Chapter 10: The Next Adventure

Sean looked at the tablet to make sure he read it right.

Loading additional Supplements…

Standby…

He had expected to see what the next Jump was going to be so he and Ava could start planning. Instead he would have to wait until the system finished loading in the new Supplements. And wasn't that a surprise, only one jump in and he's getting more supplements.

Ava read the words over his shoulder, "What do you think they'll be?" He had long since gone through all of the intricacies of the Chain that he could remember with her.

"I don't know," Sean scratched his chin in thought, "Before I left there were likely hundreds of different Supplements, and plenty more that overlapped or did the same things. But with the Multiverse in play who knows how many there are."

The tablet beeped and the words continued scrolling.

Loading The Shipyard…

Reading the description Sean explained, "This looks like a place for any spaceships we get. It comes with maintenance and refueling facilities, so it's like the garage that came with the Fortress but for space vehicles."

"I take it that means we're going somewhere that we would need that. A Sci-Fi Jump of some sort?" Ava tried to reason why they would get the Shipyard now instead of later. It didn't really make sense if they were going to a medieval setting next.

Loading Jump Gacha…

As the information for the next supplement started to scroll up the screen, they both turned when they heard a slight thump. Sitting between the stairs and the door to the kitchen was what looked like a stereotypical gacha machine, only on steroids.

It was a dull red color with yellow words all over it in a multitude of languages, proudly declaring it the "JUMP GACHA!". The machine was as tall as Sean and had one large container at the top where the prizes would usually be. Instead of the capsules one would expect to see, there seemed to be a void contained within. Every now and then a shape would form out of the void, all of them were abstract and hurt to look at for too long.

While Sean was looking at the machine Ava took the tablet and read the description, "After every Jump you get one Gacha Token, though you can buy more with five hundred CP. It randomly picks a perk or item from any of the available Jumps and you get the option to accept or refuse. You can also pass it on to a companion if you don't want it."

Once she had started talking Sean brought his attention back to her, "Interesting. So a random chance draw, could be fun. There's a lot of Jumps out there though, could get anything from a rock to an absolutely OP perk. I'll spin it later." They looked back at the tablet.

Loading Notice Board…

This supplement was a little different. During each Jump 'jobs' would be created and posted to the board sitting next to the main entry. If they accomplished any of these jobs then they would garner the reward listed, most of them were small (5cp-20cp) but others could get them perks from other Jumps as well.

Sean was a little worried about where these jobs would come from. He was reminded uncomfortably about the system mentioning the omnipotent beings that may be watching his chain. If they started making requests and he didn't follow through, then what would happen. Before they MCU he didn't really care if things ended because everything was extra time.

Now though he had dragged Ava into it, too. She had brought him out of his shell more than he realised until it was too late. If anything he did caused her to be hurt, or taken from him, he would not be a happy camper.

He read through the description several more times. "Fortunately it doesn't look like there's any penalty for not doing them, in case we get ones we don't want to do. Like kill the President in a Jump where he's not evil or something," Sean observed.

His wife had a thought, "This might be a good way for you to build up the bank for your Double or Nothing rollover, though I wonder if this changes the limit or not." Nodding in agreement he looked back at the tablet.

All Supplements Loaded…

Loading Jump Document…

Mass Effect Jump Document Loaded…

Countdown until Force Start of next Jump: 30 days, 23 hours, 15 minutes…

Make selections when ready…

"Nice, it gives us a month before we have to Jump. We can unwind between Jumps and brush up on the next setting," Sean said while he put the tablet back down. "I know Mass Effect pretty well, but it'd be best to go through it again."

Ava agreed and they retreated to the living room to play video games, in the name of researching their next destination of course. Sean could admit to himself that sharing one of his favorite franchises with his favorite girl was an exciting prospect.

When they first met he never would have guessed that she would be into games and stuff. It turns out that when Ava wasn't training, being experimented on, or working she was pretty much left to her own devices in a room that may as well have been a cell. Books, TV, movies, and games were a way for her to forget her circumstances for a while.

Sure they had differing interests, but most of their dates ended up with them cuddled on the couch enjoying some form of entertainment. That's part of the reason she was so eager when she collected media. Sean hadn't really thought about anything outside of what he recognized or was interested in, but like he said with the Multiverse in play you can never really know.

Ava had decided to grab pretty much everything though. Their libraries were full of different languages and everything from big budget to indy published. Anything she could get her hands on old or new, even for systems that lasted less than a year. If she could find it, they had it.

It was just another reason he loved her.

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They enjoyed having a month to relax and put the MCU behind them. It would always be a part of who they were, but getting hung up on the past wouldn't do them any favors. The memories they now had, good and bad, would help them going forward.

