Confusion. Confusion summed up James Orion's feelings rather well. He had read a lot of stories about the topic he had encountered but all of those stories had rather decisive protagonists that knew exactly what they were doing. Or were really good at taking in a situation quickly… like they already had 'Gamer's Mind' well before having the Gamer System.

Whereas for him, the whirlwind he had experienced of experiencing the… bullet time of his last moments on Earth. There had been one of the larger storms Britain had ever seen but he had a hospital appointment booked months in advance. And in fairness he had made it there safely, had his procedure done, an IV drip with medication, and had then started to make his way after enjoying a coffee.

And on the way back travelling down an A road time almost seemed to slow as the wind in one strong just made a large lorry tremble, clipping a swaying tree that cracked and fell… all so slowly directly into his windshield, shattered glass cutting into his face as a weighty trunk pummelled his skull against the headrest before ploughing through that too.

And then I was here, stood, unharmed, skull unbroken, in front of a massive block of black text that described the ludicrousness of my current situation.

Jumpchain:

Upon your death in your home universe your soul made its way into the Warehouse. Your place to reside between jumps. Survive your course through the Multiverse and be bestowed the ability to travel without limit. Back home to the moment of your death, or to a dimension of infinite food… whatever you wish.

For now, your first jump. The universe of Wall-E. Your goal is put Earth into a state so that it can be recolonized. Do not fear, Wall-E and EVE will ensure that people understand the ability to return you just have to make Earth as liveable as possible. Your task to leave this jump is to clean up Earth, sorting trash, restoring the long-lost recycling plants and restoring the deactivated army of Wall-E units in the aim to make Earth suitable for settlers to easily repopulate Earth. Plant life should be preserved, and the vast majority of recycled material should be left as building material.

Due to allowances on your first jump your CP budget has doubled, good luck jumper.

2000 CP

Back Grounds:

Drop-in: You have found yourself on the trash filled land of Earth. Humans fled several hundred years ago to…

That a fucking long list. James thought to himself. Looking down it is… daunting, truth be told. But looking at it and seeing options he could start to understand why so many of those fictions' protagonists seemed so confident. It was… reassuring to know he had a job to do and a list of options to go about completing it. Being a Gamer would probably be harder, he thought, to much choice with no real direction.

Humans are a pack animal after all. People enjoyed having something to do.

Problem solving time James thought to himself. Solving Earth's trash problem means that he has to be on Earth, so either the Drop-In or Probe option. Preferably the Drop-In option as becoming the Wall-E unit has clean up capabilities built in.

So, Drop-In becoming a Wall-E unit for his back ground and then onto perks and items. Looking down the list several stick out to him.

Robot Blueprints: Blueprints for every robot created in this verse. From the tiny Rem-E's to the gigantic Wall-A's to the countless cutting edge robots aboard the Axiom. Not only this but the blueprints contain the details the parts that make up the machines. Solar panels, advanced propulsion tech, or the deadly plasma cannons that fit into deceptively slim arms. These blueprints take the form useful to each form, a chip for a suitable robot port or a chip within your comfortable hover chair.

Note: These blueprints detail the robots and their make-up not what they are attached to. The capability to build AUTO does not give the capability to build the ship the AI is attached too.

(400 CP)

Repair Ward: The Axiom has been travelling for several human generations, no living human even remembers the green and blue pearl, only through stories of their great grandparents do they have an inkling. During this long voyage the many robots they have serving them have been damaged across this time period and the Repair Ward is where they go. This perk attaches such a ward to your Warehouse where you can send your robots, or yourself if you have a robotic alternate form, to be repaired.

(600 CP)

Plasma Cannon: The primary weapon of an EVE unit to aid them in their many ventures to find a place for humans to settle once more. To obliterating a tanker to gentling disconnecting a magnet the plasma cannon varies its output.

Somehow you have such a weapon attached to you despite never being designed in your robotic form or having never gone under the knife to have it installed in your fleshy body. Never the less you have it, let people know of you and your big gun.

Note: After first Jump, power limits are removed.

(200 CP)

Wall-E Transport: the transport is fairly large and was designed to get large groups of Wall-E units around the planet for their cleaning duties. Its large size and heavy armour make it serve particularly well as a shelter with a toughness to resist light to medium burst from a plasma cannon.

Miraculously, this truck seems to be still active and can be operated. It may not be the most stylish way to travel but it will get you across the planet without fail. With a set of tank treads, a large middle tire and two smaller metallic wheels for the truly difficult terrain it is a go anywhere machine.

(400 CP)

'Small' Garage: whilst not truly necessary, your Warehouse will store the truck regardless, the Transport Truck needs a place to stay. A 'small' garage fitted for four Transport Truck's and fitted with all the material to keep one tip top and completely at odds with the trash mountains based on its cleanliness.

Fits an area in your Warehouse to store and use the Transport Truck on this jump and future ones. Complete with all the material to repair a Truck from the brink of disintegration… if you have the knowledge to do it.

