AN: Yo this was posted with my worm snips a while back but I deleted it because while I assume it would eventually be a worm cross at some point if I ever got around to writing it full out it's clearly not at this point. Basic concept was to take a magic the gathering set up, make a young brat a planes walker and have her abduct me on that old joking theory that authors get their inspiration because we can sort of pierce the multiverse to get our inspiration. And if you were a planes walker wouldn't you want someone that could direct your jumps at cool things instead of always wandering at random? sort of a jump chain SI but instead of being super cool and powerful the SI is really just along for the ride scrounging whatever bits and pieces of power and skill they can scrounge so they'll die less often. kind of a fun concept and I think every author wants to write an SI at least once but I don't think I'd ever write this full out.
Why am I tossing it back up in this thread? Honestly just felt like it. And I kind of hope someone might get inspired and launch a new trend of SI fics that have a similar theme to them. I really hate the usual brand of SI's and I'd like to see some authors willing to poke fun at themselves while they fantasize about living their own adventure. I know I know. It'll never happen people don't actually accept writing challenges or prompts. The lack of adopted stories from my, or anyone else's, snippet threads sends the message pretty clearly, but a guy can dream.
Random Omnipotent Brat
I sat and stared at my computer screen but the almost blank page seemed to taunt me. It had been so long since I had touched any of my old ideas. I still wanted to continue them, But I was out of practice out of the right mindset, and writers block was hitting me almost like a physical force.
Part of me wanted to start with 'Company Girl' after all it was what I was most proud of. The story that I was convinced had my best writing so far. But it was also the most complex. The characters needed to be detailed and have depth that made the writing difficult. Jumping straight back into that level of writing was daunting. On the other hand, my one attempt at a Naruto story was something I held to much looser standards, but I'd gotten carried away with it and written myself into a bit of a corner. I also had dozens of Google docs with new ideas I'd come up with but only had time to write brief outlines for. I didn't really want to start another story though, I had too many unfinished stories already adding more didn't really appeal even if the ideas themselves did.
I tapped away absentmindedly at the glass surface of my computer desk. With a groan I leaned back in my chair and reached for my headphones hoping a bit of music might help me relax enough to finally start something. Before I could plug them in and bring up Pandora I was scared nearly out of my seat by a little girl appearing, seemingly from nowhere, over my bed.
"Who the hell are you?! And how the hell did you get in here!?" I shouted.
The girl barely spared me a glance before taking in my entire room. Under different circumstances I might have been embarrassed of the mess, but at the moment I was too concerned with the maybe thirteen year old girl. She had a slight build, short black hair, and dark brown eyes. She wore dark green pants and shirt with some kind of black leather jacket and boots. She seemed vaguely Asian in appearance and was maybe a bit under five foot. All in all, it looked like someone took an adorable preteen and dressed her up for a biker convention.
With a gasp of delight, she rolled off of my bed down onto the floor and started looking through my bookshelf putting the bed between us, for which I was honestly a bit grateful.
She glanced from title to title getting more and more excited, then she noticed other books strewn across various surfaces around the room and went on to inspect those as well without actually stopping to so much as read the descriptions on the back. She deftly stepped over and around a few articles of clothing and some extra blankets that had collected on my floor.
Finally, with a giggle she spun to face me and noticed the computer behind me. With a gasp she bounced forward and looked over my shoulder at the handful of paragraphs I'd written months ago and made little progress on over the past few hours.
"Your perfect!" She declared proudly while patting me on the head.
"What the fu-uuudge are you talking about?!" I barely managed to avoid swearing at the kid. It was a very, very near thing.
"I've been looking for a Plane like this for months now! Gideon described one like this to me and explained about how you people have such boring lives that you can actually look through the Blind Eternities just to find things that are interesting to keep yourselves from becoming… umm I forget what word he used but I think he meant suuuuper boring like watching paint dry for entertainment boring, and there was something in the explanation about it being good for your soul's somehow that I didn't really pay attention to. And he found Jessica on a Plane like this and she's amazing because she's like a map and compass for the Blind Eternities which is awesome! Like you have no idea how awesome because blind jumps are kinda fun and all, but like most planes are sooooo boring! Like, 'oh we have goblins and dragons and a dozen wizardry types who are all old farts, and only one continent' and that's literally everything and it gets sooooo boring after a while. And then other planes are like 'Hi, I'm basically a dead hunk of rock floating in the infinite void of space, aren't I so sad and depressing!' And then there are some planes where everyone is just like "oh, we farm for a living, and pray to the spirits, and we watch out for this one man eating species of bird!"
She stopped talking for only a moment to blow a disgusted raspberry, as if the lack of other man eating creatures was some kind of personnel insult.
"But you! You're like her! You've got, well, not a Spark like me because the name is a lie. A Spark is like a bonfire. No, no that's not it, a bonfire is tiny, but a Spark is huge! Like a sun burning bright. But you've got the same feel she does! Like, like it's there, I can feel it but it's not nearly as intense and there's no heat! It's like the reflection of the moon on water! There are ripples that distort and the details don't shine through so well, but it's there!"
The words just fell out of her mouth in a river of noise. It all washed over me and I barely managed to ride it out to the end. The whole time she was just bouncing and beaming at me. Really there was only one thing to do.
