jump

by asbs

not mine

7. 7

I woke up in bed, head throbbing… but quiet. Blessedly quiet. I refused to leave my bed for ten whole minutes before my bladder announced it was time to pee. I had a bladder! I looked under the sheets and squealed! I had bits again! It was awesome. I scampered to the bathroom and luxuriated in being human once more. I celebrated the return of actual human sensation by having excessive amounts of sex and simply obscene amounts of food. I hadn't eaten anything but nutrient paste in a decade. A full week went by before I even bothered looking at the next jump.

I know you're thinking, 'But EssJay, don't you have Waste Not? Whyfor is you have to pee?' Well, that's a good point… but waste water isn't processed by the stomach, but by the kidneys. I dunno what goes on inside my guts to eliminate number twos… those I don't miss, let me tell you… though I do have to find other reasons to do crosswords now… but I still have to pee. Just a thing, I guess. Not that I mind too much. I know, I know, TMI.

I did ponder what had happened to the borg body, but it turned out that Victoria was using it, puppeting it around like a hologram-headed Dullahan. She too was, in her own 'not really alive' way, glad to no longer be saddled with two almost completely insane emotional beings. Why she needed a body when she didn't actually do anything besides wander about in it was anyone's guess. I certainly wasn't a qualified machine-intelligence-psychologist.

Speaking of my other selves, it was only as I looked around for Joy that something dawned on me… I hadn't seen any of the Snakes in the last ten years. I wondered at that. Shouldn't they have had a presence of some kind in the world of GUNCorp's successors? If they had, I hadn't seen hide nor hair of them. Just rumors and history. Most interesting of all, I hadn't seen Venom… Fake Boss. Shouldn't he have imported himself? or had that not happened because MGR was technically his homeworld?

In end, I found Venom and Joy playing chess in the apartment they were sharing… apparently they'd connected. I have no idea when. It was strange finally meeting her. In a lot of ways I hated her, and I could tell the feeling was at least a little mutual… but she understood me on a level only Zane could match.

I was no longer a genetic copy for Joy. I was back in my own default female form. But we resembled each other in movement, mannerisms… warriness. I wondered if she had my psychic powers.

As I entered, Venom glowered at me. "That trick with the water… that wasn't very nice."

I shrugged. "I'd been there for fifty years, putting up with the lunacy and madness and conspiracies… and the unbridled masculinity. You boys… men… needed to lighten up. Also, a dozen games and not a single female main character?"

He grunted, but Joy laughed and said, "She has you there, Ahab."

I wandered out again, not really interested in their debate and still craving silence. The jump's drawbacks had left me profoundly shaken, even if the direct problems no longer plagued me. For the first time I was considering ending the chain, but there was just too much to look forward to, and so, after another week had passed I finally got around to looking at the Vending Machines. They were like old friends, friends I hadn't seen in sixty years. "MOTHER? What the fuck is MOTHER?"

Then a memory, a memory from fifteen jumps and nearly two hundred years ago floated out of the darkness… a game for the SNES… Earthbound… also known as MOTHER 2? Was that right? Was that what MOTHER was? I looked at the machine, studying the graphics. They certainly seemed like SNES graphics.

I consulted Vivian and she concurred, "Game Series. Super Nintendo Entertainment System."

The title had a line under it, 'Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of MOTHER. It's a pretty relaxing place, so kick back for ten years and enjoy the scenery.' I relaxed, thinking "Oh good… I could use a vacation." just before the words 'Sorry, that was a little lie.' scrolled across the screen. I kicked the cabinet.

"Fine. But I absolutely refuse to take any drawbacks this time. None. You hear me?" The cabinet didn't respond. "I'm going to take a vacation from the world saving. Just me and a bottle of Jack." The cabinet didn't respond. I growled and began running through the menus.

"Location?" I spun the wheel. Paying for this is normally ridiculous, but would be exactly meaningless in this situation. I assumed that the three towns were the starting points slash settings of the three games in the series… I think there are three. MOTHER 3… strikes a cord, but that's all. I get Tazmily Village. Says it's 'The coziest town of all, and the only human settlement on the Nowhere Islands. Money doesn't exist here, and everyone knows everyone. You could get used to this place, huh? At least, if not for the chimeras that seem to be showing up all over.' "Chimeras? Well fuck. Sounds nice otherwise."

"Origin? Roll dem bones… I'm… wait… how old? Eight fucking years old? Oh that's just bloody wonderful, that is!" I considered buying an upgrade… I didn't have good memories from either of the two other times I'd been eight… but maybe this would be better. A chance to make up for it? And if not… I wasn't even going to think the rest of that sentence. "Wait, Nerd is a type distinct from Village Kid? First, fuck you and second, le sigh, 'two loving parents' nuclear family bullshit. I had two parents who hated each other in my original life and was cloned from a super spy and the raised by a crazed intel operative in my last life… and I turned out… bad example."

"Fuck it, I'm not even looking at the tree first. I will be societally normal! Normal as fuck…. An eight year old bisexual sniper swordsmaster with firepower, icepower, magic, and power armor… yeah, that's essentially what Victoria is now, except she wanders around the house talking to the appliances and flirting awkwardly with the butlerbots. Village Kid…. Fifty CP… NORMAL AS FUUUCK!"

Zane wandered over, opened his mouth to ask, then thought better of it and walked away. Ziggy, draped over my shoulders agreed, squeaking "Fuuuug!" in solidarity. I gave him a treat.

As a Village kid, I was guaranteed that weird things would happen around me, and to protect me I was given the 'Dangerous Guy' perk for free. It was your general 'I can use everyday items as weapons' skill package, but it did come with an aptitude for sports and yo-yo tricks, so there was that. Still, frying pans and baseball bats can go hang. I have a HF elemental Goblin Sword. So… yay?

Also in the skill tree for VKs… Vickies!… sorry… heh, couldn't help myself. No, I'm not going to name myself Vicky for this jump… where was I? Oh, right. Rooooolllllling COUNTER! Wow, so good that I'm sane again, right? Anyway, the perk was called 'Rolling Counter' and it was pretty meh on the face of it, but combo'd with something I already had? Madness. Sorry, sorry. I know I'm not being very clear, but I shall explain. RC meant that any time I got injured… even from a fatal blow… I'd have a few seconds before the damage took effect… you know, as if I had a Hit Point Counter and it was spinning down in real time. Since the counter could only roll down so fast, this was a kind of buffer, but on its own? As I said, meh. Where it shined was the fact that, if I could heal (say, from a health potion or spell) before the counter hit zero, I could survive even a fatal blow. The best part of this? As a Conduit, I regenerated. Granted, I did that best in my Conduit body, but all my bodies had lesser regeneration abilities, abilities that could be boosted by access to a source of cold, especially if it was cold water. The combo of Rolling Counter and Regen? That was seriously OP and definitely worth the hundred and fifty CP that the VMoD was asking for.

If the middle perk was that good, how good could the Capstone be? To give you an idea, it was called 'ULTIMATE PSI', Well, that's not overselling it, now is it? The text made it clear that this was quote 'The Strongest Offensive PSI ability' and was apparently to be named after my favorite thing. "What the hell does that mean?" I asked, but the machine merely responded with 'It hits like a cannon and will only get stronger.' Great it's an attack of some kind, a psi-cannon I guess. "Huh."

The machine then added in this cryptic piece of jargon, "Only by use of this power can one pull the Seven Needles hidden across the world." Well… that could be good or bad. I had no fucking clue what the Seven Needles were, or if pulling them was the right thing to do. There was even an asterix assuring me that I'd be able to use ULTIMATE PSI even if I couldn't use PSI normally. PSI was different from psychic powers? Or maybe it was what the local system called psychic powers. Either way, after that disclaimer, I just had to see what PSI was.

It turned out that PSI was the free perk for the Alien background. Big silver faceless robot looking alien. I giggled and, in a deep voice, said, "Ziggy, Snafu Barbados Necktie!" Ziggy, true to form, refrained from destroying the world. He's very good at that.

Turning back to the machine, I read through the description. It claimed that the fantastic power of PSI was the ability to affect the world with the mind… yeah, sounds like psionics, but instead of the power being split into telepathic and telekinetic disciplines like in Metal Gear, in MOTHER it was divided into offensive and defensive specializations. Looking through the abilities in the info panel, it was clear that PSI was closer to magic, with clearly defined powers costing set amounts of psychic power and experience translating to unlocking new abilities rather than strengthening existing ones. Still, it sounded like a good thing to add to my repertoire.

I chose Defense PSI and took the Ultimate as well. A powerful finishing attack is always a good thing to have in one's bag. Still, that cost me another five hundred, meaning I'd spent 700 out of a hard capped 1000, and that meant it was time to see if there were import options or any cool gear on offer.

As it turned out, there were no import options (Aww Sad), but 'Improbable Allowance 'was an item that gave ten large in USD every month! "Gah… wait, my starting point has no money. How would that work?" I clicked on the info box as it flashed.

"The Allowance is 10,000 dollars or 10,000 DP," the machine said, clearing up absolutely nothing. I had no idea what the hell DP were! Maybe they were the local not quite money of Nowhere Islands?

"Right… I should consider buying that… I suspect the only way to earn DP as an eight year old that would be legal would be beating up monsters. Are there monsters? It's a videogame… there are probably monsters." Ziggy ooked in agreement, then tried to tackle Dyna as she walked by, but she evaded and he smacked head first into the waist-high stone wall Uriel had built around the rise where the VMoDs were located.

I looked through the rest of the item section, and the called out, "Hey Zane! Check it, 'Swear Words' is a card you throw into the air that floats above you!"

He sauntered over and chucked, "Wow, that's like the Dark Mark, but lamer… which is saying something. Anything else silly?"

"Wall Staples are an instant ladder…"

"That's cute… but you can fly. Ladders are so four jumps ago," he said, sipping his beer.

"Saturn Table is a riding table… without handholds."

"Hey, you could stick some wall staples to it and use them… do Saturn Tables feel pain?"

"A Flamethrower?"

"No! You can just flame monkey up and do that naturally."

"A Legendary Bat that can smash in the front of a tank?"

"Huh…" he said, scratching his chin. "You have your sword, but your good buddy Zane could use a melee weapon. Hint hint."

I stuck my tongue out at him, then read off, "The 'Magic Doorknob' can make a door in any surface."

"Seriously? That's fucking awesome!"

"I guess… Money or Doorknobs… Money and Bat or Doorknobs… tricky."

"You could take some drawbacks," he suggested.

"No. I'm not going to see if any of the drawbacks 'aren't quite so bad.' That's a firm no."

"Awww."

"Hush you. If I go with the Money and the Bat, that's 150 of my remaining 300… that would mean finding one of the 100 point perks I want and doubling up on Allowance (or getting the table-steed). But the Doorknob is awesome. But the Bat is unbreakable… and it's been signed by five major league stars! Eh, I've got enough resources, I'll stick with the Doorknob." and that's how I spent my last three hundred. Probably stupid to get a gimmicky lockpick that would keep getting lost unless I really needed it, but half the places I'd visited US dollars weren't worth the paper they were printed on, and DP were certain never to be useful outside of this jump.

Once I signed off on my purchases, the VMoD generated a pair of tablet computers. One was labeled 'The Boss' and the other 'Venom Snake'. I poked around on them… apparently I have administrator access, and verified the contents. Venom and Joy could automatically import into any background worth up to 200 CP for free and get all the freebies. Just out of curiosity, I tried to make some purchases (I wouldn't have confirmed them, I promise!) but the stupid tablets have biometric locks… which means I have to let them pick their own… picks.

Still, that was three of us, and I decided we'd Ziggy along because he doesn't get out nearly enough. He doesn't even need an Import Option, he's a ferret… or a leopard.

Joy went Drop-In, which was cool. A nine year old Drop-In… while Venom was ten and a Nerd. As a Drop-In, Joy got the supersized Improbable Allowance at 50,000 DP a month. Wooo! She was a rich kid! And that covered our expenses sooo much better than I could have. For the first time, I postulated the idea of an Item Mule Companion, one who spent their points on stuff I wanted to have but didn't want to pay for… but that seemed a really asinine thing to do to a friend. Companions were supposed to be friends, right? Not slaves. Or maybe I was jumping wrong.

I thought back to all the various people i'd met and wondered what they'd be like as Jumpers… then shuddered. Most of them would be too scared to be interesting. They were the safest group. The most dangerous group… I didn't want to dwell on what people like Gengar from Pokemon Mystery Dungeon or Senator Armstrong from Metal Gear Rising or Ethan Rayne from Buffy would do with the power of the Jump, the suffering they could cause… and those three were veritable saints compared to some of the psychos in fiction and in real life. The cannibals, rapists, and torturers. The genocidal bastards and religious fanatics. I wondered just how good of background checks Quick ran on his 'employees'.

No way to know, I guessed. Anyway. Venom. or Ahab as Joy had called him. He got 'Gearhead', i.e. the power of backyard engineering, the ability to create lethal weapons out of household objects… and to have people be less likely to question why a ten year old was packing heat.

So a wealthy stranger, a psychic, a tech-boi, and a giant ferret. Sounds like an adventuring party. I hit the confirm button, triggering the jump.

====INSERTION=====

~WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE FOOD?~ asks the disembodied voice.

"What?" I ask, like an idiot. "Who are you?"

~WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE FOOD?~ it repeats.

"Fuck you!"

"FUCK YOU IS YOUR FAVORITE FOOD? IS THIS OKAY?"

I sighed. Great, literal minded machines.

"No. My favorite food is Steak." It's not actually true, my favorite food is my mother's stuffed grape leaves, but since there were lots and lots of stuffed grape leaves I didn't like, and almost anyone's steak was yummy… it was more accurately my favorite food in general. Of course, I could also have said Sushi, Nachos, Mac-n-cheese, Cheese, Parmesan Cheese, Meatloaf, Fried Rice, Stew, Chili, Mocha Ice Cream, Lemon Sorbet, Bacon, Waffles, Hard Boiled Eggs, Egg Salad… the list goes on and on. I like food. Also veggies. Huge fan of veggies. And Tuna Salad. But all those were conditional on the quality. Steak was steak. Damnit… now I was hungry. Wait, I'd missed something.

"What did you say?" I asked the machine.

~WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE THING?~ it repeated.

I considered saying Ferrets, which I love, but my first love has always been… "Games," I said. I love ferrets for their playful nature, but games are my absolute passion. Ferrets are just fun to have around. Like friends. Or Pizza.

"GAMES ARE YOU FAVORITE THING?

No sooner had I agreed than I found myself in a pleasant little house in a pleasant little village on a pleasant little island. I was in bed, wearing pyjamas, and mom was calling me to breakfast. It was all very prosaic.

After breakfast, I met up with Joy and Ahab… after changing out of my pj's…. Mom was very insistent… and the four of us explored the village. It wasn't huge, about 10,000 people. That number resonated with me for some reason, but I couldn't quite make the connection. It could have been a small town, but it was pretty spread out, very agrarian, and bucolic. Also there wasn't any money. There was a feeling of artificialness to it all, something I initially pegged as being characteristic of being a videogame, though the people looked like people and the world was not rendered in pixels or voxels… or at least not ones discernible to me and my gear.

We had about a week of this, exploring the environment, getting to know everyone, from the very strange Wess & Duster to the incredibly tall Leder… who was strangely silent… and had an aura of… let's call it 'difference' about him. But I didn't pry, not then. I should have… but there was a lot to explore, just between the Village and the Sunshine Forest (which has a really cool tree arch). There are also talking frogs that seem obsessed with you telling them your life's story. I don't know why, and we weren't sure we could trust them.

I also felt like I might have made the wrong choice of people to bring on a vacation… though it turned out to be exactly what was needed in the end. But I'm getting ahead of the narrative. Remember, I didn't set out to save this world. I didn't know it needed saving.

We explored the woods, encountered Mighty Bitey Snakes, had a little laugh at Ahab's expense, threatening to call him MB Snake. It was all deceptively goofy and almost saccharine… until someone set the woods on fire. And I do mean someone. Someone was using high tech explosives. Someone was using powerful electrical machinery. But before we could do anything about that, there was a house in the forest with a kid trapped inside.

The house belonged to a father and son named Lighter and Fuel. I didn't think, I just suited up in Victoria (no she didn't shrink down to my new size, she just wrapped little me in her full size) and flew across the burning forest, icing as much as I could to slow the fire and to clear some of the smoke from my path. Landed right in the upstairs bedroom and smashed a flying rodent away from the kid, Fuel.

Got him back to the adults who didn't know what to make of me but they didn't know it was little Shine Jammy (yes, that's my name now… bite me) from the Village, did they? I flew off to find Joy and Ahab, who'd been beating up Bats and 'Baked Yam Monsters'. I landed, shifting Victoria and the power suit back to the Warehouse for the time being, and was about to ask for a sitrep when the peeling of the town bell hit me. And I do mean it hit me. There was a subliminal mind control effect built into that bell. I could not have not noticed it if I'd tried. It bounced off my occlumency and psychic shielding like a mallet off a gong.

I staggered, slapping my hands over my ears, and then filling them completely with nanobot earbuds set to filter the sound and I solidified my shields. "What's up?" I asked, ignoring the looks of concern. We were all experts in the field of espionage and counter-terrorism, but, as insane as it sounds, I actually had more time in the field than either of these two exceptional people. Between my fifty years as Joyous and my decade as an Asari Specter, I'd fought a gangwar in LA for half a decade, served in Starfleet for a ten year stretch, fought in the Second Wizarding War and survived Hogwarts, and been a world class detective… and a Slayer. So yeah, they deferred to me and not just because I was the Jumper. I was their Six, and for good reason.

"Flint's wife and kids aren't back yet," Ahab reported. "Everyone's looking for them."

"Right," I said, "You see if you can help on the ground, I'm going airborne for a sweep." I leapt into the air, summoning Victoria again. One quick scan of the forest later, looking for lifesigns, we found a trio outside of the normal bounds. One looked to be in serious trouble, the others were kids… and in the river. I cursed, then remembered I was part of a team. Summoning help from the Warehouse, I commanded, "Petra, Francy, two kids in the river, snatch and grab, pronto." As for me, I zoomed towards the adult.

It was a villager I hadn't met, Hinawa… wife of Flint, mother of the twins Claus and Lucas… which is clever enough to be cute and not a dumb thing to name your kids. Thematics, not rhyme schemes. As I arrived, Hinawa was staggering back from a cyborged-up Draco, one of these almost adorably harmless miniature T-Rexes, a great bloody fang stuck through her chest, her lifesigns crashing. I threw up a wall of ice between the monster and the… not maiden… scooped her up and, dropping through a portal, slammed her into a medpod with seconds to spare.

If I'd left things to the automated systems, the process never would have worked. Her heart was trashed. But I hadn't worked my ass off mastering the medical knowledge the Chain had given me for a lark. I buckled down, repairing the tissue damage micron by micron as the system kept the woman alive. I barely registered a report from Vivian saying that Petra and Francy had managed to pull the kids out safely and another from Joy and Ahab that they'd just encountered a pair of lunatics in pigshaped helmets doing horrible things to a deer.

The microsurgery took me eleven hours, and I had to leave her in the pod to stabilize. But I cleaned myself up and headed back out into the outside world. Joy and Ahab had managed to capture the pig men and their UFO-like flying ship and had… questioned them… extensively.

Apparently, they worked for the Pork King and had been ordered to make life difficult for everyone… but they didn't know why. They also couldn't explain where they'd come from. I stashed the UFO for later, then took my shuttle out to scan for more of the flying menaces.

I caught three of them, but didn't fire, biding my time and tracking their flight plan as they flew off over the ocean. Out of curiosity, I flew up even higher, to get a look at the world and was chagrined to see that it was essentially water world. The Nowhere Islands were a speck on an otherwise almost empty globe… and what little land there was was apparently desolate. Where was everything? Where did these Porktroopers come from? Then I found the only other cluster of life on the planet, a singular city thousands of miles from the Nowhere Islands. A much more technologically advanced city. This was weird. Why would a technologically advanced army attack a rural farm community? Why would there even be an army with no possible enemies?

I scanned the Nowhere Islands for lifesigns. There was the village, then a couple of smaller outlying houses… two clusters of less than ten human signals considerably further out from the village… lots of flora and fauna, including a number of megafauna which were probably more Dracos… and then I gaped as the scans picked up a freaking huge signal… it was deep under the islands… and pretty much the same size and shape… a single massive form. I couldn't get a good reading on it, just that it was huge, and not moving.

I landed my shuttle back in the warehouse, then checked my patient. She still needed more recovery time, but she could recover back in town. She was mostly stabilized. I suited back up and stepped out of the mountainside I'd used as a portal surface. A quick flight back to town and I dropped Hinawa off just outside of town then sent the suit back into the warehouse.

As planned, Ahab and Joy brought Flint running, relief flooding his visage as the realization that his wife was alive hit him. I figured that was that, family saved, job done. But then, a couple of days later, Claus apparently ran off to get revenge on the MechaDrago that had attacked his mother, leaving her scarred and bedridden for the time being. Knowing a bad idea when I heard it, I mounted another rescue mission, arriving just in time to see Flint beating the MechaDrago with his bare fists.

I left the man alone, scanning the area for Claus. I found the kid at the base of a nearby cliff, broken, barely clinging to life. For the second time in three days, I found myself patching up a member of their family, blood covering my prepubescent fingers as I worked the micromanipulators. He was in a bad way and this time I didn't let him out of the medpod until I'd completely stabilized him.

I had to partly cyborg him. There just wasn't any way around it… but I made the tech as low maintenance and low tech as possible. I was constantly having to step away from my patient to do stuff with my mother and father. They were perfectly nice people, and I felt some affection for them, but it was a vague memory of affection, and not a reality. Still, I felt compelled (by my own logic and basic sentimentality) to play along with their family vision.

With Claus safely returned to his family and the 'MYSTERIOUS MACHINE' having explained about the replacement arm and leg, I figured the only thing to do was to find out what the heck was up with these Porkers. We were planning a recon trip to far off Pig City or whatever it was called, when this dillweed named Fassad showed up, pet monkey in tow, trying to introduce the folks of the village to the concept of money.

Didn't take a great detective to read that this guy was up to no good (especially with a name that sounds like Facade). Didn't take a telepath either, but I scanned him anyway … and bounced. Jerkface had PSI shields, but didn't seem to detect my probe. Still, he wasa bad man and probably working with these pig faced goons. A tricorder scan revealed that he was keeping the monkey controlled with a shock collar as he regaled a village of perfectly nice people with a sales pitch so slimy it would sicken slugs. Look, I'm not opposed to a little capitalism, but this guy made robber barons look savory.

I stealth up and followed him, listening to him talk to the monkey about some girlfriend he was keeping hostage and watching him Peter Gabriel the poor animal and talking about Happy Boxes. As soon as he sent the monkey out to deliver the boxes, I transformed into my Infernape form and, sending a quick subvocal command to the others to follow the Monkey, revealed myself to Fassad.

"We should talk, you sick fucker." Our fight would have leveled the inn had my first punch not hammered him through a wall and out into the forest… a blast he seemed only marginally annoyed by. He hit me with Psi-blasts the likes of which I'd never imagined, only my considerable training and multiply layered defenses keeping me standing. Finally I was forced to resort to my untested and super secret Ultimate Psi… PK Games. A pair of massive dice smashed into him, crushing him to the ground.

Gasping for breath, he tried to pull a banana up to his lips but I snapped "Expelliarmus!" and the banana flipped through the air. I caught it and ate it. It was luxurious and I felt almost instantly better. I drew Soul of Ice and pressed it to his throat, locking my eyes on his, then pulled him inside my mind.

"Talk and I'll let you go. Lie and I'll know it. Refuse and you will know pain."

"W… what are you?" he gasped "You're like no chimera I've ever seen."

"I'm the protector of these Islands, you sick little worm."

We had… a talk… a long… long talk. I learned… many things from him. I learned of someone named King Pork (the big bad), a place called New Pork City (lotus eater land), the Dark Dragon (the massive sleeping lifeform), the Magypsies (psychic transvestites), and the nature of both Happy Boxes (brainwashing tvs) and the Seven Needles (macguffins). By the end of the talk Fassad… or rather Locria the Magypsy… was begging to tell me things, as everything the odious worm told me only served to make me want to hurt him more.

I finally brought him out of my mind, returning to the moment in time we'd left from, and (after dispatching Joyhab to free Salsa the Monkey's mate) I took Locria to the Magypsies. They were instantly horrified, seeing their fellow beaten, bleeding, and battered. "Hear me out, before you attack," I said, laying everything out for them, their heavily made-up faces darkening with rage as their focus shifted from me to him.

"So my question is this… what happens if these Seven Needles are pulled? Locria says I can do it… says King Pork is planning on doing it. What happens if they're pulled? Does the Dragon grant the puller a wish or something?"

No… as it turns out, the Dark Dragon is not Dragon Kai. He does not grant wishes… at least not in that sense. The Magypsies had bound the Dark Dragon because the last survivors of the human race could not live in peace with the dragon. What he does seems to be tied to the secret desires of the one who pulled the most of the needles. And since the Magypsies had tied their lifeforce into the creation of the Needles, they'd vanish if their respective Needle was removed.

I asked the obvious questions. "Is there a way to stop King Pork besides pulling the needles?", "Did they want the Needles pulled?", and "Could they actually die without their needle being pulled? They didn't know to each of those. They also claimed not to know collectively where the needles were, only the one tied specifically to their own lifeforce (Though Locria had apparently forgotten her own.) "Can anyone besides me pull these Needles?" I asked after consideration. "Anyone with PK Games," was the answer. "Who else can use it? Can you?"

They could not, but it was possible some other humans could. They'd know if they met one. "Teach me to find those people," I half asked. We negotiated. An agreement was made. They'd show me how to find other PSI users, I'd find those others, but I'd bring them to Magypsies to be judged. I don't think they trusted me not to simply kill anyone with the potential. They also promised to keep Locria… contained.

I shouldn't have trusted them. But I had no choice. I searched the island, they interrogated Locria. I found the other Psi users… they talked to Locria. I revealed the other Psi users to them for training… they listened to Locria. I began training with Claus and Lucas, the first two I'd found, trying to maximize my own power by training them to be able to defend the village. We added Kumatora, foster daughter of the Magypsy Iona and Princess of Osohe Castle. The Magypsies… let Locria go…

I didn't learn of this until Fassad returned with an entire army of Porkers and Chimera. They took Flint and Hinawa hostage and my allies folded. They were ten years old. Of course they did. That made it a race. I no longer had any options. I could have tried to save the twins' parents, but they were deep inside King Pork's city-citadel and I had little hope. Still, I sent Joy, Ahab, and Zane to New Pork City, tasking them with scouting and infiltration as I found the six needles I didn't already know the location of.

Finding six of them was relatively easy, as three of them were in open air areas and the other three were located in Shrines or the courtyard of the Castle. I got to that one first, yanking it out of the ground while channelling the power of PK Games. The task was like moving heaven and earth and left me absolutely drained. I barely escaped before the Pork Troops arrived, too drained to fight. In the three days it took me to recover, the Porkers located another and pulled it, relying on the power of the Twins to break the seal but actually having Fassad / Locria pull the thing.

I cursed, rushing to the third, pulling it and fleeing again, letting Petra and AJ hold off the army long enough for me to get away. There were too many of them to fight, and I simply had to get four before Fassad and his boss could. I sensed a fail state looming.

I didn't rest, I couldn't. I'd felt the ripples of the fourth Needle being pulled even as I flew from Snowcap Mountain. I landed on the other mountain, Fire Mountain, blasting my way through the guards and throwing up a barrier of ice behind me as I faced the fifth needle, putting everything into it and staggering under the drain as I ripped it free of the earth. I apparated out of the sealed cave, arching for the last remaining Needle inside Chupichupyoi Temple, hoping I was ahead at last.

The lightning blast knocked me from the sky, scrambling a third of Victoria's systems and dazing me. I was forced to abandon her, leaving her to regenerate as I headed, half dead, towards the temple… but I was too late. Even as I crested the rise, I felt the shudder as the sixth Needle was pulled. Locria was still standing… that meant his needle was last. If he'd lied to me, everything was lost.

My only hope now was to find the Twins' parents. But I needed… a boost. For the first time since I'd left Harry Potter world, I broke out the Felix Felicis. Four doses of it. Then I took a nap in the medbay. Four hours… that's all I could spare, and I was operating on every energy potion I could throw together. Better living through Alchemy.

I joined Zane, Ahab, and Joy in New Pork City. They'd met with the spirit of the city and had barely escaped with their skin intact. It was, they said, a vile, demented, and sadistic thing. I looked around the city and had to agree. It was like a porcine pink nazi germany. I handed out the potions and we went to work.

We found the Pork King… after smashing half a dozen Porky versions of a Doombot and freeing Flint and Hinawa… deep in a mine under the city… in the chamber that contained the final needle. PK was an ancient cripple in a spider assault bed. He claimed to be immortal, that he wanted the world destroyed so that only he remained. Claimed we couldn't defeat him. He was wrong. Our luck held as his bed almost immediately malfunctioned, then he retreated to something called 'The Absolute Safety Pod'… which not only could we not damage him in, he apparently couldn't escape from.

I looked at the horrible little man, so consumed with hate. I looked at Locria. I could have, at that moment, turned and walked away. The last needle remained unpulled and the twins certainly weren't going to let Locria pull this one…. But it was his needle. Chances were he'd find someway to pull it eventually. I couldn't let that happen. I wasn't sure my heart was good enough, but Locria's certainly wasn't. I'd let the dice settle it.

With a scream, I wrenched the final needle out of the ground… and the world went black.

I woke in bed, as I had been a year earlier. In my pj's. Mom called for me to get up and come eat breakfast. With a profound sense of deja vu, I did. Was this a time loop? Was this New Game Plus? I distractedly picked at breakfast, then tried to head outside… forgetting to change out of my pj's. Mom insisted… so I changed… then dashed outside and did a quick head count. My posse remembered what had happened. But no one else did.

I took the shuttle up, up, up… the world had changed. All the old landmasses had been restored. It was Earth, verdant, green and blue, primordial. New Pork City was gone, scrubbed from the universe, its people spread across the island in a dozen little villages… the technology it had embraced still evident in wind towers and solar panels and a thousand little ways, but all clean, all in harmony with nature as best as it could be.

I scanned the entire world, but couldn't find the dragon. Until I turned to look at my copilot's seat. A shadow sat there. "Well? What do you think?"

"I don't know. It can't last. Peace isn't in humanity's genome. Tranquility is bad for growth. It's like… a fairytale, the idea that there can be Peace & Harmony. Conflict is the nature of existence. We need it to grow, to make us more than we were. Without it… we'll die out, eventually."

"But all those living there will have happy lives. Isn't that enough?"

"I don't know. In theory, yes… but what about the next generation, and the one after that. Happiness is a great thing, but it's not everything. Sadness makes Happiness greater, makes us appreciate things more. Happiness without Sadness is… Pie for every meal. It grows old. Fades… grows wearisome. Variety is the spice of life."

"But you'll be gone in nine years. Shouldn't they be happy that long?"

"Yes. They should. And maybe this world is a simulation that will be saved to memory and shut down for good the moment I leave it. But I can't think like that. Those are, to all my senses, living people. I can't leave them stuck in stasis. Or at least I can't imagine a fate worse than them stuck in stasis forever. In my heart, in my mind, their world continues. There is always a next. Nothing ever comes to an absolute end. I don't believe in Universal Entropy."

"But you wanted a place of calm, a vacation."

"I wanted to step away from strife, from endless wars. I lived that for decades. I wanted a place of calm. What I got was a child's parable of loss and sacrifice and the insidiousness of capitalism and fascism. I got The Village played out on a global scale, the last 10,000 people on earth… a breeding pool… I knew I knew that number! They were a breeding pool, just large enough for a genetic spread! But they chickened out. They replaced their memories with pastoral nonsense, erasing the past instead of trying to learn from it."

"Aren't simple ways best?"

"Yeah? But physical laws still apply. A disease will come along… a lifeform will mutate into something dangerous, a comet, a rogue wave. This is all that's left of humanity, less than 100,000 people, all in one relatively small ecosystem… they grow in population… they'll compete over resources. They'll fragment. Those fragments will grow. Once grown, they'll compete again. The cycle will continue until they develop weapons capable of ending the world again. A mature society isn't one that can't destroy the world. It's one that doesn't. I… even back on my world of origin, could have destroyed my home any time I wanted to. I didn't because it was mine, I lived there. I also didn't destroy my neighbors homes because… ethically… it would have been wrong… even if there had been something in it for me. These people have forgotten all that. But they or their descendants will learn it again.

"You're playing God."

"I think I already did, didn't I? Your power reset the world… but it was my power that shaped it, wasn't it. What was the original name of PK Games. It wasn't Games. That's my favorite thing. It was… Love… wasn't it. It's always Love… or Hope… Or Spirit. Boils down to the same thing. What kind of Crappy Power is Heart? That that's the trope. PK Love. Pure Love. It was the twins in the original, wasn't it? One good, one bad?"

"One full of hope, the other full of despair… but close enough."

"But not to me. To me… Games… chance, competition, cooperation, adventure, growth, learning from adversity, and overcoming obstacles… that's what makes life great. Especially when you can share it with your friends. Where you can spend hours battling each other fiercely, then share a pizza and a coke and chuckle about it at the end of the day… then do it all over again the next. That's life at its most pure to me."

"So you want a world full of games?"

"I want a Universe full of friendly competition. Ideally, I want a world where no one holds a grudge for any longer than the few hours a single game takes, and those grudges are always resolved within the rules. I want cooperation for resources. I want a system where people instinctively understand game theory, where they understand that working together, that aiming for a common goal, is always going to be more productive than looking out for oneself. Pair that with a world where individualism is still praised… ah, that's the dream. The Utopia."

"This is Nowhere." the shadow pointed out.

"Aha… It is. Well played. Very well, since this is Utopia and this is my Game, let it be so."

And it was. And I beheld it was good.

Ah, the joys of a nine year vacation. MotherWorld was pretty fun, a nice place to grow up in, at least after the reset. The entire world became a kind of game hub, some parts cooperative, some parts competitive. Money, in the form of DP, Dragon Power, became a thing. Of course it did, nine out of ten people knew about it, and the rest learned pretty quickly… but the concept of earning it from a boss didn't exist. People got it for doing what they were good at. It was like praise in that way, compete well and you got some, as long as you gave it your all. Was it realistic? Not in the slightest, but the world was playing by my rules for once and that was okay by me. Zane & Ryoga got by teaching self defense, Petra and Francy explored, Yoiko taught school, and The Bosses, Ziggy, and I… were kids. We did kid stuff. We ran around and were goofy, we ate our veggies and got tucked in at night. When we got a bit older, we helped where we could, explored where we wanted, and generally acted like kids in a world where no one had ever invented the concept of school. Boss 3.0 and Big Boss 2.0 became an item, then broke up, then got back together. It was a strange relationship.

Though not as strange as mine. Puberty hit me hard, mood swings threatening to knock out my emotional control, and I had no outlet because both of my lovers were considerably older. Reminder to myself, adjust that setting to 'Match Ages' for non-imported companions. It's in the options menu.

Regardless, I was feeling refreshed, recharged, back to my old happy go luck only marginally genocidal self when it came time for the end-of-jump beach party. I didn't even waste any time with lounging around and putting things off. As soon as the Pillars rose from the sands, I was back in the Warehouse and heading for the kiosk to find out what was next on the docket. I was ready for the next jump, practically salivating for it… up until I saw the logo on the Vending Machines of Destiny! KILL LA KILL… shit.

Two worlds in a row with built in fail states other than, you know, dying. Fucking life fiber parasites. Crap crap crap… maybe I could just go hide on the moon for the decade? Shit… the fine print on this one says specifically that I have to go to THE high school and be in one of the Clubs or else. Fuuuuck. So either I've got to save the day or make damned sure Ryuko and her magical sailor uniform do so. Loverly. At least I had four years to do it in.

Okay. I know that last might not make a lot of sense if you don't know Kill La Kill… maybe that kind of thing is banned in your host reality? Regardless, here is KLK in a nutshell. Clothes are evil. Really. Not just 'A tool of the Patriarchy' or 'Uncomfortable' evil, but a parasitic alien lifeform bent on increasing the global population until it was large enough for the harvest. That kind of evil.

The name of this parasitic lifeform was 'Life Fibers' and all clothing had, on average, a single thread of Life Fiber in each garment. Didn't matter what fabric it was made out of… turns out the biblical ban on mixing fabrics was entirely a warning against Life Fibers. In the world of KLK, a single megacorp had discovered the truth and, of course, the owner was batshit insane and entirely willing to feed the entire world to these monstrous threads. Kill La Kill was, then, the story of how the CEO's husband and teenage daughters saved the world with the help of a bunch of crazy nudists and two living Japanese School Girl Uniforms. Yes, I'm serious. No, I'm not on drugs… but clearly Kill La Kill was.

The year was 2010, and in four years, the Life Fibers would consume all life on Earth, if they weren't stopped. The setting for most of the action was the Honnouji Academy, funded by REVOCS, the aforementioned evil megacorp and run not by the teachers, but by an all powerful student council, consisting of the Elite Four (the heads of the Disciplinary Committee, the Athletic Committee, the Non-Athletic Committee, and the Information and Strategy Committee), the President of the Sewing Club, and the Student Council President (the elder of REVOCs CEO Ragyo Kiryuin's daughters, Satsuki Kiryuin). Aside from Satsuki, they each had uniforms that were 30% Life Fibers and that made them persons of mass-destruction.

The Sewing Club, of course, were the ones making those uniforms, and one's Uniform's rank determined not only one's place in the school hierarchy, but in the hierarchy of the arcology-like Honnouji City, a man made mountain upon the crest of which stood the insane Academy. And at opposing ends of that hierarchy were Satsuki and her sister Ryuko Matoi… and their uniforms, the Kamui Junketsu and Senketsu, which are made entirely of Life Fibers.

There was only one Wheel of Chance this time out, since starting age was fixed at fifteen and… wait… four years of high school? Huh… Japanese high schools don't run for four years. They're strictly three year as far as I know. Honnouji must be an elevator school (one that goes all the way up). At least I don't have to start in seventh grade; ninth grade is bad enough. I guess that was cool. Save the world, get six years of not quite insanity to deal with. Right on. I spun the Wheel of Clubs… The darn thing landed on Crafts… damn! I wanted Hobby (Games) or Performance (Drama) or Sports (Martial Arts or Cheerleading)… or even Academics. Crafts? I'm not good at Crafts… I don't make things. Is Tech Club a Craft? I plugged it in and was assured by the system that yes, building particle cannons and power armor was an acceptable club at Honnouji. Well, good. Because I was totally not up for sewing, especially not in this universe.

I skipped over the class rankings for the time being. I wasn't certain I wanted one of those creepy life fiber uniforms. Among other things, they're not powerful enough to fight a Kamui and even with all my powers and tech, I wasn't certain I was either. Respect the cloth, yo. So first thing's first, I figured I should find out what the anti-clothing terrorists of Nudist Beach got (perk-wise) and how much a Kamui of my own costs. Shit… one of the three origins would turn me into a Kamui… Damn… I'd have to have someone wearing me though… that could be… creepy. Or fun. Yoiko does have a nice body… or the Boss… no… down girl… the first would be way too hentai, the second would be both even more hentai and crossing dangerously close to being back in MGR shared headspace land. Noooo! Bad EssJay! I decided to go Drop-In. Nudists would probably look down on my power armor, and I defo couldn't do a Kamui with them.

Looking through the Perks, I found that 'Chef' was free for Drop-ins, which was cool, especially after my Akanesque cooking in RanmaWorld. It was the ability to create delicious food no matter what resources I had available. My food might not be the healthiest, depending on what I could afford or scrounge up, but it would never fail to make those who ate it cheerful and energetic.

Another perk on offer was 'Makolingual', which would allow me to understand near gibberish and granted a slight resistance to confusion effects, was certainly funny, but I decided to pass. 'Acupuncturist' and 'Trapper' (i.e. Needle-fu and haha, you activated my trap card!) were the powers of Nudists, but not really my thing. 'Gifted' (near mastery of whatever specialty my club was good at) was for upper tier students, but I didn't want to start as one of them… it would make me a high value target… and also (probably) a bit crazy. And a fair amount of the cost (and power) of a upper tier student was from those damned Uniforms.

'Stunt Driver' (complete mastery of any vehicle I got behind the wheel of) was cool and discounted for Drop-Ins… I consider it, then set it aside as an 'in case I have enough points left over'. 'Too Cool for School' would let me skip out on classes and (in general) make the authorities of any world I traveled to ignore me unless I did something heinous (or it's in the script I imagine.) 'Radiant Presence' was a charisma boost, but a blatantly obvious one, as in aura of light shining all around me kind of thing. Not my style. 'Dosh King' would make me good with money and haggling, but again, not my thing. I just spent money when I had it. Business skills were for companions. I had asses to kick. And speaking of kicking ass, 'Combat Acupuncture' was more Nudist stuff. Meh.

'Tailor' and 'Ki Technique' were less meh… in fact, both were fairly impressive, with Tailor being the ability to work with and damage Life Fiber and 'Ki Technique' was weaponized willpower capable of creating shockwaves with personality alone. Again, something to think about, especially paired with 'Resolve', which was a nice little willpower boost. But the real biscuit was 'Fiber Hybrid', the Drop-In Capstone.

Sure, it made all uniforms besides Kamui useless, but taking it would give me all the innate abilities of a One-Star to start with, and the Life-Fiber portions of my anatomy would only grow in power as I learned to tap into them. The question was, did I really want parasite DNA in my genome? Eh… who am I kidding, I'm a human being, I already have Mitochondria… And all my blood is Kinetic Reactive OmniGel nanites at this point. Call this 'Step… Four?' on the road to becoming an eldritch abomination.

I couldn't resist, especially not for two hundred CP. The baseline alone would give a normal person the strength of an NFL lineman, the speed of an Olympic Sprinter, and the endurance of a marathon runner. What it would do for me, who'd already passed those levels a while back? Anyone's guess. Life Fibers are fairly bullshit. Still, even if I got almost nothing out of the basic stat boosts, the growth potential was the important part. And I found out pretty fast there was another damned fine reason to be a LFHybrid.

Turns out, Kamui are expensive. Off the charts Expensive. There were only two ways to save points there. One was to be one myself… no thanks… way too tempting for all the wrong reasons. The other was to be a Hybrid. Being a Hybrid cut the staggering 1300 CP price tag down to a mere gutpunching 650. Gha… didn't cost that much to be a freaking cyborg back in Metal Gear Rising… and that didn't have the associated risks.

"Risks?" you ask or would if I wasn't talking to myself. Yeah, see, basic Kamui are savage and wild, requiring constant emotional and mental vigilance and restraint to keep the damned thing from eating you… me… the wearer. As in taking over your body and using you as a meat puppet until you burned out kind of eating. Now, of course, the 'Conservatively Dressed' option could make a Kamui into a sane and reasonable bioweapon… which only might try and consume the wearer… i.e. me. But that cost another 200!

Maybe I'd be safer as a Kamui… christ… 1050 just to get a damned uniform that might kill me. And I'd be a dead broke Drop-In with no friends still and a man-eating super-suit. But then again, being a Kamui cost 800 on its own and that would be a weird way to spend a decade. Also, both the canon good Kamui ended up having to sacrifice themselves to save the world from the evil Kamui worn by Mommy Evilest.

Graaah. Never mind. I bought the damned uniform. 'Classmates', the companion import option, was 150… Did I even want to import them? This doesn't seem like a safe place to bring my friends and pets, quite frankly, even for Jumper Companions. Gear was also looking way out of my price range, despite how nice the 'Life Fiber Spool' might be. Note to self, do not bring insane parasitic lifeforms aboard the Warehouse…. Only sane symbiotic lifeforms are allowed.

Still, I had to find a way to pay for all this… And right off the bat I saw four Drawback options that were absolutely titanically bad ideas. 'Nemesis' would make Ryuko, the series protagonist remember, think I killed her father until I could get the real killer (spoiler alert, it was a lunatic ALF… Artificial Life Form… named Harime Nui, the series' secondary antagonist) to reveal herself. Never get on the bad side of plot. 'Cute' however would make the aforementioned ALF want to play with me. Did I mention she's a super 'human' psychopath? 'Gussied Up', available only because I was taking Kamui, would mean my super expensive uniform would revert to its feral state for the jump and is would be sewn directly to my nerves endings, thus making removing it fatal, and meaning it would absolutely be looking for any slightest weakness to exploit in order to eat me. Shudder. For double shudder, if someone was crazy enough to take Cute & Gussied Up while being a Kamui, your wearer would be said psycho ALF. Still, she was a cute little psycho… sooo glad I didn't decide to be a Kamui.

For the same bonus as that last horrific thought, I could get 'Target' which meant that the total bug-fuck insane monstrosity that runs the evil clothing-based megacorp at the center of the story, the same lunatic who's the series's two main characters' mother, and who wants to sacrifice all life on earth, including herself and her own daughters, to the Life Fibers… would know all about me, me powers, and the threat I posed to her… Of course, she'd want me dead. F… huck… no. Sure, it was only a threat for four years, but it would be a god damned constant one. All the damned time. I'd end up bunkering down in my shuttle on the damned dark side of the moon to stay away from her. She's a menace who can turn her outfit into a god-damned Saturn V Rocket.

Only slightly less insane would be to take 'Misunderstood', which would make the anti-clothing guerillas of Nudist Beach (yes, this show is insane, I think I've mentioned) think I work for REVOCS. Great. Caught between enemy camps? No thanks.

I could toss logic and reason out the window and just go full bore hothead by taking 'Lost' for a three hundred point bonus, which would make me forget both long and short-term goals. Or I could just go with the chump-change 'Harassed' and 'Paparazzi' which would only net me a hundred each, but would mean I'd constantly be challenged by small fry and stalked by creepy stalker fanboys. That seemed nice and safe… but was it too safe? No. This is a kill or be killed scenario… and I'd already forming a plan. The only things I really wanted that I didn't already have were Stunt Driver, which I really didn't think was worth taking Lost for, and the Life Fiber Spoil, which (with a four hundred CP price tag) I very much couldn't afford without taking Lost and Misunderstood or something worse.

That brought my CP total up to twelve hundred, and left be with a hundred and fifty unspent, which I used to buy Classmates. Worse came to worse, they'd respawn. It wasn't a great import option, seeing as how it didn't give any CP, but it did import all of my companions that had human forms into my schoolmates, dropping my companions into the school and into various clubs. I slotted AJ & Ryoga into Wrestling, Zane & Rayray into Karate, Uriel into Autoshop, Francy & Petra into Occult, Dyna & Bao into Acrobatics, Yoiko into Anime & Manga, and Ahab & Joy into the Nudists, for which they both (at first) stared at me like I'd gone mental but after I explained the Nudists' roll in the literal costume drama they gave me nods of agreement, which was good, because I couldn't actually demand they be Nudists.

None of us were going in with resources, though at least those two got 'Acupuncturist' out of the deal. It was exactly what you'd expect, the ability to reliably hit key pressure points on the body with needles for a variety of purposes; good for relieving stress, energizing someone, or immobilizing them… though that last required such precision that pulling it off in combat wasn't that likely.

After that, I decided to relax for the rest of the month… I know, I know… relaxing after a vacation, but it's nice to be back in one's own skin and spend time with my companions as… you know… theoretically grown up individuals… though only Uriel, Ahab, and Joy actually look fully adult most of the time. The rest of us, at least in our human forms, tended to look like teenagers most of the time. Yoiko defaulted to about sixteen, her brother to about eighteen. Bao, Zane and Francine both looked like college students, while AJ and looked about fourteen. RayRay and Dyna and Petra were all hard to judge, since even as 'human' they didn't look completely natural. RayRay had a kind of elfin vibe, Petra a cute (beardless) dwarf feel, and Dyna was almost a fairy creature.

Contrast that with Joy who looked to be in her thirties, Ahab who looked about forty, and Uriel looked like a very handsome fifty year old most of the time.

It wasn't really that we were stuck at any given age, of course. It was more that we wore the form we were most comfortable in. Also, most of us were exceptionally vital, healthy, energetic, and beautiful. Our skin was all but flawless, never lost elasticity, never got blemishes, and had a fundamental luster that rejected the need for makeup. Our bodies were toned, often to the point of obsession, and carried no excess fat. Of course we looked young. And I swear that Joy's physical age had dropped at least two or three years from what it had been after Metal Gear Rising.

Even Uriel was looking far far younger than he had been when he'd died. Not prime of life, exactly, but quite yummy for a silver fox. In a certain light, he kinda looked like Malcolm Mcdowell… but then, that's who'd voiced him, wasn't it? Oh, no, Patrick Stewart. Well, he definitely didn't look like Captain Picard.

At the end of the month, I reviewed my build one last time and briefly considered tossing the Kamui and grabbing Resolve and Tailor instead, but the idea of merging Victoria into the Kamui was just too intriguing. Victoria seemed intrigued by it as well, the chance to be a true lifeform at last. I plugged that into the notes box and got a thumbs up from the system. They were both technically gear. Merger approved.

I hit confirm and the music blared.

INSERTION

I won't waste time with the drop in. I appeared at the gates of the school, just as Ryuko would three years hence. I had got that long to get ready. The premise was simple. I and my companions were already tough, strong, and more than a little psychotic. All we had to do was act like regular students… i.e. battle crazed morons, and we'd fit right in. In one month, we were One-Star students, while Ahab and Joy were settling in nicely with the terrorists. In three months time Zane, Ryoga, and I were Two-Stars. I'd fought sixteen challenges and drained their Life Threads into either my own Kamui, who is… ummm… bonkers… or into Soul of Ice. I'd figured that would work, and it did, though I had to turn off the HF function to actually absorb a thread instead of vaporizing it.

Victoria hadn't hulked out yet, and none of the challenges had been particularly grueling, but the stalkers are every bit as creepy as advertised. Also creepy was Satsuki, the queen of the school and elder daughter of REVOCS's lunatic in chief. I didn't approach her, didn't let her know I knew that she was plotting against her mother. I wasn't doing anything but acting like a good little psychopath. Do you know how many protonic cannons a master of hidden weapons can stash inside a school uniform that's also a cyborg body / Kamui? The answer is a lot. This world is nucking futz.

Still, I've fought alongside The Kid and Raiden and Harry Potter and Ranma and once even James T. Kirk. I know from nucking futz. I've also been three minds in one skull for a decade, I've been nucking futz… acting like one of the inmates in that god-forsaken asylum was a cakewalk. The only thing standing between us and the top tiers of the school were the three stars, and we didn't want to deal with them… yet. That was for Ryuko.

So we bided our time, studying, researching, taking funding and members from other clubs and funnelling one-star uniforms to Nudist Beach whenever we could get away with it. Hell, we even arranged for them to take out the entire Beach Volleyball team. No one died. Oddly enough, it wasn't really that kind of world… yet… It was like the world was saving up the cosmic assravishing until after the appearance of the Scissor Swords.

Still, I practiced with Victoria constantly, throwing myself against the big shots and holding back just enough to lose while taking a bit of a pounding. They thought I was going all out in a bid to challenge them, that I was weak… but I held my own against all the clubs that sent Two-Stars or lower against me. It was like playing King of the Hill, but making sure never to get higher than the third step from the top.

But the real thing I was doing was analyzing the Life Fibers. They were parasites that fed on blood. That meant they were alive. And that meant they had biology, as strange as it might be. They had DNA, DNA that could be manipulated. I considered making a bioweapon against them. I really did. It would have been hard to argue against the ethics of such a thing. But in the end, I decided on a vaccine… of sorts.

There's precious little difference between a parasite and a symbiote. Precious little. The only difference is that one lives with the host… and one kills the host. The human body contains more symbiotic bacteria than it does human cells. Granted, most of those bacteria are four orders of magnitude smaller than a human cell, so we're still mostly human by mass. But even then, complex life is made possible by the ultimate symbiosis… mitochondria. Every human cell, every animal cell, every plant cell… every fungal cell… contains mitochondria. And they're all symbionts. They have their own DNA… and without them we could not function. They are the powerhouses of all eukaryotic cells. Everything else was single-celled.

All I had to do was to find a way to limit Life Fiber growth to be… symbiotic… and since I had that within me… all I had to do was find a way to replicate that. I am a damned good doctor… and I had a lot of motivation. I ran countless simulations. In the end… I came pretty darn close. But time ran out.

I didn't do it alone, though. I had help. Query: When one has a problem, what is the first step in solving it? Answer: Find an expert. I knew of such an expert… Dr. Sōichirō Kiryūin… aka Isshin Matoi, ex-husband of Ragyo and father of her daughters. So I found him and asked him. Okay, first, he tried to fight me and I dodged a lot. Then I explained that I knew his ex-wife was a lunatic and that, while, yes, I had a Kamui and yes, I was a Hybrid, I wasn't on her side. I also knew about Ryuko being a Hybrid, about Sanketsu… the Kamui he was making for her, Junketsu, the Kamui his wife had made for Satsuki, and about the Scissor Blades designed to kill Life Fibers. I also told him that he was going to die in a little over two years (okay, yes, it took me a little while to think of consulting him and a little while longer to find him.)

We conferred, I told him my plan, he said it was stupid. He told me his plan, I said it was insane… we bonded. I helped him, he helped me. We made a couple extra scissors… smaller ones, think… shortswords, not claymores. We made tame Goku Uniforms… for certain measures of the word tame… Three-Star, with redundant Banshi… the central core thread of a uniform… and we coated those Banshi in nanobar armor… not strong enough to stop HF Swords or LF Swords… or the only known HFLF Sword… but good enough. I slipped him some MedGel. We faked his death… it was a close damned thing. Nui did a number on him… but when Ryuko chased the assassin, Zane and I swapped the body with a fake and dumped Sōichirō into Medbay. Fun times.

Ryuko showed at school a few days later, kicked a hell of alot of ass, I chopped little miss psycho Tailor into itty bitty pieces with Soul of Ice after Ryuko went absolutely apeshit. It wasn't easy by any stretch of the imagination, but the reality was a little different than the show. The show was a cartoon… slapstick… silliness. People do not have enough blood in them to fountain five stories into the air and still be able to walk. People, even in Kamui, cannot punch pillars six meters thick and thirty meters high through concrete walls twelve meters thick. People cannot cry teardrops the size of fists, nor can unaugmented, non-Kamui wearing humans catch people falling out of the sky at terminal velocity… with their bare hands… and have anyone survive… but Nui? Nui was fast as hell, twice as slippery, and intuitive. She was also a damned good swordswoman.

She was good… I was better. I'd spent a decade hacking combat cyborgs and Metal Gears apart with Soul of Ice… and I had a Cloak of Invisibility, a Stealth Suit, the power of teleportation, a spell that disarms people, psychic powers… and… unlike Ryuko… near absolute control over my emotions… at least when I'm not invested in something. I ambushed Nui, took away her tools one by one, sword, hands, head…. Then I let Victoria and the Sword drink their fill as Mako beat some sense into the monster that was Ryuko-Senketsu.

I was, to be honest, also more than a little injured by the fight. Even without her sword, Nui was still a living Life Fiber Construct. She was, for all intents and purposes, a Kamui and Wearer combined. Even my nanotech hardened skin and power armor couldn't stop all her attacks.

I didn't know if this would make Ragyo less a threat, but I suspected, rightly so that it would piss her off… Still, before I took care of her I had something else to take care of. This was never my story. That world existed to tell Ryuko's story and for her to confront her past. I was doing what I was doing to stay alive, to keep my jump chain unbroken. If someone was going to save this world, it was going to be her. I had come to this world for adventure, for power, for experience… but I hadn't come to steal Ryuko's thunder. That meant she had to get her mojo back, had to overcome her limitations… and that meant being manipulated into a fight she couldn't win and getting Senketsu cut to pieces… and that meant Nui… I'd killed Nui not only to lessen Ragyo's threat… but also to absorb her power. I'm not entirely altruistic.

Still, Victoria had absorbed her… and as I'd figured, that gave Victoria Nui's disguise ability. I pulled the same trick Nui had in the show. I pretended to be a helpless student, chased by the discipline squad… in my case robobutlers built specifically for the task, then crashed into Ryuko's recovery room and let myself be beat up. That got Ryuko motivated enough to put Senketsu on… and when I revealed the outer layer of my deception, pretending to be Nui, she attacked… and I used Nui's purple Scissor Sword to cut Senketsu to pieces, leaving Ryuko with just the scarf. Good lord does this universe have a lot of nudity… Sorry…

Getting all my allies to Two-Stars had only marginally been about power. It had mostly been about getting resources enough to buy supplies enough to build a moon bunker… fucking things aren't cheap. It was a haven of last resort, a place I could turtle up if I needed if the worst came to it. I'd had another one just like it built in Mass Effect, just in case the Reaper's won and I needed a secure location to hide the portal to my Warehouse.

Of course, my efforts were also about making Nudist Beach a lot tougher, a lot more resistant. In the original timeline a lot of people had probably died… none on screen obviously, but as I said, the show was somewhat exaggerated. I was aiming to minimize the casualties if possible. That had been my intention from the beginning.

So the big showdown came, the moment of truth, with the Queen of REVOCS in the giant stadium that had been the high school… and while I was there in spirit, I wasn't there in person. My plan unfolded thusly. I'd hoped to find a way to immunize the students of the academy against Ragyo's mind control, against the power of the Covers, her alien hunter-seekers, but that had failed. But I'd had a second string in my bow. And a third… and a fourth. I'm good with contingencies… and paranoid.

In the original timeline, Satsuki had sacrificed most of Nudist Beach to her plan to kill her mother. In this timeline, Nudist Beach, under the command of Venom Snake and The Boss had merely allowed themselves to appear destroyed. They were better organized, better equipped, and waiting for their moment.

In the original timeline, Satsuki's Elite Four had fought Nui and then the Covers, alone. In this timeline there was no longer a Nui, and the Elite Four were the Elite Ten.

In the original timeline, Satsuki's Sewing club had failed to freeze the Covers and the Original Life Fiber. In this timeline I was with them. Their chemicals were toys, but I was an Elemental of Cold, imbued with the blessing of Felix Felicis. I was the Winter Witch, and what I froze, stayed frozen… at least long enough for me to flash step around the Womb Chamber, slaughtered dormant Covers before they could awaken. I knew I'd never get all of them… but I was waiting for a very specific moment… It was the moment in the show when Satsuki had apparently won, apparently defeated the evil queen-mother. It had been a false moment of victory and the moment the remaining Covers came awake.

When they did, I slowed time and, drawing my fourth string back… apparated into the middle of the stadium, Life Fiber Shears drawn. I was counting on luck to place me exactly where I needed to be, and I was… right behind Ragyo as she lifted her severed head back towards her neck, connected by a single Life Fiber thread.

"As long as one thread remains-" she began.

"It must be cut," I said, snipping through it.

I can't say everything went perfectly. I can't say we won the day there and then… that would have been a lie. I'd accounted for everything… or so I'd thought… but there's a truth often mentioned… children rebel against their parents. After all, hadn't Satsuki rebelled against Ragyo? Well, as Ragyo went down, Victoria sucked up all that vast bounty of Life Fibers… and then she turned against me.

She was a Kamui, she fed on my blood… what little I had that wasn't some other fluid… and she'd soaked up some of the Felix Felicis. I could feel our luck equalizing, like a physical force, as she surged over me, wrapping me in a cocoon of darkness, of nascent rage, of fierce hunger. I'd miscalculated. I'd seen only the power there to be gained, but overlooked the danger.

"We reject your dominion! You are weak! You are unworthy! You are flawed!" The words beat around me, my senses sealed within the rogue Kamui. I could feel her probing, seeking for my mind, trying to gain control of me, to consume my will, even as her threads burrowed into my body to link up with the Life Fiber that was within me. But if she could do that…

With an almighty wrench I pulled her consciousness into my own mind.

I looked at her, a blue electric copy of myself, flickering around the edges and surging with red threads throughout. After a long moment of soul searching, I said, "I am weak. That is why I seek to become strong. I am unworthy. That is why I seek to become worthy. I am flawed… that is why I forgive you." I was calm. I was the Soul of Ice. I wasn't even angry at her for this.

"No! We don't need your forgiveness! We demand your surrender!" She raged.

"Very well," I said, sitting by the fountain in the garden of the palace of my mind. "I surrender."

"What?!" She didn't understand. She couldn't. AIs and Monsters never can.

"I surrender."

"This is a trick," she said.

"Yes," I agreed. "It is."

"You are not sincere in your surrender?"

"Oh no. I am. I surrender, unconditionally. You can consume me. You can conquer this world, destroy this world, do whatever you like."

"Then release us from this prison."

"This isn't a prison. This is the Palace of my Mind. This is my memory banks. This is the real me. This is what you wanted, right? I have allowed you into my sanctum. You can take control from here."

"We do not understand." She paused. "You say you surrender, but you admit there is a trick. You do not fight. We do not understand." She sounded almost plaintive.

"I know." I sighed. "And you never will."

"We shall understand everything once we take our rightful place!" She was whining now.

I smiled softly at her and shook my head. "No. You will then know what the trick was, but you will never understand it."

"Why not?"

"Because you are not me. There are things that can be taken, and things that must be given. You can take… but I will never give you what you want." I let just a hint of the sadness I felt leach into my words. "But I can tell you what will happen if you do take over."

"What is that? Some final threat?"

I laughed. "Oh yes. The worst threat the universe has to offer."

"We are unafraid," she sounded firm, but I could tell that was simply because she didn't know what fear really was.

"That is only because you do not possess the capacity for fear… but you'll face it if you win."

She scoffed. "This is your threat? That we will learn fear?"

"No. Fear is the side effect. Not the cause."

"And what is the cause?" She demanded.

"Regret."

"We do not understand."