Sean eventually remembered to spin the Gacha and wasn't particularly excited with the result:

Close Your Eyes (Inception) - You find it's surprisingly easy for you to fall asleep. Even in situations that are noisy, distracting or otherwise uncomfortable, you'll be able to just close your eyes and drift off to dreamland. Just be careful about drinking before you go under…

It wasn't a very useful perk right now, but he accepted it anyway. At the least he wouldn't need to worry about insomnia anymore, and it could help if they ended up in a Jump like Inception that used sleeping as a mechanism for something. Nightmare on Elm Street came to mind, as did WoW and a couple of others.

During their time off they also ran through the whole Mass Effect trilogy, even Andromeda thought it wasn't considered part of the Jump. It was a good opportunity to brush up on the characters and events they would be dealing with. According to the Jump Document they would be arriving two years before the beginning of the first game. There would be ample time to make any preparations they wanted.

One of the things they decided while strategizing was that they didn't want to just be part of Shepard's story. The Document had a drawback called Shepard's Flock which would guarantee that they became a part of his/her adventures. Instead they wanted to make their own way.

Sean also used this time to continue his work on the massive amount of tech and bio samples they had on hand. The storage rooms were starting to look like hangars with how big each separate one was getting. He had decided to merge all of his quarantines into one so that there was less to worry about.

Thanks to the Vibranium they got from Wakanda and the build up from his supply box he was able to finally put his drones together. It took him a while to settle on a design for them, but in the end went with a basic bipedal frame. They weren't anything special, but they came in two main variants.

There were the 'Workers' that were designed to do the heavy lifting. These drones were of similar design to Ivan Vanko's originals, just slimmed down a little and upgraded a bunch. All of their additional hardware was designed to help in different tasks. They had welders, clamps, lasers, and so on.

He had 'Guards' that looked almost identical to Vanko's, but all a uniform type and using more advanced weaponry. Each of them had a large repulsor cannon over one shoulder and a missile launcher on the other. All through their body were weapons ready to pop out at a second's notice, similar to War Machine's original refit. They were also equipped with basic shielding on top of their Vibranium alloy casing.

If he needed to, Sean could always design a few more specialized units for certain jobs. As it stood he had a hundred of each drone and that should be plenty for the moment. Now that he knows he's going to Mass Effect, he should be able to upgrade them even further.

Next was the biological samples that he had. The MCU was full of people with interesting blood and Sean had gotten his hands on several samples. Each of the members of Thanos' Black Order were a different species, then there was the Mad Titan himself, the Kree body from Shield, Asgardian blood from his parents and brother, Jotun blood from his other brother, and a whole slew of human and inhuman blood from powered people.

He had managed to give Ava a basic booster that brought her up to just over Cap's level and included the Extremis Virus. She could now generate and use fire like him, but hers didn't have the mystical properties. From the rest he was experimenting on splicing things together for different results, but neither of them were very keen on changing themselves too much. The Chain was already going to have them become various races so they didn't see the need to rush it.

Ava and him had decided to put the magic off until they either had an abundance of free time or ended up in a situation where they needed it. For Mass Effect they weren't too concerned. They knew the whole plot and would have a two year head start. In the worst case scenario they could find a remote planet or moon and hide from the Reapers. They could even just launch a ship in a random direction and live out of the Fortress.

During this time Ava wasn't idle either. She didn't have the benefit of Blessing of the Gods to speed up her learning and comprehension, but she was determined not to be left behind. While Sean was working on his projects she spent time on the mainframe studying anything she could get her hands on.

It was made patently obvious that she got her brains from her father because it didn't take her long to grasp a subject when she focused on it. She wasn't a genius, but she would easily have made it into MIT or a similar school if she had tried. Her interest lay mainly in the more social sciences, things Sean had never been good at or very interested in. Psychology, economics, politics, and several others were learned at a rapid pace.

Finally though they found themselves itching for the next adventure. So with a week still left on the clock they sat down and started making selections on the tablet. Before Sean even completed the thought a second tablet appeared for Ava to use with the Jump document open. His tablet showed that he spent 50cp to import her and hers showed she had 600cp to spend.

Due to the modified rules that his Chain used importing was a little different. The Auto-Chain worked to standardize what it could, so it made the import option universal for all Jumps. He could pay 50cp for one companion, this got them 600cp to use the same way he would (except for companions or drawbacks), or 200cp for 8 companions, again 600cp for each to spend.

That taken care of, they made their picks, both opting to go for a Drop-In this time. This made it so that people like the Shadow Broker and the Illusive Man (Ava had scoffed when she first heard his name of choice) wouldn't know about them. It would help them fly under the radar until they were ready to make their moves.

When it came to choosing a class they agreed to pick biotic classes. The Jump Document itself stated that other skills could be learned, and as far as tech and combat went that made sense, but biotics was as much biological as it was skill. It was far easier to grab it from the start then try to figure it out when they got there.

