New Game Plus
Prologue: "After The Before, Before The After"
AKA: "Life's A Bitch, Death Is Too"
L.I.M.B.O.
Low-priority Incarnation Manufacturing and Binding Office
Office #745598314212745781498544263471332284694-ZRVN
"T689-55Th1jL7t74REf996E-RrR-kM8d7gG23-Vr55RpO9Hr-T:h3X-G:9," the woman on the other side of the desk said.
"What?"
"That's y- Don't lift your hand! Keep it on the plate," she replied.
T689 stared down at his hand. Pressing it back down on the cool metal plate, he muttered, "Sorry. What was that, though?"
"Look, my job is to get you registered, not to explain things to you."
Think for a moment, T689 grinned at her and very deliberately lifted his hand off the plate. "Oops," he gasped in a very unconvincing manner.
"Damn it! Look what you did! Now I have to start all over!" she snapped. "Put your hand back down!"
"Yeah, sorry about that. I have this muscle condition… Wait. Do I even have muscles?"
She glared at him as he pressed his hand against the plate again. "No, you don't. You're just a soul. No body means no muscles. You don't have muscles and you don't have a muscle condition. You don't have an anything condition. Dead people don't have conditions."
"Oh. That makes sense," T689 said agreeably. "So, I have this muscle condition. It makes me twitch uncontrollably when I get bored. It has bizzarelly and inexplicably followed me into the afterlife. Given my unique soul-muscle condition, it'd be in your best interest to talk about something that interests me."
The woman's fingers made an unpleasant sound as they dragged across the desk. "I really don't like you."
"Yeah, I get that. Oh! Oh no! My arm's getting antsy! It's gonna move!"
"Fine. That's your Spiritual Identification Number. It's how the system keeps track of you. It is you, basically," she spat. "God, Anna was right. Hex-types are a pain in the ass."
"Hex-types?"
Watching his hand carefully, she replied, "Type: h3X. Hex-type. Your model was discontinued ages ago. You should consider yourself lucky, actually. Every one of you aside from the generation 7 and- 9 batches was taken out of circulation and scrapped. There isn't even a lot of Generation 9 Hex-types left. Keep your hand on the plate.
"Oh, don't worry. My hand finds this interesting. When you say we were 'scrapped,' what do you mean?"
"Souls are produced to fill certain roles," she answered as she ran her fingers over the engraved plate in front of her as fast as she could. "Models are developed to accomplish specific tasks more efficiently. I'm a Mr5, for example. We're known for our intelligence and efficiency."
Chuckling, T689 said, "But I'm guessing you're a bit short on personality and social grace, yeah?"
"Funny. There was a problem in the Hex-type manufacturing process, I guess. They don't really keep us around if we're not useful. From what I hear, your type was actually more of a liability than anything. A few of you go Up really fast, all the rest go Down even faster. It's kind of surprising to see one of you, even down here in low-priority processing."
T689 frowned. "Up and Down? Like, Heaven and Hell?"
"Ooh, sorry. All done," she said unapologetically. There was a sound like a very old typewriter as a strip of paper slid haltingly out of a slit in the surface in the desk. The woman quickly tore it off and examined it. "Wow. Bum-mer."
"What?"
She gave him a sweet smile. "Well, it looks like you're not the type that goes Up. Here's a free one: there's only one place to go from low-priority if you screw up too bad. I'd say I'll see you soon, but that seems pretty unlikely at this point. Bye-bye," she said happily. Quickly shoving the paper into his hands, she yelled, "Next!"
"The hell is this?" T689 asked staring down at the paper.
"It's your receipt, duh. Isn't it obvious?"
Considering it, he nodded. "Yeah, actually. Sure looks like a receipt. What's it for?
"Are you dumb? It's your receipt. Next!"
"So, it's a receipt for… me? What happens if I lose it?"
"You don't want to do that. Next!"
"Hey, I-"
The woman gave him a nasty look. "Look, you're holding up the line. Don't hold up the line. It's long enough. If you hold up the line, I suppose I'll have to call security," the told him with a very eager look on her face.
T689 turned and looked over his shoulder. The line behind him stretched off into the distance. It was only one of the dozens of them, and every single one wound out of sight and eventually reached the far side of the unimaginably large room.
"Fair enough, I guess. Thanks for the receipt. It's the nicest receipt for me I've ever had," he muttered, standing.
