jump

by asbs

not mine

2. 2

p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"This time, the world did go dark and when consciousness returned once more, I found myself on a cot in my new Warehouse with a Linoone sleeping on my chest and a note that said, "Your New World Awaits, Princess."/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I shuddered at that, hoping I wouldn't find myself in Super Mario Land taking Peach or Daisy's place, but when I found the Wheels of Fortune (plunked down in the middle of the open space of the warehouse, looking like they'd been made by a local PTA, complete with plastic punch bowl full of 50 Choice Chits and a single nametag that said "Hello, My Name is" with nothing beneath) they said nothing related to the Mushroom Kingdom. Instead, they had cities that were in the US… Well, 5 of the 7 were. The other two I recognized almost instantly. Empire City and New Marais… Those were from Infamous. I cursed, then, briefly considered paying not to spin, but I did. Random is better, right? Especially when Random is Freeee./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"LA. A pamphlet fell out of the wheel, telling me that LA was a hotbed of Conduit crime, with the military being brought in to battle the growing gangs but while crime was fairly high, the public opinion of Conduits was mixed. I smirked at that, wondering how bad it was in other cities and what Karmic choices Cole and… what's his face from Second Son… Delsin… had made. Ah… it says "The Worldstate assumes Good Karma Endings for all Games". Well, that's nice and the mention of the DUP said this was after the events of all three games. Interesting. I spun for my age, getting 21… so I'd just missed out on a 3rd coming of drinking age party, losing 5 years or so in the process. Once again, I wasn't thrilled with the idea of having someone else's memories in my head, so I went with Drifter, which came with no memories at all. It too was free. Saving points all up in this empty empty space. Hadn't counted on just how insanely empty several million cubic meters of nothing would be./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I paused the proceedings to drag everything from the middle of all that space over to one of the corners, using the shelving units that would have been right at home at a Costo to make walls that, if they weren't very tangible, were better than nothing. /spanspan style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"The medbay had been a set of machines that looked like something out of James Cameron's Avatar and a set of prefabricated walls. My Pokeland Alt-form served me well there, since my Base-Form lacked the proper leverage to deal with such things./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"In addition to my cot, there was an old, ice powered coldbox with the veggies and meat in it, a camping stove and propane tank, and a couple cardboard boxes full of packaged food and beverages. The corner I'd picked also had a water pipe with a garden spigot and a toilet./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Everything moved at last, I flopped back onto the military bed and regarded the space. I was surrounded by a paltry amount of shelving, and tucked into a corner and the darkness was still obscene and oppressive. I'd have to get some plywood… or some plastic sheds or something./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I banished the darkness by turning my back on it, considering the boards. The Conduit Powers were next, as I'd known they would be, and free, which I hadn't. Still, I wasn't going to complain about getting something I'd have spent all my points on as a party favor. I quickly discounted Cole's Electricity… I like water… and the same for Concrete and Smoke, for similar reasons. Neon and Video called to the inner geek in me, but in the end I went with Cryokinesis. No more would winters mean bundling up in something utterly unsexy. I would become the Ice Queen. Plus, cool drinks whenever I wanted! Bonus!/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"The Additional Powers section of buyer's guide nearly made me giddy. As a Drifter, I got Strength free… Strength enough to bench-press a damned car! I could already feel my muscles growing denser, but grinned as they gained only a small degree of definition. I quickly snatched up Durability (You can take a bullet or ten, but enough damage will still kill you) and Regen (Healing Factor! You heal from most non-lethal wounds in seconds.) for 100 each [200/800/100] because becoming a living bullet sponge may not be my idea of a good time, but I was damned if I was going down without a fight ever again. Plus, you know… better to be a bullet sponge and not need it than to go down from some random shot fired by an idiot./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"After some consideration, I picked up Stamina (Start running, keep running, you can stay moving for most of a day) for another [100/700/100]. Sure, why not take the whole package, and it meant I could get the best of my newfound speed augment. I noticed that Drifters got a discount on Toggle, the ability to turn Conduit Powers on and off at will, and decided, yeah… that sounds good. I wasn't certain I'd need it… cold doesn't burn out cars, but it very well might make touching other people unpleasant for them… and if it turned my cocoa into choccy-ice, there would be hell to pay. It was another [150/550/1000] down the drain, but another case of better to have than need and guaranteed I could get some snuggles in without frosting my buddies or pets. And a nice warm shower from time to time./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Gear and Supplies were next on the list, and as a Drifter, I got my Safehouse free of charge, which was nice, even though I could always retreat to my Warehouse if things got really hairy. I considered plunking down 300 for a Sniper Rifle so I could take advantage of the marksmanship I'd picked up in the last world, then remembered I was inserting into LA in post Conduit America. I could just buy one. After all, once there were conduits running around, gun control laws became frankly silly. I did pick up a Rebreather [50/500/1000] since none of my pokemon were great divers besides RayRay and there were places she just couldn't go… and the tech to make a mouthpiece sized breather that could function everywhere besides vacuum just didn't exist… at least not in this setting. A Hypervisor [100/400/1000] (HUD glasses that display tactical data, minimap, etc and allow for 60 seconds of see-through-walls-vision every 5 minutes) added to my spy kit. I also considered buying the Parachute and Wingsuit set. Skydiving off the back of a Skydragon? Yes please… except I could buy both… probably even easier than the Rifle… but this was LA we were talking about, so no guarantees./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I considered Setbacks, waffling back and forth. Did I feel like making life difficult for myself? Or would it be more exciting that way? This was a pretty messed up world I was dropping into… but if I took things too easy, I'd get bored. Wasn't like there were Legendary Pokemon to hunt… and I'd grown to like the Hunt. With that in mind, and before I could talk myself out of it, I selected Leak (It gave me a slow but steady power drain), figuring that cold water wouldn't be that hard to find at least once a day, and Greenlit, making myself instantly the enemy of one of LA's new and improved gangs. If you aren't marked for death, you aren't trying, right? Suddenly I found myself 400 Choice richer [+400/800/1400]… which sent me back into the shopping lists… Power or toys? I settled on Focus and Analytics for [300] each [600/200/1400], allowing me to slow… speed up… whatever, experience the world as if it had slowed to 10% of its normal rate of flow for up to 60 seconds and an improvement on situational awareness perception… enough to keep track of everything while in a fight. If that wouldn't be useful, I dunno what would be./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I plunked down another [100/100/1400] for a high tech tracking system complete with schematics for more tracker doodads… I figured I'd need them to keep tabs on my special new gang friends… and introduce them to a solid ton of flying psychic steel being ridden by a vengeful Ice Queen. /span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"Unfortunately, that left me with 100 unspent and pretty much nothing I really needed. Sure, I could have returned Leak… but naw… I could use it for the wingsuit parachute… or for a laptop or cellphone… but I decided I might as well grab the cheapest gun… just in case. The Glock 17 was [100/0/1400] and came with a box of 500 rounds that replenished every 24 hours. Gun good. Untraceable gun better. Untraceable gun with free ammo? As the Ash who doesn't catch pokemon would say, 'Groovy.'/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"A clipboard I hadn't noticed before sat on the table where the empty punch bowl had been. It was a US Census Enumeration form… though it asked a lot of questions I was pretty certain weren't on the form last time I'd checked. Number of residents and ethnicity, age, and sex… those were pretty standard. Number of pets was a bit off. Orientation? When had that been added? And there was stuff that I expected only to see on a medical form. Stuff like eye color, height, weight, distinguishing features. And the colored boxes for skin tone? Skin tone?! Really?/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"Fuck it. I named myself Sidney Jasko after an LA-based werewolf I'd played in a game at a convention. She'd been half-african american, half-jewish girl from La Brea (not that I actually knew where that was, having been to LA all of twice in my original life). I filled in her skin tone, going for a nice mocha, and eye color, going with light blue… and doodled some tattoos that had a maori vibe I kinda liked. Hair brown, pets… six… orientation bi. Age and sex were already filled out. Height? 5'8″, weight 125, right at that sweet spot for runners. And yes, I know I'd given Quick grief about metric being best… but I still had trouble thinking about temperature and human measurements in metric. I dunno… fuck it… I was a living calculator, I could do the conversions instantly./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"INSERTION/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"As soon as I signed my name (there wasn't a date space) on the bottom of the last form, a hole opened under me and I dropped out of a ceiling, landing on a dingy bed in a dingy condo in the Hollywood hills. The clipboard and forms did not follow me./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"On the desk near me was my new gear. I studied it for a few minutes, flipping through the documents on the desk: deed, birth certificate, driver's license… all for Sidney Jasko. I studied the picture, a young, attractive woman who I decided could be me, then loaded up my Pokebag of Holding with the new gear, smirking as I discovered it had a special pouch for Ammo that I hadn't noticed over the last decade. With that in mind, I headed into the city… or tried to. LA is fucking huge! And I had no car. Crap. And no local cash. Double Crap. Good thing I had food on tap back in my Warehouse. I sighed. I didn't dare summon Rayray for a skyride this far inside a city that might be crawling with military and crazed conduits. So Running it was. Weeeee. Now, how did I convert Pokebucks into Dollars? My wallet contained a 5 crisp 10,000 PB bills. Apparently I'd get that in every new World? Yaaay. Hurray for funny money!