PomPoko

Prologue: More than You Asked For

I was laying in bed next to my sleeping wife, reading fanfiction on my tablet when I heard the noise again. It was something between a wet 'plop' and a bone-cracking 'snap'. I was reminded of the noise an electric spark makes, but that wasn't quite it. I glanced over to Jenn, her head flopped to the side, soft breathing coming from her mouth. I got up quietly and walked to the other side of my bedroom where the nursery was. The twins lay sleeping side-by-side, hands held, breathing rhythmically. My heart warm, a smile played over my lips, and I walked away. A quick glance into the attached bathroom revealed nothing of interest. I set out for the great house-at-large, looking for the source of the disturbing 'plop-snap' still repeating itself endlessly.

As I entered the hall and strode toward the living room, passing both sleeping dogs and one of the cats, the sound intensified. I wondered why the dogs weren't up and barking, they had no tolerance for this level of shenanigans. I approached the computer armoire sitting nestled in the corner of the dining room, the screen alit. 'Curious', I thought, 'I could have sworn I turned that off.'. The faint glow of a miniscule green LED in the darkness surrounding it indicated that the speakers were powered on as well. The ever-present noise was emanating from them, I realized. I turned them off. The noise did not fade. Thoughts of a broken fan oscillating at frequencies that engineers never designed it for entered my mind, but a glance to the black case containing my computer belied that thought; it was not powered on, there were no LEDs lit and no tell-tale sound of exhaust.

'Wait… I thought. The screen was lit, and a had an image on it, but the computer was turned off...' As a computer technician of some skill, I wondered just what was going on here… I took a look at the screen, and the bottom fell out of my stomach. "Worm CYOA v3", cried bold lettering at the top.

"No." I said aloud. "Just fucking… No." ROB could go do a merry tap dance for all I was concerned, but I wasn't going to star in some kind of violent chuckle-fest for it. I tried to walk away and go back to bed, but my legs betrayed me and moved forward instead, seating me in the battered but disproportionately comfortable computer chair. I glared at the screen as it turned into an animated yellow smiley face, galling me as it winked. Sound poured from the unpowered speakers.

"Hi-ya, McGurk!" said a high-pitched and animated voice, "Are you ready to play the game?" it asked, a taunting note present. I frowned, my mind racing. Did it need consent? Would it go away if I refused it completely? "No such luck, McGurk!" it snapped out after reading my thoughts. I felt violated and afraid. Well… if it wasn't going away then I was going to get the best deal out of this as I possibly could. "THAT'S the spirit!" cried the smiley-face. "Let's start, shall we? First, you're going to pick your build, then you're going to go bye-bye for a while. Hopefully you'll be one of the entertaining ones… It's really disappointing when they die in less than a week. I've been having a run of bad luck with my pieces lately, which is why I picked you. I usually follow the path of least resistance with this game, picking the ones who actually want to go, but, you know, people willing to move to a crapsack deathworld besieged by invincible monsters and an alien God… powers or no… aren't generally the most sane or thoughtful bunch. I thought I would change it up this time and pick someone who's familiar with the genre, but who would never actually go. Someone who's content with his life, and doesn't want to leave. Maybe you'll be intelligent and motivated enough to survive… because if you do, I'll send you home at exactly the time you leave, with all of the powers, skills, knowledge, and abilities that you give yourself and pick up on Earth Bet."

My mind whirled furiously… I thought, and thought, and finally smiled. I still wasn't happy, but I could live with this. "Alright, I'll do it, but I have three conditions. First, if I die on Bet I want you to give my family enough wealth to be comfortable for the rest of their lives." I crossed my fingers and toes, praying that I wouldn't be summarily disintegrated for my hubris in trying to bargain with a God.

"Sure, McGurk," he said. "What else?" I let out a relieved breath.

"You have to let me pick fairly without locking out any of the CYOA choices, and don't negatively impact any random selections I might make. I promise that it will be more interesting to you that way," I said, hoping, praying.

The smiley face frowned so quickly that I almost didn't catch it, then chuckled. "I guess that's alright…" it said. "I was going to give you a little zinger, but you have me intrigued. Continue."

I smiled. Maybe I wasn't going to suffer a grisly death at the hands of some broken-minded punk with super powers or an eldrich abomination summoned by the inner desired of a frustrated egomaniac. "Lastly… I need you to not to interfere with what I do on Bet… I need to know that I can trust the knowledge from Worm, so I can get through this alive."

"I was already gonna do that, McGurk," said the omnipotent yellow graphic."Alright, no more blathering, time to make some choices. Make it interesting! I want to see if I can finally get one of you through this alive!" A dark chuckle emerged, and the visage of the silly yellow God slowly faded away, leaving a screen containing the Worm CYOA open in front of me.

'Difficulty level… well, my goal is to come back to my family, so no real choice there. I selected "God Mode". Let's see… I'll pick my disadvantages first, so that I'll have all of my points up-front to work with.' I quickly picked enough disadvantages to bring me up to 18 points. That should be enough for what I had in mind.