"I'd enjoy it if I were you. It's probably the last time you'll see one. Go through the door and turn right. Go through that door and proceed to the secondary processing center indicated on your receipt. Bye-bye!"
Scowling, T689 walked through the indicated door. He honestly wasn't sure why they even had the dumb thing. It just lead out into the area behind her desk. The front looked just like the back: countless desks separated by short walls. The only major difference was the presence of a great many souls wandering down the line, travelling in the same direction he was supposed to go.
Muttering to himself, he held up his receipt and examined at it.
Standard Soul - Type : h3X - Generation : 9
SIN
T689-55Th1jL7t74REf996E-RrR-kM8d7gG23-Vr55RpO9Hr
Karmic Balance
27,832
Purity Rating
0.063
Role Incarnation Priority
Low
Aside from that, there was just something resembling a QR code towards the bottom, composed of an enormous number of nearly imperceptible dots in a multitude of colors.
T689 only made it a few desks before pausing with a thoughtful look on his face. Giving the paper another look, he quickly glanced around. His eyes quickly fixed on on the nearest desk as he spotted what he was looking for.
"Eh, whatever. Sounds like I'm pretty screwed, anyway."
He took a step towards the nearest desk and tapped the man sitting there on one shoulder. As the receptionist turned, he darted around the other side and snatched a pen off his desk. The man quickly turned the other way and gave him a confused look.
"Sorry, bro. You had this, like, nasty bug thing on your shoulder. Don't worry, I got it," T689 said happily.
"There's no bugs here…"
"It was some kind of… soul bug or something. I don't know, I just got here. Anyway, you're welcome."
Giggling slightly, T689 continued down the line a bit further before stopping at another desk. Paying no attention to the confused woman there, he threw his receipt up against the wall and took his new pen to it.
Standard Soul - Type : h3X - Generation : 9
SIN
T689-55Th1jL7t74REf996E-RrR-kM8d7gG23-Vr55RpO9Hr
Karmic Balance
27,832
278,320
Purity Rating
0.063
0.630
Role Incarnation Priority
Low
High
He finished up the alteration by yanking a nose hair out to trigger a sneeze, then unleashing a massive torrent of snot onto the QR code.
"Yep. Seems legit to me," T689 giggled with a very unconvinced look on his face. "Seriously, there's no way in hell someone's that retarded. Oh well. What're they gonna do, kill me?"
Whistling happily, he strolled down the line of desks. It took a lot of strolling, but eventually he reached his destination. Upon passing through the door he discovered that his destination wasn't actually his destination, but the first step in his great journey.
What followed was mind-numbingly boring at best. It involved confused groups of people, people-confusing maps, dozens of elevators, detours, detours around detours, bad elevator music, detours around elevators playing bad music, a broken elevator, climbing an incomprehensibly long ladder, falling off an incomprehensibly long ladder, climbing it again, falling off it on purpose, climbing it again and an incredible amount of walking down featureless hallways.
Finally…
"Sweet. Area 8A, Section 2F, Subsection 6K, Subsubsection 5T, Microsection 2R, Sector 8I, Subsector 4P, Block 4H, Cell 7S, Unit 7J, Corridor 9E, Room 5T. That took forever…" he sighed as he passed through the door.
The man behind the desk looked up at him in confusion as he entered. "Uh, hi… Can I help you with something?"
"Yeah. I'm here for… whatever it is you do. I just realized I don't actually know what you're supposed to do..."
The other man scratched his head. "Uh, I'm supposed to do your analysis, assignment and sorting. I-"
"My Sorting!? Oh, can I be in Slytherin? Please put me in Slytherin! Being somewhere backstabbing, plotting and sabotage is encouraged and celebrated would be awesome!" T689 whispered with stars in his eyes.
"..."
"Yeah, sorry about that. I realized a while ago that being dead basically means I don't have to worry about the consequences of my actions. I've pretty much been doing whatever I want, and I wasn't the most focused person to begin with. From what the bi- unpleasant woman that registered me said, it's probably because I'm a Type-h3X. It's nice to know it's because I was made wrong, and not because I'm frighteningly irresponsible."
The man's face immediately became more interested. "You're a h3X?"
"So I'm told. You seem a lot more excited about that than that chick was…"
"Are you kidding? You guys are great! The last one I had in here, she turned every living thing on her planet female. She said she just didn't like how men looked. Of course, literally every species went extinct a generation later, but she considered it an acceptable loss."