Sean went with the Adept class, deciding that he would prioritize his biotic skills and teach them to Ava. She on the other hand chose Vanguard, mostly because the up close nature of the class paired nicely with her intangibility. Both had chosen to stay human in this Jump, though Sean knew they wouldn't be able to keep doing so forever.

Ava's location roll put her on the Citadel, and with Sean rolling an 8 he could choose where to go. Obviously he chose to join his wife on the largest space station in the known galaxy. It was amusing when they rolled for their ages that Ava ended up 32 and Sean 30. With the way the Jump Chain worked, age didn't really matter since it reset each time, but Ava was happy to be 'older' this time.

When they got to perks they both took the discounted one for their class. Sean's Finesse gave him unparalleled control over his muscles. This helped with his biotics, but also increased his reaction times. Ava got Close the Distance, which boosted her close combat skills giving her better dodging in close fights.

Next they both took the Fearlessness perk. It would help them keep calm during stressful situations and, more importantly, gave them PTSD immunity. They both knew that sooner or later they would see or do things that might haunt them, so this was more of a proactive move than anything.

Ava wanted to save the rest of her points for items so Sean finished the perks alone. He took both Not a Stupid Grunt and Tongue of a Shepard. Grunt gave him knowledge and skill using the Mass Effect technology so he didn't have to try and figure it all out from scratch as well as what seemed to be a general boost to tech skills. Tongue made him more persuasive and encouraging, and given that the description mentioned he could get someone to kill themselves he asked Ava to stop him if ever he went too far.

For items they both got a basic Loadout for free, simple armor and weapons as well as an Omni-Tool. Sean's only other item was the Assistant VI, it wasn't a full AI but he figured with some work it could be damn close. Of course he named it Friday and gave it that Irish accent he so loved (second of course to Ava's). Tony had refused to let Sean have a copy of the original, no matter how hard he tried.

His wife on the other hand picked up the Elite Ordinance option, which gave them ten top tier weapons of their choice, and the Medi-Gel Kit. They didn't really need the Kit, but she had 50cp to spare and they weren't worried about money. Since the Kit came with instructions to make Medi-Gel it would eliminate the need to rely on others for it or figure it out themselves.

This left Sean with none of the 1400cp that he started with, the 200 he saved on the MCU doubling to 400 and rolling over. Fortunately there was one last section to choose from: Drawbacks. He chose to take the Bounty and No Takers options.

Bounty would send a stream of hunters after him, and each he killed would increase the bounty, but the Drawback said nothing about not being able to cancel the bounty. Worst case scenario he could just find out who placed it and kill them. A lot of drawbacks like this one specified that no matter what you did you couldn't avoid it, but this one didn't.

No Taker's on the other hand was a bit of a risk. It would make it so that any romantic or sexual advances he made would fail. Sean was counting on the fact that since he and Ava were already together that she might be exempt. Even if she wasn't, she was aware of the Drawback and was perfectly capable of making advances herself.

Those two brought him back up to 500cp so he banked it and finalised their choices. When the next Jump started he would have a cool 1000cp extra waiting for him. If he could keep it up and always bank more than the last time then it wouldn't take long to hit the cap.

Before he could start the next jump Ava pulled him upstairs to their room with a wink and a 'just in case'.

LINE BREAK

Both Ava and Sean came to awareness in a small passenger ship with the Citadel clearly visible out of the front window. All around them were other people, most looking like ordinary travelers. There was even a family with two children sitting behind them.

Since Sean wasn't sure if the Drop-In option provided any backstory he quickly opened his Omni-Tool to check. Fortunately it seemed that they both had the bare minimums of an identity. It was little more than a birth certificate each, and tickets for this ship, but it was there and that's what mattered.

Within a few minutes the ship had finished docking at the massive space station and they were all waved off. Once outside the couple worked their way through the line for customs with no problem since they literally had nothing but the clothes on their back at the moment.

They made their way to an unoccupied alley and ducked into the Fortress. Inside they found all of the gear they had selected, sadly they couldn't really make use of it yet since civilians carrying weapons was frowned upon.

Sean did install Friday into the mainframe of the Fortress though, he gave her instructions to settle in and organize all of the data on the server. That would make sure she was able to understand what they needed from her and also get everything into some semblance of order.

Meanwhile they exited back onto the Citadel and made their way down into the wards. First things first they needed money and somewhere out tof the way so Sean could work a little magic with his Omni-Tool. On the way to the nightclub called Flux Ava 'accidentally' bumped into a passing Turian and nicked a credit chit from him.

It wasn't loaded but they only needed a little bit of starting cash. When they entered the bar Ava headed towards one of the more isolated tables. They had originally thought to go to Chora's Den but in the end decided to go to the much cleaner Flux.

