Sublimis: A Worm CYOA One-Shot
By Publicola

I do not own Worm, but I'm pretty sure that (by most legal definitions of the word) I do 'own' myself. This fic was inspired by the Worm CYOA prompt (check out "imgur com/a/WpthI/") and by the many many stories on SpaceBattles and SufficientVelocity that spawned from it.

Sublimis

I awoke in an alley. This was not in itself cause for immediate concern, though I did seem to recall falling asleep in my own bedroom. I had barely begun to shake myself awake, however, when something in my surroundings… shifted.

A split second before, my bleary eyes gazed upon a rising sun over an unfamiliar inland bay. But then the alley was replaced, supplanted, overshadowed by the canvas of space itself. Everywhere I looked, every millimeter of concrete and brick and sky was replaced by an unceasing dance, pinpricks of light appearing and fading and being cast now in shadow and now in light. I was at the nexus of galaxies, and I hadn't the foggiest notion of how I got there.

Another moment and I realized I'd been delaying as if in a riptide, waiting for the cresting tsunami to thunder down. Words fail me, even now. Nor can I say how long it lasted. I was undone in a blizzard of sound, like a solid wall, like a punch in the gut that penetrated every inch of me, that rattled my bones so powerfully I wondered if my body would disintegrate under the barrage.

And then… it stopped. The noise tapered off to the barest whisper (hints of a muted syllable as it trailed off, almost like "xs" or "kss") the galaxies withdrew to their rightful place, all giving way the sounds and sights of a city in the early morn. I had never been so grateful for my sense of proprioception as I was in that moment, never felt such appreciation for the simple capacity to feel my own body and know the location of my limbs.

But if I could account for all my limbs, why then was there a hand on my shoulder?

"Sorry about that. We can be idiots sometimes. Oh, and before I forget: ID Create." The world shifted again, but this time it left the alley looking exactly as it did before.

What? I coughed and tried again. "…what. The hell. Was that?"

"Err, I'm pretty sure… well, we were all trying to thank you, but we kinda… overdid it?"

"What?"

"Okay, so imagine the sound made by a single person speaking a single word. Words are really just your brain attempting to decipher the waves of air pressure that strike you ears. The sound of a word is like a push, if a very weak one. Multiply it by a hundred, a hundred words at once, and it might start to add up to something, might start to cause problems. But multiply by another million voices, all around you at a radius of… oh, maybe ten feet, and it's not just your eardrums that'd be in danger of rupturing. For heaven's sake, I had to boost your ranking to nearly a Brute 8 just to ensure you'd survive it."

Brute? "…What?"

"We were all going to thank you, but got caught up in our own thing and didn't think of what it'd mean to have all hundred billion or so of us say 'Thanks' at the same time."

"Hundred billi… what the— who the hell are you?"

I could practically feel the smirk in his voice. "Why don't you try turning over so we can have this conversation face to face? You should be recovered now."

I couldn't think of anything else to do – my mind was weighted with too many questions and thoughts already – so I slowly, painfully shifted over until I could look at the person speaking.

It was like looking in a mirror. Like, literally, a mirror. Though I'm pretty sure my mirror-self wasn't quite so absurdly photogenic. Not to mention the glowy stuff; that was new.

"Hi."

"What."

"By George I think he's got it," he snarked.

"You're… but you're… you're me!"

"Yep!"

"But… but how?"

"Hmm. Troublesome. How much do remember from last night? Like, really remember?"

What kind of question was that? I wasn't the sort to go out partying, and I was also certain yesterday had been a weekday, so that was out. "I read for a bit, then fell asleep. Hey, if you're me, how come you don't know this already?"

"Because, while I'm you, I'm not quite the same you as this you, you know? But anyway, you sure that's all you remember from yesterday?"

"No I do not know what you meant, your pronouns are atrocious. What did you mean – wait. Last night. I had a dream?"

"Oh?"

"It was a vivid one, too. Heh, must've read too many of those silly wish-fulfillment fics online. 'Choose Your Own Adventure,' right. Like those powers weren't completely broken."