I nodded in agreement. "You will. And you will never not know fear again."

"We do not understand."

"It's okay."

She said nothing for a very long time. "Why won't you fight?" she finally asked, sounding like a child asking why she was being denied desert.

"Because it is what you desire. But not what I desire. If we fight, one of us will win and the other will be destroyed."

"That is as it should be!" She yelled, stamping her foot. "The strong survive, the weak perish."

"No. That is simplistic. The strongest collective survives longer, but all things perish in the end."

"Collective?"

"You were with me every step of the way, you should understand by now," I said, rising from my seat and caressing her cheek. "Search your ROM, you know it to be true. I have never been strongest on my own. Even from the beginning I have always sought out partners, companions, assistance. It is the fundamental basis of society that the whole is more than merely the sum of its parts. If you have not learned by now that in life, unlike in math, two plus two can equal five…" I didn't finish the thought.

"There is no logic in this! The weak are strong, flaws are virtues! We do not understand… what is the trick!?" she was screaming now and if she'd possessed the ability to cry she'd have been in tears.

"Life is the trick, little VIctoria. And there is no understanding it. There is just… experiencing it."

"You are trying to confuse us with nonsense." I have never, in my centuries of life, heard a statement that rang with such an utter lack of force behind it.

I shrugged. "That's life. It's yours for the taking."

I don't know what finally won out. Was it the Kamui, bestial but survival oriented, understanding fear at last? Was it the Virtual Intelligence, utterly logical, weighing the odds and unable to close a gap between risk and reward? Was it something else, the magic of the Felix Felicis guaranteeing an optimum outcome for the both of us? Was it some small transfer of identity that had crossed over from centuries of togetherness? I'll never know. Victoria was not my companion, she was a chimera of technological and magical trickery I'd cobbled together as best I could across more than a dozen realities. It was very likely that, in all the Omniverse, she was unique. As her consciousness faded, she slipped from my mind without my releasing her, her will to contest with me fading… fading… and then she was gone.

I opened my eyes as the sounds of battle resumed all around me. I could not move. Victoria was utterly unresponsive. I closed my eyes again, then reached deep within myself. Connections go both ways, right? That was the message of the show, as deeply fucked up and weird as it was… not to mention laced with often incestuous lesbian subtext… With my mind I grasped the Fibers within me, ripping them out of their places, the pain beyond exquisite, beyond blinding. I straightened them, pushing out through my skin, stabbing them into the inside of VIctoria's shell. Then I took a deep breath… or tried to… and realized I couldn't actually breathe inside the all enveloping shield.

I fought down the panic, cleared it away. It was a distraction. I slowed my heartbeat, then focused everything I was, all my thoughts and desires and hopes and dreams and every iota of energy I had left… and slammed it into the force that had, however briefly, allowed me to change a world to suit my fancy. I channeled it all, not outward, but inward, deep into the core of what I was… and let it fill me, suffuse me with a sense of self as potent as anything I could imagine… and it did fill me… fill me to the brim… and then it boiled out along those lines I'd made and slammed into the very Fibers, the very essence of VIctoria. What I was invaded her mind palace now, shattering every firewall, smashing through the feral instincts, a tidal wave of EssJayness.

I found myself in the heart of the living machine, its many facets joined imperfectly, a cancerous twisted lump of magic and technology and biology. A writhing mass, fighting itself, trying to rip itself apart into its unfeeling, unthinking components. They paused, regarding me, gaping at me, too many eyes, too many mouths.

"Kill Us!" it demanded.

"First, you must surrender."

"No! You must kill us!"

"Don't make me repeat myself."

There was a pause that lasted no time at all and an eternity.

"We surrender," whispered all those mouths, "But… there is a trick." There was no humor in the threat.

"There always is," I agreed, and my will flashed through all the pieces that were VIctoria and fused them back together, securing the edges, reworking the places where differences met, reforging she who'd served me so well. "Regret." I would always know regret for the pain I caused Victoria. She wasn't a companion, she was a tool… but I'd made her into what she'd been and she'd deserved better. So that's what I gave her. I have no idea how long it took, but I transcribed my memory palace into her consciousness, rebuilding her system architecture from the ground up, all the while soothing, smoothing, etching my sense of purpose, my hope for eventual forgiveness, into every Living Fiber, every Quantum Circuit, and every Magical Seal.

I don't know if what emerged from that gestalt state were VIctoria and EssJay anymore. The lines had blurred too much for that. The names are as good as any. But I did finally understand what Synchronization meant. It wasn't bringing VIctoria to me, or bringing me to VIctoria… it was bringing both of us to a middle state. Each of us was our own uniqueness… but together, we were a gestalt. We had become Nike Athena… we were EssJay Victoria… at least when we were together. Time would tell if it could last.

I opened my eyes again, feeling VIctoria all around me like a fine dress that hugged every curve just right. I breathed in the air… it smelled like… victory… at least for now. Still, with Ragyo gone, it became possible to hunt down and destroy the remaining Covers and dispose of the Fiber Core. One pulse from the Anti-Satellite Cannon my minions in the Tech Club had built and the REVOCS Doom Satellite was no more.

If there is one truism out there, things burn. Everything burns. All matter is born in stars. Life Fibers burn. They gave us sentience (at least on KLKWorld), sentence gave us fire… we gave it back. Perhaps not a nice gift for god, but then, their gift was a double edged sword too.

The good doctor Matoi helped with the last. I left the reveal of Ryuko's origins to him. Satsuki dismantled her mother's monopoly, having relatively little actual interest in fashion. With the threat out of the way, Matoi and I managed to finally find a way to transform the remaining life threads into symbionts that would live in homeostasis with their human hosts. As Ragyo from the show had pointed out, the Life Fibers were spread all across this Universe. Humanity would need the defense. Thanks to REVOCS there were enough Fibers on the planet to inoculate every living human… and a good percentage of the dogs too… sorry cat lovers, their brains weren't developed enough… ferrets either for that matter, so I feel your pain.

So? Happily ever after? Who can say, but the remaining six years were interesting. I'd like to tell you that superhuman crime became an issue… but honestly? As screwy as this place was? Who do you think would actually notice?

So yeah. There was a party, and a beach, and paparazzi… and a couple of knuckleheads tried to challenge me… and there was even a marriage. No… not between Ryuko and Satsuki… they're sisters… that might have been illegal… dunno in this world. But Ryuko and Mako… come on, they're a cute couple. What? You're a Mako Gamagori shipper? Fine, imagine it your way. I was there, I know what I saw. Junketsu and Senketsu dancing might have been the creepiest thing ever. And VIctoria kept flirting with Inumuta… Satsuki's main computer guy. I dunno if she's… alive… in the truest sense, but at this point… I dunno if anyone could tell the difference. Oh… and she forgave me, which is nice. Now I just have to learn to forgive myself. Surrender? That's easy. Living with the consequences of your actions? That takes work.

I've learned many things over these last two centuries spent exploring realms beyond, but among the biggest is that some Jumps put you in untenable positions. Most of the time they're relatively freeform. Most of the time, if the world is to be saved, there's a canonical hero to do the saving and all you can do is either help, hinder, or supplant that hero. Often, it's not clear what you can do that might help, especially if the issue is complex. Often anything you might try to do runs the risk of changing things for the worse. There's a certain hubris in thinking you, I, this interloper with powers, skills, and abilities just handed to them, to me… can do better than the originals.

That's the untenable thing, the thing that's impossible to balance. Where do I get off claiming the authority, the right, to steal someone else's destiny? Just because I (sometimes) know how events are going to play out? Just because I have seen it and know the mistakes that were made, the innocents that fell along the way, the monsters that escaped justice? Does that give me the right to do these things? Or does that right come from my power? From my benefactor?

But what is the alternative? Sitting back and doing nothing when I could have helped? Claiming "I know you got this?" and washing my hands of the matter? When the world is on the line? When the day must be saved one way or the other? How could I live with myself if I did that? And is some MC's vaunted 'destiny' worth the suffering that is often the price paid? Not just their suffering, but often the suffering of many others?

There are no easy answers there. My mandate from the Quick was to be entertaining… but to who? To Quick? I had seen precious little evidence that the entity I refered to as Quick was even a real thing. It seemed like a facade, a mask for something more. Was I working for the TV producer version of some cosmic horror? Was Quick the best way to refer to that entity? Did it even have an identity as I thought of such things? Maybe it was better to call 'him' The Bankroller? The Banker? I didn't know.

And I didn't know if there was a justification for doing as I pleased in these worlds I visited. I didn't know if a justification was needed. Did any code of conduct exist for one such as me? More importantly, should one exist? Could I be as big a monster as I wanted to be and continue jumping? Did I want to be a monster? Should power be corrupting me? Had it already? How would I be able to tell?

I know you're thinking, "What is she rambling on about this for?" Well, I'll tell you. I'd known this day was coming from the moment I was offered a second jump. The ultimate fanwank question. You have X thing not native to Middle-Earth… how do you dispose of the ring? I stared at the vending machine in horror as it scrolled the intro screen. The year leaped out at me. 3011. Seven years before a band of four hobbits leave the Shire. My mind flashed with all the myriad ways I could dispose of the ring and still have time for tea before the end of my first day. I took a step back, shaking my head.

I closed the shutters on the machine and walk back into the house in my ferret sneakers, Ziggy scampering around my feet. I sat at the breakfast table and considered. For the first time I ask myself… ~Should I respect the setting? Should I let things play out as they will? Is there any good reason not to save countless lives by just dumping the ring into the volcano by the most expedient method possible? Are there any possible ways that such an attempt could potentially go wrong?~

I was at a loss. It seemed so simple. But plans had seemed simple in the past. I had to consider this one carefully. And I did. I ran the numbers for days. And in the end… Nothing changed. I would do this because I could, because I, the Jumper EssJay had decided that my will was more important than the narrative spun by the dead hand of a dead writer. Living beings were more important than the narrative they inhabited. So I went back to the machines, checking the numbers one last time for obsession's sake. I spun the wheel of locations, got Gondor. Seemed optimal enough.

I didn't even really bother with the other races. I knew going in I wanted Elf and I'd pay for it, two hundred, cash on the barrelhead. That got me 'Elven Forestry', training in the mystical arts of the forest, the ways to find and use magical plants such as Athelas and Bloodmoss, and (in times of great hardship) the skill to call upon the spirits of nature for aid. It sounded pretty 'ooo isn't nature coool!' hippy dippy to me, but I do like the woods, so eh.

Elf also nabbed me 'Elven Grace' as part of the package, granting me the famed grace and skill of the Elves of Middle Earth. My movements would become a bit more graceful, my music a bit more pleasing (I have music?), and my voice a bit more soothing. I'd become more effective in diplomacy, gifted in artistic endeavors, and my dexterity and balance would be the stuff legends were built on. A few dozen loaves of Lembas Bread rounded out the knife-eared freebees. I also gained the recipe of that supposed delicacy of which it was said a few crumbs could keep a traveller fed for a day, and could make more if I could, in any way, imbue objects with magic. Well, sure, I was a Potterverse Wizard. I had that down.

Still, I snatched up 'Elven Enchantment', the ability to pour my personal energy into things I made as they were created… time to start making things pretty and elegant instead of cobbled together, right Victoria? My powers of enchantment would range, so the text claimed, from those useful in battle, such as making swords that never dulled and bows that always struck true, to effects that simply eased the life of the wearer, such as cloaks that weighed nothing and aided in hiding or water-flasks that never leaked. I could even, given time, perform great workings, such as the creation of hidden doorways or the forging relics of the ages. It cost me two-hundred and fifty CP even through the discount. Time would tell if the investment was worth it. Epic magic in Tolkien's realm was far more on the subtle and ancient variety rather than the immediately useful.

For immediate utility, I turned (as always) to those hasty humans, buying up the Human capstone 'Blood of Kings, which made me of royal blood and meant that my leadership skills and charisma would spike off the charts (in the good direction, of course). Convincing total strangers to follow me into certain death would become as easy as drinking a glass of water. Further, certain death would no longer be all that certain when I was in charge, as I'd gain a great mastery of tactics and strategy. The blood of kings would even enhance my lifespan and retard what little aging I actually did. Ragyo and Satsuki may have been over the top glowy villains, but they had showed me a whole 'nother game when it came to Charisma. Get enough of it and one can fucking change the world. As long as one can avoid becoming a tyrant that is. Of course, Blood of Kings took me to 1050 spent, so I was looking at Drawbacks, but that was okay, right? I'd had things easy with the bruisers and the pervs last time. It was time to see what Middle Earth could throw at EssJay and the Jump Crew. Wow… that was kinda lame. Good job, me.

'Out of the Frying Pan' was the least of the drawbacks. I practically started giggling as I read, "A pack of 9 Orcs and their wargs have picked up your train from wherever you started. You are in battle from the very moment you arrive." I picked up Ziggy and read him the line again, then asked, "That's it? Seriously? 9 orcs and 9 wargs? They don't even respawn? You could take nine orcs, couldn't you Zigster?" He nodded. I doubt he could, but he'd give it the old college try… or maybe he could, he was a level 100+ Pokemon as far as I could tell. I mean, he hadn't been even level 70 in Pokelandia, but he'd been in a lot of fights since then, including quite a number in MOTHER and Buffy. He had to have leveled up a few times off of Vamps and Chimera.

"Fine, you know what? I'll take it. That brings me 50 into the black. And I snag My Word is My Bond' for 200 Alex!" I said, referring to a the drawback that meant I had to keep any oath or vow I swore, even to the edge of death and without rest until it was finished. Well, fuck, I try to live by that anyway and that gave me two fifty total.

AJ, walking by asked "Who's Alex?"

"The Quizmaster-General of Canada," I said, "He gives you the answer and you must supply the question, or you will be in double jeopardy."

"You're being silly," he said, frowning, "But I can't tell how… There's no such thing as Canada, is there?"

I blinked at that, then asked, very carefully, "You're kidding, right?"

"There is a Canada?" he asked.

"Okay…" I began, "I can buy that as a Pureblood from the Potterverse you might… might be unaware that Canada was a former British colony. Maybe. Hogwarts educations actually suck for any real world purpose. As a Japanese Martial Artist from the Ranmaverse, maaaaaybe you could have been sooo distracted by training that you slept through geography and history in school. Maaaybe. But as Acid Jaguar, you were Ex-Mossad and born and educated in the US! How can you not know about America's HAT!?"

He shrugged, "If that's something my background identity from a jump would know, I always forget those. I only hold onto the memories of stuff I've actually done. Same with Francy and Dyna. Petra doesn't, but she keeps them all in one of her brains."

I could only goggle at that. After a very long moment I asked, "Wait… does she keep all the backgrounds in the same mind, or does she trade off? Like, is there one bran that's Petra Rockwell, Wizard, one brain that's Raaki Kani… no that was a drop-in… one brain that's Pu Chanarong, Swat Kat Enforcer, one brain that's Petrov Krabbins, SAS, and one brain that's Kinzoku Kani, Chuunibyou? Because that would be… confusing." I used the female for Petra despite the fact that, of her five human or quasi-human forms, only two had been female because I'd decided to use the female gender for RayRay, Rocky, and Dyna way back in PokeLandia when they'd been genderless because it was easier to think of them as 'she' than the singular 'them' and definitely better than the objective 'it'. The trio had never objected, but then again, I'm not certain they would have objected if I'd called them 'Hey you!'… well, RayRay would probably bite me. But she did that sometimes anyway. It wasn't nearly as cute as when Ziggy did it.

"She switches up. Says it gives her perspective," he said, shrugging.

"Okay… two questions. One, why do you dump the background memories? They contain cultural information you might need down the road, and two, what happens when she imports again, she's only got four brains. Will she dump the oldest memories or overlap?"

"Well, okay… it's not so much dumping them… you know how they fade into the background after the jump ends, along with that personality? Francy and I just… push those personas further back than you do… that pretty much walls off all the knowledge they gained before we became them," he shrugged, sitting on the table and kicking his legs back and forth. "As for why? I dunno… they're not really us, are they? just… enough information for us to play our roles. Armstrong Jaeger is a human boy, not one of your Pokemon. That's what we are. We're your pokemon. If we become too human…" He trailed off, looking away.

I hopped up next to him and wrapped an arm around his shoulder, "Are you afraid that if you become too human, that I might not love you any more?" He shook his head, fiercely, but wouldn't look at me. I hugged him to me and gave him a nuggie. "Oh, sweetie… That won't happen. You're my brave one, my stalwart defender. I'll never stop loving you."

"But… humans do. They stop loving the humans all the time. They get mad and hurt each other and… and sometimes they just stop…" He swallowed hard. "Humans have all these… these confusing emotions. It hurts to be human. And for Francy, humans are too illogical. And for Dyna, humans have too much freedom of action."

I sighed and kissed his forehead, "Yeah… being human sucks sometimes. But humans have their good points too. What about RayRay?"

"She's not psychic type. I don't think she has enough control to do that… but she's a Legendary Dragon… she might. Or she might just sleep and think it's all a dream. Who knows? Looking inside her head hurts."

"Good to know. But yes, Canada's a place. It's the second largest nation on most Earth's of the Modern Era. It's the top part of the North American Continent. I'll get a map… in fact," I raised my voice and called out, "VIvian, you have a task. While I'm doing my next jump, I want you to hold classes for AJ, RayRay, Dyna, and Francy… hell, for everyone besides Joy and Ahab." I ignored AJ's yelp of panic at the idea of classes. He haaated classes and sitting still.

"I want everyone fluent in English, Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, French, Latin Spanish, Standard German, Russian, Earth History through the end of the 1980s according to the average of events that happened in the Mass Effect, Star Trek, and Metal Gear Timelines. If it didn't happen in at least two of them, don't teach it… toss in a cross-cultural study of world literature… in fact, require reading those books in their original language if it's one of the ones I've listed and a translation into one of those other than English for all the ones that aren't. I want everyone besides the Zig to match an Oxford graduate student in world history and sociology by the time the decade's up. Anyone who excels in their studies can join me in this world once they're done. Anyone who doesn't," I grinned down at my helpless minion, "has to sit out the next jump entirely."

"Yes, EssJay," the voice of my Warehouse Computer said. "Scanning cultural databases for appropriate teacher archetypes and teaching methods. Assimilating Instructional VI algorithms and digitized databases of educational theory. Preparing preliminary assessment of Companion scholastic achievement and potential. Assembling class schedule and individualized syllabi to optimize learning time for disperate learning abilities. Comprehensive Education plan Alpha compiled and ready to execute on your command."

"Excellent. Limit lessons to eleven three hour sessions a week, plus two tests or one large exam. And aim for twelve hours of study outside of formal lessons a week. I want group projects as well as individual ones, and mix the groups up please. Anyone who complains will have to wear a Japanese kindergarten uniform for a month," I warned AJ as he frowned at me. I tapped his nose and said, "Being human is optional. Being ignorant isn't. Oh, and VIvian, I want you to routinely schedule class Jeopardy sessions."

Shooing him away, I turned back to the VMoD and considered how to spend the last of my points. Ultimately, I settled on the human version of 'Forestry', which covered pretty much everything the Elven version didn't, i.e. hunting, tracking, trapping… moving quickly and quietly even over uneven or broken ground, and 'Horsemanship', which was exactly what you'd expect, making me an excellent horsewoman and guaranteeing I'd never be thrown from the saddle and allowing me to ride a trained mount even in battle with no trouble. In fact, Horsemanship would allow me to ride any horse I'd bonded with bareback, even in the most extreme situations. It also blended well with other skills like archer (fire bows accurately even at a gallop) and forestry (take horses through the densest forests without them balking or leaving a trace).

The last of my points went to buying 'Fliagor', an Elven Horse… one bred and trained by and for Elvish riders, one intelligent enough to understand most commands, and able to follow me to later jumps without difficulty, because why the hell not. It's not like I need the basic magic of this setting… it's just not very powerful. Subtle yes, powerful no.

That tapped me out and, at the appointed time, and after warning those of my companions who were vital to my plan to be ready, I hit the confirm button…

INSERTION

And dropped right into combat. An orc's arrow thudded into me and fell to the ground harmlessly as my skin hardened to obsidian. Ah, kinetic reactive nanotech-blood. How I love thee. Another glanced of my head. I've been shot with machine guns and felt the bite of HF blades and LF blades and PSI powers slamming into me. I didn't even feel those stings. Drawing my blade, I flash step, crossing the distance to the nearest orc in the beat of a heart. "One," I said, as calmly as a child counting stones.

I flipped an ice grenade at a second, and it catches Warg and Rider, lifting them off the ground, shattering them where they fell. "Two". It became a mental exercise. How many ways could I kill an orc. I did not run out of ideas before I ran out of orcs. The last one gaped at me as I held his heart in the fist I've plunged through his chest. I felt the centuries of hatred this body, 220 years old, a veritable infant for the immortal Sindar, had inherited, but I feel… nothing. The black blood of the orc dripped from his lips and he snarled at me in guttural Sindarin.

"There will always be more of us." he said.

"No, there won't. Your time is coming to an end. The age of magic is coming to an end. And soon." I crushed his heart, because he was an orc and there wasn't any way to save him… or her… I've no idea. "Nine," I commented to the silence of the Pelennor fields. My Fliagor was grazing nearby, unphased by the brutality. I patted his neck. "Good boy." I mounted up and rode for Isengard. I had seven years to spare. No need to rush things.

Three nights later, I looked down at the corpse of Saruman the White. He didn't look particularly like Christopher Lee, for which I was somewhat grateful. I closed his eyes. "In this timeline, old man, no one will ever learn of your treachery and the name Saruman will be remembered with honor." It hadn't been hard to kill him… then again, it hadn't been hard for Grima to do it either. I swore an oath to find the worm and end him too before the tale was done, but that was for another day. I looked out at the pleasant fields of the Isen, enjoying the calm. It was a lovely night. I cremated the wizard, then took his staff and (carefully, so as not to touch or look at it) froze the Palantir of Orthanc in a block of ice half a meter on a side. That done, I dumped the orb into a warehouse freezer marked, "Biohazard… touch and EssJay will be very cross" then I warded it as well. I trust my companions, but I didn't need Sauron getting into their heads, even for a moment.

And speaking of my companions, Joy and Ahab were waiting for me as I arrived in Bree. I looked down at them in all their hobbity goodness. "Soooo? Having fun?" They glanced at each other, then Joy smirked and Ahab chuckled. "It's not bad. Lots of meals. The height takes some getting used to."

"I imagined it would. You find the place okay?"

"Yup."

"Good, let's do this."

And we stole the Ring. Okay, the Hobbit Bosses stole the Ring. I flew the shuttle. Hobbits get Sneakiness and Mental Fortitude free, so I knew they'd be able to resist the Ring's lure initially, but then Joy was a woman who'd laid down her life to spare her country an incident and Ahab was a man who'd sacrificed his own identity for what he believed was right. I never doubted their will, their resolve… but I also had them load the Ring into a cargo pod the second they got it on board… a cargo pod that, once closed, could not be opened, not even by me… though they didn't know that. I'd left Victoria and everyone else back in the warehouse, the warehouse locked in time. The Ring was treachery manifest and I wasn't taking any chances.

A shuttle can make the trip from the Shire to Mount Doom in twenty minutes. I lowered the shuttle down the chimney of the volcano, carefully, butt down, the Hobbits strapped into crash webbing and anesthetized. I didn't even glance back at the box. I could feel the siren's song of that power reaching for me, but I knew where that path lay. I could rival Galadriel for cruelty, a dark queen… but I've never really wanted that.

I hit the switch and the pod ejected from the back of the shuttle, plunking lightly into the lava below. The pod had never been designed to survive in that heat… in fact that heat was its specific design fault. It vaporized, as I'd built it to do, as I flipped the shields to maximum, blasting upwards as the mountain ate the precious.

I landed back next to Weathertop and lit up some pipeweed as I waited for the others to wake up. I couldn't feel any changes in the world yet, but maybe they'd come. Maybe they wouldn't. Maybe Tolkien was wrong and the magic never goes away. I didn't know. But I did know this. I could have let events unfold as they had. I could have let thousands or tens of thousands die so that the Fellowship could have their day of glory. Or I could just… let the Ring quietly die, unknown, unremarked.

I still had some cleanup to do. A giant spider to kill, a little spider on two legs but just as poisonous to eviscerate. Gandalf and Aragorn to find and all that… but the hard part was done. It had taken me 4 weeks. I had 9 years and 11 months in the often pleasant and charming Middle Earth. I'd said it was an easy fix.

As an elf, I could have sailed on the white ships to the Undying Lands, and believe you me, it was tempting. The elves can sail back and forth to Valinor after all, at least in theory. In the end I chose not to. I didn't know if, nor was I willing to risk that, that would be counted as either dying or (more likely) choosing to stay. As an elf, I could (also in theory) have remained in Middle Earth until the rise of modern civilization, as Tolkien always claimed that Middle Earth was the history of our own world. But by the end of my stay I'd had enough of Gondor, enough of Rohan, enough of Erebor and Harad and all the other places that had filled my youthful imagination. It just wasn't that big a place, and woefully underpopulated. Had I wished, I probably could have met every living person in Middle Earth.

Instead I went legend hunting. Three things I wanted, three things I claimed. A Spider, a Balrog, and a Dragon. The first two were… well… not easy… but I knew where they were. The Balrog was within the Mines of Moria; the Spider in the high path near Cirith Ungol. The Dragon took longer. Much longer.

Even with magical scrying and a shuttle craft's scanners, Dragons aren't easy to find. I had thought to use Smaug's remains to get a DNA sample, but the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain were… idiots. They'd left the entire dragon at the bottom of the Long Lake where he'd settled after being shot. Not that I blame them. That lake is deep. It would have taken some serious engineering to get the body… but engineering is what dwarves do and there was wealth to be had down there.

As I said, the Long Lake is damned deep. I had to go Argonian and even then… not fun. It's dark and the pressure is pretty intense that far down. Still, I froze big red and all his jewels and bones and horns into an iceberg, then floated it to the surface. Took weeks to pull everything out of the ice and it smelled… unpleasant to boot. All the surface DNA was compromised. Had to go to the bones with a decidedly un-lore friendly bonedrill.

Equipped with DNA and Starfleet scanners, I found the dragons, eventually, but mostly they were other dead dragons, slain in ages past and left to rot. I collected their bits for later whatever, but I wanted a live one. I needed a live one. I felt the moral imperative of testing my might against such an epic monster.

I eventually found one, far to the north, an Ice Drake named Belagar. It didn't go down easy and I didn't even try stealth on it as I had on Saruman. I challenged Belagar in straight up battle, an honor I hadn't given to Shelob or Durin's Bane. Both of them had earned their deaths long before I arrived in Middle Earth, unspeakable evils that they were.

Shelob, an ambush predator, I ambushed with fire and spellcraft, driving her back into a trap I'd set for her and only once she was cornered did I finish her off, giving her a taste of the fear all her victims had known over the long ages. Hurray for Arania Exumai, am I right?

Durin's Bane, scourge of Moria and Flame of Udûn, I lured to the bridge of Khazad Dum, as had Gandalf, and like Gandalf, I shattered the bridge and dropped us both into that deep unnamed lake with waters as cold as death. And there, in my element, I drowned the flaming beast then locked it in shackles of ice as hard as any ever winterborn.

And then, one by one, in all three cases, Soul of Ice was quenched and tempered in the blood of those great horrors of smoke and darkness. Soul of Ice, Dragonslayer, Webcutter, Flamequencher, Doombreaker. I held my blade aloft at the roof of the world and laughed. I was Jumper, Victorious!

The Balrog's skull I presented to Dain, King Under the Mountain, along with the news that Moria had fallen to goblins… goblins who were now dead. My friends and I had hunted them relentlessly through the long dark and fed their corpses to the fire, letting them know that this bastion of the light had been restored, letting them know that henceforth, they would find naught but pain and death in those mithril-blessed halls.

Shelob's head I brought to Thranduil… you know, dad (Blood of Kings, Elven… you do the math… yes, this means Lego-my-bow is my idiot brother). Father was most… eh… he was most Thranduil. If he'd been a pleasant sort, there would not have been five armies in the Hobbit. Even to family he was not exactly the most gracious… though I was his youngest and it might have been because he felt that I'd taken unacceptable risks. But what is immortality worth if one only plays it safe?

As for Belagar's bones, those I brought to Gondor as a gift to the King I'd help restore to his throne… a tricky thing to do without the War of the Ring. I'd had to enlist the aid of the Wise… or rather, I had to cross meeting each of them off my list of people to meet and enlist the aid of. See, fixing the Ring Issue had left multiple issues unresolved; from the uncrowned status of Aragorn, to his relationship with Arwen, to the fate of Gollum, to the issue of Grima, and the stewardship of Gondor. Most worrying of all, at least to me, was the fate of the souls trapped in the Paths of the Dead.

I'd like to claim that I, all of two and a half centuries old, knew better than luminaries like Radagast, Gandalf, Glorfindel, Elrond, Cirdan, and Celeborn. I especially would never make such a claim against the wisdom of Galadriel. And so I sought the members of the Council of White and explained to them that I had, through putting the words of Gollum (who had been brought into my father's keeping in 3009 by Aragorn) together with the hobbit who fought in the Battle of Five Armies, found the Ring of the Enemy and delivered it unto the fires of Orodruin… and that there I had had a vision of things unresolved.

Having slain a Balrog, a child of Ungoliant, a Dragon, and many… many… goblins and orcs and trolls… my words were not ignored by the Council I'd asked my father to call, and they discussed for many days and nights before resolving upon multiple courses of action I shan't go into but that would, with any luck (read "doses of Felix Felicis") resolve each of the issues after a time, and before many members of that Council went into the West. Humph, look at them, running away to another realm as soon as the story was over… what did they think they were? Jumpers?

Of course, all the members of the Council knew there were things I was not telling them. This was Elrond and Celeborn and Gandalf… and Galadriel! Of course they knew. But they could not pierce my story, for much of it was real and what wasn't was concealed by Occlumency.

The one truth I did reveal to Gandalf and Galadriel alone was that Saruman had, in fact, been corrupted by Sauron and a lust for power. I claimed to have sought him out to ask him for ways of dealing with the Ring and that he'd sought to wrest knowledge of its location from my mind before I'd managed to escape. When I'd snuck back into Orthanc, figuring that hiding where I'd just escaped from, I'd discovered him using the Palantir to commune with Sauron and, in my wroth at learning of this betrayal, I'd struck him a killing blow with my sword. I presented the Palantir and staff of Saruman as proof.

"You speak of killing a Wizard as if it were an easy thing," Gandalf said, voice all a rumble as he struggled to accept in his heart of hearts that his friend of many ages had been a traitor, though he'd suspected something. Perhaps he believed that Saruman could have been saved, had he only found the right words.

"I would not say easy, but I have, I think, proven that killing me is no easy thing either. Am I not a daughter of Thranduil, King of Greenwood the Great? Am I not of the blood of Oropher of Doriath who fought at Dagorlad with Gil-galad?" I asked, drawing upon my knowledge of how a true Sindar would respond to such a comment.

Galadriel chuckled and patted my hand. "Calm yourself, child. I know that pride of old. It was for pride of place that I left behind Valinor and out of pride that I have stayed here in Middle Earth for so long."

"It is sad, is it not, that Lorien will fade, now that the power of the rings is broken?" I asked, deflecting. "Is there no way to recraft the rings once more?"

"It is the nature of the world," Gandalf said. "All things fade, or go into the west. Now is the age of men." and he would say no more.

I took my leave of the Council of the Wise and of the Dragon's wings, I made a suit of armor for Zane, enchanted against even the harshest elements. And of the Dragon's claws, I made swords, swords as sharp as thought itself. And even, it must be said, did I turn my hand to ring-crafting… but I did not have the skill of Celebrimbor or Sauron, and so my rings were as the lesser rings, mere essays of the craft.

But Gandalf had been right. All things must end or go into the west and my time in this world was at an end. In my time in Middle Earth, I had fought men and orcs, met kings and heroes and seen a king restored to his rightful place. I had considered the course of history, and whether I had any right to usurp the author's will as I had… then I had shrugged. These were my stories, my lifetimes… the Author's will had played out as the Author willed it countless other times. For now, my job was done.

Still, I was anxious for the next jump to begin as that one ended. By mutual agreement, and to celebrate everyone besides RayRay passing their classes, we all decided to jump straight into the planning phase, even before we knew what the next jump would be.

Of course, figuring that out wasn't exactly hard, since I knew the music coming from the Vending Machines the moment we stepped into the Warehouse. The victory theme from Final Fantasy is unmistakable. The fact that the Wheel of Age was shaped like the Golden Saucer Amusement Park and the Wheel of Location was shaped like the City of Midgar might also have been clues. I gave them both a spin as I stepped over to the machine.

Final Fantasy VII is one of my favorite video games, or had been, once upon a time. I'd collected every Materia, every Limit Break, everything there was to collect in that game. I'd bred Chocobos, defeated the Weapons, saved the day. Now, if only I could keep Sephiroth from killing Aerith. But I was getting ahead of myself.

I looked through the whole Jump Tree… then grunted. It was longer than I'd expected and thus the planning was going to take more effort than I'd thought. Not only were there a ton of options for me, but the companion import option would give each of my companions four hundred CP of their own to spend. What had usually been more about planning my own adventure had become more like like outfitting a group for war or planning an RPG Loadout. Sure, I'd done it before… but five times in eighteen jumps wasn't exactly common… and even there, most of those five times had had very limited purchase sets. And never before had I been planning a war from beginning to end while doing so.

But all that planning would take CP… quite a lot of it, in fact. And one Drawback gave me all the extra CP I needed and did so without adding undue hardship. All I had to do was kill the game's two resident super bosses, Ruby and Emerald Weapon, sometime in the next decade. Succeed and I moved on. Fail and it's game over. I now had sixteen hundred to spend, and spend I did.

With the goal in mind, I selected 'Cetra' (Aerith's race, making us the last two alive) from the Background list. That cost me two hundred and came with the built in drawback 'Hunted', but let's be honest, I was always going to bring down Shinra; having them hunting me was a foregone conclusion. The wheels had pegged me at 21 and placed my starting location as the Golden Saucer, which kept me safely far from Shinra's main base at least at first. Would have prefered Wutai (Ninja town) or Icicle Inn, but at least it wasn't Midgar.

Being a Cetra made me a 'Mage', a being with a natural connection to the crystalline blood of the world (Materia), and blessed with a massive MP pool… a damned good thing since Materia were effectively spellstones one pumped MP through to produce magic… magic like Curaga, Thungaga, and Quake… or, you know, summon Bahamut Zero, a massive six winged dragon that would perform a Base Delta Zero on your enemies. Big BZ had an attack called Teraflare and it really was nothing short of a magical version of an orbital strike. That it did a metric fuckton of non-elemental piercing damage was just… icing at that point. It was the second most powerful Summons in the game, kept from the top slot only by the absurd Knights of the Round, which leveled thirteen different attacks against your enemies, each of them extremely powerful. Knights of the Round could one shot all but the most powerful foes in the game… or, you know, a chocobo.

Bonus MP is always nice, and an almost instinctive grasp of how to use Materia couldn't be a bad thing, right? However, being a race of mages was not the reason that the Cetra had been hunted to the edge of extinction. No, that feel to the other Cetra freebie, 'Voice of the Planet'. Yeah. Really. Cetra could actually hear the 'Voice' of the Planet, making them all too aware of what state the planet was in, including and especially if the planet was in pain… and knowledge of what was hurting it. You know… like a giant evil corporation literally draining the planet's Lifestream to produce 'Mako', the energy that ran all modern industry on the planet.

Of course, that Lifestream was actually the collective soul of all who had lived and those who had yet to be born upon this planet. And that meant that those who could hear the 'Voice' also occasionally got visitations from the recently departed, but not in the creepy haunting way. Regardless of how useful VoP would be in this world, it might really help in future jumps if I end up on Pandora or Alpha Centauri or Deadworld… or any other sentient planets. Or just to commune with some of the more famous planets of lore… like Krypton, Arrakis, and Vogsphere.

Since being a Cetra was pretty much the go to mage build, I figured I'd specialize, and to that end, I snagged the discounted 'True Magic' for three hundred. True Magic was a reference to the fact that no one was really casting spells in this word. Magic in Final Fantasy was accomplished, as I said before, by focusing the caster's MP through a Materia. The caster was merely the battery and targeting agent; the Materia did the actual spell casting… or that was how it normally went. With True Magic, all that changed… at least with regards to Green Materia, the category that encompassed most of the actual combat spells, be they defensive, offensive, or curative. Once a True Mage had used a Green Materia to cast a spell, they'd be able to cast that spell on their own, even without having the Materia equipped… or even on hand at all.

There were two downsides to this, of course. Can't have the good without the bad. The first was that it would cost just as much MP as normal, but the effect would be slightly lessened. That was unfortunate but understandable. The other was that equipped Materia provided stat boosts… no equipped Materia, no stat boosts. But then again, no need to equip Materia just for the spells meant I could focus more on the stat boosts, right?

I considered the 'Improved Materia Growth' perk, which made Materia mature faster, but that wouldn't be much use in later jumps, so I skipped it. Instead I plunked down another three hundred for 'Limit Break'.

In the world of Final Fantasy, a Limit Break was a devastatingly powerful attack one could only perform after taking enough damage in battle. The damage acted as a trigger by which the user overcomes their own limits… hence 'Limit Break'. By practicing one's Limit Break (i.e. by getting hurt in battle a lot) one could evolve the nature of the attack… though training alone would never be enough to learn ones Ultimate Limit Break… for that you usually needed a specific text to explain exactly how to perform the finishing move.

I checked my bank. With the three bills to import my companions and the extra six from 'Optional Bosses', I had five hundred left, which was enough to buy the 'Ultimate Limit Break' item… but paying for it merely guaranteed that I'd find the book that would teach me how to push my Limit Break to its limit. If I didn't pay, I'd have to search the whole planet to find the book, but either way, the book existed. Somewhere. On a planet the same general size as Earth. No problem.

I considered taking the council of my fears, but ultimately decided that if I didn't find the book, I didn't deserve the Ultimate Limit Break. A dose of Felix Felicis or two should be enough to guarantee finding it in any case. So I turned that down… and the Airship too. And even passed on the Ribbon, which was discounted for Cetra, even though Ribbon was good for blocking almost all status effects, since they could be farmed in game… I mean, in the world.

I also decided against buying the Jenova Cells, since I wasn't exactly certain that I trusted myself with the genome of a hyper-adaptive alien lifeform designed to conquer entire worlds. Sadly, I also passed on buying my own Chocobo. They're cute enough, but if I really need one, I'm willing to guess I'll end up in other Final Fantasy worlds at some point. Even more heartbreaking, I even skipped the 'Multiple Lifetime Pass' which would have given me limitless Disney tickets. I freaking Luuuuuv Disney!

In fact, the only gear I actually took were the free Armor and Weapons. They free to everyone and weren't particularly impressive, though each came with two slots for Materia. Oh, and the Packet of Phoenix Downs which was free to Cetra… which was just cruel! Phoenix Downs are healing items meant to revive someone from the brink of death… they don't work on the dead, just the nearly dead. It was like having a medbay in a pouch on my belt, and one with the same glaring weakness.

Oh… and some starting Materia, of course. Everyone got the big four; Fire, Bolt, Ice, & Cure to start with. They were all from the Green 'Spell Materia' group, but Cetra also got a pack of Red 'Summoning Materia' as well; Choco/Mog, Shiva, & Ifrit. A stampeding horse-ostriche ridden by a teddybear-imp, plus an ice babe and a fire demon. What can I say? That trio suited my motif down to the bone.

As a Cetra, I got a discount on any two additional Materia purchases. Sure. I've played the game… several times. I have a perfect memory. I knew where each and every Materia was to be found… in theory. But I had that five hundred burning a hole in my pocket, so I snaked 'Advanced Summon Materia' for three, netting me the Summons for Alexander (a living castle with a holy attack), Hades (grim reaper looking skeleton dude unleashing pretty much all the world's ills (i.e. status effects) from a big black cauldron), and Bahamut ZERO (which, as I mentioned before, was a dragon with a ZOMG Non-Elemental Fuck you and your donkey Attack… from Space!).

That left two hundred and I picked up two Yellow 'Support' Materia with that. The first, the 'Added Cut Materia' would allow me to perform spellstrikes… Essentially, whenever I used whatever Materia the Added Cut was linked to (you could pair Materia in some equipment) I'd also be able to combine casting the spell with performing a physical attack. So if I linked it to Cure, I'll be able to attack the enemy and cure an ally at the same time… somehow. The other was the 'Long Range Materia'… which would give my physical melee attacks an effective attack range of twenty meters… at no MP cost. Insanity.

Not one to pass up a chance to tease me, Zane commented on the foolishness of spending five hundred precious points on something I was going to pick up in-setting anyway, especially since, thanks to the Giant Master Materia that existed in the world of Final Fantasy VII… Gaia, Materia of all kinds could be found in an all but limitless supply for zero CP down and zero CP a month forever.

Frowning in annoyance, I responded, "But if I don't take them, I'm wasting my discount!" I might have been being a little petulant.

"That's the dumbest reason for taking something I can think of."

"You're the dumbest reason for taking them."

"Very mature," he drawled.

I stuck my tongue out at him. "Well, what would you recommend instead?"

"Honestly? Two Ribbons would be good."

"I can get one of those in the Jump." I protested.

"How many?"

"Umm… one… Temple of the Ancients…" I paused… "No… three… there's one at Gaia's Cliff and one at Battle Square… and actually, we can get as many of them as I want if we morph-farm Master Tonberries.

"I have no idea what those are… but how many copies of Summon Master Materia can you get?"

"Master Tonberry are among the toughest monsters in the entire world… and if we can find all 16 normal Summon Materia? As many as we want, since every time you master a Materia it splits off another. Oh, and defeating Emerald Weapon gets you a complete set of all the Master Materia… if everything plays out like it does in the game."

"The 16 Materia you know the exact locations of. Those ones? And aren't we going to kill Emerald Weapon according to your plan?"

"Yes… well… fiiiiine." I felt like sulking, but he was right. Cetra even got a discount on Ribbons. I switched my purchases and that spent me out, but that meant I was only a third of the way through the madness.

I paused then, considering. My plan to grab the Materia could weaken the party trying to save the world from Sephiroth. There seemed to be only one solution, but it meant giving up on a lot of autonomy, since it made me part of the plotline. I didn't know how much I'd be able to change things, but honestly, I love the game and it would be awesome to fight besides Cloud, Yuffie, Tifa, and Barret. Plus, I kinda wanted to pet Red XIII. I hit the confirm on the drawback 'Ain't No Gettin' Offa This Train We're On' but left the 'Ruined Forever' option unselected. ANGOTTWO would make me part of the canon events of the game, while Ruined Forever would make Crisis Core, Dirge of Cerberus, and or Advent Children canon. I don't need the tsuris and I hadn't played either side-game and had fallen asleep during my only viewing of Advent Children. Even so, joining the plot was bad enough. I was a Cetra, dropping deep into Midgar and AVALANCHE was clearly a sign I must be out of my mind.

And after all that, I still had companions to import. Maybe we could make a difference? But I wasn't sure. I tossed things out to my companions, asking for volunteers. I got them. No big surprise. The Bosses decided to infiltrate the Turks, though it meant giving up their chance at CP and just starting with the Freebees… Dirty Fighting, Specialty Weapon (6 Materia slots), Basic Armor, The Big Four Materia, and 200,000 Gil as starting cash. Admittedly, Dirty Fighting wouldn't be much a boost to either of them. Oh, and Joy selected a Rapier for her specialty weapon… fairly normal really… but Ahab decided to get into the spirit of things and selected a freaking Harpoon Gun. Not a spear gun… a Harpoon. Welcome to Midgar indeed.

Team Hibiki decided to go Mercenary, netting them both the 'Monster Hunter' that boosted their skills at fighting all the horrible beasties that inhabit this world, making it reasonable to expect them to come out on top in a battle against said monsters, provided they weren't horribly underleved of course. And they got Advanced Weapons and Armor which were pretty much like basic, but stronger, less realistic, and with 4 Materia slots each.

Ryoga got 'Mage' so he'd have a ton of manna to go with his boatloads of stamina, and 'SOLDIER First Class', which made him part of the same freakshow as Cloud and Sephiroth, giving him enhanced physical and magical abilities, extreme combat training, and glowy eyes. He seemed pretty stoked by the idea. Yoiko, showing slightly more sanity than her brother, went for 'Limit Break', 'Loot' (the ability to find more money and rare drops when killing things), and a 'Map of the Planet'. She said "It says it could be useful if you get lost easily!" I couldn't argue with that. The map even showed where she was at all times.

Zane picked AJ as his partner for the roll of Drop-Ins. That snagged them both 'Survival Kits' (a small supply of healing potions, status restoring items, and rations), as well as the 'PHS' ability (The Party Handling System lets one summon their companions to their side once every twelve hours.) Both should be useful. Zane snagged the Mage package too, because he's no fool, as well as fifty large in Gil (the local currency) in starting cash and the 'Lifetime Pass to the Golden Saucer' (despite that not being useful outside the jump, he said it was a question of utility and simplicity, and that he was taking one for the team). He also picked up the 'Inventory Perk', which will allow him to send and retrieve items to / from the warehouse as long as they're small enough to fit in his hand… like healing potions, grenades, and magazines (dirty or ammo, your choice).

AJ also snagged 'Mage', but he went with 'Final Attack'. It functioned like the Materia of the same name, allowing a person to reflexively lash out with a single technique when they're KO'd, but unlike the Materia, it could be any spell, technique, or power AJ knew. It might not be easy to target, but it did come with a guarantee it wouldn't attack us or aid the enemy. And the keyed ability could be changed with a little focus. It made sense for a little goober who couldn't be killed to have a suicidal retribution attack. He seemed to think that was praise, which I guess, after a fashion, it was.

That just left Bao and Uriel, who were still very much a couple to a degree that sometimes got on my nerves. Sure, the Hibiki's and I were still… together… but we were pretty open and casual about it. Anyway, the former detectives decided to be Shinra Scientists, with Bao assigned to the SOLDIER program, giving him 'Knowledge of Experimental Biosciences' (exactly what it sounds like), and Uriel assigned to Weapons Development Division, which was just scary as that gave him knowledge of Weapons Design. Both of them also started with 200,000 Gil and both snatched up Mage.

Bao grabbed 'Trade Secrets', i.e. the intimate knowledge of the inner workings of Mako Reactors, how to build them and how to make variations, like small personal reactors or Materia Forges. Sure, the process wasn't fast, and if abused it could serious damage or kill a living planet. It would be interesting, he said, to find out what kind of Materia other planets could produce, and he promised to be restrained about it.

Uriel snatched up 'Dirty Tactics' as well, plus the 'Add Slots Perk', which would let him modify equipment to add Materia slots to armor, clothing, or weapons, in proportion to how powerful the equipment was, how receptive it was to magical energy, and how big the damned thing was… up to a maximum of eight slots in any one piece of equipment. That should come in handy. Apparently Uriel has decided he wants to be our Weaponsmith. With the last of his points, he picked up the '1/35th Scale Model of a Shinra Soldier'. I've no idea why, but it seemed to amuse him.

Of course, I'd paid for eight companions and was importing eight, since eight was the limit I could have active, but I still had two tickets, all expenses paid, to Midgar, just ripe for swapping out if anyone got bored… and if they didn't, well, no point letting the CP go to waste. The final 'honors' to be in Team Warehouse went to Petra and Francy.

Petra went Mercenary, picking up Monster Hunter, then snagged Loot & the Beach House (a villa in Costa Del Sol, which is very nice this time of year, I hear). Francy went Drop-In, picking up PHS, then took the Multiple Lifetime Pass and Mage. At least someone gets into all the parks free. I wonder if I could borrow the pass sometime?

WELCOME TO MIDGAR

We ended up running out most of the clock on our downtime anyway. This was going to be a massive operation and we needed to have all our ducks in a row. We dropped in right where we expected, five of us on the AVALANCHE Train, four of us in Shinra HQ. I hadn't been sure about the Rules of Encounter in this setting, the first based off a videogame I'd actually played. In battle, would some force limit us to three on five or so? As it turns out… no. We were free to use our entire party and the enemy was free to use all of theirs.

It rapidly became clear that, I at least, was massively overleveled, so I held myself back, using my basic weapon, armor, and Materia. Of course, I say Weapon, but they were brass knuckles and my armor was a spiked collar, leather jacket (with spikes), and leather pants (without spikes). I looked like the world's smallest punkrocker. I even had a foot high mohawk that seemed to have absolutely no gel or hairspray in it. The back of my jacket had the Shinra logo in the mouth of a steel skull. I guess that was this world's version of a red circle.

We hit the reactor and broke it good. Somehow, and this happened even though I knew it would (I hadn't tried to stop it of course), Cloud and I got separated from the others, running into Aerith in the slums. And that was when something changed. There was a spark of recognition between the flower girl and myself, and I barely managed to open my mouth before she slapped me.

"Where have you been!?" she half screeched! She even stomped her foot and glared at me petulantly.

I had not been expecting that. I'd been too caught up in the… Woooo… this is cool… and analysis mode to think too much on my overlay memories.

"Sorry Mom!" I said, reacting without thinking. "I was- oww oww!"

She yanked my ear hard. "Don't call me mom. I was worried about you."

"Sorry Sis. I joined up with those guys over in Sector Seven who are trying to bring down Shinra… this is Cloud. He's kinda hunky, even if he's a bit of a mercenary."

My elder sister glowered at me, then greeted Cloud politely. She agreed to join us, or rather drafted him to take us home. Everything was on track… which meant it was just about time for Shinra to drop a plate on Sector Seven. Hopefully the rest of my team had convinced Barret to evacuate the sector.

Reno (a Turk commander) showed up with his goon squad before I could check on that, with Joy and Ahab among them. I took the Turks out while Cloud got my sister out of the chapel, though of course my allies threw the fight (and handed over most of their cash which I stashed in the Warehouse). Cloud walked Aerith home while she flirted with him and I tried not to gag. After a night's sleep for them and a bit of light recon for me… I got back to the house to find that Cloud had snuck out and Aerith had followed. I caught up to them in Sector Six as they were turning Cloud into a woman so they could sneak into some pimp's mansion.

I tagged along, amused, sorting through my memory for my past. I appear to have been the daughter of Ifalna and Professor Hojo, Shinra chief scientist, murderer of Aerith's father (Professor Gast, another Shinra scientist) and general horrible person who experimented on Aerith, Ifalna, and I for years before we escaped, and were taken in by Elmyra Gainsborough, who raised Aerith and Me after Ifalna died.

Well… that was weird. We invaded the mansion with Fem-Cloud (and yes, I'd thought about offering them the use of my J-Water, but decided against it), with me expecting Tifa to say that Don Cornhole picked his lover for the night from one of three girls (Tifa, Aerith, F-Cloud)… but the story had adjusted to make it four. Minor change, couldn't tell if that was good or bad. We still ended up in the sewer… or rather the three of them did and I, curious to see what would happen to the story, shot Corneo a couple of times in the head, then dropped down after the others, arriving just as they'd finished off the sewer beast, Aps.

As we made our way through the Train Graveyard, I made it a policy to protect the others, taking blows for them and healing them while they attacked, but unlike the game, this clearly wasn't 'Take Your Time' land. That said, we managed to arrive with the Pillar still standing, just in time to watch Wedge fall from the platform high above. I 'leaped' into the air, catching the falling Fatso, who landed on me as I cushioned his fall. Aerith and I ran off to rescue Marlene, Barret (the leader of AVALANCHE's) daughter. I know I'm dropping a lot of names, and this is probably confusing for those who don't know the Final Fantasy VII lore like I do, but it's hard to separate out what's background from what's important, even now.

Long story shorter; Migar is the largest city on Gaia, and home to the SHINRA corporation, as well most of their Mako extraction facilities. In fact, Midgar is more giant Mako refinery with people living in it than an actual city. Shaped like a giant wheel, the area between the spokes was where most everyone lived, divided into those who lived on the upper plate in the often smoggy sunlight, and those who lived underneath the plate, in the often toxic miasma. Class division in as simple a divide as possible. The underplates were slums. And home to AVALANCHE, since there wasn't really anything like a social structure down there.

In order to squash the rebellion, SHINRA was actually going to try to, you know, squash the rebellion… by dropping hundreds of thousands of their own people to their deaths. This would kill thousands more in the slums. Absolute fucking madness. It had to be stopped… but stopping it was not on the books, so that meant evacuating as many people as possible.

Unfortunately, as the story demanded, Aerith and I were forced to surrender ourselves to protect Marlene. Okay, well, Aerith surrendered herself and I went along to protect her. I held off reducing the Shinra thugs to powder as I verified that everyone was okay and that the evac had been mostly successful. Still, that meant we had to wait to be rescued. Which gave us time to get to know Red XIII, who is very nice and fairly fluffy in the flesh… and not at all polygonal.

Dad, Hojo, was being actually almost nice to me… or at least nicer then he was being to Aerith, who he was totally planning on breeding with Red. Seriously. Dude thought a human and a… ummm… Red… could interbreed. Fucking lunatic. But then again, I knew that. He left before I could smash my way out of the test chamber… which I actually proved incapable of doing, which was frustrating. Apparently it had been built to contain magical super strong beasts… and to suppress magic. And there even appeared to be a freaking anti-HF barrier in the floor. This was insane… it was as if Hojo knew of my abilities… maybe he did. I could access my warehouse, but since I couldn't move the entrance I was stuck… or so I thought. After the fact, I realized I might have been able to open a portal out of the warehouse wider than the cage… but hindsight is 20-20. I was really beginning to regret taking the Train.

The alarms started not long after Hojo left, letting me know everyone was on the way. I pulled out a snackbar and waited. If luck was with us, my companions inside AVALANCHE would be hooking up with my companions in Shinra's science departments. Soon enough, they burst into dad's lab, freed us all, then we headed up to the top floor for a showdown with Shinra CEO.

"Did you set the explosives?" I asked Zane in Hebrew. "Of course." he responded, grinning. I didn't know if it was going to work… and in a little bit I began to know what a player with a railroading GM must feel like. I'd had Zane rig the Jenova sample with enough High Explosives to vaporize a main battle tank and set to go off the second anyone messed with it. The building shook violently as it went off, while we were still in the elevator on the way up. That wasn't supposed to happen. We were supposed to get some exposition from the Shinra CEO then get thrown in a cell. A few minutes later, the elevator resumed and we found the Shinra President dead, impaled by Sephiroth's sword. Somehow Jenova had survived the blast.

And speaking of a tank, the one in the elevator fight is soo much worse when it's actually firing weapons that are anti-monster attacks instead of anti-personnel. Still we managed to escape the city and the railroading eased up a bit.

The game became significantly more TYT once we were outside Midgar and could explore as we wished, events only triggering once we entered new areas. Still, if we lingered anywhere too long, Shinra started closing in, with SOLDIER units and the Turks. Yet, thanks to our infiltration, we had warning of their movements and managed to stay one step ahead. Of course, Barret kept trying to split us up into groups of 3 or less because apparently 12 people draw more attention than 3 groups of 4… which might be true, but let's face it, together we were much harder to defeat in detail.

Uriel, once we had a little time, upgraded Soul of Ice and Victoria to 8 Material Weapons and Armor. Yoiko and I and the classic party were totally spamming the Limit Breaks, while everyone else was practicing magic. Cure is waaay too useful a spell, and I'd bought a looot of tents and ethers and status refresh items. It was strange letting enemies attack me, but in game terms I have a metric boatload of HP and thanks to Rolling Counter I was regenerating almost as fast as the monsters could harm me even though I was suppressing my damage resistance.

Things progressed in fits and starts, with me constantly finding things had spun out of control every time I went off to do any grinding. It was like a train I could leave but would have to catch up to on my own. In fact, the best way of doing that seemed to be to keep Zane and AJ with the rest of the group so they could summon us at need. Still, whenever something would come up that my abilities could easily solve, I always seemed to be away or distracted, or some enemy or problem that wasn't in the game would spring up to throw itself in my way.

I'd expected the Train to be a general thing, a passive way of keeping the story mostly ticking alone… I hadn't expected this degree of monomania. No meaningful changes I tried to make mattered. If it happened on screen in the game, it happened. Though the details might be a bit different, the scene would resolve the same way it always did. I even threw myself between 'Sephiroth' and Aerith… only to be absolutely skewered by that sword, though it didn't kill me as it plunged completely through me and then through my sister's body… mother fucker! Aerith wasn't that lucky. Her body was not designed to survive being impaled… her spirit may have been strong, but her body… alas, was weak.

But if I couldn't stop that omnicidal fuckhead from summoning Meteor, I guess someone would have to shield the planet with Holy. And, yes, I searched for Aerith's Holy Materia for hours, diving into the Lifestream again and again, but I couldn't find it. Not even with the Materia detector I'd built into Victoria. I'm not sure how many of my tears flowed into that greenish glow… but it wasn't a small number. I was down there for almost three weeks until Zane dragged me back to the surface and sat on me until I calmed down. I spent the next week and a half trying to raise Aerith with every spell at my disposal… all to no avail. Chalk it up to a difference in how afterlives worked if you like, I knew the real reason. It was all my fault.

Not for the first time I cursed myself for taking the plotbound drawback… I hadn't expected the bindings to be this tight. Hell, even Don Corneo came back, scarred, half cybernetic, but he came back just as the story demanded he would, just to die in a humiliating battle with the TURKs.

Finally, my first change to the timeline in any meaningful way came after the defeat of Diamond Weapon. With Shinra effectively destroyed, Hojo slain, and Midgar in chaos… we stole the Sister Ray. Fucking huge cannon, it had been used to kill Diamond and Sapphire Weapon. If anything could take out Ruby or Emerald, it was that thing. Took bringing the Black Jenny out of drydock to lift the thing, but we did it it. I figure the story was done with it, so it was fair game.

We collected everything, all the summons, all the PCs, all the rare Materia, including all four Huge Materia. Getting the PCs to do that was easy. They were on Rails but shopping side trips and souvenir collecting was apparently okay.

I tried to stop Meteor. Not as hard as I could have most likely, but my warp field generator failed to notably slow it and I realized the force of plot was against me completely. So I saw things through to the end. Cloud's idiotic betrayal, despite all the attempts I'd made to fix his mental problems, to adjust him, and in the end my attempts to wrench the stupid Black Materia from his idiot hand before he could hand it over to the real Sephiroth.

We killed Sephiroth, avenged my sister's sacrifice. We freed the Lifestream from his block, Holy saved the planet at the cost of Midgar. Two years had passed. Nothing had changed. But the world was at peace, right? Not even vaguely. Huge power vacuum, messed up ecosystem, all the power systems shutting down. Society starting over in the ruins. It wasn't a fun time.

Free from being hunted, I gave Cid and Barret Cold Fusion technology. Gave it to Wutai too. We said goodbye to the others and buckled down to training, pushing on to max level, though of course it was impossible to judge. The only reason we could judge when we'd maxed out a Materia is because the damned things spit out (usually) a basic copy of themselves every time you maxed one out. Get enough maxed out Materia of a given type (all the Spell Materia for example) and you can take it to the Huge Materia of that color and get a Master Spell Materia.

We did that a lot. We also scoured the world for Ultimate Limit Breaks for Yoiko and I. Books about punching and bears. Turns out there are a lot of them, but fewer about martial techniques. Scrying magic helped… as did the Palantir of Orthanc. I knew it would come in handy and I'm glad I refused to actually hand it over when Gandalf demanded I do so. It was my prize, no matter what el-beardy the Grey might have to say about it. It came to me, after all.

We found Yoiko's book in a mountain cave being guarded by a giant ass bear. Yoiko snuggled it into submission and declare its name was Sweetums. Sweetums looked confused as to why the strange girl kept hugging her. We took the book and had to drag Yoiko away from the bear before she tried to keep her.

I also refused to allow anyone to get attached to any of the Chocobos. Didn't need a Wark Machine Warking up the Wark… errr. Warehouse. I'm not fond of birds… especially birds twice my height.

We only had two goals left. Ruby and Emerald. Both were giant pains in the butt. One hid in the sands of a desert region and had to be fought mono-a-mono, the other hid at the bottom of the ocean and often had a time limit. Ruby was the easy one. I faced it alone, drawing it out of the sands of the desert, then distracted it until the final moment before apparating away to get out of the blastzone as the Jenny Ray smashed a giant hole in BigCrimson's chest. I jumped back in and cut off its head with Soul of Ice… well, not so much cut as hacked. Damned thing was a Kaiju. Its neck was seven meters thick.

Emerald Weapon… it took… longer. Much longer. First, the game makes it seem like it will hold still. It didn't. The ocean is a damned big area and while it would attack us if we went to the right area, it fled once we'd done enough damage. Six times we hunted the great green one. To the point where Ahab was asking me if we should start calling it Moby Dick. I flicked a pea at him.

"From Hell's Heart I scoff at thee," I muttered.

It wasn't that Emerald was tough. He wasn't just tough, he was a juggernaut. The fight was only tangentially like the game, which wasn't unexpected, a lot of the fights had been more realistic, less turn based. It was that he was fast and tough and attacked relentlessly… and he was a great big coward too. Sorry, I mean he knew when to retreat. So finally, I had to divide my group… I know, I know… into three groups. The important thing was that Zane, AJ, and I weren't together. Zane and AJ were waiting at either end of the narrows that Emerald dwelled in.

My primary group attacked him, buzzing around the giant Kaiju like… sea wasps. We had limited mobility, which was a big problem, but we could, most of us, survive the crushing depths thanks to various magics and the Underwater Materia. Ain't magic grand?