'Powers…' I considered. I was already fairly sure of what I needed to select for my plan. I had read a story a while back that had inspired me, and I intended to shamelessly copy the abilities of the character there. I made my first pick. 'Power Manipulation… 8 points. Steep price, but insanely useful.' I then picked my second power. 'Twins: Othala…. Gotta jailbreak this sucker, too, I need it to be able to grant powers permanently, and to be able to target myself.' I frowned, instinctively I knew that a one point jailbreak wouldn't let it do everything I wanted this power to do. I added another point to jailbreak and it felt "right". I then smiled. I had always been lucky when something came down to pure chance, so I decided to pick three wildcard powers. I already knew what perks Why? Some of those powers were more amazing than anything seen in worm, and you could get top notch powers at high levels for a measly 1 point… sometimes... I rolled the dice on the Superpower wiki, and got…

'Absolute Stamina, that sounds incredibly useful' I rolled for the power level… 'Power level… 8! Holy crap, that makes this a major Brute power! Without my intervention, the abilities of this powerset filled themselves in below it's title. I sat there, gawking, for a moment, this was amazing, I was effectively as un-killable as Alexandria, if not as strong or durable, and I would never need to sleep, eat, or drink again. That should make my goals easier to obtain. I smiled… Maybe I would keep getting lucky?

I rolled the dice again. 'Tanuki Physiology…? A changer power? Fuck, it's a permanent alteration to my physiology…' My default state is going to be an 8-foot tall man with a Tanuki tail and hair that stands up like fucking Tanuki ears… Also… I blushed. There was another well-known feature of Tanuki's that I would be getting, too, but I decided not to spend much time thinking about it for now. I guessed that the powers I would get along with this one depended on the power level I rolled. 'Come on Yahtzee!' I mentally cried as I rolled the dice… I rolled fucking 9! Powers filled themselves in below 'Tanuki Physiology'... Holy shit… Another Brute package, very high-ranked, with some Changer, Mover, and Striker on the side. The Suspended Animation power was incredibly interesting, too...

'Hot damn, just with the wildcard power's I was probably already Triumvirate-tier! How many points do I have remaining? Wait a second…' I glanced at my point count, it had gone up by two for some reason. I looked up at disadvantages and noticed "Case 53" there. I guess being forced into a non-human shape not of my choosing gave me a few extra points. Nice! I guess I would go with five wild-card powers instead of three. I didn't expect any more extra point, though, I was already at the maximum. I rolled the dice again.

'Existence Manipulation, what is that? The knowledge of it's properties filled the screen. "Bullshit!" I screamed out loud. Holy shit. Holy shit. Depending on what number I rolled this could be huge. It's basically the power to be a god. 'Come on suspiciously good luck!' I rolled. 'Then… I rolled a motherfucking ten. Holy shit, this power basically invalidates all of the other powers. I am basically going to be a god...' I waited, and the sub-powers filled themselves in. Holy shit, I wasn't wrong. The only hard-limit to this power is the range… for 15 cubic meters surrounding myself, I would basically control reality… A heady rush overcame me. Even though there wasn't much point to it, I guess, I decided to proceed with my build. Plans and all that…

'Roll!' I mentally yelled as a random page came up. 'Mobile Invulnerability! Awesome! That's the Juggernaut's power!' I rolled for power strength. 'Fucking 8! Holy shit, am I going to get any weak powers? That's what I thought I was getting into with the wildcard choices, a few weak powers that would hopefully synergize well with each-other that I could min-max. Instead I had attained something close to Godhood. I rolled my last power, and it felt like someone punched me in the guts. I had rolled the exact perfect power to compliment my original build idea. I didn't really have any true Thinker powers yet, and this one is exactly the right one that I need. If I can roll anything above a 4 for this power's strength level then it would have amazing synergy with my other powers.

'Ability intuition,' I thought, 'Half of Sylar's power from Heroes. The ability to understand any ability observed, and eventually take it to levels that the original user never dreamed of.' I rolled for strength, and started. Either I was the luckiest motherfucker alive, or ROB was pulling some shit. 'Level 10. I'm a fucking Thinker 10 on top of it all.' I thought. I would be able to effectively use my other powers at a much higher level as well, with this, making it a Trump power as well. I glanced at the sub-powers for this latest powerset. I could use this ability to teach others as well… so overpowered... Not to mention finding weaknesses in other powers.

I had asked ROB not to influence my random choices, hadn't I? I guess the dice come up with good rolls sometimes. It's in my favor, so I'm not going to complain. The chances of getting home without dying just shot through the roof. I smiled. Time to pick my perks, I already knew what I was going to pick, I had planned it from the beginning.

I selected Man of Mystery and Special Snowflake. I also rolled a companion for 1 point + disadvantages. I decided to make her a Case 53, since I was one as well. I took inspiration from my own appearance and decided to make her a tiny chibi Kitsune, since I was stuck being a Tanuki. I decided to take the Pint Sized and Wanted disadvantages as well, for a total of 7 points to spend. I gave her Ninja Magic and a jailbroken copy of Oni Lee's power, upgraded as far as I felt it could go for one point. I figured that it had worked well for me, so I rolled a Wildcard power for her as well. As expected, it was totally overpowered and completely bullshit.

'Weapon Manipulation, level 8. Holy shit, she basically has an unholy combination of Allfather and Miss Militia's power, combined with a complimentary Thinker power. She can effectively create any weapon, permanently. That's amazing, she is basically Triumvirate tier with that one power…

I guess Lady Luck is shining on my today. I got an insanely huge amount of mileage out of the wildcard powers, I expected something like a low-level shaker power and a healing factor or enhanced senses maybe, not all of this. I felt satisfied with the character I had built. With that feeling, a sense of power filled me and my body began to tear at itself, shifting and transforming… then everything went black.