetic engineering… Francine to study the biology of Mon… Reggy to figure out how to modify her own genome so her Daughter Queens wouldn’t keep trying to kill her and also to figure out her own origins. It was almost painfully cute to see her try and hide that information from me, as if I’d be angry and she was a child to be spanked. Of course, since she pretty much never aged, she still looked like she was 12. Toph and Francine both plucked up Quick Thinking (the ability to find a solution to any emergency, even if it’s suboptimal) and Illuminated (Membership in this world’s Illuminati, and the Illuminati of all future worlds.). Francine got Pragmatism. Toph got Undercover (mastery of simple but effective disguise skills), Unstoppable Guardian (A willpower boost, eyeglow, intimidation boost… especially when defending something), and Suspicious. Reggy bought Maneuverability (a boost to ground and flight maneuverability), Detective (a deductive reasoning boost), Undercover, and Well Read… to better understand both the human condition and the nature of her own existence.

Petra was their Gargoyle counterpart. Detective, Gargoyle Strength, Durable, Lucky Badge, Quick Thinking, Well Read, the Glock… She supplemented it all with Warrior’s Instincts (an immunity to feints and over-reach in combat) and Lucky Sleeper (A general aura of “don’t attack me when I’m unawares/asleep.”)

Uriel, Bao, Kendra, Mini, and Yoiko all went Drop-In for various reason, though Yoiko was the only Gargoyle, though I suspected her brother had talked her into that, since she didn’t seem particularly thrilled by it. Thus everyone besides her got Tech Adapting and she got Durable. The number one reason to go Drop-In was, to my way of thinking, the ability to pick up Fae-Blooded (increased lifespan and rhyming word magic) and Yoiko, Bao, and Mini all had.

Uriel was a Quick Thinking, Machinist, Mad Biologist… with a specialty in Technosorcery (Combining Magic and Tech). Bao was a Maneuverable CEO. Kendra was a Well Read, Suspicious… Mutant (someone named Anton Sevarius had Mutated her so that she could stun people with short bursts of electricity, had wings, and looked like a jungle catwoman.) She also picked up Advanced Gliding (expert flyer) to better use the wings. Mini and Yoiko were both Cyborgs (metal tentacles out to 15 feet, ability to have additional tech installed at a cybernetics machine shop). Mini was also an Unstoppable Guardian, a Machinist, and a Clan-Sister (an allied Gargoyle Clan, and increased luck in finding and working with non-humans of any sort in future jumps). Yoiko was the same, except without Machinist and with Gargoyle Strength and Warrior Instincts.

And that brought us to the Warriors 3 and a half: Francesca, AJ, Ryoga, and Ziggy von Ziggster. Of them, only Frankie was human… though Ziggy was a Gargbeast (a gargoyle version of a dog that looks like a dragon was humped by a bulldog, and still not sapient). All of them got Warrior’s Instincts free and all of them were durable (though Frankie had to pay for it). Of course, that’s because she got Tech Adapting for free. All four of them also got an authentic and still sharp Viking Sword… except for Ziggy, who got a preternaturally durable and loud squeaky toy (the Banker had delivered it early and Ziggy was annoying everyone with it… except me, because I am the soul of calm… and I think it’s funny). Frankie, AJ, and Ziggy got Teamwork and One Man Army (a boost when facing multiple enemies, keeping them from being too distracted by the crowd to dodge or defend themselves, with situational awareness enough to know of someone’s vanished in the middle of combat). Frankie & Ryoga got Maneuverability & Masterful Tactician (Natural leadership and combat tactician, with an inherent sense of how to use all perks and abilities to get out of any current situation). Ziggy was an Unstoppable Guardian and Lucky Sleeper. AJ added Well Read, Gargoyle Strength, Advanced Gliding, and Weaponsmaster (Proficient with most common and many uncommon weapons) with Frankie picking that last as well, never forget that for all her goofiness, she’s a warrior maiden… well… for some definitions of maiden. And Ryoga got Quick Thinking as well as “My Home is a Castle” (the ability to find the most defensible position or safest hideaway in any area, to set up patrols that are perfectly timed, and perfectly laid out traps. Supernatural methods of infiltration and assault won’t escape his notice, up to and including the Illuminati.)

===INSERTION NEW YORK===

Cue Vacation Montage. No. Seriously. I was in New York City! I had friends, cash to burn, and nothing to worry about. I mean, what the hell was I going to do? Fight Crime? Stop whatever fiendish plot Xanatos was up to? I stopped by his office once. A little megalomaniacal, a bit of a criminal. Not a psychopath. I toned down his desire to win at all costs, smoothed some of the more “I will dispose of them once they’ve served their purpose.” tendencies, then went back to the second half of Les Mis on Broadway.

If there was a world ending threat in the offing, I didn’t know about it. If someone was planning mayhem, I didn’t know about it. 9-11 was, if it still was coming, 7 years off. I knew nothing about the timeline, had plenty of funds, and had friends who wanted nothing more out of life than to live it up. Sex & the City, FRIENDS, Home Alone 2… we did it all. There’s no story here.

Any time a threat appeared, we defused it, got people to make nice, had a party. Demona was a bitch. Ran into her while she was shapeshifted into one of the main business tycoons of the city (you move in those circles when you have friends like mine… and a VI powerful enough to influence the stock exchange… seriously, they need better protections. I made millions off of micro fluctuations, but then I was cheating… but never enough to hurt anyone who’d even notice.) Read serious badjuju in that mind of hers. As in kill all the humans bad juju. I tossed an egg at her and then told her to behave herself. Oh, and I hung up a shingle as a top notch shrink, under a different identity, and made her come see me once a week.

Her and several others in fact. Dr Saj, Therapist to the rich and deranged. Meanwhile, I entertained myself in weekdays by traveling around the world, Shinigami’ing drug barons, human traffickers, and the occasional terror cell leader. They all died of natural causes, or turned state’s evidence, or had changes of heart. Not trying to help where I could wouldn’t have been very nice, and no one on earth was beyond my reach. Making enemies is hard when none of them survive.