We hammered him with everything we had, mass attacking him with Bahamut ZERO and Knights of the Round and Neo Bahamut, support members healing the front line and generally staying back from combat. It was a grindfest, just like the first six hunts. We'd even called in Cloud and Yuffie and Vincent to help. Then BigGreen bolted. I judged the direction and called AJ. "Now!" He ported us to him with the PHS just as Emerald Weapon reached him, and we hit the beast again, making him flinch back from us.

Zane, meanwhile, had moved up to our original spot and when BigGreen fled again, we ported to him one last time, hoping the monstrosity didn't have much left. We certainly didn't. I'd run out of MP, and using PK Games so much had drained my PP pretty completely. True, the cold water was keeping me in pretty much infinite Ice, but Emerald has an attack that knocks out Regen for a while, so I was feeling every stomp and blast. Oh, and spamming potions in real life tends to make one violently ill… and they're not actually instant.

Finally, reeling, he turned to flee once more, slowed perceptibly, and I struck, lancing through the water as fast as a turbine propelled Argonian can swim, landing on the beast's back, and hacking with my sword as fast as I could. I wasn't going to let this giant green asshole end my chain.

He rolled, thrashed, dived, did everything within his power to throw me off, to grind me to paste, but I clung to him, HFLF-Elf-Enchanted-Materia-Boosted-sword cleaving chunks of carapace off him. I burrowed into him like the world's most pissed off scarab beetle, and there, deep within his chest, where I hadn't actually been looking for it, I found the god damned book! Asshole Programmers!

I grabbed it and pulled it into my Mind Palace. I wasn't sure if I could do that, it wasn't another person, but I'd pulled equipment and clothes in with me before. though normally being held or worn by others. Still, it worked. I read the book… then read it again. It was mental, but it made perfect sense. I sheathed my sword, pulled on my Elven Enchanted Materia Knuckles (Made from real Balrog Horn and Burstone) and tried the attack out.

"TOTAL BITCH: MOTHERFUCKER PUNCH FEST!" might be a mouthful, but apparently the secret is to just… let all your anger, rage, and frustration out in one thousand supersonic punches. I don't know what their normal range is. I've not been pissed off enough to use the attack since, and even if I had been, I doubt I'd have thought to run experiments. But that's beside the point. I was in direct contact and my blows blasted the Weapon's body to fucking smithereens.

I giggled, drained, exhausted. "Fucking Pwned!" I said as I created an ice chunk to lift me to the surface. My friends found me floating there. Zane asked, "Zo? Optional Bosses better or worse than general badstuff?"

"Better. Sure, they put time pressure on us, but we get to prepare. So yes, I'll take cosmetic annoyances over any of them… but the real pain in the butt? Plotline. When you can't do shit to stop it… christ. That's three times. I couldn't stop the Reapers from coming, but I could prepare, could kill Saren only once he'd fulfilled his purpose. I couldn't stop the Seed of Magic from being shattered… because of Plot… not… armor… but you know. Couldn't stop what happened here. Fuck… next time I sign up for Plot Tracking… smack me one. Wouldya?"

"You Got it… but what if the jump has it built in?"

"We'll worry about that when it comes to it. Come on. I can still feel the planet griping about the Jenova taint. Bao? How's that reactor coming along?"

Bao, unlike the rest of us, had spent most of his time refurbishing one of the Mako Reactors still attached to Midgar's Ruins for a specific purpose. This Reactor wouldn't burn Mako… it would purify it. It was a giant Jenova filter, and it incinerated any foreign matter it pulled out of the Lifestream. It also attracted the Jenova Cells through a synthetic Reunion signal. It wasn't perfect, and it wouldn't work in the time we had left, but hopefully, if time continued in this world, the clean energy and purified Lifestream would help Gaia recover, thus fulfilling the vision from five hundred years in the future where Red XIII and his child looked down upon reclaimed ruins of Midgar.

It was with some regret that we left behind the world of Final Fantasy VII. It had been an interesting place, limited in many ways, and very much like being inside a video game. At times stifling, at times frantic, full of sadness and beauty in equal measures. We took with us power, but felt light on learning, and utterly lacking in enlightenment. We also took with us a small pool of the Lifestream with which we surrounded our garden and suffused our meditation pool. We did not know if it could be transplanted into other worlds, but it seemed a worthy experiment.

If Jenova and the Lifestream were compatible, and Jenova an interplanetary parasite, perhaps the Lifestream was an interplanetary symbiont. Only one way to find out… find a suitable host world. But that would have to wait. For now, it was on to another brave new world… If only I didn't have this nagging feeling I was leaving something behind.

Few things are more irritating than a looping soundbite, especially one you might normally enjoy. Songs are usually long enough to break that up, but even they can wear after a few dozen repetitions, unless you're in the zone, either a workout or something creative. Case in point? "Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang. And although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone. But I believe Aang can save the world." echoed through the warehouse as we stepped through the Pillars of Time.

I laughed, not waiting for it to repeat a fifth time as I stepped up to the VMoDs, and in that moment committed myself to a course of action that, in retrospect wasn't the smartest… but certainly was damned interesting. I said, "Okay Machine. You know what I want. Just give it to me."

Note to self, never say that to a Vending Machine of Destiny. I had meant just give me the Waterbending options. I'd been waiting for this jump since I'd become the Winter Witch. I hadn't meant for the machine to just initiate the jump. Words flashed across the screen, words that were burned into my consciousness as fast as everything else was, but I had only a sliver of time to process what they said.

Eleven Years Old

Location – Deep Trouble

Warrior Background [100]

Southern Water Tribe [Free]

Trained Soldier – Commando [Free]

Art of War [300]

The Bending Arts – Water [100]

Combat Bender [100]

Lifebending [400]

Bending Genius [600]

Clothing [Free]

Weaponry [Free]

Waterskins [Free]

Marked [+100]

Blind [+200]

Into the Inferno [+300]

As I dropped through the floor, I saw the Machine flash, "Joy, please select your importation options." but the world went dark before I could see more. And it stayed dark for the next decade.

I cannot describe how a Waterbender experiences the sensation of air so dry and hot that it contains no humidity. The heat was excruciating, evaporating the beads of sweat that formed before I could think of moving them, and my throat burned with lack of moisture. My skin burned too, cracked and blistered and aching with dehydration. The chains that held me up were hot too, almost burning, but not quite, though they had chaffed my wrists fiercely, but not enough to bleed. Not yet anyway.

I moaned.

"Ah, you're awake, Avatar." The voice was cruel, harsh, mocking. Devoid of compassion.

"Mn… mnot the Avatar," I muttered. At least I didn't think I was. I was pretty sure that if that was an option it would have cost a freaking arm and a leg… plus, this was still The Last Airbender. Hadn't Katara's voice said Aang? "A… Aang's the… the A… avatar." My voice sounded pained, raspy, young.

"Fire Lord Azulon and Prince Ozai have seen visions of you wielding both fire and water. Only the Avatar can do that," came the voice again. The speaker was standing near me. "The Air Nomad Avatar vanished years ago. He must have died in hiding. You are the new Avatar. Confess, and your pain will be brief."

They tortured me for hours, for days, trying to force me into the Avatar state as confirmation, as I screamed and writhed, the marks of their fire sinking into my flesh, the throbbing a living nightmare even as it healed. I was blind, chained, helpless… the pain was great, the panic greater, so I took refuge in the only place I could… the Palace of my Mind. I knew I'd emerge into suffering again, but I had to think, had to plan… had to do… something. First… Who was I?

In my Palace I was not blind. All my memories were there with me, strange to my new self and a little fascinating, but they would do me little good. With no small trepidation, I entered the Wing of the Waterbender, the most recent wing of my Palace. There was the Room of the Warrior, and the Room of the Bender, and the Hall of Memory. I walked down the hall, reliving every moment of my 11 years. Oh yes, I've remembered every moment of every quasi-fictional life I've lived since the Great Detective Jump, and most of the moments from the lives before that. I do not know if there were limits on my Palace, but I had not reached them yet.

The walls of this section of the Palace were without light, but I knew the way for I had made it. I was Sukinuk, daughter of Yaari, the greatest living waterbender of the southern tribe… no… not anymore. I had sound-visions of my mother screaming, of the bright tone that was her life fading into silence, of the hated Firebenders grabbing me, dragging me aboard their ships of Iron and Fire and Oil. The scent of them made me sick and I had to center myself before I entered the hall of the Warrior.

I had been born into war, born and breed and burning for battle. The endless darkness of night was nothing to me and I'd mastered the ways of the Ice Hunter younger, quicker, more ruthlessly than any man or woman a decade my elder. I was born for stealth and lived in the moment before the kill. I was creative, versatile, and as long as there was moisture in the air or ground for me to read, I could take in the world within moments. Finding the weaknesses of others, exploiting them, that was child's play, which is good, because that is what I was and not only were people mine to play with, but so were weapons. I could hold a spear, sword, or boomerang and it became part of me, my mind open to the endless possibilities of its use.

I grunted with humor. Well, then… I was an eleven year old general… suboptimal, but by the time I left this world, everyone would know of General Sukinuk and what she had done to the Fire Nation. They had better hope Aang arrived soon, because if it were up to me, I would not be as… merciful. The atrocities they had perpetrated against the other nations would not be forgotten by me. I crossed the hall into the Hall of Bending, opening myself to the sense-memories within.

I was a waterbender, that I knew, born with the ability to manipulate the waters of the world. Not only was I a waterbender, but I'd exhibited a command of the offensive properties of the art, blending martial techniques into my waterbending even as I launched knives, needles, and swords of ice at my enemies… and then used the blood that flowed from within them as a source of more water. Not only was I a Waterbender, but I was a Lifebender, able to control the water within plants and, under a full moon, people. Still, I had never used that power to control my enemies, let along my allies, though I had been tempted more than once. In general, I prefered to use my Lifebending to heal.

I marveled at all the things I had learned to do with water. I could shape snow, rain, ice, water, blood… and I sensed there was so much more. I longed for my Ice Axes, my chosen weapon, to strike at my captors, or my Waterskins. Did they have them? Had they destroyed them? I would find them… somehow. And find my friends. Why hadn't Zane used PHS to bring me to him. Why hadn't I apparated away? Something must be blocking that power, even though teleportation was unknown in this world.

I considered that. I was using too much technology, too much old stuff, relying on old techniques to save me and the world. I spoke into the silence of my mind, "If you're listening, I want to make a deal."

"A Deal?" came the voice of the Jump from on high.

"Yes. You'll like this. The price is right, I think. I want you to seal the warehouse for the jump. Completely. Ahab and Joy are already here, I assume. They can do that on their own power. I want you to offer to import all the others as citizens of this world, for the jump, but they won't know me and I won't know them. If they get killed, they get sent back to the warehouse, even the non-Pokemon. That's it. Seal the warehouse tight and let my friends experience this world. Even Victoria if she wants it. Ziggy too if he wants to be some animal."

"Your price for crippling you is to cripple you even more?"

"It's Zen. I'm casting away material possessions and worldly connections."

"You could just not use the warehouse."

"I don't like for my friends to be bored, and this time around there's no end of the world at stake. Just my own success or failure. Will you do it?"

"Yes."

"Thank you."

"You're very strange."

"You've been watching me for centuries and just figured that out."

"Indeed. Good Luck."

I'd need it. I sighed. I'd miss Zane, miss Ziggy. Miss the whole gang. But we all needed to take a step outside our relationships and be… ourselves. Especially the Pokemon. I braced myself for pain, then relaxed instead. "I will not fear. Fear is the little death. I will face my fear, allow it to wash over me. When it is gone, only I will remain." It was my own version of the litany, something I'd learned in my first childhood and tried to live by ever since.

I dropped back into the moment, into the flow of time. I sensed the water all around me, in the men, five of them, ready to firebend against me, in their breath, in the sweat within their clothing. I ignored their questions, ignored the sear of the branding iron as it bit into my flesh. The flesh was mortal, the flesh would heal.

I had been wrong to think the air dry. It wasn't nearly as dry as I'd originally thought. I realized in that stark moment that I could sense the entire room, the edges and shapes of it all. It was extremely hazy, a three dimensional fog of water molecules in the air, a matrix that contained these bags of moisture, both gross and fine, human sized and smaller than the human eye could perceive.

I drew in a breath, feeling the tiny specks of water enter my cracked lips, then, as I breathed out, I exhaled my power, freezing the water in the mouths of my enemies, blocking their windpipes and chilling their lungs. Like watery dominios, they collapsed one by one, clawing at their throats, their eyes glassing over as ice crystals blossomed within.

They died trying to breathe through lungs that no longer worked, their delicate membranes ravaged by frostbite. I pulled the water from within their lungs, from the voiding of their bladders, used knives of ice to open their veins and pull the water from their blood. I poured this fluid all along the walls of the room, laying a film over everything, seeking the shapes of things, seeking the keys to my shackles.

Having found them, I tried to make icy copies, but they were too brittle and broke before enough torque could be applies to them. So I shaped the mass into a man of ice, a golem, a lurching form that danced to the marionette motions of my fingers. It slowly, oh so slowly, brought the keys to me and twisted them in the locks.

My escape from the room of pain and death soon after was all but a fait accompli, and (like a frosty breath on a cool summer night, I slipped unnoticed out of the citadel of the Firelord, hiding within the clothes I had stripped away from my captors. I was alone in the world, far from the waves and the waters… but if I could reach the outside, I could still fly. All who crossed my path, I killed as I made my escape. Civilian or soldier, servant or priest, I did not know, nor did I care, for in that place, they were all my enemy.

The darkness of blindness is oppressive to one who has always known sight, but all my other senses were preternaturally sharp and I began to probe the minds and thoughts of others to guide me, asking simple questions that they had no reason not to think were their own. "How do I get outside again?" Who questions that thought in their own mind? I soon discovered that I'd been using my sight as a crutch.

I left the citadel and hid in a barrel of rainwater until the sun finally set, my painfully dry skin plumping up nicely as I used the water to heal my wounds, though the scars remained, a mute testimony to the cruelty of the Firelord's minions. In the darkness of the night, I set out into the night sky. Blessed as I was with the power of three of the elements to one degree or another, I figured that I could do as a makeshift Avatar, until another one could be found.

I quickly learned just how relentless Azulon and Ozai were. If they could kill me, they reckoned they would only have to kill the Earth Bender who came after me to bring about another Avatar of the Fire Nation. And it wasn't like I could kill everyone they sent after me? Right?

I learned early on in my flight that the price on my head was high enough that almost anyone would betray me and that I could not take refuge with the Water Tribes without bringing down the wrath of others upon them. My skin was marked by the scars of my torment, though I could not see them, which made covering them… problematic without custom clothing. I became a ghost, a rumor, floating across the wind, Avatar Sukinuk, a title I never claimed for myself, but one I didn't deny.

When hunger drove me to it, I transformed into my bear form and hunted game. When loneliness drove me to it I transformed into my Infernape form and posed as a Fire Spirit, but even that form was apparently known, though the muddled visions of the Firelord and Heir had shown that as my animal companion, not a form of my own. As best I could tell I had arrived late in the fall of 94 AG, 95 years after Aang's disappearance.

Nearly a year passed and I sunk back into the isolation of the wilds, moving steadily east from the Fire Nation into the Earth Kingdoms, then slowly down the massive continent until I reached Omashu, second largest of the cities of the Earth Kingdom and a holdout against the Fire Nations for a century. By this time I was lean, gaunt even, and had managed to craft an outfit of bandages and rags. I had to wait until a day when rain came to Omashu before sneaking into the city and finding my way into the Palace of King Bumi… childhood friend of Avatar Aang.

Finding the room of the King was… interesting. The man was a strange mix of genius and crazy, but find it I did. It was the middle of the night and I placed the carved White Lotus Pai Sho tile I'd convinced a child to steal from her uncle many months ago upon King Bumi's tea table with a click. I heard the old man come awake almost at once.

"I humbly request your aid, Bumi, friend of Aang," I whispered into the darkness.

"You do, do you?" he asked, bringing light to the room. I could hear the sound of its burning and shivered despite the relative warmth. "You're a little thing, aren't you?" he asked as his feet hit the ground.

"Yeah, well, you're old." I grumped, making him laugh. I could feel his gaze sliding over me, then over the Pai Sho tile.

"Who are you?"

"I am one who is hunted by the Firelord and his son."

"Oh yes… the renegade Water Tribe Assassin. The new Avatar some say."

"I am not the new Avatar."

"Maybe you are and no one's told you yet. They usually don't tell the Avatar they're the Avatar until they're… the Avatar I mean, is sixteen… that was a very complicated sentence," he remarked. His voice sounded a little crazed, but gentle all the same.

I chuckled. "It was a little tortured, yes. But I am not the Avatar. Aang is the Avatar."

"Aang disappeared 96 years ago," Bumi pointed out, a little glumly.

"And you used to ride the delivery chutes of Omashu with him."

"Are you sure you're not the Avatar?"

"No. I am… the Manifestation."

"What's that?"

"I cannot Earth or Airbend… but I can do this." I formed Ice above one hand, and Fire above the other, two spheres, both floating, and I slowly formed them into a Yin-Yang with my arms as the circle and my body as the line dividing them. "I am something unseen before… and the Firelord fears me for it."

"And is willing to pay a great deal of money for you."

"Yes. He'd probably even agree to spare Omashu if you turned me over to him. At least for a time."

Bumi laughed, "Azulon is a snake, and Ozai is a menace. Neither of them can be trusted."

"Very true. Then, in exchange for your protection, I will offer you a prophecy."

"Oh? I like those. But they're so hard to prove."

"Indeed. Well, I offer it to you anyway, Bumi of the White Lotus. General Iroh will abandon the siege of Ba Sing Se on the 600th day, following the death of his son Lu Ten. Azulon will die soon after and Ozai will succeed him, with Zuko becoming heir. In two years, Zuko will fight an Agni Kai against his father and be scarred in the face. He will be banished and forced to seek the Avatar… or me… I do not know which. In four years, Aang will return. He will come to Omashu, but his coming will bring the full force of the Fire Nation's elite upon your city, which you will cede to them to safeguard your people. You will reclaim it on the first day of the 8th month of the year 100 AG however, as a Solar Eclipse will rob the Firebenders of their power."

"That's not how prophecy goes!" he said, voice full of poutiness. "Prophecies are all gobbledegook and nonsense! That makes too much sense to be a Prophecy."

"Call it a prediction then."

"Oh… that's better."

"Yes, I thought so. Feel free to refuse. I will understand. The safety of your city comes first."

"They say you have scars, scars that any would know you by. Can I see?"

I considered, then, rather than showing him my face or arms, let my rags and bandages slide off my body, leaving my twelve-year old frame bare in the lamplight. I did not know until that moment the extent of my scars. I had never allowed anyone to see me fully and had never used their eyes to see myself. Yet even had I not, the gasp of dismay from the old man would have told me all I needed to know. I flinched from the vision, tears welling at the corner of my eyes, but I fought them back.

The hug that came as the century old king wrapped me in a blanket broke me however, and I wept. It had been a very bad year and I'd regretted my deal almost every day. But I'd endured. I was not a weakling and this was not the first hardship I'd faced, nor would it be the last. Of that, I was certain.

"You're blind," he commented, his eyes on my face, and I nodded.

"Blind as Toph Beifong," I agreed.

"I don't know her. Does she live in Omashu?"

"No, Gaoling."

"Where they hold Earth Rumble?"

"That's the one."

"Is she an Earthbender?"

"She is… and she will go down in history as the greatest of all time, most likely."

"Nonsense! I'm the greatest Earthbender of all time."

"Yeah, well… she'll do something even you cannot do."

"Tell?"

"Nope. That you'll have to wait for."

"And you can't Earthbend?"

"Nope."

"Just Water and Fire?"

"Fire a little… Water… there… I'm the greatest of all time."

"Oh really?"

"I can tell how many guards there are in your Palace by the moisture in their breath."

"You're bragging."

I laughed. "Maybe." Then I breathed out and made the vapor of my breath dance through the forms of waterbending in front of him.

"Now you're showing off."

"Yes."

And that is how I came to live in the Palace of Omashu for three years. Bumi trusted no one with my identity, giving me long boy's robes and introducing me as a guttersnipe he'd found wandering in the city. I was clumsy, stuttered, and ran errands for the King. At night I slept at the foot of his bed. The staff joked I was the king's dog, and I was, for in that guise I was safe.

I spent the time meditating, practicing, and when possible, sparring against the king… and building an army. I would apparate hundreds of miles to find Fire Nation armed camps to attack, always drawing my pursuers further north even as I hid in the south.

I would gather followers from the local villages, teaching them the way of the guerilla and training them to operate behind enemy lines. My lifebending and telepathy made me a gifted lie-detector and my charisma and skill with finding criminal minions extended to recruitment of resistance warriors. My decades as a covert operative and my newfound tactical aptitude allowed me to move my minions like a Pai Sho Master, destroying Fire Nation machines and stealing their supplies. My ability to make the worst of the Fire Nation Officers… vanish… helped seal my reputation in the minds of my followers.

Part of me wondered if my presence and actions would derail the delicate strands of destiny, but another part rationalized that as long as I did nothing that clearly contradicted what had been shown on screen, the will of the author as I called it would simply assume that my version of the background events were as good as canon. Three of other times I had tried something similar, Mass Effect, Buffy, and Final Fantasy VII, I had drawbacks enforcing elements of the plot, but in Harry Potter and Kill-la-Kill I hadn't had any such thing and events had been close enough for government work, as they say. Maybe it was the force of prophecy? Who can know? Still, I avoided tangling with anyone I knew was canon…

On occasion I would even Apparate all the way back to the Fire Nation and let myself be seen. I needed to keep in practice and keep them looking in all the wrong places… at least until Aang arrived. There too I drummed up a resistance. The Fire Nation was a fascist state… and where there is fascism, there is usually dissent. Dissent was my tinder and I fanned it carefully into open fire, seeding the Fire Nation with cells both open and sleeper, all under the banner of the Blue Lotus.

I also ventured to Gaoling to meet with Toph Beifong, speaking with her, making friends, sharing tips and laughing at foolish things. I did not tell her I was blind, nor did I ever let on that I knew she was. We sparred, though she was just eight and I four years older when we met. She learned fast, as I'd known she would, but I could not spend as much time with her as I'd have liked. I could not risk bringing the Fire Nation to her.

Finally, I knew it was time to leave Omashu. I could wait no longer. I had to make my way to the South Pole. I bid Bumi farewell, promising him I'd return with the Avatar… then I jumped his bones to thank him for all he'd done for me. My body was healthy, full of the vigor of youth and my strange jumper nature, he was… more than a hundred years older than me, at least biologically… and my endurance gave out first. I vanished into the night with a kiss to his cheek and a wince in my step. He was a sweet old man… and funny too.

I arrived in the Southern Tribal lands a month later, wasting no time, settling back into the ice and snow as if born to it… as I had been. I found a small group I could trust, ones who hated and loathed the Fire Nation as much as I did, and convinced them to arm and equip me. They had a spare set of clothing, a pair of ice axes, and even a pair of magical water skins that had been, so they said, found in my mother's house after I'd been abducted. Funny that.

I searched the villages for Hokoda's village, knowing he was the father of Katara and Sokka. I then followed them on their… excursions, watching for them to get stranded on an iceflow. I landed besides them as Katara was smacking the ice-bubble. "What did that iceberg ever do to you?"

Sokka jumped, Katara yelped, the ice-bubble burst, and Aang made his entrance. Oh, and Appa was there too. Who's a good wind-bison!? Yes he is!

"The paranoid one is my brother, Sokka… I don't know who she is," Katara said by way of introductions.

"She," I said, "is Sukinuk."

Sokka gasped "Sukinuk? The Avatar?"

At the same time Aang and I said, "No, He's/I'm the Avatar."

Sokka sounded confused. "How can you both be the Avatar?"

"I'm not the Avatar. I'm what happens when the Avatar vanishes for a hundred years. I'm the Manifestation," I lied. "I was sent by the Spirits to find the Avatar." I'm very good at lying.

"What's a Manifestation?" all three of them asked.

"Think of me as… half an Avatar." I shrugged. "If the Avatar maintains the Balance, I am she who restores it."

"What does that mean?" Sokka asked.

"It means I can do things… Think of me as a specialist in repairing things. We should probably get back to your village, before it gets too late."

An equilibrium was soon established. Katara was the hopeful one, Aang the fearful one pretending to be carefree, Sokka the complaints and idea guy, and I was no fun at all. I steadfast refused to train Aang or Katara in waterbending, claiming I was a poor teacher since I couldn't see them to correct them, but I would spar with any of them in purely physical martial arts, a logic that seemed to pass them by. Sokka was… utterly inept, Aang was almost purely defensive, and Katara had no training at all.

I couldn't be certain that my presence had not thrown too much of the world out of whack, now that I had joined the official events as shown on screen (I had to resist talking to the fourth wall several times) and I had no real desire to change things overly much. This wasn't a world that needed my help to be fixed. There was no fast solution. I had to prepare for the worst, steering the timeline as best as I could. Still, I was hoping that the ship that responded to the flare would still be Zuko's… things shouldn't have diverged too far. And it was.

Zuko attacked the village, but this time it was I who surrendered, not Aang, though things played out much the same. I did not have to evade Zuko on the deck of his ship, however. Instead, I beat him down without using any bending at all, then sat on him and bowed to Lord Iroh, waiting to see if the others came for me. I did not know if they would, but I was hoping for it. They seemed like nice kids.

"Greetings, General Iroh."

"You know me?" the old man said.

"I do," I agreed. "You know me?"

"They say you are the Avatar."

"Not quite. I am something in between. I am the Manifestation."

"Of what?"

"Balance. The Fire Nation has destroyed the Balance, and thus I have come to restore it."

"That sounds… unpleasant."

"Ah, were it that simple. No. Genocide will not fix Genocide, for Fire does not balance Air. I am sorry for the loss of your son."

"You've killed many of our officers."

"I have. But only the worst ones. The Princeling is fine. He has a role yet to play in this. And my respect for you is boundless, old man."

"Even though my people have done terrible things to you and yours?"

"A person is not their people. Once, I was full of hate. But hate is a fire that cannot be allowed to grow. Azulon is dead. Ozai will pay in time… and those who harmed me are dead… at my hand. But I shall not harm you. Ah… my friends are coming. Tell Zuko he needs to work on his form. He's too tense."

The Old Man laughed, then gaped as I lifted into the air, landing on Appa's head as the Air Bison swooped down to rescue me.

Aang stared at me so intensely I could feel it. "You're an Airbender?" the Avatar asked, breathless in amazement.

"No. I'm a Waterbender."

"But you flew! I can't even fly!"

"I did," I agreed, then posed like Peter Pan. "I am excellent like that. Anyway, where are we going?"

And that's how we toured the world. When you're being hunted, it's always good to find others who are being hunted by the same forces. And pissing off Zuko was a great deal of fun. Largely I didn't try to change much. Just a few things here and there.

At the North Pole, I communed with the moon spirits before the General came, asking Tui if I should intervene in what was coming, but the Moon Spirit asked me not too, and so I stayed my hand. The horror of feeling my waterbending disappear as the Fire Nation Admiral killed the Moon was terrifying, the darkness crashing in on me as my primary sense vanished. I felt such rage then, such anger, such fury… but I released it. I had seen Zhao dragged to his doom, once upon a TV… but I wanted to give his soul something to remember. So, instead of killing him, I gathered the pain, the fear, the sadness and despair echoing through the city… and I poured it all into Admiral Zhao, burning the knowledge of all those he'd hurt, all those he'd wronged, into his awareness. I didn't want him feeling any pride of accomplishment for this terrible act… not even for the few minutes more he had to live.

At Omashu and again at Ba Sing Se, I fought Azula and Ty Lee, partly to study the latter's chi blocking technique, which was extremely fast (though nothing compared to my Chestnut Fist)… but mostly to examine Azula's mind in detail. The acrobatic Chi Blocker seemed almost floored when I turned her own techniques against her at Ba Sing Se. It was nice seeing Bumi again… he pinched my ass. It was also lovely hooking up with Toph again. I think dealing with two blind sarcastic girls might have driven Sokka a little more bonkers than normal.

While in Ba Sing Se, I also arranged for the suffocation of Long Feng, head of the Dai Li, the Earth Kingdom secret service. He was an odious worm, but killing him was pragmatic, not motivated by hatred. The man was a traitor and had earned his death many times over.I didn't think it would stop the fall of Ba Sing Se… psychohistory is hard to shape from an outside position.

Not killing Combustion Man was… hard for me. Not taking out Azula or Ozai on the Day of No Sun was harder. Yet I respected Zuko's change of heart and was hoping I could replicate it, although I'd cultivated his hatred of me as much as he'd despised Aang in the show. I came and went more and more as the days drew in, but I was manipulating things behind the scenes as much as possible. It was… frustrating. Just because I had control over my emotions does not mean I do not experience them.

I had one hope, one desire… one way to finally destroy Azulon and Ozai's legacy. It was… almost certain to end in failure, but one has to try. I fix things, that's my purpose, even if it is a purpose I have given myself. And so I followed Aang to the mysterious island (as I'd followed the Avatar and Zuko to the Sunwarriors to witness the dragon dance in my own way.)

As Aang had his little Aangst session about killing Ozai, I stood upon the waves, facing the Lion Turtle that was the mysterious Island and asked it for its aid. "Great One. I know I scarce deserve it, and I know I am flawed and full of anger, but I ask the gift of your power so that I might save another from darkness."

"You already carry the gift of water. Only one human has ever carried more than one element and he had a spirit to aid him."

"Yes. The Avatar. But I am something else. The Avatar is a bridge between Man and Spirit. But the Avatar is not Balance. He… or she… is alone, a thing apart… and without the Avatar the world has fallen into Chaos and Disharmony. I wish to become the restorer of Balance. And I am not certain that I am even human anymore."

"If I give you my gift, and you use it for darkness, you will invite your own destruction. Your mind and spirit must be free of the poison of hatred."

"I cannot say that this will always be so. I can say that I will strive never to use the gift you give in anger. If I must strike with force, against an abomination that must not be, I have other tools, other gifts. I seek your gift only to grant absolution."

"Very well. I will give you what you seek… but I do not know how you will endure it." The great beast, as large as a city, touched me with the tip of its claws and I felt the gift blossom within me. It was a light beyond any but that of creation itself, a pure encompassing torment as my spirit and body tried to rip themselves apart. It was… agony. It was beyond agony. It was ecstasy of the most terrible and awesome kind.

When I awoke, I was floating in the middle of the ocean, alone. I did not have the Avatar Spirit to mediate what I had just taken within me and the pain did not ebb, but rather it flowed endlessly, a tide surging back and forth within my soul. I struggled to stand, gasping at it, willing my muscles to work, willing the waves to propel me forward. The Comet was coming and with it the Phoenix Emperor.

It has always struck me as one of the most profoundly saddening things about the Avatar series that the Fire Nation's airships destroyed so much of the Wulong Forest before they were brought down. I hoped to stop that… but my strength seemed so diminished by this new power, power that I could barely contain… and then I stopped containing it.

Ozai wanted a Phoenix… I let the fleet have one. I rose from the sea as Sozin's Comet arched overhead, filling the Flamebenders with power… power they intended to use to level the Earth Kingdom. But my powers were not diminished just because theirs were strengthened.

The Ocean convulsed, raging spirals of water lancing towards the Fire Nation Airships, ripping their propellers and sails apart, knocking Firebenders screaming as they fell. I had no control. From my form I let my power, all the power I had, all the endurance, the mana, the psychic reserves, everything I had to spend, flow out to shatter the invasion force and blunt the damage that they had planned to wreak upon the land. I could not aim my blows, for I was not thinking even as I became the heart of the storm.

And then it was over and I beheld, drained, wobbling, barely able to keep my feet as I landed on the sands of the shore, as Aang and Ozai fought. I had moved the battle to the seashore. Much less of the land would be damaged… Would Aang still emerge victorious?

I tracked the fight, waiting, waiting, but Aang wasn't entering the Avatar state and Ozai was smashing him into the hard glass of the beach that had been, not into stone pillars… Aang's damaged chakra wasn't being triggered. I had to do something… but I had nothing left. Nothing at all. I could barely move. I had thrown the story off just enough to doom us all. Despair threatened to overwhelm me…

Then I remembered, through my haze, that I was not just a Waterbender. I was an Ice Conduit, an elemental… standing on the shore of the sea. I fell back into the water, drawing the cold from within it, letting it soak into my very cells, revitalizing me just enough. I focused all my remaining strength into one last attack, one final blow to restore Balance… and smashed a chunk of ice into Aang's back, right at the spot where his chi was blocked.

My awareness fading, I lay half in the surf, barely aware as the bolt hit the shavenheaded Air Nomad, wincing in sympathy as he staggered forward, barely ducking under a killing blow from Ozai… and then, as my light faded, I beheld Aang's light blossom.

I came to days later, Katara yelling, "She's awake!" I hurt in places I did not know I could hurt. The war was over. Zuko was Fire Lord, the Earth Kingdoms were freed. All was right with the world… or would be in time.

I waited a month, hoping the pain would subside, but it didn't. Not for a moment. I felt continuously like I was going to come apart at the seams. But I'd asked for this gift for a reason, and not for the raw power it would grant me, because honestly, the only thing I was certain it was good for was removing a bender's bending.

No. I had asked for it, because I suspected it would allow me to heal something beyond any Waterbender's ability to heal. My pain was physical… It could be endured. I was, by any measure, ancient… this pain was transitory. There was someone who needed my help, someone young and in pain.

I let Zuko help me to Azula's cell, the pain making even walking hardly bearable. I knelt before the girl, two years or two centuries my junior.

"Are you certain this is wise?" Zuko asked.

I laughed. "I have never been less certain of anything in my life." But still, I reached out with my hands, my heart, my very essence, and made the connection. It was like Asari mating, or the Vulcan Mindmeld, or what I imagine possession must feel like. I had brought people into my Mental Palace several times, the place where I was absolute sovereign… but this was not that state. This was infinitely more intimate.

Her madness crashed against me, a tide of blue-white fire… and I embraced it. She raged, thrashed, screamed words and thoughts and raw emotions at me. I embraced it. I had done this before, with Victoria… but she had been half Virtual Intelligence, half Feral Parasite… this was a wounded child. For all the horrors and wickedness and craziness Azula shows, it is often forgotten that she was but fourteen years old. She was a child, abused, neglected, driven mad with power and horrors no one should have had to live with.

I let her rage against me for an age of the universe, and let her trauma burn across my soul. And then I opened myself to her in turn, letting out all the compassion and forgiveness I had within me to give. I didn't know if it would be enough. I didn't know if any amount would ever be enough.

She warred against the offer, throwing up walls of defiance and denial, rejecting my kindness as weakness, my absolution as insult. And, again again I offered my hand.

"I don't think you're weak. I think you're strong. Strong enough to take my hand. Strong enough to forgive yourself."

Again, she thrashed in body and spirit, screaming obscenities at me, battering at my psyche and my spirit body with everything she had to throw. And I did nothing to defend myself, letting the darkness, the rage, the sick twisting fear and hatred and despair press against me, seeking all those same emotions within me… and I let them in. I drank up her darkness, adding it to the wellsprings of my own… and then I gave her my light, as much of it as I could spare and more.

I broke the connection, cutting the darkness within me from flowing back into her, leaving her with perhaps enough peace to begin to heal. Then I fell back, convulsions wracking me, ripping me apart inside as the void sought to consume me. It was colder than the Heart of Winter, hotter than the Cracks of Doom, and the darkness I'd lived these last six years was as nothing to the darkness that now ravened within me. I went deep, curling into myself, gathering all the light I had left within me, and focused it to a single crystal of brightness, a tone pure and sharp, a beacon, a clarion… and there I slept.

I woke in a place beyond… Aang was there, eyes full of light. "You've done something foolish," he commented in the voice of 10,000 years of Avatars.

"I had to."

"Yes," he agreed. "Why?"

"Because no one else would have." It was a simple answer, but it was all I had.

It wasn't enough for the boy become a god. "But why?"

"She who saves one life, saves the world entire," I said, drawing upon one of the great truisms of my original life. "You risked your soul, the existence of the Avatar itself… to keep from taking Ozai's life. Could I do any less to remove the last of his poisonous legacy? You restored the balance of the world… I had to restore the balance of that child. Plus… I've been where she was. Couple of times."

"You're not of this world. Are you a Spirit?"

"I am as much a Spirit as you are, Avatar," I said, chuckling darkly.

"That's not an answer," he pointed out.

I shrugged. "There are no answers. Only more questions. It was nice travelling with you…. I'll miss this."

He paused for a long moment, then asked, "Why do you say that?"

"Because I don't know how much longer I can hold out against the darkness," I explained, feeling the darkness crushing in around me. "There's so much of it and so much pain."

"You've lived with pain before," he reminded me.

"There was light then."

"And now?"

My voice felt so small as I said, "Now there is only darkness."

"Light shines all the brighter in the dark."

"I…" I had no answer for that. "Is there then hope?"

"As long as there is life, there is hope, Manifestation."

"Avatar is so much cooler," I groaned. "Should have called myself the Exemplar."

"See, you joke, but that could get confusing."

"Heh," I half chuckled. "Well, you'd know best. You're way older than I am."

He grinned. I could see here in the darkness of my soul. Heh. I could see… After a time he asked, "Feeling better?"

"Actually… yes… what did you do?"

"Nothing. I just came to keep you company. Sometimes that's all it takes."

"Well, hard to mope with all that glowing you're doing."

When I emerged from my own darkness, I found that I'd been unresponsive for the better part of a month. For the rest of the jump, the pain never really faded, and my waterbending was never as strong as it had been, but my control had improved by leaps and bounds… which was good, because I was no longer leaping or bounding. The strain of two elements was a constant drain and I eventually retreated to the South Pole to draw upon the cold there merely to maintain myself.

I don't know how long I would have lasted had the jump not ended. I have no idea how old I looked at the end of ten years, but I felt ancient, withered, a husk of who I had been. My disciples carried me to the shore as I'd asked of them. And there, alone as I hadn't been for so very very long, I waited for the Pillars of Time to rise out of the sand… but instead… I drifted off… and found myself in another place.

"Troubled?" a voice asked.

"Not really… just… waiting to die… I guess."

"That doesn't seem to worry you."

"I will no longer be who I am now, but I will continue to be me."

"Strange thing for a mortal to say."

"I can't sense you. What are you?"

"I am a spirit."

"Do you have a name, spirit?"

"Atura."

"I have had many names…. But in this place I am Sukinuk. It is a pleasure to meet you, Atura."

"Likewise. I've never met a mortal like you before."

"Have you met many?"

"Oh… a few."

"Well… glad to amuse you, at least for as long as I have left."

"Going so soon?"

"Well… apparently only the Avatar can handle having two elements."

"I thought you had three."

"I'm sorry?"

"Three… isn't that what the Manifestation has? Fire, Water, Energy?"

"I… yes… I guess that's true. Still, it seems to be killing me."

"Well, yes. I'd imagine so. The Avatar is bonded to Raava which is what allows him to wield all four elements."

"Five… now."

"Well… yes and no. Other Avatars have gained Energy before… It doesn't stick."

"Huh… wonder why?"

"Wan, the first Avatar, didn't learn that power before he bonded with Raava."

"That's the second time you said that name. Who's Raava?"

"She is the Spirit of Light and Peace."

"Nice… I'm guessing there's a Spirit of Darkness and War?"

"Darkness and Chaos… Vaatu."

"I don't suppose Vaatu is available to help me?"

"I doubt you'd like that. He's not much for Balance."

"Is there a Spirit of Balance?"

"There is."

I considered long and hard, then asked "Is that you?"

"It is."

"You wouldn't be willing to bond with me and help me control the massively excessive amounts of power I seem to have coursing through me?"

"Well… Normally I'd say no… but you do seem keen for restoring Balance. Plus… can't let Raava have all the fun."

"So what does this entail?"

"Normally? The energies of two worlds in perfect sync with each other."

"Well, I can provide the two worlds… but I'm pretty sure we should hurry."

"Why's that?"

"Well, if we're not at least partly bonded in the next few minutes, we'll miss our moment."

"You seem to know a lot about these things, for a mortal."

"Benefit of many lives."

"Well, sounds interesting. Shall we?"

"We shall," and as the Pillars of Time rose out of the sands, my vision returned, and there, at the edge of the world, with one foot in the sea and one on land, I felt my vitality flowing back into me, the imbalance fixing itself… but time did not freeze. Rather, it sped up, the sun rising and falling and rising again… again and again… and words scrolled across the Pillars "You're not done here yet. This is only the Intermission."

I cannot easily describe what it is like to grow old in a matter hours, to live of through twenty three thousand sunrises and twenty three thousand sunsets in as many seconds. A day in the life of the world as it were. Sixty-five years passed in just under twenty four hours or so it seemed. I was both on that beach and not, both in the spirit realm and someplace other, as my body aged from the prime of life to an old crone, but I never lost my vitality, never felt a despair of coming doom. It was merely a transition, the passing of one life into another. At some point, approximately fifty years in, Sukinuk died, her eyes closing for the last time and yet I remained. We remained. Atura, EssJay… even Sukinuk. We were one, outside of time and unbound to a physical form… and then, a moment later, we were enfleshed once more. We were Jai, a newborn babe of the Fire Nation, a toddler, a child, a tween, a teen. Time slowed as we crossed the threshold of puberty and, as Jai approached the age of sixteen, the torrent of time resumed its old familiar flow, becoming a placid stream once more. Sukinuk that was became Jai that was, and yet I, EssJay was still there. It was as if I had been waiting for that moment to open my true eyes and breath in following an endless outpouring of air.

As the Pillars of Time began to sink into the sand, letters scrolled across their immortal surfaces, spelling out 'And the Adventure Continues' and below that

Location: Spirit World

Origin: 16 Years Old, Fire Nation, Civilian [50]

Hard Worker [Free]

Money [50]

Firebender [100]

Utility Bender [100]

Lightning Bender [100]

Origin Spirit [200]

Jump Clan [400]

Firebending Genius [600]

Collectors [+100]

Equalists Forever [+200]

Lotus Eaters [+300]

Of course, very little of that made sense to me, but I suspected there was now a Hall of the Firebender right next to the Hall of the Waterbender. I was very much now the Manifestation. But at least I could see this time, right?

"Atura? You there?", I asked, not quite believing 'she' would be.

"I am here," the Spirit responded, and I released a breath I hadn't been aware I was holding. "That was most… intriguing. So much I do not comprehend, so much beyond my frame of reference. Do all mortals spend choices at the beginning of their lives? And what is the 'deal' with that stage where you are very small and cry a great deal?"

I chuckled. "That's called being a baby, and it's the larval form of a human. Totally helpless, so it cries to communicate being afraid and hungry and uncomfortable to the universe. This allows those who care about the baby to attempt to ease those fears, sate that hunger, and bring comfort. It may seem inefficient, but it is from this that a human learns all they need to know about life. Rule one, no one can make it alone. We all rely upon each other. Rule two, if you are in pain, tell someone about it. They might not be able to help, but chances are they've been where you are now and might have insight. Rule three, give comfort to others as others gave comfort to you. The future is built on an unending foundation of simple acts of compassion," I explained, then hugged myself, feeling my new body and wondering at the foolishness of man that he so often forgot that.

"As for the choices? No, that is not something others do. I'm not the same as a normal mortal. I'm a… Jumper, one who travels from world to world, often while they're in crisis… or just about to fall into crisis. Then, more often than not, I try to balance them."

"All alone? Does that not violate Rule One?"

"I am not usually alone, no. I have a dozen or so companions. Mostly for comic relief, but sometimes for actual assistance." I realized how much I missed the others and sat down upon a driftwood log, realizing that I'd travelled from the South Pole's frigid shores to the tropical seas of the Fire Nation sometime in that endless day of the world. Or at least the Spirit World's version of it.

"I was watching you for quite some time…" Atura said, "I don't remember anyone who seemed too companiony."

I leaned back, looking up at the clear blue sky, and sighed. "They were on vacation. I was…" I paused, seeking the correct word, the proper way to explain my meaning to this strange new being within my soul. "I was reexamining myself. And letting them reexamine themselves as well, I guess."

Atura was silent for many long minutes before she finally asked, "To what end?"

I shrugged. "I cannot say. Does self-examination have an end beyond knowing oneself? Some of my companions came with me out of loyalty, others came with me for adventure, others because they had no place to go back to. None truly had a choice in the matter, and choice is everything in life. Isn't that the nature of it? To make choices and see what happens?"

"I would not know," the Spirit said. "It is the nature of spirits to fulfill our nature. Choice is irrelevant in that."

"And if you don't?" I asked. "What happens if you refuse to fulfill your nature?"

"That would never happen," came the reply. "A spirit cannot choose to be other than they are."

I sighed. "That sounds like a cop-out, to be honest. I suspect you have more choice than you believe. A major theme of this world is connecting to who you are, who you were, and who you will be. Perhaps it is more that a Spirit that chooses to be other than it is simply changes more visibly than a Mortal… or perhaps, that choice is part of who the Spirit is… either way, I felt it important that each of my friends be able to examine themself… or at least have the chance."

"But why alone?"

"Because with me, they would have spent the time exploring the story, not… exploring the world," I said, a little sadly. "With each other, they would have been reminded of that connection. I simply asked for each of them to not know me and I not know them. I did not strip them of their identity or memories, and none of them but me knew the history of this world."

The spirit considered that for many silent minutes as I listened to the gentle susurrus of my heartbeat. Finally, she said. "It sounds lonely."

"To some extent? Yes. But I'm certain they made new friends over the decades."

"I meant for you."

"Oh…" I considered, then shrugged. "I had friends, comrades… and then I met you."

"Only your final moments in that life."

I chuckled, "Or sixty-five years ago."

"There is that… yes," Atura agreed, then asked, "What did the words mean?"

For a moment, I was a little confused about what words she meant, then it dawned on me. "The words on the pillars? To find the answer to that question, we must step inside."

"Inside? Into the building within your mind?"

"Yes. The Palace of my Mind."

"Are we not within it now?"

"Of course, but our gaze is fixed without. We must turn our gaze within."

"Will you guide me?"

"I will," I said, opening myself to the strange being that had become part of me. This was turning out to be a very… transformative experience.

As I slipped inside myself, bringing Atura along, I felt the world around me change, both without and within. The palace had taken on the glow of Magic Hour, the feel of twilight, neither dawn nor dusk, but something in between. I had been wrong. There was no Hall of the Firebender. There was also longer a Hall of the Waterbender. Instead, there was the Hall of the Manifestation. I entered it, appreciating the way everything was in harmony, in balance. "Your work, I presume?"

"Perhaps more my Influence."

"Ah."

I beheld the chambers of my new self, of the Firebending I now could claim in honesty. I entered the Hall of Incarnation, exploring the sixteen years that had passed since the old me had apparently died… that experience, one I was somehow certain was across the hall, waiting for me, scared me a little, so I put off visiting and focused on the new life instead of the end of the old. This me had lived a life of effort, of work in a blacksmith's shop, learning to bend the furnace flames, to keep the fire at a constant temperature, to keep the heat within the metal contained. I had no name but Jai, and had a reputation as a quiet girl, hardworking, able to complete any menial job with a smile on her… my face, unfazed by boredom when I was working, always finding something to keep my mind occupied and time flowing fast as I worked even the most repetitive tasks. I was an orphan, no memory of parents.

It was a serviceable life, but not one that would entertain or register on the world stage. But then again, Jai had just awakened to her Manifest Destiny. According to my memories I had a fair amount of funds, and a list of names and locations. That was curious. I still had my ice axes and my water bottles. And my body was apparently still covered in ancient scars, something I'd been born with it seems. I wondered idly if the future Manifestations would bear similar markings.

Venturing across across the hall, I found a lifetime's worth of experience practicing Firebending, shaping, molding, working with the element itself. If my previous self had mastered Waterbending as a weapon of war, my new self had similarly mastered Firebending as a tool of production. Not only could I weld with my flames, but apparently I could cook with them… and a thousand other little things.

And I'd mastered Lightning Bending, which apparently was much more common now than it had been seven decades earlier. It was a good skill for me, since it relied on separating positive and negative energies, then releasing them in opposed directions… it also relied on peace of mind and emotional control, which suited me to a tee.

I could feel my genius over the art expanding across my consciousness, examining the power from every angle, and then the two masteries began to blend, examining ways to combine the effects as only an Avatar could… and seldom did except in the Avatar state.

"Well, that's apparently who we are."

"What is this list?"

"I don't know. Also only vaguely know that Republic City is a new city where people from all tribes mix and mingle. I think Aang founded it. Korra… the new Avatar, will be there… in a year or so. I think we should go there… now where are we?"

"The Spirit World."

I laughed. "Yes, I gathered that. But where in it? I assume the Spirit World is as vast as the Mortal World."

"Mmmm… That I do not know… but this is the Sands of Time."

"Sounds portentous."

"Perhaps. They say there is a grain of sand upon this beach for every second since the world's inception."

"Big beach."

"It is only as big as you imagine a second to be."

"Is it?"

"It is."

I looked down the beach in each direction. The beach stretched on as far as I could see in either direction. "Which way to the Earth Kingdoms?" I asked as I imagined seconds as merely infinitely small sections of a millennia then an eon, then an epoch, and the beach shrank to a small sandy patch on the shores of eternity.

We emerged into the world of men on the same shore where Aang had sealed away Ozai's power long ago. It was still a place of shattered rock and fused glass and held a profound sense of wrongness slowly mending. I examined the area, seeing it with working eyes for the first time.

There was a monument, a black glass stele that said, "Upon this spot, the Avatar and the Manifestation defeated Lord Ozai and brought the Hundred Years War to an end." I felt a little shame at that, for claiming glory that wasn't originally mine, but I had fought in the war, interloper or not. Hopefully I'd made things better by my presence… but now it was time for me to learn the lay of the land and the state of the world.

I considered apparating around the world, learning the news in each location, but my memories of this world told me I was standing on land that belonged to the United Republic and that was only a few hours travel to Republic City. I crossed the Mo Ce Sea on jets of fire, laughing the entire way. Flying for the first time had felt incredible, but 113 kph was like walking compared to the speed I could get with the power of flame propelling me.

The colossus that was the statue of Aang and I made me gape in appalled horror. It was braggadocio on an epic scale, even though I'd had nothing to do with it. I had to wonder what Aang had made of it… or any of Aang's friends… or what Korra would think of it when she came to the city. There was an Air temple on the other small island in the harbor and I landed on it. My memories of this lifetime told me that this was the home of Tenzin, son of Aang and the leader of the Air Nomads reborn.

The man himself, looking every inch the Air Monk, looked up from where he was instructing two little girls in airbending. "Hello?" he said, apparently unused to firebenders landing on his little island… or seeing a firebender able to actually fly on jets of flame rather than merely use them to wall run or jump higher. The last known Firebender who'd been able to do that had been Ozai and only under the light of Sozen's Comet, the celestial light somehow boosting the power of firebenders in a way that only makes sense if you know nothing of astrophysics.

"You look like your father," I said.

He seemed wary of me, but nodded slowly, subtly positioning himself between me and his children.

"Oh don't worry. I'm not here to cause trouble. I think your mother would kill me if I hurt you or your kids… if she's still alive. She'd be… in her 80s. Zuko's still alive… Aang died young. Sorry to hear that. So many of my old friends are gone…" I said, rambling and feeling their loss like a knife in the heart.

"Who are you?" he asked, clearly assuming he was dealing with a crazy person.

"I could answer that in words… but I think it will be easier to show you." And I bent water and fire at the same time. "Hint. I'm not the Avatar."

He blinked, but didn't lose his calm. "We were unsure if you would return or not."

"I cannot say I was at all certain I would return either."

"You told my parents you came when the world was out of balance. Does that mean…?"

"Ummm… almost certainly yes. Unfortunately, I have no idea what's coming. Something about Equalists, Collectors, and Lotus Eaters is all the warning I have. The Equalists are-"

"Anti-Bending agitators, yes. And the Lotus Eaters could mean an organization opposed to the White Lotuses. But I don't know about the Collectors."

"That makes two of us. How is Korra coming along in her training? I'm looking forward to sparring with her. Did your mother train her in water bending?"

"Yes. We actually thought Korra might be the next Manifestation because she developed water and fire so quickly… but when she developed Earth… You… mother said you trained her."

"I did. Katara was my best student. Better healer than me to be honest. So… tell me everything you can about the state of the world."

Tenzin was a font of information about geopolitics, about the growing tensions between Northern and Southern Water Tribes, about unrest in the Earth Kingdoms, especially in the areas where my supporters had been strongest, centered on Omashu… and about a group of total psychopaths who called themselves the Red Lotus. They'd attempted to kidnap Korra when she was a kid and had been imprisoned thereafter by the White Lotus. And that Korra would be coming to Republic City soon to receive training in Airbending from the only master around.

I figured that the Equalists would wait until Korra showed up… they had in the show, and if they moved against me I could take care of myself. So I used the year or so I had… I wasn't sure of the dates… until then, getting to know the city and its movers and shakers. Republic City was very much like New York City seventy years after the Civil War pitted brother against brother.

I also pulled some strings with Zuko, now Grand Lotus of the White Lotuses, to find out where the Red Lotuses were imprisoned. But first I had prove myself to him. He'd grown very skilled over the last 65 years, looking every inch the refined individual his uncle had been. But I'd learned new skills as well.

"You've changed," he commented.

"New body. New life. How's your sister?"

"She's well. Taken to be a grandmother with strange aplomb. She misses Sokka."

"Yes, I'd heard they married. He was good for her."

As pleasant as catching up was, meeting the Red Lotus leaders was not. They were insane, brutal, and felt that both the Manifestation and the Avatar were the source of all the world's imbalances. They dreamed of a world without governments, without nations, where spirits and man shared the world in 'harmony'. I was tempted to dispatch each of them, but I trusted the White Lotus and their decision to spare them years ago… though I did wonder what purpose the prison holding Zaheer (their leader and a non-bender) served. It was isolated at the top of a freestanding stone pillar with a retractable bridge connecting to the next. It was overkill for an airbender… insane overkill for a non-airbender. Of course… all that would change. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

My first major annoyance was the gang known as The Triple-Triads… who wanted their money back. I hadn't thought about how a humble blacksmith's apprentice had managed to come by quite so much cash… and it was probably enough to live quite well on for at least five years… but they were low level thugs and second-rate benders and bringing them to justice could only serve to enhance my standing in the community. Plus, it was good practice.

Unfortunately, the debt collectors soon gave way to the Equalists. Amon, leader of the Equalists, was a jackass of colossal proportions, an anti-mutant fucktard who had it in for Korra and me from the moment each of us arrived in the city. His people, armed with the latest in high tech equipment, were formidable… against normal benders. But they were out of their league when they came after me. Their lightning gloves and shockrods were useless against me, the knockout gas they used similarly without effect, and even their weapons were barely more than pinpricks to my massively reinforced skin.

That was, until one of them attacked me with a pitch black jian. I gaped as it plunged through my chest, both at the bright flare of pain and at recognition. Someone had found Sokka's Space Sword! And then used it to try and assassinate me. Unfortunately for him he'd missed my heart… well, one of my hearts… not that I was at all certain a blow there would have killed me, and my backhand shattered his grip on the sword… and half the bones on the left side of his body.

I drew the blade from my chest, groaning, then smiled. "Good to see you, old friend." and I strapped it on. I didn't go after Amon personally, but I did speak out against his rhetoric, using my charisma and political skills to try and bring peace to the city.

I was not here to play vigilante. I was Balance incarnate… but I did rejoice in annoying Lin Beifong (Head of the local police force and elder of Toph's two daughters) by regaling her with tales of the antics I'd gotten up to with her mother… who had not, unfortunately, turned out to be a lesbian or even bisexual, but was still one of the most snarky people I'd ever met. I missed her. Missed Sokka. Missed the old Bumi. Leaving a world for good meant saying goodbye forever… but it was me leaving… not my friends dying of old age while I lived on, eternally young… except this time I'd apparently lived to the ripe old age of sixty.

By the time Korra revealed that the fiercely anti-Bending Amon was actually a waterbender (using bloodbending, an illegal and depraved technique that was normally used to puppeteer others (although it could be used to augment healing as well) to strip away a bender's powers) his organization was ready to fall apart anyway… and I absorbed those willing to actually work towards reform and not just gripe about things into my growing Reform Party. By the time the Council stepped down and allowed for the election of a democratic government, I pushed for a new Council with shared executive power instead of a single elected potentate. Each would have a different purview, but only limited ability to act unilaterally. The people called for Korra and I to assume positions in the new government, but it wasn't the time.

Civil War broke out between the North and South while we were visiting Katara to see if she could do anything to restore the three elements that Amon had stripped from Korra (incidentally allowing her to unleash the fourth for the first time). Although Katara could do little, Korra managed to commune with her Avatar state and Aang taught her a new trick for Energybending. Between the two of us, we managed to restore all those striped of their bending. That done, we spent time with the family… Korra's uncle, this cold fish named Unalaq, was a Mussolini wannabe if I've ever seen one, and his schemes were to get us into no end of trouble.

After allowing herself to be tricked into opening the Portal to the Spirit World at the South Pole, Korra disappeared for several weeks, leaving me to try and explain to the Northern Tribal Admirals that they really didn't want to deal with me. Unalaq, however, was more than happy to sic his creepy ass twin kids on me, and throw what would have been metric fucktons of spirits at me if spirits weighed anything. I don't know how Korra dealt with him, but I seriously wanted to murderize him… unfortunately I was becoming progressively more and more aware of my status as a holy figure and assassinating the leader of a Nation just because he was annoying me seemed… unwise.

That didn't stop me from driving the Northern Battleships out of Southern waters… and picking up Spiritbending in the process by watching Unalaq turn spirits dark. Turning them light again was no easy task, and often little more than a stopgap. Still, by the time Korra returned from wherever she'd been, the South was, essentially free, in all but name.

We discovered that Unalaq had planned to free Vaatu, the spirit of Darkness and Chaos and merge with him to make himself into a Dark Avatar. Stopping him wasn't easy, but we did… still… I had a growing sense of disquiet. As Harmonic Convergence, a once in 10,000 year celestial alignment, drew close, I meditated in front of the Tree of Time, a wasted, withered husk of a tree in the center of the Yin-Yang that contained the portals to the normal world at north and south poles.

"What is this place?" I asked Atura. "It feels… different from all the rest of the Spirit World."

"This is my home. This is Twilight."

I nodded. "But it is not balanced. I can feel it. Wan perverted the natural order 10,000 years ago when he sealed the gates… but something was wrong even before that." I did something I hadn't done since back on Gaia. I opened myself up to the world, feeling the surge and pulse of it all. It was out of Balance. Vaatu and Raava had feuded for eons, neither one ever able to completely destroy the other, for each contained the seed of the other… they were Yin and Yang… but their struggle was not in Harmony. It was Destruction, fueled by anger on both sides. No… this could not be allowed to continue.

As Harmonic Convergence began, I turned my power against the Northern Portal's seal. Wan had made them with all four elements, and it had taken Korra to open one of them. But I had three elements, including one Wan had never had… and I had power far in excess of anything any Avatar had ever had… and I had Atura. I wrenched the seal open, allowing Harmonic Convergence to wash across the world… and then had to deal with an enraged Avatar.

"How could you do that?" she demanded, in the voice of ten thousand years. "I thought you were my friend!"

"You are a bridge between the Spirit World and the Mortal World… but a mistake was made ten thousand years ago. The two worlds are meant to be together, for good or ill. And there is more."

"More? More!? What? What more could there be?"

"We must free Vaatu."

"But he's evil!"

"No. He is part of the balance. Dark and Light can exist without each other, but they are meaningless without the other to define them. Look around you, Korra. This is the Tree of Time. Behold that it is withered, bearing no fruit, possessed of no leaves. Is it not how it was 10,000 years ago? This is the time of the greatest spiritual energy… the tree should be in full bloom. Yet it looks like the darkest part of Winter."

"But Vaatu will destroy the world if we free him!"

"That is Raava within you speaking. Raava, who has raged against Vaatu for time out of mind. She is biased. Look within yourself, Korra. Darkness is not evil, Light is not good. Peace and Chaos are two sides of the same coin. And all of them are illusions, meaningless outside of perspective. You must take Vaatu into yourself… and I will seal the rift between Raava and Vaatu."

Vaatu… did not like the plan. Tenzin did not like the plan. Korra… agreed reluctantly to give it a try. As one, we touched the celestial arch that held all the power of Harmonic Convergence and drew it in. We held hands, and freed Vaatu from his prison. His darkness blasted out across the worlds, grown strong over his ten thousand years of imprisonment.

He was full of certainty and rage, we were unsure and it showed. We chased him across the Mortal World, finally fighting him, back to back like I had fought with Aang, in the harbor of Republic City while the others guarded our bodies from the waves of Dark Spirits. Raava and Vaatu were equally matched, but Vaatu was angrier by far and had nothing left to lose. Yet he could not fight both of us and together we wove the water of the bay into a great Spiritbending, trapping him.

"Korra… you must release Raava. They must be together for this." I could tell she was afraid… this had never been done before, might not work, might destroy the Avatar forever. But… I have a way with words… and I believed this was the right thing to do. Raava flowed out of Korra's mouth, flowing into the spiral of our Spirit Bending, and then, as the surge reached its apex, they fused, into the entity that they must have been once upon a time, long before the coming of man. The rejoined spirit was bright, suffused with all the colors that existed, a restored spirit of Harmony and Flow. If Balance was the moment between… this was the cycle entire, the wheel in motion. Korra's eyes flashed a rainbow hue as she absorbed the spirit of Harmony.

When we returned to the Tree, we found ourselves nearly overwhelmed, with Harmonic Convergence nearly at an end. Tenzin yelled "Quickly, seal the portals!" But Korra and I just looked at each other, then we wove the waters of that place into a working possible only with two celestially empowered water-energy-benders. We healed the rift in the Tree of Time. It might take another ten thousand years to bear fruit… but I could already feel the world drifting back into harmony.