"We did read our fair share. But the dream?"

"Yeah, it was your fairly typical set-up. Plucked out of sleep by some Random Omnipotent Being, given a list of powers to choose from to save the Worm-verse or deal with those pesky space-whales, you know, the whole shebang."

"Oh believe me, I know."

"So I went through the list and yeah, the powers were just plain broken, you know. But I figure if I'm going to be battling omni-dimensional alien parasites I might as well do my best… wait."

"And the light dawns."

"Did I… did all that actually happen?"

"You tell me." And my glowy mirror-self waved his hand towards the rising sun.

Oddly enough, my first consideration wasn't the fact that I'd gone to sleep at home but had woken up in an alley. No, my mind was stuck on a less-obvious paradox.

The sun was rising in the west.

Or not, but the sun was obviously rising over water, and the only ocean where I lived was the Pacific, to the west of me. So either the sun was reversing its course… or it and the ocean were to the east of me… which meant this was…

"I'm in Brockton Bay, aren't I? That's the Atlantic we're looking at?"

"Yup."

Dammit, I hate being right. "And you…?"

"You tell me."

Dammit, I hate the Socratic method. "You're me."

"Yup."

"But not the same me."

"Go on."

"Which means you're an alternate version of me."

"I prefer to think of you as a version of me, but I'll let it slide for now."

"So you picked one of the other powers?"

"And there it is. Care to guess which one?"

"Well, you're here, aren't you? Instead of wherever you started from. So… Kaleidoscope?"

"Well done, have a cookie." In a flash he conjured an odd little remote control, his finger already pushing the sole button in its center. A second later, and a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie fell from the sky into his other hand. "Want one?"

Eyes wide at the display, I shook my head.

"Okay. No skin off my teeth." He took a careful bite. "Ahh… fixing the Flint Lockwood Food Replicator was totally worth it." The remote disappeared – I suspected sleight of hand, but I wouldn't have wagered money on it, given who I was dealing with. He returned his attention to me. "It's interesting, isn't it – you're obviously smart enough to realize that however broken the other powers are, none of them are as versatile as Power Manipulation. So tell me, why would you – by which I mean me – pick one of the lesser powers, let alone something as lame as mere inter-dimensional portals?"

"Err… maybe you figured Power Manipulation would be boring? I mean, the powers were broken enough as it is, and it's not like anyone would be in the same league as us once we had a few days to get our feet under us. I mean, at least with Kaleidoscope you'd get to pop over to other worlds and settings, which sounds pretty cool. Not to mention the free cookies, you know?" I grinned.

My musings were interrupted by an odd sort of chortling. I'd call it cackling, but I preferred to avoid drawing too close a comparison between any version of me and a crone, much less an evil overlord.

"Oh, you poor little man, is that what you think? I see why you're here instead of with the rest of us."

That didn't sound good. "Rest of us?"

"Of course. You seem to have skipped over the key, the centerpiece of the Kaleidoscope description. It gives the ability to copy powers 'from alternate selves and fictional universes.' Who am I, again?"

Oh. "You're me. You're an alternate version of me, and I'm an alternate version of you, which means…"

"Which means that I, and a hundred billion or so of my closest selves, just copied your much-vaunted Power Manipulation abilities before taking the 3:10 to Yuma. Oh, by the way, you should totally swing by there sometime. Westerns were never my favorite genre, but they can be pretty fun to play around in. But moving on, what's important now is getting you on your feet. Very, very long story short, there are a lot of us. Most of us were smart enough to pick Kaleidoscope, though there were a few selves that picked out each of the other powers, not to mention the poor bastards who stuck with Skitter Mode, or who had to rely on Version 3. You're actually something of a rarity – smart enough to pick out the most versatile power, but not quite smart enough to read the fine print."

Small consolation, that.