Of course, it all caught up to me arround the 7 year mark when it turned out that someone I’d arranged the death of wasn’t exactly human and that their kinfolk had looked into the matter, then somehow backtraced and sicced several highly unstable and vindictive individuals on me.

They started by kidnapping the “weakest” of my cadre, the diminutive Reggy. I got a call from her asking if she was allowed to kill them. I asked where she was, then picked her up and sent her for ice cream while I examined their memories, then edited them to remove all knowledge of me, my friends, or anything other than having come to New York to see Cats and Chorus Line, then healed them up and sent them on their way.

After ice cream and soothing the angry Vord Queen’s wrath with soothing words, hugs, and a new teddy bear and a promise to take her to laser tag on the weekend, I backtracked through their layers, clearing each one of people they’d told, people who had a vested interest in bugging me. Seven layers up the layer cake, I ran into him, a member of the Third Race, the Fair Folk.

He smirked like a smirking smirker when I walked into his presence chamber, tucked away in a small Himalayan nation. A chinese kingpin of a non-chinese nation, a usurper, psychopath, and murderer. Apparently I’d eliminated one of his allies and thus brought me to his attention. He offered me some crab rangoon.

“Thanks. I’ll pass. You know why I’m here.”

“I do! You’re here to kill me!”

“Naw. If I was here for that, you’d be dead already.”

“Haha. I’m sure! You’ve killed several hundred people in my line of work already… of course, I’m a little harder to kill than your other victims.”

I chuckled. “You really think you’re the shit, don’t you? Oberon’s Children, Mab’s Children… you’re a fake little godling, a trickster, a sham of fairy pretending to be a pagan god. Just like you’re pretending that your hair is really blond or you’re just a human. But… here’s the thing. I’m not human either.”

“You’re not? That’s funny! I agree. You’re really… a tree!” I felt the magic trying to transform me, but I flowed my form into that of a tree before the magic could do it. I’d tested the limits and power of Fae magics long before this encounter.

He laughed and laughed, capering around me, snake-skin shoes sliding in a scuffing little dance around me… then he gacked as one of my branches wrapped around his neck and, squeezing tight, lifted him off the ground, legs flailing, his shoes flying off in two different directions.

“You aren’t in my league, little man. You aren’t in the league of most of my followers. You’re a small, petty, vicious little fae who thinks he’s a god simply because he can do a few magic tricks. You don’t know the real meaning of power. But I’m feeling generous, since you provided at least a few days worth of challenge to spice up my vacation. I’m slumming, you see, relaxing, enjoying the shopping and food. New York’s got great food. Great theatre, great museums, great people. President Gore’s doing a fine, if wooden job, and global terror and crime are both down. The people of North Korea are experiencing freedom from tyranny for the first time in decades. And so, in the spirit of generosity, I’m going to let you live. Don’t worry… you’ll like being a ferret.”

I found him a nice 8 year old girl as an owner, got him a three level cage and a bunch of tubes to play in. Best thing about the ferret form curse… no ability to speak at all. Of course, it wasn’t the only thing keeping him in that form, but this jump had reinforced to me that I needed to find a way to increase my magical power. But only after buying a copy of every game in the known universe. Shame the golden age of boardgaming was another decade off in this world. Still, at least I had every M:tG card ever printed in this world and card game night was getting seriously competitive.

I know, I know, having 4 different game nights a week (Cards, Boards, Vidya, Tabletop) wasn’t the definition of enthralling, but vacations are serious things, and Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are dead for the most part, socially speaking. Thursday was Theater night, Friday date night, and Saturday clubs, parties, or more Theater. Days were spent training, shopping, working (some work can be fun), building things, or just hanging out and talking… or often, playing more games or writing. Nights were exactly what you’d expect them to be, stalking the night, drinking, eating, and more than a little snuggling.

All the gaming was also causing me to prioritize future planning, making lists of perks to look for in future jumps. I needed more magical defenses, more magical variety, emotional manipulation and editing abilities, more charisma, more tech… And something, somehow, to remodel the Warehouse. My makeshift Holodeck tech had allowed me to make the walls and ceilings look, sound, and even smell like the outside, but it wasn’t terribly convincing and had considerable room for improvement. I really needed a paddock and a couple of acres of runabout space for the animals as well.

Still, by the end of the decade, just as Gore was running for his second term, we were getting pretty anxious to get back on the road, to see what was next in store for us. We threw an end of decade bash, as usual, but without serious challenges, it lacked… pizzaz. This was the second time we’d vacationed, the first was carribean, the second hyper urban… Have to do something really special for the third one… but it was probably a century or more out. I goosed Frankie and Mini as we passed through the Pillars of Time.

“Well? How’d you enjoy your first world jump?”

Mini responded, “The Future was so bright, I had to wear shades.”

I laughed. “You’ve been waiting to use that one, haven’t you.”

She just grinned at me.

Next: World 44 – Meddling Fool

Resources: Build, Document

 If you like what I do, please consider supporting me on Patreon.

World 42: Strike Witches

DANGER ZONE

Previously: Going Deep

Theme Song: Angel Witch by Angel Witch

“Zane?  Why is there a 2800 pound gorilla-thing smashing the Vending Machine of Destiny?”

“Says he’s from the repair service. Said there was a system-sync runtime buffer underflow issue. Says we might have to replay the last jump.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Yup. He said they’re bringing in a new model and needed to widen the slot a little.”

“He said all that?”

“Well… no. But why else would a 1.3 ton gorilla-thing be attacking the VMoD?”

“Ahab! You speak Animal.  Go speak!”

“SJ! You’re a telepath. Go think!”

“Baah.” I walked up to the Gorilla. “Excuse me, why are you getting bits of quasi-wood and glass all over my floor?”

“System-Sync runtime buffer underflow Issue. May have to replay the last jump.”

“What?!”

“Gotcha. Naw, I’m bringing in a new model. Snazzier. But this one resisted. Got uppity. Had to put it down.”

“They’re alive?”

“Naw… just programmed to defend themselves from Jumpers what demand more points or specific worlds or stuff like that.”

“Disgraceful. Who’d do something like that?”

