James practically sighed in relief when he was surrounded by the plain white walls and floor of the Warehouse once more. After several years of sorting trash as a robot he was fully ready to commit murder on people who dared litter in front of him. It had just… never ended.
Turning around he saw the saw the two doors for the robot repair ward and the 'small' garage where he had his truck stored. There was a massive pile of material in one of the Warehouses pits, he didn't know how much but it seemed to have gotten deeper the more material he chucked into it.
Looking down at his body he felt the connection to the Plasma Cannon in his right shoulder and the Tractor Beam set in between his collar bones. No idea how they fit there without impeding bodily function but hey he lived in an interdimensional fantasy, who was he to judge how things really worked.
He ignored the large screen declaring his next jump for a moment and went and sat in the small corner area where a barebones kitchen and bedroom merged. There wasn't any food in the cupboards but there was strangely some tea bags and a full kettle. The Jumpchain providing a tiny living area for him. So, James luxuriated in a small cup of tea for a long time. Exploring his hangar and the repair ward, he never had needed to use the second thankfully.
The repair ward was small white space with four massive robotic arms with a variety of attachments. There seemed to be some sort of scanner and fabricator that allowed him to create a replacement robot part for anything it had scanned. He would try and use it to build robot parts if it accepted the blueprints if it had any acceptable input aside from the part scanner.
Finally, after luxuriating as a living being for a time, he went to the screen with a lighter heart.
Lilo and Stitch: Aloha
On the beautiful Island of Hawaii, a small broken family lives. Six-year-old Lilo and nineteen-year-old Nani weren't orphaned too long ago when their parents died in a car crash. Lilo is isolated from people her own age because of this, and this causes her to act out.
Above Earth an infamous mad scientist is on trial by the Galactic Federation, for the creation of genetic experiments with the goal of apocalypse creating beings. These experiments being small creatures with a wide variety of powers.
His latest experiment, 626, has escaped to Earth and taken in as an odd-looking dog by Lilo. After some trouble with the Galactic Federation the family, now joined by Jumba Jookiba and Agent Pleakley.
However, as part of the final confrontation the other experiments are dropped upon Hawaii. All it takes is a small amount of water and these experiments could cause havoc as roam around. And other troubles can be sighted on the horizon as Jumba's old partner wants his living weapons back.
Here is 1000 CP.
Backgrounds:
Hawaiian (Drop In): You are an American Citizen, though you may not look it. You have no new memories and no life on this island, but the people seem friendly enough, so fitting in shouldn't be a problem.
Alien: You are an officer of the Galactic Federation sent to assist on Earth with the various experiments. This can be almost any semi-humanoid form but has no other all advantages over human. You have been instructed not to reveal yourself and to avoid damage to Earth and its inhabitants.
Mad Scientist: You are not evil. You just love science so much you have no care for the amount of chaos and destruction it can cause through your highly immoral, illegal and unethical experiments and creations. Hmmm… maybe that's a little evil. Depending ether or not you have stayed on the right side of the law you may be a fugitive.
Experiment (400 CP): You are one of 626 illegal genetic experiments let loose on Earth after being created by Mad Scientist Jumba Jookiba. You fell to Earth as a nigh indestructible, dehydrated pod alongside the others and were awakened that day. Like your brethren you have many powers that prime you for combat and on top of an inherently destructive nature, you are likely to cause trouble wherever you end up.
James paused scrolling there. He wasn't going to bother looking at every single perk on this gigantic list. It seemed that every choice had hundreds of perks and drawbacks. And however, much he wanted to be human again it was likely the Jumpchain would drag him into trouble and the two out of three humanoid options didn't offer much combat potential.
Lilo and Stitch wasn't truly dangerous to the average person, but the experiments combat ability was immense, a huge helping hand to every future Jump. A Mad Scientist would allow him to create all of said Experiments instead of a few select abilities. The problem was he wouldn't have the abilities which he would as an Experiment.
So, the choice was between Mad Scientist and Experiment. And whilst both seemed they would influence his personality like the lost drawbacks of the previous jump, Blown Fuse, he kept getting stuck on the wording. 'Maybe that's a little evil.' Whilst he couldn't pretend to be a saint, he wasn't evil, and he didn't want his choice to get like that come through getting a few nifty science powers.
Though it would allow him to be human for longer, this Jump seemed to be a flat, survive for ten years goal, so whilst he wouldn't be in a different shape for several years it would still be a significant amount of time.
Hesitantly pressing on Experiment, he jumped to the options that concerned that Background.
