The various fictional worlds, characters and elements that are written about in this fanfiction belong to their various creators, who I'm too lazy to list. This is purely a fan work and not intended to generate any sort of profit. I know that if it does a fair number of bloodthirsty lawyers are likely to make my life miserable. As always constructive criticism is welcome and flames will be ignored.
Well, here's the third chapter. It's a bit later than I'd planned due to my laptop getting a case of the sniffles. I'm still looking for a Beta to help with this fic, if you notice any mistakes then you can blame it on that. Speed reading is a wonderful skill to have, but since I know what is meant to be on my fic it means that I tend to skip over errors without noticing them. If anyone is interested then please PM me.
As for this chapter, I freely admit that it's a bit thin on the action, but a personal peeve of mine are fics where self insertion character immediately accept their situation and then bull ahead with whatever notion they might have. Please don't get me wrong, such stories can be a pleasure to read, it simply means that my suspension of disbelief takes a hit early on. Since this is meant to be a self insertion I'm doing my best to model the characters actions after what I think my own would be in such a situation, hence this chapter. Well, actually if I was in that situation I'd probably find somewhere to hide until the whole wretched mess was over, but that wouldn't make for quite such an enjoyable read, would it?
On another note I'm taking suggestions for what my Endbringer will be called. At the moment his tentative name is the Morrigan. Yes, I know that that was a goddess, but I like the sound of it and there'll be a funny story as to how he got stuck with it. Still, it's not set in stone, so any suggestions will be welcomed.
Play it My Way: Chapter Three
How hard can it be? God, did I really think that? That's just asking for trouble.
As it turns out it can be very difficult, and even as I contemplate what to do I find myself thinking of even more complications.
First off is the simple problem of whether or not my presence has already been detected. If this was near the beginning of canon then Dragon would have a whole bunch of satellites, sensors and other tinker gear that would have detected my arrival in this reality as soon as I started doing anything major.
So far I'd frozen a chunk of the ocean into a decently sized iceberg, had melted it again and had now levitated into low Earth orbit, I might not be blasting towns and cities out of existence, but I'm pretty sure that anyone with Dragon's degree of competence would probably have picked up on me.
Alright, that meant I needed stealth, I needed to be sneaky.
The thought's enough to make me laugh, or it would be if I had lung, a throat and a mouth. As it stands all I can do is sort of . . . bobble slightly with my main core.
I mean, I'm currently more than twenty feet tall, have an extra pair of arms and two additional heads, that's the sort of thing that tends to draw attention. Even if I wasn't immediately identified as an Endbringer I would still be regarded as either a projection or a Case-53 of great size. Either way I'd end up drawing more attention than I wanted, and before I'd had a chance to plan to boot.
But . . . stealth was a possibility to me. After all, light was the main medium used to see by, and light was just another energy that I could play with. The same was true of pretty much everything else that could give me away, sound was just energy in the air, sensors and satellites could only spot me through the use of various forms of radar, radio waves and other things like that.
Alright, I think I can do this. It isn't a large scale use of the Psychokinetic power, more like a control based one. All around me I can see the energy moving, light, heat, radiation, things that I can't readily identify but which I instinctively can understand. I can see them passing around be, seeping into me, bouncing off me, scattering against me, all the myriad of ways that energy interacts with matter every second of every day.
Reaching out with my will I . . . curve it, guide it. Rather than interacting with me the various streams and waves of energy divert around me and then proceed on as though nothing had happened. It was an idea inspired by all the sci-fi shows I'd ever seen where invisibility was explained away as the 'bending' of light around an object. Right now I was doing just that, only I wasn't just doing it to light, I was doing it to everything.
It was incredible; I could keep track of it all, even though this was the sort of problem that would choke a supercomputer to death. All that energy was being flawlessly redirected and controlled to avoid interruptions or collisions.
Alright, now I had at least some sort of stealth ability. I wasn't too sure how well it would hold up against Thinkers specialized Tinkertech sensors, but for the time being it was the best that I could manage and so would have to do.
Okay, now I at least had a chance of being able to do this without setting off a panic, now the question was where to actually do it?
Dropping into some random town did have the advantage that I was unlikely to run into any major opposition should my cloaking be breeched. On the other hand if I went somewhere of greater significance, like Washington or New York, then I might be able to gather more information. I could probably also get a look at some parahumans, if my Shaper senses had the range and accuracy I thought they had. Them maybe-
No! That was greed talking there. I had to play this smart, at least for the time being. I'll aim for somewhere small, all I need is a date for the time being, I can worry about other opportunities later.