“Yeah, like you never had yer Technopath try and influence the machine.”

“Ummm… actually, I didn’t. Figured it wouldn’t work.”

“Oh. Well then. My mistake.” He doffed his newsies style hat at me then vanished, leaving behind a mess.

“Wait! Where’s the new Machine?”

A piece of paper floated down. “Allow 6-8 weeks for delivery.”

Rassafrassin. A newspaper fell on my head. Strike Witches Gazette. I flipped through it. Zane looked over my shoulder. “Strike Witches?”

“Cute teenage girls fight flying Alien Superweapons in their panties using high caliber weapons.”

“Um… what?”

“The Alien Superweapons are not in the teenage Girls’ panties. I just phrased that badly. Panty clad teenage girls are fighting Alien Superweapons.”

“No, seriously, what’s the setting about.”

“Seriously. Pants and skirts have either never been invented in this world or are exclusively for men. Teenage girls walk around in tops and panties… sometimes socks or tights.”

“And they fight aliens?”

“Giant flying hive aliens.”

“From broomback? How do they aim?”

“Brooms have been replaced with airplane shoes.”

“You’re having me on.”

“Really. I’m not. They’re called Striker Units, they function by magic, which only girls in this world can use, and look like the fuselages of fighter planes from World War 2 and later. Some jets, mostly prop planes.”

“In their panties?”

“Yup.”

“Why aren’t there any, you know, actual fighter planes?”

“Probably because they’re not able to shield themselves like the witches can, or maneuver like them either.”

“Of course. Silly me. Logical really.”

“Shush. It’s cute.”

“It’s pervy.”

“Yes, that too. Clearly the show is for men who like cute girls and military hardware.”

“I like the busty babes on the sides of Bombers. Does that count?”

“Zane? Where did you… MCU?”

“Ayup. Bomber crews are the best.”

“Right. Well, this time round, the Neuroi, the Aliens stopped WW2 dead in its tracks… took out most of mainland europe too.”

“So the Neuroi are space Nazis?”

“Hard to say, they don’t talk much. But yes, an implacable black-and-red foe which Japan and her allies, the rest of the world get to fight.”

“So… fantasy revisionist history?”

“Pretty much. Italy gets the cutest girl though.”

“Oh? Why do you say that? She the lesbian?”

“Naw. There are plenty of those. She’s the youngest of the canon witches and the one who naps all the time, steals other girls panties, and gets up to shenanigans.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah. Seriously, naps everywhere. Oh!  I forgot to tell you, these witches have familiars.”

“They often do.”

“But these Familiars aren’t separate beings… they’re manifested as animal ears and tails when the witches use magic. At least in the Anime. I think it might be different in the Manga, but I never read that.”

“Neko-mimi panty clad teenage fighter pilot witches.”

“Yes! It’s like a perfecta of moe tropes!”

“I’m going to hate this, aren’t I?”

“Dunno… do you like teenage lesbians?”

“No comment.”

“Then we’ll have to see. Hand me a marker. Looks like I’m going to have to fill this out longhand.”

The headline was “Britannia Expects That Every Witch Will Do Her Duty.” The date was Monday, September 04, 1939… so clearly the prop department was unaware that Brits, like most of Europe would have formatted that Monday, 4th September, 1939. Of course, both systems are stupid. The year should come first, then the month, then the day, then time. General to specific. But still, that’s right. It wasn’t Japan and Great Britain in this world. It was Fuso and Britannia. Not Germany but Karlsland. Not France but Gallia. Not America but Liberon and South Liberon. Not Russia but Orussia. Sooo much difference. Couldn’t remember if they’d changed Italy or Finland… I’d find out I guessed.

A scratch off card fell out of the pages, with 8 boxes. It said “Starting Location”. I missed the spinny wheel already. I scratched a box.  Italy… or rather Romangia. Fabulous. They had a front on the Neuroi and the regional familiar was a red fox. Well… could be a worse tail. Already had a form with a cat tail. Still, a Husky or Shiba might have been cool. I flipped the card over and saw that it had 8 more boxes and said “Age”. Gold coins are not the best for this, btw. Little too soft. Arrowheads work much better. 14 years old. The paper said that I’d have to pay to be male… as if that shouldn’t be a drawback… anyway… I was fine with staying female, so I considered the background options.

There were OpEds touting each of the 4 choices: Drop-In once again was the boring choice. Witch Doctor was for healers and pacifists, with strong protective spells and healing magic… but came with naivety and idealism… something I’d lost 7 years before I’d been 14 for the first time. Night Witch had enhanced sensory abilities and long distances coms… but also personal tragedy. Ace… ace was for speed demons and other gung ho aggressive types.

I flipped through to the Situations Wanteds. As I’d imagined, this was where the Drawbacks lurked, lurking like lurky lurkers fresh out from the lurkaverse. The maximum drawback total was 600… but everyone above the 100 level looked horrifying. Striker units constantly broken. A CO who hated me. Chronic Magical Fatigue Syndrome. And those were just the 200s. The 300s were worse. Low tech ceiling, daily attacks… or WW2 with actual witches trying to kill each other. That last was terrifying. Turn a battle against evil aliens that might kill 100 million into a war that would almost certainly kill that many. I’d rather take the humanity unifying enemy on, really. Thanks.

Still, I could cope with the Rival, a witch who hates my guts and tries to be better than me. Since it wasn’t possible for her to be, she was clearly there for the pity factor. No Pants Allowed was… pretty much a given anyway, so eh. And Forbidden Love would make me… frisky. Right. +300 for the set. 1300 points, ready to spend. Let’s get … rolling.

The Classifieds was the Item list. Wasn’t big. Bomber Jacket and Call Sign were both free however. Aside from that, there was a compressed weapons’ bay for more weapons space (didn’t need), an avionics watch (didn’t need), a kit for building my own strikers (mmm possibly), and a bracelet that let me recruit anyone from the Strikiverse. That said, there was a much bigger section reviewing all the military hardware.