/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I spent the next three months exploring the city, waiting for someone to take a shot at me and working odd jobs, trying to keep my head down and earn a living. I got a job as an extreme sports trainer, it seemed reasonable given my set of skills, and at the outrageous prices personal trainers can charge in LA, I was able to buy myself a VW bug-like thing pretty quick… as well as a couple wingsuits parachutes… and a sniper rifle… plus a few lessons in gun maintenance. My Pokegear seamlessly integrated into the wifi nets of the city, but I needed a cellphone quick since the Pokegear couldn't receive incoming calls, something I gained by the simple expedient of heading to Rodeo Drive and stealing a rich young jackass's wallet for the cash./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"I span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"wasn't proud of myself, but I'd picked buddy boy (Blaine Johnson) because he'd been extremely rude to a latina who'd merely been talking to her kids in spanish in his vicinity. I did /spanspan style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"give the cards to a couple of bums so they could buy themselves some hooch before they got cancelled to make up for it, and drop his ID, gym membership card, and coffee shop rewards card off into a shredder at the local library. He might be a douchebag, but no one deserved to have their identity stolen. Okay… I might have egged his car and TP'd his house, since I had the address and all… but that's it./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Let me just go on the record and say 'Getting shot sucks'. The driveby proved that to me. I was staggered by just how much half a dozen MAC-10 rounds thudding into my chest at near point blank range hurts. I was also seriously freaked out by all the blood, not all of it mine. A little girl had been shot once in the thigh, but Ziggy (who I claimed was a Long-Haired Weimar Terrier) had knocked her out of the way and taken most of the rounds. I watched as he shimmered, breathing hard, then he fainted and returned to his ball before the ball winked out of reality. I scooped up the girl, still groaning at the pain of being shot and rolled under a parked car, dropping into my warehouse through a hastily created portal. I got her to the medbay with ease and it set to work patching her up while I changed into less bullet-riddled clothing and let my regen push the lead back out of the rapidly closing wounds. That was a relief. I had been affraid I'd have to dig them out./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Once the girl was better, I rolled us back out of the portal, leaving the dazed girl lying on the sidewalk as I vanished into the alleys of the area, shaking my head in annoyance. I had no idea who'd shot at me./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Finding out, however, wasn't hard. Seems if one gang hates you, another gang that hates them can tell you a lot. I had no idea what I'd done to get the Aryan Nation pissed at me, besides being Jewish and African-American, but there were plenty of other Jews in LA and I hadn't done anything overtly Conduit-like in public yet. I had practiced making a helmet and gauntlets of ice for myself to protect my identity and fists, but only in the privacy of my own space or out in the middle of nowhere./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Still, if they wanted to summon trouble, I'd be happy to deliver. A teleporting, flying, armor plated delivery of pain. And they were going to finance my operations with every safehouse, crackhouse, and whorehouse of theirs I took down. Turns out gangs have a lot of money. Enough money to buy a pair of fancy ass Bus-sized RVs, a couple of those mini-houses and a lot of car batteries (shelves and shelves of them.). Got an electrician come in and wire them all up safely. Even bought a bunch of tools at Lowes and some books on what to do with them. Never read em./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Within the year I began to stack up the bodies in freezer units lining the wall of my warehouse. It's astounding how easy it is to dispose of a body when you can just focus on it and it falls through into another world. Their weapons, drugs, and guns joined them as I worked my way through the gang, layer by layer. Yet, like the gangs of the games, for everyone I eliminated, another always seemed to spring up in their place. I found myself having to work harder to get information as they factionalized the city, the military growing more and more aggressive as time passed, focusing on eliminating the Conduits who sided with the Troublemaker Gangs while giving free reign to the Protect Our Neighborhood Gangs and their Conduits./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"More and More, I was working with those individuals, the marginalized ethnic groups within the vast sprawl of the city, to drive the more racist and thuggish elements out of the city… and then the heatwave struck. It was the middle of my 4th year and the temperature hit 100 degrees… and stayed there. Day after day, week after week, no rain, barely any wind, and the power company was rationing energy like crazy. The city went… mad. Riots from one end of the city to the next. I had to get out. Get to someplace… colder. I dropped everything and went./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"By this time I'd traded my little puttputt machine for an armored Mercedes that got lousy mileage, but I'd replaced the trunkspace with a reinforced fuel tank and I powered out of the burning city for the mountains and Taho. Eighty miles outside the city, the Aryans struck. Where the hell they got Cobra Attack Helicopters, I'll never know, but they'd have filled my car full of holes had I not driven straight into my warehouse, by way of the wall of nearby gas-station. I leapt out of my car and back into the real world, flinging up a dome of Ice as I called Rocky and RayRay and Fancy out of their naps./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Ever wondered what a MegaMetagross and a MegaAlakazam can do to military hardware? Don't. It's not pretty. And RayRay's Plasma Breath absolutely tore through their own armored vehicles. But there were a lot of them and there wasn't a cold water source in sight. I cursed myself for a fool, not daring to jump into my warehouse again to get at the cold water there because that would let Nazi Goons into my sanctum. Should have fucking bought the forcefield! I recalled my friends and, ducking down, had Fancy teleport us back to my safehouse. The bugout had failed./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I planned better next time. The Ocean. Again they found us, got my cruiser shot up pretty good 'cause it's not nearly as maneuverable as a car. Finally I just said fuck it and had RayRay fly us up into the stratosphere in the middle of the damned night, me, naked, clinging to the back of a seven meter flying snake. Everything I owned tucked safely inside my warehouse and out of this reality. I didn't know how they had tracked us, but let's see them do it at 70,000 feet./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"And that's how I came to move to freaking Svalbard. I spent the next 5 and a half years swimming in the arctic water, trying to catch animals with pokeballs… turns out, works just fine. Got a Polar Bear and a Puffin and an Orca. Let the Orca go though, cause there was no way I'd be able to feed it. Thought about getting a Caribou, but if I had I know I'd have just spent half my time saying "Carribooooooo". Did get a publisher. Turns out that Infamous World has never heard of Stephanie Meyer. Sold the rights to four books for a pretty penny, enough to pay my rent and then some, then the movie rights for a great deal more… though I did make a couple of minor changes, but if you want to know what, you'd have to buy copies./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Moral of this story? The way to deal with a Gang that wants you dead is by hiding from them. Lesson Learned. Also? LA, less fun than a volcanic island in the arctic circle populated only by drunk norwegians and polar bears. Vital information. Also, when you're immune to cold and mostly immune to bullets? Clothing, even shoes… totally optional. Especially if you have your own private pebble beach miles…er… kilometers… from everyone else./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I did rent a warehouse in town, then pay some contractors quite a lot of money to build a very modern house inside it, complete with all the conveniences, showers, bathrooms, appliances. Two stories tall, rooms for nine, even a special room for Ziggy full of tunnels and ballpits. I also had them assemble several prefab storage units. In case you're wondering where I hid all the drugs and stuff during the construction… did you know you can buy those massive shipping containers you see in all those movies. Turns out you can. They stack pretty good too./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I can safely say I did not enjoy Infamous World. I had fun, killed waaay too many people, mostly Nazis, but in the end, I spent most of my time alone, communing with Nature. I was practically bouncing off the walls as the end of my time approached and got very very drunk on Scotch Whisky the night before. I didn't know if I'd amused the Boss enough to earn another tour, but I was eager for any change. Once more the pillars rose out of the beach and I sighed as time ground to a stop./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""Well. that was… mostly naked. Not good with people, are you?"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I flipped off the pillar and shrugged. "They shot me first."/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"The Pillars chuckled. "Fair enough. Ready to go?"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""Oh, god yes please."/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""New World or back home?"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""Well, if you're offering, New World. Not sure I'm in my right state of mind to go home and deal with the family after this trip. Any more interworld bonuses this time?"