Chapter 2: A Fresh Start in the Forties
After I finish shaking Shaggy's hand, he snaps his fingers and the world around us freezes. People lock up mid stride, their mouths hanging open with partially spoken words and their eyes focused on a world that is in motion. It's crazy to see people in a world without time when they can't experience it. After this is all over, they will never know that this eternity in a moment happened.
"Like, now that it is quiet, I can hear myself think," Shaggy says. "Can I see your phone?"
"Sure," I say, handing it across the table to him. It is a little on the older side with a scratched screen and a battery that barely makes it until I get home from school, but it is my trusty companion. That thing has survived much longer than I had any right to expect.
He looks it over for a second before casually throwing it over his shoulder, hitting something and making the cartoonish sound of crashing and cats hissing.
"What did you do that for!" I shout, running around frozen people to where my phone lies face down on the ground. I pick it up and groan at the spiderweb crack covering the middle of the screen. I press the power button a couple of times to no avail as the screen stays resolutely black. "Goddamnit," I mutter. "I just got to a new level in Candy Crush."
"Don't get too down," Shaggy says, pulling something out of his pocket and tossing it to me. I pitifully fumble with it and very nearly avoid dropping it on the ground before I actually give it a good look. In my hand is a shiny new phone. "Here is your company issued phone. It has all of the data from your old one while being a billion times better."
"How much better?" I ask. It has to be pretty good to make up for busting my old one.
"It can block ads on YouTube videos and load them instantly," he says with a smile at my shocked expression. "Anyway, just tap the on button and scroll through the build selector. Pick your world and whatever specifications you want."
I take about an hour and a half working on my build, debating everything from the starting world to my heritage. While I was working, Shaggy just spent the time hanging out with Scooby Do and roaming a,onto the frozen people. In the end, I think that I got what I wanted.
Build:
World:
Marvel (Secret Wars 2015), Danger Rating: 10, Credits: [2500]
Intensity:
Me and my Girlfreind(s) (PVE): (0 Intensity)
No Loyalty (2 Intensity), Credits: [-1110] [1390]
Origin: James Buchanan Barnes (Winter Soldier) (T4), Credits: [-10] [1380]
Bindings:
Shroud of Power [-60] [1320]
Three-piece Suit (9) [-135] [1185]
Elemental Shroud (Cyber) [-96] [1089]
Body Tune-Up, Athletic Talent, Soul Talent, Science Talent, Engineering Talent [Free]
Elemental Loom [-50] [1039]
Deep Weave [-25] [1014]
Everlasting Talent, Wild Defense (2), Environmental Defense [Free]
Secondary Element (Custom Element: Proto-Adamantium) [-64] [950]
Lures:
Sticky Fingers [-5] , Brown Sugar [-15] , Alter-Flavor [-10] [920]
Faerie Feast [-10] , The Secret Ingredient is Love [-5] , Master Chef [-10] [895]
Alluring Whisper [-20] , Dirty Minds [-30] , Siren's song [-80] [765]
Potpourri [-20] [745]
Zenryoku Zenkai [-20] [725]
Don't stand so close to me [-15] [710]
White Knight [-30] [680]
Hypnos [-15] , Maestro [-10] [655]
Heritage:
Dragon Heart (Archangel) [-80] [605]
Martial Talent, Wild Defense, Body Defense/Talent [Free]
Dragon Scale [-95] [545]
Dragon Thrall [-150] [395]
Dragon Blood [-150] [245]
Perks:
Universal Calibration [-10] [235]
Fertility Calibration [-2] [233]
Sexual Calibration [-2] [231]
Memoria [-5] [226]
Mapper [-10] [216]
Target Tracker [-10] [206]
Demiplane:
Pocket Space [-5] [201]
Pocket Apartment (2) [-20] [181]
All roads lead to home [-10] [171]
Sweet Home (2) [-40] [131]
Grand Manor (2) [-60] [71]
Life's a beach [-10] [61]
Home Security [Free]
Talents:
Psychic Talent [-20] [41]
Defenses:
Mind Defense [-25] [16]
Possession Defense [-10] [6]
Stress Defense [-5] [1]
"I am happy that you made sure to get the No Loyalty modifier for intensity," Shaggy says. "With that, you can be sure that the emotions between you and any members of your retinue are one hundred percent genuine."
"Yeah, I would never have been comfortable with manipulating people's emotions like that," I admit. "I would have gone for No Bindings, but that would have cost me even more credits and I still wanted to get the Shroud."
"You would be surprised how many contractors say that they want the relationships between them and their retinue to be honest, but they avoided selecting the modifier," Shaggy says. "At least you don't lie to yourself about what you believe. Anyway, let's talk about your starting world."
"What do you mean?" I ask. "Don't I just get dropped into 616 when the multiverse is collapsing?"
"Not quite," Shaggy says. "You do get put in during the collapse, but you can be from one of the other worlds that is going to die."