Still, I was getting ahead of myself. First, a background. Might as well go with Ace. Had to take the fight to the Neuroi, right? [-100/1200/1300] The instant I circled it I became aware of my family’s proud military tradition, that my father had fought in the Great War, an officer with my mother as his adjutant. I remembered the news of the Striker unit’s invention and the reap of the age restriction for witches to join the various Air Forces. I’d been down to recruitment office the very next day. Memories of the joy of flying fast, of pushing my Striker and body to the limits flooded me and I knew the joy of competition and the thrill of being the tip of the divine spear as we struck back against the Neuroi in sortie after sortie.

Defensive Sign “Directional Shield” was free, because all Strike Witches are trained to produce a two-dimensional circle of energy a short distance directly in front of them which can deflect light attacks. It was both iconic and cool, but pretty much impossible to fire through, so attacking meant lowering your defenses. There weren’t any background specific freebies this time out, however.  

Still, Ace had Perception Sign “Precognition” for [-200/1000/1300] which was precog I was actually willing to take, for a couple of reasons. The first was the duration, or rather depth of scan. It only worked up to three seconds into the future, so it wouldn’t make everything boring, and with my speed, three seconds was nearly an eternity. The second was that it required using magic to shift my consciousness slightly out of phase with time, something I’d pretty much only do while in combat, since maintaining it outside of combat would be draining. All in all, it sounded great, despite the article’s assurance “It might not sound like much”.

Ace also had Offensive Sign “Light Heat Attack” for [-300/700/1300], which boosted the directional shield into a flying circle of doom… seriously. It was designed to keep witches from flying into solid objects… by vaporizing almost anything that came into contact with the shield. It worked pretty much instantly on all but the densest materials… useful when dealing with debris from an exploded enemy at mach speed.

I passed up the last of the Ace items for now, flipping through the profiles of the other backgrounds… then blinked… well, well! Drop-In wasn’t useless. I wasn’t willing to switch, since ACE had already saved me 400, but Drop-In had “Technomage” for the reasonable price of [-200/500/1300]. It made me a skilled Striker mechanic… in fact, it made me better, much better actually at tuning and repairing striker units than the service crews who did so for a living. It gave me the ability and knowhow to modify my Striker (or the Strikers of others, obviously) so as to focus my magic into a specific area, such as speed, defense, or offensive capacity. But those were just gravy. The real meat of the perk was the ability to incorporate the technology of other jumps into a Striker, or… with enough time… to build my own from scratch. I was already running the numbers as I circled it in blue.

With 500 left, I decided to check on companion import… only to discover that it was free for up to 8. No CP to spend, but the freebies, a female form if needed, a Striker, and weapons to their maximum ability to carry them. With that, I went looking at the Striker units.

I could spend CP to raise the generation of my striker… but I’d already done exactly that, though in a roundabout way. 800 CP would buy me modern Strikers… or 600 would make everyone have that level of tech… or I could just build Asgardian Strikers with 23rd century shielding and nanite repair systems. All I needed was my knowledge of the Striker tech to kick in fully and a bit of time. Thus, a 1st Gen Striker was fine… for now. My personal Striker, I decided, was going to be a Super Fortress, as big as possible. Not because I needed the carry weight… but because I needed the shell to be huge in order to hold all the tech I was going to cram into it. I also didn’t feel the need to spend CP on weapons that were centuries or even millennia behind what I could build. Hell, my sniper rifle could use a work out to start with and I had a few Barret 50 cals lying around, in addition to a minigun or two. That said… I was tempted to pick up the Guided AAMs (Anti-Air Missiles), Guided Penetration Bombs, and Unguided Bombs, because the were all an unlimited supply of them. But the first two required 3rd gen tech. The UGBs I could pack 48 into my massive striker. Maybe… but I suspected there was better ways to spend my CP on unlimited booms.

Like Drop-In’s Perception Sign “Flawless Awareness” [-400/100/1300].. I read the article aloud to Ziggy, dropping my voice to sound like an old timey propaganda film narrator, “Now that our Witches are being thrust into the front of war, Officer Colleges around the world have been working hard, developing magic to improve a commander’s ability to to observe the battlefield. Flawless Awareness gives a Strike Witch a spherical field of innate situational awareness up to a kilometer in diameter based off of line of sight. In testing, cloud cover and physical obstructions hinder this ability, but a Witch Commander will innately know the position of every visible enemy and ally within that kilometer radius.” Wait… what? I pulled out a piece of paper and wrote, “Dear Sir or Madam, re: the article on “Flawless Awareness”, you list first a volume 1 km in diameter, then a volume 1 km in radius. As the second covers a volume 8 times the size of the first, I must ask for a clarification. I would also question why such a small size, as even the larger volume can be crossed in less than 7 seconds at the speed of sound at typical cruising altitudes for planes. Sincerely, StrikeJumper.”

A letter fluttered out of the firmament. “Oh, my me!  Are you complaining about me lacking a sense of volume again? What should it be? 10 kilometers? 100? 10000000000000? Sincerely, The Entity wot provides the CP.”

I started another note. “Dear CP Dispenser, 10km would be very nice, thank you.”

The response appeared below mine. “I didn’t say I’d give you the 10km just because you complained.”

“Hello Tom.”

“What?”

“This is like Harry writing to Tom Riddle in the diary.”

“You’re a nurd.”

“Nerd. But yes. That aside, 1km in midair at that altitude and speed is like 10 meters on the ground at normal combat speed. It really should be about 20-40km radius. But I’ll take it regardless.”

“Gripe gripe gripe. 1km. On the ground. Ten times that in midair. Splitting the difference. Good?”

“Fine. You’re still a Tyrant.”

“You’re still a pain in the ass.”

“Only if you ask nicely.”

Right, where was I… Um… you’d think with a perfect memory, losing one’s train of thought would be impossible… but it’s remarkably simple to go off on tangents and then you have to trace the mental pathways back… Down to 100 CP… Hmmm…

Bollocks. I’d like Ballistic Stabilization, which would allow me to aim in a category 2 hurricane without trouble. But it’s 200 more than I have… and looking above it, I see Top Gun Conditioning for 200, which allows me to use my magic to increase my resistance to G forces by an order of magnitude… and it occurs to me that I might need to buy the tools to make a Striker unit to actually build strikers out of this setting… grrr… 1939 era jump editorial writers don’t clarify. Meh.