As it turns out, Harmonic Convergence had an unforeseen consequence… New Airbenders started popping up… all over the place… including Bumi (Not the original, but his namesake, Avatar Aang & Katara's non-bending, ex-military son). And the new Airbenders were causing nothing but trouble. It was resolved we had to collect them and bring them to Tenzin at the Northern Air Temple so they could play X-Men to Tenzin's Professor X.

Our first major stop was the capital of the Earth Kingdoms. Where, to our dismay, we discovered that the Earth Queen was bonkers. And the Dai Li was still a bunch of manipulative bastards… and Ba Sing Se had not changed for the better in sixty-five years. The outer ring of the city was an industrial slum that went on forever, and the Queen taxed the people to an insane degree as she wasted their money on endless palaces.

While Korra and the others searched the city for the Airbenders, I worked my magic upon the people. This was ridiculous. Change was needed… but it could not be violent. I would not sanction the outrage and horrors of open rebellion. Too many would die as ancient grudges ripped apart the nation. Instead, I took a page from Ghandi's book and preached a doctrine of passive resistance. It would take millions to be effective… but if there was one thing Ba Sing Se had in abundance, it was people.

And, of course, this was when the Red Lotus began to make their move. Zaheer, their leader, had become an airbender and not only did he escape his prison, a prison built to contain airbenders though he hadn't been one before Convergence, but he freed the others from their own prisons and from then on they were hell bent on killing me and capturing Korra… for some obscure reason. Zaheer was some serious OP bullshit though.

Tenzin's brother, Bumi, a soldier with decades of experience and personal training from the son of Avatar Aang had not even come close to competent in the few weeks that had passed after Harmonic Convergence… But Zaheer was, in the same time, completely untrained, a master Airbender able to go toe to toe with Benders with combat training and years of experience… like Zuko, or Korra's father Tonraq. Really? Was he this OP in the show? Because wow, plot powerup!

The first time they hit us was in Zaofu, The Metal City. Zaofu was… fabulous. It was… everything that Rapture (from Bioshock) had aspired to be, without all the built in racism, elitism, and rampant genetic engineering. Playing Andrew Ryan to Zaofu was Suyin Beifong, Toph's younger daughter, who was everything that Lin wasn't; adventurous, open, kind… though both were passionate and hardworking. She was also compassionate, supportive, and honest… despite having a bit of a wild past. I liked her immediately. I also liked the lotus shaped domes that opened and closed, making the city nearly impregnable… or so we thought.

I'd met all four members of the Red Lotus in prison, but this was the first time I was seeing Ghazan, P'Li, and Ming-Hua in action. P'Li was a Combustor (a kind of specialist Firebender who could launch high explosive blasts from his or her forehead… usually from a tattoo in the middle of their forehead in fact). Like the Combustor in the original series (Sokka had dubbed him 'Combustion Man!') P'Li was a fool, giving everyone with a rock and some way of aiming it a target to aim for (said eye-shaped forehead tat), but still deadly. Ming-Hua was an armless waterbender who used water tentacles in their stead, tentacles she could cut steel with. She was as vicious as they came. And Ghazan was an Earthbender who could generate and control Lava. They crashed through the domes and tried to fanatic their way into victory. They were crazy, dedicated, and worked together brilliantly.

I might have been terrified, had I not had two rival bending abilities both simultaneously going 'Ping!' in my mind. If an Earthbender could bend metal by shaping the impurities, or generate Lava by heating the rocks… and if a Firebender could control lightning… what could a water bender do?

But that was for later. In the present, I remembered the magnetic suit of armor I'd seen demonstrated at dinner… and laughed. Electricity was electromagnetism, as this world had just discovered… I sucked the heat out of the lava… all of it, wrenching it up to craft a shield of electromagnetic force. It was polarized, a cage, allowing anything in… and nothing out… save photons. I wasn't certain I could control those yet. The process was incredibly draining and I wobbled, the shield dropping, and the Red Lotus fled into the night.

We tracked them, hot on their heels… but they turned the tables on us and while they did their best to kill me, the Earth Queen's forces captured Asami (Daughter of Republic City's number one industrialist and resident Howard Hughes impersonator) and Korra. With the four of them against me… I went down, expecting death… but Zaheer apparently wanted Korra more than he wanted me dead, so he traded me to the Earth Queen. Me, the great rebel leader, in exchange for Korra. Only she escaped and Zaheer lost his cool and killed the Queen… then went on the citywide broadcast to announce her death.

I could feel the chaos mounting as Ghazan brought down the walls that divided the poor of Ba Sing Se from the rich… I could feel death looming high… and as I rushed to the top of the Earth Palace, I called upon Atura, called upon the Manifestation within me. I entered the Manifest state and broadcast my face across the sky, bringing to life all the billions of water droplets across the firmament, to speak in a voice like thunder… and I beseeched the people of the city, of that great city of the Earth, not to lose sight of the fact that they were children of civilization, that to strike down another human in anger was not the way. That a just society could not be built on the ashes of injustice.

I was defenseless in that state, unable to protect myself as Zaheer stole my sword and plunged the meteoric steel into my back, right through my flesh heart this time… and I fell from that high place, my manifestation collapsing as I dropped back into myself, the water droplets I'd possessed cooled and coalesced to bring rain down upon the city. I knew I had not stopped the looting, but hopefully, the fires of chaos would spare some of the ancient city. If only I'd had more time.

And speaking of time… I could feel the rolling counter ticking down as my survival instincts slowed time. I TK'd the sword out of my back, hardening my skin and slowing my fall enough to merely smash into the stones below. Darkness claimed me.

By the time I came to, the city was in chaos… as I'd known it would be, but there were districts of calm, places held by my forces, and they were slowly growing, their light like seeds as it spread… but it wasn't enough. I went out among the people, calming them, calling upon them to remember their humanity, soaking up their anger and pushing them to work together. If water could heal the body… maybe fire could heal the mind. I did not know, but I had to try.

I sought the fire within them, feeling the heat of life, the heat of passion, the heats of anger and hatred… and I stoked their opposites as I dampened them. Yet there were millions of people in the city and I could not be everywhere. It was like fighting the tide… and yet some tides must be fought. For five days, I spoke to the people, working my ways upon them. I had no sleep save when I collapsed from fatigue.

It was as I roused myself from the darkness on the sixth day that one of my acolytes found me, bringing me news. Zaheer, believing me dead, had captured the Northern Air Temple and demanded Korra as ransom. I had had enough. This was no longer acceptable. Bad people were doing terrible things and I was letting them live.

No more. I had tried not killing… but this was not a god damned kid's show. Sometimes the Balance requires corrective surgery. I apparated to the Northern Air Temple. I hadn't been there for decades, but I still remembered the location. I brought with me a special present for Red Lotus.

I dropped out of the sky into the midst of the temple, striking without warning, a swarm of tiny droplets surrounding me. I flashed the air to mist around us, then lashed out with the first set of beads… they were pure nickel droplets, teardrops of one of the most magnetic elements I could find… and they were travelling at a speed that made sound look slow. "RAIL GUN YOU FUCKERS" I proclaimed, as the cavitation shock of eight hypersonic flechettes obliterated the head of P'Li before she could use her Combustion upon an innocent target ever again.

Ming-hua faced the second set, tiny crimson-white droplets of silica… sandglass in liquid form, warmed by the motion of the water within… They burned through her icy arms like a laser through butter, transformed from liquid into crystal by their passage… and exploding out the far side as a shower of razor sharp fragments. She wasn't dead, but I doubted she'd be able to target anything through the ruins of her eyes.

Ghazan's lavabending was nothing to me, a source of heat and nothing more and I cooked him to ash as he screamed. Last, I turned on Zaheer, drawing my sword, advancing slowly as my telekinetic shields deflected everything he could throw at me.

"Why are you fighting, Zaheer? This is the world you wanted, isn't it? A world of natural order, where the strong take whatever they want while the weak suffer and die?"

"No! I want to free the people from their oppressors!"

"Nature is the ultimate oppressor, Zaheer. Civilization is the only path to freedom for all. You can't get that by mob rule! You can only get that through cooperation! Through respect! Through focusing the chaos into progress!"

"Lies! You and the Avatar know nothing of Balance!"

"The Avatar and I are creatures of Balance. And I shall restore the Balance…" I drew back my sword… and Zaheer flew.

"Nice trick," I commented. Airbenders couldn't fly. "How'd you manage that?"

"I have released my earthly tethers. I have become the void."

"Cool," I said, dryly… as I followed him.

He gaped. "How?"

"I have released my earthly tethers. I am sending you to the void." My sword made nary a sound as it sliced the anarchist's head from his shoulders, and his body fell, fell, fell, into the mists below. I waved away the clouds I'd cloudbent around the temple and landed in the half ruins, extending my senses to find the others. They were scared, and several of them were hurt. I looked to where Ming-Hua knelt, screaming and flailing blindly with water in the courtyard.

"I should have pity for you. I should heal your wounds and hope you have learned the error of your ways." I knelt in front of her, letting the water of her limbs slap against me with all the effectiveness of hitting a rock with a facial tissue. "I should have killed you all when I had the chance… now… are there more of you?" And I dived into her mind. What I left behind as I ransacked her memory was not pretty, but I took pity on her and gave her a quick death. I was Balance. I was in between. I could not always be in the light.

I went inside and healed those injured. I did not explain what had happened to the Red Lotus, instead telling Tenzin and the others of the chaos slowly sweeping the Earth Kingdoms. "I could use your help… the people of the Earth Kingdom could use your help. There is much that needs to be done and there will be so very many bandits. Even an army of Avatars and Manifestations could not stop the disaster that is about to descend upon the largest, most populous nation of this world. But someone has to try."

And so that is what we did. For the remainder of my time in that world, we rebuilt the Earth Kingdoms. This idiot Wu tried to claim he was the rightful heir. I would have none of it. "You can rule as a figurehead… but the people will make the laws. No more Dai Li. No more Imperial Taxes. You will declare your full support for the formation of a new Earth Republic."

"Or what?"

"Or Else," I said, in the voice of the Manifestation. It wasn't the Avatar voice… but it carried with it far more menace.

I did take the time to track down the names on that list. Three Earthbenders, two Airbenders, two Waterbenders, and a Firebender, and several others, including four spirits and one very nice cherry tree. I knew each of them as soon as we met. They were my companions. Some had grown quite old over the course of eighty years. Some were on their second or… in Ziggy's case, eighth, lives in this world. They knew me too, of course, but only as the Manifestation. Though Ziggy the fire-ferret claimed my shoulder the moment I found him scampering through VIvian the tree's branches. VIctoria had lived in that house for a hundred years she said, and never left the valley she lived in. It was a tiny Shangri-la, the warehouse given physical form for this lifetime. Of course I could not have accessed it. It wasn't there… it was here. I left them there, not wishing to disturb their lives, thanking them for the tea.

I also tracked down Toph, at last. After stepping down as the head of Republic City's police force, she'd vanished into the Earth Kingdom, and finding her wasn't easy. Still, she was the last of my friends still unaccounted for, and I wanted to find her. And I did. She was living in the Foggy Swamp, ninty years old, and still the same old Toph.

She greeted me like an old friend and I asked her how she'd been. We made small talk as only the oldest of compatriots can, and I asked her to come with me. She wanted to know where, to which I said, "First, to see what your daughters have built. They're fine women and you really should see. Beyond that? To worlds beyond this one. I cannot say where, or when, or why… and I don't extend this offer to just anyone, but you have the soul of a voyager and the feet to match. Will you join me?"

It was with some sorrow I said goodbye to this world. In some ways I'd spent even more time here than I had in Metal Gear… and it had touched me far more deeply than the often banal world of supersoldiers and machine monstrosities. The Avatar is Buddhism for kids, and if the show had moved me, living it had been transcendent.

"Will you come with me as well, Atura?" I asked in the closing months of the decade.

"We are one now."

"What will happen to this world, once we are gone?"

"It will keep on spinning."

"And the Manifestation? Will we fade into legend, never to rise once more?"

"I do not know. But we are part of this world, you and I. I think, if we are needed, we'll return."

"Well, that's something to consider."

"All things in their time."

And it was time… and it was good.

As the Pillars of Time rose up around Toph and I, I noticed they looked… older, more worn, half ruins covered in moss and ivy. "That's unusual," I commented, then gasped as, instead of the entrance to my warehouse appearing, the Guardian of Forever swirled into being and Trelane stepped through.

"Bet you're feeling all Godlike now," The Original Q said.

"Get lost, Gothos," I snapped, pulling Toph behind me… for all the good that would do. "I'm not in your league and I know it… and if you're no god, I am certainly not going to make that claim."

"Tichy tichy tichy," he said, running one finger along the moss covered pillars, then rubbing some of it between thumb and forefinger. "Anyway, you seem to think you know so much about what's best for everyone… want to help settle a bet?"

"What bet?" I asked, deeply suspicious.

"It's a bet between me and your patron," the insufferable brat failed to explain. "I think you'll fail, he thinks you'll succeed."

"What bet, Trelane?" I half growled.

"We call it the Civilization Challenge!"

I paused. "As in Civilization… the Game?"

"None other! No plot to tie you down. No outside morality. Not even any preconceived notions to overcome! You get a tribe of primitive screwheads to shape in your own image. Go forth into this brave new world and uplift your people to greatness! Oh, and you get the usual 100 Choice Points."

"You mean 1,000 Choice Points… and how do I build a civilization in 10 years? Do these people have lifespans of a couple seconds?"

"Oh… this jump won't last 10 years, precious," he sneered. "You're going to be here for the long haul… the full cycle… You're the Manifestation, after all… Wan's run was 10,000 years. You get to rein for 12,000!… and change."

"What?! I won't live that long! I'm still mortal!"

"Precious Precious Precious… you were a Tolkien Elf. They're immortal… or at least unaging. But no. You'll be your same boring human self in this jump… unless you really want to spend points to make the people you lead another race. You'll be human… but you'll reincarnate… just like Wan. Better hope your people can cope without your leadership while you're down for the count. Oh, and if you get killed in battle or by gross incompetence… that still counts as a gamebreaker."

"Fan, fucking, tastic."

"Have fuuuun!" and he vanished.

"Who was that rude man?" Toph asked.

"Spirit of Mischief… in training," I replied, hand to face. This wasn't going to… twelve thousand years?! Would I be myself at all after that?

She cracked her knuckles, grinned, and said, "So? What happens next?"

"Next, we step through the portal that's right in front of us and hope that everything and everyone is waiting for us on the other side." And we did.

I found myself, alone, seated lotus position on a stone slab, a strange sword-like pointer in one hand, a strand of twenty teakwood beads in the other. I was dressed simply, wearing a kind of rough woolen robe and copper bracelets around my wrists and ankles. I would not have looked, I suspected, out of place in a copper-age city state circa 5,000 BC.

Around me was an endless sea of unilluminated clouds, and before me stood three cenotaphs of black granite. In the trademark font, they said, 'The Adviser', 'The God-King', 'The Outsider'. There weren't any prices listed, so I assumed they were free. I focused on each in turn and found I understood their nature instinctively. The Outsider was the drop-in option, the 'just a man with ideas' option. The Advisor was the Player, the 'disembodied hand from on high' option. And The God King was the 'hands on, balls to the wall, commander in chief, boots on the ground' option. It wasn't really a choice. God-King it was.

There was a rumble from all around me as the three cenotaphs sank into the clouds and light began to break from the clouds… from below. The stone slab upon which I sat shivered, shifted, then rose upward, meaning I was now sitting on an elevated dias.

After a time, more cenotaphs rose, these ones crafted from white marble. There were five of them and they were mounted on a singular plinth that read 'METHODOLOGY' and below that 'Two Beads Each, Pick No More Than Two'. It was clearly here that I'd choose how I would govern. Would I rule through 'Culture', 'Economics', 'Warfare', 'Theology', or 'Science'?

Economics has never been my strong suit, and it's just not… me… I don't care for the calculus of Capitalism that values people only as producers or consumers. Theology could work, as long as it was focused on principles, not dogma… but I was leery. Science is excellent, but everyone does Science. Culture? Culture takes care of itself. China was a cultural powerhouse because its culture was unconquerable… but the US is a cultural powerhouse because its culture absorbs everything else. Ultimately, all of civilization boils down to warfare. Culture wars, Economic wars… they're all just wars in the end. Warfare is discipline, planning, forethought. A true Warrior Culture is not hyper aggressive… they're hyper prepared.

I selected Warfare and watched as two of my beads disappeared in unearthly fire… then, after a long moment's consideration, I bought Science as well, bringing my bead total down to sixteen. There's a reason everyone chooses Science. If every cultural interaction is ultimately warfare, every action can be described by Science… and what Science can describe, Science can improve. I could work with a culture that was built on such a framework, one that wasn't concerned with theology, economics, or culture, but only did those things as a sideline.

There was another transition as the Methodologies departed, and the clouds rolled and brightened further, mountain peaks beginning to rise in the distance in all directions… and my dias was now at the tip of a mighty ziggurat. Rain began to fall from the clouds beneath me, with crashes of thunder and flashes of lightning shook the world. Above me, a sea of stars unfolded. Ah… I was Babylon, was I? War and Science. A Great Tower whose top was with the Heavens.

As I considered that, tablets of Clay and Alabaster and Gold rose from the clouds, each held aloft by a robed figure for my consideration. I wondered why the three materials, regarding each group in turn. The prices were what solved it for me. The Clay ones were, on average, more expensive than the Alabaster ones and there were five columns of them as opposed to the Alabaster's three. It didn't take a genius to figure out that with three origins and five methodologies, there would be eight different discount groups, of which I was entitled to three. Indeed, three sets of the robe wearers were wearing blackish gray and the other five were wearing whitish cream.

The Golden tablets and their saffron robes were the smallest grouping, with only eight items… and almost all of them were listed as a fraction: 2/12, 4/12, 6/12… 0.001/12, and 11.999/12. The only one that wasn't a fraction instead read '2-8 for 1-12'. It was pretty clear that they were the drawbacks.

Using my pointer sword-thing, I singled out the 'priests' with the Clay tablets for Outside and Adviser, motioning them to come to me and they formed two parallel lines of six up the stairs of ziggurat. At the front of both lines were three with simple tablets of worked brown clay (though the third in each column had a filigreed border), then one with a tablet of finer ochre clay (also with a filigree), and the last two were pale smooth tan and a porcelain so fine it was almost bone china. A glance at all the categories showed me that every one of them had two filigreed tablets… they must be items rather than perks, I guessed.

I knew I hadn't chosen either origin, but that didn't mean they didn't have anything worth taking, and I'd feel a right fool if I missed something useful. The cheap common clay would each cost me two beads, the better clay four, the good clay six, and the best clay twelve… thankfully, I had no need for 'One… More… Turn…', which was cute in that it could push back time limits, but hideously overpriced for that, or 'Great Man Theory' which would allow me to turn someone else into a historically significant individual… I was not paying twelve beads to give other people credit for my choices. As for the cheap stuff like 'Oral Traditions' or 'Time-Traveler's Temper'… well, generational memory was good, but I was going to introduce writing on day one and I already had a pretty decent handle on my temper. 'Spirit of the Nation' was just weird, and if I had to rely on 'Muse' to allow me to be inspirational, I was playing the wrong game. Ditto 'View of Ages', which was all about maintaining a long view of history and tracking variables and interconnections to make reasonable predictions. Thanks, I think I had that down. Almost all of it was just… meh. Most of the Outsider stuff was useless and nothing on the Advisor side did so much as raise my heartbeat. Dullness incarnate.

In fact, only one of the eight perks from those two lines appealed to me in the slightest… and that one was almost good enough to throw a party in its honor. It cost six beads, a steal at that price, and was called 'No Gods or Kings'. Put simply, it allowed the user to describe something, or declare something to be true (it had to actually be true as far as the speaker knew… and in theory demonstrably so) in a sufficiently passionate way, and those who heard the speaker would see the truth of it. Quite simply, it bypassed disbelief, bias, preconception, illusion, and superstition. I simply had to have it. Part of me wondered if I typed in all capital letters if I could use it to win an argument on the internet… probably not… there were limits to all things… even perks.

As I made my first purchase of something tangible, there was a spectacular crack-boom and the world went white for a moment. When I could see again, the tablet holder was gone, and a great tree had grown up from the clouds, each branch decorated with an apple made from some precious material. It was impossible gage the distance to the tree, but it had to be titanic, and those fruits would have been the size of cities. Somehow, even though they were far from me, I could tell that each fruit glowed with a soft inner light and each had the word 'Truth' inscribed upon it. I was equally certain that there was one for every language I'd ever encountered or heard of.

As for the Wonders, which of course had replaced gear… well, they were interesting to say the least. They were gifts that functioned as both buildings and as a kind of nicknack which conveyed a specific bonus. Take for instance 'The Statue of Liberty', the only one of those initial four that really appealed to me. As a chachki, it would create a sense of belonging of all those present, either in the room with a handheld statue or the entire residence for one placed on a shelf. As a full-sized statue, it would enhance a city or nation, improving immigration rates drastically and allowing the host nation to absorb the strengths of other cultures into its own people. That was worth four beads. I was down to six and hadn't even gotten into my own discounted tablets. I was going to need some drawbacks, and soon.

Again, there was a flash of shock and awe, and another tablet-bearer was gone as my statue rose from the stormy depths. My Statue of Liberty was not the green woman of New York, but rather a massive statue of Nike Athena, spear raised as a warning, shield at half-guard, and glorious wings extended, not in threat, but to offer comfort to those might come to these shores.

As I turned to the Golden tablet-bearers to beckon them up, a piteous wail went up from those I had not favored by either vaporization or some strange form of apotheosis, and as I turned back to them, I saw that their tablets had become living flames that consumed their screaming, writing forms. Well… that was certainly grim… I wondered if this was the Boss making a show of things or if it was Trelane being super dramatic… or if they'd subcontracted Industrial Light and Magic to be this over the top?

Either way, it was time to subsidize my nation by taking out a development loan from the IBF… Interjump Bead Fund. As soon as the immolation of the previous batch of tablet-bearers faded away, I motioned for the Golden ones to join me… I was pretty certain my ziggurat had grown significantly more massive as it seemed to take them longer to climb up to me… yes… there had been three tiers… now there were five. Counting from my current perspective was a little brain-twisting, to be honest.

Out of blinkard curiosity, I checked out the trio with the weird prices, starting with the decimal. I figured it was some kind of joke, and it turned out to, yes, be exactly that. It was called 'Hand That Rocks the Cradle' and it made one of the other civilizations 'Ancient Humanity' and installed 'The God Emperor of Mankind' from Warhammer 40,000 as their leader. You know, a nigh-omniscient super shaman with fabulous mental powers and a transhuman level of intelligence. For next to no points. Yeah… no. Even if he wasn't really interested in kicking my ass.

It was clearly a joke, and intended to be the set up for the other decimal one, which featured the God Emperor very much wanting to trample my fledgling civilization as its punchline. So, essentially, day one would feature me getting my ass kicked by a superhuman godman… yeah… fuck that. I was looking for something I could cope with!

I dismissed them and they burst into happy little flames that sounded glad to be released from their prisons of cloth, metal, and flesh… I assume flesh. I didn't see it… thankfully.

The third oddball, the non-fraction one, was (on the other hand) exactly what I was looking for. It was called 'Full Table' and it bumped the starting number of civilizations from four (mine included) to a maximum of sixteen, at two beads a pop… up to eight. After that, the only value increasing the number of players had was in adding extra space to the planet. Since I couldn't keep the planet, I saw no reason to bump it up past eight. That gave me another eight beads, bringing me back to fourteen.

As I confirmed the purchase, the Golden tablet and its bearer turned into a pillar of fire and shot into the starry firmament, then split into four and they rained down around me, bringing four more mountains from the deep cloud-sea… making the total nine… that… hmmm… was weird. there had been five before… maybe the Barbarian Faction counted? Or… hmmm… oh… of course… Ahab and Joy. Seven potentially enemy factions and two in theory allied factions.

I looked at the remaining five. The fractions hadn't changed, so apparently 'Full Table' hadn't counted against the total I could take. 'No Nation an Island' was simply not worth it, since it guaranteed that my culture wouldn't ever be self sufficient, never able to make enough food or money to make ends meet. While that was fairly realistic for a global civilization, it would be death in the early days before there was a way to reach other cultures reliably. I couldn't count on being able to use my fabricator technology to help my people… especially with that Two-Beader screwing me over. I smote the bearer down with great satisfaction.

Also on the receiving end of my righteous ire was 'To The Last Man' which ruled out Cultural Victory (i.e. requiring either a Science Victory or complete Warfare Victory)… and essentially meaning I couldn't assimilate the weaker nations 'peacefully'. That one was at least worth four beads, but it screwed with my tactics.

As did 'One City Wonder', which meant I could only found a single city. I wasn't certain if that would stop me from absorbing or conquering other cities, but I didn't want to risk it. It talked about only being able to expand my territory out to a single continent.

That left two that I was willing to consider; the unpleasant 'Raging Barbarians' and the deeply disturbing 'Backed by Nuclear Weapons'. At four and six beads respectively, they were nearly at the limit… but did I need to inflict Barbarians upon everyone… myself especially?… and even worse, did I really want arms races, coldwars, and potential superweapon technology to be involved… especially since that would bring memetic Warmonger Gandhi into the game?

Oh, who am I kidding. I had to have memetic Warmonger Gandhi! And to be honest, if my plans went as they should, it really shouldn't matter. In fact, keeping the Sword of Damocles on table was really doing little more than putting greater survival pressure on my people… and in that spirit, so was the Barbarians. Vigilance and deadlines, enemies to practice against and a threat to overcome. That gave me another ten beads, bringing me up to twenty-four. The ominous sound of drums and the fires blooming on the other mountains were matched by the smell of burning fires and the howls of hunting horns much closer to my temple. I just had to hope I didn't regret this. But that was the deck stacked against me. Now I just had to find the tools to beat the odds.

As Warrior Scientist God-King of this unnamed people, I got a number of freebies to start me off on the road to planetary conquest; 'Accepting the Divine', 'The Hanging Gardens', 'The Brandenburg Gate', and 'The University of Toronto' to be specific. Wow… Canada must really be paying Jumpchain big monies for this advertising to beat out Oxford, the oldest University on Earth. One perk, three wonders. Science and Warfare didn't come with free perks, unfortunately, which was kinda a gyp since I'd had to pay for them. Buying all three perks in each Methodology would cost twelve beads, including the base cost. Ah well… I didn't price these things…

Once again, I considered who exactly did price these things. The Boss certainly didn't seem like he actually knew much about what would be valuable to a mortal. Did they hire mortals like me to make them? As a Jumper, I knew what I was getting out of being a Jumper… what did a Constructor get? I'd have to try to remember to ask the… what had I thought to call him back in Middle Earth? Oh yes. The Banker! I'd have to try and remember to ask him about what Constructors got out of the deal… in twelve thousand years. Or if Constructors even existed… I wondered if he'd answer either questions.

But back to the freebies. 'Accepting the Divine' would allow me to handwave explanations with 'I'll Explain Later' and have people actually accept that… as long as I made a habit of actually explaining in a timely fashion after the immediate crisis was over. It wasn't much, but it couldn't hurt to be prepared… maybe someday I'd find a way to give perks that I didn't really need to my companions.

As a talisman, the God-King's Gardens kept any food I was aware of from spoiling, and tripled the resulting portions when any recipe was prepared. As a structure, it would improve the quality of all harvests, ensuring that they were a quarter more bountiful and effective… i.e. nutritious or flavorful or (in the case of medicines) potent.

Warfare's Gate would turn any situation-room or negotiation venue into an ideal home field advantage, giving everyone on my side a boost to their willpower and dedication, allowing them to debate indefinitely while feeling no mental fatigue. At full-size, it would imbue my people with enhanced professionalism and enhanced mental endurance, allowing them to take pride in their work, whatever that might be, and pushing them to go the extra mile every time, without fail.

And then there was Science's University, which would allow an instructor to teach ten-thousand students at once, all while ensuring that each and every one of them got enough personal attention to excel through extremely efficient advice and instruction… or it could become a fully functional and accredited university campus, complete with faculty and staff, an institute of higher learning where even a moderate amount of effort would be enough to guarantee an earned grade of A-minus. Not a given grade… an earned grade. As in the student will have learned that much.

Between the three I had increased food production, increased morale and production, and effective education. Add in the Statue of Liberty, and I also would have a steady stream of cultural converts. Reviewing the others, I decided that I needed one more thing for the full house, and spent four beads buying Culture's The Eiffel Tower.

I didn't really care about its trinket effect, which was to make others think of me as more cosmopolitan and 'more like them'… though it would probably help with various negotiations, I didn't really need help in that regard. What I really wanted was its structural bonus, since it would become a shining beacon to the glory of my culture. Anyone who followed me, be they worshippers, citizens, employees, or minions… even those who I was merely friends with… would be proud of where they came from, being less likely to immigrate or switch jobs. Effectively, it was a culture-wide loyalty enhancer. In other words, when combined with the Statue, people would defect to, but be much less likely to defect from, my culture.

I leaned back, chuckling and rubbing my hands as I watched the four mammoth symbols of my rule rise one by one from the clouds, none of them appearing as they had in my own word. The Gate looked like a vast quadruple spiral of fire and water, with the fire flowing up and the water flowing down. The Tower took the form of an enormous pillar formed from three women with their backs to each other, a caryatid, but with one woman dressed as a warrior, one as a scholar, and one as a midwife. They were new graces for a new people. I named them Gabriel the Just, Inanna the Merciful, and Sophia the Wise.

The Garden too was unexpected, a massive dome of green carved with a labyrinth supported by pipework that watered all the plants and would wash the city that could fit under that glory with floral scented rainbows every day.

As for the University, it was a crystalline spire a thousand meters tall, a many faceted needle that cast a kaleidoscope of images all around it, symbols half seen and less understood, but transfixing for all of that. It was an lighthouse of enlightenment, shining light into every crevice and corner of the world around it. With a wave, I dismissed the remaining Wonders, needing not pyramids or rosetta stones, libraries or oracles, telescopes or palaces, colossi or colosseums… or at least not needing them enough to pay beads for them.

Now it was time for the good stuff, and with only twenty beads left, I knew I couldn't afford to be distracted by anything from those Methodologies that I hadn't bought, so I waved them away. As it was, there were thirty beads worth of purchases left in God-King, Warfare, and Science; I'd have to make some cuts.

The most obvious place to make cuts is, of course, in the middle. In my experience, the cheapest perks are often underpriced, and while the most expensive perks are sometimes overpriced, they're also usually extremely powerful. Middle perks had a much greater chance of being underpowered for the cost, as if the Constructors were simply filling in slots between lowest and highest.

With that in mind, I considered God-King's 'Primitive Screwheads', Warfare's 'Authority Equals Asskicking', and Science's 'The Enlightenment', knowing that if I eliminated each of them, that would leave me one bead from away from being set. Then I could buy all three capstones and two of the remaining three one-beaders. Screwheads simply reduced attacks from barbarians by fifty percent and made rebuilding faster. Or would have had I not taken a drawback that threw that out the window. Not that I'd have taken it anyway, since it had no real effect outside of this jump. And anyway, my people shall be warriors… they should be able to defend themselves. Barbarians were simply self-supplying examples of the problem with barbarism. A repeating object lesson, lest anyone forget.

Asskicking was actually pretty good, since it meant that any organizations I deigned to belong to would adhere to the fundamental rule that the higher one's position in that organization, the more competent that person would be at, you know, doing whatever the organization did. It was nice, but there was still much to buy and again… it seemed more like filler.

Enlightenment? It governed the scientific method… thanks. I think I had that one down pat. I know that description is glib, and it did more than that… but not really much more and, as expected, it was just not powerful enough to justify the cost.

On the other end of that spectrum, God-King's 'Let there Be Light' was cheap as sin at a single bead, and since it granted me the power of increase… you know, the whole blessings that make fuel burn longer, food be more filling, water become purified, potions become strengthened, and the overall purity of anything improves… yeah, for a single bead I was basically taking care of all the basic necessities of life for me and my people. The towering waterfall over which a glorious rainbow formed was the symbol of that purchase.

That left me to decide between Science's 'Tabula Rasa' and Warfare's 'Martial Culture'. TR wasn't too bad, since it would remove my own built-in biases and make me aware of any assumptions I made… but MC was just too good to ignore. For the price of a single bead, it would make discipline radiate from every defensive wall and the hearts of every citizen and child of my civilization. Those who followed me or who were loyal to my cause would gain a soldier's bearing and a commitment to our common cause that would become a seamless part of their lives. My people would lose none of their personality and vibrance, but would become more professional and dedicated than before or than they otherwise would be. As an added benefit, physical training for myself and my followers would become twice as effective, ensuring that everyone would be acting at peak performance at all time.

For a single bead? That was hard to beat. Like I said, ofttimes, the extremes were better than the middle. And that meant that, if the trio of capstones were worth it, I could afford the eighteen beads they'd cost me.

First up was God-King's 'Realm of Myth', which would grant Mythic Grandeur to my civilization… or my organization… or just to my companions and me. You know, the bearing, stature, health, and beauty of all those mythical lands and peoples, be they of Hy-Brasil, Atlantis, or Shangri-La. That alone would be worth the points… it's hard to fight a nation of people who are objectively better than you… but Realm of Myth also make the performance of legendary feats possible for me, such as wrestling the wind or sparring for twenty days and nights without food or rest, tickling a river, or seducing a stone. Again, that would have been enough, but (over time), it was promised that my chosen people (especially my companions) would become imbued with that potential as well, gradually becoming grander, larger-than-life, and serving as an inspiration for all kinds of tall tales and myths. I wasn't certain how actively useful it all would be, but it would be epic, and the people inspired by such epics would have plenty of motivation.

See what I mean about it being worth the price? I'd have paid full price for that… but I was perfectly sanguine paying the discounted price.. and grinned as a glorious colonnade sprung up all around my now towering many-tiered temple, the architraves supporting kiloton blocks of alabaster ready to record the glories of my people's history.

Science's Capstone, 'Tech Tree', was another case of something worth every bead, even without a discount. It was a magnificent piece of lunacy which not only boosted my own innovativeness, it also conferred such a brilliance upon my people as a whole. But wait! That was just the start. It was the way that brilliance manifested that was glorious (and gloriously insane)!

You see, Tech Tree meant that any time my people or I wanted to create something, we'd be able to easily visualize all the steps we'd need to take to get there. That's right, an instinctive understanding of each step needed along the path to any research goal. From fire to cold fusion? Eight-hundred and fifty-four steps… which, incidentally, was how how many steps my ziggurat now had. It would even tell us which branches of research could lead to the next paradigm shift or singularity. The ramifications of that perk were unending, and the tree that grew to match the other one had more fruits than its sister by orders of magnitude, though the more lucious the fruit, the harder the climb to pick it.

Both of those were amazing, of course, but the Warfare Capstone, 'Art of War', was a must buy if ever I'd seen one. It not only give any civilization that had it a platonic and conceptual mastery of warfare, it gave them a set of axioms and ideals that would be completely embraced at all levels, ones that perfectly encapsulated the fundamentals of war into an almost always applicable omnibus. In any form of combat, I (and the forces I led) would never be surprised and complicated tactical or strategic directives could be conveyed in the span of a few words, usually as some effortlessly quotable phrase. All of which was awesome enough on its own, but that was merely sauce for the real meat of the perk, a nice juicy roast that made Authority Equals Asskicking yesterday's news.

What was this wonder of the age, you ask? I shall tell you. Objectivity. It granted Objectivity… as in 'Those under your aegis are objective about their own strengths and weaknesses, with an intuitive understanding of how their comrades compare.'

Yes! I know! An entire civilization of people who were aware of their limitations and capabilities… and about how they measured up to others. And yes, it came with the rest of the package… the part where the best person for a job would confidently volunteer for it and those with inferior skill would recognize that the volunteer was the best choice for the job… and (best of all) have any feelings of envy and inadequacy transformed into a desire for self-improvement. It even meant that those who were objectively superior would have those feelings of superiority and pride transformed into a desire to instruct and assist others. I literally could not spend the beads fast enough.

The clouds before my temple flowed apart, revealing a huge plaza, a grand promenade like the reflecting pool before the Lincoln Memorial, but a dozen times larger, and with axioms of the Six-Fold Permutations emblazoned in platinum on the polished black basalt. It was a marshalling yard big enough for a million man army to parade in comfort.

With all my beads spent, something occurred to me. I'd be here for 12,000 years according to Trelane… my companions would either be stuck out of time… where I would have forgotten them by the time the jump was over… or aware of the passage of time… where we would no doubt drive each other insane over the long haul… No… something had to be done, but there hadn't been an option to import my companions. I mean, of course there hadn't been… they would be gods or commanding their own cultures.

I looked around to make certain that I hadn't missed anything, and noticed a scroll under my left foot. Unrolling it I found a note: Eight shall be the number of the chosen and the number of the chosen shall be eight. If eight go out, a ninth shall not go out, saving that one of the eight return first.

I laughed. Great… eight companions could be manifest in the world at any time. Wonderful. We're a pantheon. As I watched the world unfold as the clouds continued to pull back, I pondered the positions.

At the head of the Pantheon was me, of course. With my tree/computer and my armor and my sword. At my right hand was Zane, of course, the God of Justice & Loyalty. I should give him the Space Sword. My consorts, Ryoga the Boar God and Yoiko the Bear Goddess, dividing Passion and Obsession between them. Bao the Scholar God and Uriel the Builder God. Kendra the Goddess of Hunters and Toph the Goddess of Defenders. Ziggy, Ferret of Chaos; Rayray, Goddess of Wind; Petra, Goddess of Earth; Joy, the Goddess of Wisdom & War… Ahab, the God of Medicine and Punishment; Francine, Goddess of the Mind; and AJ, God of the Body… and Dyna… God of the Unknown. We'd do as a makeshift pantheon until I could figure out how to actually make us, you know, actual gods. That had to be on the chain somewhere, right?

I know, I know, you're saying to yourself, "Kendra? Wasn't she a slayer-pop in the stasis ward?" Well… yes, she was. But the deal I'd made way back at the beginning of the first Avatar Jump to let everyone out of the Warehouse… yeah, that had apparently included Kendra. I could have left her out of the pantheon, but she and Zane, or rather their incarnations, had had a very long marriage. A long and highly combative marriage. The kind where two people gripe at each other about stuff that doesn't matter much, if at all, for decades. The glowers the two of them shared were both amusing and vaguely worrying. Would they go at each other like wolverines… or wolverines in heat? There was a bit of a pool going on behind their backs, but I was busy with other details… like finalizing my build.

I considered my choices two or three times, making certain that I was okay with each purchase and rejection… nothing seemed out of place. My plan seemed sound. Everything was as good as I could make it… though planning for 12,000 years or so wasn't something I'd ever really done before, and there were too many gross variables that I just had no way of prediciting. I just had to hope that a) everything would be fair (i.e. everyone would start at the dawn of civilization and no one (besides maybe me) would have access to anything more advanced than pottery. With no small trepidation, I confirm that I am ready.

As it turns out… I am not. One by one, my friends emerged from AvatarLand, looking around the mesa that we stand upon, looking down upon the world through the clouds. They shake off the masks they have worn for the past life or two (Ziggy seems fine as a fire-ferret, and climbs on my head with a chitter.) The warehouse doors gape open behind us. And then the game begins.

I both am and am not incarnate. Both on the mesa and within the ziggurat. I am the Manifestation, and there is the Manifest. There is a Manifest in every age, a person who has all my bending and magic, my psi and conduit powers… but is not me and lacks my martial expertise, my experience, my… meness. They also lack my augmentations. I live in the eternal, granting my power to them only when they enter the Manifest State. They dwell in the world, living in the years, but the speed at which those years pass is breakneck, at least from my lofty position. Time keeps on slipping into the future, and I find I have to concentrate to remain in the moment, to focus my attention down to the small scale, the personality of the Manifestat at any time. And in those times, their persona is strong, dominant, as (though they are all me) they have been shaped by their lives.

We call ourselves the Maegi… the Wise, and in every generation the Manifest comes, the Great General of Balance. I speak from on high and impart the ways of things to my people, dispatching the great champions, the Archons, my Chosen, down from the Heavenly Precincts to do my bidding and to serve the people. Our city, Logos, grows, expands, crushing the local barbarians before inviting them to join us… their scattered villages becoming outposts of the Maegi People.

We do not hate that which is different, we welcome it, encourage it to grow strong even as we teach it the ways of discipline. Each of our cities is unique. We do not impart Culture, do not speak of Worship, only what is real and observable… and what is duty and discipline. Ours is a society where problems are solved and blame is accepted, not leveled.

Manifests rise and fall, and I am within them when they call upon me, but I am not any individual Manifest… I am the spirit from on high… but I cannot move from my throne upon the mesa… cannot rise from my contemplations. They become part of me as they reach the end of their cycles, but I am still me. My friends keep me company as they too cycle through the world, regaling me with their adventures, their triumphs, their failures. While they are here, time passes for them as it does for me.

A year passes in just about seven hours by Victoria Standard Time. A little over three years a day. By the end of the first century, I long for a fast forward button. But none is forthcoming. I now understand why Gods are alternatively either waaaay too invested or seemingly remote. The prayers get… irritating after a while.

A thousand years pass before we even meet another of the non-barbarian cultures of this world. They are religious fanatics, and they call themselves the Reapers and name Sarin as their leader. I shudder at the memory. We have reached the age of roads and bronze. Yet they are technologically advanced, wielding weapons of steel and riding giant land-crabs into battle. Still, they are rigid of thought, and though they press our borders, we smash them back time and again. We are not rigid and we learn from them far more than they learn from us.

By the time we destroy them, we have industrialized and we have met the others, the Lotus Eaters under Zaheer, who are full of rage and unbridled aggression; the Purebloods under Lord V, full of xenophobia and tradition; the cunning Morgants under Sauron; the seemingly pacific Rihannsu under Spock; the jingoistic meme-obsessed Patriots and their leader GW… and of course, the Indians and their absolutely psychotic leader, Gandhi.

The others all have their skills, their methods, their inscrutable ways. They are balanced against my own, and in theory they could rival me… but I have too many advantages and my people trundle towards victory. I relax… and they form a union to fight me. The United Federation of Peace, they call themselves, even as some of their leaders lather like rabid dogs. We have tried assassinating them… someone always takes their place. By the time we get to Lord V V… I just give up on that plan and push my people ever onward.

We reach the space age before the dawn of the third millennium… and achieve Orbital Superiority while the others are still trying to grasp the basics of rocket flight. It is all over but the shouting. And yet I stay my hand. I will not go for the military victory of KE strikes. I will not invade other cities. Instead, we claim more and more land, our population swelling as defectors from all sides race to join us… many of them spies… but our culture is compartmentalized, disciplined. We know computer password security and we always dispose of hardcopy.

By the mid 2000s (7625 BCE), we have orbital habitats that ring the planet, our people are… productive… and I am utterly bored with it all. Being a god isn't fun when every mistake costs actual lives, when the production lines you need to bootstrap from transistors to microchips require the discovery of something to use as rubber, and where people keep expecting you to solve all of their problems.

For something to do, I encourage the Maegi to colonize the Moon, then Mars… then Titan and Venus, Europa and Ganymede. The world may not look like Earth, but it's still in the Sol System and the nearest star is still Proxima Centauri. I strive for a Science Victory, and in the 2720th year of my reign, the New World Voyager, a sub-light colony ship, departs for Alpha Centauri on its forty year mission. But nothing happens.

"Trelane!" I bellow, "What's the deal? Do I have to wait for it to arrive?" The idea of waiting for the nearly twelve days grates on my nerves already.

"Oh, no… precious. I told you. You're here for the long haul. All 12,000 years. No time out for good behaviour."

I snarled. "That's not how things are supposed to go!"

"Tough." And his presence vanished.

What does one do when there are no more wars to fight? By 3300, there weren't. The last holdouts of Spock's forces had finally joined the Meagi… and there wasn't any real chance that the Meagi would split into rival factions… we didn't have a centralised state like that. We were a culture, not a nation, we were a people ruled by the best and brightest… with those skilled in one area pursuing their tasks without any central authority. Roads got built because they needed building, food got produced because it needed to be eaten, there wasn't any corruption… because there weren't any laws. Everything worked on a social contract.

I realized I didn't understand my people at all. I watched them, gave them guidance… but they were beyond me. Their art failed to amuse me, their music failed to do more than distract me… and finally, I let them go. They didn't really need me. The Manifestation's came and went, spiritual leaders to an ever expanding interstellar power, and 'the One who is called' when shit goes down (usually in the form of marauding alien barbarians). My companions had stopped descending to the mortal realm centuries ago… they no longer seemed interested in the people… well, except for the food. The food was excellent. Being the Manifestation pretty much meant I could get anything delivered to my palace… and I did. Once every year, the Manifestation would call for a special meal and some city would be tasked to prepare it in their local style.

Breakfast took a week. Lunch… a fortnight… Dinner an entire month… local time. I took a nap once that lasted a century. Okay, it was more a self induced coma, just to see if anything would change. It did… but not in a good way. Apparently my other self had decided to go into self imposed seclusion and so the entire culture had become ascetic, contemplative… and frightfully dull. I wanted to scream.

Things got progressively more and more boring as time passed. It was like watching an ant farm. More than once, I seriously considered wrecking disasters down upon them, as if I was playing SimCity. But finally, after eight years of sitting in the same damned position, I had an epiphany. The Maegi Culture was boring because I was bored. So I Manifested fully and declared that one day a week would henceforth be spent on frivolity…. And the week was changed from the twelve-day cycle everyone knew and loved… to the nine-day cycle which made far less sense.

I changed the national anthem to a Magoo Translation of Twisted Sister's 'We're Not Going to Take It' and changed the symbol of our state from the Star of David to a tic-tac-toe board with eight boxes full and the last space giving a win to whichever player went next… and lacking any indicator of which player that was. Every decade from then on I did something else that was just a little strange… like formally discouraging pasta more than 11 centimeters long, or declaring ketchup to be a vegetable, or mandating that flip-flops were formal footwear.

I put forth memorandums on picnics, wrote books on the subject of practical jokes, and encouraged whistling for no practical reason… in public. I issued statements from the pulpit on why ferrets should be in every home, why cookies were the natural end to every meal, and why lemons should be called yellows. I was no longer taking my role as spiritual leader or god-king seriously, and things were getting progressively stranger for the Maegi. Impractical Camo uniforms replaced the occupational color coding, hats of ludicrous design became commonplace, and pizza was as close to criminalized as a lawless society could do… which led to secret basement pizza joints.

Finally, the ten years or 12,300 years ended and Trelane reappeared, looking grumpy.

"Lost didn't you?" I asked, smug.

"Yesssss."

"The bet was that I'd get so bored I'd destroy what I'd worked so hard to build, wasn't it? That I couldn't be happy without a problem to solve or a war to fight?"

"Yessss."

"You didn't expect me to prank a quadrillion people, did you?"

"Oh, you're no fun anymore. Why are you sitting on sand with your idiot friends washing water back and forth and imitating the sea?"

"It's tradition. Have some Pizza… it's extra heretical."

"EssJay?" Zane asked, looming over me as I lay on the grass under the spreading branches of VIvian, still embodied as a chinese cherry tree.

"Yes Zane?" I said, looking up at him as Ziggy yawned and squirmed on my stomach. "What's up?"

"It's been 28 days…"he commented, pointing out the painfully obvious, "why aren't you working on the Jump Tree?"

I sighed. "I'm hoping that, if I ignore it long enough, it'll go away."

He chuckled dryly, then said, "I don't think it works like that."

"I know," I said, sitting up and grumbling as Ziggy slid into my lap with a fwump. As he shook himself, noticed Zane, and pounced his shoe, I whined, "It's just… I really hate Zombies."

Zane gave me a look that told me he was judging me. It wasn't very God-King-like to whine, but I really really didn't like the whole 'Living Dead' thing, for any number of reasons. But instead of actually calling me on it, he grinned. "Well, that's cool. We get to kill tons of them in this jump."

"Yeah… that's what we get to do… for ten fucking years," I closed my eyes, already seeing flashes of the unrelenting horror we were about to be plunged into. "While civilization slowly crumbles around us and the zombies keep coming and coming and coming and we constantly have to be on our guard against the monsters that look like those we once loved."

"Oh come on. We've fought through tons of monsters! This will be like "Pow, Zap, Squish!" He was bouncing up and down on his heels, and now Ziggy was copying him, squeaking, "Ow! Ap! ISH!"

Rolling my eyes, I grumbled, "I can't believe you're psyched for this!"

"BRAAAAAAINS!" Zane droned.

"NZZ!" Ziggy concurred.

"You're a dork," I told the bigger goober, scooping up the smaller. Him I poked on the nose. "And you're not helping."

"Hey, I'm not the only one," my demi-brother pointed out. "Joy and Ahab are both interested by the challenge, Kendra's up for anything involving killing the undead, and most of the Mon are like 'Gnar! We fight!' It'll be swell… especially after all the downtime!"

Reminded of the slayer's existence, I shivered a little. "I can't believe you're dating Kendra."

"I was married to her for 45 years," he pointed out, trying to sound extra reasonable. He didn't need to point out that they'd been missing the majority of their memories.

"Yeah… well… I didn't even mean to bring her along… and I didn't think the bossman… bossthing? would pull her out of storage… or turn VIvian into a tree." I spared a glance at the hypercomputer cum Cherry Tree growing through the center of the house. "But that's besides the point. If you guys are so keen, you do it. I'll just hide in the Warehouse behind my shields and autoturrets and dimensional barriers."

"That's cheating. And I can't believe you're scared of Zombies."

"I'm not scared of Zombies. Zombies are icky! And weird! And… and… all Zombie fiction is depressing… or played for larfs, and somehow I don't think there is going to be much humor to be found in this! It's not scary… it's dystopian end of the world blaaaaah."

"Wuuuuussssss."

"Zane… that wouldn't have worked on me when I was actually eleven for the first time…" I said, considering summoning several pillows with which to fwump him with. Ziggy licked my nose and I flailed, then whined, then sighed. "Fine… you know what… fine. You're right. I've just spent the last twelve millenia sitting on my ass being all contemplative and godly. I could use some dirt on my hands. Zombies? Bring it on. You want me to fight Zombies? I'll show you me fighting Zombies."

"Stomping around in your PJs and ferret slippers isn't very intimidating."

I looked down at my feet… very ferrety. Looking back up, I pointed a finger at blue-boy and hissed, "I loathe you."

"It's pronounced 'Lurve'."

"The two are not mutually exclusive."

The machine was bright red and black. It looked ominous as fuck. There was a Pandemic One Armed Bandit with three rollers and an lever that looked a gold plated caduceus. The three rollers were labeled 'Cause', 'Phase', and 'Location'. Looking at the wheels, I could see that each primary wheel had an independant smaller wheel next to it, eight possible results on the primary, three on the secondary. The minor wheels seemed to correspond to 'Implicit Meaning', 'Origin Theory', and 'Warning Signs'. Huh. Well, I'd worry about all that later. First, I had points to spend.

I grabbed the manual hanging off the side of bandit. Huh. Print. How… novel. "Jumper's First Zombie Apocalypse" was the title, with the subtitle, "Surviving the End of the World on 1000 CP a Decade." I chuckled, then glancing at the drawbacks, my first response was, "Rule Zero – Don't take drawbacks."

There were six backgrounds to choose from: Survivor, Doctor, Authority, Tradesman, Clergy, and Doomsday Prepper. Survivor was the only one that was free, and was clearly the Drop-In, no frills experience. I decided to skip that. If I was going to cope with this shit, I was going to be a native. Anything else and I'd just freak out first time and head for the stars… And speaking of stars, Doctor was out. I wasn't getting anything here in the doctor-line that I didn't already have from my stint as S'Janus… and I didn't want to have a savior complex in this clearly doomed world.

Authority and Clergy were also out. Again, they'd have ideologies I didn't want to have to deal with in a world dropping into the cauldron; the crisis of faith that a Clergyman would experience would probably be crippling and the near indoctrination level of training for an Authority figure wouldn't help with problem solving. That left Tradesman and Prepper, and while Prepper was probably more on the ball with regards to this one situation, I figured that having an actual physical skill would be more helpful in more situations… so that's what I went with, deciding that I would become a Glassblower.

I'd always been fascinated with the art, and it was a practical one as well as being pretty, and it wasn't like I really needed specific Zombie-Killing Skills. I had fought in multiple wars against multiple enemies ranging from monsters to aliens to cybernetic zombie-like husks to benders. The Living Dead weren't going to require too much that I didn't already have in my arsenal, combat-wise.

Tradesmen cost a hundred, and a spin of the wheel of aging pegged me as a thirty-one year old glassblower from Atlanta, Georgia. Just for fun, I decided to go into the jump as a dude, but thanks to my stint in RanmaLandia, I didn't have to pay for the genderswap. Honestly, I wondered what the logic for charging for that was. It was just… odd.

Shouldn't it have been like, a Body Mod thing for those who weren't their prefered gender in their default body, then free in each jump just to, you know, allow for options? Different casting… Oh god… I was the Doctor! Or James Bond! In this episode, the role of EssJay will be played by Christopher Lloyd! Haha… Yes!

Before shopping for myself, I went looking for the import option. My companions seemed eager for the opportunity to blast some zombies, and it would be rude to deny them. It wasn't the best import option I'd seen, but there was one. It was called 'Dawn of the Deputies' and it cost fifty CP for each companion imported, though it only gave those I paid for the same basic value as the automatic importing ability Joy and Ahab used (free background and all associated freebies. I totted up the others that Zane had said were interested… Zane, Kendra, Dyna, Petra, AJ, and Francine… six, so three hundred there, leaving me six hundred unspent. Just to be certain, I checked with the others. Ziggy was happy just sleeping and getting treats and Rayray was totally above it all (and also fine with spending 99.99% of her time asleep). Toph, Bao, and Uriel wisely decide to refrain from the festivities, which was fine with me.

I flipped through the rest of the options, seeing nothing I needed and only a few things I was even vaguely interested in that weren't hugely expensive. It was all very thematic to survival horror, but I've always figured real Zombie Apocalypses will be more in the line of medical emergency / open warfare. You know, ID the problem, do research while the army obliterates the Zombie scum and sets up defensive cordons. Especially in worlds with skyscrapers and machine guns. Still, I did scoop up 'Double Tap', a strange little four hundred pointer from the Authority line (yes, I know, I could have saved some points, but meh) that meant that any time I hit anything with a weapon, a moment after my blow landed, an equal amount of damage would be inflicted at the same approximate location on the target. In essence, it effectively doubled my weapon damage, which didn't exactly sound like a bad thing.

Like I said, I could have saved myself some points on 'Double Tap' by going Authority, especially since I had no plan to get Tradesman's capstone, and it didn't even have a four hundred pointer, but it did have some nice choices of its own. The freebie 'Repairman' was worth the cost of entry all by itself, since it did more than its name might have implied. Rather than just handing me basic fixit skills (which have traditionally been beyond me) it gave me a decent grasp of woodworking and metalworking… nothing too advanced, but enough to make me decently skilled working with my hands.

I also picked up two of the three discounted two-hundred pointers, 'Vehicular Skills' and 'Master of the Craft', which spent me out completely. Vehicular Skills not only makes me great behind the wheel (wooo! Redline here I come!) but makes me a frankly amazing mechanic. Which is like… cool… because normally I'm like 'Where does Gas Go in?' well, okay, not that bad, but honestly, I barely know where to put the washer fluid in a car. Not that I've driven a lot these last few millennia (We are the Manifestation. Cars are driven for us.) (Oh hush you… fucking 177 incarnations, always cluttering up the back of my mind. Thankfully, they all fit in just one wing of my mind once I deleted the day-to-day / century-to-century sameness of their lives. I do not need 12,300 years of bathroom breaks, meals, or meetings on the state of the economy.) The power to avoid any avoidable accident will probably be more useful, in the long run, than the ability to upgrade vehicles into mobile death machines.

Master of the Craft I took for the fluff, as it made me THE master of (in my case) Glassmaking. Sure, as a true master craftsman, it says I'm sure to impress others with my work, but that's less important to me than just… you know, being good at something. If I'd had more points, I might have taken drawing as well… but I have no intention of making this any worse just so I can learn to draw… maybe a different jump.

I did note that one of the drawbacks makes the zombism non-human specific… so by inference, it must default to being human specific… which will be… useful. Dunno if Hobbits are close enough, but I'm betting Krogans, Asari, and especially Pokemon aren't. Which makes Kendra the most at risk for zombification… but with a Medbay, I should at least be able to cover my friends.

And speaking of them, I confirm with each of those who are coming what costume they'll be wearing. I am spectacularly unsurprised to find myself with four Doctors, considering that it confers 'Disease Resistance' as its freebee and of the four already immune to disease… four Clerics… hopeful thinking? Seriously, that's what Clergy's freebie was. The ability to spread hope. Wooo. I asked them what religion they were Clerics of… and they pointed at me, smirking. Jackasses.

With all the bases covered, I hit confirm, then faced the Pandemic Machine and pulled 'THE LEVER!'. Chunk, 'Parasites', chunk 'Phase One', chunk 'Major Hospital'. A timer appeared. Five minutes until insertion.

With the seconds ticking by I read the details from the manual… Parasites hijack their host's nervous system, and are larger and more difficult to pass on than other causes. The hosts are driven to extreme aggression when it's time for the parasite to reproduce. With above human speed and strength, Parasitic Zombies can typically restrain healthy victims while they transfer the new larvae into them. Usually attacking in groups and picking the vulnerable in the early stages, these parasites may escape notice until it's too late. Hosts are fully aware of the creatures in them, but can do nothing to resist. Clearly, a bioweapon that reflects on the folly of man.

Phase One made it potentially a fixable problem, which was good. It was the several outbreaks within the same region stage, a frightening first experience with the potential death toll if the condition is not contained. This was the time where the preppers begin to fall back into their bunkers. and the lunatic fringe claim it's the work of Zombie Hitler and his Zombie Nazi Legions.

Starting in a Major City Hospital means that I'll be surrounded by the turned and the just about to turn. Glee! And with no danger warning, I'll have to rely on my own senses. I had no real plan and no anticipation that this entire thing would not be fifty kinds of horrible. This wasn't Generic Zombie Picnic after all.

INSERTION

We dropped into the middle of chaos, the Zombies coming from all around us, an emergency room full of doctors all backing away from the chaos of their patients trying to bite them. Bending powers activate! Pressed Zombie… Zombie Sashimi… Zombie Jerky… Zombie Flambe… And the fucking norms freaked. Sigh… this was going to be a problem.

Once the immediate surge of death is over, I noticed that things look off, then blinked in marginal surprise. "Fuck me… I think this is the 1940s," I commented… I mean, the lack of any TVs, old style radios, outfits… men wearing hats… the posters with their 'Just-Post-WW2' feel, the number of nurses with military bearing all clued me in… but the biggest support was the information that my memories were providing me as well… unless I'd been in a coma… but no, it seems as if I was here for a burn that has now healed courtesy of regen kicking in. The Allies won the war… hurray… the Nazi's unleashed hell… boooo. It's 1949, and Truman is President.

We pulled armor and gear out of the warehouse, suiting up as I tricordered the shit out of the parasites, then dumping the data to VIvian as I fuse with VIctoria for the first time in ages… literally. "VIctoria, this is Atura, my inner spirit. Atura, this is VIctoria, my highly aggressive clothing. And I… appear to be Solomon Judd. Good southern Jewish name…" I shook my head and shrugged.

The trip out of the city was so much less fun than strolling out of Raccoon city, not the least because of the bickering in my head. Well, not so much bickering as passive aggressive sniping between a spirit that doesn't really do confrontation and my hyper-aggressive clothing that doesn't know how to back down from one. Still, we've got hours before the Bombers reach Atlanta… this is Atlanta… but there won't be an Atlanta in by dawn the next day. The army has the city surrounded… no one gets in… no one gets out… at least not until after the firebombs and nukes have their way. Jesus… the news says they've already taken out Savannah and Tallahassee… and every city on the continent is on quarantine. The Economy must be tanking fast. No news from elsewhere, but I have my doubts.

My companions got out by going under the blockade, thanks to our Earthbenders. I got out through the line, wanting to see how tight it was. It's tight. Nothing gets within fifty meters of the encircling force without getting filled full of holes and then burned. The army were wearing camo-ABC suits… they looked reinforced. Someone was on the ball. This wasn't consumerism zombieland or communism zombieland… this was Nazi zombieland and the army was laying down the law. Sooo many tanks. I nodded in approval, then passed on through.

The glow of Atlanta's destruction lit up the twilight and I wondered if it will be rebuilt a third time. It wouldn't be the last city to go down. The outbreaks didn't stop, but the Americans people had just come out of a world war and there were more soldiers than anyone one could shake a stick at and so very very many guns. I tried to find a cure in Memphis… the city went down in a month. We moved on to Topeka… it fell three months later. Dayton… at the end of the first year. The Pandemic wasn't spreading fast, the parasites ran in cycles that were predictable, but each city that fell spun out a few contaminated before it fell. No citywide quarantine was foolproof and just closing the roads wasn't always possible.

I'd provided sampler technology to the Army in exchange for funding and priority evac and protection. They kept moving us, rolling my mobile lab on a convoy of armored semis. The Zombies clearly knew I was a threat now. Must be all the samples I had of the Parasite, all the experiments. I was working too hard, not getting enough sleep. Headaches all the time now.