Locations: Roll between one and eight or choose a location for 50 CP.
James didn't focus on that the background said he would start on Earth and so he rolled without care, snorting as Hawaii came up but sobered slightly as it specifically listed Kalae. He didn't remember exactly but he did recall coming across the location once. It was supposedly windy enough that trees grew near vertically. The most southern part of Hawaii full of dangerous currents, steep cliffs and sweeping currents.
Well, James thought, it didn't matter too much. He had no idea where Lilo and Stitch were meant to live, and he could swear the verse would just create a Hawaii melting pot. He was also going to be an experiment and therefore tough enough. Shrugging, he moved onto perks.
Experiment Perks: Experiments are granted two 100 CP perks, one 200 CP perk and one 300 CP perk from this section for free.
After looking through for a solid half an hour James sorted the perks he had chosen.
Enhanced Senses: Your odd eyes allow for perfect vision in total darkness and your ears can pick up the most minute sound. Your nose is better than any bloodhound and you could pick out distinct strains of apple in a bottle of juice. Despite these your skin doesn't feel any more sensitive than usual.
(100 CP) (FREE)
Extras: By tensing your body you can let out a set of razor-sharp spines along your back. You can also pull out an extra pair of hands… just in case you need to scratch an itch whilst driving.
(100 CP) (FREE)
Volcanic Villain: certain parts of your body features craters with far too much in common with a volcano. With astonishingly good aim you can launch molten lava from them. With some effort and concentration, you can even change what specific material are in the lava.
(200 CP) (FREE)
I'll cool the drinks: Inhale… exhale… inhale… and exhale a freezing burst capable of chilling people to their core. You have fine control over this from a gentle breeze barely cooler than a fan to temperatures that make the North and South poles seem truly pathetic.
(300 CP) (FREE)
Boom, Blast and Ruin: You are somehow capable of letting loose sound waves from your body at many different frequencies and volumes. a low frequency that humans can't hear but will set them on edge or a higher frequency that forces steel cars to rip themselves apart. You are good enough at it that the sound has enough kinetic charge to throw people back.
(300 CP)
Total Destruction: You are capable of lifting three thousand times your own body weight. Depending on your size, muscle mass and density this could be hundred to thousands of tonnes, enough to juggle a few ships… of the small aircraft carrier range.
(400 CP)
Maths Beware: Despite your appearance of an oddly shaped and oddly coloured animal you are capable of rapid thought and mental math that makes most 'super' computers seem sad, tired and old. A few minutes of rummaging around in the guts of a machine means you know how it functions and how to slightly rework it for you.
(400 CP)
CUTE AND FLUFFY!: Isn't your catchphrase… using it would be copyright and something Jumpchain Inc do not support. That aside you are now more or less invulnerable to most conventional weaponry. Everything below continent wiping you can ignore but immense amounts of force… like a nuclear explosion would still rip you to pieces. So, mind out for the radical and the exotic… shit you're in Hawaii, tough luck for you on exotic.
(400 CP)
And weren't the perks for Experiment beautiful and all-around boost to himself despite the fact he was six hundred points over budget without getting to what he had glimpsed upon and decided he had to have as Warehouse add ones.
Hawaiian Bar (100 CP): Just the place to lose your thoughts for the evening, always full of Hawaiian snacks that seem freshly cooked and enough cocktails to drown an ocean.
Beach (200 CP): A half mile stretch of tropical beach. As a bonus it has an accompanying half mile of sea with gently or strong waves. Oddly the sea and beach have no living being aside for you.
Note: Bought with the Hawaiian Bar the two will combine into one set area as a Warehouse add-on.
Which put him at a tidy sum of minus twelve hundred CP. Probably still worth it James decided… a private beach and constantly restocked bar were worth a few problems. So now he had to balance that with drawbacks. Lilo and Stitch had an odd power to danger ratio so it shouldn't be too bad even with several drawbacks.
Drawbacks:
The most American Tourist (+150 CP): Nothing goes quite right in your day. Nothing huge like an asteroid falling on your head every other minute but your life is full of stubbed toes, spilled drinks and random idiots falling on you. Just enough to tick you off.
Civil Disturbance (+300 CP): The experiments always get released in a way that throughs off your plans. Working with a volatile, fragile mix in your lab… out comes Richter. Setting of for a nice date in your car, out comes Tank and he wants to eat the metal car.
Hunted (+400 CP): Somewhere along the line you committed a crime worthy of being hunted worthy of having law enforcement, or their opposite, after you. Comes alongside Experiment background as a wanted illegal experiment.