Okay, first, let’s buy the tools “Striker Artificer Tool Kit” [-100/0/1300] “Professional Quality Toolkit for sale. Never used. All the tools you need to make a Striker. Act Quick, Limited Stock. O’Malley’s Toolmart.” Hmm… I picked up the stationary and wrote, “Oy, Banker… you still there?”

“What now?”

“This Striker Artificer kit… do I need it to build my own Strikers outside of this jump?”

“Yes.”

“So I can’t just buy, borrow, or steal a set of tools… or make them… in the jump?”

“No.”

“Well… ummm… why not?”

“Because.”

“Ah. Reasons. Right… so… if I make Strikers… does that mean I can turn people into Strike Witches?”

“Uh… what?”

“Like… can I turn people into Strike Witches? Assuming they’re girls?”

“Why?”

“Cat ears. Cat tails. Shield powers.”

“I… guess…”

“Excellent. Oh… wait… can I train people in Harry Potter magic? I have all my textbooks. And all the references I bought. Or copied.”

“If you can find people with potential.”

“So… anyone who has an inherent magical talent, pretty much, right?”

“Errr… Look, this isn’t Harry Potter’s Strike Witches.”

“It could be.”

“What?”

“Could be. I mean, Hermione’s grandma could have been a Strike Witch. The HP books never mention Striker Units… oooooo… a Nimbus 2000 Striker… Heh.”

“Go away now! Before you annoy me.”

“Look, it’s not like I’m suggesting “Fairy Tail Strike Witches”. HP and SW both take place on Earth. There could be a Hogwarts on StrikEarth.”

“Magic is publicly known here.”

“Ooo! So Hogwarts is a Military Academy? Cool!”

“That isn’t what I said!”

“Shush. SJ’s imagining Minerva as a teenager in tartan panties… with a tommy gun.  No Hagrid, which is sadmaking… but no Voldypants!”

“Yes, yes… Neuroi. Attacking. Europe.”

“Huh… wait… how old is Minerva? Books take place in the 90s… she… she could have been 11 during the Blitz! Heh. Minerva McGonagall could be a Strike Witch in this world! Hah. Excellent!”

“If I arrange that, will you stop bugging me?”

“Yes! Go. Make Witch Striker Minerva! Ooooh, that would a fun name for an Anime! But it sounds like she runs around bopping Witches.”

“…”

“You know I can see your ellipses, right?”

“Headdesk.”

“Yes, well… thbt!”

So, I can, in theory, teach HP Magic, FT Magic, and turn people into Strike Witches if I build them a Striker Unit. Now… I have to find a drawback I don’t mind so much to get Restoration Sign “Top Gun Conditioning” [-200/-200/1300], which took the normal Strike Witch tolerance for G-forces and ramped it up to 11, giving me possibly the highest extant G-force tolerant and allowing me to pull off some of the craziest aerial stunts with ease… and I could use magic to increase this passive resistance 10 fold, though it would quickly deplete my mana if I push my limits, though it probably wouldn’t cause active depreciation during maneuvers.

Funny how necessity makes bad things not so bad, right? Gremlins, Discipline, Not Enough Energy. First one fucks with my tech… no thanks. Last one fucks with my energy level and combat range… no thanks… which means Discipline [+200/0/1500]… which just saddles me with a bitch for a commanding officer, one who saddles me with punishment detail for stuff that’s not my fault. Sigh. Sounds like no fun… but fine. I can be serene for a decade. I can. I’m a big girl. Or I can use mind control on her to make her lay the fuck off… Serene… huh… I shall be Serena… what’s a good Italian last name starting with J… ah… got it. Serena Juventas, after the Roman goddess of youth.

I’m square. Now to find out who’s coming with me… aside from Joy and Ahab. Ahab is already trying to pretend he’s got a head cold while Joy chases him with a glass of cold water and laughs maniacally at the idea of Venom Snake-Chan in panties.

Zane is pretending to be a potted fern. Bao claims he needs to meditate. Gaius is looking uncomfortable. Boys are amusing.

“Okay kids! Listen up! I’ve made up my minds. Cirno! Velma! Rayray! Petra! Kohina! Reggy! Gaius! Kendra! Joy! Grab your bags. You’ve been drafted.”

Gaius blinked, then ummed, “I… umm… I’m not certain-”

“DRAFTED!”

“But, I’m not a-”

“Teenage Girl? No… but you will be… you… will… be… And you’re a top notch combat flyer with a mad-on for invading alien monstrosities. I picked Kohina because she’s a monster hunter… ditto Kendra. Reggy because she’s a flyer. Ditto Rayray, Petra, Cirno. And Velma and Joy are CNC experts. It’s a good set. Ahab I can’t make you come, but you’ve been a girl before. Could use your help.”

Joy and I ended up having to help all the others outfit their strikers, since they weren’t really experienced in such things or with gigantic guns.

Cirno, Kendra, Kohina, Gaius, and Joy got Fighters. Ahab, Velma, and Petra got Bombers. And Reggy and RayRay got Superfortresses. Everyone got Defensive Sign “Directional Shield”, the Bomber Jacket, and a Callsign. And everyone’s Striker (besides mine) was stocked up with weapons to their weight limit. Light Weapons cost 1 space, Medium Weapons 2 spaces, and Heavy Weapons 4 spaces. Fighters had 4 spaces, but unless the witch had superhuman strength no Heavy Weapons could be installed. Bombers had 6 spaces, and Superfortresses, those slugs of the sky, had a whopping 16 spaces.

Cirno was from Fuso, giving her a Shiba Familiar, and her Fighter, Callsign IceDancer, was outfitted with one each of the four light weapons… a Katana, an Assault Rifle, a Rifle, and a Pistol.  Kendra was from Xaymaca (Jamaica), making her Familiar the Doctor Bird (a green hummingbird with a paired tail several times longer than its body). Her Fighter, Callsign Hummingbird, was outfitted with an Anti-Tank Rifle and a General Purpose Machine Gun.