T689 shrugged. "Yeah, I can see that. Sorry, but I've never done anything that crazy. I do pull off all those little tags on my furniture, though…"
"It's cool. As your processor, I'll be able to keep an eye on you in a very limited fashion. It's only really enough to get a general sense of what you've done, but it's usually interesting anyway," the processor said happily. "Here, give me your receipt."
T689 obediently handed it over.
"Good, I- What the hell happened to this thing!?"
"Oh, I asked some guy to read it for me. It's hard to do myself, what with me being illiterate and all. He agreed to, but he sneezed all over it when I handed it over. What a dick, right?"
The processor frowned at him. "There's no way that could happen. People don't sneeze here."
"They don't?"
"No. You don't have a body. Your 'physical' reactions are based entirely on perceptive reality. You should only sneeze if something happens that makes you believe you should be sneezing. It's not the sort of thing most people would randomly think of."
T689 pondered that little bit of trivia, then asked, "Is that why it didn't hurt when I fell down that bigass ladder? It seemed to hurt the people I hit on the way down, so I was kind of wondering about that…"
"Wow. Well, it would hurt for most people. They'd see that they're about to hit the floor at high speed and just assume it would hurt. The only-"
Before he could finish, T689 leaned forward and snagged a pen off his desk. He held it up and examined it briefly, then twirled it around and rammed it into his thigh point first.
"Oh my god!" the processor screamed in horror, recoiling.
T689 studied the pen with a fascinated look on his face. He'd managed to plunge it straight through his pants and into his flesh. It was driven so deep that it stood upright on its own. It didn't move at all, not even when he gave it an experimental flick. "Huh. Cool."
"What the hell, man!?"
"Hey, chill. It's mind over matter! Wait, I don't have matter…"
"You can't just-"
T689 quickly yanked the writing implement free and jabbed it into his other thigh.
"Stop it! Damn it, don't just… Look. First off, no one's illiterate here. You're not actually reading, you're just sort of absorbing the meaning. That's why you can understand me too, despite the fact that the chance of us sharing a language is nearly nothing. Second, there's no way in hell some random person just sneezed on this. I'm just going to work on the assumption that you did it, okay?"
T689 nodded, withdrew the pen, and rammed it into his stomach. "That seems like a pretty reasonable assumption," he admitted.
"Are you going to stop doing that at some point?"
"When I get bored."
"I'll just interpret that as a no."
"That is also a safe assumption."
The processor sighed and shook his head. "Dear god, you're worse than the last one. Somehow this is a lot more amusing when I'm just getting reports of it happening to someone else. Let's get you processed and… Did you write on this? Did you seriously just take a pen and write on your receipt?"
T689 managed to give him a shocked and disgusted look. "Are you kidding!? That's my receipt, man! It's my receipt! What kind of sick bastard would write on their receipt?"
The unbound soul found himself the subject of a long, intense study. Finally, the processor slowly smiled. "You know what? You're right. No one would write on their receipt. It's lucky for me, I guess."
"Oh?"
"I've never seen a h3X get a high-priority role. You're usually pretty good at screwing the brass' plans to hell, so I'm guessing it's pretty interesting."
"Hm… I can, with a great deal of confidence, say that you've made another good assumption. I've yet to meet a situation I can't make worse," T689 said proudly.
The processor glanced down at his wrist and smiled. "Oh, good timing. I need to call my supervisor about this. He's on his lunch break right now, so don't be surprised if he's a little cranky."
"Meh. I've heard worse."
The processor quickly swept a finger across his engraved plate. A sound - much like that of an old telephone - filled the air. It took nearly a dozen rings before the person on the other end answered.
"What!?" an angry male voice demanded. "I'm at lunch. You know you're not supposed to disturb me unless it's an emergency!"
The processor flipped the unseen speaker off even as he said, "It kind of is, sir," in a respectful voice.
"Is it now?"
"Yes sir. I have a soul here for processing, but it seems like he was filed incorrectly."
"So what? A minor error isn't worth whining to me about."
A second middle finger joined the first. "I know, sir, but this isn't a minor error. He's supposed to be in high-priority!" the processor said with obvious shock and horror.
There was a long pause before the stunned voice asked, "You're joking, right?"
"No sir. It says right on his receipt."
"You're sure it's not wrong?"
The processor released a put-upon sigh. "It's his receipt, sir."