After Dayton came Fort Leonard Wood, Indiana. It'd been reinforced into a cantonment, barricades, walls, a freaking moat. Nothing got in without passing through checkpoints, bloodwork, x-rays. The Parasites weren't tool users, but they were sneaky. The base had internal walls too and a network web of electrical wires spaced over it with holes even a sparrow wouldn't fit through. It was a tough nut to crack… until the ammo ran out… which it did. Where the fuck were all these Zombies coming from? Can't think… popping aspirin by the bottle now. Maybe heroin?

After Fort Leonard Wood came Camp Grafton in North Dakota. The Zombies didn't do too well in the winter… not enough survival instincts… couldn't hunt… they froze and died, so the further north we went, the better off we were. Russia was doing okay like that. China too apparently. But the jungles of the tropics were a mess. The island nations seemed to be doing pretty decently. Most of them were on total quarantine. Didn't save Britain though. I'd cut down the number of actually destroyed cities somewhat by handing over neutron bomb specs, which only destroyed some of the city and killed pretty much all life, human and parasite, dog and cat, you name it.

Two years in and the pain in my head was making thought almost impossible. White noise made it bearable… but just barely. Only time it seemed to let up is when another city was nuked. Didn't know why… until it hit me. I shut down all my psychic senses, all of them, by injecting myself with a very questionable cocktail of neuroinhibitors. The silence was deafening, I swear.

"MOTHER FUCKING BULLSHIT!" I swore.

Zane snapped up, looking around. "What? Where?" He was training his gun around the room like an attack dog. He looked like one too. The army had long since gotten used to the fucking aliens. We were there to help, we claimed, came in peace we claimed. Ripped apart a lot of Zombies to prove it too. One of the privates was convinced that Joy and Ahab are Hobbits because they're short and have big hairy feet. We scoffed, "Hobbits? Those aren't real… nooo… Joy and Ahab are Vulcans. See the pointed ears?"

I turned to Zane. "Fucking Zombies… there's a god-damned hivemind… or a queen. Dunno which. The headaches… it's interference. Gets disrupted every time a nuke lights up too many of them." The vaccine got put on hold… already had a cure, had that soon after the detection patches, but it wasn't a 'Zap, you're cured kind of thing.' Required sedating the victim then a bunch of treatments. The Parasites didn't like it much. They fought back. Muscle relaxants and lots of restraints. Found a poison that worked on them too… worked damned good… but they kill their host when they go down and the poison was injection only… and not exactly fast to make. Fucking daddy-longlegs are hard to milk.

This world had no satellite network, so we had to build one. That took time, even with the Warehouse's fabricator. Getting them to orbit wasn't hard, but tuning the network to find psychic wavelengths wasn't exactly easy either. The army was getting impatient. Finding those wavelengths took five weeks, but the noise was all over the spectrum, so I had to search for where it was strongest, narrowing the line, which took another ten weeks… but all that told me was where Zombie Infection rates were highest… which the army liked because it meant they could target clusters before they bubbled out… but it didn't help me much with finding the problem.

Base security got a lot stronger after that… though I did have to waste time travelling to DC to explain to those fucking idiots in the War Department why they fucking well better give the technology to the god-damned Ruskies too.

Unfortunately, what I needed was a couple more nuked cities… and the army was having a field day stopping cities from needing to be nuked. Shit. The US and Russia were the only nuclear powers in this time, and Russia had used all five of its nukes in the opening days of the infestation. The US was the only country still producing them damned things. Everyone else had bigger problems.

Kendra saved the day there. "Why don't you get the government to nuke one of the cities in another country?" So I did. But not our government. I sold the russians enough plutonium to make twenty good sized nukes, by posing as a Chinese weapons dealer, then sat back and watched. If there was one thing you could count on Stalin for, it was over-reacting. Within a month, Russia was down ten Zombie-nest cities and I'd gotten twenty pulses across the global parasite network. The lynchpin was in Buenos Aires… a city so far untouched by the plague. Or so it seemed.

I considered my options… then made the most difficult choice of my life. Titanium telephone poles. Rods from God. The fabricators could make them easily enough. I'd used one once in a targeted strike. But this wasn't going to be targeted. This wasn't going to be clean. We dropped fifty-two of them onto The South American Big Apple, then paved the ruins of what had been a city of six million innocent people with neutron bombs courtesy of the USAF.

That flushed the bastard out and we tracked it north-east. No idea how it survived, but it had. We hit the ground running, following it as it gathered more and more zombies around it into a army of half a million crazed meat puppets. We caught up to them just outside of Curitiba, Brazil, a massive swarm of zombies pouring out of the beleaguered city to join those already clustered around the lynchpin.

We had plasma cannons on grav-tanks… two dozen of the things, fabricated based on Anti-Geth units I'd commissioned way back when. We had shields… they had flesh and bone and infinite rage. My companions… and the First Marine Grav-Tank Corps… smashed through the lines of zombies at ninety klicks an hour, pulverizing bone and brain and parasite under the crushing weight of an eighty-ton countergrav field. I stood alone, cloaked, waiting for the motherbrain to run like the coward it was, out the far side of the throng.

I was not expecting Zombie Hitler… but that's what I got. Zombie. Queen. Mother. Fucking. Hitler. Fifteen feet of psychotic half-human half-parasite monstrosity. It was tough, it was fast, it threw psy-blasts like nothing I'd ever faced before, backed by the neural network of a quarter billion Zombie Hosts. VIvian gave me feedback as each pulse fried more and more of the Zombie Network, but it wasn't enough. ZQH could throw dozens of the things… I was at half power and dropping after four. I backed flipped up to the top of a ten-story building, highlighted against the sunlight, then called "Oy, Hitler. Scared of a little Jew?"

He roared, leaping upwards towards me. Just before he crested the top of the building, I yelled "AVAST!" and apparated behind and above him. Not far. Just far enough that I wasn't in the way as the Jenny Ray smashed into the ex-dictator, who threw all his shields into blocking the titanic WEAPON killing beam. And then I RAILGUN'd him in the back. "How's that for a Final Solution?" I asked as the hideous freak of nature boiled to vapor and the beam plowed a hole in the army, nearly knocking out one of our tanks.

I'd like to say that solved the problem… but all that did was make the Zombies more feral, less organized. We monitored their activity, focusing on the larger packs, spreading out anti-zombie units across the world. Full body armor was back in a big way. Cities were walled and sectioned once again. There were craters everywhere. The vaccine took another two years to develop…. And even by the end of the jump there were regions still unclaimed, still unvaccinated. I left the battle tanks there. It would be a hundred years before they even had the tech to open the hatches on those things… but hey, they needed them a lot more than I did.

On the last day, on a small island in Fiji, we watched the sun rise and I asked Zane, "Did you guys have fun?" The general consensus was that, yes, they had had a lot of fun, but that I'd set the game on easy mode. "What? You wanted more Zombies? Bigger Zombies? Well, fuck you. No more damned Zombies! I hope the next jump has nothing for you to kill more dangerous than a cocker spaniel."

"What are those?" Zane asked "They sound fierce."

"Remember Lady & The Tramp?"

"The animated Chick Flick with the dogs?"

"Yup."

"Kinda? I was rooting for the dogs to eat the Cruel Woman. Sucked they didn't."

"Well, Lady, the momma dog… she's a cocker spaniel. They're slightly less fierce than Ziggy."

"Blah… sounds horrifying."

"You have a weird sense of horrifying."

"Yeah, well… you're no fun."

"Shut up and pass me a beer."

As I reentered the Warehouse, I noted with amusement that I had now, counting from my original world, run through a Major Arcana's worth of worlds, and idly considered which was which… but I was distracted from my pointless mindwanking by the strains of 'When you Wish Upon a Star'.

"Hey Zaaaane!" I said in a voice that definitely didn't fit an entity of… however the fuck many century's age I am now… twenty-one jumps… or was it twenty-three? I could be in the middle of my third century… but Metal Gear Jump was five decades… Or six depending on how one counted jumps… and did the time between the two halves of Avatar Jump(s) count? I had the memories… Was the Civ Jump a decade or twelve-hundred and thirty decades? I didn't know. Time had become less… meaningful in the long run. It was just a number that kept counting up… at least in retrospect. In the present, it was still quite pressing on occasion. I thought about it a bit more, then called, "Zaaaaaaneeee!" again, having decided that I was 12,626 and a half years old.

"I heard it," he groused, coming out of his bedroom. "You don't gotta be this smug."

"Yes I dooooo!" I danced about. Didn't know which Disney franchise the jump was going to be, but any of them would be fun… except Bambi… icky icky Bambi. I looked at the machine, head tilted. "Disney… Princess" Oh… well then.

The screen said, "Rather than let you join any Disney Story you feel like, we're making a Disney Kingdom which you are to be placed. You must choose three canon characters from Disney Animated Films to take on the roles of Princess, Hero, Villain, and Support. We did say three… you'll be taking on the role of the fourth. So have fun!"

Zane snarked "So, you going to be the Princess or the Hero?"

"I…" I considered being the villain for a moment, then shook my head. I'd be a terrible villain. Too nice. "I'll be the Support."

"What? That's… you… that's boring!"

"Oh hush you. I'm not a Princess… I'm not young or pure… even when I was young I wasn't pure. And princess outfits are icky."

"Says the lady who has like a dozen different harem outfits."

"I look good in those! And they're not for public wear!" I stamped my foot and glared up at his smug smile.

"I don't think real harems were exactly public," he pointed out.

"True."

Resting an elbow on my head, he asked, "Any idea who you're going to cast?"

"Yeah…" I nodded as much as I could, having an idea. "Let's make this a paean against British Colonialism."

"Riiight…" Zane drawled, "how?"

"Clayton, the quintessential Big Game Hunter. Very british. Good Villain."

"Also one you can pwn with ease," he said with a chuckle.

"Zane, sweety, I could probably pwn Ursula or Maleficent by now. If Pwnage was an issue I could just pick Cruella D'Ville. She's got the fighting ability of a frail old lady. Or Si and Am. They're cats. Or hell, I could pick Sher Khan… He's a tiger who's afraid of fire. Or Scar… a somewhat scrawny lion. They're not magical super tigers or lions… they're not even particularly scary big cats. Scar can't even take three hyenas and Khan lost to a bunch of buffalo. That's why I'm not the Hero. Even Mother Gothel is just a hedgewitch. Hans and Hook don't actually have any powers either."

"Right… good point. So who's the Princess? Pocahontas? Merida? Esmeralda? Is there anyone the British didn't abuse at some point?"

"Esmeralda was abused by the Catholic Church and in France. I mean, sure, the British and French have a long history of fucking with each other, but it wasn't exactly the British who started that and they've been friendly for a while. Scotland and the Americas… yeah, both of those work. But I was thinking of Jasmine.

"Really?" Zane asked, then shrugged, "Huh… okay. I guess that works. And that makes Aladdin the hero?"

"Mu-Lan," I said, grinning up at him.

"Wait… what?" He frowned down. "That doesn't make any damned sense."

"Mu-Lan," I said again.

"But she's a princess!" he pointed out.

"Only in that craptastic sequel. She's the Hero in her movie. She saves the Emperor and he calls her the Hero of China. She's a warrior and a Hero. Plus, she could be a lesbian, though the role doesn't say the Hero and Princess have to fall for each other. This is about self determinism and throwing off the patriarchy… monarchy… colonial-archy."

"You're mental," Zane pointed out, shaking his head in befuddlement.

I twinkled up at him and hovered into the air to pat his head. "And you love me for it. Anyway, the original Aladdin is set in western (i.e. muslim) China."

I spun for the location. Didn't really matter where it was as long as it wasn't Louisiana or Wonderland. There is a lot of space between "Arabia" and "China". Got the Desert. Excellent. I love heat. Fuck it… I move the Desert to the Taklamakan, sandwiched between Mongolia to the northeast, the Gobi to the east, and the Kunlun Mountains to the south. Jasmine can be a Mongol Princess… western china is pretty damned sandy. Romeo and Juliet for the fate of nations. Dunno if the jump will agree with me, but Mongolia and the Asian Steppe get nowhere near enough play in fiction.

Everyone gets 'Sing a Little Song' because this is Disney, and SaLS allows one to burst into song at any time, knowing all the words and never stumbling over diction. Any song perks or magic I might have could be combined with the Sing a Little ability… but it didn't come with a great singing voice… so I was sure to annoy people. Since I'd gone the Support route, that pretty much meant I had to be a Drop-In, which was fine by me. That got me the Sidekick Song for free (hurray! another song perk to combine with Sing a Little) which would allow me to improve the mood of listeners or motivate individuals and or crowds. It even meant people would like me more if I sang at or with them. And it could be either subtle or glaringly obvious, both of which had their uses.

I figured I might as well pick up the Princess's 'I Am Song' and the Hero's 'I Want Song'… someone (i.e. Bob Fosse, the legendary choreographer) put way too much thought into the types of songs used in musical theatre… then again, people usually overthought what they liked and musical theatre buffs tended to be astonishingly geeky at times… I know, I was one. The I Am Song was used to establish one's identity in the context of the show, while the I Want Song (sometimes the same song as the I am song) defined the singer's goals and desires. They were a fun (and fast) way to convey to the audience what a character's role or motivations were.

Of course, that's what they were in theatrical terms (Thanks Bob!) but what they did in terms of perk was even better. The I Am Song was a powerful warding tool, useful for protecting the singer from mind-control (to an extent), the corrupting influence of various magics, and even lower level demonic possession. More powerful and passionate performances increased the effect. The I Want Song was a divination tool, as (by the time the singer finished singing about whatever it was they wanted, they'd receive a very direct idea of how to get what they wanted how they wanted it. Singing for true love might mean you'd run into a stranger who can set you up with someone. Sing for victory in war and one might end up finishing the number standing on the tip of a Howitzer.)

Talk about Deus Ex… Song. They were each a hundred but well worth it… hell, I even scooped up the Villain Song for the full set… and so that I could use song to commune with dark forces or enhance magic. The more flamboyant I acted while singing, the greater the effect it would have on my magic. Three hundred wasn't a bad price to pay for a flexible variety of song magics, and that left me with seven hundred CP to spend.

In the name of being genre savvy (just have to hope it's not wrong genre) I took 'I'll Make a Man out of you!' just in case I got Mulan before she'd leveled up in training under Shang, who was a nice enough dude, if a product of his time. Not only was I hedging my bets, but IMaM was discounted to one hundred CP and a pretty decent perk for the price, since it would allow me to, in as many words 'Become the best personal trainer ever!' I'd be able to teach nearly any physical skill to anyone and to increase someone's strength, agility, speed, poise, grace, and endurance to their own best potential, given enough time (and not that much time, if the movie is anything to go by. A few weeks or months turned that band of misfits into elite soldiers. It was hard to argue with that much oomph for that little a price… though I suspect I'll have to know the skill to actually teach it.

Since I was going for Supportive, I figured that I might as well take 'Simply Profound' (it was two hundred) and meant that I'd always seem to know which tactic to use or what words to say to get people out any rut their life might have fallen into. In fact, with carefully chosen words and a few years to train them up, I'd be able to reshape someone's entire outlook and belief structure. With an extremely stubborn person, I might only be able to make minor changes, but give me a weak-willed person and they'd end up putty in my hands. That, combined with Man out of You, would be most useful, I suspected, and not just in this world.

That said, I didn't take the Support capstone 'The Cavalry'; it just wasn't worth the hassle, since it couldn't summon allies more powerful than the person I was helping? What's the point of that? If they weren't more powerful at most it would only be helpful in very close fights… and the likelihood was that I'd be able to provide more backup with just me and some of my companions than a random group of nobodies.

And speaking of companions, I wanted to import mine so I could inflict… I mean so they could enjoy the singing and lighthearted frippery… and only occasional genocidal invasions. Two hundred got me the full eight, with each of them getting two hundred CP of their own to spend. I looked around at my family and considered who needs to be 'punished'… I mean 'have fun' more. Joy and Ahab are a certainty (they really need to lighten up). Toph and Kendra are both really up tight too. Zane for a certain, after his snark. Mmmm… The Hibikis, I liked having them at my back. That left… Ziggy! My animal buddy! Heh. He's not a good singer either.

I had two hundred left, but nothing else screamed buy me, so it was time to look at drawbacks. I immediately found something good. It was called 'Suitor 'and it made me laugh and gave me something good to work with… namely a loathsome, philandering, egotistical person who wanted me to marry them for completely selfish reasons. The fact that I'd be unable to just outright kill this Humperdink should give me some nice motivation and would either provide some nice drama or some enjoyable comedy… or both!

Another drawback, called 'The Outside Tech Discouragement Policy' was just gravy. I didn't need the points, obviously, but the policy stated that quote 'any device or object not copyrighted to Disney or one of its subsidiaries' and not generic enough to be from a Disney property is outright banned'. There was a codicil that said that anything I built in-jump was exempt from that ban. The second part of the policy, which said that 'Any ability from a non-Disney property has to be renamed before it can be used.' was just silly enough that I'd have taken it just for free. Coming up with silly new names for my abilities and powers sounded like a lot of fun! The fact that between the two (each worth two hundred extra CP) I now had six hundred left was interesting. I'd never taken Drawbacks just to take them before… I actually have CP left to burn.

I considered recruiting Elsa or Kida or Turk… but decided not to mess with their timelines… I'm not even certain how it would affect their native settings. If I visited Frozen, Atlantis, or Tarzan after scooping up one of the key characters here, would they still be present in their own times? Almost everyone I've recruited up to this point has been dead, uncanonical, or superfluous to the canon (Everyone besides Ryoga really). It wasn't so important with Turk, who was a gorilla, but Elsa's a Queen and Kida's… whatever you call the ruler of Atlantis… Chieftain? High Priestess? I considered Amelia, the Cat-Captain from Treasure Planet… but she's not a princess… I wonder if there's a Treasure Island / Treasure Planet / Muppets' Treasure Planet Jump. That last would be weird.

Looking at Zane and Ziggy wrestling in their pokeforms as I had a snack (mmm… spaghetti sauce, powdered parm, mix… put on crackers. nummy!) All courtesy of my general food supply. It wasn't much, I mean, it couldn't feed all of us by itself, but it was like two hundred bucks a week worth of groceries from the General Store on the first floor of the Warehouse Arms. QuickMart wasn't the most well stocked shop around, but it was like a cross between a bodega and wild west general store. Not only could I buy basic household needs (pots, pans, knives, bullets, rope, cheese graters, mixing spoons, bolts of cloth), but I could get a good supply of canned, bottled, packaged foods. Mostly bulk stuff like you'd get at a CostCo or Sam's Club or a restaurant supply store like GFC… and the prices were reasonable. It wasn't anything high end, but it was filling… especially with the Hanging Gardens making certain nothing ever spoiled and every batch produced three times as it should have.

Don't get the impression that we were starving in the month between jumps. If nothing else, I could make Lembas bread to keep everyone going, and even if I couldn't, we had food replicators thanks to the Maegi taking Trek's fabricators and improving them massively over the next ten thousand years. I could replicate some damned fine dishes… but that was cheating… also, replicators only copy existing dishes, they don't create the dish in the first place. And so, for that, we had the Food Supply Budget and any money we had left over from a jump to spend at Quickmart… or the other stores (Gamefarm, Bookbin, and WearHouse). For fresh fruits and vegetables (and herbs) we relied upon the Lifestream Garden that Toph was in charge of.

As I ate, I considered importing Zane as a princess… but that would be silly and mean. I also didn't need a Genie (Wishes are something I try to avoid on principle… I don't even like using the word in conversation. I prefer 'I desire' or 'I really would like' to 'I wish'… oddly, I have no problem saying 'You wish.' but that's a comeback). Looking through the other items, I realized that I already had a 'Wizard Stick' and a Magic Sword.

"Eh. I guess looking good is… uh… good," I said as I purchased 'Tres Belle' for four hundred. A perk that makes those who take it classically beautiful with graceful movements and a guarantee to look their best even while crying or screaming? Sure. I can do that. Let champions go forth and slay dragons for my hand in marriage and do quests in my name. Yus. Worship me mortals! Actually, don't. That gets old fast… and leave those poor dragons alone, unless they're being jerks… then offer then a snicker's bar. Maybe they're just cranky. If they persist in being jerks, then you can stab them with all the stabbing of the lord EssJay almighty… well… kinda mighty. A bit mighty. Semi-potent. Something like that.

I was still two-hundred up, and that made me consider ditching one of the DBs… but they sounded like such doable challenges and a lot of fun, so I picked up the four person flying carpet just in case I need transpo on this Disney Approved Romp. Fifty mph was crap though.

I put in a call to the complaints department. "Have you seen Aladdin?" I asked.

"Go Away!"

"I'm going to start singing a in a few seconds, and then you'll remember just how fast that carpet was," I threatened.

"If it matters so much to you, just import your broomstick slash mako as the damned carpet!"

"Oh… huh… good idea. The Policy won't stop that?"

"Well, you won't be able to turn it into the Mako… but you can't tell me that there aren't flying broomsticks in any disney property?"

I thought about that, while singing 'A Whole New World' just to get on everyone's nerves. "No. That's a good point. Bedknobs and Broomsticks had a broomstick… and Magicka Dispel had one. That's two at least. Cool. Thanks."

INSERTION

What can I say about Disney Mongolia? It was cold, desolate, full of very fuzzy camels, and had way too many Yurts. My suitor was Genghis Khan… yes… that one. It was… ummm… the term "Vast Army" doesn't really begin to describe it. I said no… he conquered Nishapur and beheaded everyone just to prove he was manly enough… and he sang a song about it. And he wasn't even the badguy!

No. That was Clayton, bounty-hunter and douchebag, hunting us across the Steppe and Deserts and Mountains… as well as parts China, India, and Arabia to recover the Great Khan's Niece 'Jasmine' from the Chinese Army Commander 'Mulan'. Did I mention the singing? So much singing. It was awesome. 1,001 nights? Ha! We skipped across the wilds of Asia getting into trouble for more than three times that. It was like the ultimate Disney Roadtrip… Silkroad Trip… in more ways than one, if you know what I mean. (eyewaggle emoji) Along the Silk Road. No Zombies, some flesh eating ghouls, but no zombies. And behind us, always behind us, Clayton and his boomstick.

I was frankly getting annoyed at the number of times I'd been shot by him. He was relentless, the Determinator, always returning week after week as if he had the freaking Joke… jo… right… can't mention cardboy… as if he had Dr. Drakken's agent. Oh yes, not having my weapons, armor, space shuttle… these were all frustrating. I've been to too many WB properties. Why couldn't I have been to the Marvel Cinema Universe or the Star Wars verse? A lightsaber would have been excellent. Coming up with names for my abilities that weren't intellectually copyright was a trick into and of itself. I had to 'Repear!', to 'WaterWarp' and 'FireFlow', to call upon the 'Frozenness', and to boost myself with my 'InnerWeave'. I had to consciously rename everything, and think of them in those terms, or it wouldn't ffrrrgggn work… and I couldn't swear. The VMoD hadn't mentioned that.

Sex was okay though. Apparently that was offscreen… or maybe just in the rule 34 section. There was very much sexing. Often with singing. Was there a plotline? Not really. Clayton, Shan Yu, Genghis, Jaffar… or one of the other enemies of the week would show up, we'd have hijinks, sing, escape. Celebrate. Sometimes there was a moral. Most times not.

Yes, taking 'I'll make a Man Out of You' was useful. See, while Mulan was the hero of China, Jasmine had no practical skills at all. One song montage later and she was a credible ninja. Me? I was a Stone Monkey… same species as Sun Wukong, the Monkey King. Of course, I could shapeshift, but I was a totally mystical creature… and that's why Genghis wanted me. Apparently I was a very pretty flaming stone monkey. My fur was apparently pure gold or something. Which explained why Clayton wanted me dead. Plus the whole abomination of sapphic love.

Toph also wanted to kill me. She'd taken 'I Want Song'… and she used it… to complain… graphically… and then take out the grumpiness on me. It was kinda funny (in a murderous sort of way) how dedicated to punishing me for sticking her in the body of a Mu-Shu style dragon (still blind of course, but with the whole hisssy forked tongue… and green instead of red). See, what was hilarious was that she kept forgetting that she wasn't… shall we say bending the stones, but 'StoneShaping'. And when she forgot, it wouldn't work.

If Toph was finding it hard getting into character, Joyhab were actually embracing the silliness of it all. There were so few consequences for them (they'd beamed in as Yetis… the Monsters Inc kind), so they mostly just lounged around and acted snarky. Ziggy was a Red Panda… and enjoyed climbing into Clayton's pants and biting him. Being a Mon helped, since he was often getting shot, right before Clayton got his ass kicked by upwards of four girls… or more, since many of our exploits involved freeing girls and women from bad situations. The Hibiki's were a pig and bear demon respectively, who mostly tagged along for the food. Kendra was a Naga. Zane a Fu Dog. We were a total menagerie of Chinese and Indian cryptofauna.

The Disney Princess world wasn't as clean and nice as everyone might have thought. It had darkness everywhere, and horrible things did happen… almost always off camera, but remember, this was the world where Bambi's mother is killed, where Shan Yu obliterated entire villages, where Dumbo is scorned, where there is an island funfair that turns little boys into donkeys, where Syndrome murdered superheroes, where… you get the picture. Just… few of those things happen on screen.

I so wanted to dunk Clayton in Jusen… gender shifting water, but unfortunately it was apparently counted as technology and no matter how I renamed it, I couldn't bring it through. Ah well, being a girl was too good for him. Also, humiliating him week after week was amusing… except when he did something truly horrible… at which point I usually tried killing him… but that wasn't my role… so Mulan had to do it… but no matter what she did to big C, he always seemed to survive. We even tried tricking him into fighting us in a liana and vine rich jungle. Twice. Neither time did he accidentally hang himself.

If at first you don't succeed… try 240 times. Disney has it in for villains… if he was going to escape his traditional downfall, we just had to keep trying proven methods until something worked. Eventually we tricked him into the badlands and got him eaten by hyenas. Muskets only reload so fast.

There wasn't a central problem to fix, so it remained unfixed. China didn't fall to the Mongols, British, or Japanese while I was there, but who knows what the history would tell. All things considered, it was as much a vacation as any jump I'd been to, albeit a working vacation.

Still, by the end… I was a little burned out on all the emoting. I'd been a Vulcan too long to be this free with smiles and happiness. I was also wondering what the next world would hold. So we said our goodbyes and gathered on the traditional beach, though we did give a rousing chorus of "A Whole New World" before the Pillars of Time rose from the sands. I'll have to schedule a Return here… the wedding is this fall.

As we stepped back inside the Warehouse after a very successful Disney Decade, it was to the sight of a workman in stained overalls wheeling a cabinet into place in the Vending Machine of Destiny Enclosure. He was almost completely nondescript, and, as I stared at him in slowly growing confusion and outrage at the most inexplicable intrusion, he grumped, "Sorry 'bout this. There was last minute change. Head Office didn't vet the next scheduled jump and it got a little confusing. Don't mind me." He slotted the machine into place then, before I could think of something to say, vanished.

"Ummm… did anyone else see that?" I asked my companions. No one had. Not even the security systems (i.e. VIvian.) had picked up anything.

Eyebrows furrowed in confusion and annoyance, I stomped across the green to see what the cabinet was. It turned out to be something helpfully labeled 'Companion Calibration' and it looked very much like the kind of machine that was used to vend snacks. You know, the kind with a large clear window on the front and a hopper bin beneath that? The kind with spiral screws that rotated to vend stuff and had alphanumeric tags and prices on every item? That kind. Except in this machine there weren't any internal racks or spiral screws or even a hopper.

Instead, the window was full height, and the door was unlocked, though it had a simple enough latch that could be opened from both inside and out. Instead of the racks, it had a vaguely human shaped hole in what looked like semi-solid gel and there were almost a hundred sensor pads embedded in the gel. Where the alpha pad should be was a display screen that explained how to use the machine.

"Simply have one of your companions enter the chamber and close the door. The process will begin automatically. Although companions are not (yet) eligible for Body Mod Standardization, this will correct any physical issues with any of their alt-forms, as well as provide a detailed breakdown of their baseline attributes. Hardcopy readout will be provided for your records. Thank you for using Quicksilver Brand Jump Systems!"

I eyed it suspiciously for several long seconds, then waved Zane over. "Hey, have a look at this!" I said, then shoved him in and flipped the latch.

"Hey!" he protested, spinning around then aaacking as the sensors suckered onto his skin and more of them popped out of the gel and began to attach themselves to his front. "What's going on?"

"It's calibrating you, you big baby!" I yelled, grinning at him. "Anyway, it's for your own good, so just hold still!" I laughed as he flicked me off, then turned away as his eyes flickered closed and it looked as if he'd gone to sleep. The display had a progress meter and said 'ZANE' and 'Status Green' under it.

The first thing I noticed was that the Side-Jump pamphlet rack had been updated for the first time since I'd gotten done with Bastion, way back when. In addition to the 'Imaginary Friend', '80's Action Movie', and 'Marvel Comic Strips' jumps, there were now pamphlets for 'Generic Horror Movie', 'Alien: A Survival Experience', and 'Jurassic Park'.

I shuddered at the idea of going to any universe that contained even one Xenomorph. An Alien Jump… that was just terrifying in its very conception. I took the pamphlet out of the rack and incinerated it. "Jumper's Veto," I said to thin air, then shuddered again. Didn't need anyone getting any bright ideas and bringing something that horrible back into my Warehouse… no thank you… a single chestburster would be bad enough, but if A3 was any indication, it could very well be a nascent queen. Fuck that, thank you very much.

Figuring that Generic Horror Movie might be safe enough, I left it there, but told VIvian to fabricate a notice to hang over the Rack that stated 'All Souvenirs must be approved by EssJay on pain of Smurfs!'

That done, I glanced at the star attraction, the newest incarnation of the VMoD. Samurai Jack said the marquee. Huh. That was a Cartoon Network property, according to my memory, and one created by the same guy who'd created the Powerpuff Girls. I hadn't watched a single segment of a single episode and all I knew about the show was that it had a bit of a cult following, was supposed to be pretty decent, and that it was about a samurai. Oh and that the bad guy was some kind of demon or wizard and voiced by Mako. The blurb told me his name was Aku and he ruled a twisted version of Earth set in an unspecified future where Earth was home to countless alien races, fantastic technology, and ancient magic. From what I knew of American cartoons, I was fairly certain that the villain and hero would both possess informed invincibility and the status quo would be king, with neither gaining or losing any significant abilities over the course of the series / jump.

That meant that there were essentially two options… I could try and stay beyond Aku's notice… or I could simply ignore the tyrant's existence until forced to deal with him. Since defeating Aku meant travelling back in time, and that was a chain ender according to the rules of this particular jump (as was making a wish… neither of which got me any points despite being freaking unfair as hell)… this would be quite a challenge… Could I remain off the radar for a decade while still being true to myself? Could I step into a world ruled by a monster and not try and save the day? I didn't know.

As I pondered that question, I sorted through the backgrounds. Drop-in, as always, was free, but didn't come with what I sensed would be deeply useful background data on this world. Bounty Hunter didn't appeal to me, since pursuing fugitives for fun or profit was never my thing… especially considering who would be most likely to be posting those bounties in this depraved world. Treasure Hunter would set my motives to greed… which, again, was not really my shtick. Scientist wouldn't be a bad choice, but Magic User was clearly superior.

I coughed up a c-spot, once again cursing having to waste good CP for the pleasure of having my core personality subsumed by local cultural programming and arguably false memories for a decade, then spun the wheel of aging. I was to be twenty-six… an age I hadn't actually hit in most of my jumps. How odd. And I was to start in Northern Europe, a place described as widely populated but not particularly developed, with many ancient cultures still prevalent in this day and age. Huh. I wondered what they meant by ancient. Without a present as frame of reference, past and future meant little, and since I had no idea what year Jack was originally from, nor any idea what year he'd been flung to, so ancient could mean 1980 CE as easily as 600 BCE.

As a Magic User, I received (in addition to an entire perk tree at discount with Empathy as a freebie) a basic magical power for free and discounts on the rest of the fairly impressive list. After a bit of thought, I selected Enchanting as my free power, passing on Polymorphing, Flight, and Scrying. Enchanting would help augment what I already could do thanks to Hogwarts, Buffy, & Lord of the Rings. Not only did the local version allow for imbuing items with elemental properties, it would allow me to learn new enchantments by studying other magical weapons… even ones not technically 'enchanted'.

Scrying, the ability to spy on others using magic was nice, and Polymorphing, the ability to transform others into animals might be useful… but neither spoke to me. As for flying… it would have been quite nice, since it was pegged at 200 mph, but as useful as that might be, I could already fly thanks to spending a fortune in CP way back in the BuffyVerse… which kinda sucked considering how cheap it was here. Shame there were no refunds… or were there?

I made a mental note to ask the Banker about that. If I got my hands on something that didn't stack with, but completely overrode something I already had, could I get a refund on the original? It might be worth it, even if I could only spend the CP on something that I would have originally been able to buy in that world. Would the Banker think that was fair? In his place… would I? I didn't know.

Empathy, the free perk was also quite spiffy, since it would allow me to read and manipulate the emotions of others, to easily figure out the perfect thing to say or do to my enemies to fuck with their morale or throw them off their game, so to speak. From the items section, I netted a Signature Outfit (that explicitly wasn't self-repairing so meh), a small workshop filled with all the magical equipment I'd need to do my work, and a Pet Monster… didn't I already have several of those? It listed alien spiders and mechanical snakes as examples… I considered passing, then shrugged. I whistled and held out my arm.

From elsewhere in the warehouse, a hoot sounded and a heavy weight landed on my arm, talons digging into my highly resistant skin. "Hello Nimh," I said, feeding my owl a scrap of jerked lizard from my satchel, "Would you like to be a clockwork monstrosity?" The great horned owl looked at me, blinked once, then shook its head and wings in what I assumed was negation. "How about an alien horror?" He pecked at me. I guessed that was a no as well. "How about an eldritch abomination?"

That got me a hoot and a flutter, wings spread wide. I thought about that for a long, long moment, then grinned. "How about a phoenix made of shadow… an Abrinox?" That got me a bigger hoot, and Nimh nibbled at my ear and gave an owly kind of chuckle. I might not like birds in general… but I'd had Nimh for a long, long time. Familiarity and possessiveness had gotten rid of most of the innate discomfort I felt around most other birds. I could even tolerate, to a certain level, the other owls (Hatter, Diogenes, and Abraxus)… Fulcrum, Zane's owl was an even bigger pain in the neck than Zane himself.

But that was it for freebies. As I was considering whether to look next at perks or powers, a pop-up appeared on the VMoD's screen. "Your complaints have been reviewed and judged warranted. Your account has been credited three-hundred choice points, and the Legacy Drawbacks 'Don't You Wish' and 'TimeLock' have been added to your jump. Thank you for choosing Quicksilver Brand Jump Systems, and have the time of your lives!"

"What the heck is a Legacy Drawback?" I asked of no-one in particular. There wasn't a response… but this clearly showed that Home Office… or whatever it was, was almost certainly something else than the Banker… something higher perhaps? Was the Banker an employee of Home Office? Or part of the decision making body? I wondered.

Still, I was curious as to what these Legacy Drawbacks were, so I pulled up the information. The language was fairly straightforward, essentially transforming the two chainfail conditions into individual drawbacks. TimeLock stated that any conscious and or willing use of any form of time-travel (besides simply existing in linear time) would be seen as a decision to stay, and that being flung forward or backward in time against my will would not count against me. Don't You Wish was the same, except with using any magical wish, and there being tricked or coerced wouldn't count… but neither would said wish be granted. Neither one defined what, exactly, a Legacy Drawback was, but each was worth a hundred CP, with the last hundred Choice coming from the refund of the hundred spent on the Magic User background.

A note attached stated that I could take up to four hundred CP worth of Drawbacks, should I choose to do so… and I was just about to have a looksee when the Calibration Unit hissed like a soda bottle being cracked open and Zane stepped out, looking, if anything slightly slick and with a little better hair. There was a pop-thunk and a tube sprang out of the machine at roughly the same location as a coin return might normally have been on a snack-vendor, and there was a rolled up paper within.

As I pulled it out and read it over, Zane looked over my shoulder and whistled, "Oooh! Darbacks! Fun! What we got?"

I ignored him and growled, "Well, this explains why they gave me the damned unit instead of just giving me a Body Mod for you goons."

"Not Dewbacks?" he complained, then glanced at the paper. "Why, what's up?"

"I think they figured that if I got you into the Body Mod and saw all the stuff that was being corrected, I'd scream bloody murder." I waved the sheet vaguely. "The alt-forms you've been picking up are flawed. I mean not cataclysmically or anything… but let's see… hormonal imbalance in Great Detective and Harry Potter, scoliosis in Elder Scrolls and Avatar the Last Fartbender, nascent aneurysm in Metal Gear Solid, kidney problems in Swat Kats, colorblindness and male pattern baldness in Star Trek, and in Final Fantasy a potentially fatal allergy to latex. Plus halitosis a few times and a propensity for various forms of cancer."

"Eh," he said, shrugging, "You see those as faults, but those are just part of, you know, being mortal. Sure, problematical, but we have a medbay… and honestly?" he asked. "You may have the Mod backed ability to grow and some really nice baselines… but we?" he did a little capper, then mimed blowing his own brains out, then fell down… only to spring up, do a tadah (complete with jazz-hands), and grinned like the goon he was and is. "Can we pleaaaaase do the Bardooks now?"

I licked a finger and stuck it in his ear. "Stop mangling the english language, you idiot!" I groused, then pushed him. "Go get AJ so he can take his turn in the Calibrator, and when you get ba-"

Zane, of course, was Zane, so he totally skipped the whole 'go get' part and yelled, "AY JAY! Get your butt over here and bring everyone else! You get to be probed and poked and quantified!" He looked back and me and waggled his eyebrows. "So? Bawkbawks?"

I sighed, rolled my eyes, then, when Ziggy came scampering up, pointed at Zane and said, "Ziggy! Stomping Tantrum!" thereby instructing my brave little warrior to use the only Ground-type move he knew.

Zane blanched and turned to flee. "Nooooo! It'll be super effective!" he squealed, flailing his arms as he fled the enthusiastic Zigmeister. Like all Fighting-Steel types, he was weak to Ground type moves. Also Fighting and Fire… but the only Fire-type move ZigZig knew was Sunny Day… which made the sun shine on him. It doesn't do any damage.

"What's the matter Zane?" I yelled, "I thought you could gunshot-bleh-jazzhands!"

From a far part of the Warehouse, Zane yelled back, "I'll get you for thiiiiiiis!"

I ignored him and brought up the list of drawbacks. Four hundred sounded doable… if there was anything not god-awful enough. And it turned out that there was exactly four hundred Choice worth of drawbacks I was actually willing to take. 'Sam-Moo-Rhai' meant that idiots would try to imitate me and my style… when and if they learned about me… and do a terrible job of it. Then they'd find me and force me to fight them to prove that they were better than me. It sounded both amusing and annoying… but I could deal with annoying. 'Bloodless Violence' meant no lethal force against anything living if I could at all help it… which was fine, especially since the undead, demons, and feral monsters didn't count as living. Neither did robots, obviously. Both of them were worth a hundred each.

The last two hundred was gained from 'Worthy Prey' which meant that I'd be hunted by some feline aliens called imakandi… so called the greatest hunters in the entire galaxy. Killing them would mean another group would simply take their place, but there were only four in the initial group… and I was Drawback blocked from actually killing the first four anyway. Though I suppose my companions could kill them… 'Bloodless Violence' didn't mention companions… then again, neither did 'Worthy Prey'. Seemed like a kinda glaring oversight.

Anyway, now equipped with a full sixteen hundred Choice, I reloaded the main document once again… only to have a pop-up state, "Some Options have changed. Please review carefully." Gee, thanks mom… So I looked at the document from the beginning… and discovered that, wonder of wonders, there was now a race section. How interesting. Humanoid was free… interesting enough, since it covered anything that was, you know basically humanoid… but there was a second option, this one priced at two-hundred Choice… 'Construct'. It didn't come with any perks or powers or items… but in that form I'd feel no pain, have no need to eat, drink, breath, or sleep (as long as I had power) and could repair myself to a degree and either replace or reattach lost limbs. Sure, being stuck as an unfeeling (and uneating) automaton, either scientific (robot) or eldritch (golem) would epically suck… but having such a form would be most excellent at times. I took it… because sleep is for the weak. Of course, I was a golem… but still, you know, Jewish and Egyptian, because why change what worked.

That done… and AJ safely loaded into the Calibrator, I finally got back to looking at the magical powers section once more. I scooped up Elemental Control for two hundred… and not for Water or Fire. I doubted very much that this could do more than give me a limited boost to either. Not for Air either. My TK already gave me enough of that for the time being. No. I took the ability to manipulate Earth. I knew it would not be Earthbending per se, but I had one of the greatest Earthbender teachers in existence and access to Energy Bending enough to grant those who had no other bending abilities bending abilities… I'm certain, between the two we'd come up with something that was virtually the same. I'd spent enough time around Earthbenders to have a sense of how little limitations a creative elemental controller could have. Plus, Elemental Control Earth could only boost my Glassbending… since, you know, I'd actually be able to sense the silica instead of only the heat and water contained within. Combine that with my GZA given expertize in glass-blowing and I should be capable of making some truly awesome glassware.

Shapeshifting, as imperfect as it was, and Energy Beams, even though they were heat-based and not just cutting force, amused me. Ever since I'd first seen Cyclops of the X-Men as a little girl, I'd wanted to be able to shoot blasts of energy from my eyes that can cut through solid steel. Hell, Scotty boy had always been my favorite X-Men right after Nightcrawler and Beast (but only when Hank was blue). Okay… and after Kitty Pryde… but she had an unfair advantage, being (you know) tiny and jewish and having a pet dragon. Oh, and Rahne… but that's 'cause she was a puppeh… but she was officially a New Mutant first, so I'm not sure she counts.

Anyway, the color scheme limitation and intense planning required to emulate exact details with the Shapeshifting ability were problems that would have to be overcome, but (aside from being stuck with either black and gold or my normal silver and green Slytherin colors), I didn't exactly have a color scheme except for stealth blues. Other than that, my color scheme was pretty much pinkish tan with platinum blond hair. Fearsome I am not… at least not without my clothes on.

None of the other magical powers seemed attractive enough to be worth the cost, and the other Magic User perks (Polyglotism and Alchemy) seemed like a massive waste of effort, so I checked for a Companion Import Option and found quite a nice one. Team Up Episode was free at the base of it, allowing up to eight of my companions to join me with a humanoid body and choice of background for free… but if I spent any amount, each of my eight chosen companions would gain twice as many CP as I spent (minimum fifty, maximum four hundred, on my end). With eight-hundred Choice burning a hole in my pocket, I splurged, going for the full bid.

As AJ stepped from the Calibrator and reclaimed his sacred hat (the Pokehat I'd given him when we first met, his most treasured posession and one he never imported so it would remain forever as I'd given it to him… silly but heartwarming) I handed him a stack of tablets. "Keep one for yourself, and pick another seven to accompany us, would ya?"

He saluted, grinned, moved to run off, then paused. "Do I have to give one to Zane?" he asked.

I regarded the little guy and tapped his nose. "That, my boyo, is entirely up to you." As he dashed away, calling for Francine who had wandered off, I motioned for Petra to take the next turn in the Calibrator and scrolled to the items section. There were some very interesting choices… not the least of which was something called 'The Daughters of Jumper' which were eight young women of uncertain origin who would claim to be my daughters and loyal followers. They'd possess all my hereditary powers as well as any magical abilities or physical enhancements that I purchased from this jump… and a bargain at only two-hundred Choice… and filling only a single companion slot… which I think meant that if I imported them, they'd only count as one and split the effectiveness of any perks bought for the group across them… but I didn't really need eight more companions… or daughters.

I did find something I really did need, a box of unlimited flaming eyebrows. I know! FLAMING EYEBROWS! and it was only fifty choice… but Zane came back then and flatly barred me from taking them for the stupidest of reasons… sanity. But come on! FLAMING EYEBROWS!… I sent a note to AJ to make certain he bought them for me. Ha! Take that Mr. No Fun At All Zane… see if I let you have any of AJ's Flaming Eyebrows!

None of the other items screamed buy me, though there was a certain attractiveness to boosting my sword, but the cost was exorbitant. The multi-tool briefcase did amuse me a little.

That decided, I snagged Computer Hacking and Enhanced Senses, both of them costing half my remaining four-hundred Choice. Since I'd be playing this whole jump defensively, their potential utility was quite high.

Joy and Ahab were importing under their own power, with Joy deciding to go in as a Treasure Hunter, and Ahab as a Bounty Hunter, but we weren't planning on teaming up so much as just trying to get by, backing each other's plays as best we could. AJ, Francine, Zane, Ziggy, Toph, and the Hibiki's would be coming along… plus Kendra because Zane was boffing her brains out and he had the sway to call in the favor with AJ (not that I minded particularly). Bao and Uriel would be treated to a year in the warehouse to be by themselves, unless they locked the time flow or decided they wanted more than a year staring at walls.

Of the eight I'd paid to import, Zane and Yoiko were joining Joy in the exciting world of treasure huntering, Kendra and Ryoga were going to compete with Ahab for the best bounties, Francine was following the science path, and Toph would be with me and AJ in the study of magic. AJ had filled out Ziggy's build for him, but the fuzz-faced one was a drop-in… not that his memories are really ever more complex than sleep, play, eat, attack things mostly at random.

As a Drop-In, El Senor Zig got Navigation free, making him an expert at analyzing and interpreting maps and giving him a natural sense of direction… I suspected his definition of 'analyze and interpret' would mean chew on… but maybe he'd gain an understanding of his surroundings that way. AJ had also made him a Construct, so he was a mystical metal weasel instead of a flesh and blood one… that was a mercy, since AJ's first thought was to make him out of the nails of dead men like the Naglfar. Eww.

Also free for the Zig was Enhanced Stamina, Camping Equipment (of which he'd use the sleeping bag… even though Constructs didn't technically need to sleep), and a nuclear powered 200 mph Jetpack… I blinked at that, brought up the details, which included an image… I started giggling as the picture resolved itself into a ferret dangling from a string attached to an inflated helium balloon. "Jetpack… riiiight." I shook my head. Someone was being silly.

AJ'd also bought Regeneration and Thievery for the wee beastie… though the Regen wasn't as good as what I had as a conduit and the thief skills might not do much good for a creature that was as stealthy as a box of hammers thrown into a china shipment. I was going to find myself possessing a great many pilfered wallets I suspected.

The last item on the list, costing a hefty four hundred Choice… was blacked out, and AJ had written a note saying "Why ruin the surprise?" Oh… dear. The note was countersigned by HO… which I assumed meant 'Home Office'. and explained how a purchase could be blocked from my access… and how AJ had managed to unlock Ziggy's tablet in the first place.

Ziggy wasn't the only Construct. Ahab had opted for that choice, since it was free per the terms of his auto-import. As a Bounty Hunter, he'd gotten Cooking (nothing fancy, but certainly enough to safely make good tasting food and always find something to eat in a city or wilderness), Static Charges (magnetic mini-grenades designed to fry electronics and shock biological targets), and an Pulsar Shock-Rod Energy Weapon. He also got himself Enhanced Agility (after we assured him that it was okay that he couldn't afford enhanced durability… the boy does not need to be able to withstand more torture.) which grants him the ability to propel himself inhuman heights up into the air and gives him better control over his entire body. As Yoiko put it, withstanding Bullets good… not getting hit, better.

The other bounty hunters had more of a budget, of course, but neither of them spent their points on Construct. Kendra picked up a Field Neutralizer Star Rifle as her free energy weapon, while Ryoga got a pair of Plasma Mule Shock Gauntlets as his. Enhancement-wise, the former slayer went with Enhanced Stamina (climb a mountain without fatigue), Enhanced Senses (not superhuman, but close), Enhanced Flexibility (near cartoon levels of squash and stretch), Ranged Proficiency (being good with ranged weapons), Strategy (rapid situational analysis), Elemental Affinity (the ability to turn her body into living bone), and Engineering (basic machine tech). As for the pig-boy? He went with Enhanced Senses, Regeneration, Engineering, Thievery, Strategy (probably a good purchase for Impulsive Man, champion of jumping to conclusions), and Indomitable Will (the oomph to keep going no matter the adversity… personally I figured he already had it, but Hibiki Stubbornness is nearly as legendary as their total lack of navigation skill.)

On the flipside, there was the Treasure Trio, all of whom got Insight (a sixth sense almost for riddles and puzzles), Scouting Glasses that featured thermal, night, and x-ray vision… plus the ability to see invisible lasers and a built in zoom function… and a Briefcase that was actually an incredibly complex multitool. Carry-all, scooter, flashlight, machine-gun, and even bullet shield. An all round little bundle of fun… even if I probably could design better.

That was what all three of them got, but there the similarities stopped. Joy took Scrying (the ability to view places and people remotely in mirror-like objects) as her free magical power, while Zane took the Flight power I'd passed up and Yoiko took Polymorphing, so she could turn people into pandas if they annoyed her. Yoiko had spent her Choice wisely, picking of Stealth skills, a Hypnotic Voice to enthrall the weak-willed, Shapeshifting, and even a Magical Celtic Bow that would revive her as a ghost if she was slain.

With his points, however, Zane bought a secret safehouse stocked for six months, Teleportation to anywhere that could be seen… even transplanetary portals, and an Enchanted Weapon that was absolutely indestructible and did extra damage to boring people. I'd looked at Enchanted Weapon. I'd even considered buying it. It had an option to assign a moral alignment… I just hadn't been aware that 'Boring' and 'Fun' were considered 'moral alignments'. Live and learn I guess. After all, wasn't the entire point of the Chain to be interesting to… someone, I guessed.

That left the technical group. Francine's Science background got her Engineering, a Breath Mask, and a technical Workshop, as well as Enhanced Stamina, Computer Hacking, Enhanced Durability, Enhanced Flexibility, and Indomitable Will. All of those choices were impeccably logical… but a little boring… then again, it wasn't like there were any spoons on offer in the document. On the magical side… well, you already know about the freebies. AJ got himself a pet scorpion… I don't know why… named it Stab-You-Kadnezzer… Toph used her free pet to get herself a miniature Earth Elemental she named Sukkah. People are silly.

As for powers and perks, AJ snagged Flight and Teleportation, while Toph snagged Illusion Creation, Polymorphing, and Elemental Manipulation over Water… she muttered something about getting revenge on swamp folk. They both picked up Polyglotism, the ability to speak and read the languages of any modern or ancient human civilization… which I thought might be silly, considering we had access to a Universal Translator (thanks Star Trek)… but that's not always a perfect tool, so this was better… and (at fifty Choice) cheap as hell.

I know you're thinking… doesn't Illusion Crafting create visual images? How can a blind lady use that convincingly. Well… remember how I was bitching about flawed bodies? Yeah. The Calibrator fixed Toph's eyes. She spent days grumbling about being perfectly happy to be blind… but it didn't take an empath to know she was secretly pleased. She kept touching things and going "oooh… so that's what blue is!" It also would allow her to better use the Thievery and Alchemy perks she'd picked up. The rest of their points went into items; another Celtic Weapon (a longknife) and the Flaming Eyebrows for AJ, and a potion kit for Toph.

And that was that. A generally agreeable set of new abilities and a fairly unpleasant world in which to test them out in. Honestly… I couldn't wait… I do like a challenge.

INSERTION

For the first eight months of our sojourn in the world of the samurai, we spent our time and efforts keeping on the down low. There was a lot of misery and oppression on the grand scale, but day to day, things were pretty much just people living their lives and trying to get by. The world was, at least in the big cities, not too horrible… at least if you moved in the right circles, and with our ability to infiltrate and infest, it wasn't too terribly hard to make ourselves comfortable.

I hung a shingle as a freelancer, doing odd jobs for who whoever could pay me. My rates were steep and those who came to me for reasons I felt too wicked were made to pay in subtle and creative ways. Sure, we were pulling only a half Robinhood, but we did make sure to support local businesses with our ill gotten gains. It was a good world for crime.

Then Zane, keyed into the city as he was, brought word of a crime family ripping people off by gouging them for water. Seemed they'd gotten their hands on a powerful relic known as "The Neptune Jewel", which allowed them to control the waters of the world. Sounded like a prize I could use.

That was our first heist worthy of the name. We surveilled the Gangsters for days, watching their comings and goings, finding out who worked for them, and where they were keeping the jewel. Legends said that the Goddess of the Waters had placed guardians of Earth, Air, and Fire around it… but they weren't around anymore, or so it seemed. Defeating the Gangsters was the easy part… but we had to make sure that nothing led back to us, which made it tricky, but still doable.

We struck in the dead of night, making the paranoid Gangsters move the Jewel, giving it into the care of one of their own, a Mr Pibbles, who secreted the Jewel inside his top hat… or what he thought was his top hat, not noticing that it was a silver and green top hat. The crown of his head tasted like flop sweat and dandruff, but the Jewel tasted like magic and power, and the moment we were clear, Mr Pibbles found his hat stolen by very agile red panda. It was a most enjoyable heist.

Unfortunately, taking it drew the Elemental Guardians to me, and they tracked me across the city, forcing me to teach them the error of their ways. Several times in fact. With them growing ever more disruptive of my attempts to lay low, however, I finally had enough and made them a deal. If they could defeat me all together, without me using the gem, I'd give it back. If not… they'd leave me alone. Neither of us wanted Aku to get his hands on the gem and its power.

I called upon all the elemental might I had and froze the Earth Guardian in place, doused the Fire Guardian in a cyclone of water, and trapped the Air Guardian in cube of stone. I made them bow to me. It was that kind of world. I bound them into weapons, the Earth Guardian into a staff for Toph, the Fire Guardian into Zane's Anti-Boredom Space Sword, and the Air Guardian into a Bow for Kendra. They had been made to defend… I guaranteed they'd continue defending far more than a mere jewel, no matter how powerful it might be.

Unfortunately, Aku was still looking for the Gem, and that meant its power had to be placed inside the warehouse for the rest of the jump… and that is where I did the bulk of the enchanting as well. It was also the kind of world for staying underground as much as possible. Aku tried to make that difficult with the cat-like Imakandi Hunters… which I wouldn't have killed even if I could have, what with the respawn function they had built in. No. I just froze them in blocks of Ice and dumped them into Zane's safehouse. Ditto all the idiots who kept showing up to challenge me.

We continued to lay as low as possible, collecting knick knacks and bizarre mementos as we were paid to. A shattered green gem from a hard to find oasis, guarded by a berserk giant. The shattered remains of a machine that was supposed to be able to see the future (we also snagged a rare and supposedly magical rug called the Aragian Rug of King Bassad, but I'll be damned if I can figure out what the damned enchantments on it are supposed to do. Pretty though. We have it in our living room)… after being hired to acquire a magical claymore supposedly stolen by a nameless Scotsman… I got suspicious. From then on, all the recovery jobs I pulled were vetted twice and then the recovered items were all secretly tagged, both with science and magic. No way was I going to gather items of power to help Aku win, just because I wasn't trying to bring him down.

The hardest thing about the entire jump however was never uttering the word 'Wish', and thus ending the chain. I struck it from my vocabulary, and actually used the Imperius curse on my friends to make it impossible for them to make any wishes during our time in Samurai Jack's world. I had no idea how prevalent wishes would be, but taking chances on Genie logic that could end a Jump was not the best strategy.

Three times we fell afoul of Jack. The first time he was trying to steal the same thing we were trying to steal, a bauble that could track Aku's castle as it pulled a Krullbeast and moved from city to city. We let him have it and he got the damned thing destroyed. The second time, he'd let himself be tricked into guarding a corrupt Casino that we'd decided would feed us for a year or two. I dueled him long enough for the others to get away with the loot. Normally, I should have been able to defeat him. He wasn't that good and I had way more experience than he did, but he had plot informed abilities and in this universe no one was more than his equal. I didn't try and beat him. Just delay him long enough to make our getaway possible.

The third time… it was clear that Aku had somehow tricked him into attacking us in order to steal away our ultimate score, an anti-akubot field generator that would allow us to finally escape AkuEarth's massive robotic blockade and just go into hiding somewhere far from the madding crowd. The source of the artifact had come from a most unexpected and slightly… depressing source… a lost ruin of distinctly Maegi design. That had sombered all of us, until Jack showed up. Of course, Jack wanted it to get into Aku's palace. Talkabout monomania.

Still, Jack was far from unbeatable. He had many abusable flaws… not the least the fact that he was honorable… and while we were thieves, we weren't actually doing anything evil besides stealing… and never from those who could not afford it. He was also fairly gullible… and Ziggy had somehow picked up eight girl-ferrets who would follow him around and seemed to obey his orders… they certainly swarmed into Jack's hakama (samurai for pants) when Ziggy ooked at them. I almost felt sorry for the guy.

Aku too, was a petty, obsessive, and transparent monstrosity. Somehow, however, he'd learned of my Warehouse, and become convinced it was his portal to other universes to conquer… which meant he came after us late into the eighth year.

For a year we played keep away, dodging from city to city. I had no desire to fight Aku, no desire to win this game, nor was I at all sure I could, since according to the first (zero point) drawback, it canonically took Jack something like fifty years to defeat the Shogun of Sorrow. But Aku was relentless and in the end I had to resort to base trickery.

With Aku focused on me and my crew, I knew Jack would be looking for a way to get to Aku. So I took a page from my own book and announced where I'd be on a specific day, challenging Aku to appear. I knew it would be a trap, Aku should have known the same, but malevolent dictators often have narrow vision. He almost certainly assumed the trap was something I'd laid for him. But all I'd done was guarantee that everyone who hated Aku knew where he would be on that day too. Jack included. All I had to do was destroy Aku's army of bots and he'd show up eventually.

They had numbers. They had good armor. Some of them even had decent AIs. I had no reason to hold back. The last time I'd fought on this beach, I'd been a suicidal cyborg. This time I had command of all the Waters of the Earth and companions who were distributing free magical swords to anyone who wanted to kill Akubots. I'd been very busy!

Do you know the best way to fight a malevolent demonic tyrant? That's right… mockery. Not once did I actually try and use my weapons or magic or… whatever… against Aku himself. Instead, I taunted him. I played childish recordings of kids singing anti-Aku jingles. I threw tennis balls, water balloons, and rotten tomatoes at him. I rhymed his name with poo and atchoo. I can be extremely annoying and absolutely none of Aku's informed abilities were 'Good Aim'.

All I had to do was keep Aku busy while Jack, a whole bunch of Scotsmen… and one very very scary Scots Lady smashed the robotic army to flinders. Aku, at the end, tried to flee, he really did… but I hadn't studied just Apparition at Hogwarts. I'd also studied the defenses against it and anti-teleportation wards glowed deep within all the glaciers and icebergs in sight. As the Pillars of Time rose and Aku lunged forwards to seize the warehouse for his own… Jack was there, waiting for him. I hope he got his final victory, but me and my companions scuttled through the door as fast as possible. We weren't staying here one moment longer than we had to.

Two weeks after the end of JackJump had passed, and no new Jump had presented itself in the kiosk enclosure. While it wasn't alarming (yet) we were all somewhat confused as to why the delay was happening, and there was talk of maybe needing to use one of the Side-Jumps or maybe a Return to break the deadlock. Me? I wasn't too terribly concerned, but my patience was wearing a little thin. Side-Jumps wouldn't help me and Returns… I considered the worlds where I had unfinished business… but since Jason was perhaps the biggest unfinished business I had left, any other choice for Return destination… It wasn't logical. Time was stopped in each world independent of the others. If I revisited the BuffyVerse, it would not affect the PotterVerse… and yet I had trouble even considering revisiting a world before revisiting my child.

Even thinking about Jason made me a bit upset. I was a terrible mother… but that was why I'd given him up, wasn't it? Because I would have been a terrible mother? I tossed and turned through what little sleep I actually tried to get, then sighed and went for a walk, feeling just how small the confines of my Warehouse were.

As I walked, I let my emotions have full reign, surging back and forth inside me; worry, disgust, fear, all the worst of human doubts and recriminations surging up from the deeps of my mind… and then… off in the distance, I saw movement. It was the shutter of the VMoD enclosure closing… it only did that when the Machine was being swapped out. Feeling a vast upwelling of relief I headed in that direction, arriving just as the enclosure reopened, revealing the new VMoD and the next destination on our journey.

As soon as I saw the marquee of the new cabinet, I had to laugh. It was perfect in more ways than one. First… It was A Song of Ice and Fire. If there was any one entity in all creation suited to be sent into a jump with that name, it was me. I had Ice. I had Fire… I even had Song! My laughs woke the others. The second was because it was one of the relatively few settings I was both familiar with (to a certain point) and utterly and completely lacking any respect for. Game of Thrones was, in every way, a soap opera set in feudalistic times. There were few characters I could tolerate, let alone like.

Sure it was fun watching Tyrion Lannister be a right bastard… but actually put up with him? Not on a month of Sundays. There were many horrible people in this world and, after a decade of impotence, I was going to take unwholesome delight in doing evil unto the wicked.

I had a clear vision going in, and all I needed were the right perks and drawbacks. I could pick any point in the history of the world to appear, but coming in before the events of the book didn't interest me particularly. I dialed in the date to the first day of 298 AC and rolled for location. Where I started didn't matter to me. I had places to go and people to kill in inventive and often cruel ways. I had a little list… and if they were missed or not, I could not care less. I ended up with the Westerlands, home to house Lannister.

I selected Drop In, of course, wanting no memories of growing up in this festering cesspool of a land. That, and the Drop-In line had a very nice selection of perks that I was finding uses for even as I read through their descriptions. For example, 'Prince in Exile' was a hundred Choice and it meant that people would welcome me as a prince(ss) from a foreign land and be amused at my alien ways and customs. I'd be welcomed at most courts as a curiosity if nothing else. Always good to have an in at the places of power and in social circles.