(600 CP)

GO-4: The little servant of the dreaded AUTO. And for all its desire to see evidence of Earth's continued habitability destroyed it has one of the coolest pieces of tech ever. The tractor beam. No, it doesn't involve outdated, archaic farming methods but instead is a small module capable of manoeuvring medium sized items like limited telekinesis. It can even stop a plasma cannon from firing by blocking the barrel.

You have it installed somehow despite never being designed in your robotic form or having never gone under the knife to have it installed in your fleshy body. Never the less you have it, let people know of you and your magicians' tricks, no wires involved here ladies, just some highly advanced gravity manipulation tech.

Note: After first Jump, power limits are removed.

(200 CP)

Built to last: Buddy you're a young man, hard man. Shoutin' in the street gonna take on the world someday. And whilst nowhere near as famous as that song yet what you can do is take some knocks. Taking a lot more punishment in all possible was. The rock on your back just a bit less heavy, the fire just slightly colder and the air just that smidge less toxic.

And whilst you won't be eating laser beams for breakfast, missile fire for lunch and mortar fare for dinner you will survive just a bit more than your fellows.

(400 CP)

Warehouse: You have the fantastical ability of a personal dimension tied to yourself that can be accessed using a key on a normal door, additions can be bought for the Warehouse.

(0 CP)

Companion Maker: For the future cost of 50 CP from a future Verse you can tie someone to your Jumpchain and have company to roam the Multiverse. They will not be given any CP and any Perks they wish for must be allocated to them.

(0 CP)

And those were just the most useful. The blueprints possibly the most useful as they removed the want for the many different robot companions there. A Wall-A would be very tempting when his goal was to clean up an entire planet, just two handled all the trash from the Axiom as its item description said.

But James moved on as even with the extra budget it put him 800 CP over his limit and thus onto the drawbacks.

Yoda Speech: Now, your speech impediment won't be nearly as bad as that. A robot can a massive amount of inflection into its one word. Well, its name. Hmmm, I wonder what other species can only speak its name on repeat.

(+200 CP)

Blown Fuse: Everything is just that bit more irritating. Trash piles that much more frustrating and the scope of your task irritates you with its immensity. Your anger grows that much more quickly and losing control over it could lead to you wasting time or even sabotaging yourself. Do be careful be angry enough and you could blow a fuse, they are hard to replace on Earth.

(+200 CP)

Lost and Found: the army of Wall-E's that lay deactivated on Earth and several of the recycling plants you will need to clean up Earth in any decent time frame are too hidden in the piles of trash. Instead of easily locating the army and breezing through the task you start with only one uncovered plant to dispose of trash and recycle the mountains to useful material. You must uncover the rest with only the strength of your own limbs.

Don't worry, they feature large, towering chimneys, a massive set of hangar doors for vehicles and a massive chute in the centre of the building.

(+400 CP)

James nodded as he looked upon the screen. The Wall-E universe worked as a first Jump especially without combatting AUTO and its minions. It was one massive cleaning project that was do-able because of the pointed-out helper army and facilities to process the trash cubes spat out.

The only thing would be if perks and drawbacks carried through jumps, there was quite obviously the staple Warehouse as the Repair Ward spoke of it and he presumably had access to that even if the Jumpchain menu didn't exactly state how.

Taking a deep breath in this white space he pressed down on the complete button and instantly felt himself be whisked away.

-o—O—o-

Robot eyes were weird to see out of James Orion decided. Telescopic lenses mounted in an eerily binocular like fashion with several ongoing analysis script that noted contaminants in the field of view. And in a human body the ears on both sides of the head are sensitive to the degree that you can tell which direction the sound is coming from, from his current perspective it is like sounds ping from all directions through the central microphone next to the three buttons to play on board disks.

Because people designed robots to clean up Earth whilst they were gone and gave them a music system. It wasn't just the odd sight, hearing and music system either, the twin shovel likes hands, each with three blocky fingers, had a weak sense of touch.

James had the blueprint linked into his input port on his front and he still could not see how he had a sense of touch. Not that the blueprint wasn't helpful, but it was… in two pieces. One part was the useful part for now because it was like a Lego kit's instructions. The other part was what detailed every part, how they worked and the interesting juicy theory behind Wall-E's robots.

And he just didn't have a hope of understanding that yet, not without some sort of intelligence booster. Turning around he looked at the metallic capsule around him. The almost hexagonal shape that was the back of the Wall-E Transport Truck. Moving to the back of the truck he pulled down on the lever next to it, watching as the pistons, there for durability over the finickity nature of gravity warping-based doors, squealed open with a slight scream as the dust flew.

Revealing a picture that could have featured in an ad to stop littering or well any other environmental awareness ad. Trash, enough that there doesn't seem to be a point in trying to distinguish between it all. Rusted Tins, torn scrap, plastic bottles, a Buy n Large plastic bag. It is almost as relief that it's been so long without habitation all leftover food and other spoilable items have rotted away long ago.