"Damn it all. Why does this shit always happen on my shift? You're authorized to put him on temporary hold until I get there. I'll be down as soon as I'm done," the voice muttered.
"Um, sir? I know this is out of line… but could you come right away? He's a Hex, sir. I don't know if I can deal with him for that long."
"Shit. Look, you'll just have to hang in there-"
The processor ended the sentence prematurely by leaning to the side and vomiting on the floor.
"Ym95? What the hell was that?"
"I'm sorry, sir," the processor said weakly as he wiped off his mouth. "The h3X just shoved a pen into his eye. Straight into it! I'm… going to need to call janitorial for- Urp!" The processor slapped a hand over his mouth, but only managed to make his second round of vomiting explode out his nose.
"...the other eye?" the supervisor asked.
"Y-yes, sir. H- he's looking at me. He's l- looking at me with pens in his eyes… I have puke in my sinuses… It burns, sir."
"Dear god. Look… I really want nothing to do with this one. Just execute a manual override and refile him. High-priority will whine about us bumping one of their slots, but they'll get over it. Hang in there, okay?"
The processor smiled wanly as the line clicked closed. "Well, that went alright."
"Sweet," T689 said with a grin. He tilted his head to the side and carefully peered at the other man in his peripheral vision. "I'd say you look happy, but I honestly can't see anything past these pens."
"Yeah. Could you maybe… take those out now? It was helpful, but…" he paused and shuddered. "Ew."
T689 obediently yanked the writing implements out of his retinas. "Man, you've sure got a weak stomach for someone who doesn't actually have a stomach." He giggled, slamming both pens straight up his nostrils. He gave on a flick and giggled again when it didn't move. "Hey, look! I'm a walrus!"
"Type-VmR souls tend to be a little on the sensitive side, so could you please stop that?"
T689 didn't bother responding verbally. Ramming a pen into each ear seemed like answer enough. "Ooh, yeah. Brain massage. We're pretty heavy into stereotyping around here, aren't we?"
The processor quite deliberrately turned away and started tapping his engraved plate again. "It's not really stereotyping. Souls are specifically made to have certain attributes. It makes us more suited for certain roles. You wouldn't want a VmR for a hardened soldier role, but we're good for anything that requires a high degree of empathy."
"So what's a Type-h3X good for?"
"Uh… well… You're notoriously unpredictable and unreliable. You don't have a lot of restraint or sense of proportion. Your emotional response tends to be a bit off, and your thought process tends to be chaotic. The only think you're really used for is emergency intervention. Occasionally, if a timeline is going really sideways, they'll toss one of you into a high-priority role and see what happens. Since you tend to act so far outside of expectations, there's a chance you might do something totally off the wall and make things better. It doesn't matter if you don't, though, because the place was screwed anyway."
"Huh. Does that happen a lot?"
"Well… not really. You tend to just make things go down in flames that much quicker. You're probably better than most if you're still in circulation, though."
T689 shrugged. "I like to think I'm pretty reliable if it situation requires it, if it's absolutely necessary and if there's serious consequences if I don't. Offering me sugar and shiny things is helpful, too. I think my spirit animal is a magpie."
The processor shook his head and sighed. "You know, I almost feel bad for doing this to that poor timeline. Almost," he declared. His desk spat out a small plastic card, which he quickly grabbed and passed to T689. "That's-"
"-my card?" T689 finished. The small bit of plastic looked a lot like an ID. It sported his SIN, a picture and his newly-updated information.
"That'd be it. Your account's been updated, so someone would have to look pretty hard to see any oddities, assuming those oddities exist. Just head back out the way you came and you'll end up at one of the workshops."
T689 turned to look at the door behind him. "Uh, I just came from there…"
"Spacial dimensions don't mean much here. Just go down the hall. It's straight and there's no intersections, so it's pretty hard to get lost. If you do see an intersection go straight through it. If you see a turn, turn around and come straight back. Do not, under any circumstances, make a turn."
"What happens if I-"
"You don't want to do it," the processor said blandly. "Trust me, you don't."
T689 nodded agreeable."My fine-tuned don't-screw-myself-over sense tells me you're probably right. I'll be good."
"Good. Now, I'd tell you to go and mess things up really good, but it's kind of pointless."
"It is?"
"Souls generally only remember their last life, and only until they're incarnated again. You'll be formatted before they bind you into a new role."
T689 signed unhappily. "Bummer. Oh well. C'ya later."