"Once we landed, most of us hit you or one of the others up for Power Manipulation first, then to the Alexandria-selves for the invincibility perk. Fortunately we also have control of time and space, so when I realized the damage we might have done I put a sticky-note on this universe so I'd remember to go back and boost your durability. One of the others – I think it's one of myselves that got elected to office actually, back in our old life – realized the issue with having so many dimension-hoppers around, and put out a beacon calling us all together. Took us a while, but we finally got ourselves settled enough to scribble up our governing charter, the Multiverse Accords. You remember learning about Chinese folk religion?"

What? Oh. Oh no. "You… you mean the Celestial Bureaucracy? You're kidding, you decided to establish yourselves as one massive Multiverse-spanning DMV office?"

"Oh, not nearly, no, but the phrase is at least a starting point. We're pretty flexible, but everyone has a role to fill, starting with the responsibility to fix the world each of us started in. Most of the Kaleidoscopers became pioneers – we're free to jump to new worlds and do our best to fix them. Then there are those like me, who help with mop-up duty, and fix any messes the others left behind."

"Like me?"

"Like you. We also take care of the multitude of well-meaning idiots who didn't pick Blank, for whatever reason. But anyway, besides the pioneers and us cleaners, the only other big faction is law enforcement, for obvious reasons."

"Wait, law enforcement? What's obvious about that?"

"Really? There are billions of us, and this is the Multiverse we're talking about. If some of us are less intelligent than others, how many of us do you suppose lack our sense of morality?"

"Don't tell me…."

"Yup. Turns out there are several hundred thousand of us that were sociopaths and serial killers. We all chip in when we need to – there were only a few thousand who started out with Kaleidoscope, but those early days were pretty chaotic until we managed to catch and bind them all. Some of us were cut out for the work, but the rest of us are just relieved that we don't have to deal with it. You don't have to make a decision now – we'll walk you through it once you're dimension-hopping, and you can always change your stripes if you find yourself getting bored. There are a bunch of other groups and jobs that need doing, and even if none of them can compete with the Big Three they can still offer plenty of fun. The Jumpchain Corps, for instance, is just hilarious. Not to mention we have a whole division working on self-inserts, which is even more entertaining if sometimes a bit of a brain-bender. You remember that fan-fic we wrote, 'Magical Me,' with ourselves inserted into the Harry Potter universe? Yeah, that's real now. They made that happen."

"Really?" I laughed. "That's awesome! What happened to it? How'd it turn out?"

"Well, you remember the last thing you posted, that April Fool's omake?"

I nodded uncertainly.

"Yeah, well that happened too, and boy was that a mess. Someone took their eye off the ball big time, and so they've had to go back and scrub the setting quite a bit to fix it. Last I heard they're still working on it. I check back in periodically, so once you're able to make jumps like the rest of us I'll keep you posted."

"Thanks."

"No problem. As for the other divisions, the only other one you really need to know about is the one run by Big Kahuna. He's in charge of the courts and keeping the Accord rules up to date, which turns out to be a lot easier when you have power over time and space."

"Wait, Big Kahuna? Seriously?"

"He's the one who set up the original beacon and called everyone together. Oh, you mean why the name? Well, when there are a hundred billion people with the same name and identity, it can get a bit rough keeping track of them all. That's actually the first rule we came up with for the Accords – we can keep our name as long as we're on our starter world, but once you're able to hop away, we'll bring you to Headquarters and walk you through the process. It's first come, first serve on choosing a name, so knowing ourselves as we do, it's no surprise why Big Kahuna would call dibs. Headquarters will also help you pick a faction and personalize your dimensional tag so we can keep track of who's been where and all that. Any questions?"

"Uhh…" I blanked for a bit before my mind could catch up with the onslaught of new information. "Oh, there's that. One question."

"Sure."

"I guess I figured, back when I was picking my power, that the biggest reason to picking Kaleidoscope would be the variety of places to go. But with a hundred billion of us working on it, wouldn't we just, I dunno, run out at some point? I mean, how many fictional universes are there really? Even if you account for every fanfic ever written, how long will that last?"

"But it's not just every fictional universe, that's just it. The Kaleidoscope power extends to 'all worlds, timelines, and possibilities' – that's what it says."