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""Nope. Not yet. Maybe next time."/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""Darn. I need a Jacuzzi."/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""You have a Jacuzzi."/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""Yeah, I know, but it's attached to the house on the beach, not the house in the warehouse. Didn't think to have one installed there… can I take it with me?"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""Sure." /span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"The entire beach house rippled and vanished… along with a couple tons of beach rocks and sea water… I was going to have to clean my warehouse, I just knew it./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"I'd been chillaxing (woo, retro slang) in my warehouse based jacuzzi for the last day, waiting for Quick to decide where I was going next… apparently he needed to review the tapes to make certain I'd been exciting enough or something. I dunno, he didn't exactly tell me crap… when suddenly a mannequin like you'd see in a store appeared opposite me in the bubbling hot water. I screamed, took its creepy blank-face head off with a blast of ice shuriken and gasped, panting hard, the adrenaline making me incoherent for about fifteen seconds./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""What the fuck!" I bellowed, looking at the thing. It was holding a note in one hand with my initials on. I snatched it, breaking a fibreglass finger and getting the paper wet, then read it, eyes narrowed with annoyance./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""Since you don't get along so well with humans, how about… more Pokemon?" it said in scintillating silver script that wasn't actually imbedded in the paper as far as I could tell./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Assuming he (and maybe others) could see me in my altogether, I considered that for about 0.2 seconds before squealing, "Ooo… Yes please! I could get another…" and then I cut off as a chart of 28 Pokemon appeared in front of me. It contained the starters from the first six generations (flower-frog Bulbasaur, beansprout Chokorita, leaf-tailed skink Treecko, tree-turtle Turtwig, vine-lizard Snivy, and eco-warrior chipmunk Chespin for the kingdom of Grass; flaming-tail newt Charmander, fire-back echidna Cyndaquil, not-spicy but still hot chicken Torchic, flaming-poo monkey Chimchar, communist Russian porker Tepig, and wings-big-enough for dumbo fox Fennekin for the Fire Nation; and turtle Squirtle, crocodile Totodile, fin-head frog-thing Mudkip, blue penguin Piplup, snowballheaded otter Oshawott, and huge-eyed frog-thing Froakie for the Water Tribes; and lonely old yellow giant 'mouse-with-rabbit ears' Pikachu for the Air No… Lightning Nomads… were there more? I was hazey on that. Maybe seven was coming out soon when I left my Earth of Origin… plus a smattering of the cuter non-starters. Baby-kitsune Vulpix, greedy lucky cat on a diet Meowth, I CAN BE ANYTHING corgi Eevee, toy elephant Phanpy, smug-chinese caricature cat Skitty, electric lion cub Shinx, I'll just eat everything until I'm so fat I'll sleep all the time Munchlax, metal martial arts doggo-pup Riolu, and living weapon Axew… well, Axew wasn't exactly cute… "What's this? Which Starter I want?"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"The script changed. "No. Which Pokemon you want to be."/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""I'm the Pokemon this time? That sucks. Following some human around all the time? No offense to AJ, but I'm not sure I'm up to saying "Pikapi!" for a decade. and if I'm going to be a Pokemon, can't I be one of the cool ones… like Jirachi or Arceus?" I whined, naming the pokemon that grants wishes and literal pokemon GOD./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"The script changed again, the letters dividing and morphing so no ink was apparently lost. "Don't worry. I'm not sending you to a world with trainers. This is a world populated only by Pokemon… and Mystery Dungeons." The moment I'd finished reading that line, it was replaced with, "And technically, you could buy one of the other unevolved non-legendary monsters… but that will cost you between 200 and 500 CP."/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I blinked at that. I'd never been a fan of roguelikes, and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon was one… I think. I'd never played or watched a video about it. And I had no idea about what the world was like, but finally I sighed "Okay… so I get to be a mon… and fuck paying that much for an uncommon form… Huh… Well, since I'm already mistress of Ice, better make it a Fire-type to cover my weaknesses best. Plus I usually picked the fire type starter… Not fat dragon Charizard… ugh… that vulnerability is for shit…" I groaned, referring to the fact that if the flame at the tip of a Charmander/Charmeleon/Charizard's tail was ever extinguished it died. "Not a fan of Tepig or any of the gen 6 starters… So Cyndaquil, Torchic, or Chimchar… Chimchar evolves to… Infernape. That's close to human. I'll go with that one."/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""Excellent!" The note said, and I found myself as a small flaming monkey even though I hadn't entered the new World yet. Ziggy sniffed my butt and squeaked in confusion. I was about to ask what the fuck, but the note had changed in the moment I was looking at the Zig. It said, "Now pick your partner's species."/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""Can I bring AJ in as my partner?"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""You could… but that will cost you 300 CP… and devolve him. A new one is free."/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I considered for several minutes, then shrugged. "I can still summon him and the others if I don't, right?"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""No. Not this time. That would be… game breaking." and with that the note dissolved into dust and a spotlight appeared in center of the darkness, illuminating another PTA set-up, wheel, table, pamphlets, clatter-wheel, punchbowl of poker chips., /span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I sighed, then grumped, "You take the fun… never mind. I… I don't think I'll take AJ. We have a working relationship that's friendly, but it's not an equal one. Also, AJ's geared for… ahem…. Capture. I… mmmm… I tempted to take a Piplup, just because they're adorable… but I shouldn't… Ooo… Munchlax… no… bad SJ. Bad… ummm… How about… darn, Vulpix is on there but not Arcanine. Eevee… no… Heck… I'll go with Riolu. They evolve into Lucario. Lucarios are pretty cool."/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"The wheel of Location this time only had four pie sections, but I landed in the first one, Pokemon Square… not that I knew anything about Treasure Town or Post Town either. There wasn't an age bracket, or even a way to change gender had I cared to. I flipped through the Free With Purchase listings in the "PERKS, SKILLS, MOVES" section of the guide, as usual little more than a pamphlet full of woefully inadequate descriptions. "FREE! Any four moves your Pokemon-self can Learn! All moves draw energy from the same PP reserve!" I nodded to myself, cool cool… where's the list of moves my new and more monkey form can learn?/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Another pamphlet appeared on the table. "Be the Best Chimchar You Can Be! Mystery Trainer's Guide to Moves!" Really? It looked like something a high school student would put together for a basic class in adobe printshop. What, your highschool didn't have classes in adobe printshop?/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I flipped through the little booklet. "Lets see… Flame Wheel has 25PP and Fire STAB;" Stab was an acronym I recognized from reading many a guide. Same Type Attack Bonus… essentially if a Fire Type Pokemon used a Fire Type Attack, it did more damage. That sort of thing. "Brick Break has 15PP and Fighting STAB, Counter has 20PP and is useful as heck, and Flamethrower has 15PP, Fire STAB, and is just evil. That gives me a total of 75PP, which isn't half bad." Flame Wheel was a highly accurate charge attack wherein one cloaks oneself in flames, then just slams into the enemy, dealing damage and potentially burning them badly enough that they became less effective for the rest of the hopefully short combat. Brick Break was a focused chopping action that could shatter personal protective fields such as Light Screen and Reflect and Aurora Veil… and did 125% of the damage Flame Wheel did, hence it's lower PP. Counter was a retaliatory strike that dealt the opponent twice the damage it had done to me in its last blow… useful when I couldn't just dodge. And Flamethrower was, well… exactly that. A high power gout of flame, usually originating at the user's mouth. Best used when the enemy was suffering from the status-effect 'Gasoline'./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"Another similar pamphlet was sitting on the table when I looked up, this one the Be The Best for Riolu. And that's how my span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"partner-to-be, a Steel Fighting to my Fight Fighting, ended up with Force Palm at 10PP (a basic palm strike with Fighting STAB that had a chance to temporarily paralyze one's opponents), Quick Attack at 40PP (one of two reasons to get it… the other being that it was pretty much the fastest attack in the entire game, even if it wasn't the most damaging), Sky Uppercut at 15PP (a Fighting STAB which really put the upper in uppercut and which could hit flying creatures), and Bullet Punch at 30PP (another super-speedy attack that had Steel STAB)… for a total of 95 PP. "Little bastard is better than me," I muttered. Pout. "Naw… Wonder if he… or she… will be cool. Will they be the goofball good cop? I've seen things… I don't know if I'll ever be that lighthearted again," I commented to no one./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"Ziggy, good boy that he is, brought me one of his squeaky toys, a duck wearing a centurion helmet, and nuzzled my ankle. I scooped him up and asked, "Sooo… what else is free, huh Mr. Wigglebutt?" He didn't answer, but I hadn't expected him to. I plucked back up the original guide./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"What else was free… Muscle Memory? The ability to move and control my new body with relative ease. Cool I guess, though I didn't seem to be having any trouble with… oh… right… it was already active. Doi. Increased Strength, Endurance, Speed, and Agility beyond that of a Human? Got that already, don't I? Maybe it will help a little… I should buy some weight equipment just to test new stat boosts… but it was probably too late for that… and anyway, where did one by weight equipment for someone who can bench-press a hum-vee?