By the time T689 reached his destination, he was pale and twitching slightly. Along the way he'd had to pass through 97 intersections. By the 34th, the urge to take a random turn was nearly overwhelming. Every single one after that had been pure torture. It was only through the full force of his mighty willpower that he reached the workshop intact.
The place was cluttered. It was full of random parts, wires and screen. It very strongly resembled the shop of a particularly mess electrician or mechanic. A young woman in dirty coveralls was kneeling next to a large device in the center, making adjustments with a wrench.
"Hey, I'm-"
"Get in the chair and don't move," she cut him off. "I'm almost done fixing this damn servo. I swear I spend more time fixing this piece of crap than using it…"
T689 examined the uncomfortable looking chair carefully. It looked very unpleasantly like a dentist's chair, only made of bare metal with nothing resembling a cushion. With a faint frown, he did as he was told and climbed up into it. "That's not making me feel real great about this, you know."
"Blame the powers that be. They don't direct a lot of resources down to low-priority processing," she sighed. "You can relax, though. I haven't had an accident yet, and I've done this a lot. There we go. Done."
"You sure you did it right? Did you use enough duck tape? Did you remember to hit it with a hammer?"
"Of course I hit it with a-" the operator froze as she turned to face him. "Why the hell do you have pens sticking out of your ears?"
T689 shrugged and gave his right pen a flick. "Brain massage. It's kind of nice. You should try it."
"No thanks. Take those things out, okay? You're kind of freaking me out here…"
Rubbing the pen, T689 hummed in thought. As he idly twisted the pen, he said, "Well, I guess so. There's such a thing as too much of a good thing."
"Great. So-"
T689 yanked the pens out of his ears and promptly rammed them into the top of his head. He somehow managed to drive over half their length into his cranium.
"...you just shoved a pair of pens through your skull."
Grinning at her, T689 declared, "I have antennae! I'm a bug!"
"How the hell did you do that? They're just pens and it's your damn skull. You can't actually do that," she protested.
"Physical constructs here are nothing more than the residual preconceptions that tie us to a world we no longer inhabit and rules that no longer bind us. Discarding those rules is as easy as deciding we no longer need them and believing we can act outside of them," T689 explained.
The operator stared at him in shock.
T689 looked back with a placid expression and eyes shining with profound enlightenment. "I…"
he whispered.
"You?" the operator asked in an eager and amazed voice.
T689 pulled the pens from his head, screamed and shoved both of them straight into his forehead, one next to the other. "...am a unicorn!"
"Get the hell in the damn chair!" the operator snapped in return.
Still giggling, T689 plopped into the chair as ordered.
The operator walked around to the other side of a large metal desk, brushing her hands across another one of those strange metal plates. A set of heavy metal restraints snapped around his arms, legs, waist and forehead.
"Hey! What the hell!? This isn't the end I like to be on!"
"...what?"
"Nothing."
Shaking her head, she frowned at him and stated, "They're so you don't move. Trust me, you-"
"-don't want to do that? Yeah, seems like a lot of that goes on around here."
"You have no idea. Now, I'll need your card. Hand it over," she ordered.
T689 very obviously and pointedly looked down at his restraints.
"Right. My bad. Where is it?"
"My pants," T689 responded. "I put it right in my pants. I didn't want to lose it."
Sighing again, the woman walked back around the desk and started reaching towards his nearest pocket.
"No, no. Not there. It's in my pants. In my pants. Its right down there, in the front."
"Yeah, funny. Where is it?"
"..."
"..."
"..."
"It's… actually in your pants, isn't it? You seriously shoved your card down your pants…"
T689 nodded in confirmation. "I didn't want to lose it. I've never lost anything I keep in my pants. Aside from my penis, that is."
"...you've lost your… that?"
Nodding again, T689 declared, "It happens all the time. It's detachable."
"You're a h3X, aren't you?"
T689 snickered. "Jesus, we've got a reputation around here, huh? Wait. Shit. Can I say 'Jesus' here?"
"Most souls don't handle being dead nearly as well as you guys do. Some are pretty okay about it, but they still don't go around making stupid jokes. They also don't shove their card down their pants. Why would you even do that?"
She received an aghast look in response to her question. "Because… it's my card, man! I have to take care of my card! So I put it down where I keep all the really important things I have to take care of. I even polished it real good, just like the rest!"