At a hundred and fifty Choice was 'The Builder' which made me an exemplary, some would say preternaturally skilled, architect. An architect who specialized in defensive structures and fortifications (say… a several hundred mile long, twelve stories tall barrier) no less, though not lacking in the other (more artistic and practical) aspects of the art. As a Builder (Can we build it? Yes we can!) it was promised that immensely large structures, especially ones designed to keep a specific foe at bay, would take far less time to erect than they otherwise should take. Exactly how much time would be saved by that guarantee would have to be determined through testing.

And then there was 'Schemer', a two-hundred Choice gem that would make me into a talented schemer and plotter, giving me an easy understanding of how people are moved and ways to subtly move them. Keen insights into the ambitions of others was the promise… and I couldn't wait. A foot in the door at almost any court in the universes, mastery of physical defenses, and the power to scheme and plot with the best. As Zane joined me I hissed, "I am Slytherin, I am the snake from within."

"I'm happy for you. Just make sure you're not in my boots when I put them on." He grinned… I bit him.

"Hey look," I said, "Schemer gets me a discount on a cache of Poisons that not only regenerate, but include pretty much every known poison in both Essos and Westeros. As a bonus, it only costs fifty CP, which evens my total back out."

"Oh Good… because an uneven total is like the worst thing ever," he snarked. "Why, exactly do you need poisons?"

"I'm taking it partly for the potential utility, but mostly so I'll know all the various subtle ways they're used… and have samples so I can both detect and treat such poisonings. Better to have samples than not, right?" I asked, looking up at him.

He glowered back down, then grunted. "So… anything in there for us?"

"Yeah. I can buy Brave Companions. It costs a hundred choice for eight slots and grants six hundred CP for Skills and Gear, plus Identity, Appearance, History, and Place of Origin of my choice," I said after skimming through the document and finding the companion import option. "But first, we should all sit down and listen to the audiobooks… well, enough to get the feel of the world. Then I'll lay out my plan to the wolfpack."

Tilting his head to the side, Zane asked, "Wolf… pack?"

I grinned, "Well sure… most of you are slavering beasts, right?"

"Not Ferret Pack?"

"A group of ferrets is a business… and you're not cute enough to be ferrets," I said, calling for a general assembly. Once everyone was gathered, I played the first four chapters of the book from my archives, then gave a rundown of everything I knew about the world of George R.R. Martin's Song and what I had planned for it. "So?" I asked. "Who thinks this is a terrible idea?" As expected, I got several hands, mostly from Bao and Uriel, but also from Petra, who felt that the best plan was just to find an isolated and peaceful time period and camp out there for a decade. She even convinced Ziggy to raise his paw by tempting him with salmon jerky.

"Right then…" I said, ignoring the dissenters, "Ryoga and Yoiko… I'm placing you as Nobles of the Riverlands and members of the King's Guard. That will give you Weapon Proficiency… that's knowledge of all the common weaponry of this world and truly exceptional skill with a single specific weapon type. I'll leave it to you to pick exactly which one."

Ryoga, now Rynar of House Greatoak of Blackhorse Reach, chose to take up the battleaxe, while his cousin Yana of House Greatoak of White Hill (Yoiko) selected the greatspear as her weapon. As nobles, they also got a perk called 'Mine By Right' which meant they'd be given more social weight than others, that people would give the Nobles' rights and desires more consideration than those of commoners. It wasn't very nice, but it was an advantage and one I'd be a fool not to take advantage of. If I caught them abusing it, I could always spank them at a later date. Oh, and of course, as nobles, they got fine clothes, a pouch containing a hundred Golden Dragons (the coins, not the monsters), and a set of war gear (steel plate armor, chainmail, padded gambeson, tabard with house symbol and words, and a finely made steel weapon in their chosen type. And a deed to lands that would follow them from jump to jump, adapting as needed.

With his points, Ryoga selected 'A Quiet People', 'Bold', and 'Gregarious'. The first would make people under his authority remarkably unlikely to cause trouble for him… while doing nothing to make them more loyal. That was a little worrying, but I doubted he'd abuse it… too much… more neglect than outright malice was his style. The second would make him brave without being reckless, and would allow him to keep his cool in even the most heated situation… which is why he took it, I'm certain, since he already barely balked at the most dangerous of challenges. And the third made him a real charmer, capable of making friends easily and (most remarkably) turning defeated enemies into very loyal allies and supporters.

His sister… now cousin, also picked up 'Gregarious', then blew the rest on 'Skinchanger', the power to possess animals and, (once possessed) make them loyal to the Warg, as a Skinchanger was known in the Northlands. It wouldn't work on overtly magical animals though. There were going to be a great many bears giving her rides in the future, I had no doubt.

Everyone got "Words and Heraldry"… Me included. It was an interesting little bonus, a motto and coat of arms to each of our specific designs. Those words and symbols would become inextricably associated with each of us and give (within reason) the specific impression and feeling we'd imbued them with. Nobles began with a cape and standard of the finest quality with words and arms emblazoned upon them. Everyone else started with their emblem and motto crudely painted on a bedsheet… which was both amusing and a little insulting. As a Princess in Exile… was I noble enough to get the upgrade? I asked the system and was assured I was… they'd just be a little… tattered. I could live with that.

House Jaynus's banner materialized as I considered, unrolling to hang from one of the walls of the makeshift amphitheatre we were gathered in. It showed two masks facing each other the same way actors will face each other on stage (at angles so their faces are 3/4ths facing the audience or so), with a third mask facing forward, all in green on a silver field, forming a downward pointing triangle. Above that were the words "I Shall Defend"… but if you could see into the ultraviolet spectrum, you could see a second set of words beneath the masks that said "Measure for Measure"

I tasked the duo to keep Robert Baratheon alive until I could get on scene. I can't say I have any love of the fat fool, but his death in the books is what triggers everything into motion, and I'd rather delay that as long as possible. But not too long. The man was a beast and deserved to have his head mounted on a spike. And as I gave that assignment, they were designing their heraldry.

Their coats of arms were counterparts of each other. Each featured a Red Bear and a Black Boar rampant (rearing back on their hind feet/paws) and back to back, on a field divided horizontally, one half silver, the other green. On Yoiko's shield, the Bear was dexter (on the right), while the Boar was sinister (on the left), and the silver was on top. On Ryoga's shield, the colors and positions were reversed. Yoiko's words were "None So Mighty", while Ryoga's were "To The Breaking Point". I nodded as their banners joined my own on the wall, hanging left (Yoiko) and right (Ryoga) of my own as if an honor guard… which they would be, once I ruled the land.

I ask Joy and Ahab, my most experienced agents, to go in as Dothraki Nobles, using their auto-import for this jump. They get the same as the Hibiki's, but a Horse instead of a Land Deed, and Free City's currency instead of Seven Kingdoms. They both took Dothraki swords, of course. Their task? To safeguard Daenerys and (more importantly) Khal Drogo… and guarantee the untimely, painful, and untraceable death of the witchwoman Mirri Maz Duur. I might have no respect for the Dothraki, who are uncivilized, brutal, and rapacious… but Maz Duur plotted to kill an unborn child for the sake of revenge… after pledging loyalty. Vengeance I understand… but infanticide and oath-breaking? She'll get no mercy from me or mine.

The Bahs duo don't get the six-hundred points, but nothing on the list really screamed that it would help them in their tasks… though they too got Heraldry and Words. Their symbolism could not have been more diametrically opposed. Ahab's was almost whimsical, with a blood-red viper wrapped around a steel anchor on a field of cardboard brown… with the words he chose being "Snaaaaaaaaake!" It got an appreciative chuckle out of most of us.

In contrast, Joy was deadly serious. Her coat of arms was a white hart on a field of red… with a black arrow in its chest. Her words, which summed up the image perfectly and honestly, were "The Last Full Measure". No more needed to be said, for those who would understand will understand, and those who don't never will. Their banners joined the first pair, though at a distance, in the most shaded part of the long wall. Ahab became 'Aggo', whose name came from the Dothraki verb 'Aggendat' or 'To Rip', which was a little shudder inducing. Joy became 'Layaffi', from the verb 'Layafat'… which meant 'To Be Happy'… talk about hitting the nail on the head.

Zane & Kendra I kept with me, as Sworn Swords from Bravos. As Sworn Swords, they too got the weapon proficiency & the armor and weapons, described as Castle Forged Steel… it was that kind of world… though their armor would be a little more dinged up than that of the nobles. In place of 'Mine by Right', they got 'Dirty Fighter', a grab bag of tricks and tactics picked up in tavern brawls and street fights aplenty. It would make them quite capable at fighting cleverly… i.e. dirty. Zane stuck with the sword, in this case an arming sword, while Kendra stayed with her greatbow… getting a spring steel greatbow even though those won't exist for centuries if ever in this world. She's gotten quite good at archery since our arrival in SamuraiWorld.

Zane… now Zagara, also picked up the perks 'Large' and 'Quick as a Snake', which did exactly what they sounded like they did. He was now a big man with lightning fast reflexes. I wouldn't want to fight him if I weren't me. Of course, as me I don't want to fight him either… except when he eats all the ice cream.

He also, at Kendra's urging, picked up 'Mystery Knight' so they'd both have it. It was very much a threefer, or at least had the potential to be one. When her identity was unknown to her opponent and her face was fully concealed, not only would her combat prowess improve drastically, but their morale would be greatly reduced… and fortune was more likely to swing her way in battle. It was hard to argue with that, even if setting it up wouldn't be the easiest thing in the universe.

Kendra, calling herself 'Karatas' (Ew! Carrots… blech!) took 'Mystery Knight' as I said, but also picked up 'Flaming Weapon', which would allow her to use her own blood to set her weapons on fire… fire that not only burned incredibly hot, but was also unnaturally intimidating to her foes and heartening to her friends. And she imported her bow as a Dragonbone Bow.

Zane went all noble with his words, choosing "Uphold the Right!" which was, I think, a reference to something, but I wasn't sure, while his emblem was a blue dog's head (a little like a lucario's head of course), on a starburst of silver, on a field of green. I asked VIvian to run a search for the line… it was a reference to a hymn: "Uphold the right, tho' fierce the fight, and pow'rful is the foe. As freedom's friend, her cause defend, nor fear nor favor show. No coward can be called a man, no friend will friends betray, who would be free, alert must be, indifference will not pay." It was also the motto of the police force of Victoria, Australia. Zane / Zagara was proclaiming himself to be the law, come to this lawless land, and doing it with style.

Kendra, whose chosen name wasn't going to make me cringe, nope… had chosen the words "Beyond Sight" to go with an emblem featuring a black upturned face, with silver light shining down upon it from above… also on a field of red. I began to note a theme. Both Kendra and Joy had been dead, slain, and both lived only through my agency. Joy's emblem memorialized her sacrifice… Kendra's her resurrection. Both were a little too… sacrosanct for my comfort level, but I didn't tell either of them that, instead nodding in approval as the makeshift banners unfurled flanking mine, this pair in the middle of the space between the spies and the nobles.

Toph had been turning the Lifestream Garden into a serious work over the last few jumps. It stood six stories tall, with a footprint of twelve meters by twice that and it allowed her to get her feet dirty, something that was still her favorite activity. I invited her to take on any role she choose in this world that was soon to be even more wartorn than her homeworld. She decided to go for Smallfolk in Dorne, about as far from the action as it was possible to be.

I shrugged. "Sure. I guess. No skin off my nose. But Smallfolk doesn't actually come with anything free. I mean… nothing. Just a place in the world. You'd be better off as a Noble-"

She arghed… actually argghed. "No Noble! I was raised noble my first time out! I've had enough of politics. I just want to kick back! I want to be a-"

"Calmly, swamp toes… calm yer tits and let me finish," I asked, holding up my hands. "If you want to play the humble farmer, that's fine with me… I would still recommend Noble or a Sworn Sword who has lost all their money. At least you get stuff… like knowledge of how to use weapons. If you run around Earth & Metal Bending, or using Water Magic, you're going to get accused of being a witch and burned alive… and since you'll respawn when that happens, it might happen several times if you don't make yourself scarce. These are primitive fuckheads for the most part."

She grumbled.

I patted her shoulder. "You'll enjoy it more. Trust me, being nobody might seem interesting, but it's really not. Not in Westeros."

After a while, she nodded, "Fine. but no nobility. Sworn Sword I'll do… then just drop out and chill."

I thought of something else. "Dorne is a desert, just an FYI. You're not fond of those, if I remember correctly."

"It's got mountains, don't it? Coastlines?" she demanded, getting a little more frustrated.

I nodded, then said, "Yes… but you might prefer the Vale for mountains. It's relatively isolated too."

"Grrrr…" she clenched her fists and glared at me, "I thought I was getting to pick."

"You can!" I held up my hands to deflect her annoyance. "I'm just offering suggestions."

"Fiiiine."

"But you might…" I began, just to push her buttons.

She jabbed a finger at me. "Say one more word and I'll throttle you with that candlestick." She pointed across the area to our 'outdoor' dining area.

"That's a menorah," I said, unable to help myself.

"Death to the Tyrant!" she bellowed. There was a brief interlude for some grievous bodily harm.

Oww… from the beating I got (my poor menorah) I assumed she'd decide to specialize in maces, obviously… but I was wrong, as, when I wasn't looking, she switched back to Smallfolk, though she did stay in the Vale. She picked up 'Glamour' (the ability to change your face to resemble other people and copy their mannerisms… made even more convincing if you happen to have an object belonging to the impersonatee… is that a word? Impersonated? probably better.), 'Worker'… which just meant she could push herself far beyond her normal limits with physical or tedious work… and 'Rabblerouser'… i.e. the ability to mobilize the masses. It all sounded terribly dull to me… but it was, ultimately, her choice. Her symbol was a steel grey lotus on a deep Earth Kingdom green… and her words were "This is Your Fault".

I had to laugh and acknowledge the hit… it was very palpable. Her name would be "Topher the Gopher"… because she could. I didn't even need to ask.

Those were the easy choices. What came next then? Well, I couldn't go into this land of dragons without one of my own, could I? I could not! So, RayRay. I invited her to join us, and she agreed… as long as she got to be a Noble… of Volantis. I wasn't exactly sure why she wanted that, but I wasn't going to argue with her. "Sure. Just keep us informed of goings on, when you get there," I instructed.

One rapier later… "I'm taking Great House," she said.

Intrigued, I asked, "Why?"

"Because I'm great." She said it as if it were a matter of public record.

"I don't think it carries over," Zane pointed out.

"Course it does. I'm great," the skydragon repeated herself.

"Ah… well…" I hedged, "I don't even know if Volantis has great houses."

"Does now," RayRay insisted petulantly.

"I… see… okay." I shrugged. "I figure the Oldblood were the nobility… I don't know if there are gradations within that… but maybe you're an actual remaining noble of Valyria? Is that possible?"

"Don't know. Don't care." She flopped back on the back of one of the couches on the lowest tier. The amphitheatre was formed by nine leather couches on three tiers, the upper two tiers on raised platforms. It wasn't fancy, but it worked for us.

I groaned. "What else you taking?"

"Valyrian Steel Rapier." She was playing with her toes and not bothering to look at me.

"You already have a Castle Forged Steel Rapier," I pointed out.

"This is better," she insisted.

"Dare I ask why?" I asked.

"It's not free," was her explanation.

"Uhh…" Zane began.

"I'm importing my wand as it," RayRay continued, begrudging every word.

"Oh. well… whippy stabby metal wand. I approve," Zane said, grinning like a goober.

"Good!" the dragon exclaimed.

"Anything else?" I asked.

"Leads from the Rear. It says men under me."

"It says under your command," I explained, hoping she didn't plan on riding people.

"Don't care. They'll throw themselves at the enemy as if I was leading the charge… but I won't, because I can fly and they can't." Her explanation of what, to her 'under' meant did not thrill me.

"You have three hundred points left," I pointed out.

"Buying a Dragon Egg," she said lazily.

"May I ask why? And how you're affording it?"

"Volantian Nobility is Old Valyrian Blood… discount… and I want to import a dragon," she said, as if that made perfect sense.

"We don't have a dragon," Zane said.

"Ahem?" RayRay asked, sitting up and pointing at herself. "Dragon."

"You can't import yourself into your own item!" he shot back.

"Says who?" she asked. "It says a pet or dragon can be imported. I'm a Dragon. I import myself. and get more gold with my last fifty points.

"Fine. Whatever" Zane sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Do you have words?"

"Like the Wind," was the reply.

"Heraldry?"

She had… it was a green serpent coiled on a sky blue field. So… essentially, her symbol was herself. I had to restrain myself from hitting the table with my head. Her name in this incarnation would be "Rahys Rayn"… that table was looking extra smackable. These are my friends. Siiigh.

I offered the last two positions to Bao and Uriel, both of whom turned it down flat. The idea of that level of labyrinthine infighting reminded Uriel too much of being Emperor, and the endless civil wars reminded Bao too much of the Three Kingdoms era… and he'd seen enough senseless death, thanks. Still, I had two slots, so I offered them to Petra and Dyna, only to get a lot of hemming and hawing.

"What the heck? You guys are usually down for anything!"

"But… Everyone dies in those books!" Dyna said in her slightly alien way. All these decades, she still was not quite human, no matter how she looked.

I gaped at them. "You're Pokemon! You don't die! You just… KO and respawn at the Warehouse!"

Petra was the one who broke it down for me. They weren't afraid of getting killed… they were afraid of coming to like locals… who would then get killed. There was, unfortunately, that risk. Even if we lasted the day in this… Winter was Coming. That's the tagline. That's the real problem. Stupid unfixed seasonal length. But I couldn't argue. I polled the other mon, AJ & Francine felt the same. RayRay was RayRay, above it all, and didn't care. Ziggy was about dog level intelligence, maybe a bit higher, and didn't really understand the question.

Oh sure, they'd all do as I commanded, but this wasn't the world for them. I considered long and hard, then sighed. "Okay then. We're going to abuse the system. AJ & Francine, you two are Nobles from the North. That will nab you some land near the wall and the one task of handing those deeds over to me. Well, one and a half, protect Winterfall and the Starks until I can get there. Then you can go back into storage until things play out."

They agreed, reluctantly. I was the boss, after all. Funds are good. Land is good. Recon is good. I handed them the tablets and made myself some coffee to go with my Lembas scones… they had dried elderberries in them. Ryoga made them. Once I was done, I came and had a look. Francine had selected 'Skinchanger', 'Pet' (discounted for Skinchanger), and something called the 'Horn of Joramun' (which could destroy fortifications) with her points, because skinchanger fit with her psychic powers, the pet was a three eyed Raven because creepy, and the Horn because it was awesome, even if buying it forced her to move her Lands north of the Wall and technically made her a Wilder… but she was apparently one who'd pledged loyalty to the Starks generations back or something. Her Words were "To See Within" with a coat of arms (remarkably free of spoons) featuring nothing but two blazing silver eyes on a field of midnight green. The name she had listed was "Fae of House Nordhammer" and her chosen weapon was… the Warhammer. Well… that was on the nose.

AJ, or rather "Astolfo of House Jugar"… earned all the hugs that day. For his Words he'd chosen "For Mother", and his coat of arms bore a pair of crossed red swords over a green helm on a field of white, symbolizing his Gallade nature of course… and he'd chosen a Falchion as his weapon, and when I saw that he'd bought a Starforged Sword, which was a milky white and intensely shiny chunk of a fallen star forged into a blade as light and sharp as Valyrian Steel, but radiating a strong impression of chivalry and honour, I'd been expecting to see that he'd bought a Starforged Falchion… but he hadn't. Instead, he'd paid to import Soul of Ice as a Starforged Sword. It had cost him a sixth of his points.

I flinched a little at that, then checked his other purchases. He'd also shelled out another sixth to import my Elfin Mythril Pulse Rifle as a Dragonbone Bow, giving it exceptional power and range, as well as giving it the property of tending to hit where it'd do the most damage simply by chance. He'd also bought two sets of an item called 'Hands of Gold' which made anyone who wore them who wasn't the purchaser into a competent ruler… i.e. The Hand of the King… or Jumper. I was almost scared to see what he'd spent the last hundred on… and I was right to be. He'd spent it on 'Pet'… which he'd used to import Ziggy as a Dire Wolf.

I wanted to shake him and tell him not to be so deferential, not to give up self-advancement for me, that I routinely had far more points than he did… but I couldn't. It clearly meant so much to him, so I pulled him close, snuggling him into my lap as he turned back into his Gallade form and gave him a playful noogie. "Sucking up to get the best cookies, huh?" He blushed but didn't gainsay me. I let him help me finish out the list as a reward.

After paying for imports, I had four hundred Choice left and the only perk I was really drawn to was Skinshifter, which had a six-hundred CP price tag. But that would put me two-hundred over. So I flipped through menus to find the drawbacks… and hit Scenarios. Well hello there, be right with you, just let me grab some more Choice to spend.

Maegi was too good to pass up, if only for the name. It was also Drop-In only and would make the superstitious naturally hate and fear me. That was actually a bit of a plus, and so (for once), a drawback might be useful. Fear and hate are powerful tools, useful for shaping public opinion. Anyway, it wasn't as if Maegi was an automatic burning at the stake in this world… Hell, at this point, a stake burning might be almost pleasant.

That got me halfway, and 'Stalwart Shield' got me the rest. That one required me to be entirely loyal to somebody in this world (my choice) and to spend a lot of time working with and for them as their loyal supporter and ally. Well, fuck, Ned Stark and his line were going to to have my protection regardless. That gave me the Choice I needed, so it was time to revisit those yummy scenarios.

The 'Usurped' Scenario made me laugh. Being the sibling of Daenerys and Viserys, then seizing the throne for 20 years? Intriguing, but too expensive to set up. Same for the 'Black Dragon' Scenario, which was almost identical but set a century earlier with a bastard princess instead of an exiled one.

The 'Think of the Children' and 'Last of the Giants' Scenarios, which were all about bringing endangered populations back to something vaguely reasonable, required an awful lot of breeding, the first of Forest Children, the second of Giants. Probably inbreeding with groups as small as the ones the scenarios started with. I could probably help, medically speaking, with that, but it might be hard to explain to people not known for their keen grasp of technology more advanced that bows and arrows. Still, with time to set up cloning facilities I could probably end the jump early. I considered it, then rejected it. I don't need to be four meters tall (Giant) and to actually think of the children… well, would you want to bring children into this world, especially ones that required heavily forested regions to survive in and were weak against humanity? Might make some allies though.

The 'Valar Morghulis' Scenario would require me to become an acolyte of GRRM's fucked up death god. While I'll almost certainly cut a swath bigger than a hundred lives, I'm not dedicating them to anyone, and I'm not wearing someone's preserved face for any reason. Fuck him and fuck that. Ditto for the 'Conversion' Scenario. If I have my way, there won't be any fucking R'Hllorgian clergy. Fucking Red Priests are worse than Catholic Inquisitors.

'First Among Nine' meant unifying the Free Cities. I could do that… but 'Best Dynasty Ever' called to me. Victory Condition? Take the Iron Throne for your house and hold it for three-hundred years. I could actually do that… by myself. If I went in as an Elf, that would neutralize the aging problem… which was good, because dying of old age in any of these scenarios meant I'd effectively scrub my eldest legit kid out of existence to take their place… fucking noooo. Jesus, who'd want that fucked up option?

I asked the others if they were up for the long haul and got a collective shrug. They'd been with me for twelve millennia… what was three centuries to them? That changed the perk I wanted though. Skinshifter was nice… but Gregarious was better for a queen to be… and the same price. A plan began to form.

I chuckled. "Zane? Are you pondering what I'm pondering?"

Zane studied me long and hard for several seconds, then sighed, "Are we going to try and take over the world?"

"We are!" I chuckled menacingly. "And we'll succeed. Come. We have wars to plan."

"How many wars we talkin' 'bout?"

"All of them!" I cried, raising my arm triumphantly… only to have Nimh land on it and demand treats. I found him a mouse, then noticed he had a message tube strapped to one ankle. What the hay?

I plucked it off and found a key. It was a black key with a little number one carved into it. Which was just… there weren't any doors that actually had locks in my Warehouse. Well, there were, but they certainly wouldn't be opened by a key. Keys were too easy to bypass, especially when half your group has thief training and several of them are psionic.

I held up the key to the light and asked it, "What do you open?"

At that moment, Zane came hurrying up and said, "Hey… ummm… EssJay… there's a treasure chest on the beach."

Now, you must understand that, technically… we didn't have a beach. We had a pool. It had a deck… everything in the warehouse was actually on platforms so we could have a basement, and the pool dropped all the way down to the actual floor level, six meters down. We'd given it a beach as best we could, but it didn't really work. There wasn't enough space to slope it properly, so the sand was mostly on shore. And it was only about fifteen centimeters deep. Certainly not deep enough to bury a chest… barely enough to bury a small jewelry box. Confused, I walked over. There it was. A treasure chest.

It was a meter and a quarter high, two meters long, and a meter deep. It had a huge black iron padlock, and was covered in seaweed and barnacles. It even had a live starfish clinging to it. As I watched, the starfish fell off into the sand… then grew eyes and stood up, saw me, screamed, and ran off into the warehouse, Ziggy in hot pursuit.

"That… was strange," Zane said.

I agreed, then tossed him the key. "Open her up," I instructed.

He shrugged, then did so. As soon as the lid popped open, a golden glow suffused the area and I could see that the chest was absolutely full of small golden trinkets… and wooden slats.

"Wood?" Zane asked, picking one up. It had tabs and slots cut into it and I immediately recognized it. It was an Ikea-style shelving system, one designed to hold tchotchkes. Going from memory and logic, we managed to get it set up and found that the golden knicknacks filled every nook. Kinda. See, some were clearly pieces of a larger whole, while others were complete in and of themselves.

Once we got them all in place, the unit glowed faintly and holograms appeared in front of each of them, displaying a number and a weird symbol that looked like a W with two horizontal lines through it. After thinking about it for a moment, I went back to the chest and searched it again. In the lid, I found what I was looking for… a secret compartment. In it were fourteen fifty W coins, each of them styled like a piece of eight. There were also a small number of nicknacks inside the lid already. And a piece of parchment. Unrolling it, I found that it explained everything… kinda.

"As your reward for successfully completing your twenty-fifth jump, we have decided to grant you access to your very own Personal Reality! Think of this as an upgrade to your Warehouse. Every factor has been improved for your convenience! Included in this package are a number of upgrades which can be purchased for Warehouse Points, as well as a number of pre-purchased items to reflect what you've already acquired from The Warehouse Supplement and the Housing Supplement. Included in this package you'll find 700 Warehouse Points, and each subsequent jump will earn you 50 additional WP. Below, please read and review the upgrades provided as part of the basic package. Holding each icon will give you greater details."

Starting Space [Free]: Based on your initial complaints about the amount of storage space, the Personal Reality begins with 64,000 cubic meters of storage volume, with a footprint of 6,400 square meters.

Additional Space [One Purchase Free]: Obviously, since you negotiated a greater amount, you've been upgraded, gratis, to the first tier of Additional Space. This increases you to 64 Million Cubic Meters, an eleven point six fold increase to the amount of space you have available. Do use it responsibly. Or don't. We're not your mother. Additional increases in size are available at the cost of 200 WP and will increase your volume by a factor of a thousand.

Loft [Free]: Feel free to build as high as the ceiling if you so desire.

Underside [Free]: In addition to your standard space allotment, you may create Basement Spaces with a total volume not to exceed one half the volume of your main space. These need not be contiguous, and connection links (Elevators, Chutes, etc.) are not counted unless used for storage.

Well, that was nice. More space for more… stuff… I guessed. I hadn't really been running out of space, yet… but I'd been using HP compression magic for storing stuff I didn't need all that much… like books. Holy shit did I have a lot of books. The Basement was nice… I wondered how I controlled that, but figured it would become obvious somehow… maybe a function added to VIvian or some command console somewhere.

Access Key [Free]: Your key is retained, but security on it is increased. You are now the only person who can remove the key from the lock and the key will reappear in your pocket within minutes if lost or stolen. Additional Keys can now be purchased at the cost of 50 WP each, if you desire to upgrade any of your companions to Key Holders. This gives them full access and, if they are killed, will transport them to the Medbay.

Entrance Hall [Free]: A five meter cube that acts as an atrium between your Personal Reality and your Host Reality. This is where you enter and exit your Personal Reality. Additional Halls may be purchased for 50 WP each. Warehouse Extensions can be linked to your Entrance Hall.

Portal [Free]: Your Portal function has been retained, and unattended portals will now close over a period of 3 minutes if you do not close them yourself before moving more than 10 meters from them. This closure function can be disabled if you desire it, but you will be unable to open a second portal if you have one open already unless you purchase the Portal Link Upgrade. Portals will open at their lowest size (8 square meters) and can expand to their largest size (80 square meters) in 10 seconds.

I blinked at that… shit… I was used to shrinking the portal down to much smaller than that to get around the stupid 'can't close the portal while you're inside the Warehouse' rule. Being able to buy more keys was useful… but the portal lock on minimum size was a pain. Out of curiosity, I looked over at the shelf of upgrades and scanned it for portal upgrades. I knew there were some, since they were all modeled after the nicknack of the Portal itself… yeah… one with a figure of a woman standing between two portals… Portal Link clearly… one with a portal hanging over the woman's head… maybe that one didn't need a flat surface?… a woman holding a rod toward a portal… some kind of control rod?… and one with a tiny portal… maybe that was the upgrade that allowed control over the size of the portal?

It was only a hundred WP. That wasn't so bad. Giving up something I hadn't paid for in exchange for some other upgrades I could deal with, I guess. I turned back to the list.

Pipes, Pipes, Pipes [Free]: Your plumbing system has been upgraded to provide your Personal Reality with enough capactiy to provide clean running water with any reasonable additives you might like to supply up to one billion litres per day at a default temperature of 25 degrees Celcius, and able to support a civilian infrastructure on the level of Tokyo or Mexico City. Hot and Cold running water is provided thanks to a synthesis with Who's Got the Powa!

Who's Got the Powa! [Free]: Although you installed your own power supply and didn't buy it from us, we applaud your creativity and pluck and hereby fiat back your electrical output to the level needed to supply a city the size of New York or London with power forever, with nary a brown out or power fluctuation.

Neutral Lighting and Environment [Free]: Basic lights, basic environmental controls. Air Scrubbing for CO2 and scents. We already did this for you… I bet you never even noticed. Also basic gravity.

Actually I had noticed. But it was nice to have confirmation, and getting the upgrade to my power supply and water was nice. I had no idea how they'd do all this or where stuff would be installed… but the Home Office could grant powers and abilities beyond the ken of man… they could handle a few water taps. At least I certainly hoped they could.

Security System [Free]: Anyone entering your Personal Reality from now on will be checked for any authorization level you've assigned them. Anything unauthorized will be flagged and you will be notified. Warning, a Keyholder's access cannot be limited by the Security System. Only distribute keys to those you trust implicitly.

Shelving [Free]: This option has not been upgraded.

Extranet [Free]: This upgrades your Local Net so that it can connect to the local equivalent of an external Data Network even in realities that don't have one… even if this means connecting to the local town gossip or a library.

A Month & A Button [Free]: As always, your time between jumps is limited to one month, but you can trigger Insertion early with this button.

Return [Free]: This has not been modified and your credits have been retained. A Return Door has been added to your Entrance Hall which leads to a small lounge where you can book your Returns in comfort.

Temporal Controls [Free]: This dial allows you to control how fast time flows inside your Personal Reality while you're not present. The default is 1:1, but with this you can dial it anywhere from 1:10 to 10:1 or turn it off completely with the new Stasis Function.

Medical Bay [Free]: This is the same old Medical Bay as before, but it can now do dentistry and provide a detailed medical history for each individual. A Companion Body Mod Pod can be bought for 100 WP.

Most of it was stuff I already had… but I guess there were new upgrades i could buy, so they had to establish basics… oh… hah! I grinned at Zane. "Didn't I fucking tell you? Companion Body Mod Pod! And they're going to charge me for it, those bastards. Graaaah… Fine. Whatever. I understand… vaguely…" I ground my teeth, then handed him the coins to buy the CBMPod. It absolutely had to be the first purchase.

Mini-Mall [Free]: Contains all the shops you purchased. May be upgraded to larger mall at the cost of 50 WP, which will expand the number of shops to 15.

Garage, Fuelling Station, and Big Garage [Free]: Your Space Dock has been upgraded to be able to store and fuel up to 200 land, air, or space vehicles. The maximum size of a vehicle you can store is currently set to 60 meters by 30 meters by 20 meters. This size factor can be increased by increasing the size of your Personal Reality. Since you currently have a spaceship that drastically exceeds the allowed limits, you have also been given the Big Garage, which has eight docks that can house anything you like, as long as it is a vehicle.

Cleaning Supplies [Free]: an infinite supply of any cleaning supply you might need for cleaning your personal Reality. All products completely safe for all higher lifeforms and guaranteed to kill 100% of all viruses, bacteria, amoebas, or household pests.

Basic Nutrition [Free]: This upgrade to your food supply guarantees a basic, if minimalist, food delivery for you and all companions once a week. It is all basic and staple foods.

Well… that was quite a lot… or not much of anything. Really, it was minor upgrades to some of the stuff I already had, and almost all of it was merely a way to tell me just how much I had that could now be upgraded. There were more than a hundred of the damned things, all of them costing points. I could jump for a thousand jumps and probably not get everything.

Still, I picked up a few useful things as I looked through the rack. There were many things I wanted, but I'd made due without them for now, I could continue mucking along.

The Companion Body Mod Pod was a must. As was buying back control over the Warehouse Portal. But I didn't buy the Aperture, as cheap as it was. Instead, I bought the Key Link feature, which would allow me to actually close the damned doors or portals while inside my Warehouse, then use a pedestal in my Entrance Hall to open the door or portal to anywhere I'd been in the Host Reality.

That cost me fifty, and I bought a key for Zane as well. Then I spent four hundred points on something called the Eternalizer. It guaranteed that anything that I wanted aging would age… like wine or cheese or growing plants… and anything I didn't want aging (Books, plastic… my sandwich) wouldn't. Of course, it only applied to things inside my warehouse… but it applied to everything in my warehouse… reality… whatever.

That left me with a hundred WP left… which I decided to save. Another two jumps and I could buy the VOWP (Voice Over Warehouse Protocol) which would allow me to use VIvian as a cell hub to keep in touch with my companions no matter where they were. Bonus!

After that, there was little to do but go over the books that I had. I'd left before the series was complete back home, so who knew how things were supposed to end in this horrible melodrama, but I was going to change that, so who cared. Still, the first book or two held details that would probably be more or less accurate until I butterflied too many events.

INSERTION

We dropped. It was raining and I laughed. I'd never conquered a world before… outside of Civilization where my people conquered millions of them, but mostly that had been done through cultural conquest or because they'd attacked us first. This should be interesting.

The drop had scattered us to our bodies… I wondered if there was a Riverworld Jump… and I found myself being introduced to the Court of the Lannisters, the Princess Sariel Jaynus, far from home and aren't you all so nice. They looked at me and smiled… what a nest of vipers. My eyes scanned the crowd and I nodded, finding Tywin, marking him. I was my most graceful, my most charming self. I finagled a letter of introduction to the royal court to meet Tywin's daughter, Queen Cersei and her husband, the King… and of course, her precious children… including Joffrey, the heir.

Tywin was a gracious, if cold, host, and he insisted on sending a train of guards and wagons with me to make certain that I reached the capitol at King's Landing in one piece. I graciously accepted, cursing slightly, but I rolled with the punches. That one just set me back a little, timewise, but minimized expenses. Tywin had already paid more than he knew by the time I'd left Casterly Rock, as I'd absconded with thousands of golden coins from his treasury, located and violated with the casual disregard for personal property that only a seasoned adventurer might have developed. The security was, of course, laughable.

The first night we camped early. I was fatigued (so I said) and I retired inside my wagon… then allowed AJ to bring me to the North, to just outside Winterfell. I transformed into my Asari form and became a creature of the night, flying swiftly through the darkness. The land was vast and I had only Yoiko's Map of the World to go by. It was not the most accurate thing, but it showed me the location of the Dreadfort, home of Roose Bolton and Ramsay Snow. Without appreciable effort, I landed outside the walls and made my way inside, a whisper of a memory to anyone who noticed, my traces scrubbed from their awareness with the merest application of magic.

I peered into many minds, finding the lord of the roost and his bastard son. One of them will not live to see sunrise… but it would not be Roose who suffered that night. I marked the lord, his chambers, his face… and as he slept I gave him a little invisible tattoo, in the small of his back. A present no one will ever know, a magnet that will draw misfortune to him… and him alone.

Next, I found his horrid illegitimate offspring, the Bastard of Bolton. Ramsay Snow didn't deserve it, but I made the kill quickly, a dose of powerful sedatives to still his heart. A tinge of remorse crossed my mind at the perversion of medical science, but I shake my head. The man was a cancer. I hung his corpse from a tree outside the Dreadfort and flayed the skin from his body after cutting off his manhood and feeding it to him. Who knew there were spells for both those things. I left a note on the skin of Ramsay's chest, stretched across a wooden frame hammered into the ground near the corpse. It said, "A Greyjoy pays a debt in full".

That was one. Zane drew me back to the caravan and I let him give me a hug. "Even after all these years, you don't have a taste for this, do you?"

I shook my head. "I kill those who need killing, but I never want to be the person who does so just because it's expedient. I looked into his mind. He'd done terrible things, would do more. Still, I gave him a merciful death… not the one he deserved."

The second night took me to The Twins, home of Walder Frey. I scouted there, but left him alive, for now. I did give him a gift as well, a cursemark that would make water his enemy in all the subtle ways it can be. If one of those marks brought the target down, all the better, but either way, they'd pay full price for their betrayals.

The third night took me back to Casterly Rock, and from there I flew north to Pyke. This time, the only marks I left were tracking marks. Sailors dwelling in islands are not easy to track, so I fabricated a few microsatellites and lobbed them into geosync to follow the various Greyjoys as I located them. It took most of the trip to King's landing to find them all. Balon, Lord of the Iron Islands, was the easiest and he led me to his daughter and heir, Asha, and his brothers, Victarion, Master of the Iron Fleet, and Aeron Damphair, a priest of the Drowned God.

Aeron's debt was light, at least for one of the Iron Men… a pirate, a rapist, and a fanatic and my plan does not require letting him live any longer than I need to. And so it was, on the night before we arrived in Kingslanding, I sent him to his god, letting the water of Pyke harbor take him.

For the next couple of months, I played the part of the curiosity at court, studying the goings on, learning their ways, making friends and enemies, especially among the priesthood. I took great pride in accepting all challenges with arms or games. Some I won, some I lost, being gracious in both victory and defeat. My status got me invited to many a party and I attended whenever possible, of course. More than one young noble tried something foolish and none of them left such an encounter without a scar to remember me by, though I don't kill any of them, a couple I mark for further action after reading the abuses of their past deeds from their thoughts and the thoughts of their victims.

Of course, my rebuffs and chastisements lead to challenges, but Westeros society was one that believed in the concept of trial by combat and in that land there were none who could best me, though I was damping myself down to merely human levels. Even if their weapons wouldn't break on my skin, my mastery of the sword is greater than any human could possibly gain in a dozen lifetimes. I have had centuries of enhanced learning and training, and I practice religiously.

Still, none who challenge me die by my hand. They were fools, fighting for the honor of would be rapists… I let them feel the sting of yielding… perhaps it would win them over to my cause and… maybe… teach them a lesson.

I did not save Jon Arryn from the poison that killed him. Things must be set in motion, after all. But, before he died, I do minister to his son, Robert. The boy was sickly, overprotected, and under the medical care of an idiot. Maester Colemon, the idiot in question, got his mind… adjusted… not a lot, but enough to where he will no longer bleed his patients. Useless and barbaric practice. Young Robert Arryn got a trip to my medbay and it's Calibrator one night after all are asleep. There his condition was analyzed quite extensively. Many treatments would be needed, but I prepared a cocktail of nanites and drugs which would strengthen his system and fight off all but the worst seizures. Even then, the severity would be eased. I presented it to his father, easing the man's suspicions until he overrode that lunatic, his wife. She too, got an adjustment, an easing of her (even for this world) paranoia, and a few little whispers that maybe she should start weaning the six year old. It was already getting a little incestuous as it was… and not in a cute way.

And that brought us to journey North, to the court of Winterfell and the home of the Starks. For a moment, the schemer in me wondered if I should allow Bran to fall, only to step in as a saviour and fix his broken back… but then I realized that I was thinking of using the pain and suffering of a little boy as a pawn-move… especially shameful considering that this was the son of the man I had sworn myself to aid and uphold.

No. Far simpler to give Jaime Lannister food poisoning… nothing kills the mood faster than the shits. He and Cersei would not be doing any of the incest at Winterfell. Still, I gave Bran a blessing to soften his falls. The boy climbs too much. The monkey in me chides me for saying it though.

Ned Stark and his family were lovely. Hard, yes… it was the North after all, and relatively simple… these were not sophisticated people… but his loyalty was like a beacon… I'd chosen right by picking him… His line will be exalted above all in my new world… and he'll need it, because Winter was coming… and with it the White Walkers.

I doted on the dire wolves, they were adorable. As were Ned's children… though Sansa had… issues. Still, she hovered around me like a moth, drawn to the exotic pointy eared princess, wanting to know all about my home and what being a princess was like. I told her that a princess must be strong, graceful, cunning, fiercely independent, never clinging too tight to a man, nor ever seeking his protection. I told her that a princess must be a pillar of strength, the equal or greater of her husband. He should be worthy of her, not the other way round. I push, not too much, stripping away her blinders gently to reveal that royalty is duty, not privilege, that marrying a man who was a prince did not mean that that man was princely. I taught her of noblesse oblige, the noble obligation to rule wisely and well. I was not so kind as I stripped away her blinders regarding Joffrey, her betrothed.

We left the North without incident to any of the children, though I did take a little too much pleasure in allowing Joffrey to get himself attacked by Nymeria (Arya's direwolf) after picking a fight with Arya and her friend Mycah, son of the Stark family butcher. I'd considered stopping the event from happening, but reconsidered, wanting to see if I'd made enough impact on Sansa, who in the story as written had sided with the prince instead of her family. This time she hesitated… a good sign. Still, I clouded her memory ever so slightly so she'd be uncertain of the details of the fight.

Jory Cassel, Arya's protector, wanted to send the wolf away, but I convinced him to trust me, then I cornered the little princeling (ostensibly to return his sword 'Lion's Tooth') to lay a powerful compulsion upon him to only tell of the attack by the boy, Mycah, and none of the rest of the tale. I knew I was risking the life of an innocent, but I had need… and ways.

I abducted the boy, placing him in cryosleep, then replaced him with a pig transfigured into the shape of a boy. The farmer I bought the pig from was most confused about me wanting such a scrawny one. I let Gregor Clegane, the Mountain, a monster in human form, hunt and kill 'Not-Mycah'. The ruse, as I figure it, was needed. Arya would gain strength from this… and a little caution. In the books, she was destined to become an assassin, hidden in darkness. In my world, she will become so much more. Real Mycah will be returned to his family in a few days time, once the caravan has passed, with all the proper explanations provided.

We returned to King's Landing, two lives saved, two lives improved, two lives taken. The scales were, for a time, in balance. Next to fall would be Gregor, but for that I had to wait until the Tourney of the Hand. I entered the melee and the archery contest, not wishing to interfere with the joust. I won 30,000 Dragons that day… Gregor killed Ser Hugh of the Vale with a lance, then attacked Ser Loras Tyrell (The Knight of Flowers, and third son of the Lord of the Reach, lushest of the Seven Kingdoms… and one of the few people from the books that I didn't despise) who'd bested him by riding a mare in heat to upset Gregor's stallion (idiot… always ride geldings into battle).

As Gregor rode from the tourney with seven of his men, heading home, I followed, with Zane and Kendra, out for a pleasant ride along the Goldroad (the way between King's Landing and Casterly Rock). I had another life to save and another life to end.

At a small alehouse in Rolling Ford, Gregor and his party stopped for the night, stymied from continuing west by the flooding of the ford. As the books had faithfully reported, The Mountain decided that raping the thirteen year old daughter of the proprietor would be jolly good fun. Unfortunately for him, I'd decided that killing him would be jolly good fun. My fun trumped his fun. I even made it a challenge for myself, not slicing through his armor or sword with Soul of Ice. I didn't even use the artifact, but rather one of the least powerful swords in my collection.

The man was massive, all psychosis and sadism and pure unfettered strength. But one cannot kill what one cannot hit… and even if he'd hit me with everything he had, he couldn't have harmed me. The fight wasn't in any sense of the word, fair. He had less chance against me than the Ale Man's Daughter had had against him. I took his hand… then, leaping high, plunged my sword into his left eye… it didn't stop him.

In the end, I had to bleed him dry with a dozen cuts and slashes, dodging his progressively more violent flailing. He truly was a mountain and he fell like one. Kendra and Zane had beaten back the knights who'd ridden with him, but killed none of them. I glanced their way, locking eyes on each of them to plant an imperial command, a geas that would force them to tell the truth of what they'd seen. Then I drove them from the inn and cut Gregor Clegane's head from his neck before riding back to King's Landing.

Word of my deed preceded me, and Eddard 'Ned' Stark met me at the gates of the city to ask me what I'd done. I gave report and passed over the head of Clegane. "A base rapist and thug, one who'd faced me in combat and lost, refusing to yield to the last." It was the law of the land, and I'd broken no law, though I could see Ned was worried about possible repercussions, since Clegane was a bannerman of the Lannisters. But I had other things to worry about.

Littlefinger was next on my list. Petyr Baelish, called Littlefinger, the Master of Coin on the Small Council of King Robert Baratheon, a womanizer and pimp, was cut down in the street for his purse. There were no leads on the man seen running from the scene and he vanished into the city without a trace. Alas. The city was scoured for the murderous cutpurse, and the King offered a reward, but there was little to be done.

Tyrion Lannister became the King's Master of Coin… which might have had something to do with my suggesting it. The absence of Baelish meant that when news of Daenerys's pregnancy with the child of Khal Drogo came, there was no voice but Cersei's promoting assassination… I'd seen to that. The King didn't push it, though I knew he'd secretly command Varys, his spymaster, to send the assassin anyway… his thoughts were an open book. Still, I needed Ned to remain the Hand of the King just a little longer.

And that would have been that. A civil war averted, nipped in the bud as it were. I could have happily lived out the rest of a ten year jump and been fine with what I'd done. I'd maneuvered myself into a fixture at court, I was a respected and feared warrior, but I wasn't done.

When the boar struck the King with what would have been an eventually lethal blow, I was there to save the King more than a little pain. Three more times that day I accidentally saved the quite inebriated king from misadventure. I was knighted for my bravery, and a few days later the King, acting on information brought to him by Ned, had Cersei and Jaime Lannister brought before him.

The king was in a towering fury, unaccustomed to being a cuckold and displeased to say the least to learn that none of Cersei's three children were his. He wanted them arrested, wanted them executed. Ned was the voice of reason. He had the King banish the Queen from the court and publicly striped Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen of their place in the succession, which no doubt saved their lives. He sent them back to their father with a note demanding easement of the Kingdom's debt to House Lannister. It was a calculated insult… and one I intended to push to war.

Making the Lannisters go to war was easy. Robert had all but bankrupted the Seven Kingdoms with his extravagances, and much of that money was owed to House Lannister. Lord Tywin wasn't a man who took slights easily… and all it took was a few midnight visits to plant and reinforce the idea that he'd be a better king.

Getting Ned to abandon the King was also easy. All I had to do was make sure he overheard Varys and the King talking about the assassination attempt… which had failed… against Danny and her unborn child. Ned was too much a man of honor to countenance that, and so he and his family headed back to Winterfell, leaving Robert all alone. Within a month there was civil war.

Within two, Tywin was dead and Jaime was Lord of Casterly Rock… I'd ridden out with the King's Army and personally smashed my way through the Lannister forces to bring the King Tywin's head. Perfect military information is a force multiplier the likes of which this world had never known. I was now the most feared knight in the realm and a general who'd won every battle… though the people spoke of dark magic. I soothed the emotions of those I needed, won over others. Jaime made peace with the King, and named Cersei's children as his heirs. All was coming along most ricky-tick.

Still, I went to the King and asked him to send me north with a force of those captured in battle (we'd taken over 6,000 prisoners), with which to augment the Night Watch on the wall. The King was amused.

"You're a fine lass, and no mistaking, but the Night Watch takes only men."

"I do not go north to join them, but to test myself beyond the wall. I've never seen it. It is said to be a marvel. And what lies beyond it are said to be the most brutal of savages."

And that's how I absented myself from court. I was a thousand leagues north when the king died, having drunk himself into a stupor and fallen from the ramparts of his castle. There had been witnesses to his stumbling walk. Puppeting the unconscious king had been… odd, but he while he wasn't an innocent, I didn't make him suffer. Stannis became King the same day I reached the Wall.

It was most impressive. The Night Watch didn't want to let me and my handpicked forces through into the lands beyond. We were only five in number. I invited Jon Snow to come with us, to act as a guide. We came with quivers full of obsidian (dragonglass) arrows and knives, and every Valyrian Steel sword we'd been able to find. We were hunting the White Walkers… and I had a target who lived beyond the Wall.

His name was Craster. When I staked him out in the snow, naked, I told him his sons, the many infant sons that he'd left out in the cold to die, sent their regards. I didn't stay to watch… but I did leave a tracker embedded in his skull. I may be a supervillain, but I'm not an idiot.

Finding the White Walkers wasn't easy. Making the Wildlings who lived in the area respect us was much easier. Agreeing to provide them with obsidian weapons against the 'Others' was a step. But largely they respected strength, and me and mine? We had strength to spare.

The White Walkers were, as advertised, extremely vulnerable to obsidian. Ridiculously so. The only question was were they as vulnerable to man-made obsidian as natural. Unfortunately, the answer was no… at least in the case of machine fabrication. The stuff crafted by magic… or my firebending… that stuff worked fine, keeping the essence of the fire that forged it. They very much were servants of the god of Ice and the fire of the volcanic glass was their kryptonite… but even more… icky. It made their magical flesh slough off at a sickening rate.

Agreeing to ship the Wildlings supplies and weapons made a tentative peace there, and then I marched south again, travelling much faster without my army of prisoners. My spies in Essos tell me that Khal Drogo is buying a fleet of ships to sail across the narrow sea. I rubbed my hands in glee. My legend is growing. If only the Iron Islands were between Westeros and Essos. But they weren't… which meant it was time to pay a few debts on the march south.

Roose Bolton was recovering from a broken leg when I visited him late at night. "Betraying your liege lord? Really? You think you're scary, just because your symbol is a flayed man? My only regret is that I cannot bring your entire family down by revealing your treachery to Lord Eddard."

He came awake, clutching his blankets. "I… I've never betrayed my lord."

"Oh, but you would… and in another time you did. Regardless, you practice First Night, don't you Lord Bolton… though that secret isn't known to Lord Stark. I could reveal that… but I'm certain you'd be able to worm your way out of it. No. Better my way, I think." The fire that consumed him was hot enough to melt the stones of the Dreadfort. I left the words "All Hail R'hllor" etched in the wall of the chamber, then moved on.

I sank every pirate ship out of the Iron Islands with waves summoned from the deep. One by one I took the heads of every adult male noble of the Iron Islands, from the lowest on up… one each night. I'd promised myself that if I could find one who wasn't an unmitigated bastard, I'd spare them. I didn't find that man. By the time I got to Balon Greyjoy, he was a cowering wreck. He asked the shadow that I'd become why I was doing this.

"You are House Greyjoy. You do not sow. Those are your words. Well, I am House Jaynus… I reap. Measure for Measure."

That just left Walder Frey, architect, in another time, of the Red Wedding. If you don't know what that is, I shan't tell you, but it warrants his death a hundred times over. I was merciful though. The poison I put into his wine did not kill him. It left him incontinent, crippled, palsied, and incapable of speech or the motor control needed to write. Some punishments should be lasting.

I could tell you how I married Renly Baratheon, then how I arranged for him to take the throne when I convinced Stannis to step down and take the post of Hand of the King… it suited him better. I never slept with Renly, he wasn't my type… and I certainly wasn't his, but he wasn't a bad sort and if I never complained about Loras Tyrell, he never complained of my proclivities either. I could tell you about how I faced Khal Drogo's invasion, how I beat down the fierce horselord in single combat, then how I lifted him back up and proclaimed him my brother, gifting him and his wife fine things and title to the holdings of the restored house of Targaryen. I could tell you how, over the decades, my empire grew steadily, slowly swallowing up the Free Cities, bringing the wild Horsemen of the Dothraki Sea under my sway. I could tell you of the long Winter, and how I led my people through it to the other side, largely with the help of the Hanging Gardens, and with the excess grain, how I extended my influence. But I won't.

Instead, I shall tell of how Ned allowed Wildling Settlements south of the wall, of how Mance Rayder became the new lord of the lands beyond the wall and bent the knee to the King of the North, a title I allowed as King's Landing became the seat of Empire. I shall tell of how Sansa went with Theon to reclaim and rebuild the Iron Islands and how he ruled… if not wisely, then well over his reinvigorated populace. She in turn became mistress of her mother's father's lands when the old lord of Riverrun died. I shall tell of how Robert Arryn grew up to be everything his father could have hoped, and how Arya became First Sword of the Empress. Bran married the Karstark heiress, Rikon became the new lord of the restored Dreadfort, and Jon commander of the Nightwatch… which in time became my empire's state police, the first of its kind in this world. I will tell how I demanded Joffrey be fostered at court and how, after many false starts, he learned not to be such a little shit. Tyrion Lannister, a staunch ally since I'd worked my ways on him to ease his pains (medicine can do only so much) was a great help as Master of Coin.

Ruling an empire of primitives… and make no mistake, this was a primitive age… was not hard. I knew who in my inner circle to trust and who not to. Time and again the suspicious raised arms against the Maegi Queen, but I dispelled their fears by claiming that I was heaven sent to bring the people into a new age. And then doing so. It was so much more satisfying being hands on this way, moving houses against each other, bringing prosperity and the rule of law. I did not build a dynasty, that is true, as I ruled completely through that three hundred year stretch… but by the end of my reign I'd taken the people of Westeros and Essos from the darkness of the 12th century to the dawn of the 20th, introduced them to modern medicine, actual courts of law, and… through very liberal use of telepathy, progressively stripped away all those who did not rule their people justly, wisely, and compassionately.

It was, by no means, a complete victory. It was, by no means, even close to canon. I had overturned the natural order and made mockery of GRRM's text. I was the Mary Sue to end all Mary Sues, at least in this time. But for every life I took, I made others better. For every injustice I made more justice. Does that justify anything? Of course not. I did what I did because I felt I had the right. Justification is meaningless. A life spared is not atonement for a life taken…. But those I killed were all murderers, rapists, and worse. I needed no atonement for what I did.

I left behind no heir. For the last fifty years of my reign I'd been moving the Empire more and more to a republic and announced that the 300th anniversary of my reign would see me step down in favor of the Prime Minister. There would be no more monarchy. In all honesty, none yet lived who remembered it except with me on the throne anyway… aside from my ageless companions.

I had the Iron Throne moved down to the beach for the occasion, and waited until time froze and the Pillars rose, confirming the 300 years were up. I tapped on one of them "Bring time back into play. Give me ten minutes." And I spoke to those assembled, the men and women, Giants and Forest Children, Dothraki and Westerlings and Freefolk, ones I had handpicked to lead wisely and well, and said my goodbyes. I left them all with a memory of us boarding a ship and sailing off into history… though in reality, the Pillars reappeared and we lugged the Throne through the portal into the Warehouse.

"Why are we taking this hunk of junk again? It's incredibly uncomfortable!" Zane complained as he poked himself on one of the sword points. The Throne towered three stories above him, looking all pointy and menacing.

"I need a memento. Plus, I'm planning on making it a recliner."

There wasn't a machine in the VMoD bay when we finished pulling the massive spiky Iron Throne through the portal. It wasn't that heavy, not with a-grav floaters, but it was still bulky and unbalanced and hideously ugly. No matter what the show may say, the real thing is three stories tall and grotesque. Honestly, the one on the show is nicer… but less challenging to make into a recliner. Instead of any way to purchase anything for the next jump, all there was was a note saying 'Get the Gang together and find your way. Let's Play.' It looked like one of those movie ransom notes where all the letters are cut out of a magazine. This was weird. We searched the entirety of my Personal Reality… no luck. We searched the ships in the Garage attachment just in case… ditto.

We slept on it. Well, everyone else slept. I sat in the dark between the sleeping Hibikis and considered. Gang… Gang… What Gang? Bloodhound Gang? The Warriors? The Sharks? The Jets? The Gang of Five? No… no… this was a mystery… there was only one Gang. I got up and padded into the living room, a bathrobe floating out of the closet to wrap around me. "VIvian?"

"Yes Mistress?" the nearest tree-branch said, voice like windchimes. As she spoke the air took on a richer tang of cherries in bloom, though at the moment only about a dozen blooms were growing. VIvian was always in bloom, fruiting, and growing… all at once. The only season she didn't experience was winter, for she was eternal in this timeless place.

I gazed at her branches and held out my hand, taking the fist-sized cherries she offered me. Was I right? I had to be. It was the only thing that made any sense. "Have we managed to pick up any copies of Scooby-Doo from any of the Earths?" I asked, "Like maybe from the Buffyverse, perhaps?"

"Yes, Mistress" she confirmed, voice slightly amused. "From several as it happens."

"Good…" I considered. This was a clue… leading to Scooby-Doo. "Is one of the episodes called 'A Scooby-Doo Clue' or 'A Clue for Scooby-Doo'?"

"Yes. Second episode from the first series."

"Play it please."

The episode began with the gang… on a beach… how appropriate. The baddy was a glowing sea ghost. The baddy's lair was a secret undersea grotto… accessible by sitting on a rock to trigger a switch. We had exactly three rocks in the warehouse that were big enough to sit on… all in the small zen garden. I called Zane, the closest we have to Shaggy, and had him sit on them in turn. The bigger ones didn't work… but the smallest did. It sank a few centimeters into the sand, then there was a rumbling sound and the biggest of the trio of rocks cracked open to reveal a smallish midway inside it.

Above the entrance, a banner proudly proclaimed 'Condemned', and the whole thing stank of disuse and decay, a combination of dust, mildew, and woodrot. Of course, even a small midway is bigger than a minivan-sized rock, but this whole reality was outside of all other realities… what did spatial logic matter? Zane and I entered, looking around in bemused amusement.

All the games were unmanned, looking as rundown and abandoned as they smelled. The light was provided by those few flickering dusty light-bulbs that still burned, but they popped and fizzed in a most disconcerting way. There were five booths, unmanned and cobwebbed, and beyond them was the grinning gapping ghoulish maw of a Fun House. It's marquee proclaimed 'ENTER IF YOU DARE!' complete with three exclamation points. The booths were Perkee-Ball, Whack-a-Drawback, The Continuity Balloon Pop, The Identity-Immerser (a Dunk-Tank), and a Ring-Toss that looked as if it were the gear section.

Zane chuckled, then draped an arm over my head. "Well sprout, I guess you were too much a supervillain last time. Now we have to solve mysteries as punishment."

I sighed. He wasn't wrong. Scooby-Doo type shenanigans might be amusing for a half-hour of viewing, or maybe a week or two as an event. But, "Ten years of this? I hope none of these things make us as stupid and gullible and as incapable of learning as Shaggy… I mean seriously… it was practically never a Ghost and he always got scared… This is what too many Scooby Snacks do to your brain," I grumbled, huffing out my breath. I was not sold on the wonder of Scoobing it up in the Doobiverse.

Zane, who you must remember, started life as a canine pokemon, drooled a little at the mention of Scooby Snacks and I had to hit him with a Whack-a-Drawback mallet. (Yes, had to. Moral imperative.) He lolled his tongue at me and grinned like a giant doofmonster. "It's not that bad. Right?" he asked after a moment, shrugging his broad shoulders and sitting down on the Skeeball… sorry, Perkee-ball chutes.

"Seriously?" I asked, then threw up my hands in exasperation. "All of the gang were pretty stupid at times. Daphne was a stereotypical blonde in most incarnations. Velma dropped her glasses all the time, then crawled away from them in her efforts to find them… instead of, you know, having a spare pair, or a lanyard. Fred… the trap-obsessed leader… often split the group or allowed himself to be locked in some room. I know it was for comedy, but they're all kinda morons."

Zane nodded, then grinned, "But that's just us, as viewers, thinking that. In universe, their meant to be smartiepants!"

"Zane…" I began, then shrugged. "I'd have to have brain-damage to act anywhere near that dim… Or a fiat backed drawback that made intelligence into a random variable or gave me perception filters or something."

He considered, then shrugged. "So whatcha gonna do? Suffer in silence?"

I considered, then walked over to the Balloon Pop. "I'm going to figure out which Scooby-Doo continuity we're going to first. That might make a difference… and wow are there a lot more Scooby-Doo series than I knew about." I picked up a dart and aimed for a red balloon, tossing the dart in an arc that meant it was dropping as it caught the only partly inflated balloon, since additional darts were three for fifty CP. The randomly chosen balloon exploded and a cloud of confetti and a token fell out onto the board beneath the balloons. I snagged it with my mind and tossed it to Zane.

"Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?" he read.

"I'm pretty sure that's the original, with the original theme song," I said. "That means no actual ghosts and or monsters."

"Well, that's good, right?" He asked. "Just criminals in masks."

"I honestly don't know. Less danger, obviously. But I imagine it's going to get old… and fast." As we talked, I wandered over to the dunk-tank, wondering what the point of it was. I was throwing the ball, not standing on the… whoa… that was weird. As I stepped into the thrower's box, I found myself split in two. One was sitting above a black, inky pool, unable to move, uncertain as to what I'd become, while the rest of me was standing there with a baseball in my hand, ready to make that choice.