/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Combat Diagnostics? What the… oooo… Accurate ability to judge my own remaining Health and PP! Sweet! Pokeglot? Well, duh… Pokemon have to be able to… ooooo… That will be cool once I can talk to AJ and Ziggy and the others… in 10 years. Maybe I can summon them inside the warehouse? I'll have to find out. I'd miss them… especially fuzzface. He keeps me sane… ish./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Why wasn't this thing working already? I looked down at Ziggy and said, "Squeak Squeakin?" He licked my nose… Was it that Ziggy was too dim to really communicate with? Or was my accent bad. I called out, "Yo AJ!" and in a moment he was next to me, looking all dashing and smug./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""Wazzzuuuup!" he yelled, crossing his arms in an x-low guard./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""Ah. so it is working," I said./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""What's working?" he replied./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""Notice anything different?" I asked./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""You're on fire," was his considered response. He didn't seem at all confused by this./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""You don't find it odd that, a) I'm now a Chimchar, or b) that you and I can understand each other perfectly?" I asked, raising an eyebrow (good thing my no body hair option did not, apparently, apply to furr, right?)/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""Nope. You turn into three different humans. This is just you being you… and we always could understand each other."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""Riight… ack, no Ziggy, don't stick your tongue in my ear!" I handed Ziggy to AJ, then asked "Why can't I talk to the Zig then?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""Oh? Him. He's just a Normal type. They're not very bright."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"I thought back to all the times Ziggy had plowed into a wall at upwards of a hundred kilometers an hour and nodded. Not very bright summed it up well./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I turned back to the guide and found a section called 'Options'… It had one entry, already selected. Crush… Lets see… do I want the Lucario to have a crush on me… mmmm… no. Thank you. I'll untick that box. Just cause it's free doesn't mean I have to take it, right? Course, unticking doesn't guarantee it won't happen either, right? Right? Not sure I'm ready for literal puppy love. I'd gone 20 years so far without a serious romantic relationship, keeping things casual and doing a lot of experimenting. Didn't worry too much about the safety aspect… I had a medbay, after all… and an IUD./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I realized something with a big of a shock. I'd gotten this far and I hadn't even paid for anything. I had Choice Coins to burn! OOh. Multitalent… 50% more PP and when I did get tired I'd only need half the normal amount of sleep… that would take me down to three a night… If I even needed to sleep every night now. I mean, don't get me wrong, sleep is restful… but it's a giant waste of time. Sold. [100/900/1000] Choice well spent that./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""All Terrain Hiker?" I said, chuckling as I read the name of one entry. "Wazat? Sweet! I could walk on Lava… or clouds… or water… I shall be Jesus Monkey! Jesus Monkey walked on Lava for your sins, Bitch! Ooo… And it also applies to Partner Pup and the whole Crew! How inexplicable! Strang price, but [350/550/1000] in the bank!"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"AJ looked at me like I was mental, but didn't say anything. Probably wise… I was beginning to feel a little like my brain was up to… wait for it… monkey business! Boyah! Oh god. Stop me./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Items, Gear, Supplies were next. One Explorer Badge Free… normally I'd be all about "We don't need no stinking Badges!" but this thing could be used twice a day to teleport to the entrance of any building I was in… including Mystery Dungeons and in Mystery Dungeons it would do so automatically if we were on the brink of Death… or… you know… being KO'd cause this is Pokeworld. There was the Wondermap… automapping thing. It marked Places of Interest, Teammates, Me… zoomed out to 10 miles. Not metric but still cool. I took one. Another [200/350/1000] gone./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"A Sneak Scarf to make me all silent and sneaky sneaky? [200/150/1000] Done! A Heal Ribbon would be cool… but I regen… but partner boy… or girl… doesn't. wouldn't, whatever! Fine. I'd be generous. [100/50/1000] down the friendship drain. Aura Ribbon… slightly boosts combat attack and defense? Sure, why not? Plus, it was purple, and in Purple? I'm Stunning! Londo, heh. Classic. [50/0/1000]! Nothing but net! All Choice Spent./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""And I'm not taking any Drawbacks or Flaws this time! I just want a nice calm pokeventure without being houndoomed for once! No Zubats. No Nazis… just… fun!" I told the uncaring ceiling and RayRay who was circling up there half asleep./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"INSERTION/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Sooo… I've been here a month now and my Partner's name is Zane. Zane is an idiot. Zane has the attention span of a puppy on ritalin. Oh good Arceus, this is going to be a long tour of duty. Plus it's really hard to remember that I'm not actually a Chimchar named… sigh… Cindy… as in Cinder? Cindy Jumper… I'd totally forgotten to name myself before hand and hadn't realized that there wasn't a 'no memories' option like Drop-In or Drifter, so now I have all these… memories of my life here, being all pokemony and eating firebananas… Firebananas? Arceus./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"So, apparently, there are these dungeons, zones where Bad Stuff ™ happens and the layers get all scrambled each time you enter. I've no idea how that works, but I figure there's a Legendary of Scrambling Architecture… somewhere. Cindy has theories about all sorts of stuff, like there being a Legendary of Toast, and a Legendary of Butter, and that they wrestle, and that Butterkachu likes to be on the bottom. I (to the limited degree that Cindy and EssJay aren't exactly the same being) have no better explanation, and find her explanation makes more sense than I'd like to admit./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Anyway, we're like… Pokecops or PokeEMTs, and we're surprisingly good at our jobs, despite, you know, being a small puppy boy and a small monkey girl. In our downtime, I gotten a bit of a reputation as a wild storyteller, as I can't help but tell tales of the Humans… oooooo… spooky Hooomans. I like hanging out with the little ones, but it's kinda a big problem that no one can Evolve for some reason, so we (of course) have to go looking for the CAUSE… because of course it has to be something external… maybe the Legendary of Evolution has been kidnapped by the Legendary Peterpanebi, Legendary of Never Growing Up!/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"One of them Xatu… the green nerf balls birds, says some disaster is coming and the natural balance of the world is upset. The old part of me thinks, "Well, duh." but the Cindy part of me thinks, "Oh noes! We must saves the world!". I might be slightly cynical, but yeah, maybe we can. That would be cool./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"There are a bunch of other Rescue Teams… doesn't seem to be any real hierarchy and they all pretty much just run off on their own, like… like kindergartners playing at rescue. They need… guidance… and not from this asshat Gengar who keeps blaming everyone for screwing up. So I, being me and thus awesome, call a meeting of the teams. Most of them show, and I propose that, you know, rather than everyone getting in everyone else's way, we, you know… work together. As a Rescue Force? It doesn't go over great, but about a third of the teams agree to at least give it a try. I come up with a rotation system, where there's always a team on standby if there's an emergency, and we start getting systematic about these dungeons. We also spend a lot of our time rescuing other teams…. We've got the man… er… pokepower for it./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Teamwork… overcomes a lot of issues. We start growing more powerful, more formalized. Formal team leaders. Formal schedules. Networking to other towns as our model proves… efficient. They try and make me be in charge, but I've sat behind a desk too much. I'm a monkey… need to move… So I get some of the older, wiser, and fully evolved (read fogey) Mons to take on the responsibility. They're more suited for it. Especially the Xatu… having a future-telling dude on dispatch is excellent. And this super nice Gardevoir runs the shop. Course, Gengar keeps trying to make everyone listen to his doom and gloom, but it's not on./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Finally, we get down to the bottom of the bottom of this Dungeon called Magma Cavern… it's got to be my team because… well… it's magma and my team are the only ones who can deal with that… except for team Slugma…. But they're kinda… slow? Find the Legendary… it's always a Legendary, isn't it… the Legendary causing the problem… why can't it ever be, like… 900 Zubats just being stupid?… anyway… It's this huge red Tyranitar looking dude named Groudon (who doesn't remember being soundly thrashed back in Hoenn even though Legendaries are supposed to be one of a kind… guess this is a different timeline or alternate dimension or something). And he's… um… kinda grouchy. We have… words. Let's call it words./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Words with flamethrowers and fists. Those kinda words. Then Zane and me play Good Cop Crazy Cop and interrogate Groudon's fat ass… like… totally Snorlax Fat. Dude should exercise more. Turns out something woke him from his nap and that's why he's throwing the tantrum. We advise him to take a chill pill… some Frostlasses are making them, they're tasty, but make you shiver all over… and calm down./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Then we head back to the station to see what's up… but as soon as we break the surface, Xatu calls and he's like "Chirp… Meteor… Headed Right At US! Chirp" and Zane's like "I use Sky Uppercut!" And I bop him/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""You cannot punch a giant rock out of the sky."/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"And he's like "I could if I wanted too."/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"And I said "You and which legendary?"