Once they sat down and Ava waved down a waitress for a couple of beers, Sean pulled up his Omni-Tool and got to work. Between his perks and the experience he gained in the MCU hacking the devices around them was incredibly easy. He started small, just a few credits here and there from everyone's accounts while also copying any data he could find.

He used the credits to establish accounts for both him and Ava, as well as a few dummy accounts, then spoofed an entire backstory for the both of them. It wasn't uncommon for people in the rural areas of Earth or some of the farther out colonies to have very little paperwork so he didn't need to go overboard.

Just basic schooling at very public institutions (places that see a lot of turnover), highschool level only since they didn't need to mess with university stuff. A couple of jobs doing a variety of things, mostly leaning towards security both physical and digital. And of course, a marriage certificate. The lives of Ava and Sean O'Connor now looked perfectly normal, albeit simple. He made sure though that both of them were licensed pilots for the next part of their plan.

When he finished that he skimmed through the data looking for anything interesting. Lo and behold one of their fellow patrons was a drug runner who was blowing off steam until it was time to meet his buyers. It was the work of moments to empty all of his accounts and holdings through a dozen dummies and fake companies to bring it all right back to Sean and Ava. With that he erased all his tracks and sent an evidence packet to C-Sec.

Citadel Security was the police force for the station, investigating crimes and dealing with any trouble that came up. He would leave it up to them to deal with this idiot. In the meantime he went back to reading data. Nothing else really stood out, he could probably blackmail half the people in the room but since most of them were just normal people he didn't feel the need.

Now that their accounts were much larger and they had a bit more data to go on it was time to move on. Finishing their beers the two paid and took their leave of the nightclub. A quick search of the extranet led them to the highest rated used ship salesman.

As they entered the shop Sean knew he was going to be annoyed. The owner was a Volus that somehow looked extremely greedy, even with his whole body covered.

"What can I do for you Earth-Clan?" The salesman asked as they approached him.

Sean forced a smile on his face, "Hi there, we're looking to buy a ship. Nothing big, as long as it flies and has a mass effect drive it should be fine."

The owner perked up, "Of course, of course Earth-Clan. I have the best used ships on the Citadel. Let me show you what I have available." The...man?...led them to a counter with a terminal on it.

He entered a few commands then turned the screen to them, "These are all the ships I have available, as you can see I have several large freighters for excellent prices."

Sean ignored the recommendation and scrolled through the list, finally near the bottom he found one he liked. It was a Kowloon-Class Freighter, but only had one passenger module attached. Most ships of that class had multiple modules for cargo and passengers. However they only needed a ship to get them to their destination.

"We'll take this one," Sean pointed it out to the owner. As he could tell the man was going to try to upsell them he continued, "Is it still available for that price?"

The Volus could clearly tell Sean was set so answered, "Yes it is. In fact it's flight ready, if you'll come into my office we can get everything taken care of."

Two hours of paperwork later and they left the shop several thousand credits lighter, but the owners of their very own ship. They made a bee-line for the dock the Volus gave them directions to and got the first look at their new vessel. The newly named MSV Frigga was a squat little ship with barely any armor and no weapons.

Once they were onboard, they checked for any unwanted devices. Sean managed to find a couple of trackers and one device that would sabotage their engines on a remote trigger. It seemed that the Volus was selling his ships and customers to pirates as well. Sean repeated his earlier actions with the drug runner, but made a point to tip off the Systems Alliance as well as sending the info to C-Sec.

Once the couple's plans were in motion they would have more power and time to deal with this kind of scum personally, but for the time being it was best to pass it off to the authorities. If they didn't do anything about it then they'd find themselves a target too. Sean deactivated the tracker but kept it to see if he could reverse it and go after the pirates.

Sean hopped in the pilot's seat while Ava kept looking around. After a few minutes he got clearance to leave the station and headed towards the mass effect relay. It only took a few moments to chart a course into an uninhabited sector and with a flash of blue light they were off.

When they arrived Sean checked that they were as alone as possible before sending a mental command to his Fortress. A portal larger than he had ever made formed in front of him, the interior of his Shipyard visible through it. With careful motions he piloted the ship in and docked lightly, closing the portal behind him.

LINE BREAK

AN: Here we go! Off to Mass Effect!

The Shipyard is another of clifc999's on Spacebattles

Both the Jump Gacha and the Notice Board are of my own design, if someone else has posted something similar then I haven't seen it

The Mass Effect Jump Document is Quicksilver's work

So with the Notice Board I'm opening it up to reader interaction, if you guys have a task/job in the current Jump feel free to suggest it and a reward. I may or may not do it, and I may modify it, but I'll give credit where it's due. Rewards can be pretty much anything you can think of, doesn't have to be CP or perks.

Same goes for the Gacha, if you have an idea for something that might popup I'll put it in my ever expanding list to roll on. I'm trying to keep it balanced though so feel free to suggest stuff that's weird or practically useless as well as cool stuff.

As always let me know what you think!