I slowly descend, being careful to maintain the cocoon of flowing energy that renders me invisible. I lower myself at a careful rate and do my best to avoid clouds. After all there's hardly any point in what I'm doing if I leave a vapour trail behind me or punch a hole in some clouds.
Alright, I don't know too much about American geography, but I'm pretty sure that New York is right about . . . there. Not a good place to go to, and Washington is somewhere south of it I think. In that case I'll go somewhere further north. Not a major city, as small town would be ideal.
Nope, too big.
Again, too big.
Still, too big.
Blast it; do Americans only know how to build bloody cities? Haven't any of them ever heard of the concept of towns? Alright, maybe I'm being a bit unreasonable, but it's still irritating that I can only find cities from up here.
Fine then, that one there will have to do. It's still a city, but it seems smaller than some of the others, though I admit that even with my new senses at this distance I'm not too much of a judge as to just what size it really is.
Damn it, this isn't how it is for the others that have played Worm CYOA, all of them could perfectly control their powers right off the bat. Well, most of them anyway. And they certainly didn't have this whole issue with getting new senses that were bloody hard to make into a coherent picture. If I ever found that R.O.B. that stuck me here I'm going to kick them in the nuts.
. . . On the other hand, given that they can apparently twist reality like cheap play dough; maybe it would be a good idea to thank them politely and then run away. Terribly fast.
Okay, enough of that. I'm about two hundred metres or so from ground level and hovering over some sort of shopping district. There's a mall over there, or at least it think it's a mall anyway. So somewhere near here there should be . . .
Ah.
Some things are utterly universal, namely that wherever there is somewhere where commercialism thrives there will also be a corner shop selling snack, drinks and newspapers. And wherever there is such a place there will always be a nearby rubbish bin with a discarded newspaper in it.
One telekinetic pull later it was in my hand and as invisible as the rest of me. I pause for a moment, the simple act of holding it reminding me of just how much I had grown. The newspaper is held by the fingers of my second right hand as though it were a very thin note book, one of those small one at that.
Well, time to get the details I need. Carefully focusing upon the front page I try to read it.
Such a simple thing, but now it poses something of a challenge. I can sense the ink on the paper; tell the different molecular composition of the print from the paper it's printed upon. I can even 'see' the difference in the light that being reflected offs the page, where the black ink is absorbing colour and the dirty white paper is reflecting it. The problem was lining up that perception so that I could actually understand it.
With the paper in hand I carefully ascend once more. Before long I'm just below the clouds and can turn my attention back to the newspaper.
Alright, I'm pretty sure I've got tit hr right way round and the right way up, so that's the front page. I can sense a large print at the top, so that's either the name of the paper or the headline. Narrowing my focus I try to recognize the shape of the first letter. In theory this should be easy, but it's like trying to determine the shape of a wooden carving from its taste. I was getting something, but it was the devils own task interpreting it.
It was . . . two blobs of dark with dots of reflected light in the middle. Two . . . circles? Was it an eight? No, the blobs weren't completely circular, one end was flattened, a line. So not the numeral eight, it was a capital 'B' instead.
So that was 'B', the next one was a similar sought of blob with some white in it, but below it were . . . two lines? One went down and the other, I focussed harder, yes, it went at an angle. So it was . . . an 'R'? Yes, that was it, a capital 'R'.
It was getting easier now as I grew more familiar with what I was doing. The next one was simply a large round blob with a white space in it, an 'O'. Then there's a single curved line that almost forms a circle, but which has a break in it, a 'C' I'm pretty sure. The next was all lines, and for a moment it was a bit hard to get a handle on, but after a bit of puzzling I realized it was a 'K'.
'B' 'R' 'O' 'C' 'K', it's all coming easier now as I get the hang of it. Letters form faster and the word is followed by another, and another.
Then I realize what I've just read.
BROCKTON BAY DAILY
Brockton Bay . . . I was in Brockton Bay?
I was in Brockton Bay?
I was in Brockton Bay!
All the alarms in my mind go off at once as I try to think of just how this can go wrong. Frantically I try to find the date, but my distress has disrupted my focus and I can't make the lines and curves make sense.
Damn it! I needed to know, NOW! I metaphorically glare down at the page as though I can wring the information I need form through sheer willpower.
As it turns out, that wasn't a good idea, not when I really can force the world to accede to my wishes.