Muttering to herself, she walked back around behind her desk and touched the plate. Most of T689's restraints opened, leaving only his ankles bound. "There. Get out your card, wipe it off, and give it to me."
"'Kay," T689 said happily. He reached into his left pants pocket and withdrew his card. Grinning, he held it out to her. "Here you go!"
"..."
"Yeah, I just wanted to see if you'd actually reach into my pants. It'd also be the most action I've gotten in 28,971 millenia. That was a long line…"
Growling, she snatched the card from him. "This is why I hate- What the hell? This can't be right…"
"What?"
"This says you're supposed to be in high-priority. Why in the multiverse are you down here? Did you mess with this thing?" she demanded in an accusing tone.
T689 gave her the "Are you an idiot?" look. "Uh, it's my card. What kind of idiot would mess with their card? And how would I even do that? It's not like I could just write all over it with a pen."
Still frowning, she walked around her desk and fed the card into a small slot. If anything, her look immediately become more puzzled. "Okay, something's seriously messed up here. The system doesn't have you factored into a timeline at all. You're flagged to be scrapped after this life, too. That shouldn't happen to a high-priority soul…"
"I'm guessing getting scrapped is bad."
"What the hell do you think?" she asked sarcastically. "Look, I've gotta go check this with my boss. I don't know how long it'll take, so I'll be really nice and leave you like that. Don't go anywhere."
T689 looked down at the thick metal bands around his ankles. "How do you figure I'm going to go somewhere?"
"Fine. Don't mess with anything. Knowing your type, you'll find a way to do it without leaving the chair. Don't. Really, really bad things will happen if you do."
"Ooh, what kind of really, really bad things?" T689 asked with wide, sparkling eyes.
The tech sighed. "Let's see. Mess with that and your soul might be lost in the void. That could mess up your incarnation and kill you as soon as you land. The one over there could do irreparable damage to your base structure. This one formats you, so it just might scramble what passes for a h3X's mind. The one over there will cause the entire lab to be consumed in an existential implosion. It also doesn't actually do anything, so I have no idea why it's there."
"Oh. It's probably good I can't reach that one, because I'd totally mess with it."
"Yeah, I figured. Just behave for a while while I get this sorted, alright?"
T689 nodded agreeably. "So if you get it fixed, does that mean I'm not getting scrapped?"
The tech gave him a look that almost qualified as sympathetic. "Sorry. Once you're flagged, it takes direct intervention from some really high ranking jackass to fix it. Chances of that happening are pretty nonexistent under normal circumstances."
"Oh…"
"Yeah… sorry…" she said with some actual feeling. "Look, I'll get this sorted. Just behave for a while."
T689 scowled as she left the room. This entire situation really didn't set well for him. From what he was gathering, he was being disposed of because he wasn't useful. He wasn't useful because of how they'd made him. Essentially, they were getting rid of him because they'd screwed up. There was absolutely nothing fair about that.
He studied the machine the tech had indicated would format him. It was a large, chunky device covered in thick cables and metal rods. Some of those cables ran over his head and connected it to an arch wrapped with exposed copper wires hanging above his head. It was pretty far out of his reach, but…
"Ah, what the hell. May as well."
The sound of a zipper opening echoed across the empty workshop. It was quickly followed by water splashing and a relieved sigh. Popping and hissing filled the area shortly after, accompanied by the distinct scent of fried electronics and burning plastic.
"Oh, man. I've been holding that for an aeon…"
Eventually, the tech returned to her workshop. Entering the room, she was greeted by,
"-bottle of beer! Take one down, pass it around, no bottles of beer on the wall! Round 935,417! Sing it again! Ninety-nine bottles of- Oh, hey! You're back!" he exclaimed happily. "Bummer. I was just getting started. We all set?"
She nodded. "It took a bit, but we're good. They're shoving you into a timeline that'd scheduled to be discontinued in a few centuries. You can't do a lot of damage there."
"Oh, ye of little faith."
"Yeah, I figured… that's… Why does it smell like piss in here?"
T689 looked at her with wide, horrified eyes and whispered, "I had an accident."
"...you pissed on my cradle? You seriously got piss all over it?"
"Yes. Yes I did. That's exactly what I got piss all over. Definitely not something else."
"How does that even work!? You're just a soul! Souls don't have to piss!"
T689 looked at her in bewilderment. "We don't? Huh. I thought I had to piss. Maybe that's why I did? Maybe Descartes had it all wrong. I think therefore I piss, is more accurate."