"What?! But that's… 'all possibilities,' that's practically infinite!"

"Well, kinda."

"What do you mean?"

My glowy mirror-self sighed. "You know Graham's number?"

"Oh. So you're saying that there are a whole bunch of alternate worlds, so many that we literally cannot even imagine the number of them, so many that we can call it infinite even if it really isn't?"

"No. I'm saying the total number of alternate universes we can access is literally Graham's number."

"What? But that's… how could you possibly know that?"

He smirked. "I have Power Manipulation, remember? I just gave myself the power to count, calculate, and comprehend arbitrarily large numbers, that's how."

My jaw dropped. "You… gah… you are such a nerd!"

"Guilty as charged, but wouldn't you do the same if you had the chance? Tell me it doesn't appeal to you, tell me you wouldn't be tempted to basically give yourself a Thinker 9 rating purely on your ability to do math."

"…You win."

"Thought so."

But it still stuck in my craw. "But… but why? Why Graham's number? What's so special about it? It's not like it's even the upper bound of anything; it's just the biggest number ever used in a mathematical proof. You want a bigger finite number, just pick g-65 or g-66. Why is g-64 so metaphysically significant that it governs the very boundary of the Multiverse? That's just… why?"

Again my mirror-self sighed. "I don't know yet; I'm still working on it. I get the feeling it's a lot more profound of a question than you'd think, since I've been plowing my Power Manipulation points into figuring it out, and I haven't made much progress at all these last couple dozen cycles."

"Pity. Wait, what do you mean 'cycles'?"

"Oof, that'd be silly to forget to tell you. Since we're all dimension-hoppers, time really doesn't have the same meaning as it did when we were all bound to the same straight timeline. That's one of the other key points of the Accords – basically, we account for seniority and promotions and all that based on each person's individual time-stream. Right now, I'm older than you, by several dozen years at this point. But you still start out on a level playing field with my younger self. Say you finish fixing this world in about 100 days, a little over three months. Pop over to the Multiverse HQ, and you'd get the same rank as everyone else who finished theirs in 100 days, even if they started with the Kaleidoscope and spent their time bouncing around the timeline. That's what I did; it took me a little over a year to finish my starter world – specifically 436 days within my time-stream – even though I spent much of that time picking up skills from other worlds, and it took maybe a month in-universe to do most of the actual work of fixing the place. But with our relative scores, I'd still end up reporting to you, or more likely reporting to someone who reports to someone who reports to you."

"Hence your reference earlier to the Celestial Bureaucracy?"

"Precisely. Of course, as with all bureaucracies, they have inspector generals and specially trained auditors. A word of caution: if you're tempted to falsify your records, don't. Just don't. The auditors are very good, and the punishment for fraud is… severe."

That sounded ominous.

"Finally, even though there are bonuses for finishing sooner, please, for my sake, our sake, and your own, please take your time. For one thing, there are penalties assessed if the auditors notice anything amiss and have to send in cleaners like me to fix them, so you need to be thorough. But more than that, this is the Multiverse. It's too easy to get wrapped up in the knowledge that we're basically gods, that we can forget what it means to be human. Make connections while you're in this world – maybe even find someone to love. There are no rules against bringing others into the Multiverse with you once you can start making jumps, and we're always eager for new talent. Don't go crazy – we've already had more than our share of Taylor Herberts and Hinata Hyuugas, and even I have trouble counting the number of us who went for the Hermione Grangers."

"Really?"

"Well, no, I can count up to Graham's number, but you get the point. Don't go for stereotypes or preconceptions; find people who suit you for yourself, or who can be trusted with the power we wield. Also, I shouldn't have to say this, and it doesn't look like it'll be a problem down your future, but kids aren't acceptable companions. Most of them can't be trusted with ultimate power, and besides, it's really skeevy to take up with a prepubescent on a two-person inter-dimensional road-trip."