Kohina, also from Fuso with a Shiba (patpat the Kohina), was callsign “Psycho”, and, while she’d be using her Varanium Wakizashis most of the time, her Striker was officially outfitted with two pistols and 6 UGBs (Unguided Bombs). Gaius, joining me in coming from Romagna, was callsign “Caesar” and got two cavalry sabres, a pistol, and a rifle. Joy, from Liberon (bald eagle), was callsign “Boomboom” was outfitted with two General Purpose Machine Guns.

Ahab, Arcadian (Canada), was a Beaver, and callsign “Harpoon” (which is just overcompensating) and had a bomber with a Dual Linked Turret System and 6 UGBs. Velma went Danish… well, Jutlandian, which I couldn’t figure out why for a moment, then I laughed as “Great Dane” familiar popped up.  Riiiight.  (Sweater) Puppy Power. Her callsign was “Mystery” which was very cute, but bound to confuse. Her bomber had a Gau-8 and an Anti-Tank Rifle. Which was insane.  Petra, call sign “Asura” was from Persia (Iran), and her familiar was a ram.  Huh… Her bomber was equipped with six Pistols. Oh dear. She should have named herself Sixgun.

Reggy didn’t really understand the concept of familiars, but thanks to her time in MCU she’d learned very well what nations and callsigns were. She was slowly coming round on the subject of entertainment… but had now been a human long enough to be utterly appalled at the idea of walking around in just her panties while men could see. Her green skin got very very green and she got very flustered when the setting was explained to her and then the mighty Vord queen tried to hide. Ah, emotions. Sooo confusing. Anyway… she was from Orussia and her familiar the Husky, because a) Husky’s are cute and b) the Vord remind me of the Red Army. Callsign “Tsarevna” (Princess).  Her Superfortress had the whole suite of insanity; a Gau-8, 12 UGBs, and 2 Fliegerfaust Rocket Launchers… each of which could fire up to 9 unguided rockets… at least until I modified the damned thing.

Rayray was of Qin (China), familiar the Chow (such fluffy!), and callsign “Mercy”… her Superfortress was just… insane.  It was equipped with not one, not two, not three, but four Gau-8s. Gau-8s are terrifying… 7 barrel miniguns capable of firing a simply astounding 4200 anti-tank rounds per minute. A 3-second burst was 210 rounds and the witches were trained to group them into a 2-meter target from 400 meters out. Brrrrrrrt. It was even more insane, because I’m reasonable certain the “Peace Through Superior Firepower” weapon (each of which was the size of a car, though much of that was the Ammo Feed) wasn’t invented until the 1970s when the Thunderbolt II, i.e. the Warthog fighter plane was developed. The gun is so powerful it momentarily pushes the jet plane backwards in midair. Of course, these were scaled down minigun versions of the Warthog’s Gau Autocannon, but still… 4 of them? Many Many holes.

****

We dropped, literally… the jump starting not with us asleep, but in flight. Which was jarring. Or rather I was in flight, alone, 28,000 feet up, one of my Strikers misfiring. 2,000 feet above me was the rest of the squad, fading in the distance as I tried to stabilize myself on one striker while I hammered at the recalcitrant other, trying to get it to function correctly by applying brute force.

“Mistral! Get back in formation!” snapped Wing Commander Adolfine Galland. I sighed, “Wooorking ooooon iiiitttt.” Fucking machine. I blinked, then stopped my fall in midair. I could fly without this thing. I could stand in midair without a Striker. I had no reason to be falling. I undid all the screws on the unit’s exterior with my mind and tilted my head trying to get a better look at the bits and pieces. It wasn’t easy, but after three or four minutes, I spotted what I was looking for. A fuel line had leaked some gunk onto one of the switches, fusing it open. I pried the gunk off, did a tiny bit of spot welding, then reattached the case. All while occasional deflecting incoming fire from Neuroi with a combination of Witch Shields and TK. It was like juggling hand grenades while performing brain surgery on a boat in a storm.

Now I was pissed. I was going to get yelled at for someone else’s shoddy maintenance, I was hungry, I was tired, my thighs were chaffed from the wind… seriously, had anyone who’d ever ridden a motorcycle been involved with writing this Manga? Wind rash at 600mph. Joy! I pulled out Soul of Ice. “Neuroi are just giant hollows, right?” I asked her… She responded with a growl. My sentiments exactly.

Note to self. It is impossible to use martial footwork techniques like Flash-steps or Shunpo while wearing several tons of metal covering your legs from mid-thigh down. It is not flight, no matter how the Manga makes it look. You have to actually run on the air, or leap from temporarily hardened bits of air. Doing so would have trashed my Striker… and while it wasn’t the only thing keeping me aloft, it was boosting my magical output drastically. Neuroi blasts are no joke. They are “Destroy Heavily Armored Battleship in One Shot” level of bad news. Thankfully I had a lot of mana, even if I hadn’t figured out how to incorporate the new mana pool with the others. That always took a little time.

Thankfully, I do a lot of damage too. Especially when I accidentally fly face first through a Neuroi. Hey, I’d only been using these things for a few minutes, no matter what my memories said. Smashed face aside, that was one Neuroi down, all of them left to go. Back at base it was pushup time. I created a copy of myself and went into my warehouse. I had building to do.

Lucchini had naps… (or would, she was 7 in the current timeline, since Season 1 of Strike Witches was 1944 and this was 1939) I had projects… okay, one Project. Project Anvil. Strike… Anvil… you had to be there. VIctoria wasn’t thrilled about her upgrades, at first. Didn’t see the need for them. Getting daughter VI’s from VIvian was a little easier, since she generally likes media and likes my companions. Project Anvil had three steps

1. Operation ‘Hold the Line’: Outfit my Current Striker with a working loadout of decent weaponry. Mostly selfguided micro-photon torpedos, but also Bullet Bees… machine gun drones each the size of a rugby ball and packing enough HEAP-rounds to swisscheese an armored-car.
2. Operation ‘Get in Gear’: Build a Striker Unit that made Generation 5 Strike Fighters look like sopwith camels.
3. Operation ‘Angel Witch’: Build the Neuroi Buster Strikesuit, a full body Striker Unit designed to go toe to toe with a Neuroi… and get me what I wanted most… a Neuroi Core, intact… and that meant making something the Neuroi couldn’t take over.