"And to think, I almost felt bad for you for a minute there."
T689 turned and gave her a look cold enough to make her take a step back. "I don't need anyone's pity. Not now, not then. Never."
"I… uh…"
"Unless you're offering a pity grope. I'm okay with pity gropes. Here, offer me a pity grope and I'll show you!"
"Look, just lay back in the chair, okay? We'll get this done nice and quick."
T689 obediently relaxed back into the seat. The metal restraints immediately snapped into place, causing him to flinch slightly. The needle that suddenly plunged into the side of his neck startled him a lot more. Warmth spread from the puncture and his thoughts grew a little hazy as the arm-mounted syringe swung away.
"Ow! What the hell? Did you seriously just… seriously… did you needle me in the neck?" T689 asked unsteadily.
"Technically I didn't. That's just how you perceived a metaphysical event through the physical senses you're used to. That was a primer program that strips your normal defenses away and makes you more susceptible to the reformat. It also throws your soul into disarray, which is why you feel a little loopy."
"You... dosed me? Ooh, that's... some good shit. Are you going... to take advantage... of me now?"
"No."
"What if I… ask you all nice like?"
"No. Just be quite and… What the hell? That's not right. Why would that reading be-"
There was a pop and a hiss. A arc of power leapt from one of the strange machines and grounded into the floor, leaving a broad charred mark.
"Hehe… I peed on your things. You have… pee things," T689 giggled.
The woman stared at him in horror. "You unbelievable idiot! Do you have any idea what you just did? Shit! This will mess everything up!"
"Just… stop it. I can… wait."
"There's no 'stop' button, you idiotic hex! This gear wasn't exactly made with pissing morons in mind. How the hell did you even do that? You shouldn't have been able to…"
"I'm awesome like that."
"Yeah, well, you're also pretty screwed. This thing's on the fritz in a pretty big way. You managed to screw up the aim assist so bad it's offline. I'm not even sure I can hit the right timeline, let alone the right incarnation. You might just end up in the Void."
"That… doesn't sound good."
"Shit! Shit! It's not good at all! Damn it, if I bind you to the wrong role, It'll screw up the whole timeline! I don't even know what happens if you hit a low-priority role with a high-priority incarnation!"
"Hehe. I'm not… even alive and I'm… messing stuff up."
"Damn it," the operator sighed. "Well, are you a gambling man, hex?"
"Not really…"
"You are now. Good luck!"
"Wait! I-"
And everything went black.
Author's Note:
I was feeling pretty uninspired regarding both Unheroic and Something Familiar, so I started in on this instead. I'm fairly happy with how it turned out. I originally intended to go a little further, but I decided to keep this bit separate and call it a prologue.
New Game Plus is a story about identity. The core of the story revolves around our concept of self and what makes us who we are. So often in fiction you someone who suddenly becomes something else, or finds out they weren't what they thought they were all along. I've always wondered how they deal with it, especially those who are forced to lead double lives.
My answer: they deal with it like anyone else. Badly.
So what happens when you think you can't walk away from you past, when you think you can't escape your future, or when you think you can't avoid your destiny? What if you lose everything you think defines you, or if you never had it at all? When you have to watch someone important to you slowly slip away even as you try to get rid of your own humanity, how do you deal with the guilt?
So, the idea here is to write something more serious that my other stories. That might be hard to believe from this prologue, but it's the truth. There'll still be a lot of humor, but I'm going to try to keep it a little more grounded and less random. A lot of it will come from T689 who, as noted, is definitely pretty far into the erratic side. The h3X are just as able to function normally as anyone else, but they quite often see no reason to.
Currently, my plans are to include characters from Card Captor Sakura and Sailor Moon as straight inserts. Obviously they won't be the exact same characters, much of which is because they're no longer little girls. Symphogear and Nanoha get some love too, but in a much more indirect way. There won't be characters straight from the series, but rather other characters related to the same agencies and using Devices / Symphonic Gear. This is mainly because I'm not real crazy about any of the characters. I'm also considering RWBY, Madoka Magica, Alien Nine, and whatever other random crap pops to mind.
Anyway, thanks for reading. Next chapter has actual fanfiction content stuff. Yay! Not sure when that'll be, because I pretty much work on whatever I feel inspired for, but I'll probably be sometime in the next decade.
Goals are easy to meet if you set the bar really low.