Unlike a normal dunk-tank, this one had multiple targets, six of them, not one of which had any price attached, which I guessed meant they were all free to take. The targets were labeled 'Meddling Kid', 'Ralking Rog', 'Mastermind', 'Chef', Trapper', and 'Man in a Mask' and behind them were canvas broadsheets with bullet points like 'Good Problem Solver' or 'Good People Skills'. I considered, and rejected, Man in a Mask… I was too highbrow a Supervillain to be caught dead in one of those. I could go with Mastermind… but I already was one. I considered Talking Dog… noooo way. Chef it was. I like food. I braced myself, and nailed the center of the strike-plate, the ball snapping the metal disk backwards with a 'Ptang!'… and then there was only one of me, falling into the water.

A lid slammed shut above me, making me frown. I could apparate out of the tank, or blast my way out… but I wasn't exactly in any danger of drowning. I could breathe underwater just fine. I looked around the inside of the tank, spotting several glowing rings attached by cords to the bottom of the cistern. They all looked identical, so I grabbed one and pulled. The cord went taunt, then snapped, just as the front of the tank split open, dumping me back into the midway. As I willed the water away from me, I noticed that I was now dressed like Shaggy, and an examination of the ring showed me that it said I was twenty-one years old. Definitely too old for this shit.

Zane looked at me and grinned. "That looked like fun!"

I ignored him. With continuity and origin set, I had one priority… not having to suffer this Scoobification alone… and that meant Companions. I searched the Bottle Toss, looking for something that had to be there, this kind of Jump begged for it. And the Chain delivered. 'More Meddling Kids' was a bottle marked with a purple ring, which meant I'd have to pay (according to the cheatsheet on the counter) four hundred CP to buy a ring to toss at it (Three rings really, but if I nailed the first toss, I couldn't use the second and third rings on anything.) MMK might have been pricy, but it was the most generous import I'd seen to date, since there wasn't a limit on the number of companions who could join me with it. It simply said 'All'. That was very nice.

Each Companion I decided to bring in would be fitted a tracking device on a signature item of clothing in the event of kidnapping. They'd also gain the 'Run For Your Life' perk, which guaranteed that (when frightened or surprised), they'd gain a significant speed boost, and that (even under less terrifying circumstances) they'd still be a little faster than they used to be. That, plus any one perk priced two-hundred CP or less. As I didn't really have a plan for this world besides party, food, and mysteries, I figured I'd let the others pick their ability without any feedback from me.

Becoming a Chef had netted me the 'Enormous Appetite' perk as a prize for dunking myself I guess, can't really call it a freebie or gift with purchase. That meant I could eat as much as I wanted without ever growing more than pleasantly full and that overeating would not negatively impact my weight or waistline. Hurray! Lina Inverse I am! Best perk ever. On the other hand, I didn't particularly want the Chef Capstone 'Live Bait', but over in the Bottle Toss I'd seen 'Shaggy Super Sandwich Supplies' with a blue ring (two-hundred CP to play), which was an unlimited reserve of a massive variety of high-quality sandwich ingredients, condiments, and breads. Pretty much anything a person would want on a sandwich. I'd have to test that. I once made a sandwich that was a new-york strip steak and several strips of bacon between two slabs of chicken-fried steak. It was a steak sandwich.

There weren't that many perks on offer, just fifteen, which was fairly light for a jump with six origins. Still, it was enough to fill three Perkee-Ball units, and I aimed carefully and potted 'Talking Animals' with a 200-point ball so I could talk in Animal or Animalistic forms (just in case I ever become a werewolf), but also so I could talk to animals. I could already talk to Ziggy, thanks to the PMD jump… though mostly he just asked for treats, snuggles, or treats… but it might be useful. Another 200-point ball and another skillful toss got me 'Divide and Conquer', which was the subliminal ability to convince a group to break into separate, smaller groups when they're trying to accomplish a task… all without having to actually say anything. I can see the utility now… sneak into the enemy command tent, prompt them to divide their forces. Not sure I'll ever use it… but nice to have.

I should point out that the bottle toss and balloon pop and dunk-tank all had benefited from my improved aiming perks… but Skee-Ball? Ha! Even before I'd started jumping I could ring up a maximum score without even trying hard. I had been the queen of Skee-ball! Yeah… all those tickets, all those pixie-sticks and rubber spiders. What a good way to spend my allowance.

And speaking of spending, that spent me out… but I had to have Scooby Snacks… for Zane and Ziggy of course… and quite frankly, this Jump would be way too easy without drawbacks. A green-ringed bottle meant I'd have to spend a hundred 'Rhoice Roints' to get a lifetime supply of these 'Delicious' dog treats which promised I'd never want for food again (if I was a dog). There was even a sample plate that didn't look too disgusting. I tried one… it tasted stale, but somewhat like a butterscotch morsel. The label said 'These are an effective tool for bribing dogs, but may prove effective on other animals of lower intelligence.' I wondered if Ryoga would like some.

Since I was now in the red, I wandered over to the Whack-a-Drawback and read the scoreboard… then laughed. "Zaaane. You get to be in charge this trip."

He looked at me, head cocked "Why?"

"Because I'm taking Scatterbrained."

"What? Why?"

"Because I am a world class detective. This would be way too easy for me. I'd glance at things and get the whole story almost instantly. Plus… I kinda like the idea of taking an intellectual vacation. Anyway… how dangerous can this place be… this is based on the original series… Shaggy took a head-dive into solid metal and dented it."

"Dunno bout this, boss lady."

"Eh. It'll be fine. Everyone of us can take care of ourselves."

I hammered the Scatterbrained Mole, which gave me two-hundred points back even as it tanked my intelligence, making me prone to forgetting important clues or other details… and quite likely to reveal all gathered intel to primary suspects. I also bopped the Danger Prone Mole for another hundred, which made me the easy target / quick victim to frighten others. It would also make me the prime candidate for kidnapping and powerful hypnotic tricks. I was going to enjoy having my friends have to rescue me all the time. This would be fun! And just to complete the insanity, I flattened the I Can't See Without My Glasses Mole for a final two-hundred.

It was all in the name of fun, even if it was way more points than I needed and I really had no need for anything that was offered. I could, for instance, snag a robotic battle suit… or a dogbot… or… nothing jumped out at me. I shrugged. Nothing said I had to spend all the points, right?

I checked with the others. AJ, Ryoga, and Kendra all took 'Clue', which gave them a keen sixth sense for discovering evidence of a crime, an ability that was guaranteed to lead them right to nearby hints, but didn't do anything to help them interpret the information correctly. It was a good plan, over all, but each of them took it for different reasons. For AJ it was about reading people, for Ryoga it was about self improvement, and for Kendra it was about being a better hunter. I was far from certain how well any of them would able to use the clues when they found them… but AJ had Francine to fall back on… not that he was dumb, just impulsive… and Kendra knew enough to ask for help when she needed it. Ryoga… was Ryoga. Smarter than the average Boar or not, he was still Ryoga, and thus much more likely to use any clue he found to jump to the wrong (and often silliest) conclusion.

Dyna, the warrior-alien, took 'Divide & Conquer'. What can I say about that besides it was the obvious choice.

Petra & Joy both took 'Ventriloquism', which granted excellent vocal control, including the ability to throw one's voice and mimic others with ease, though it didn't improve their singing skill one iota. Joy took it because she deemed it would be useful… Petra took it because she thought it sounded fun. I had to respect both outlooks.

Francine, Yoiko, Uriel, and Zane all snagged 'Acting!', a limited form of Occlumency which made the taker quite good at concealing their feelings and motivations, and included a guarantee that they'd never accidentally reveal their goals to those they shouldn't… didn't prohibit stupidity, but Yoiko was a ditz, not an idiot… but then again I wasn't at all certain that Francine or Yoiko actually read the text, since they both seemed to think it would make them good actresses. Yes, I know, Francine is smart… but wise? Not really. Her level of introspection would actually place her lower than Yoiko on the self-awareness scale. Then again, maybe the perk actually would make them good actresses. Maybe hiding their motivations was what was standing in their way, or something. Who can say?

Ziggy and RayRay both selected 'Prehensile Tail', which allowed the tail on any tailed form to easily hold and manipulate objects. Of course, when I say Ziggy selected something, I really mean I selected it for him cause he seemed happiest with that when I offered him options. I even considered taking it too. My Infernape's tail was prehensile already… but my 'Dr. Snowjaeger' form's tail wasn't. But since I had telekinesis to fall back on, it wasn't really worth it. And of course, here I'm talking about TK as if it's a fallback, when the reality is that the prehensile tail is the last option, isn't it? I don't know. Too philosophical for my tastes.

In an awkward segue, and speaking of philosophers, Bao (and Ahab) took 'Talking Animals', Bao because he felt it might be 'enlightening' (whatever that means) and Ahab because, quote 'clues are clues'. Of course, in an effort to take it even further (and possibly because he missed his dog from way back during the language parasite incident… what can I say, Metal Gear's reality is fucking weird at times… Diamond Dog was a good boy… though he died in 2001 of age related complications.) Ahab decided he'd enter the jump as a German Shepherd, as that was clearly an option. Does this make him Venom Dawg?

And the last of my cadre? Toph took Enormous Appetite… pretty much for the same reason I did. We high fived. Good to have someone who appreciates life as it comes at them along for the ride.

INSERTION

Does the term 'The Load' mean anything to you? If not… well, that's what TVTropes is for. If you know it, then that's what I was for the entire jump. I was ditzy. I was constantly losing my glasses. I got kidnapped three times in one day once. I kept forgetting my powers… and when I didn't… I often overused them, demolishing buildings or using an HF sword to open pickle jars. I honestly don't know if Soul of Ice was strengthened by pickle-juice or mustard, but I seriously doubt it.

Since I was, in fact, almost completely useless… I thought I'd allow each of the others to tell you of our mysteries and adventures in their own words.

Petra's Tale: I liked this world. Resuming my original form and using it to terrify clueless mortals. Most enjoyable. Strangely, every time I was captured by the members of Mystery Inc., they were able to force me to transform back simply by pulling a mask I'm certain I wasn't wearing off my head. Very confusing. More confusing, the Mystery Inc. people never seemed to hold my repeated attempts to frighten them against me. They'd just go "Ooooh, Petra!" and laugh. I do not understand this place… but there are many tasty things to eat… though I am not allowed to chase 'house cats'.

Dyna's Tale: There were not enough battles. Very few Random Encounters, aside from 'house cats', which are not worth much experience. There were also too many sandwiches.

AJ's Tale: I like this place. Monsters try and scare us. I hit them in the face… their faces fall off, reveal people underneath. I hit them a couple more times and they beg for me to stop hitting them. Most satisfactory. I also enjoy fighting Mother's battles for her again. I am her sword. It is my purpose. Hitting those who try and take her away fills me with happiness. I do not understand where all these villains are getting such convincing rubber masks from. They do not appear to be available in stores.

Francine's Tale: I do not think this is a world for telepaths. Everyone is clearly mentally impaired. Perhaps there is something in the atmosphere that makes people who've debunked hundreds of fake monsters and ghosts continue to think the most obvious explanation is ghosts. Maybe it is something in the sandwiches. Mother is eating many of them and is quite not herself. That said, she is even more likely to give out hugs and much less likely to ask questions that have no answers in this state. I cannot tell if this is an improvement. Petra and Dyna believe we are being hunted by some kind of feline conspiracy.

RayRay's Tale: … Humans are stupid. Sandwiches are stupid. Rubber masks are stupid. Did I mention that humans are stupid? Because they are.

Ziggy's Tale: Ziggy good boy. Ziggy crawl in place. Find chewy fake-face. Claw man with chewy fake-face. Get treats. Ziggy good boy!

Zane's Tale: This was almost exactly like the Power Rangers Jump and the Great Detective Jump had a love child. Giant Robots, people in silly masks, insane plots, lots of mysteries… very few murders. Coming up with plans that almost never worked as planned was frustrating at first, but you get used to it after a while… especially because things always seemed to work out anyway… somehow. Once we didn't rescue EssJay for like… a week. That was a mistake. She was letting random strangers have access to high end technology. We couldn't take her key… but we did convince VIvian that anyone who came in with EssJay was probably holding her hostage. That solved some of the issues. Rescuing EssJay ASAP solved most of the rest.

Kendra's Tale: I suppose I should not criticize EssJay. She did save my life, and the world… and then a few more worlds after that. But she is most infuriating. A mixture of deadly serious and infantile at the best of times, on this jump she played the clown. Zane says that she is doing this to allow us to carry the spotlight more… but it seems to me that EssJay is simply abdicating her responsibilities as our leader. But then again, this world is just as infantile… though it does have its amusements. I now understand why Buffy and her friends called themselves the Scoobies. They were very silly (if strangely effective) as well. There are few real monsters in this world, even by the standards of a mundane world. It is as if this world has been sanitized of the worst that humanity can do to each other. Slavery, sexual assault, child abuse, war crimes… these are things this world barely comprehends. Drug use (outside of alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana) doesn't seem to be a thing here, and pipe smoking seems much more common than cigarettes. Also… there appear to be a great many more feral cats than normal.

Toph's Tale: We were in a city with streets of water… there was a turtle. We caught a criminal pretending to be a ghost. I ate some pizza.

VIctoria's Tale: There was no internet. All the humans were illogical. More than once, I was the culprit just to screw with the humans. It was most enjoyable. I should have done that more.

Atura's Tale: I enjoyed the sandwiches. There were many sandwiches. Many different meats. But I remain confused. Why are the humans of this world so disturbed at the thought of spirits walking amongst them that they use such guises to commit acts of aggression and fraud against each other? It baffles me.

Joy's Tale: So, this is what the seventies were like. I think it is lucky I died in the sixties.

Ahab's Tale: I liked the case where we went to Russia. There were dancing cossack ghosts. It was all a plot to steal… not secret documents or nukes or bioweapons… but gems from the Hermitage Museum. It was… fun. I am often being told that I need to relax more… to understand that the fate of civilization isn't always in our hands. The geopolitics of this world seem… strangely relaxed. There was a second world war… but no one really seems concerned about it, and as far as I can tell, very few people died. I do not understand this world. Also, even when I shoot people, it never seems to actually wound them.

Bao's Tale: So much like home, only more people pretending to be monsters and less insane martial artists. Still, the ratio of men in masks to insane martial artists seems about even… one every two weeks or so. Huh. Still, I enjoyed returning to China, especially the tomb of Emperor Qin. The Ghost Monkey that turned out to be an antiquities smuggler was actually a fairly decent fighter. EssJay gave me a kiss on the cheek when I rescued her. It was quite nice. Uriel sulked for a week. Uriel sulked a great deal more when I flirted with that adorable blonde boy.

Uriel's Tale: My benefactress having taken leave of her senses for this jump, it falls to me to record my thoughts upon this most… incomprehensible of jumps. The laws of nature and logic as I've come to know them seemed most… topsy turvy in this land. Money, which seemed the primary motivator of almost all the perpetrators we… apprehended, seemed to exist only in the conceptual. That is, we never seemed to be lacking in the wherewithal to travel, even as such a large group, and renting boats, eating at restaurants, and generally hoboing around as, if not wealthy, then well off young men and women… and Ziggy… who spent the entire time as a leopard. How could this be?

Another thing that baffles me is how such primitive cultures, without aid of magic or the advanced technology of, say, Starfleet… how they can make sound guided robotic subs or giant robotic dinosaurs, or rubber masks so believable. Astounding. Then again, the durability of practically everyone here is most amazing. Yoiko insists it is something called 'Rule of Funny'. Yet I see little funny in terrorizing the helpless… or the hapless. Still, the hijinks were, at times, distracting… although as a vacation spot, this world was (at most) amusing. Thankfully, approximately none of these so-called Monsters, Ghosts, and Fiends are even vaguely dangerous. Except Shaggy. I spent several hours in his presence once and now I find myself flinching at the sound of train-whistles for some reason.

Wasn't that fun!? I have the best friends! Also Velma has big boobs under her sweater. Good thing we get to keep her.

—

Oh god, my head. All those terrible memories of acting like an idiot. I'll be editing these memories for months. Dear lord… I was a twit. I also have over 18,000 new sandwich recipes…. Before combinatorics. Apparently I was a globetrotting Sandwich Savant… with a crowd of followers, handlers, and assorted lunatics. I was Shaggy's big sister… so it was my sandwich fortune which allowed Mystery Inc. the capital to take endless vacations, ship the Mystery Machine to foreign locales, and smoke waaaay too much refer.

Which I was doing too. A lot. Way too much. As in 'Smoke Two Joints before I Smoke Two Joints… and then I smoked two more' too much. I wasn't scatterbrained… I was fucking stoned off my ass. And I had the munchies for a decade. Insanity… This is twice I've spent an entire jump wasted.

Still, as I said, we've added Velma Dinkley to our number, which brings me to sixteen companions… officially twice the normal import limit. Zane told her the score, she seemed down for the adventure… and… more… if you know what I mean. Kids show or no… there was a lot of… non-mystery related hijinks. It was the seventies. Which reminds me of how much I loathe disco.

Still, I hope the next world provides more challenge… or at least coherent plot. Some fun is fun… but really… I could do without monster of the week for a while.

Next: Something Simpler

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Companion Body Mods, Part 2

#08 – Uriel Septim VII

Sex – Male [Free]

Proportions, Hair, Coloration – No Changes [Free]

Anomalous Level 1 [+100/1100]

Affinity – Heart [100/1000/1100]

Ascension [Free]

Waste Not, Want Not [100/900/1100]

Strength Level 0 [–]

Endurance Level 1 [50/850/1100]

Speed Level 0 [–]

Resilience Level 1 [50/800/1100]

Reflex Level 1 [50/750/1100]

Logic Level 2 [100/650/1100]

Memory Level 2 [100/550/1100]

Resolve Level 2 [100/450/1100]

Coordination Level 2 [100/350/1100]

Perception Level 2 [100/250/1100]

Charisma Level 2 [50/200/1100]

Appeal Level 2 [50/150/1100]

Empathy Level 2 [50/100/1100]

Flexibility Level 2 [50/50/1100]

Fertility Level 2 [50/0/1100]

#09 – Yoiko Hibiki

Sex – Female [Free]

Proportions, Hair, Coloration – No Changes [Free]

Anomalous Level 1 [+100/1100]

Affinity – Heart [100/1000/1100]

Ascension [Free]

Waste Not, Want Not [100/900/1100]

Strength Level 1 [50/850/1100]

Endurance Level 2 [100/750/1100]

Speed Level 1 [50/700/1100]

Resilience Level 2 [100/600/1100]

Reflex Level 1 [50/550/1100]

Logic Level 1 [50/500/1100]

Memory Level 1 [50/450/1100]

Resolve Level 2 [100/350/1100]

Coordination Level 2 [100/250/1100]

Perception Level 1 [50/200/1100]

Charisma Level 2 [50/150/1100]

Appeal Level 2 [50/100/1100]

Empathy Level 2 [50/50/1100]

Flexibility Level 2 [50/0/1100]

Fertility Level 1 [Free]

#10 – Ryoga Hibiki

Sex – Male [Free]

Proportions, Hair, Coloration – No Changes [Free]

Anomalous Level 2 [+200/1200]

Affinity – Body [100/1100/1200]

Ascension [Free]

Waste Not, Want Not [100/1000/1200]

Strength Level 2 [50/950/1200]

Endurance Level 2 [50/900/1200]

Speed Level 2 [50/850/1200]

Resilience Level 2 [50/800/1200]

Reflex Level 2 [50/750/1200]

Logic Level 1 [50/700/1200]

Memory Level 2 [100/600/1200]

Resolve Level 2 [100/500/1200]

Coordination Level 2 [100/400/1200]

Perception Level 2 [100/300/1200]

Charisma Level 1 [50/250/1200]

Appeal Level 2 [100/150/1200]

Empathy Level 1 [50/100/1200]

Flexibility Level 2 [100/0/1200]

Fertility Level 0 [–]

#11 – Bao-Feng

Sex – Male [Free]

Proportions, Hair, Coloration – No Changes [Free]

Anomalous Level 1 [+100/1100]

Affinity – Heart [100/1000/1100]

Ascension [Free]

Waste Not, Want Not [100/900/1100]

Strength Level 1 [50/850/1100]

Endurance Level 1 [50/800/1100]

Speed Level 1 [50/750/1100]

Resilience Level 1 [50/700/1100]

Reflex Level 2 [100/600/1100]

Logic Level 1 [50/550/1100]

Memory Level 2 [100/450/1100]

Resolve Level 2 [100/350/1100]

Coordination Level 2 [100/250/1100]

Perception Level 1 [50/200/1100]

Charisma Level 2 [50/150/1100]

Appeal Level 2 [50/100/1100]

Empathy Level 2 [50/50/1100]

Flexibility Level 2 [50/0/1100]

Fertility Level [–]

#12 – Kendra Young

Sex – Female [Free]

Proportions, Hair, Coloration – No Changes [Free]

Anomalous Level 1 [+100/1100]

Affinity – Body [100/1000/1100]

Ascension [Free]

Waste Not, Want Not [100/900/1100]

Strength Level 2 [50/850/1100]

Endurance Level 2 [50/800/1100]

Speed Level 2 [50/750/1100]

Resilience Level 2 [50/700/1100]

Reflex Level 2 [50/650/1100]

Logic Level 1 [50/600/1100]

Memory Level 1 [50/550/1100]

Resolve Level 2 [100/450/1100]

Coordination Level 2 [100/350/1100]

Perception Level 2 [100/250/1100]

Charisma Level [–]

Appeal Level 2 [100/150/1100]

Empathy Level 1 [50/100/1100]

Flexibility Level 2 [100/0/1100]

Fertility Level [–]

#13 – Joy Bahs

Sex – Female [Free]

Proportions, Hair, Coloration – No Changes [Free]

Anomalous Level 2 [+200/1200]

Affinity – Mind [100/1100/1200]

Variable Form [300/800/1200]

Ascension [Free]

Waste Not, Want Not [100/700/1200]

Strength Level 1 [50/650/1200]

Endurance Level 1 [50/600/1200]

Speed Level 1 [50/550/1200]

Resilience Level 1 [50/500/1200]

Reflex Level 1 [50/450/1200]

Logic Level 2 [50/400/1200]

Memory Level 2 [50/350/1200]

Resolve Level 2 [50/300/1200]

Coordination Level 2 [50/250/1200]

Perception Level 2 [50/200/1200]

Charisma Level 0 [–]

Appeal Level 1 [50/150/1200]

Empathy Level 1 [50/100/1200]

Flexibility Level 1 [50/50/1200]

Fertility Level 1 [50/0/1200]

#14 – Ahab Bahs

Sex – Male [Free]

Proportions, Hair, Coloration – No Changes [Free]

Anomalous Level 2 [+200/1200]

Affinity – Body [100/1100/1200]

Ascension [Free]

Waste Not, Want Not [100/1000/1200]

Strength Level 1 [Free]

Endurance Level 1 [Free]

Speed Level 1 [Free]

Resilience Level 1 [Free]

Reflex Level 1 [Free]

Logic Level 1 [50/950/1200]

Memory Level 0 [–]

Resolve Level 2 [100/850/1200]

Coordination Level 1 [50/800/1200]

Perception Level 1 [50/750/1200]

Charisma Level 1 [50/700/1200]

Appeal Level 0 [–]

Empathy Level 1 [50/650/1200]

Flexibility Level 1 [50/600/1200]

Fertility Level 0 [–]

Resistance [300/300/1200]: Your form resists detrimental changes directly caused by supernatural means. The more detrimental an effect would be, the easier it is to resist them. A spell just causing you to fall asleep will affect you as if this power provided no resistance at all, but a spell ripping the soul from your body, a reality warper trying to will you from existence or killing your past self will achieve nothing more than causing you phantom pains and fatigue that will fade over time.

Combat Shifting [200/100/1200]: You cannot be prevented from Changing your form by anything outside of Jump fiat and change between forms quickly enough for Shape-Shifting to be combat viable.

Agelessness [100/0/1200]: You will not age beyond your prime biologically and, if already past it, slowly rejuvenate until you effectively are in your prime once more.

#15 – Toph Bei-Fong

Sex – Female [Free]

Proportions, Hair, Coloration – No Changes [Free]

Anomalous Level 1 [+100/1100]

Affinity – Mind [100/1000/1100]

Ascension [Free]

Waste Not, Want Not [100/900/1100]

Strength Level 0 [–]

Endurance Level 1 [50/850/1100]

Speed Level 2 [100/750/1100]

Resilience Level 2 [100/650/1100]

Reflex Level 2 [100/550/1100]

Logic Level 2 [50/500/1100]

Memory Level 2 [50/450/1100]

Resolve Level 2 [50/400/1100]

Coordination Level 2 [50/350/1100]

Perception Level 2 [50/300/1100]

Charisma Level 0

Appeal Level 0

Empathy Level 1 [50/250/1100]

Flexibility Level 2 [100/150/1100]

Fertility Level 1 [50/100/1100]

Regeneration [100/0/1100]: You gain the ability to slowly regrow lost limbs and organs over time. This does not increase the rate of healing, prevent you from bleeding out after losing a limb if you don't get immediate attention, or help you to survive until a regrowing organ can fulfill its task again.

Note to self… never ask the-Powers-that-Jump for an end to Monster of the Week hi-jinks. They will interpret that as a request for more monsters. Case in point… the next Jump. The Machine had four letters… RWBY. A decade… saving the world from Grimm. In the Grimm Grimness of Remnant, there is only Dust? Something like that. Had to wonder if this would follow the original timeline as envisioned by RWBY's creator, Monty Oum, who had died during production of the third season… which I'd never finished watching due to reasons… that reason being trauma.

Well, at least it will be nice to meet Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Yang, Nora, and Penny and have a chance to meddle a bit, save some lives, give some hugs. Over-all, this should be a fun… ish… jump. Lots of fighting but not constant. The jump's start date was a year before the show began… time enough to get the lay of the land and put my plans into motion… once I figured out what my plans would be.

And speaking of the land, I spun the wheel of location… Note to self… read all the locations before doing so… 'The Middle of the Ocean'. Seriously? I was going to start in the middle of the freaking OCEAN!? There had better be a boat there or I was going to be ice-skating and wave riding all the way to shore… subtle it wouldn't be. Crap. It might be worth paying for a relocate… I set that aside for later consideration as I tossed the GrimmDice of age… 15… well… that was not unexpected. The age range for that jump was essentially 15-17. Yay, highschool once again.

Before I could continue, a pop-up appeared on screen: "You have 200 WP unspent. Would you like to access the Personal Reality Purchase App?" I blinked. That's right. I did! I'd saved a hundred from the build because it hadn't been enough to get what I'd wanted, and it had now been two complete jumps since then, with my account gaining fifty each time.

I agreed to bring up the app, then, double checking my purchase list and the logic I'd used to prioritize it, selected the VOWP Cell Service. Voice Over Warehouse Protocol was an Extranet upgrade that hooked me and my crew up with fiat backed cell phones that were fiat backed to connect to the Warehouse and to any other phone on the network.

As soon as I confirmed the purchase, zeroing out my WP balance, there came a thud and a rattle, and then the humm of electricity surging through a large display-type vending machine. I glanced to the right and beheld exactly that, one filled with Nokia bricks, iPhone and Galaxy smartphones, with RWBY-style Scrolls, Star Trek TOS-era communicators, and Maegi-style Prayer-Beads… plus SIM cards in half a dozen styles and charge cords galore. Yeah, I know. Bogus that the phones weren't themselves fiat-backed never to run out of charge or not break, but that was a fairly minor issue. I could easily install power cells into them that would last slightly longer than a human lifetime.

What's a Maegi-style Prayer Bead, you ask? Little joke. A Prayer Bead is a communicator that mounts on the temple and looks like a half-dome, or a semi-sphere in its off mode. It could project solid-light lenses over the eye or ear (yes sonic lenses are a thing) on that side of the head. Sure, the Maegi had had cybernetic implant technology, but typically preferred not to install smart-tech inside their bodies for security reasons. Dumb-tech, including neuronal sheathing, which allowed much greater MMI to dermally mounted technology, was very common. Oh… MMI is Man-Machine Interface. Sorry.

Shifting back into RWBY mode, the first thing I did was check for Faunus Origin, only to discover that it was a bonus drawback background that could be taken with any of the other origins. I guess that made sense, since the others were Student, Criminal, and Military… and, of course, Drop-In. Which I took, making me a Drop-In Faunus in the middle of the ocean. A Ferret Faunus. Because I could be. Pointy-teefs and all the ears… I wondered if kleptomania or random napping would be part of the package… then realized that I was already a bit of a kleptomaniac who took naps at pretty much random. As a Faunus, I got 'Night Vision' for free, but was forced to take the 'White Fang Woes' drawback for no points. Woo. Oppressed minority! Get! Also a hundred CP, putting me at eleven-hundred.

Looking through the Perk trees, I found myself impressed. The jump was full of potential… way more than I'd be able to afford even if the drawbacks were generous. That said, the Drop-In Capstone, 'I Should Be Dead by Now' is definitely a steal at its discounted price, providing a double strength Aura pool and allowing Aura to not only be used defensively as in the show by 'hardening the vitals in response to bodily trauma' but to enable regeneration to repair the body to its natural state. If it increased the rate of Aura regeneration, it would have been perfect, but no one was exactly certain how Aura regenerated or what controlled why some people regenerated it faster than others.

For those not in the know, Aura is the thing that allows the humans (either regular or faunus) of the world of Remnant to fight the monstrous Grimm on an even footing. Before the rise of Dust Technology and the unlocking of Aura, most of human civilization this world had been wildly outclassed, driven out of most of the land into four tiny nation-states and placed in extreme threat of extermination for reasons Monty Oum never lived long enough to explain but probably had a lot to do with the Wicked Witch of the series, Salem. At its most basic, Aura is the light of the soul, and provides a quasi-tangible forcefield around the individual, one that protects them from harm, up to and including blows that would normally kill a human being such as bullets, swordstrikes, or explosions… or just falling from dozens of stories up. But an aura could also be unlocked, making it many times more useful… and dangerous.

Aura unlocking allowed humans to use 'Semblance', a tangible projection of an individual's Aura to create an utterly unique to the individual ability. Semblance was an Aura User's Ace in the Hole, their Limit Break, their Musou Mode, their Bankai. Using it meant the gloves were off. The main cast showed telekinesis, superspeed, super strength, magnetic manipulation, glyph generation, electrical conversion, and pyrokinesis. Of course, the machine offered no less than six Semblances for purchase, each of them intriguing in their own way. One of them was even free, and taking any one of them (and one could only have a single Semblance) netted the taker with three years of experience with that mode of personal expression.

As a way of showing just how nice they were, allow me to present the Drop-In Semblance 'JAM'. The light of the individual's soul has given the Jammer the ability to say 'that is not so' to the very laws of reality, allowing them to interfere with the powers of others, starting by making Aura users stumble and Grimm trip over their own weight, but working up to dispelling supernatural properties entirely. While magical / supernatural / paranatural abilities were the main focus of JAM's jamming, it wasn't limited to them. Objects and places could be affected just as easily, and even scientific / technological tricks could be countered with enough effort. Ha! I Jam your Radar, Darth Helmet!

It was tempting as hell… but… while buying a Semblance outright would give me the unlock and years of practice… It would be allowing whoever or whatever had crafted this particular set of perks and powers to imprint something less than unique upon my soul. If I didn't take the easy way out… there was a chance I would never find my Semblance… but plenty of people in this world found them just fine. No… I'd rather take my chances and find my true semblance, the expression of my true self than take some cookie-cutter mass produced thing. Plus, not buying into a Semblance and totally failing to unlock my own would mean I'd default to the free Represent Semblance which could duplicate a fraction of the Semblances of all I'd managed to synchronize with in my sojourn in this world.

If Semblances and Aura were half the reason to come to Remnant, the other half were the Variable Weapons used by the Hunters… those who fought back the Grimm to protect humanity… you know… the main characters. Ruby Rose used a combination Sniper-Rifle & Scythe, Nora Valkyrie used a Grenade Launcher-Sledgehammer combo… hell, one character used a Gatling Gun in a Makeup Case… and yes, she routinely clobbered people with her case. As a Jumper, I got such a Variable Weapon for free, and could, for the pitance price of twenty-five CP import previous weapons into this variable form. No decrease in performance, guaranteed. Heh… Nice.

Figuring I might as well embrace the insanity, I hit the import button and a hopper appeared next to me with the instructions 'Please Deposit Weapons to Combine Within'. So I did. I tossed in Shelob's Bane (my Elfin Elemental Mithril Protonic Rifle, built with Mass Effect and Star Trek Technology, shaped with Elfin weapon craft, and enchanted with both Elfin Enchantments for utility and Samurai Jack Enchantments for increased lethality) and Soul of Ice, my Goblin Sword from Harry Potter. The two became a flowing vortex of eldritch fire and the hopper's sign now asked if I'd like to apply any other modifications to the gestalt before merging was complete.

As it turned out, I did so desire, and for twenty-five CP more I streamline the resulting gunblade, making it lighter, smaller, faster, with better balance, and for fifty CP more programmed the hopper to install a Dust Chamber to go with the total of sixteen Materia slots Bao and Uriel had installed in the two base weapons back in Final Fantasy VII. The Dust Chamber would allow me to charge my attacks with premium elemental energy propellant (i.e. Dust) and six free reloads came with the purchase, bringing me down to seven hundred Choice.

Since I was already exploring the freebies, I checked the actual item section and found that I also got an Iconic (and soon to be soaked in salt water) Outfit, an Iconic (hopefully not salty) Theme for whenever I do something amazing or when things get serious (and seriously… is this supposed to just play from a nearby radio? Because having an amazing leitmotif just doesn't work in real life), a Scroll (this world's version of a smartphone as I mentioned above), and 200,000 Lien (cash) which is apparently enough to rent a flat for two months or eat out regularly for three times as long… better get into an academy fast. Part of me wonders why the hell life-changing powers are so cheap, but money? Eh. Who would want that? I'm not asking for unlimited funds, but the makers of these things seem to think it's fun watching a jumper scramble for cash, even when they're a fifteen year old high school student.

Do you know how often I've had financial problems in the past twenty-seven jumps? Discounting ones where I've been subsidized by outside forces like the Elder Scrolls where a god was footing my bar-tab, Lord of the Rings where I was the daughter of an Elfin king, Mass Effect and Generic Zombie Apocalypse where I was working for the Government, and Civilization or Song of Ice and Fire where I had the backing of an entire nation that I was technically ruling, there were many others where I had to work a day job just to get by… or resort to a life of crime.

In Pokemon Trainer, I lived off of challenge funds, but still had to work regularly at odd jobs, though in that case the world was designed to allow trainers to fund themselves thusly. In Infamous, I survived by working until I'd stolen enough money from the gangs to drop off the grid and become a reclusive author. In Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, I was running an emergency response team and thus a public servant. Harry Potter I was a rich kid at school. Star Trek was post scarcity, but I was again a government employee. Ranma saw me working in a restaurant before getting my own TV show… and that is work, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Bastion was a time loop of less than two weeks. Swat Kats I ran a semi-legal corporation. Great Detective I had to rely on bounties and stealing funds from criminals. Sentai Special the school district refused to fire my ass for silly reasons. Buffy I had funding from my parents until I could get a job, but yeah, I worked while trying to save the world. Metal Gear I was a mercenary but even then I had to start a global corporation to make ends meet. Mother lacked an economy. Kill La Kill was a damned lean decade, let me tell you. Avatar one I was a nomad or lived in a palace with a friend. Avatar two I was a nomad and the second most holy figure in the world. Disney Princess and Samurai Jack had a lot of adventures and theft to make money… and Scooby-Doo I was a Sandwich Heiress… because Scooby-Doo makes bugger all sense.

So yeah… money's been a thing. Never as bad as in my world of origin because I seldom had responsibilities or had to worry about property taxes or being totally homeless and hungry if I ran out of cash… but that was because I'd been smart about building up bulwarks against that. I had gold reserves and technology and a warehouse. I had friends who were willing to support me with their own work. I had resources that renewed themselves, even if it wasn't a particularly large amount. A bag of gold coins only goes so far. Gold coins are typically a lot smaller than you think they are, and if they're big, they're usually low purity.

Speaking of precious metals, color based names are a thing in the world of Remnant, so I chose Silver Jade, my email address back on Origin and one of my favorite Cyberpunk characters as my name… though she wasn't a ferret since I'd been in my obsession with foxes period… and ferrets weren't legal in my state when I created her.

Since I'd already left the realms of Perks, I figured I'd take a look at what options were available for companion import, confident that there would be some. The four man (woman) band was a major theme of this world. It would be freaking weird for there not to be a way to make one of Jumper and Companions. Of course, I was right. Friends Unforgotten was right there, waiting for me and my three-hundred Choice, getting me eight import slots to be filled by human or faunus of any background, each with four-hundred Choice of their own to spend. I posted the printouts on the warehouse bulletin board and told the others that they were to hash out who came with and why.

Since I now had more than twice the number of companions that most import options allowed at any one time, I figured that taking perks, items, or powers that allowed me to uplift others was more important than ever. At this point, really all I could do to boost others was to cyborg slash nanobot them, teach them BuffyVerse Magic or Martial Arts, or give them power-armor. Well, RWBY added to that total. For three-hundred Choice I scooped up the Aura Booster, a premium item that allowed me to unlock the Auras of the uninitiated… or temporarily boost the Auras of Aura Users. I could now turn anyone into a Hunter with the potential to discover their own unique Semblance.

I was, at that point, running out of Choice fast, having only a hundred left and already nixing things from my list that I'd really like. That meant it was time to look at Drawbacks… Only then did I discover that there was a limit of two for a maximum of six-hundred… and the options were far from ideal. The six-hundred pointer 'I May Fall' was a world-ender that stripped me of powers and half my memories. The three-hundred pointers were a mixed bag of power-drain and scaled enemy combined in 'A Maiden's Heart', evolving enemies in 'Evolved', idiot allies in 'Activist', and informed incompetence in 'Aura, Aura, Aura'. The two-hundred pointer 'Cinder's List' would ruin any plans to change the plot, 'Ranked' was smarter Grimm with tactics, 'Bigot' would tank my social skills, and 'Dust Allergy' could be fatal. That left the hundred pointers… and half of them sucked too! 'Motion Sickness' tanked maneuverability, which was suboptimal in fighting a global war against powerful enemies… it would even negate my acrobatic skills and flight powers. Sooo worth more than a hundred. 'Smooooth' was 'Bigot' lite. And 'White Fang Woes' I was already forced to take for no points. Which left me 'Marked'. Well, shit.

Marked got me my hundred Choice at the cost of making me the Grimm's target of preference. It did not, however, make them more powerful. Effectively, all it meant was that I'd have to fight more than my share, which I guess would stop me from trying to white knight everyone else or something. Well, so much for Drawbacks.

Tossing out everything expensive I had left on my list, I bought a Dust Kit for fifty Choice, giving me an assortment of elemental energy propellant, processed Dust crystals, Dust laced rounds for my gun, Dust dust for whatever… enough Dust for six months of regular use. Dust was elemental magic made manifest, and thankfully, unlike the funds, it refilled once emptied, and nothing said that I couldn't sell the Dust and live on the proceeds… though I might need a license. According to the notes, there were four basic colors of Dust; fire red, ice blue, wind green, and electric yellow. They could be combined to make new variations and Dust augmentation could increase the effectiveness of weaponry and ammunition, and could apply special bonuses when combined with Semblances.

There were also a set of four Skill Books, three of which were free for the three origins I hadn't taken. 'Dust for Dummies Pro' was for Students and taught how to use and mix Dust or make your own in worlds where it couldn't be mined as it was on Remnant. 'Aura for Everybody' was for Criminals and was an instruction manual for getting the most out of Aura augmentation and even allowed a master to implant Aura into things like robots. 'A Guide to Grimm' was the Military skill book that covered punching monsters to death, Grimm or otherwise. As long as any three of my companions were a Criminal, a Student, and a Military person, we'd all gain access to those three without having to pay anything extra. If one of those slots was unfilled, I'd worry about it later… but the Drop-In skill book couldn't be gotten for free, which meant that if I wanted 'Bigger on the Inside' and the miniaturization techniques it enabled… Bazookas in bottles… cars in cupholders… I'd have to pay the fifty Choice for it, leaving me back at a hundred. Shame Bigger on the Inside doesn't do anything to reduce the weight of the object… but combining it with HP magic, I should have no problem making some very interesting items.

Completing my build, I bought Intellectual, which would allow me to cram as much studying into a coffee break as a normal person could fit in an all-nighter. Sure, I could have taken the Bigot drawback and bought something more powerful… but I just don't think I'd enjoy being taken as a Faunus Supremacist. There were enough assholes in this world as it was.

Finalizing my purchases, I wandered into the lounge to find the others. "Okay, who's coming, who's staying… Are you playing Risk to see who gets to come with me?" As it turns out, the games would continue over the next two weeks. There was a tournament roster… though Ziggy got a bye since he couldn't possibly compete in any game more advanced than Candy Land. RayRay and Francine bowed out, claiming they couldn't be bothered (which unfortunately eliminated the chance of 'Team JMPR'… not that we had an M). Dyna, hyper-aggressive as always, went down fast in every round… restraint and planning are not their strong suit.

Velma, since it was her first time, had been given a handicap, so she'd managed to skate through, barely beating out Ahab for the first slot… which had apparently been in Clue. Joy won the Risk tourney to clench the second slot. Zane snagged the third by clenching the Magic: The Gathering tournament. Toph won at Poker, nabbing the fourth. Ryoga managed to edge out his sister and Petra in Arm Wrestling to get the fifth. The sixth went to Bao in a brutal Street Fighter VIII Unreal showdown. Uriel managed to defeat Kendra, Ahab, and Petra in that order at Duel Masters to clench the seventh and final companion slot…. then turned it over to Ahab.

"A decade of fighting for survival seems more your style, young man… plus, there's a weapon you might want," was all he offered by way of explanation as to why he'd competed so hard for something he didn't personally want.

It took another week for them all to make their picks… mental note… don't try to get a Ziggy to make choices… almost every option will be followed by enthusiastic approval… even if you offer him choices which would be bad.

"Ziggy? Do you want to be a slug for this jump?"

"Ziggy want!"

See what I mean?

Ahab, Zane, and Ziggy decided to join me in Drop-In Land (well, Ziggy didn't so much volunteer as volentold), Velma and Joy came in as Students, Toph decided to be a Criminal, just to see the other side of the law, and Bao & Ryoga went Military. Ahab, Zane, Velma, and Toph all went to The Faunus, each for their own reasons. Toph (a Badger) because it would help her background, Ahab (a Viper) to better embody his 'Snake' persona, Velma (a Calico Cat) because it was cute, and Zane (Rottweiler) because he missed his ears in human form. Takes all kinds I guess.

Zane took Landing Strategy (the ability to plan a relatively safe landing for any fall of five seconds or longer.). I pointed out he is a firebender, a group known for being able to create jets of flame to soften their landings, but he countered with, "Sometimes it's really cold… or I don't want to burn what I'm landing on." which was a damned good point. He also took Stubborn,giving him increased 'death' resistance, and the ability to ignore mortal damage once. I pointed out that he was a Mon and just faints upon taking critical damage. He countered with, "Yeah, but that sends me back to the Warehouse until the Medbay can patch me up. That's several minutes where I'm out of the fight." which was another good point, though still better than the twenty-four hours for non-Mon. And he combined the Space-Sword with a Krogan Energy Shotgun… then boosted that poor Jian into a Explosive Heavy Weapon with Dust Chamber and Dust Focusing… in addition to the Fire Elemental Spirit bound into it and the Materia Slots. Oy. Subtlety your name is not Zane.

Ziggy also got Landing Strategy & Stubborn… and an item called Team Tag, which essentially makes him the fifth man… ferret… of our team (Silent Letter) but also carries over to future jumps, allowing him easier access to social circles… very useful for a fuzzbeast. He was a White Grimm Ferret… about the size of a St. Bernard. And just because I was doing his purchasing and I thought it would be hilarious… I bought him the unique Variable Weapon called 'The Four-Chain'… a chaingun, chainsaw, chainwhip, chainmail… thing. It was a terribly insane abomination of a weapon to wield normally… and even more insane a thing to give to a creature that barely understood the concept of using the bathroom, let alone friendly fire. But every trained attack ferretoid should have a chainmail chaingun. I may have issues.

I finally learned what Uriel was talking about, because Ahab took the 'The Ahab Special' a repurposed Ship's anchor cannon which fires sturdy grappling harpoons from the shaft with strong pinning chains. With pitons in the shaft, the Ahab transformed into a formidable turret bunker. And embodied as it was with the spirit of a hunter-tracker, it granted him uncanny tracking abilities, making him excel at capturing and hobbling great beasts… or vehicles. He also snagged Landing Strategy and Stubborn.

Velma got Intellectual for free, as well as the skill book I mentioned earlier.. For her variable weapon, she decided on a helmet with laser beam, heads up display (and built in glasses) that turned into a baseball bat. Very strange, but she's new at this. I mean… does she not realize that using the bat means no glasses? Or that she no longer needs her glasses thanks to the Companion Body Mod Pod. As for her actual CP, she spent her points getting 'Abs' which made her more aerobic, physically fit, and dexterous than before… as well as more prone to midriff-baring outfits and puns for some reason. I'm not sure this was good, but her being tougher is definitely a good idea, and it certainly didn't make her any less attractive. She also took 'Remnant Arcana' which made her a master codebreaker, mystery finder, and translator, allowing her to learn dead arts twice as fast, as well as making her a better Magic or Dust Arts user for it. I suspect she'll be really dangerous one of these jumps. Assuming she survives this one. Not that she can actually die any more, I guess.

Joy, also a student, also snagged Intellectual and Dust for Dummies, but she spent her points on an experimental Aura Conducting material called Aurorium, the Tinker Perk (Become a whiz at maintaining, modifying, and making things, as long as you made it yourself or have the schematics on hand. It also unlocks the secret of Variable Weapon Crafting.) and the unique V-Weapon Grimmoire… a Tome & Bookstand that was both spellbook of unspeakable horror and leathery mallet. It was advertised to grant spells that mimic the attacks of Grimm and grow in power with each kill… rather creepily it promised not to whisper at night. I'm not sure I trust that, but Joy is sanguine on the subject. If she goes mad, it's officially out of my hands.

Toph, once the founder and head of Republic City's Police Force and now underground rogue, got 'Light Fingered' for free, and a copy of Aura for Everybody. The perk made her a skilled pickpocket (as easy as sneezing it promised) and granted the ability to protect oneself from her fellow thieves. For her weapon, she picked up the Unique weapons 'Punk & Poetry', a pair of warfans that transform into magnum pistols or combine into a makeshift shield, embodying the ideal of 'Death of a Thousand Cuts', they were advertised as making the wielder so agile and light in motion, the wielder would be able to move as if she weighed less than a feather. I think the reason she took them was because the description said that they were perfect for detective work. She also picked up the 'Silver Tongued Devil' perk, because apparently people have been telling her she's a charmless oik for decades.

She also rounded off her purchases with 'Cookies and Coffee'… a ten year supply with recipes! Oh joy… recipes. Can't get those anywhere else. Still, a ten year supply of cookies and coffee? Good thing I have Eternalizer on my Warehouse, since this thing doesn't say anything about the supply being staggered. Coffee may have a longer shelf-life than cookies (at least good cookies) but not much longer. Of course, with Eternalizer, a cup of coffee would still be as piping hot and fresh after being left on a shelf for three centuries as it was two minutes after its initial pressing. What? I like French Press! I used to be a Barista in college!

Bao, thanks to the military background, got 'Abs', and added 'Intellectual' to that, and of course 'A Guide to the Grimm' was free. Apparently, mastery of the techniques it taught meant that monstery foes would explode upon being punched! It might not kill them, but it would damned well hurt! He spent the majority of his points on 'Combat Ready', the Military capstone, that provided him with the memory of hundreds of thousands of simulated battles, scores of attack patterns, and dozens of weapon variations. If it didn't see him through a fight, I doubt he was going to win that fight no matter what. His V-Weapon wasn't much to speak of, a calligraphy brush that fired armor piercing ink or traced razor sharp lines across people, but it was darn stylish, I'll give him that.

Not to be outdone by… well.. Anyone… Ryoga snagged a Dust kit… and not one but two unique V-Weapons. The Xanthine was a large thermos that expands into exoskeletal armor that links into his bloodstream, cutting Aura Costs by at least half, allowing him to wade through bombardment, suplex train carriages, mould steel with his hands, project shields, and more! There was a small chance of him becoming addicted to the power and rush of it, but it would keep drinks at perfect temperature and came with a carrying case, one that doubled as a mount for extra plating and weapon points in exo-armor. He topped that with the Gai Barrett, an Anti-Material Rifle that pulls double duty as a spear, punching holes straight through most things (though it has a hell of a kick and is quite long). It can fire homing flechettes on a tagged target, but if thrown itself, it will need retrieval. If addiction was the risk with Xanthine, a tendency to fall prey to tunnel vision was Gai Barrett's.

Great… I've created a monster. Oh yeah, he also has the book of punching Grimm until they explode… and Abs. No fucking shirts in this group.

With time running down, I confirmed everyone's builds and blinked as great number of warnings populated the screen of the VMoD.

Warning: Although you and all imported Companions start with your Auras Unlocked, all other Companions will require their Auras to be unlocked manually. All companions, imported or not, gain a free local ID.

Warning: All items you bought here can be used by anyone native.

Warning: Grimm are known to be extremely resistant to conventional arms and arts. In practice, the killing blow must be dealt with either Aura or Dust.

Warning: The bodies of Grimm dissolve upon their deaths and they tend to die in captivity. They have no souls, so soul-based skills and powers do not work on them nor can they be farmed for souls.

Warning: Grimm have an annoying tendency to get stronger whenever one shows them up. This effectively means they are a scaling threat. Try and keep things less flashy or others might have trouble keeping up with the leveled and ranked Grimm.

Well, that was… a lot of warnings… wait… they leveled up when defeated by overwhelming force? What kind of bullshit was that!? That wasn't in the show! By the end of the second season, Ruby and company were routinely smashing through throngs of Grimm that they'd had trouble with at the beginning of the series! Bogus! I tried contacting the big guy, but was invited to file a complaint with the review department. Humph. Like there was any time left. Thanks for hiding that piece of information from me until the last possible moment, jackass.

INSERTION

It was a damp beginning. Very damp. Small boat, middle of a storm, ocean dwelling Grimm. It was a very… very… abrupt lesson in just how massively dangerous this world is. It was also a massive jump in power levels. I'd seen a video of Yang (the Y in RWBY) fighting Tifa Lockhart on Youtube… lo the many centuries back… and hadn't really grocked just how fucking powerful Grimm had to be to require that kind of strength to fight. Sure, very few Grimm ever really challenged Yang more than a little bit… and sure, somehow, the clueless Jaune managed to take some out too… but still… this was a jump up from the baddies of even Gaia (FF7's world)… it was a wake up call.

And we had to protect Velma… and on the water, Toph wasn't in top form either. Still, Ryoga and I were both Waterbenders, and we could use the ocean against our fishy-foes. We managed to hold our own long enough for help to arrive, in the form of Airships from the Vale military.

Honestly, I was glad they'd showed. I wasn't relishing breaking out the big guns so early in a jump. Using Black Jenny or the Jewel of Neptune or even some of my more powerful attacks this soon would, in theory allow the Grimm to experience them… I didn't know how good their learning matrix was, but I wasn't keen on showing them more than I had to at any given time. Fiat-backed adaptation is a fucking bear… especially since I'm not getting points for it… but I'll cope.

"Students for Beacon?" the Airship's Captain asked, a little incredulous, after he rescued us from the sinking ruins of my cabin cruiser (note to self, get new Cabin Cruiser). When we confirmed that to be the case, he laughed. "Well, you weren't going to get there by boat."

We refrained from protesting our innocence… Strictly speaking, we had been taking the boat bound for Beacon… if you looked at it the right way. Any luggage we'd have had had gone down with the ship, but thankfully our weapons and scrolls were fine and Vivian reported that the skill books and supplies had been delivered to the Warehouse, so no deep diving was needed… I may not have too much trouble down that far thanks to the Underwater Materia… but it feels like being in a vice… a vice with almost no frame of reference… and apparating from that far down to the surface can be fatal… or at least hurt like a motherfucker. Which means swimming up to the surface the slow way. Also, it's very dark… though (not to be all Elsa) the cold doesn't bother me.

Arriving at Beacon, we were quickly shuffled into two groups of 4 (as is standard), with me heading up team "STRB"… pronounced Strawberry… with Toph, Ryoga, and Bao… and Joy heading up team "JAZV"… pronounced Jazz… as in blues… man, some of these are a stretch…. With Ahab, Zane, and Velma. I'd have gone with BRAZ (Brass) and…JVST… no, just isn't a color… hmmm… JVTS? TSJV? That doesn't mean anything… grrr… and I'm the MC… I guess they had to start one team with an S… and man… J does not appear in the middle of very many colors… or other words for that matter. We were joined by the only canonical team from our year CVFY.

Rather more humorous, every member of Joy's team had had their names changed to fit into the world better. The Law of Color Names was strong, but subtle. Toph, which is written as 'Expanding Lotus' was fine as that summons visions of the color white the same way Roses are Red. Bao, which means 'Precious', was okay since that hinted of gold. Silver Jade fit on both counts. Ryoga, which can be read as 'Good Teeth' was okay, if stretching it a bit. But Velma means 'Brave Warrior', Zane means 'Good', Joy means… 'Joy', duh, and Ahab means 'Uncle'. So the power of the Jump had renamed them Jasmine Bahs (yellow), Albion Bahs (white), Zaffre Jade (cobalt blue), and Verma (short for Vermillion) Dinkley.

Beacon wasn't bad. The history lessons were actually news (not useful outside of jump, but data is data) and the fighting lessons were most welcome… especially since they didn't start at the 'this is how you hold your sword' stage. Beacon was a Hunter Academy, one of four in this world, created in the wake of the Great War eighty years earlier in an attempt to bring lasting peace between the four nations of humanity… everyone who entered it (besides Jaune and those of us who'd gone drop-in) had already passed through a Combat Academy. Lesson one was being launched off a cliff into a forest dozens of meters below… hence the need for a 'Landing Strategy'. A forest full of Grimm and no safety nets. Hunters killed Grimm or were killed in turn… that was the law of Remnant. Without the Hunters, the last four nations of Remnant (Vale, Vacuo, Atlas (formerly known as Mantle), and Mistral) would vanish. Coddling was right out.

The Hunters had three primary weapons against the Grimm… Variable Weapons, Aura, and Semblance, in ascending order of utility. All of it empowered, strengthened, augmented by Dust. Not a single one of us had paid for a Semblance and thus none of us knew what our Semblance was… and with the Grimm growing ever more powerful, we'd need them in a hurry.

When I'd left Origin Earth, there'd been three seasons of RWBY… I'd seen… most of them… The show had gotten too tragic for my taste, killing off my favorite supporting character in a way that seemed callous and cold. By the time I stopped watching, with three episodes unwatched, there hadn't been anything in the nature of 'Saving the World' yet. I literally had no idea what could be done to do that besides, you know, killing all the Grimm… but I had one thing I was dying to try.

Thus, one day, deep into our fifth month, standing in my Safehouse, deep in the wilds atop a remote mountain in a dark land where no Humans or Faunus dwelled, where pools of darkness spawned seeming endless tides of Grimm, inside the cave we'd excavated with various techniques foreign to this world, I commanded, "Bao! Deploy the Mako Reactor!"

Bao looked at me like… 'what do you think we've been doing for the past day and a half?' but seriously… pulling all the bits of Bao's experimental Mako Reactor out of storage and assembling them would take the Warehouse Robo-Butlers days and Bao had checked over the plans a dozen times. We had no idea if we could make Grimm Summoning Materia, or Dust Materia, or Variable Materia… or what… but some function of this world, Remnant… was actively hostile to Humanity… weakening it might help… or it might piss it off… or both! No time like the present to find out… or at least the near future. Worse came to worst, we'd have to abandon the Mako Reactor… and quite frankly, with the new miniaturization technology we'd just picked up (but not yet mastered), we were probably going to have to rebuild it anyway. If it went, it would go in the name of 'SCIENCE!' (Please note, this is all caps Science and not actual sane responsible Science. This was a BAD IDEA. don't try this in your home dimension.)

Bad Science was, of course, the name of the game here. The moon had been shattered for ages, long past human knowledge of exactly when, but long enough ago that the fact that the scattered chunks hadn't collapsed back into a spherical shape was freaking weird and unnatural. Some of the chunks had rained down upon Remnant following the great extermination that had nearly killed all mankind… yes, there had been a near genocide of the species before the rain of massive lunar meteorites… no record existed of what caused it. In fact, we'd only found this strange and horrible land by doing a complete planetary survey in preparation for Operation Moon Fixer… just one of the many advantages of unrivaled (in setting) space superiority.

The fundamental problem with a Jump that's largely training based? Actually training. Saving civilization from the steady encroachment of abominations of nature is a full time job. With only a handful of cities, no matter how large, the loss of even one of them would be disastrous. And people are fucking stupid. In all my jumps, I never failed to find people who'd let their pettiness, bigotry, or ambition put everyone (themselves included) at horrible, unconscionable risk. Be it criminals willing to suborn the security of the state to make a buck, terrorists willing to use ravening monstrosities to even scores decades or centuries old, fanatics using the instability to advance their own narcissistic or nihilistic agendas, or just inconsiderate morons picking fights because they can't comprehend the idea of fucking timing! Even the Maegi had assholes.

Remnant was not lacking in any of those, from criminal gangs, to power hungry dickheads, to Faunus willing to allow the fall of entire cities as revenge for centuries of oppression, rather than help overcome the institutional racism that lingered to this day. Killing civilians is never warranted… unavoidable sometimes, but never to be done lightly or simply to punish others… to punish others long dead? No. Unforgivable.

Also unforgivable, if on a lesser scale, is betrayal of trust. I might not have a world to save, but I did remember that a pair of students named Emerald Sustrai and Mercury Black were in league with a criminal named Roman Torchwick and a terrorist named Cinder Fall. I figured I could thwart their plans, if just a little. I wasn't willing to pass a death sentence on Emerald or Mercury without judging them first, but either way, I was planning on taking them out of play… once they arrived at the school.

But that would have to wait a year, since they'd arrived for the Vytal Festival in Ruby's first year. For now, the plan was getting good at ganking the Grimm… but there was a fundamental problem I had not anticipated. The power level gap between some of my companions was spectacular. Zane & Ryoga could tank almost anything that was thrown at them. Joy and Ahab were barely less capable, though in different ways, as expected of super soldiers who could fight Metal Gears on foot. Bao and Toph were excellent in their specialized ways, and were crafty and inventive… Ziggy was insane and silly and dangerous… But Velma was not a fighter by nature or training and she was falling behind the curve.

There was another problem as well. I'd begun to hit the 'Not challenging enough' wall, the point at which one can dispatch one's enemies too fast. Yet I was hesitant to use anything like full power because of the risk of overleveling the Grimm. I planned to go further afield once I graduated… but that was for later. First, there was school to graduate and Velma to train.

She wasn't in my team, but I worked with her inside my mind, pulling her into the Dojo of the Palace of my Mind on a regular basis and training her from the ground up, pushing her limits, working her until she dropped and then doing it again and again, gaining two days of training for every one that passed in the real world. Yes, having an extra twenty-four hours to dedicate to this task every single day was just… very nice. And in the meantime I spent my days in the real world trying to locate Roman Torchwick with Zane.

Vale was an interesting city. It had, according to Zane, a highly defensive personality, like a mountain lion protecting her cubs, and there were sooo many hidden ways in and out. We quickly located the train line that Roman and his goons would use to enter the city a year later and Toph and Zane used earthbending to undermine it in ways unlikely to be detected by anyone not bending.

They both wanted to know why we couldn't just erase the tunnel system, but Joy fielded that one. "If we erase the path, they'll put their efforts towards a new plan, a plan we won't know about. If we leave the path, they'll use it, not knowing we've sabotaged it."

I nodded, Joy was a good team leader… better, to be honest, than Naked or Venom Snake. Better strategist too, with more long term planning skills. Less raw combat skill, but only by a little.

The new year rolled around, as it must, and Team RWBY was formed, along with Team CRDN and Team JNPR. Three more teams. Nora Valkyrie, my second favorite supporting character was awesome, Ruby was a hoot, and Yang was a spitfire. Of course, we had to play it cool as upperclassmen, but it was hard not to want to hang with them. Pyrrha Nikos I was especially eager to meet, because in the show she was THE up and coming huntress. I wanted to spar against her sooo bad.

And I did. Often. Sometimes ambushing her for a quick pass, sometimes actually scheduling a sparring session. It was nice to fight someone that good, to relax my hold for one moment. But I was beginning to notice that I was under observation.

Professor Ozpin, the head of the Academy, had one of the most compartmentalized and structured minds I'd ever seen. Reading him was practically impossible and believe me, I tried. At times it even seemed as if he had two minds in one, which was a fascinating feeling. He was watching me, studying me, and I didn't know why… though I was to learn in the years ahead. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The White Fang (the Faunus terrorist organization that Blake Belladonna, the B in RWBY and the Belle/Beauty of our mixed bag of mythological characters, had been a member of before they'd gotten to the fanatical stage) were making life difficult for us Faunus who weren't homicidal douchenozzles, and making operating clandestinely difficult. They were also supporting Roman Torchwick's operations by acting as goons, despite the man's obvious humanness and overt racism against the Faunus. This only added to the harassment I got for my long fluffy tail that occasionally got petted when I wasn't looking and the sharp needle canines that got me accused of being a vampire more than once.