As narrowed my attention onto the numbers that refuse to make sense I became aware of a point of heat blossoming from the place I was focussing my attention. The processed plant matter that made up the paper underwent chemical reactions as the temperature rose and-
If I were capable of speaking I would have been cursing up quite the blue streak as I telekinetically ripped the front page off the newspaper before the rest of it could catch fire. As the burning page drifted away in the wind I tried to take a hold of myself and let go of the urgency and impatience that was gnawing at me.
Okay, take it easy. The next page is a bit soot marked, judging from the remnants of burnt paper I can feel on it, but it's otherwise unmarred. Now I can make out the newspaper's name at the top, 'Brockton Bay News' is up there in the top corner along with some more curves and lines that I'm guessing are the date.
The first digit is easy, it's a circular blob with some white in the middle, very much like an 'O', so that must be a zero. The next one is harder though, a sort of curve that seems to feed into itself . . .
0 . . . and a 6?
06 dot and then a straight vertical line.
06.1 . . . 7.
06.17.20 . . . 05?
Was I reading that right? What kind of month was 17? Oh, hang on a mo', in America when you wrote the date you put the month before the day. So that meant the date was the seventeenth of June . . . in 2005?!
Bloody hellfire, the main story didn't start until April 2011. I'd arrived more than five years ahead of Taylor becoming Skitter. Right now the future warlord queen of Brockton Bay was nine or ten years old and still pretending to be Alexandria by running around with a bed sheet tied round her neck as a cape.
Right, don't panic, that was the important part. Okay, deep breaths . . . oh, right, I didn't breath anymore, was that a reason to panic? No, calm, that's what I need, calm and rational.
Calm . . .
. . .
. . . Am I calm?
Yes, alright, I'm back on track. I wonder if it's Invictus that's letting me keep ahold of myself so well. I mean, I can say without boasting that I'm a pretty together guy, one of those types that doesn't get flustered or stressed too easily. That said what I was going through right now would have been enough to give even the most easy going fellow in the world a nervous breakdown. The fact that I wasn't at the bottom of the sea curled up into a tight little ball of denial and panic was a good indicator that there was at least something going on in my upstairs wiring.
Actually that made a certain level of sense. Whatever R.O.B. had turned me into an inhuman creature and given me the kind of power needed to bring nations to their knees had also given me the ability to control and handle those powers. It made sense that they'd also give me something like the 'Gamer's Mind' to ensure that I could actually function after what had happened to me. after all, a fic is hardly too much fun to read if all the main character does is metaphorically hide in a corner and suck his thumb.
Okay, enough introspection. I knew the date, now . . . how did that help me?
Well, while I hadn't memorized the entire thing I had spent some time going over the Worm timeline in preparation for a fic I might write. Now if I could just remember what I'd read I could . . .
Like a shoot rising from soil the memory of my computer screen with the timeline on it rose up in my mind. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than it had been when I was my old self.
Useful.
Now, let's see. 2005 was a year I remembered as significant. It was the year that Riley was 'recruited' into the Slaughterhouse Nine by Jack as well as the year that Leviathan sunk Newfoundland. That had been . . . just over a month ago, so that meant Dragon would soon be making her debut as a hero, if she hadn't already.
Was there anything else that happened this year? Uuuhh, I think Legend marries his boyfriend. Sweet, but not something that's too relevant to the 'plot', at least not in a big way. There was something else though, something important . . .
AH HA! Now I remembered. After 2005 the activities of the Endbringers hadn't been as clearly documented as they had been before, but there had been one thing that had been clearly stated. During 2005 the Simurgh had killed the wife and daughters of Alan . . . whatshisname, Sphere, the fellow that ends up going completely nuts and remaking himself into Mannequin.
Alright, I now know when I am, that just leaves me with the question of what I'm going to do now that I know it.
Well, the first and most obvious option it to fight the other Endbringers, that is kind of what I'll have to do anyway; the Sibling Rivalry complication guarantees it. The question is, do I want to?
The Endbringers are something I can fight. If the descriptions of the powers I've received are anything to go by then I'm stronger than any of them, but that doesn't ensure my victory. The full limit of their power was never really touched upon except for right at the end when they helped against Scion, and even then it's a bit hard to get a proper handle on what they could do given that he could essentially no-sell even them.
Leviathan and Behemoth were dangerous, among the few beings in the world that could defeat of even seriously wound me if I was careless, but I'm pretty sure I could take either of them on if I had to. The Simurgh though, she was the game changer. Her ridiculously strong telekinesis and her ability to tap into Tinkers in order to build whatever she needed was bad enough, but when you combined it with her postcognition and prescience made her a nightmare to fight under the best of times. Being an Endbringer made me a blank spot to many oracles and Thinkers, but I was pretty sure that the Ziz wouldn't be so blinkered, given that she wasn't a Shard.