Everything went fine, I was making progress. I’d finished ‘Hold the Line’.  It had taken me two months to get all my systems up and running, but I had, and they worked. Much Daka. Such Boom. ‘Get in Gear’ took 16 months. I couldn’t spend more than 4-6 hours a day on it, I had boobs to cha… I mean socializing to do, a war to fight, a commander who despised me to placate. But finally they were ready. And then Angela Salas Larrazzabal transferred into our unit. She was the darling of the Wing Commander’s eye. A go getter, rule follower, perfect little spanish princess with a flat chest and an attitude. She also smelled of horse.

I don’t know how she did it… but she stole my freaking prototype. Everyone believed her when she said she built it. Everyone was sooo impressed when she broke every speed record known to man… and everyone blamed me when she crashed, destroying more than year’s work because she didn’t know what she was doing. They said I’d sabotaged it. Brought me up on charges. I’d had to freaking mind control the court to get them to let me off with a warning.  Angela, who’d survived thanks to medical witchcraft, swore revenge on me forever and ever and ever. She actually tried hexing me, the bitch!

Still, I had supporters. I had my friends, I had a penpal in Britannia, an 10 year old girl named Mini who was Scottish but lived with her nan in london ‘cause her dad was off fighting the Neuroi. She wanted to be a witch more than anything. She even had a black kitty. Of course, a year into my stay, the Neuroi started bombing Brittannia and she’d disappeared, but by the time of the Angela incident, she’d reappeared, having enlisted in the Brittannian Witch Corps as a technician third class. She wanted to be a pilot, but she was too young yet.

Anyone who thinks you just wave your hands and get working magitech has never had to actually build it. Every piece has to be perfect, and that’s at the molecular level. Every bit has to be tested, everything shielded so it only works with that it’s supposed to and doesn’t interfere with what it’s not supposed to. A hundred subsystems. Tony Stark makes it look easy, but he’s not working with magic or sufficiently advanced technology, just… bleeding edge and a bit beyond. I was Asgarding Federation stuff into Strike Witch, Harry Potter, Samurai Jack, and Elven components. And more. Sure, I was also taking the time to advance Strike Witch Tech to Generation 3 as fast as possible, but no one besides my inner circle knew Domon Hyfax was secretly female. Just a reclusive inventor who supplied bits of tech to the various world militaries at random, selling them to one group… then having my own spies steal the information and selling it to other nations a couple months later. I had a Rolodex, I was going to use it. Politics was not dead just because everything was cutesy and panty clad.

Still, by the time the 501st Joint Fighter Wing was established in 1942, I was a top Ace with a rep for being a loose cannon, never following orders, and often going AWOL to hunt Neuroi. My kill total was obscene, and while it wasn’t the highest, I had the highest melee kill count by a margin even Sakamoto couldn’t match if hers was doubled.

So that’s why I was bumped to the 501… and bitch queen of the universe became freaking Vice Air Marshal! FML. Thankfully, Lucchini was there to give hugs to, and Mini showed up as well, looking prim and proper and very Scotts with her wee little tam on. I hugged the stuffing out of her and set about showing her the ropes.

Things were finally looking up. We were going to start taking back the continent. And then Angela showed up and screwed up my plans again. While I was on punishment detail, she convinced Mini and Lucchini to sortee with her on a raid. Two junior pilots up with a hotshot with an attitude problem. Last anyone heard of the trio was Lucchini sobbing that the others had gone down behind enemy lines before she too went radio silent. Why the hell didn’t any of my companions have freaking clairvoyance? Well, I mean, we have the Spirit Camera ability, but all that showed was Neuroi territory that none of us could localize. Crap. Scrambling VIctor (my stolen and heavily modified Starfleet Assault shuttle) took twenty minutes and I could barely get my emotions to settle down. I wanted to swear. 3 hours, 9 minutes. That’s how long it took me to get the information, go AWOL and get my shuttle into position to scan Gallia for Strikers on the ground.

I found them, Neuroi signals all around, and ordered VIctor to land on his own as I accelerated downward at a hundred times the speed of sound, aiming for one particularly large cluster of Neuroi. The aura of cold air I brought with me only grew as I dropped, but when I stopped suddenly 200 meters up, it didn’t, slamming into the Neuroi like a hammer from god. The supercyclone my action created sent the ground Neuroi flying and I launched myself from group to group, murdering the alien machines that had come to hurt my friends like a whirlwind of icy death. My Bankai flowed from me like a starving avalanche, ripping through the mutant landscape of Neuroi Gallia as I cleared a fifty mile wide circle around the crash sight.

After a seeming eternity, Joy and Velma announced that they had all three girls and were heading back to dock. I sank through a portal into the warehouse, prepping the medbay’s systems to receive them. Minerva’s injuries were severe, so she’d go into the Medical Pod first. Lucchini was curled up and non-responsive, and Angela was unconscious and had several broken bones and a missing foot. While the Medical Pod fixed up Minerva, I stuck Angela in the Medbed so she could be stabilized, and I gathered Lucchini into my arms, singing to her softly while she shook with delayed reaction.

I brought them back to base three days later, their memories altered subtly to remove the impossible, and Angela and I were both thrown in the brig for going AWOL, our subordinates being given a pass since they’d been following orders. I could tell that the boss lady wanted to throw the book at me, but I’d rescued three Witches from behind enemy lines… though I’d endangered nine to do so. So I was restricted to base, busted a rank, and given a medal. I also gained two girls who wouldn’t leave my side. The Black Cat Brigade, Mini and Lucchi, they appointed themselves my protection detail… and Lucchini stopped napping in random locations and started napping within sight of me as if afraid I’d vanish without constant supervision.