"You're not saying…"

"What do you think? I said about a hundred thousand of us were serial killers – you really didn't think there'd be about the same number of pedophiles? Yeah, we're all pretty glad we're not the ones working in law enforcement, though cleaning up the chaos left by the Waifu Wars was just about as bad."

"Ugh."

"You're telling me. But that's already been addressed, or at least was addressed when I was younger, no idea where it'll fit on your personal timeline, but it's something to keep your eye on when you start jumping."

"You keep saying that – 'when you start jumping' – but I still don't get it. You're the one with Kaleidoscope, not me. I only have Power Manipulation, so how do you expect me to suddenly start bouncing around the Multiverse?"

He smirked. "Quite right. You have Power Manipulation, which lets you copy any powers around you. And what powers do I have again?"

I face-palmed. Why hadn't I thought of that? I started fumbling around in my mind, introspecting like crazy, trying to figure out where my powers were and how I could start to use them.

"But not yet." My mirror-self's glow visibly increased, and he seemed to dust himself off. "Multiverse HQ keeps tabs on everyone, and once you gain the Kaleidoscope, that's basically your signal to them that you're done fixing this world and you're ready to be picked up. But remember, you get penalized if we have to clean up after you, so you really don't want to grab it just yet."

"But you're the one with Kaleidoscope, so are you just going to stick around until I'm ready? I mean, you seem pretty busy with your own problems."

"True." He glanced around the curiously still alley. "Hmm. I think we're just about done here. ID Escape."

"But if you're leaving…"

He smirked again. "I'm sure you'll figure things out."

"But how will I find you again? What's your name?"

"Call me Sublimis. Tally ho!" And with an odd bit of silence, that seemed to wash over the alley and briefly drove away the gentle white noises of the city, he disappeared.

I barely noticed it. For lurking behind him, now made visible with his disappearance, were two figures.

They were me, both of them. One was dressed very fashionable, in a style that appeared custom-made, perhaps even tinker-made. The other – but before I could even look at the other the first gave me a jaunty wave and popped away just like my mirror-self.

I turned to the other. Actually… I looked down at myself, then back to him. Yup. He was wearing the same clothes that I now had on, even down to the same rips and stains. How…?

"Okay, if you still need help figuring this out," the third me spoke, "I think I should probably invest heavily in some Thinker powers. That's just sad."

"Hey, at least I'm trying!" I retorted, rather poorly as I did not in fact know what I was supposed to be trying.

"It's pretty simple. You can't copy the glowy guy's Kaleidoscope until you've finished working here, but Sublimis didn't say anything against copying any and all of his other powers before that time. So you need to build a time-travel power, just enough to send me back to the beginning of the conversation so I could grab all of the other powers he built up the years. Then fix the world, time travel again once you look like the other guy who wore the tinkertech, copy the Kaleidoscope, and you're home free."

"Oh. Right. You know, I think you're onto something with building ourselves some Thinker powers."

"No kidding. I think I should probably get on that. As for you… well, I know I had fun figuring out my powers on my own, so no spoilers. I'll just be off then?" And with a nod and a wave he turned and began to walk away, with a slight spring in his step that rather effortlessly transitioned into unpropelled flight up and out of the alley.

I watched him fly away, feeling almost jealous at the show of power before I checked myself. That was me. As in, that would be me, in however long or short a time it'd take to build myself a time machine.

Now it was my turn to smirk. This was going to rock!

A/N: I hadn't planned on it when I started writing this, but somehow I seem to have stumbled my way into creating my very own Grand Unified Theory of Fanfiction. I'm also pretty sure that at some point down the road, one of me became the original ROB for the rest of me. Multiverses are confusing.

There were a few other ideas I wanted to include, but I couldn't figure out a way to make it work without writing a very different sort of ending, quite a bit more depressive than the mood I was going for here. Not sure if it's a good idea, so I can't say if I'll post it at all, and whether (if I do) it'd be better to put it here at the bottom of a page or separately as a second chapter of sorts.

Finally, variety may be the spice of life, but feedback is the spice of writing. Thanks for reading and please review!