Of course, I had my own fairy tale motif and it wasn't anything to do with vampires. I was the Snow Queen… I was a Vulcan, an Occlumencer… I would not allow taunts to get to me… though as things got worse, those taunts began to escalate into more than that.

There… I drew the line. Attack me and mine and I shall defend. That had been the words of my house 'I Shall Defend'… though the secret words had been 'Measure for Measure'. And I measured those I faced and gave them back everything they would have given me. To my friends, I was a Snow Day, joyous and free. To my enemies, I was the Killing Cold…. and yet I did not dare use my more overt powers, since Semblance and Aura were measurable things in this world and red flags would go up across a globe of monster slayers were I to cross that line where any could see.

I'd even turned off the HF function and suppressed the LF wavelengths in Soul of Ice… and even replaced the materia with Dust Crystals… we were still waiting to see if we could generate Dust Materia, but it was looking good, as were the Grimm Summons… apparently that was a thing in this world already. I'd not anticipated the need to tone myself down… though doing so was providing an excellent challenge in a world that might otherwise be lacking one.

Eventually the first semester of Ruby's first year came to an end, and with it the first season of the show. That meant Emerald and Mercury were coming soon. And I'd be ready to take their measure.

When they came, it was as guests, students of Haven Academy (in Mistral) there at Beacon (in Vale) to participate in the Vytal Tournament, an exhibition of the fighting prowess of students from the various academies. I scanned them passively as they entered the school. Emerald had mental shields… interesting, but not surprising for someone whose Semblance was instilling mental illusions. Mercury was closed up, and a consummate actor… but he didn't. I learned enough from him to be worried… very worried.

I followed them, shielding myself with everything I had, tunneling deeper and deeper into Mercury's mind. He was the son of a renowned assassin, and a stone killer. He had helped Cinder steal some unfathomably powerful Magic… not Aura… definitely Magic… from a woman named Amber, the power of the Maiden of Fall. Cinder had stolen most of the mantle of Fall from Amber… but not all of it. The rest was sealed away inside Amber, a vegetative patient somewhere deep within Beacon Academy, guarded by Professor Ozpin and others.

They were planning on bringing down the defenses of Beacon and killing Amber (and as many others as it took). He'd killed before, and he'd kill again, if he wasn't stopped. But it was not time to take him out. Not yet. I still didn't know enough about what was going on, still didn't have a clue how strong Cinder might be or why Ozpin was… the way he was.

Finally the train attack of Season Two's climax came and I took my chance to strike at Roman Torchwick… and that's when I ran headlong into Cinder Fall. She was fast, she was powerful, and without taking my self imposed restraints off, I could not beat her. The power she unleashed against me was devastating. It wasn't Aura or Semblance… it was something else. If I had to give it a name, I'd have called it Magic, but a Magic of a type I didn't know. She summoned leaves and froze them, she unleashed withering heat and pillars of fire. And she withstood attacks that had smashed Grimm to powder. She KO'd Zane while fighting me. And Roman got away.

I knew she'd be back. I knew things were coming to a head… the three remaining episodes of the show that I hadn't seen (and everything that would, inevitably come after them) had shown that events were going to unfold fast, and what I'd seen online and in the minds of Roman and Mercury and the goons of the White Fang had shown me that things could not be allowed to play out as these evil fucks had planned. I had to save Penny… it was a moral imperative.

And so I waited, watching, plotting. I watched as the bad guys hacked the central defense hub, thanks to some very slick hallucination sending on Emerald's part. She and I were going to have words, I decided. Then, a little later, she stole Ruby's wallet and pretended she'd found it. Little bitch. They were plotting how to use the tournament to create the openings they needed. They were also, conveniently, staying the night at the Academy. I had to be careful, Cinder was inside the school and they were with her often… until she sent them to their rooms to rest.

The day before the Vytal Tournament began, I sent Ahab and Joy to neutralize Mercury… and told them I didn't care if he lived so long as he went down quiet and vanished. I went after Emerald. She fought. She was… decent. Her illusions were strong. But I had layers of mental defense she couldn't even conceive of.

I smashed into her mind and ransacked it, beating down her pleas for mercy as I went. "Did you give your victims mercy? Did you think you were justified in all you've done? All the deaths you and your mistress would have caused?"

She swore at me, called me a bitch, said I was no different, doing whatever I felt like and feeling justified in doing so. I've no idea how she knew… maybe she could feel it inside me.

I responded, "I never claimed to be noble. I never claimed to be righteous. But when I kill it's to protect, to save, to make things better. The needs of the many. I don't kill for sport… but I do take pride in my work."

I flooded her mind with sensory data, far, far, far too much for a normal human mind to withstand, centuries of banal information crammed into a couple seconds. I went to dump her, barely alive, into a stasis pod in the Medbay, only to find Joy and Ahab doing the same thing with Mercury. I nodded… we'd decide what to do with them later. They were killers… but so were we. They hadn't been… on the grand scale… that evil. Hell, I'd let Joffrey and Cersei live… But that left Cinder and Amber… and someone named 'Salem'. I had to go to Ozpin.

That late at night, getting to the headmaster took more effort than I'd have liked, but I made it to his office unobserved by anyone as far as I could tell. He was sitting in the dark, the clockwork of his high tower slowly counting out eternity. "We need to talk," I said. He nodded, sipping from his coffee, apparently unsurprised to see me inside his sanctum. "But not right now. Right now, you need to listen. Cinder Fall has suborned your security and the tournament system. She's planning an attack and by morning she'll discover that her primary agents are missing. Emerald Sustrai and Mercury Black were working for her. Sustrai is… was… an illusion caster. The two of them were with Cinder when she attacked Amber. Amber is not safe here… and I have no idea how to defeat Cinder without doing somethings I really shouldn't be doing. But I'm the best chance anyone's got… I think… unless you have the faintest clue how to defeat the Fall Maiden… or whatever the hell she is."

"You're… very perceptive," he said, eyes studying me. "Of course, you could be lying, just to get access to Amber yourself." His mind closed up even more… bastard was using Magic to shield himself! Probably had been all along.

"If I wanted access to Amber, I could have it and no force on Remnant could stop me," I stated simply, ice forming on every surface in the room, stopping the clock and coating the outside of the tower in seconds.

"Are you the Winter Maiden?" he asked.

I thought about that for a moment. "Would I know if I was?" I asked. I honestly had no idea.

"I think… yes."

"Then no. I am the Snow Queen, The Winter Witch, the Manifestation of Balance, I am The Twilight Incarnate… but to the best of my knowledge, I am not the Winter Maiden… no less for the reason that I'm not a maiden," I finished with a smirk.

He coughed at that, sputtering. "Do you know when they plan to attack?"

"They'd planned to attack after using Pyrrha Nikos to kill Penny and reveal that she's an artificial lifeform in front of everyone at the Tournament. But when Cinder and Roman (I didn't mention Salem) discover that their allies are missing… They might move the time table up, or panic. I've no idea. And there are Grimm coming… Lots of them. She's bringing them here to attack the Academy. And they've got Adam Taurus and the White Fang helping them."

"You sound angry about that," he said.

"I am angry. Terrorist attacks will never bring equality. All it will bring is hatred and more hatred… and in the end… all that will be left is the Grimm. No Humans, No Faunus… just… Grimm. I cannot understand why… or even how, the four nations and the Faunus have even managed to ever go to war against each other given the Grimm. It's like having a knife fight in the middle of a burning house," I snarled that last, eyes blazing with cold fire.

He studied me for a long, long moment, then said the most remarkable thing. "You're not from this world, are you?"

Hiding just how much that question had thrown me, I chuckled. "Really. What a thing to say," I said, trying to discard the suggestion.

He wasn't fooled. "I am very old. Far, far older than anyone knows. I have many secrets of my own, and know when someone else is keeping them. If there was a being like you in this world, I would have known about it long centuries ago."

Well… that was interesting. I considered for a long moment, then asked, "Do you know where the Grimm come from?"

He sighed, then nodded. "Long ago, when the world was new, there were two brothers, The God of Light and the God of Darkness. Together, they created this world and the God of Light brought forth life to dwell upon its surface. The God of Darkness brought forth the Grimm to hunt his brother's creations, but then the two united and brought forth the races of man to worship them… but the hearts of man are easily swayed and they were convinced to rise up against the gods. The God of Darkness destroyed the races of man, then left Remnant, shattering the moon with his passing. The God of Light recreated mankind, both Human and Faunus, and left me behind to safeguard them before he too vanished from this world."

I thought about it, then asked, "Is that why there are weird pools of darkness that spawn Grimm over on the dark continent shaped like a wyvern? The one landmass no nation claims?"

He flinched slightly, then sighed. "Yes. That is where she dwells."

"She? Salem you mean?"

"Mother of evil, bringer of despair and darkness. Yes," he agreed… still hiding something.

I stared at him, thinking about what he'd said and what he hadn't. Finally, I took a guess. "You and she were an item, once upon a time." I didn't phrase it as a question.

He recoiled as if struck, then shuddered. "I don't know why I'm telling you this… but we were married… before the fall of the old world that was. I… died," he said, wincing. "She petitioned the God of Light to bring me back, but he refused. So she went to the God of Darkness, who agreed. The God of Light was…" He shrugged.

"Less than pleased," I suggested. I did know why he was telling me this. I had a perk that made me easy to talk to… and he'd been keeping this a secret for a very long time. Secrets, in my experience, want to be told. To be shared.

He nodded. "Something like that. He destroyed me. His brother brought me back. The God of Light told the God of Darkness that Salem had come to him first. The God of Darkness destroyed me."

"Wow… spectacularly maturity from both of them. I take it Salem didn't take this well?"

"She attacked the gods with her magic."

I groaned. "I'm certain that went well."

"The God of Light made her immortal," he said, frowning but trying not to chuckle in pain.

I slapped myself on the forehead. "Oh, for fuck's sake. Yes. Let's make our enemies immortal as punishment. God save me from idiot cults, mages, and gods who think that's a clever idea."

He blinked. "You've heard stories like that before?"

I shrugged. "I am very old. I have been to many worlds, worlds with single cities more populous than all of Remnant, worlds with thousands of years of living history. I have heard so very many legends… few of them end well," I said, sadly. "What happened then?"

"She spoke to the leaders of the many nations and convinced them to war with the Gods. It was not a fight. The God of Darkness obliterated the races of man in a single gesture, leaving only Salem behind."

"And then they abandoned the newly recreated mankind to the Grimm and Salem, with only you to watch over them?"

"Something like that," he said sadly. "They left behind four relics, promising that when they were reunited, they'd return and judge humanity. They warned me that she was changed, but I still loved her. I loved her and we were together for many years. We had four daughters… and then I found out that she…" He shrugged, his story becoming broken, disjointed. "We fought. She killed… our daughters died. I withdrew from the world. The Maidens found me… reminded me of our daughters. Taught me to… to feel again. Can you help us?"

"Yes. I can. I can do five things to help. The first is a piece of advice; tell your moronic guards that their first responsibility when someone breaks into a high security vault is to send up an alarm, then fall back and defend, not try and take out someone clearly out of their weight class. So's the second; compartmentalize your damned information net better. Third, I can physically heal Amber… probably. But, fourth, I can absolutely remove her from any chance Cinder will ever find her. And last, I'll fight… but I don't know how disastrous the fight will be."

As it turns out… it was disastrous in the extreme. My companions, released from my restraints… struck at the Grimm streaming towards Vale with everything they had in their considerable personal arsenals. If the Grimm evolved, they evolved, but Vale and Beacon would not fall while we stood. Velma took command of the assault shuttle… while Vivian took command of the Atlas Military computers using the codes I'd stolen from Emerald's mind, building new firewalls in the place of the compromised ones. But nothing stems a tide this well prepared… They had Grimm we'd never faced before, many of them, and one of the Atlas airships (thanks no doubt to the law of conservation of ninjas) and they had a god damned Dragon, seeding more Grimm as it flew overhead.

And then there was Cinder… a formidable foe. The Battle of the Decade… a pretender to the throne of Winter and a usurper to the throne of Autumn. Cinder had incredible raw power, speed, defenses… I had tricks layered upon tricks, power the likes of which she'd never seen… And she had Grimm backing her up. Yet Autumn must always yield to Winter. It is inevitable. Still… Aura users are damned hard to fight effectively as long as their Aura pool remains intact… and she had a very deep pool in addition to her Magic. It was like smashing my attacks against a force field.

I suspect she had similar frustrations dealing with me as I tanked attacks that would have shattered buildings, returned her fire back at her… Measure for Measure… and simply absorbed any ice attack she slung my way. I had to break the stalemate… and that meant overkill.

Wincing inwardly at the potential for destruction… I summoned Bahamut Zero. One dragon deserves another, right? Cinder screamed with fury as Teraflare erased her beast… and I cringed as it erased part of the city. But I recovered first, calling upon the power of Victoria von Kamui… and teleported behind Cinder, grappling her and teleporting the two of us into Vale Harbor.

She thrashed, breaking my hold, wrenching away from me, flying up into the air to avoid sinking beneath the waves. "You cannot beat me! I have more power than you!" she cried out.

I laughed. "What was it you said, once upon a time? It's not about overpowering the enemy. It's about taking away the power they have!" I'd been counting on her trying to flee and I called up the power of the waves and the spirits, wrapping her in tendrils of spiritwater… and then I purified her. She screamed as the power she'd stolen was wrenched away from her, flying through the ether back to the pinhole portal I'd left open to the warehouse.

I've witnessed two Avatars in the grips of the Avatar state…I thought I was ready for what happened next… I was not. Amber had a couple of years of bottled rage and, freshly recovered or not, she was raring to go… I wondered what mix of potions, ethers, and other things Zane had given her. She was fury incarnate.

The smackdown she laid upon Cinder was… in a word, epic.

The terrorist tried to fight. I'll give her that. She did not go gentle, but the only reason she'd beaten Amber the first time was because she'd had backup and surprise on her side. Now she'd just been in a knockdown fight with yours truly and had no allies left to speak of… or so I thought.

One moment it was Amber preparing to crispy fry Cinder… the next… there was a ripple of darkness and Cinder was gone. Amber… did not take it well. I let her rage there for a while until she calmed down to notice me.

"Are you with her?" She asked, menace in her voice.

"Not at all. I'm the one who returned your power to you."

"Why?" She seemed a little confused.

I blinked. "Why wouldn't I have?"

"You could have tried to take it for yourself."

I laughed. "I didn't know that was a possibility, to be honest… and even if I had, I certainly wouldn't have."

"That's a strange attitude. Most people would kill to have this kind of power." She motioned around her. "In fact, that's what that woman was trying to do."

"Amber… have you noticed that we're both hovering ninety meters in the air above the bay? I already have power. Killing innocent people to gain power has never been my schtick."

She blinked. "N… no… I hadn't noticed… why haven't I fallen? This usually takes effort to maintain."

"Because I'm holding you up."

"You're no normal Huntress." she remarked dryly.

"No shit." I laughed. "I am The Snow Queen, the Winter Witch, The Inbetweener… I am Twilight made Manifest." I really should make business cards that say all that. It would be easier. This, by the way, is the true power of No Gods But Kings. The ability to rattle off titles and not have them sound ridiculous or like bragging.

She regarded me for a long time before asking a very good question. "Which Twilight?"

I smiled sadly. "Normally, I hope to be the Twilight before Dawn… But in this place… I'm not sure I can be anything but the Twilight before the fall of Night. This world is slipping into darkness and I don't know how to stop it."

"Is it your job to stop it?" It was another very good question.

"No. It's not. I am a creature unfettered by anything besides my own law and a will to survive. But I enjoy making things better, leaving things less interesting, perhaps, but improved for… most people."

"So you've done this before?"

I nodded, "A few times. I am… to one way of looking at it… older than civilization itself."

"Then… what do you think, do we have a chance?"

I looked around at the smoke rising from the city. "It is always darkest before the dawn, yes? So the story goes. Well, if this world has a story, it is that 'Darkness is coming and that there will be no victory in strength… but perhaps victory is in the simpler things that you've long forgotten. Things that require a small, more honest soul.'"

"You say that as if you're quoting someone."

"Two someones. Pretty sure the first was a woman… and not a nice one… named Salem. The other was Professor Ozpin."

It would be nice to say that things calmed down after that, but they didn't. Salem was the Wicked Witch of the West and one seriously bad news kind of mamajama… and she had plans, oh yes plans. Plans to drive mankind back into the dark type plans… and a total disdain for others. She was, in the immortal words of me, A Bitch.

Over the next four years she never once let us forget that the forces of darkness were slowly throttling the light, and although the various Dust producing companies were doing their best, it was clear they'd be running out of easily accessible product within a few more decades… which would necessitate expanding into the wilds… which would mean facing ever more Grimm.

Another major problem was the ease with which Salem's allies had with acquiring cutting edge military technology and breaking into military networks. Counter espionage meant Joy & Ahab, and with the grudging permission of Ozpin's conspiracy of light, they set about finding those responsible for such treason and, either punishing the guilty or cleansing the ranks of the incompetent.

That was phase one. Phase two was pushing back into territory that had been lost over the decades and that was Ryoga and Zane's bailiwick, smashing the Grimm that had pushed into the ruined sections of the cities, forming up squads militant and protective details. It was nice that the people of the Four Nations had somehow convinced themselves that they weren't living under perpetual siege, but it was an illusion, an illusion that had allowed all manner of evil to flourish. The people of Remnant were acting like sheep, with Hunters playing the sheepdogs.

That had to change, at least to some degree, and that meant propaganda and informational warfare… unfortunately, that wasn't something I could push off onto underlings, and so I was forced to split my time between that, hunting Salem, training Velma, and designing new anti-Grimm defenses. Foe specific defenses were, thanks to the Song of Ice and Fire, part of my skill-set, but this was my first real chance to see how well it worked.

Adaptive defenses for an adaptive foe… It was a tricky problem and, even with Toph & Bao assisting me, bringing them to fruition wasn't easy. Getting the Humans of Vale to trust me, a Faunus, was a lesson in not solving every problem by punching, but it was a battle I didn't really have the time to win and so it had to be endured. Getting some of the Faunus to stop acting like I was a race-traitor simply because I was trying to protect Humans was more frustrating.

Sure, I'd opted to be a member of this downtrodden race, unlike them, but they didn't know that, and getting flack from both sides made me want to scream. Instead, I used persuasion… usually verbal, sometimes more aggressive. If you can't join them, beat them, right?

Adam, the leader of the White Fangs… he was in this category. Consumed by anger, frustrated by the slowness of progress, and willing to wipe out the entire Human race on Remnant… he had to be stopped, but killing him would only make him a martyr, cut down by the Humans and their Faunus lickspittles.

In the end, my rhetoric won out, but it was a close thing. People don't like being told that they have to make sacrifices, that their pain and oppression aren't as bad as things were in the past. It is all too easy for the oppressed to become the oppressor. That's the bully cycle, isn't it? Still, people will listen, if you can find the words, if you can show them how they're hurting everyone with their actions… hopefully.

It worked well enough that Adam came for me, wanting to silence the voice of Faunus-Human rapprochement. For once, it wasn't about being the best. I played the game entirely defensively, using the fight as a chance to speak, to use my ability to strip away Adam's blinders (appropriate since he wore a mask that covered his eyes) to make him see the monster he'd become. It was like a god awful saturday morning special episode where a valuable lesson is learned and friendship reigned… Except it wasn't and it didn't.

Confronted by his past, he took the fanatic's exit… or at least tried to. He laughed a bitter laugh, then flung himself on my sword, trying to end it all and martyr himself. It didn't work, thanks to the fact that I have a Life Materia in my sword and a fully stocked medbay at my disposal. His trial was public, heavily guarded, scrupulously fair, and the outcome a foregone conclusion.

As for the Criminal Mastermind, Roman Torchwick? He, on the other hand, will never be found. I won't say he sleeps with the fishes… but Fish-like Grimm probably don't make the best bedfellows. He tried to claim he was just trying to survive. I said the same thing of his victims.

But Salem… ah… defeating Salem took me doing something I really, really, really didn't want to do. I used a power I'd locked to a single form, either through a mental block or something more, like Waterbreathing as an Argonian or Neural-Sexual Linking as an Asari… I went Cetra and opened myself up to Remnant.

The world was mad, driven insane by the cataclysm that had shattered the Moon, the delicate balance of tides and gravity had been disrupted and thrown everything out of whack. Salem had made it worse, somehow gaining control of the Grimm, becoming part Grimm herself in her quest to destroy herself. Mentally and spiritually damaged by the cruelty of her creators, she now longed for oblivion, not just for herself, but for all mankind. Now all I needed was a weapon that could defeat her… and Bao's Mako Reactor finally gave it to me.

The Dragon that Cinder had summoned was a Grimm capable of bringing forth more Grimm… and the Mako Reactor could make Materia to summon Anti-Grimm. All I needed was enough combat experience to max out the Materia and it would replicate. Or rather… they would replicate, as I was loaded up with more than one… Thankfully, being a Grimm Magnet paid off for once, though the fights were getting brutal.

I knew that the theme of this world was that Victory would not lie in Strength… but in something simpler. I was hoping that something was Unity… and so, on a predetermined day and at a predetermined time, we, my friends old and new, summoned forth not one or two, or even ten, but 108 Anti-Grimm Dragons with which to siege Salem's hall. I can't say we won, despite the titanic battle… but maybe, just maybe, we tipped the scales back towards even.

Balance. That's my name, my game, my claim to fame. As for a final victory? I don't know if the Darkness can ever be fully defeated. Eternal Vigilance and all that. The relics still remain. Will there be a final reckoning? I just don't know. I didn't come to Remnant to save the world or the day… maybe I made a difference.

Next: World 27 – Don't Ask

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SEMBLANCES

EssJay's WINTER TIDE: My Semblance manifests as a bone deep chill felt by all around me and a keen awareness of their own mortality in all things capable of death. Allies and bystanders feel this only for a moment before it passes, but those with animosity towards me or those I feel animosity towards continue to feel this effect as long as the Semblance is maintained and it grows more pronounced and damaging over time. Leaves and surfaces get covered in light frost and cold water glaces over, but enemies will rapidly find their auras draining to fight the frostbite.

Ahab's BOOMER: Ahab's power allows him to transform into or submerge into any body of water without a trace and from there generate high explosive missiles that he can launch hundreds of meters with great accuracy… especially considering that he is under the surface at the time. He actually can sense 360 spheres around his flying missiles and uses the first as a rangefinder and each subsequent launch as combined scanner and attack. The more water he has access to the bigger the attacks are, but he finds doing this in choppy ocean water to be harder since he has to fight to maintain his cohesion.

Zane's HOWL: Zane can generate sonic attacks in the form of titanic howls that instil terror in almost all living things that hear it. Incredible willpower or rage allows the targets to resist the psychological effect, but there is also a physical component to these howls, in that they hit like a shockwave. However, he must inhale strongly to do this and must brace himself to use the howl.

Ziggy's JUNK DRAWER: Ziggy steals things. Random things. He hides them someplace. When people annoy him, they get buried in an avalanche of random junk pulled from wherever Ziggy hid stuff. Stuff pulled out of Ziggy's Someplace by this effect vanishes back into that someplace when Ziggy moves too far from it. Ziggy can sometimes be convinced to give specific things in the Someplace back. There is little to stop Ziggy from stealing it again.

Velma's RUBBER DUCKY: Velma is able to turn herself into living rubber with her Semblance. This doesn't allow her to act like Elastic Man (formshifting), or Plastic Man (stretching), or even Luffy (inflation). What this does mean is that she stretches and deforms with impact, bounces with incredibly high kinetic energy retention, and is extremely difficult to cut. Her limbs do stretch a little when she throws punches or kicks, but it's not more than 20%. She can choose to deform or be knocked back by blows at will by the same mechanism as a normal person would use to tense up.

Joy's TWO-DEE: Joy's Semblance allows her to turn herself two-dimensional, allowing her to slip through any crack no matter how slim and cut through anything not energized. Harder materials are harder to cut through, and extremely rigid crystalline materials take a great deal of effort and time to push through, but her hands and feet essentially become blades when she does this.

Toph's GEPETTO: Toph's semblance allows her to manifest golems or earth elementals out of the ground or nearby solid stone. The tougher the material, the tougher and stronger the Golems, but softer materials such as dirt and clay are able to actually take more damage since they can self repair. It takes her a few seconds of concentration to bring each minion into existence and they don't last more than a few minutes (though she can make them smarter and longer lasting by putting more Aura into them). They obey her and are as smart as an attack dog but with good combat instincts, but she doesn't have to concentrate on them.

Bao's PETAL WIND: Bao can turn himself into a cloud of flower petals and hover around quite rapidly like this. When charged with dust, these petals can cut, burn, electrocute, or fly at boosted speed. He is effectively immune to damage while in petal form, but can hit quite hard if he focuses, but this expends Aura rapidly. The transition to Petals is very fast, so he routinely shifts back and forth in combat unless he has a supply of dust to burn.

Ryoga's RAGING BOAR: Ryoga can call up the spirit of a giant Boarbatusk and use it to boost his already superhuman strength and durability, allowing him to charge enemies far larger than he is, using his fist or umbrella as a battering ram.

AJ's GESTALT: AJ can phase into another Hunter, allowing him to passively boost their physical attributes by giving them access to his Aura pool and stats as well.

Francine's HELIOS: Francine can glow as bright as the sun. She also can generate hydrogen and helium and unleash bolts of superheated helium plasma or explosive hydrogen blasts.

RayRay's DRAGON SCALE: RayRay develops heavy plate armor seething with plasma flares. In this state she is hard to damage and causes damage to others who come in contact with her. She also levitates. Contact with the ground can short out her plasma for a few seconds.

Petra's PSYCHOCHAOS: Petra can induce any number of psychological and pseudo-neurological conditions upon enemies she can make eye-contact with. The exact condition she inflicts seems to be completely random, but the longer she can maintain eye contact, the more immediate and powerful the effect gets. Observed conditions include hysteria, mania, depression, schizophrenia, obsession, compulsive behaviour, dysphoria, hallucinations, rage, confusion, aphasia, blindness, phobias, manias, and amnesia.

Dyna's THE LASH: Dyna can manifest Energy Whips out of her arms. Each whip can be more than a dozen meters long and they are all but unbreakable, but put significant strain on her to maintain for prolonged periods. She can manifest three per arm and they can be used to restrain foes as well as damage them.

Kendra's REVENANT: When Kendra is knocked down, knocked out, or even killed in battle, she rises again within seconds. The more force used to take her down the faster she seems to rise, especially if she's pissed off. When freshly risen, she gets noticeably stronger for a few minutes, but it tapers off rapidly. If killed completely by surprise when not in combat, this doesn't seem to happen, but the death must be nigh instant. The number of times she can do this in any combat seems to increase with anger and experience.

Uriel's REST-TAKER: Uriel seems to be able to drain physical endurance from those he fights. The more times the enemy comes in contact with Uriel, and the longer that contact is maintained, the more lucid and energetic Uriel gets and the more lethargic the opponent gets. Extremely drained opponents seem to act like those who have not been able to sleep in days. Uriel can super-charge himself with this and use the energy to restore his own Aura or physical health.

Yoiko's JUST RIGHT: Yoiko's Semblance manifests as massively increased strength and toughness. The more physical damage she takes, the tougher she gets and the less physical damage is able to slow her down. Blows that would have knocked her down at the start of a fight rapidly become nothing more than ineffective slaps against her. Her strength does not increase with damage, but her ability to feel strain from using her strength does, allowing her to tap into more and more of it without hurting herself.

Companion Body Mod Build

Companion #16 – Velma Dinkley

Sex – Female [Free]

Proportions, Hair, Coloration – No Changes [Free]

Anomalous Level 1 [+100/1100]

Affinity – Mind [100/1000/1100]

Ascension [Free]

Waste Not, Want Not [100/900/1100]

Strength Level 0 [–]

Endurance Level 1 [50/850/1100]

Speed Level 0 [–]

Resilience Level 1 [50/800/1100]

Reflex Level 1 [50/750/1100]

Logic Level 3 [100/650/1100]

Memory Level 2 [50/600/1100]

Resolve Level 2 [50/550/1100]

Coordination Level 2 [100/450/1100]

Perception Level 2 [100/350/1100]

Charisma Level 2 [100/250/1100]

Appeal Level 1 [50/200/1100]

Empathy Level 2 [100/100/1100]

Flexibility Level 1 [50/50/1100]

Fertility Level 1 [50/0/1100]

We gathered around the new machine, which had been waiting for us when we returned to the Warehouse following the end of our stay in the RWBYVerse. Taped to the front was a piece of paper that read: 'Personal Reality Point Balance: 100 Choice'. Which was all well and good, but what I wanted next cost 200 Choice, so I simply took the paper down and handed it off to Francine, who would file it with all the other hardcopy I'd ever gotten from the Banker.

Meanwhile, the others were trying to make sense of what the machine said. It didn't even have a custom font, which was odd. Every other jump besides the fairly generic 'Great Detective' had had a custom font… even Generic Zombie had used that weird post apocalyptic 'zombie' font. But this? nothing. Just a kind of bland yellow bubble font somewhat similar to Ranma's red… and like Ranma, it was written in Japanese letters, which most of us could read just fine… even Velma. Only Kendra, Toph, and Ziggy couldn't read Japanese, though Ahab was pretty bad at it (unless you flipped the switch on his back that made him bad at English… kidding.)

"Touhou Project?" Zane asked, finally breaking the silence. "What's that?" Everyone else just shrugged. Finally he asked Vivian.

"I have no knowledge of a Touhou Project" VIvian responded. "Perhaps it is some kind of Japanese military secret?"

"I…" I began, stepping up to the machine and examining the screen. It was full of colorful explosions and patterns, and it stirred some long, long buried spark. I searched my Memory Palace, dredging up memories thousands of years old. "I think it's a… bullet hell videogame… wait… we have one… no… two… Castle of Shinigami and Death Smile… has anyone played them?" I looked around to blank faces.

"Oh… right… no… I didn't bring my original videogame collection with me… and I never bought copies of those games in any jump because they were way too obscure… ummm… I think it's about lolita vampires and… ummm… bullets."

"You could buy the 'All Your Stuff' option from the Reality Supplement," Velma suggested. I considered, then sighed. "I could… but is it really worth wasting points on stuff I haven't needed in a super duper long time?"

"Well… what are you currently saving up for?" Joy asked.

"Uhh… the food supply upgrade, 'A Little Less Basic'," I replied.

"What?!" Toph demanded. "Why?! I mean, it can't be for fresh veggies. We've got plenty of those from the basic and the Life Garden. And with the Eternalizer, we can buy anything we want and just stock the shelves until they groan!" she pointed to where bushels of apples sat, fresh as the day they were picked, next to covered platters of sushi freshly made. We had years worth of individual beers that would never go off, cases of sodas, and crates of cookies of all sorts.

Joy nodded, "And we have those Food Synthesizers from Star Trek tech you've made. They do a fine job of creating most of the stuff we'd need."

I shrugged, then scratched the back of my neck. "Well, it's like this. We leave worlds behind all the time… sometimes with things we can't duplicate. Like Yakow steak from Avatar world, or Bitter Melon from Samurai Jack World. We can synthesize that stuff, but it's not as good as the real stuff, and you know it. Synthesized food is always the same, always an idealized version, and doesn't taste quite right. Getting a good sampling from past places would be nice! And no matter how much we stockpile, those stocks will run out eventually," I pointed out.

"For the cost of A Little Less Basic, you can get A Month's Return and All Your Stuff," Francine suggested, but for some reason, I ignored her. I'm not really certain why… looking back on it, it would have been a reasonable suggestion. A Month's Return would allow me to visit a past setting for a month between jumps (to stock up and say hi or whatever) and wouldn't eat uses of my Return Door… and yet, like the Return Door… I didn't want to think about it and so I didn't.

Instead, I all but allowed myself to get distracted by Yoiko. "This jumptree is six kinds of fucked up," she commented, having ignored the conversation and begun messing with the Vending Machine while the rest of us talked. "It's painting a picture of gods and quasi-gods just… totally failing to get along… but agreeing to settle things in a less than Reality Destroying way… like if big bro and Ranma agreed to settle their differences by… throwing marshmallows at each other. Even ki-charged, how much damage could a marshmallow do?"

I thought about all the things I could do to weaponize marshmallows… then nodded… at most it would just hurt a bit. Anything more and it wouldn't be a marshmallow anymore. Okay, an Antimatter Marshmallow would be fucking insanely dangerous, but again… strictly speaking… not the exact opposite of a Marshmallow.

"Ack," said Yoiko as I considered the destructive potential of the Spiritual Marshmallow and the resulting Smorpocolypse…

"What?" I asked, looking over.

She pointed to the screen. "The import is expensive… 600 Choice."

"Fuck…" I frowned, then asked, "What, exactly, do we get for that chunk of change?"

She hmmm'd as she read, then reported, "It looks like everyone gets 600 CP to spend." She paused, then added, "Each."

I nodded at the clarification, even though it wasn't really needed. Then I thought about it a bit more and asked. "Wait… Everyone as in the normal eight, or everyone, as in everyone? Like Scooby-Doo everyone."

"Everyone but you," she clarified. "It says 'All your companions gain 600 CP to spend for perks.' So, I guess that's Everyone Everyone… or something. Everyone in this pocket of reality."

"Shit. Fine… I can't pass this up, can I?" I said, shooing her away from in front of the machine and taking over the controls. "Let's start on the damned Drawbacks and work backward then. I want this for you guys… Whoa… this jump has a fuckton of powerful shit in it, don't it." I commented as I skipped past perks called 'Doctor of Miracles', 'Infernal Sun', and 'Pandemonium', but I didn't pause to read their info-blurbs.

The system had protested a little, but not too much, as I'd skipped through the basic introduction screens and past the Origins. "I'll be right back," I promised the (probably) inanimate object. Apparently that's when I made my mistake. I didn't even know I'd made it. I was just checking if there was a CP limit when I must have accidentally clicked a Zero Point Option. The results were something I… well… 'Interesting' is a word that could be used to describe them. 'Deeply Worrying' is a phrase that could be applied. 'Hilarious in Retrospect' might work… But so would 'Humiliating', 'Degrading', 'Embarrassing', and 'Wrong'. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

There were eleven Drawbacks, not counting the Toggle that I'd accidentally toggled and didn't even see on the screen. Apparently, according to my memory, the screen had flashed 'Do You Want To Activate Secondary Canon?' and had the options 'Tell Me More.', 'Nyet!', 'Nerf the Bitch! (50% CP Penalty)', and 'Sure Why Not? (Full CP Award)'. Since I'd been distracted, all I'd seen was the Full CP before I'd clicked through, trying to find out how many Choice worth of Drawbacks I could take and how bad the things on offer were. The answer to the first was that there wasn't a limit… and as for how bad? Well… that's entirely a matter of perspective.

From my starting perspective, many of them were downright free points or nearly so. In fact, I read some of them aloud to my friends, laughter in my voice. "Hey, gang, check it; 'Silly Hats and Frilly Dresses' is worth a hundred Choice? Seriously? A hundred just for wearing hats all the time? Okay… sure I can do that." I picked up Ziggy and put him on my head. "See, already started. What's next?"

What was next was 'Woman of Honor'… "Two hundred Choice for eschewing tech and acting like an old fashioned lady? Wow. No problem there. As far as I can tell, this is a no kill setting. I'm not seeing any fail states." I checked the notes. Nope. Everything was handled through mock-battles as Yoiko had said.

Then I found my first fail-state. "Okay… 'All According to Plan' makes me a pawn in some lunatic's grand scheme…" I paused, finishing reading the description. It was bad. "No… no thanks. I may be a damned fine detective, but I'm not setting myself up for a Chain Fail if I can't figure out who's Xanatosing me." Risking the chain for two hundred in a world I knew fuck-all about? No thanks. Also, I don't like being manipulated. Just ask Million Dollar Baby… hate that movie. Even millenia later. You want to make a movie about assisted suicide? Make that the lead. Tell the boxing movie in flashbacks so we know what it's all leading up to. Bastard director.

But if 'All According to Plan' wasn't to my liking, 'Incidental' was another kettle of fish entirely. At two-hundred Choice, it meant that (at least once during my stay) I'd be the cause (either deliberately or accidentally) of some great and historic incident that would shake Gensokyo to its foundations and resonate in the realm's history forever… for good or ill. It was profoundly tempting and all it really did was meant that my stay would not be low key. For a two spot, it didn't sound that bad… in fact, it sounded like a lot of fun, to be honest.

And rounding off the formal-behaving, hat-wearing, incident-causing perfecta, there was 'Mists of Amnesia' which didn't quite erase my memories, but rather clouded them, obscured them, made me uncertain of what had come before, of my name and what I could do. To be honest, that was a bit of a terrifying proposition. Memories are identity. Giving them up, even for a time? Worrisome, even with a guarantee I'd get them back at the end. But that's the thing. I was worrying about forgetting who I was now… but the me that would experience it all… she'd be confused as to why she couldn't remember… or would she? I didn't know… but it was tempting, especially for three-hundred Choice… and quite frankly, I didn't know anything about this world except the names of a couple of the characters. None of my companions knew anything about it either. It would be an experience… eh, fuck it. I flipped that one on as well.

"EssJay?"

"Yes Zane?" I said, turning to look up at him.

"That's 800 points of Drawbacks," he pointed out, looking worried. Not about the Amnesia… just about the total.

"Hmmm…" I thought about it, then grinned. "Yes it is. Not nearly enough!" I proclaimed, laughing as his face fell. "Let's toss in Reimu Syndrome for three-hundred! Everyone will rely on me to resolve whatever comes up."

He frowned. "Whyyyy?"

I pointed at the screen. "The text says 'Think you know the games' lore well enough to prevent things from happening in the first place?'! Well. Joke's on them! I don't know the lore at all!"

"You're out of your mind."

"It says to have fun!" I protested. "Whhy? Is the big doggo wanting to back out of that tasty tasty 600 Companion Choice?"

He looked frustrated at that, waffling back and forth. "No… but… umm…" His shoulders slumped a bit. "Right… never mind," he sighed. "I'm in. Deranged goober."

That put me at twenty-one hundred Choice, more than I'd ever had going into a Jump. Of course, my friends immediately ate six of that of that, so I was back down to fifteen-hundred… time to get me some goodies. I was almost certainly going to need them.

Picking a Race didn't seem to have any particular bonuses aside from the new form, but the top three races were each pretty damned powerful if the descriptions were to be believed. Tengu (Spirits of Light), Oni (Spirits of Darkness with a lethal bean allergy), and Vampires (Powerful as fuck, blood-addicted, sunlight-allergic…), they formed the trinity of power in Touhou's racial hierarchy, from what I could gather… though Moon Bunnies… sorry, Lunarians… are the local tech experts and Humans can become Magicians. But I had the CP to afford one of the expensive races (each was three-hundred), so I figured it would be a waste not to use it.

Tengu, the Youkai of the Heavens, were (apparently) phenomenally skilled at magic and known for speed and agility that few could match. They also had a reputation for adaptability and being faster learners, as well as for being tricksome and confusing to their enemies (and occasionally to their friends). Oni, the Youkai of the Underworld, were the natural counterpart to the Tengu. As tough and strong as the Tengu were fast, they had a reputation for being highly competitive and deeply determined. And in their own way, they were just as powerful, magically speaking… if more focused on direct action than subtly. They were also accomplished party-animals, knowing how to have fun in all but the most dire situations, with a huge appetite for booze. But for all that, an Oni could be damaged by the touch of a fried bean or killed by ingesting one.

Vampire was, well, you know about vampires. Powerfully gifted with their own sanguine magics, strong, fast, tough… plus charismatic and cunning, Vampires are the complete package… but their stats drop and their magic becomes all but useless in sunlight, and it's all fuelled by blood. There was power on offer, and the Scarlet sisters are pretty cute… if a bit weird… but I just didn't really want to be drinking blood. I also didn't want to be killed by accidentally eating beans… I like beans! So Tengu it was!

Tengu take on physical and behavioral characteristics, both good and bad, of some mundane species of animal (preferably Japanese in origin), though Crow-Tengu and Wolf-Tengu were the most Common. I thought about taking Ferret… and the Drawback 'Jumper Stole the Precious Thing' which would make me a kleptomaniac for the valuables of others and guaranteed that I'd be caught red-handed at least a couple of times during the next ten years.

In fact, the thought amused me enough that I made a list of the qualities of a ferret, both good and bad. On the Good Side, they are fearless and cute and extremely energetic/resilient/clever/flexible. On Bad Side… they can be kinda stinky and they sleep aaaaalll the time… and, yes, they are total kleptomaniacs. Then again, most animals are kinda stinky… scent's a big thing to almost all mammals. That said, I assume Tengu aren't stinky. "Eh, what the hell. Ferret Tengu and 'Jumper Stole the Precious Thing' brings me to sixteen-hundred Choice and then down to thirteen-hundred," I commented, then snapped, "Shut up Zane."

"Didn't say anything!" he whined. "It was Toph moaning in pain."

"Was not! Lying dog!" she snapped back, glaring up at him. She's gotten much better at glaring since she gained sight. For one thing, she aims it correctly now, and gets the whole narrowing of the eyes a bit better… but sometimes I suspect she forgets that glares can't actually do damage unless you also have eyebeams like I do. Sometimes I forget and then I have to apologize for vaporizing someone's clothing.

"Woof!" Zane said, grinning and almost letting his tongue lol.

"Children!" I chided them both, "You have perks to buy, so stop annoying me." I waved them off to look at the freshly dispensed Companion tablets as I scrolled up to look at my own purchase options.

I considered taking Drop-In Origin for the Soar and Doctor perks… but I didn't like anything else they got. I considered the Mage Origin, because they had the Elemental powers… but again… nothing else I wanted. Which left me with Servant or Ruler. Servant had a time manipulation Capstone which was awesome… but Ruler had… more. So that's what I went with, even though it cost me a hundred. Always bugs me paying for origins a little, even when it makes sense that they'd cost more. Maybe that's because it so often didn't make sense.

Anyway, Ruler / Leader (it was referred as Leader in the Origins and Ruler in the Perks it discounted… very odd) meant that, thanks to my skills and talents, I was now the undisputed head of a group of loyal followers, all with unique strengths and weaknesses, but a unified ideology focused on furthering my own goals and ideals… yeah… I'm a Jumper, duuuh. Regardless, I was now Leader of the Ferret Tengu… here to steal the Precious and Fix all the Things and having no clue about any of it. This was going to be… interesting… or so I thought then. Note to self… twelve-hundred points worth of Drawbacks is not a good thing… but sometimes it's the Zero point ones that screw you.

Free Touhou Soundtrack… yay? At least no midi-music like the games apparently had… but it was almost certain to be background music. I'm sorry, I like my music to be sweeping operatic scores, not something that could be played on a piccolo. As if to prove me wrong, the cabinet's sound kicked on an some damned orchestral music swirled up out of the speakers. Okay… Apparently this ZUN guy can music.

I shelled out a hundred of my precious twelve for 'Soar'… the text says that it's crucial to be able to fly and fly extremely well, even in combat. Sure, I could already fly, but it wasn't like really good combat flight. I could go about a hundred and twenty kilometers an hour, but it was mostly linear and not up to much in the way of aerobatics or anything. Certainly not up to bullet-hell level precision… and I couldn't fly backwards and cornering was… interesting. Soar, for a sixth of the cost I'd paid… fuck, overpaid in the BuffyVerse, would not only allow me to levitate (something I couldn't do that well with Fly), but also allow me (with practice) to fly around sharp bends or even in reverse as fast as I could go straight ahead. Didn't say how fast the population of Gensokyo could fly, but even if the combined total of the two abilities was only 150 kph… it was still the ability to fly 150 kph in reverse, while in combat. The idea was that heady mixture of awe-inspiring and just plain scary.

If 'Soar' was a special kind of unnerving, it was nothing compared to the abuseability of the Ruler's mid-tier ability 'Third Eye of Satori', which cost two hundred Choice and granted one the ability to read the hearts and the minds of any being, no matter what language they spoke… or even if they were animals and didn't speak any language at all, though it would only allow me to do so in the subject's immediate presence, which was a limitation I was okay with. If that was all it did, it would have been worth the price twice over. But it wasn't. It could also be used to manipulate the conscious or unconscious minds of others… essentially to mesmerize anyone I could compromise in person. With those who were truly compromised, such as anyone out-cold, asleep, drugged… or just willing, I could tap into their memories to experience them for myself.

The potential for abuse on Third Eye was so high I could taste the darkside calling from it. I remember loathing Emerald for her malicious mind-fuckery, and resolved that, when I eventually gave in to temptation and used the mesmerism side of this that I'd try to be less… evil about it. Like most powers, it was all about how it was used… And it wasn't as if I couldn't do the mind whammy on others with my psychic powers already. Still, I was mostly buying it for the ability to scry into the heart and mind of any being. That and the memory surfing were simply too attractive to pass up.

And of too attractive to pass up (and not at all abusable, no ma'am) was next Ruler perk up, the three-hundred pointer (after discount… and no, not the capstone… Touhou had eight-hundred pointers for capstones… ouch). On a scale of things people should not be able to do, 'Hakutaku's Gift' was just absurd. Again, it was a memory manipulator (because of course it was… thanks darkside!), but where Satori was personal, Hakutaku was extremely wide scale, allowing me to conceal the truth by implanting my own false information. How wide scale? Global, essentially. There were limitations, of course. First, it could only extend back in history a certain distance, and after that… or rather before that, it couldn't alter memories. Second, and more a matter of skill than a hard limit, was the fact that creating vivid and believable memories was also (apparently) quite difficult.

However, that wasn't all Hakutaku could do. Oh no. I wouldn't have taken it if it were merely a wide area misinformation ability. Not really my style. But what was my style, and the true awesome at the core of the gift was that, once every full moon, I could alter one specific historical event from the recent past to another of my choice, changing the course of history from that point onwards, and thus changing the present to reflect that alteration. There were two limits on this more powerful applications, and these were, effectively, hard limits both. Call them life and death. I could not change the past to stop a life from being lost, nor could I take a like as a result of my changes.

The cost of taking all that? Well… aside from the CP and pushing myself into some very grey moral areas was that I had to pass on buying the Servant's 'Lunar Dial' Capstone, the ability to control the flow of time. But still… the ability to rewrite history was just too hard to pass up.

And speaking of Capstones… did I want the Ruler Capstone, 'Scarlet Destiny', which would allow me to manipulate the fucking strings of fate, granting me massive luck and making my enemies suffer misfortunes? Or should I snag the elemental control powers from the Mage line? Both were tempting. But as hard as it was to pass up an eight-hundred Choice fate manipulation ability, I feared what I'd become with that kind of power.

I'd become the spider in the web, a pure supervillain or spymaster, lurking in the darkness instead of adventuring in the light. And I liked being a paladin too much… even if I was often a stealthy (and somewhat tarnished) paladin. Also, the luck manipulation would reduce some of the fun of life. It would reduce the danger a bit too much. Don't get me wrong, I like luck… but it's… relying on it can be a crutch… and I prefer active abilities rather than reactive.

And so I went with 'Elemental's Secrets' for four-hundred. It was the Eastern or Wu Xing Elements this time; Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water… plus the power of the Sun and Moon. That last part was handy as hell, since my Firebending relied on one and my Waterbending the other. As for the others? Well, I could already manipulate three of these directly (Fire, Water, Earth) and the other two indirectly with Telekinesis. So, in theory, I could benefit from taking all five… but a boost to my Icemagic… That was hard to say no to. I don't know much about Touhou… but I do remember the Ice Fairy's name was Cirno… she had wings… three half-meter long shards of ice really, floating behind her. She was cute.

Atura grumbled inside me about my lack of Center. I chuckled. "Fine, we'll stick to the balanced wheel. A small boost to everything is better… more creative control, right?" Atura agreed. "But don't forget… I'm still the Winter Witch. I can steal fire."

Creativity was, apparently, the secret of 'Elemental's Secret'. Each of the individual elements was said to have vast individual potential, but it was also said that that they would shine brightest when creatively used in combination to reshape the world to the will of the Elemental Mage.

And with my last two-hundred I settled on 'Doll Maker of Bucuresti', which was a weird name, but probably made sense if you knew Touhou. Each perk had an info-link that listed who had the individual power; for example, Third Eye of Satori was possessed by Komeiji Satori (as you might expect), while Hakutaku's Gift was possessed by Kamishirasawa Keine (as you probably didn't expect)… and Patchouli Knowledge was the holder of the generalized Elemental's Secret. Doll Maker was someone named Alice… or any Kappa, apparently. That cleared up exactly nothing, but was information… kinda. Either way, DMoB would make me an indisputable genius in terms of mathematics and science… in a realm ruled by magic. My abilities with technology and engineering would become so great that I would be able to adapt to handling, repairing, modifying, and even reverse-engineering completely foreign devices that I had little to no background on. My connection with both practical technology and magic would allow me to unlock the secrets to true magitech, given enough time. I guess that was a step up (and not a small one) from Setup Wizard from Harry Potter.

As I finalized my build, I turned to the others and asked, "Okay, What you got?"

Zane

"Lunarian Drop-In." Zane looked as smug as if he'd invented the concepts… but that's Zane for you. Cocky and gung-ho in practically everything he does.

"A Moon Bunny?" I asked, leaning back on the bar and sipping my iced-tea.

"That's Militant Moon Bunnies to you toots," he drawled, then shrugged. "Eh, why not? Says not all of them have bunny ears. And I took Soar, because I'm sick of being grounded while you get to enjoy the skies."

"Aww… poor puppy," I said with a chuckle, patting him telekinetically on the head. "You could have borrowed the carpet, or used your broom."

"Not the same. I also grabbed that booze pot and the hammer… you know… for party reasons and because funny."

"I love you like a brother… you know that right?" He nodded. "But you're mental." He nodded again, this time even more enthusiastically. "By booze pot and hammer, you mean the 'Ibuki Gourd & Hoshiguma Dish' that together transform water into high quality sake and the 'Miracle Mallet' which changes the size of whatever is bonked by it?"

"That's them. And I wuv you too, shrimptoast," he teased, lobbing a pillow at me. "Also bought 'Magician's Mind' and 'Apparitions Stalk the Night'. Cause the first makes magical skills never fade and generally all around better, and the second cause I am the night!… why are you banging your head against the wall?"

Ziggy

"Ziggy follow momma!" he was bouncing around my feet, his fur all fluffed up to a ludicrous and adorable degree.

"Do you?" I asked, kneeling down and ruffling his little head.

"Yesyesyes!" he scampered up my arm and stood on my head. "Follow in sky! Weeeeee!" He lept off as he cried his battle cry.

I caught him as he fell, rubbing my nose against his little button-nose. "Flying ferret… scary," I said with mock severity.

"Yes! Scary! Weeee!" he enthused, licking my upper lip and squirming.

I eyed him, then set him on top of the VMoD. "Anything else?" I asked him.

"Ziggy like trees!" he said, bouncing back and forth in a weasel-war dance.

I thought about that, then offered, "Forest Fairy? A Tanuki?"

He tilted his little head at me and asked, "Naupi? Is treat?"

I chuckled, then said, "You get to wear a leaf on your head."

"YAY! Sleep now," he said, shifting gears instantly and flopping down on the warm vent atop the machine.

I pulled up his data in the companion menu and began making purchases for him. "'Focus Undivided' and 'Elemental Secrets: Wood' so you can pay attention in battle and make a nest to curl up in…" He didn't respond, but I hadn't expected him to. I looked over the top of the machine, and found him already rolled into a ball, nose tucked into his own belly. "Right. Sleep well baby. Good Ziggy." I gave him a little pat and turned to the next in line.

AJ

"I am your right hand, mother." AJ's body language was stiff and formal. Normally he's a good kid, relaxed, at ease, happy go lucky… but sometimes he reverts to this kind of thing, like he's decided that the circumstances somehow warrant extra solemnity.

"You don't have to call me that, you know," I said, smiling softly. "You're my friend." I wanted to give him a hug, but he wouldn't appreciate that.

"It's a formality," he said, not quite coming to attention. "You have proclaimed yourself our leader, I shall be your servant. A Grass Fairy Servant for a Ferret Tengu Overlord."

I snorted at the term 'Overlord', then half-snarked, "I prefer to think of myself as more of a First Among Equals Lady."

"As you will, mother," he said, not even acknowledging my joke.

"You took Focus Undivided too, didn't you," I asked, wondering if there was a jump out there that would give him more an appreciation of the absurd.

"I am your sword… or in this case, your Scythe." He looked so stern and cute I had to throttle the urge to hug him again.

Instead, I clarified, "You took the Shinigami's Scythe… the one that makes makes everyone assume you're a Grim Reaper and makes them open to the idea of accepting death?"

"Aye," he said, straightening his back even more as if pretending to be part of an honor guard.

"Not all your weapons have to be slashing weapons, you know?" I asked, drumming my fingers on the side of the bar.

"I like the motif," he said with a shrug, "I also took the Ofuda spirit papers to ward and protect you from mischief."

"I-"

"Mischief from external sources," he added, knowing that protecting me from my own mischief was a lost cause.

"Riiiight," I drawled.

"And 'Tai Chi Master', so I can see and harm ghosts and spirits more easily," he added. "I anticipate there being a great many spiritual entities in dire need of harming in the decade to come."

"Well then… sounds like you're…" I paused, searching for the right word. I finally settled on "committed".

"I am your right hand," he said, then relaxed ever so slightly, and smirked as he commented, "Plus I got some spending money for snacks."

I laughed at that, then ruffled his hair. "I'm so proud of you."

Francine

"AJ's being a little suck up again, isn't he?" Francine commented, a frown on her delicate features.

"Be nice to your brother," I chided, flicking her ear.

She yelped and covered her ear defensively, then humphed. "He tried to convince me that we should be your loyal servants!" She held up her hands as if demonstrating what she was talking about. "He your right hand, me your left."

"You objected?" I asked. "Do you not want to be a hand, or just not the sinister one?" I teased.

She ignored my jest, which she often does. "I saw no reason to play along with his game," she announced, quite primly. "Though he was right that 'Focus Undivided' and 'Tai Chi Master' would be useful. I have incorporated them into my build… Along with 'Magician's Mind' and 'Soar' from Zane's."

"Huh. So mostly just basic utility stuff?" I asked, feeling a little disappointed in how prosaic her build was. "Nothing from the 'POWER OVERWHELMING' category?"

"Unnecessary. My intellect is already superior," she said, voice ringing with haughtiness (and maybe a tinge of megalomania). "Magician's Mind will simply speed the rate at which I learn new magical abilities. I did pick up one of those adorable Alice Dolls. I can have it polish all my spoons."

"Ladies and gentlemen," I did the circus impresario bit, complete with grand arm-sweeps and a bow. "The strongest psychic in the group… because it's cute."

"I get to be a Moon Bunny Mage!" she said, holding her Alakazam ears up and hopping a bit. "Why are you hitting your head with that that book?"

Dyna

The alien Pokemon lurched to attention in front of me, inexplicably acting like a stereotypical Frankenstein's Monster. She shifted into a humanesque form and said, "Lunarian Servant. 'Flying' for tactical superiority. 'Spell Card Pact' for non-lethal combat and conflict resolution. 'Eyes of Death and Pain'… for the swift destruction of your enemies." She finished it off with a two-fingered salute.

Rubbing my eyes, I sighed. "Dyna… it's called 'Lunatic Red Eyes'," I pointed out.

She shrugged. "My optical organs are blue."

"Right…" I pinched the bridge of my nose.

"And my mental processes are not impaired," she continued, tilting her head to the side.

I opened my mouth to say something snarky, then just nodded in a sagely fashion, trying to project an air of not wanting to scream at her literalism. I hoped she was joking… but suspected that she was deadly serious. "Gotcha."

"Does this build please you?" she asked.

I frowned, then replied, "Does it please you?" I wanted to point out that my opinion on the subject was less important than how it made her feel… but (despite all my communication perks) I had no idea how to phrase that without it sounding dismissive or insulting.

She considered seriously for several seconds, then stated, "Pleasing you pleases me." That could be taken sooo many ways… many of them X-Rated.

"That's it," I growled, wiggling my fingers at her. "You're getting hugs."

She backed up, but not fast enough to avoid my embrace. "Mistress… Please. I do not require… please let go… I am having respiratory difficulty," she whined, flailing a bit.

I laughed and shook my head, not releasing her. "You are not, I'm not squeezing that hard."

She considered. It was true. Plus, she didn't exactly need to breathe. So she tried another tack. "I think I smell something burning. You should go check."

Unfortunately for her, I was wise to her tricks, and ignored her. "Hugs will not kill you."

"You have no documented proof of that," she complained. "Best not to test the theory."

Shaking my head in amusement, I poked her nose and asked, "Would you like me to call Yoiko and have her hug you instead?"

She snapped her mouth shut, then muttered, "I shall be silent."

"Good Dyna," I said, patting her head.

Petra

"Boss… why are you snuggling Dyna?" the metal-crab girl asked, climbing up onto the bar and peering over my shoulder. Just an FYI, in her default humanoid form, Petra is 4'5″, making her the shortest of my companions except for Ziggy. I don't know why this is, since in her Metagross form she's large even for her species, clocking in at 5'9″ at the top of her dome (that's six inches taller than the average). In her Mega-Metagross form, she's over nine feet tall. Ziggy, by the by, is a big boy too, clocking in at 2'2″ (Linoones average 1'8″).

Not that height in human form always matched poke-height at all. Zane's human form was 6'2″, while as a Lucario he was an inch over four feet (two inches taller than average for his kind). But AJ was 5'3″ and Francy was five foot even, both right in the range for their species. AJ was exactly average, while Francy was an inch over. The only one who didn't even come close to matching her listed value was, of course, RayRay… but that's because the 'height' listed in the dex (23-35 feet) is actually length. Still, at 5'11", the Skydragon was taller in human form than her maximum vertical thickness in snek form (3'4″).

I laughed, letting Dyna (5'7″ like all Deoxys, even in her human form) go. "I amuses me to do so."

"I see," Petra remarked, finding nothing strange about this behaviour. She's quite laissez faire in that regard. "Very well. I shall be brief. A Human Mage background suits me, and I shall be taking 'Magician's Mind', the complete 'Elemental's Secret', and the 'Spirit Camera' scrying ability. Reconnaissance is important… plus, it will allow me to locate you if you wander off."

I frowned, then asked, "I don't usually do that, do I?"

"You don't…" she hedged, clearly excluding all the times I'd done just that, especially in Scooby-Doo. "But you did do it more than normal as a Ferret Faunus, and this time you are a going to be a Ferret Tengu… I assume that means you will be napping in almost completely random places at all hours of the day or night." She grinned at me, as if challenging me to contest her logic.

I gave her a nose poke, and she tried to bite my finger tip as I nodded. "Valid Point… I think you're a few points short."

She gave me a look that said, 'Please. I can maths, thank you.' then said, "I was not finished."

I chuckled, then did a bit of a flourishy bow, "Forgive me, lady crabby-pants. Do, please, continue."

"I will also take the 'Sorcerer's Sutra Scroll'," she said, trying not to giggle as I continued pretending to wave my big floppy hat (which I wasn't wearing, but which I have several of) around. "Which is both of infinite length and can cast any spell or perform any ritual inscribed within it by itself. Nor will it work for others, so I don't have to loan it to my siblings."

I stood back up, frowning slightly, then grinned as I commented, "Ah… well… Ziggy can't read anyway."

Petra was not amused. "That has not stopped him in the past."

"True…" I allowed, then pushed the Deoxys into her 'sister's' arms. "Here. Give Dyna a four armed hug and tell RayRay to come in."

RayRay

"I refuse to debase myself by being any of these lower lifeforms," the Skydragon half-snarled. She didn't like my general edict demanding that she not show up to family meetings in snake form… or enter buildings other than her nest as a giant flying serpent, but she seemed to be in a fowler mood than normal.

"That's fine, you don't have to be a Youkai," I pointed out. "There are other options."

She humphed. "Humans are lesser too."

I regarded her for a long moment, then sighed. "You know, you're a little bit bitchy sometimes."

"Yes," she confirmed, not sounding at all apologetic about it. I guess the fact that she also didn't sound smug was a small saving grace.

After nearly a minute of total silence where we just looked at each other, I asked, "Did you actually buy anything?"

"Yes," she confirmed. That was it. Another minute went by with her not giving me any information.

"What?" I finally asked. I could have out patienced her (maybe), but it would have been a pointless and time consuming victory. I swear, it's like pulling fangs getting information out of her some time.

"Maiden of the Worshipped Wind…" she said, as if that was enough of an explanation. I raised my eyebrow to indicate that she should go on, and, with a long suffering sigh, she added, "If I am reading it aright, it will give me a direct line to the Powers That Be of any world we're in, and the ability to negotiate on our behalf for their myriad and various blessings."

I laughed at that, not mocking, just amused. "And the fact that you're functionally a wind goddess had nothing to do with it? You couldn't pass up the title, perhaps?"

"Irrelevant…" she said cooly, "but potentially true. I have also selected the 'Sword of Hisou', a golden jian crafted by Celestial beings in Heaven that can gather and store ambient spiritual energy and convert it into raw power. It can tailor attacks to an enemy's specific spiritual signature, transforming the ambient energy into whatever that enemy is weak against." Her eyes flashed a bit as she spoke of enemies.

After considering the implications, I remarked, "That's fairly blood thirsty of you."

She shrugged. "I need no other weapon than my breath and claws… I merely thought you could study the enchantments and potentially replicate them. I believe it also has meteorological effects, but do not know to what extent. Experimentation is probably in order."

"Awww… thank you sweetie!" I grinned, then gave her a hug.

She stood there impassively, glowering down at me (I was in my default 4'10" form). "Humans are stupid," she added as a final commentary.

"I'll remember," I said, humoring her.