Total Panic (+500 CP): After all those movies of aliens invading Earth don't you think the human reaction is a little tame. Now the average person wont mistake them for what they are not and attempt to react accordingly despite the hampering of people aware of the Galactic Federation on Earth.
Finishing grabbing perks James realised he had taken enough to go over budget. So, scanning quickly up the list he grabbed the Alien Hovercraft item and the Infinite Sandwich material perk/Add-on. Then checking his choices James pressed the accept button and felt the familiar sensation of reality fading to black.
-o–O–o-
When he woke once more, he was extremely grateful of not taking the Enemy of Water drawback. Perched on a small outcropping a few feet from frothing ocean would be a swift end to his Jumpchain. And with the quick assimilation of a few short memories, a person squirting him with water, a person ineffectually trying to order him by zapping with electricity and living in a comfy pod full of some syrupy fluid he moved onto his appearance.
He used the water to take in his reflection James marvelled at the comfortable oddity of it. He was a… what was the word… Hexapod. A hexapod with three legs down each side of his body. Each legs resembled a shovel like point, a flat wide area that narrowed down into a sharp point that dug into the rock below him slightly. And yet as he shuffled his legs nervously and unseen joint bent, like an ankle, and they seemed like singled toed paws instead of insectile legs.
In front of the set of legs he had a set of pincers that looked… almost like some one had glued a set of fantasy mech claw onto him. One large, almost sword like upper claw and a lower claw with a clear divot where the top sharp edge was meant to fit.
His head was nothing to complain about, like a wide set, short snouted dragon head with a fearsome set of razor-like teeth which grew more vampire like where human canines would be. Two pairs of horns, one that curled downwards along his jaw and another which spiralled out from the back of his head like a slightly curved lance. A set of dark amber eyes that were set somewhat recessed into his skull and a heavy plating of gey coloured black and white scales scales that went down to coat the rest of his body. On his underside there was whiter grey scales but along his back more of the dark charcoal colour came out.
Along his back there were two things of note, the jagged backwards facing spikes that looked very similar to his teeth but framed wither side of that was a pair of proportional wings that folded to lay against him just above his legs. Set in an even pattern like a ladybug's spots there were several dark red crater formations that slowly leaked smoke which were clearly linked to the Volcanic Villain perk.
Turning away from the small volcanoes that made up his body James had a thought looking at the spikes along his spine and the pair of scorpion-like pincers, the Perk: Extras gave him a retractable set of arms and a row of spines down his back. So, with some mental focus James watched his reflection as the spikes seemed to blend with his skin and the claws went… somewhere.
After practicing that for a moment he looked at the last part of his reflection. His tail which was possibly odder than the rest of his hybrid scorpion/dragon body. It arched up over the rest of his body like a scorpion when relaxed but with some mental effort was flexible like a snake was. At its tip it widened out like a mace with several sharp flanges but at the very tip there was a larger spike that looked like a needle and with a thought James watched a patch of frothy sea freeze as super cooled… stuff shot out of the spike and came into contact with it.
After admiring himself for so long James tried some of his older perks. He couldn't feel the Built to Last perk, but he assumed that synergised with the Cute and Fluffy one. The Blueprints weren't anywhere near him, so he assumed it also classed as an item and went into his Warehouse.
Trying to feel the Plasma Cannon and Tractor Beam caused his scorpion like claws to pop out once more, the cannon in his right claw and the beam in his left, near dead centre of the joint of the two claw pieces. In all truthfulness he was happy, there had not been a menu to control what form he ended up with and he was glad he wasn't a miscoloured pudgy koala bear and instead, in his opinion, looking rather badass as some sort of scorpion dragon.
Pulling the claws and spikes back in he set upon the next order of business, getting off the rock that seemed to be getting slowly swallowed by the tide and onto mainland Hawaii. He didn't trust he had any instinctive skill in flying and he didn't fancy testing his new body against the currents, indestructible or not he could still drown… probably that didn't come up on the perk menu. There was also the chance of setting off with the sound control and obliterating the rock he stood on.
So, he brought claws back out again and set upon carving off a chunk of rock and float over on it using the Tractor Beam. When he had piece of rock about the right size for his new body, measuring and weighing himself went on the next order of business, he pulled it into the air and set for the stark, rocky cliffs he could see.
Happily dropping onto the studier cliff, he set upon mobbing inland, he was starting to feel hunger pangs and he wondered how enhanced his sense of taste was. Yet, as James bounded forward, he almost subconsciously snapped his wings out and caught enough air to fly forward a few feet. And as his feet toughed back down, they folded in like an Asian fan.