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"And he ummms… "Skydragon?" Which is how we ended up trekking to the SkyPillar to see if Rayquaza… this world's Rayquaza, not my Rayray, could help. This, I suspect, is why I wasn't allowed to bring my team in with me. Oh Arceus. I have a team. We are Team Jumper! We will eat all your bananas and steal your keys./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Turns out… yes… but first we had to make it see reason and stop trying to eat us. Sky Uppercut works really well against cranky Skydragons, turns out. And that's how Zane, riding a Skydragon with a black eye, managed to ride into the upper atmosphere and punch a Meteor… well, a fragment of the bigger one after Rayquaza hit it with a Hyper Beam. I've got to learn that move. Must find Hyperbeam TM./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"And that was the first six months. The Rescue Squad grew and grew over the next few years, and Zane and I evolved… apparently it was the Meteor that was somehow stopping us? I dunno, I just work here. We also took on the role of trainers to the younger crowd. Someone had to do it to keep them from just running off to get stuck in a Mystery Dungeon and having to be rescued. We also made big doors to seal the entrances to most of the Dungeons so pokemon would stop wandering into them at random… okay, Zane and I didn't make them, but we had some Steelix's hammer them together with their heads./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"More problems came and went. Mostly involving Legendaries getting themselves into trouble and us getting them out. But none of it seemed too much of a challenge. Zane and I started getting bored… okay, Zane started off bored and went more and more goofy from there, but still. We started travelling, looking for more challenges… and more Legendaries to beat up. The time Zane tried to fight Darkrai was hilarious… cause, you know, Zane… against a Ghost who spent all his time just glaring at Zane? I guess you had to be there./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"We saved the world a couple more times… did some time travelling too, which made my brain hurt at the casual violation of causality, but Dialga, Legendary of Time, was like "Naw, it's cool, I do this all the time."/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"And Zane was like, "That's cause you got all the time in the world!" And, I kid you not, they high foured. Morons./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Still it was a fun ten years. At the end I was still counting down the days, as usual, but that's me. Zane was all "Why are you so… fidgety?" And I explained that soon would be the coming of the great Legendary Quicksilver. And Zane was like "Oh! Right, she's the Legendary of… ummm… remind me?" Now don't think Zane was an Idiot… well, not for this… still an idiot as I said earlier… but I may have invented a few dozen… or hundred to be honest… Legendaries over the last decade. Like Grrmardin who is the Legendary of Disappointment, or Gbush who is the Legendary of Lies, or Mbay, who is the Legendary of Unnecessary but Awesome Explosions. And that was why and when I sat down and explained my past to Zane./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"It's a testament to how close our friendship has gotten over these years that Zane didn't immediately just assume this was another of my whacky stories. Or it could be that Zane is an idiot. Either way. He did seem confused as to why we had to go to the beach… but no more confused than he had been the first time he saw me, a Fighting Fire Type, use Ice Powers. He's pretty mellow for a Spazz. /spanspan style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I said goodbye to Zane as dawn crept towards the shore and gave him a peck on the cheek as the pillars rose, as they always do./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""You've been busy." They said, as /spanCindy's insertion memories and personality faded into the background and it was just me standing there. I could remember everything, but I no longer had that queer doubling inside my head. It felt… lonely. Empty. Like I'd lost part of myself and didn't quite know how to get it back. I was no longer the girl monkey who had made those memories. I was something other… and that made me inexpressibly sad. Had I taken Cindy's place… her future? Ir was I always Cindy and she always me… I didn't know. Maybe I could never know./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"I sighed, and said, "It was a working vacation. Someone had to save the world. Feels kinda good." That much was true, though it was bittersweet knowing I couldn't stay in the world I'd saved with the people I'd saved./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""Ready to move on?" the Pillars asked, "Or have you had enough? Home awaits."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""Yeah… Moving on sounds good. I… I think I need to work through this. I've not seen home in 30 years. I've gone way past missing it. Adventure still calls to me. But… you know…" I sighed, "I'll miss the idiot."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""Why not bring him along?"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""Can I? I didn't opt for one of those stasis pods. Instead I got that Network Hookup I haven't really used much."/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""Sure. Jolly Cooperation and all that." I had no idea what the pillars were on about, but I could use the companionship./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""Yeah… I'm sure he'll get along with AJ great."/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""Well… sure… but that's your problem. I'll give you an extra day to get Zane settled. But tomorrow, a new world awaits."/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"And the sand swallowed me and Zane up… I'm sure Xatu will send a Rescue Squad to this location, only to find a new Mystery Dungeon and no us. Or maybe not. Maybe time remained frozen essentially, awaiting my eventual Return?/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I looked around the warehouse, then looked down at myself as Ziggy scampered up my once again human form and licked my face. I hugged him, gladness filling my heart as I felt the love pour out of my fuzzy friend./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Zane said, "Whoa… You evolved again! What's this form called?"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I looked over, ready to explain about how I was actually a legendary human (something I might have skipped over) when I just… froze. Zane was sitting, naked, and very human, on a crate of glocks. He looked… umm… good. Toned. Hunky. Like a young Chow Yun Fat, but with way more fighting trim… and blue hair. I gulped, painfully aware I hadn't had sex in… a long time. /span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""It's not an Evolution. We're human now," I hmmm'd, then set Ziggy down and reached inside myself. The world rippled and I shifted into my Infernape form. "Although we can shift back and forth… well I can. Dunno if your pea-sized brain can… hey, no throwing things!" Ziggy was sniffing my foot and he looked up at me "Momma is on fire!" He said. I patted him, smirking as I realized I could understand the little beasty finally, as Zane pranced around me shifting to and from Pokeform at will going, "Pea-Sized Brain, huh? Huh? Huh? Who's the best at Humans? Zane! Zane! Zane!" /spanspan style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"At which point Rocky stepped on him./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""Quiet!" The metagross bellowed in our minds. "Welcome back, Mistress," he said and I waved up at him./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""Hiya squirt," I said, grinning, then leapt up to stand on the metal dome of Rocky's head. "Onward! To Adventure!"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""Can we have breakfast first?" Zane asked, plaintively./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""No! All your Bananas are belong to me!" I yelled, capering madly as I allowed the Cindyness to flow through me. Ah, there she was./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""This is going to be a long adventure," he grumbled./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"If I hadn't known what setting I was going into when I woke up the next morning to demands of breakfast from both Zane and the council of Pokemons (and a polar bear and a puffin… the polar bear having learned not to try and eat any of the others), I knew what it was within the first moment as I saw the array laid out in the middle of the warehouse… I'd used many of the beach stones and sand to create a low round mound in the dead center of all that space and there, in middle of it was the selection array as I thought of it. Gone was the card table with the plastic punchbowl and the pamphlets. The selection array this time was a group of standies, lifesize cardboard cutouts of Kaidan Alenko, Liara T'soni, Garrus Vakarian, Tali-Zorah, Urdnot Wrex, and Mordin Solus. Together, they were flanking a touch screen that said, at the top, in that nice clean Mass Effect Font, 'RACES'./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I assume there were other choices, but screw that! Blueskinned lesbianoids? I was sooo there! Plus, the other choices were all icky. Salarians? Too short lived! Turians?All jerks! Krogans? Way too many testicals! Quarians? Those suits! Humans? Yerg. Been there, done that./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"The screen went blank and 'You have selected Asari. The lifespan of an Asari is upto one thousand Terran Standard Years. Do you wish to randomly generate an age between one hundred and eight hundred? You may skip this step and choose freely for 100 Credits.' appeared in place of the races and their descriptions./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"I opted not to waste my points on such meaningless frippery as age. I had no desire to remain in this universe after the ten year stint was up. It was not a setting with great long-term prospects… though it did have potential for some very dangerous hijinks./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"The screen cleared and was replaced with two digital wheels that interlocked, one showing ages and the other locations. I tapped the spin button and they spun to life, whirling so fast I actually felt wind despite the fact that they were images not physical wheels. And then I hit the stop button, revealing that I'd ended up a 212 year old Asari from Thessia named 'Enter Name Here!'