"Why would that be better?" I don't really see an advantage from my perspective.
"If you do that, the world you are on can be a little more random," he explains. "If you decide to shake it up, a more diverse multiverse can be collapsing instead of just a million flavors of the same Marvel characters. Additionally, you can work to ensure that your universe is the one that all of the others are assimilated into. This would mean that the history would be relatively similar with only minor changes. If there is any differences to pronounced, then another Earth will just be set in a different solar system in the universe. An example is the Boys universe and DC would mean easily, but Avatar: The Last Airbender would be its own world."
"That makes sense," I say, nodding my head. "If possible, could I go to a world when it is still WWII? That seems like the best place to start as Bucky.
"Easy," Shaggy replies. "I even have the perfect mission for you. Don't even worry. You are already going to be doing most of it in the first place. It is practically free credits. Anyway, there is just the contract that you must sign as a new contractor left before you are a full employee of the Company."
Shaggy pulls out a thick set of papers out of nowhere and place them on the table in front of me along with a pen. "Don't worry, there are tabs on the pages you need to write on," he says.
This contract is thicker than a Congressional bill proposal and an international treaty stacked on top of each other. This is so insane that I almost consider just signing it to be over with it quickly. However, it would be even more insane to just sign this contract without reading it. For all I know, I could be signing away my soul or something.
(Roughly a day later)
It turns out that there is a whole page on the fact that the Company does not personally own my soul. In fact, I have the legal right to sell my soul to demonic entities if I so desired. However, the Company was not liable if I got tricked and I was being held captive after selling myself into servitude. They would be arrange for a rescue mission if I so wished, but it would require me paying the mission fees personally a,one with processing fees. If I did not have sufficient credits, it would be decoded as a loan with interest fees of up to 1000% on a case by case basis. Another paragraph detailed how the Company would not assume responsibility for any mental, physical, or spiritual trauma suffered in the time that elapsed between capture and successful rescue by another contractor.
I have got to be honest, they really thought this whole thing through. Even the most implausible outcome was covered to the point that this appears to be both safe and airtight.
With no more work necessary, I slick the pen and wrote my signature and initials on all of the marked spaces before passing it back to Shaggy. He looks it over before turning back to me with a grin.
"Everything seems to be in order," he says. "You are now a full-fledged member of the Company. You are all good to be starting your journey."
"How does that happen?" I ask.
"Like this," he replies, flicking my forehead and causing everything to go black.
I wake up to the feeling of getting lightly shaken. I blearily open my eyes to see who is there when I see it is just Steve. My memories flash through my mind for a moment, one lifetime spent in the twenty first century in a life of relative ease and the other spent in the early 1900s having to survive through the Great Depression. When I am still recovering from the memory jet lag, I hear Steve calling out to me.
"Hey, are you okay, Buck?" he asks. "You seemed to be somewhere else for a second."
"It's alright, Steve," I say. "I was just waking up from a weird dream. Too bad I already forgot what it was."
I glance around the room, taking in everything. It is on the small side for an apartment, with a small living room with an attached kitchenette, a bathroom with little more than a toilet, sink, and a thin shower, and a bedroom that me and Steve share. The living room only had a beat up couch and an old radio which was playing softly in the background. While not as big as my place from my first life, I have far more happy memories here than there.
I am dragged out of my musings when the music from the radio cuts to an urgent news broadcast. Pearl Harbor was just bombed by the Japanese in a sneak attack that we didn't see coming. As the announcer continues, I hear Steve mutter under his breath in disbelief as he stares at the radio, "What's going to happen now?"
When his back was turned to me, I reach out like I am grabbing something out of a locker and grab my phone from the pocket space it was stored in. By discretely tapping on the icons, I pull up the mission app and see the active mission I am currently doing.
Mission: To The End of The Line
Location: Marvel
Scale: Standard
'Well, shit' I think tossing the phone back into the pocket space before Steve notices. I guess that I better get to work then.
--
Thanks to everyone that read this story and gave it a chance. I wanted to get this chapter out for the anniversary of Pearl Harbor since it lines up so well with the subject of the story. The WC build took a surprising amount of time and thought to come up with, weighing the different possibilities in my mind. I thought it came out pretty well. I personally liked the element I chose of Archangel. At first I was planning on having my character have a template stacking of Gabriel from Supernatural since he was able to manipulate reality so easily in a way I thought was awesome. However, then I had the idea to make his first dragon element be Archangel so he can pretty much become one himself. This is going to come into play later on in the story. As with before, please send me reviews with what you like and what you don't as well as any characters that you want to make an appearance soon. I hope you are all ready for the multitude of crossovers I have planned.
Just to let you all know, I am going to start work on a new story soon for the Christmas season. It will be a Percy Jackson story starring the demigod son of Santa. I will be writing and stockpiling chapter so that I can release them in a burst on Christmas, so keep an eye out for that.
Anyway, that's all I have for now. Take care until the next time you find yourself reading one of my stories.