James smiled again with his odd dragon like head and bounded forward on his legs and pushed off whilst unfurling his wings. As he glided along the ground, he experimentally flapped his wings… as hard as he could. The wind displaced near created a boom, ripping up the plants beneath and took a chunk out of the floor.
Shooting up James got over his monetary surge of panic as the ground fell away from him. But, after a moment he slightly angled his wings and relaxed as he slowly glided down towards the ground once more, once he was nearer to the ground he flapped once more and zoomed back up into the sky again.
A few minutes of flight again he started to see some signs of civilisation and dropped towards the forest encroaching on the houses. Creeping through the trees he almost sighed at he saw one of the most familiar sights from Lilo and Stitch. A massive red space ship that definitely wasn't styled after a jumbo jet. Owned by a mister Jumba Jookiba.
It's two engines on the wings that despite the ability to travel through space seemed to have air intakes. And the boarding ramp was dropped down, and the lights were on inside. Remembering the Total Panic drawback James wondered if he should join up with Lilo and Stitches group or go and live somewhere in the world and fill his Warehouse even further with stolen goods.
Decisions.
-o–O–o-
Deciding James cautiously made his way for the ramp and entered the ship. Slowly creeping forward on six legs that that bent slightly so that the claws weren't digging into the metal like it was the rock and ground. Taking a moment to roughly compare himself against the ship that was sized for Jumba Jookiba about as tall as an adult human male or around six feet.
Judging how he was just short of the top he could judge himself about five feet high at the shoulder and his horns added an extra foot or so. His head poked out of his body like a crocodile, without a neck, so his back was roughly level, apart from his tail. Not having a good measure for length yet he strode up the ramp and into the surprisingly cosy looking area that was beyond it.
Like a small hangar that had been converted into a lounge. There were overstuffed couches and low-slung tables, with a small refrigeration unit in the corner. Ambling over on his odd legs he pulled the door open with one long claw and looked curiously at the mix of Earth drinks like Coke and Fanta mixed in with several wrapped in unknown script and bearing unknown images.
Grabbing the blue bottled drink with an incomprehensible name James used the tractor beam to pull off the top and poured it into his mouth experimentally. Feeling a burst of bright blue flavour James placed down the drink that was giving him hallucinogenic vibes and moved further into the ship.
Entering the corridor beyond he stopped the sure scent of cold pizza filling his nose as he moved towards the sources. Moving to the first fridge he slightly gashed the handle with his claw as he opened it a smidge too quickly.
But, pulling it open he feasted on some of the greatest things he had seen for several years. Seven cold slices of pizza, James fell onto the pizza slices and savaged them like an animal. Ripping into the taste of old grease, it was an American pizza instead of British so a few more calories weren't amiss, James sighed as the first pieces of food he had eaten in well over a decade sat in his… well he assumed he had a stomach…
Organ of digestion. James decided instead somewhat cursing his lack of knowledge of the Mad Scientist parts of Lilo and Stitch. Turning his attention, he rooted through it further pulling out cheese, grapes, fruit, only leaving things like butter.
The next fridge was like a souped-up version of the mini fridge in the lounge, and he ignored the obviously alien drinks and cracked open several Pepsi cans and drank down a bottle of juice with it… his improved sense of taste oddly not having any problem with what would, otherwise be, rather odd food and drink combinations.
After finishing all the food in the three fridges and the vast majority of the drinks, those from Earth, James moved on from the kitchen, his desires for more normal things after a decade and a bit of being a robot temporarily sated.
As he searched however, the kitchen door had slammed a little too hard, prompting a red coloured ball with the marking 618 to slowly roll its way towards a sink where a dripping tap lay.
James eventually stumbled upon the bedrooms and spotting one with a comfortable looking beanbag that filled up the room almost like a bouncy castle. Clambering across it, James settled down on it, absently making a note to buy one this size in the future for this alternate form and any other alternate forms he would get that would like it.
With a yawn, James got comfortable and fell asleep for the first time in over a decade.
-o–O–o-
Moments after James fell asleep, in the kitchen…
A red sphere shuddered as several water droplets fell upon it. The moisture was quickly absorbed, and the pod expanded into a bright white light. And as the glow died down a quadrupedal mass of crystal fell off the kitchen counter, its armadillo like head letting out a wicked giggle.
Its long pale blue claws cut slightly into the floor where it stood. And it left the ship and went towards the forest, to start chewing on the trees. Where it ate away at the wood crystal particulates remained… and started to grow.