. I thought about that for a minute, then typed in 'Sara Jo'Nas'. Thessia was a good choice. Excellent in style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" I'd always wanted to explore the Asari Homeworld and see all the strippers./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"The screen cleared, replaced with Origins, five choices. Drop-In, Merc, Warrior, Outlaw, and Merchant. I tapped my chin and commented to Zane who was watching from the sidelines and eating my store of popcorn… nothing ever when stale in my warehouse, thankfully… but I really wasn't certain time passed inside it when I wasn't there. "I like the Asari… they're fascinating… so advanced, so oversexed… but so… I dunno, stuffy?" Zane grunted, having no idea what I was talking about. "Drop-In would be a bad idea, as I have no idea how to be an Asari. Warrior and Merchant… they're part of the establishment… /spanspan style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I'd like to be… hmmm… an Outlaw! Yes! Excellent! I work outside the crushing restrictions of tradition and scoff at the annoying 'Council'. Is all about the credits baby! Plus, I have a scarf. Time to get my thief on!" [100/900/1000]./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"Zane commented, "And you say I'm silly? What does a scarf have to do with being a thief?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""It's a Sneak Scarf, remember? I wore it all the time back in… you're just being a doofus."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""Nope. Don't remember any scarf… it must have been hiding."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"I stuck my tongue out at him, then turned back to the screen, only to discovered that it had changed again. "span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Oooo, classes… mmmm… Don't want to be Biotic. That relies on Element Zero and there's no guarantee I'd be able to use it outside this World… plus… not a big fan of implants. So… combat or tech… ooo, Combat and Tech! Infiltrator it is! Totally not playing up the 'traitor' part. Lessee 'Tech-savvy with martial skills, stealth takedowns, specialized ammo, explosives, cloaking… nice. I'm sold. Wait, why can't I push the button… fuck… fuck… awww… that's no fun! Frickin Asari can only be Adepts or Sentinels? That's it? Shit… wasn't Samara a damned Vanguard? Awww, poo.. Fuck it, what happens if I keep pressing the button…."/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""You should play by the rules," a voice said. At first I thought it was Zane./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""Don't wanna," was my considered and well reasoned comeback./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""But Asari are all Biotics." Ah. Not Zane. Quick. Coming from the screen./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""So? Two classes? That's it? Not even all three of the Biotics? Come on, this is lame. It's like… ADD 2nd. Humans get all six but the others are all-"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""You're going to lecture me until I give in, aren't you?"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""Yes."/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""Fine. Be a damned Infiltrator. But don't come crying to me because you've got no Biotics training."/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""I… ummm… hmmm… okay. I won't. I still get basic Biotic potential because I'm Asari, right?"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""Yess… but I'm charging you [50/850/1000] for it… and all the other Asari will think you're weird for not embracing your Biotics more. They're going to mock you for being weak."/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""Fine. I can cope." I said, pretending to pout. Then I looked to Zane and did a mad little caper. "/spanspan style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Woo! Infiltrator Asari… they'll never see me coming. Disruptor Ammo, Incinerate, Cryo Ammo, Sabotage, Tactical Cloak, Sticky Grenade, Proficiency with Pistols, Sniper Rifles, SMGs, and Heavy Weapons. Yay! No shotguns! Hate shotguns… damn… which version of the setting am I going into… the infinite Ammo one or the other one. Says Heavy Weapons… shit, that probably means Stupid Mass Effect 2 version. Damn. Maybe I can find some ME1 guns lying about. Let's see, System says I get one minor biotic ability… Eh… let's go with 'Pull'." I could already blast things away from me with Ice or Fire or Hyperbeam… I needed some good old fashioned Jedi yanking./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"After that it was Perk Time! What time is it? PERK TIME! "Let's see, how do I more badass myself… Mmmm… Well, Tactical Readiness is discounted for Infiltrators… heh. Nfiltr8rsss…" I sighed. Zane is infectious… that's my story and I'm sticking to it. "Tactical Readiness… instinctively keep track of your surroundings, assess situation, find escape routes, be paranoid… naw… too pricy, too mind fuck."/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""What is fuck?" Zane asked./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""Never you mind, buddy boy. Never you mind," I wagged a finger at him admonishingly, then kept looking… I'd switched to the Gear screen somehow and was about to switch back when I noticed 'span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Assistant VI'. VI's were Virtual Intelligences, nearly self-aware pseudo AIs. Did I want one of them? What would I… Ooo, yes, she could keep track of my insane number of files and bring up the right audiobook… speaking of, there better be good fiction in this universe because I've already read everything I'd brought with me twice… Even the stuff I picked up in Infamous-Verse. [100/750/1000]/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Back to the Perks! "Hmmm… Tongue of a Shepherd…" according to the description it would literally allow me to talk people into shooting themselves in the head… I did have some problems last couple of worlds with getting people to listen to me. "It's pricey, but… yeah, let's go with some serious verbal buttkicking!" [500/250/1000]/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""You can't kick someone in the butt with words," Zane said, "That's not how words work… or kicking. Have you been eating spoiled berries again?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""They weren't spoiled! They were fermented! And no, I'm not drunk! span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Hah! But Now I can convince people to jump off bridges!"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""Why would you wanna do that?"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""Eh. Better to have the skill than not, right?" I said with a shrug, then explained. "Some of the people in this world are really really bad people Z… more than old Gengar even."/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"Zane looked dubious. Gengar was pretty bad… for a kids game villain./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I left Zane to pondering how that was possible and turned back to the Gear section! Gear, my old friends! Free stuff first… Basic Armor with Kinetic Barrier, Basic Weapon of each type I'm proficient with… have to test this new Sniper Rifle against my old standby… It hasn't seen that much use over the last ten years… but Monkey Fingers still can pull triggers. Don't tell anybody, but that's why Gengar kept fainting all the time. Bang, Headshot. Omni-Tool… cool. Wonder how well it will interface with my Pokegear. Should be interesting. It is Omni, right? Right?/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"What else? Conflict Materials? Ooo rare elements, massive stash… funds! Yes please. [100/150/1000], Medi-Gel Kit? 20 Doses doesn't seem like much, but… MOTHER FUCKING INSTRUCTIONS to make more? Yes please times fifty! Fuck, Cerberus didn't even have instructions on how to make more Medi-Gel! Boyah! [50/100/1000]… ooooh… speaking of instructions to make more, could I combine my Tracking system with my omni-tool? Must find out. Hmmm… Weapons Locker? Mid to High Grade Weapons… enough to outfit a Battalion? 500 goddamned sets of weaponry? Shit, [200/-100/1000] Credits in the baaaank! er… slot… er… fuck. SOLD!/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Crap… Crap… the system was buzzing at me; I'd overspent. "Shit… ummm… let's see, what's worth 100 in the way of Drawbacks? Is that what we're calling them now? Fine! Drawbacks it is!" Maybe I was drunk… didn't remember drinking anything "Well, what's worth more? Reaper's Eye… ack… being on the Reaper's Radar at all sounds all kinda bad. No Takers… haven't gotten laid in more than fifteen years… what's another ten? could take that… but damn it! I'm a sexy Asari Babe! I want Lesbonics! What happens on Thessia stays on Thessia, right?"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""Nooo?" Zane hazarded a guess. He wasn't at all certain what Lesbonics was (probably figured it was another of my made up Legendaries) and had even less idea what Thessia was since he wasn't exactly paying attention and I wasn't exactly explaining./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""Bounty… been there, done that. Rogue AI? Fuck no. That would be worse than Zubats. Red Tape… bleh. Paperwork goes against my criminal Code. What's this… Shepard's Flock? Wait… I take this and I get sucked into the whole plotline mess? Well, fuck… that'll save loads of time tracking Shepard down and making sure someone kicks Reaper Butt. [-100/0/1000] Wonder if she'll be a Paragon or a Renegade? Will she be into Asari? Fingers crossed, fingers crossed./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Everything was locked in, and the system said I could insert whenever I was ready, but a clock appeared on the screen, counting down from six days, twenty hours, and fifty-one minutes. Was there really any reason to stick around in a big empty void for longer than I had to? Sure, I could play with Ziggy… but I hadn't been told that my pets were locked out of this World, so I was betting I could use RayRay to fuck up some Batarians if I wanted to. I wondered if Reapers were Electric Steel or Dark Steel? Well, soonest started, soonest done and all that. I hit the Insert Now icon, then the confirm icon… and the world went neon blue. That was a first./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"INSERTION/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I woke up, head throbbing, naked, memories of a lifetime three times longer than all my other lifetimes combined pouring into my consciousness. I groaned, rolled onto my side… and bumped into something solid. I opened my bleary eyes, wondering what the hell I'd drunk, when I realized I was lying next to the biggest damned Krogan ever. Well, mostly on top of him actually. His eyes opened, twinkling with a familiar gleam./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""I evolved AGAIN!" he bellowed, throwing his arms to the ceiling./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I groaned. Zane… the fucking Krogan. "Shit…" I said, then blinked. "Why are you naked?"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"He grinned! "I think we had sexy time! Will you lay an Egg Now?