"Right… so your crazy… crazy twelve year old girl, appearing out of nowhere in the bedroom of a guy in his twenties…The police are just going to love this, I can tell already." I rubbed at my forehead with both hands before reaching for my cell phone.
My cell chose that moment to fly off the desk and into the little girl's hand.
"Oh cool!" She cheered as she poked at it. "You can read on this thing to? Does it have a lot of stories? Are they any good? Oh cool, this Ruby girl fights with a scythe, that's not really an easy weapon, and what's a gun?"
"How the hell did you do that?!"
"Eh?" She blinked at me and tilted her head. "Just a little telekinesis. It's an easy trick, doesn't take much mana to use and it's handy. Not like I use my white mana for anything more important anyway. Boring color, and the people who use it are always harping on about order and laws, soooo boring. Useful if I feel like healing people though so that's something I suppose."
Telekinesis? Legit, there is no spoon, only not really because that was the Matrix so it doesn't count, telekinesis? I glanced at the incense stick I had burning on one side of my desk and briefly wondered if what should have been dessert sage had been swapped out for a hallucinogen… it was a nice theory except the room did in fact smell like sage, I didn't feel intoxicated or anything, and I most definitely was not tasting colors… so yeah that probably wasn't it… maybe…
I pinched my arm and felt it so… not a dream? Who was I kidding? None of my dreams had ever included smells before, and this was too clear, too many details jumped out that would normally be vague indistinct background.
The little girl hummed to herself as she poked at my phone then looked around the room before frowning.
"This isn't any good though you have lots of books but there aren't nearly enough here to keep me entertained even if we visit them all."
"Kid, give me the phone so I can call the police. I'm sure you can tell them all about whatever your talking about while they try to track down your family." I kept my voice nice and calm like I would when trying to reason with my younger little cousins. She was a bit past the age when I normally chose to talk like that, but she was acting crazy, so it couldn't hurt to try and sound like the perfectly reasonable adult.
"Don't be silly. My family are on some other Plane, and I haven't seen them since I was six. Never could find my way back." She frowned. "I really want to get back there someday though. We had the best dragons you know? They were leathery and warm and they had the coolest powers! They were telepathic and could teleport! How freaking cool is that! Teleporting dragons! Never in seven years have I found dragons that can bond with people and teleport!"
Ok so she is thirteen-ish, good to know. But wasn't she talking about…
"You mean the Pern series? You want me to believe you're from Pern?" I asked skeptically.
Her head snapped up to look at me faster than I could blink and the next moment she was in my face with this intense look in her eyes. My phone got tossed onto the bed and she grabbed me by the front of my shirt.
"You know about Pern!?"
"Ughhh." Now what the hell was wrong with her? Great I was playing into her delusions somehow, fantastic.
Gently I uncurled her finger from my shirt and moved around her to get to my bookcase scanning the shelves for a moment I pulled out what few books from the series I actually owned. Absently I made a mental note to collect some other books from the series the next time I went to a used book store. I passed her the copy of Dragonflight from across the bed and laid out the trilogy about the girl who wanted to be a Harper and had a way with firelizzards on the bed. What was that character's name again? Melony? I flipped one over to read the back. Menolly, well I was close.
"The Dragonriders of Pern, by Anne McCaffrey. Fantastic series, blurs the lines between fantasy and sci fi a lot towards the end. It's a cult classic, really not the best known series, but the people who do know about it love it. Kind of been tainted now though. She let her son kickstart his writing career by taking over the series after a couple of collaborations. I could never be bothered to read those though. As far as I'm concerned she'd already given the series the ending it deserved." I figured I'd humor the girl. And since she was distracted staring intently at the book cover I eased my hand over to grab my phone so I could finally call someone to come deal with her.
It jumped away from me into her hand, again. I groaned lightly but otherwise gave up on it for now. I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned back to frown at the girl. I really wanted to know how she kept doing that though.
She didn't even acknowledge me as she flipped through the book. She skipped dozens of pages at a time and mumbled under her breath. Most of it sounded like names of people and places. Finally, after a minute of her ignoring me she snapped the book shut.
"Right, we're going here!" She declared holding out the book with both hands. I gave her my best deadpan 'are you an idiot look'.
"Riiiight, that's it, time to call the cops. If you insist on hanging on to my cell I'll just use the house phone." I walked out of my room heading for the stupid old curly cord phone in the kitchen. I made it three steps before something hit me in the back and knocked me to the floor.
Then I started screaming.
It felt like I was being ripped and torn apart by steak knives made of ice. After a few moments the sensation ended and left me panting hard with a dull throbbing ache that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. I managed to roll over and looked up at the girl, she was guiding a sort of mist into a crystal necklace she had pulled from somewhere.
"Sorry about that." She said sounding not even slightly apologetic. "But I needed to anchor your soul to this otherwise I wouldn't be able to take you with me across the Blind Eternities." Which didn't really explain a single damn thing. "I guess I'll take you back home for now. Maybe I can track down Gideon and Jessica to explain things to you…" she trailed off tapping her chin. Then she shrugged and pulled out a dagger. "Don't worry we'll talk again soon!" She smiled and drove the dagger right into my chest.
For a moment I just stared blankly the pain not really registering past the weird ache I was still dealing with. Everything just started to fade out, and the last thing I saw was the crazy girl's way too cheerful smile.