Damn it, why hadn't I taken Blank, that would be making my life so much easier right now!
Wait, I might be able to counter her using Emperor of Man. I'm pretty sure there are a number of psyker techniques that could occlude one from scryers and oracles, if I could use those . . .
The problem was that if I did fight them they'd be going at it full boar, and if they did then even if I won the fallout would be catastrophic at best. And of course there was the other side of it. If I managed to destroy one of them then if things went the canon way it would only give rise to three more threats of equal power. If I kept on killing them, and I worked on the assumption that every time I killed one three more would emerge, then by the time I'd killed six of them all the remaining fourteen of the original twenty would be active.
Bloody hell, even if I did my best I think human civilization would be torn to shreds before I could put them all down. Not to mention how many millions or even billions would die into the bargain.
So no, actually destroying the Endbringers would do more damage than good. Hell, if you looked at it from a certain perspective the Endbringers were almost as much a blessing as they were a curse. They might cause enormous damage and innumerable deaths, but their presence kept the balance of the parahumans from going too far out of control. As long as they were about and a threat to everyone all the villains, except for crazies like the Slaughterhouse Nine, would only push things so far. If you took them out of the equation then the hopelessly outnumbered heroes would find themselves up against loads of less ethical parahumans that no longer had so much of a reason to follow the unwritten rules.
Alright, that meant that simply charging the other Endbringers full tilt was not an acceptable option. And that wasn't even counting the existence of my Nemesis Endbringer.
Damn it.
Alright, what could I do?
My first idea is to drop straight back into Brockton Bay, find Taylor and play guardian angel to her. Granted that would lead to some complications, but I'm pretty sure that with the powers of Emperor of Man I could force her through a Trigger event, then erase the trauma from her memories so it wouldn't effect her. Presto, one young Skitter without all the emotional baggage ready and able to take up a heroic role . . .
And then I'd have a couple hundred other butterfly effects, not to mention that if I was hanging out at the Bay then it would become a prime target for the other Endbringers if they follow through on the Sibling Rivalry complication.
My next idea is to simply get in contact with Dragon and ask her to help. Even though she was an A.I. creation of a slightly unstable Tinker she was still probably the sanest and most well intentioned person in the Wormverse. Hell, if I took Saint out of the equation-
If I took Saint out of the equation then she'd never experience her Trigger event and would be far more limited in what she could do. I suppose I could wait until afterwards . . . and then I'd end up making Dragon a target for everyone that thought she could control an Endbringer. I could just see Cauldron sending Contessa to take control of her. And even if that didn't happen there were the other Endbringers to think about. If I allied myself too closely with anyone the Simurgh might well end up paying them a personal visit. The notion of Dragon unleashed and mind fucked by the giant winged troll was frankly horrifying.
Alright then, for the time being at least gaining allies didn't seem to be on the cards. Maybe I could work on it later, but for the time being it wasn't something I could safely do.
That meant I was on my own.
Of course, I didn't have to be. Between Shaper and the knowledge I could feel swimming around in my mind thanks to the Emperor of Man it wouldn't be at all difficult to create a totally loyal army superhuman Ultramarines. Hell, why stop with Ultramarines? With Shaper and Emperor of Man I can create all kinds of things, recreate the Zerg with a Tyrannid enhancement, entire bio-cities, even constructing false kaiju wasn't beyond my means at this point.
No, it's a beguiling idea, but I can't afford to take such drastic steps right off the bat. If I do then First Impressions perk or no they'll declare me the unholy spawn of Nilbog and the Simurgh and launch every nuke in the world at wherever I'm working, most likely immediately followed by an attack by every cape will into volunteer as well as a few that'll be press ganged into the whole mess.
I have to take this carefully; I need to get my priorities completely in order.
Okay, what is it that I need?
Well, the basics of food, water and shelter don't really apply to me anymore. Companionship of some sort would be nice in the future, but I think it'll be a while before I have to start worrying about loneliness eating away at my sanity. At this point the notion of me needing wealth was laughable in its absurdity.
No, the thing hat I needed most right now was practice.
The powers I had were enormous, but the control I had over them was suspect at best. What I really needed was a chance to practice them on a scale appropriate to their potential, but at the same time it had to be done somewhere where a mistake of a loss of concentration wouldn't immediately result in a huge loss of life.