/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I shuddered, wincing at the physical discomfort and rapidly healing bruises that informed me that, yes, it seemed highly likely we'd… err… /spanspan style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""It doesn't count!" I insisted. "That's what these bodies did before we got into them, got it?"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"He laughed, a deep booming laugh. "Sure thing… Fire Monkey. Ooo… Monkey… I understand that word now. Monnnnkeeee… And Puppy! You used to call me Puppy! A small dog. Hah! I'm not small any more!" He set me down as he stood, grinning like a goon, as he flexed. "I am Krogaaaan! I am… hmmm… Krogan! Wait, what's a Shotgun… oooo, that sounds cool! It's like my Bullet Punch… but longer range! We gotta go shoot something!"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I sighed, rolling out of bed and staggering into the bathroom, looking for clues as to where we were. Was this home? No… hotel, I decided, seeing the tiny soaps and monogrammed towels. Decent one too, I thought as I ran my fingers over the fabric. The water was arctic… but that's cause I set it there, feeling the intense chill soaking into me, filling my reserves. Out of curiosity, I tried to use some of that power to generate fire. It wasn't easy, but it worked. I opened the shower door and tried to use some stored Icepower to pull the towel over. That worked too, but again, there was a lag. I could shift between internal power pools… but it wasn't easy. I was going to have to work on this. Three pools was too much… and if I gained more, I wasn't going to be able to keep track of everything, even with my intellect. And that was before I got into things like mana or psi powers… or the Force! I wonder if there was a Star Wars World Document… or a Dune World Document? Oh momma! I began making a list of all the places I wanted to go… it was quite long./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Zane stepped into the shower with me. "Did you use up all the hot water?" he asked, then grinned, "You're sooo tiny!" I punched him, making him double over. "But… but not weak," he groaned./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""Right. Remember that. I'm still… fuck… what the hell was my name here again?" I concentrated, my migraine easing… "Ah… I am Sara Jo'Nas. That's almost human. Okay. and you are?"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Zane pouted. "I'm Zane! How could you forget?"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I sighed. "Right. I was just wondering if you'd gotten a new name in this world, you big lunk."/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Zane grinned. "I may be a lunk, but I'm also a Hunk!"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I groaned "Shut up and get clean. I'm starving and we need to figure out how to get to the Citadel and become a Spectre. Preferably before Shepard and Saren start tearing up… orrr… we could get the jump on things and head right for… no… better not. Let things come to us. Let's see…" I plucked up an Omni-tool, but it was Zanes. I dropped it and grabbed the other one, pulling it onto my arm. "According to my memories, it's… damn… VI, what year is this in the Human Calendar?"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""It is the Human Year 2181 of Christ." I almost asked who the fuck Christ was, before I actually remembered. Spend ten years as Pokemon, and then get 212 years of Asari Memories… okay, 203… couldn't remember much for the first 9 years of this lifetime, despite my perfect memory… and you begin having trouble with Earth Cultural References. Jesus Christ was as alien to my consciousness at this point as… as… Arceus. No, even vaguer, since even when I'd been human I'd never worshipped JC, and I'd actually spent 10 years believing Arceus was, in fact, God the Creator. Was Arceus Yahweh? Huh. Maybe. But that wasn't important. I didn't exactly have any masterballs left… or did I? "VI, can you access my Warehouse?"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""Yes Sara Jo'Nas, I can."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""Do you know what is inside it?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""Yes Sara Jo'Nas. There are-" the disembodied voice began, but I cut it off./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""First off, you can call me ma'am or EssJay or Sara. You don't have to say my full name and it's probably better if you don't. Also, if you're addressing me, you don't have to say my name at all unless you're trying to get my attention. Second, what should I call you?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""You may call me whatever you like. I am currently VI-24601."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""Riiight. Cute. Hmmm. I think I'll call you VIctoria. Sound good?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""I have no opinion on the matter, EssJay. Would you like me to continue reading off the list of everything in your warehouse?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""No. Just tell me… Are there three Master Balls in there?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""Negative. There are five."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""Five? Explain."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""Three are unoccupied and on shelf number X33-Delta in a blue tub marked 'Tools and Accessories'. The other two are currently housing the pokemon designated RayRay and Dyna Deoxys."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""Huh… interesting…" I distinctly remembered breaking open their balls to release them in Infamous, partly to test their loyalty to me and partly because there wasn't a pokecenter around to heal them at any way and mostly because there wasn't a law requiring me to keep my pets inside their balls except in certain designated areas or during battles. "VIctoria… tell me… is time currently passing inside the Warehouse?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""Negative. You may activate the passage of time if you like, but it will pass at the rate of one year for every ten years you experience. Do you desire to do so now?/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""No… No thank you. Maybe later. VIctoria, this is Zane, he is an authorized user, but if he asks you to do anything stupid, you can ignore him." I yelped as he swatted me with a towel, then turned to look at him. "Now that that's settled… span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"We've got two years to become Spectres… well.. 18 months. Can't be that hard, right?"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""I have faith in you, babe!"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""Great."/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Turns out that, yes, when you can convince people of practically anything and can throw a fully armored Krogan Battlemaster around with ease, convincing the Council to make you a Spectre is, in fact, relatively easy. In fact, the only real challenge I faced in that period was from some of the hardcore traditionalists among the Asari who claimed my tactics were "Unorthodox" and my family line was "Unimportant" and my past was "Unsavory". I could have made a joke about how they needed to vary their vocabulary, but it wouldn't work in the dominant Asari languages./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Okay, okay, I had one other minor problem… Zane. You know how Krogan have four… well… you know? They have a sex drive to match… and Zane wasn't picky. At all. Or genetically near-sterile, something I had to keep very quiet. Every damned time he got near a female Krogan I'd have to spend half a day hunting him down and he'd always just give me that shit-eating grin and shrug. Same with practically any Asari who showed the slightest interest… or any human who seemed like she'd like to ride the Krogan Warpony… yes, he really called it that. Of course, sometimes he'd transform back into his Lucario form and pretend to be a member of an unknown alien race called the Primordials on a mission to experience 'Human'-Lovemaking (and by Human, read Quarian, Turian, Salarian, or Asari). I cannot believe how many females fell for that one./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I, of course, used my Infernape form for more… sensible things. Like infiltration, grand theft, and sabotage. Also for playing a near unending series of pranks on Saren. Little jerk, totally deserved it. Considered killing him more than once, but decided that would throw too much of a butterfly into the works, and driving him batshit crazy with my jokes… and the occasional flaming poo (flaming monkey, flaming poo)… was sooo worth it./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I also considered looking up Shepard, just to see what she was like in this universe, but I decided to be surprised. I did hunt down all, and I do mean, all, of Shepard's eventual companions and get to know them as well as can be expected. Okay, not all, not EDI or Legion who don't strictly speaking exist yet, but the rest… yeah. Even Jack and Javik. Finding them was trickier than I'd thought it would be, since neither Pragia nor Eden Prime are exactly small planets… but… I have a way of making people talk, and knew what I was looking for. Jack was easy to convince to join me. This was 3 years earlier in her timeline and she wasn't quite as… angry, but the promise of revenge against Cerberus was all it took. Javik was more interesting, but, giant git that he is, convincing him to get revenge on the Reapers wasn't exactly hard. Zaeed and Kasumi and Thane weren't hard to find in my line of work. Can't say as I was friends with any of them, aside from maybe Grunt. He's fun to party with. He and Zane got along pretty good… after the fist fight. Though Zane is bigger, Grunt is… mean./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I did give myself a special mission around the year mark. I stole the plans for the Normandy. Took them to some underworld connections, calling on Spectre status, and geo not one, not two, but five of them made. Asari VI, Turian Shields, Salarian sensors, Krogan Weaponry. While that was going on, I worked on Miranda, trying to get closer to the workings of Cerberus… or at least in a position to be able to do so in a few more years./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Still, things were ticking along like clockwork until that idiot Shepard showed up. Small minded, rockjawed, git. Imagine if Mass Effect was played by the biggest Bro in the universe. Ramp that up higher and you've got it. Cross the worst possible Renegade Shepard with Duke Nukem and you've got him pegged. Soldier, Marine, Sole Survivor straight down the line. Creativity of a rock. Total Murderhobo. Acted like his controller was on a goddamned speed run. Watching him work was like… watching a machine. I'd seen