On the over hand it's a bad thing as even most microbes seem to have died, leaving very few remaining living things James thought to himself. The reality of it was a far cry from the film. Laziness and the corruption of a big corporation allowed the trash fields to grow. And grow. And grow.

He did have to wonder when someone said that the trash field were large enough people would need to leave the planet, and if they dumped the rest of trash before leaving. Did the modern era mean that absolutely no one left their houses because otherwise someone would have decided to do something… right?

Well, Wall-E did find a bra, several hundred years after people had left so people had probably just dumped things anywhere once it had already got too bad and they knew that robots were being built to fix it. So, there was a solution, so people just let the problem get worse as they left. Knowing human nature however a few people probably got left behind alongside the trash and thus it wouldn't be a surprise to see a few human skeletons in these trash piles.

The second thing James noted after comparing his Wall-E body to the blueprint was the extra module on his right blocky shoulder and the red glowing port next to the battering indication on his chest. The module going over his shoulder, likely the plasma cannon, protruded enough that if he tried to fold up into a block shape then it would stick out but the red port, which seemed to be the Tractor Beam like from GO-4, was recessed into the main body.

The issue that came up was both off these worked as similar to other modules, they would need power and the only power source a Wall-E had was the near infinite duration solar panels barely enough for movement and completion of the job.

Shaking his binocular visor like head he focused on the most important part of the next however long it took to clean up Earth and allow things to grow again… finding the recycling centre nearby. The Jumpchain menu detailed he'd be placed close to it and the drawback meant it was the only one uncovered, so he'd have to work outwards from the centre, searching for other Wall-E units and other cleaning machines, like the massive Wall-A's and wouldn't they be useful seeing the mountains of trash, to help his job.

Pushing the lever back up James turned back into the Transport Truck he moved towards the cab, accessible through the rear, and pulled himself into the seat not really designed for a Wall-E in mind, most likely some manager bot. Thankfully, the power seems to be controlled by a level, much like a boat, and a normal steering wheel.

Pushing on the dimly flashing red button, James felt the truck rumble beneath him as it, possibly for the first time in centuries. If it was real and hadn't just been created on the spot by the Jump system.

Unfortunately, as James pushed the lever forward and the wheels shuddered and turned and even louder rumble than the engine starting. Without looking at the slight hill beneath the truck James had destabilised it as the treads and wheels started to turn. And the truck slid into a slide down the incline as the metal and plastic beneath it moved too.

Gripping all the more tightly with his shovel like fingers onto the steering wheel and locking his treads on the seat, James yanked the wheel to the left desperately trying to fight the skid, so it went mostly forwards once more.

Binocular lenses peering through the windshield caught sight of a robust looking building ahead and he yanked the accelerator in the other direction, forcing the protesting truck into full reverse as they barrelled down the pile of trash. Yet the truck didn't counteract the effects of gravity and momentum enough as James dropped lower, head flattening against the block like body, as he braced for impact.

Yet, none came as the gigantic yellow truck smashed through the old brick wall like it was made of glass, scattering brick dust everywhere, James 'blinked' as he absently stopped the truck on the flatter ground. And paused, the lack of racing heart and calming deep breaths feeling… odd to his still distinctly human mind.

And, very much aware of the rest of the building still above him, James slowly pushed the Truck in forward drive once more and headed for the opposite wall. Wincing slightly, or oddly wiggling his binocular eyes, he braced as he smashed his way through the next wall.

And the building creaked, rumbled and fell behind the truck, a boom as tons of old material hit the back of the truck, lifting it slightly to rock up on the treads.

And a small Wall-E unit shook comically in the front seat as the gigantic yellow truck rumbled out onto the litter covered road, a sloughing pile of brick, shattered glass and twisted metal sliding off the back of the vehicle.

And once things stopped falling James topped the vehicles, switched off the great rumbling engine and rolled to the exit and left the truck. The first step would be to get to some point from which he could find the recycling centre, the final drawback said he be dropped 'near' the only uncovered recycling centre.

But if near meant the same city, country or continent James didn't know as thus the first thing was to figure out the lay of the land. The recycling centres were built as people were leaving so any maps would not likely have the location. The solution then would be to get up higher, the pile of rubbles former status would have been perfect if it didn't seem so unstable and the trash slide hadn't made the truck break it down.

Thus, leaving the truck he kept a firm eye on his battery as he rolled onto a scrap piece of metal and activated his tractor beam, pulling the metal, and himself up into the sky. Thankfully, the drawback also described the facilities, towering chimneys, a massive set of hangar doors and a huge chute at the centre.

And as he climbed higher and higher the lines that indicated his battery fell lower even lower and just before it hit the three quarter mark and just as James climbed past the second tallest build he spun slowly and caught sight of it, behind his truck and the other side of a massive chasm canyon that ripped part of the city in two.