And there was the matter of first appearances. I was an Endbringer, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to hide that fact. The nature of my powers was a pretty good give away, but the 'blank spot' I occupied in regards to Thinkers was the real damning ability. As far as I know the only other beings that share such qualities are Eidolon and Scion, and since I'm obviously not human, even vaguely so, that mean I'd straight away be pegged as an Endbringer.
And since I didn't want to fight off hordes of misguided but well intentioned capes I was going to have to do something to counter my bad PR. I had to do something big and unmistakably benign on my first appearance to cement in the minds of the world that I wasn't the same as the other Endbringers.
The problem was that to do that I needed practice, and to get the practice I had to ensure I wasn't going to be attacked the instant I appeared. It was a problem without a solution, that's what it was.
No! I couldn't think like that, there had to be some way out of it. Every problem has to have a solution, that's a basic law of the universe. Granted sometimes the solutions only lead to more problems of their own, but even so those problems can be dealt with in turn.
I could destroy the Slaughterhouse Nine, that would certainly earn me some good PR. the problem would be finding them and then dealing with them once I did, I'm pretty sure I can take them all, but the Siberian is one of the few cape powers that's actually a threat to me and I don't know if Bonesaw has started seeding plagues to go off if anything happens to her or Jack yet. Then there's the fact that Jack himself is damnably slippery and might well be able to manipulate the local parahumans of wherever he is into attacking me while he makes a run for it.
All of that is stuff I'm pretty sure I can handle, but not until I have a better grasp on my own powers. As things stand I might use a power on the Siberian and accidentally trigger a small atomic explosion. Granted, it's unlikely, but it is a possibility. Then there's the chance of Bonesaw getting hold of something I create with the Shaper and twisting it to her own ends, that could go so bad so fast that it wouldn't even start as a B class threat, it would begin at A class and only get worse from there.
The simple fact was that until I could get some practice to get the hang of my powers I was best served by steering clear of any major conflict.
I know that in most Worm CYOA stories the main character establishes the reputation by curb stomping some big name, usually poor Lung, but as an Endbringer I already had an established reputation, that was the problem.
What I needed was to completely subvert the Endbringer reputation for mass destruction. I needed to do something creative, but at the same time something that couldn't be misconstrued as anything other than benign. The question was 'what' though.
Maybe I could bring life to the great wastes of Africa and Asia? That wouldn't be too hard, all I'd need to do is alter some existing plant life to thrive in the conditions and then build up some life forms to form the basis of a new eco-system. Once life was established other creatures would come and fill the necessary niches of predators and grazers. The weather conditions might remain a problem, but I'm pretty sure I could work around that with the Shaper to create plants that gathered and processed the natural moisture in the air.
The only problem was that once I get started someone's bound to say something like; 'Ahhh, the new Endbringer is doing something! Quick, drop every nuke we've got on it before it can finish and kill us all! Never mind that what it's doing looks like a good thing, that's probably just a trick!'. Then it's boom boom out go the lights and I'm back to square one only now I've got an undeserved reputation as some sort of master planner on par with the Simurgh.
I need something eye-catching, something that will make people hesitate to push the metaphorical button of doom. It also has to be something that will capture the imagination of the general populous enough that they'll be willing to give me a chance despite what it is that I am.
. . . Ah.
Ahhh!
Yes, that would work. It had just the right note to it, revival, redemption and reputation all in one. It'll also be big enough to make the whole world sit up and pay attention as well as giving me ample opportunity to test out and practice with my new powers.
Letting the pages of the newspaper fall from my fingers I once more ascend up into the sky. At this time I didn't have to worry about tinkertech enhanced satellites, not yet anyway given that Dragon was only just starting out. Warping the lines of energy about myself is more than enough to keep me concealed.
Up and up I go, until the whole world is spread out beneath me like a huge map. I can't see it, not in the way I could when I was a human, but my practice with reading has yielded some results. I can feel the light being reflected of the world below me, and I can tell it apart enough that the differences form shapes in my mind, the familiar shapes of continents and countries. It'll take some practice, but in the end I think I'll be able to regain at least an approximation of my lost senses.
I dismiss such thoughts as a familiar shape forms from the welter of information flowing into my mind. There, that's my target. It's still quite a ways off, but the earth is turning beneath me, and as I isolate myself from its gravity I can feel the world unrolling as it passes.
My target is growing closer to me with every passing second, and that only speeds up as I use my power to fly towards it. Of course, it's still quite a distance away, but that will soon change.
Time to start playing this game that I find myself trapped in, but if I do have to play it then I intend to win.