Geth with more involvement… but he was death incarnate to anything standing in the way of his objective./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Zane and I joined the fray, not really part of Shepard's team, but close enough to steer him, and close enough to clean up his messes. Good thing about this not being a game? No party size limit. Second best thing about this not being a damned game? Being able to rescue Ashley when Signore Rockjaw went to save Kaidan. Sure, she was a racist, but I figured I could bring her around in more ways than one./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Bad thing about this not being a game? The concept of "Take your Time" didn't exist. Events keep unfolding, and unfolding fast. I had to cover for Shepard on Feros while he was off saving X57 from hijackers, and while the game makes it seem easy to deal with, Thorians are anything but, especially not with the Geth running around. Still, can't say it wasn't fun in an utterly terrifying kind of way./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Still, the best part of the first attack on the Citadel? Laying in wait for Saren as he came through from Ilos… and knowing that, together Shepard and I had managed to convince the council to set a trap for Sovereign. I wasn't there to witness it, as I was busy shooting Saren in the head over and over again, but the videos of 6 Normandy's absolutely shredding Sovereign had me chuckling for days. I don't think the Geth fleet knew what hit them./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"But then began the racing clock. Two more years until Mass Effect 2's events. I had to be in place before then. My successes (and my ability to convince people to do insane things) allowed me to authorize a totally black shipyard. We were laying down foundations left, right, and center, and I was using my contacts (Okay, mostly Zane's contacts) within the Krogan community, promising them that if they helped crew my secret Black Fleet, they'd get the cure they'd been desperate for. Toss in as many Asari, Quarians, and even Humans as I could pull in, and the fleet was soon growing as fast as I could crew the damned ships. Getting a few of the older Asari Admirals to sign on was the hard part, but I managed. I wanted to teach the Reapers just how bad an idea facing actually prepared forces was going to be. I have a thing against genocidal assholes and this time I wasn't going to just run and hide./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"But doing all this would be meaningless if I couldn't deal with Cerberus, and so, with the fleet well begun, I went after Jack Harper, aka The Illusive Man. Finding him was a challenge, but taking him out would have been too easy. I needed him alive… for now. But that didn't stop me from beginning to undermine his control of his organization from within. I introduced Ashley… whom I'd gotten to know quite well by now… to Miranda, and convinced the two that they might enjoy a working relationship that could benefit both. I arranged for the Illusive Man to hire my friends Tali and Kasumi in various positions. I needed my pawns all lined up./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I won't bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that things played out differently in the end. Mass Effect Relays were… tampered with, their exit points into key systems carefully calibrated for ships in certain mass ranges tweaked, and mine fields constructed. Large numbers of Geth were liberated and turned against their former masters… And the Black Fleet was lying in wait as the Reapers came out of jump near Earth, believing they'd destroyed the First Fleet at Charon Relay. Did you know that these people had never even dreamed up the concept of the self contained missile pod? Load a few hundred thousand contact nukes into 10th generation spaceborne IPBMS and slave them all to a small nimble frigate loaded with fire control. Shields? What Shields? Energy barriers powerful enough to tank a thousand 5-gigaton contact nukes just don't exist in this universe. The devastation was brutal, sudden, and merciless. Cerberus, taken down from within months earlier, had been absorbed into the Shadowbroker's network and Krogan and Geth assault pods were waiting for the Reapers near Thessia and Palaven. The Reapers never knew what hit them as their dreadnoughts began exploding one by one./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"I stood in the heart of the Citadel, the secret heart, and smiled at the Catalyst. All its external systems were offline for the time being, having been sabotaged very carefully in preparation for this. Behind us, the bulk of a massive semi-spherical object was closing the final kilometers before it could dock with the Citadel as it had been designed to./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""Organic Lifeforms are a virus. What did you expect, you stupid machines. We adapt, we grow. You are static. And uncreative."/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""The cycle will continue, you cannot stop it."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""Oh, I can't, can I? Say hello to Vivian. Oh. Right. You don't know Vivian. Know what happens when you give a VI access to all of recorded fiction, not just Human, but Asari, Krogan, Salarian, Batarian, Turian… and a dozen minor species?"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""Negative. But irrelevant. Your 'Crucible' can only be used three ways and predictive software indicates that you will be unwilling to take any of those options. Shephard might have, but you seem to have arranged for him to be elsewhere?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""Crucible… right… right… you and I both know the Crucible was originally nothing but a massive energy source designed to fry all you fuckers. But the answer to my question was this. They become a massive geek. And know what happens when you plug that VI into a nearly unlimited amount of Omni-Gel? And then tell it that a bunch of evil psychotic Machine Intelligences want to destroy all the nice people who make all her favorite vids, comics, books, stories… etc?"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"The energy being that represented the totality of the Reaper consciousness looked worried for once. "You have deliberately created an insane rogue AI with unlimited processing power? You are mad. She will destroy you as well as us."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;""Yeah? I don't think so. See, I was very specific with her core heuristics. She values creative species. She likes creative species… she wants to protect and nurture creative species. When someone threatens all the creative species… She gets really, really angry. Know what happens when you plug a giant technorganic brain obsessed with the popular culture of a couple hundred worlds and powered by the Crucible into the Reaper Neural network?"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""You… you cannot. We contain the essence of thousands of cultures, all perfectly preserved. You would be destroy-" It never got a chance to finish. span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Imagine plugging Spock into endless reruns of Sailor Moon. I swore, in that moment, as a purple beam of energy lanced out of the Citadel and into the entire mass relay network that I could hear the BDS of the remaining Reapers echoing across the Galaxy. I smiled. It was a good day to be an organic sophont. /span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""Fuck the past," I said, spitting in the wildly twitching Catalyst's image's face. "This is for the future. A future that doesn't have you assholes in it."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"The next few years were… clean up. They weren't pretty. The Batarians had been hit hard, as had some of the other races, and liberating them from the few remaining Reapers who had managed to isolate their systems from the constant barrage of Entertainment Warfare was no picnic. And of course the Mass Relay system and Citadel had to be completely dismantled and rebuilt, free of the Reaper's control./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Still, it was nice to save the day for once, and not in a setting like Pokemon where no one could really die… except when they did… never understood that. But this time the Universe was ready for the Space-nazis… and I got to gloat as they burned. And gloat in style. In my downtime I'd upgraded my battery farm, my appliances, my personal vehicles… my freezers. AC Heating? Taken care of. Swimming Pool installed. Atmospheric processing and a force shield plus turrets install over the main doors slash portal access point. Robotic sorting system installed. Shelves upgraded. Storage systems upgraded. 22nd century Rombas… acquired. Tech shop upgraded with really snazzy tools I still had almost no idea how to use. But I'd done ALL the shopping and it was finally time to go./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Finding a beach wasn't hard. I picked Virmire. It's a lovely planet. Really. Based on some Thai islands I think… Zane and I watched the sunset and I smirked at him "So… you've lived two lives now. Which did you enjoy more?"/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"He considered, then smirked back. "Had a lot more sex in this one. Got shot a lot more too. This was fun. But more complicated. We should go someplace calmer next time. Less Genocidal Maniacs."/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"I just laughed "I don't control these things… but so far, every life I've lived except the one you're from… all of those worlds had Genocidal Maniacs."/span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;""Isn't that like… three? Three worlds? Out of five?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"I shrugged. "Something like that."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"So yeah, the Pillars came, and yada yada yada. No big surprises this time. VIctoria had reinstalled her core matrix in my Omni-Gear (Omni-Tool / Pokegear / Pokedex hybrid) and we'd renamed the much bigger and more obsessive half of her VIvian because I like themes. Got to keep them, one on my arm, one as the brain of the Warehouse. Asked if I could keep one of the Blackstars (fourth generation heavy combat Normandies that I'd had constructed for the Black Fleet and named in honor of Babylon 5's Whitestars.) Was told the request wasn't unusual. Wasn't much of an answer, but… I wasn't expecting much. Still, snagged a Mako. Love those things. Mine had improved jump thrusters… and a rollbar./span/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #303030; text-align: justify;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"Oh, and apparently we get to keep our new forms as well, so now Zane and I each have three. Excellent. Can't wait to explain to Legolas that a Krogan is not an Orc./span/p