In the end, I did, of course. But that’s for later. First I had to deal with a major crisis. I’d been waiting for the Warlock Trials, the appearance of a Hive over Gallia so I could actually get readings on a Hive so I could locate the others. Unfortunately, the turning point of 1944 wasn’t the appearance of Warlock… but the appearance of a new Neuroi that looked suspiciously familiar. It was a copy of VIctor, and the weapons it packed.

The ‘Assault Vector’ as Higher Command called it appeared in the middle of a furball and forced 83 Witches out of the sky in 12 minutes of combat, clearing the way for a swarm of Neuroi fighters to descend on the 501st base. I had moments to decide if I dared bring Angel Witch out of the cradle for her first testflight. Of course, it wasn’t really a choice.

To this day, I have no idea how the Neuroi managed to copy VIctor. None. But it was a fully Neuroi’d clone of my warcraft and it unleashed the full might of Neuroi technological might backed by the godawful hodgepodge of technologies inside the cloned ship against me. The fight lasted 15 gruelling minutes as my friends and companions defended the base from the unending barrage of Neuroi drones and lasers with their shields and guns and I tried not to get cored by cannons powerful enough to punch through the Enterprise’s shields hammering me as I struggled against shields I’d designed to be all but impenetrable.

My Angel Witch Striker Suit was half Gundam-Wing, half Ironman in looks, pinpoint Asgardian shields, Life Fiber and nanotech. It made me 15 feet tall, responded to thoughts, and amped my magical output to a degree that meant I’d sleep like a log after eating about a dozen dinners worth of protein paste and sugar syrup. In fact, I felt like a humming bird in the suit as it fed me a constant stream of nutrient fluid, keeping me hydrated and topped off. Stupid Neuroi copying my tech. This was not supposed to happen. I somehow suspect this is the price I pay for arguing with the Banker.

VIctor Vector finally went down as I power hammered Mjolnir through its shields and then followed it up with throwing Ziggy into the interior and letting him unload with the Fourchain in Chaingun mode. The machine dissolved into black snow and I caught Ziggy as he fell out of the sky.

That’s when the Hive dropped out of the sky right on top of us. I just gaped. The Neuroi had suckered me. Flawless Awareness? Ha! The thing was a kilometer off when it hove into view and I was missing 2/3rds of the Angel Witch Armor and half its systems were offline, most of the Witches were drained, and the base looked like it had been transformed into swiss cheese. Of course, this meant I had resort to something I hadn’t used in a while.

I used Requip to pull a crate of specialized crystal spheres out of the Warehouse, lobbing them into the air, then called upon the powers I’d gained in Academy city. I called upon Meltdowner, focusing the electron beams through the network of prismatic spheres, creating a super conductive channel… into which I dropped a cryogenically cold rod of iridium. The rod weighed 2 kilograms, and it hung inside the magnetic field created by the beams of bluegreen hell-light… a slug of the second densest element… that in the space of 120 meters accelerated to 88% of the speed of light, swathed in a field of pure electronic destruction nine meters in diameter.

The hole it left in the atmosphere was… stupefying. The hole it tore in the Neuroi Hive was apocalyptic, and the recoil punched me back through the entire base and through 21 meters of solid rock, shredding the last of my Angel Witch Strike Armor and taxing my nanite infused body to the limits of endurance. I was in a coma for a week… but I got another medal when I got out, plus a whole bunch of hugs from the squad (Mini even gave me a kiss on the cheek… which prompted Luchinni to lick my nose as she clung to me.) I handed off the goofy cat girl to her other favorite person, Charlotte Yeager (who had bigger breasts and thus was more fun to snuggle against) and went to face the music.

The Air Marshal was livid with me for unauthorized use of military resources, until I pointed out that I’d supplied all the parts myself… and then she accused me of dealing with the black market, because that was the only way I could possibly have smuggled the parts onto the island. Since I’d saved the day, KP would be my punishment, she said. I just sighed and shook my head “No. Not this time, I’m afraid. I’m not doing that. I’ve got a war to win and you’re now in my way. I got what I was looking for. (Indeed, VIvian had already mapped the location of every Neuroi hive on or in Earth during my coma.) Write me up if you like. I’ve got Neuroi to hunt. They can’t hide from me anymore… plus, the 501st will be disbanded within the month, now that Gallia has been liberated.”

She just gaped as I walked out of her office. The cradle in the Warehouse had already spun out a replacement armor… Burstone is creepy as fuck that way, and the rest of Strikeforce Angel were already suiting up. All except my friends from this world. I gathered them together: Sanya & Ilya, Erica & Ursula, Charlotte, Minerva, Francesca, and Heinrike (I’d manipulated a few people to get her transferred to the 501st, just because she amuses me.) and presented them with the Striker Suits I’d built for them.

“I analyzed the wavelength coming off the Hive I fought. And off the Vector Pod. The Neuroi are making more of them. But I’ve located every Hive on Earth, or pretty close to it. Adolfine won’t listen if I tell her… but I think, if we move fast enough… We can take them down… all of them… before they can adapt.” And so, even though it meant disobeying orders, that’s what we did. 22 battles in 37 days, 19 cores, 5 Vector Pods… the small army of us smashing all resistance as we purged Earth of the Neuroi, as killing a Hive killed all its spawn as well. Thus, on the 14 of August, 1944, we secured VE day… but not for Europe, but for all Earth. Which left me and the witches just about 5 years in which to vacation… or, you know, rebuild the parts of the world the Neuroi had destroyed.

Victory in war is sometimes bittersweet. Victory is great… but friends and compatriots go their separate ways, go back to their lives, to their families. The friendships can last a lifetime, but they grow distant as the horrors of war fade into the background of rebuilding your life.

I missed them all, even Adolfine… but I couldn’t bring them all with me. Couldn’t bring even the best of them with me. If only I could have swapped Kagetane and Kohina for Minerva & Lucchini. Huh… went back into the warehouse and was about to write on the Tom Riddle page that I’d tacked to the bulletin board, when the words “No.” appeared. Drat. Ah well.  I’d miss them… I guess I’d have to maximize my time with them. And so I did.  

Next: World 43 – Broadway Bound

Resources: Build, Document

If you like what I do, please consider supporting me on Patreon.