Hey guys, TheDoctor1998 here with another chapter. As you can see from the title, we're jumping right into one of the 001's.
On that note, I'd like to say I'm doing this thing in numerical order, starting with a few of the 001's. Specifically, the first six of them, as they were all posted prior to SCP-1000. Unfortunately, that does mean that it can take a while for some people to see the cast react to an SCP of their liking.
Now, on with the show!
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Sera woke up groggily. Nothing new, she thought, she's stopped sleeping well ever since Emily found out about the Exterminations and gave her the cold shoulder. Sera sighed at the thought. 'She's always been the better person between the two of us.'
For the past months she's been doing whatever she could to end the Exterminations. Rallying angels of every kind, from the lowliest Cherub to her fellow Seraphim, from the Ophanim to the Powers, and obviously the Saints who likely have loved ones who were erased from existence by a holy weapon. There were even rumors that the Elders would get involved, something that truly terrified Sera.
The Elders, Archangels who once ruled over Heaven, the god-like beings who helped the Lord in the creation of the Universe and have since become the embodiments of the Seven Virtues, just as Lucifer and his friends became the Sins. Many thought that they were their own species of angel, though in reality they were Seraphim. The first angels to have ever been created, but Seraphim nonetheless. That said, they were bestowed with unimaginable power by God himself, putting them far above the already powerful Seraphim.
She was afraid for Emily. Afraid that, like Lucifer and that Vaggie girl, she might fall if she'd upset Heaven's status quo too much. Though, with the Exterminations having become public knowledge, that was already a done deal. Adam, once a celebrity among the population, became a pariah along with the Exorcists. Wherever they went, they were treated with as much hostility as a citizen of Heaven could give them without provocation.
Adam wasn't exactly happy whenever his favorite restaurants refused service of any kind, with one rib place even going as far as to throw their sauce at him. Still, it was too soon before the Extermination for the process of Heaven's bureaucracy to halt it when the secret came out, so even if Sera wanted to, she was unable to stop it in time, making the protests a moot point.
Still, order must be kept behind the pearly gates, so she made sure that on Extermination Day nobody was able to intervene on Heaven's side, even going as far as to practically ground Emily to prevent her from doing something stupid.
Sera sighed as she left her assigned room, heading towards the dinging area of this strange place, intending to get some food. On the way, she used some of her holy powers to try and create a portal back to Heaven.
Nothing. The sparks were there, but whenever she tried to use her abilities to escape or do something that could be used to seriously hurt someone, her abilities fizzled out like she was a newborn. She was sure that the others in this place were suffering from the same thing, as she was pretty sure the Morningstar patriarch tried to create a portal the day before, and she was definitely sure that that Radio Demon was trying to melt into the shadows before stopping with an annoyed look.
Whatever this Watcher was, she had the power to stop the abilities of everyone here. And considering one of her guests was God's golden child once, and an Archangel to boot, it was quite worrying to say the least.
After her umpteenth escape attempt, Sera entered the dining area, and quickly found that she wasn't the first one to wake up. Her little sister, always so full of energy, was talking to the fallen Exorcist and Hell's princess and king.
Sera frowned at the sight, but said nothing. She didn't hate the princess, and in another life she'd have welcomed the girl with open arms, but her actions had already brought chaos and uncertainty through all of Heaven. Something that, as a heavenborn, she despised with all her being, even if she knew it was more morally right than Adam's genocides.
Regardless, Sera decided to listen in. She'd step in if they'd try to convince her sister to go against Heaven, but otherwise she'd give Emily some space. "So, Mister Morningstar-"
"Just call me Lucifer." The King of Hell interrupted, though not unkindly.
"Lucifer." Emily smiled. "You were talking yesterday about how sin can be good for humanity, but how would that even work?"
The king chuckled. "Simple. You'd just have to do it in a way that actually helps people or allows you to survive. For example, a healthy dose of pride would help to go against depression, while an excess of it would cause narcissism. Humility has the same kinds of problems, as Raph once told me. Enough of it would stop an ego from forming, but too much of it would make you a doormat who thinks they're incapable of doing anything."
"Who's Raph, dad?" Charlie asked.
"Raphael, the Heavenly Virtue of Humility, and my brother." Lucifer said slowly, clearly missing him.
Charlie smiled in surprise. "I've got another uncle?!"
"Well, seven aunts and uncles aside from the Sins." Lucifer clarified. "They and I were the first made by God, made to do specific tasks to assist in creation. When I fell and became the Sin of Pride, and the other Sins became the Sins, they became the embodiments of the virtues to counteract us." He sighed, not happy.
Charlie blinked at the information. "So why weren't they there at the trial?"
Emily shrugged uncomfortably. "They kinda isolated themselves from the rest of Heaven. People still see some of them from time to time, but they usually keep to themselves."
Before the awkward conversation could continue, the Watcher entered the room. "I see all of you've eaten your breakfast." She said, motioning to all of her guests eating in relative peace. Except for Adam, who was eating like his life depended on it.
"Sir?" Lute said, trying to get the First Man's attention.
"Not now, Danger Tits. Haven't gotten to eat anything before Extermination Day." Adam growled, eating some of the ribs off of his plate. The lack of food he had in that strange place wasn't exactly painful, but the psychological effect of going weeks without food wasn't exactly pleasant.
The Watcher merely sighed. "You'll get plenty of food in the viewing room, Adam, don't get your knickers in a twist."
Adam merely growled, but was unwilling to part with his food. Instead, he picked it up and followed the others into the viewing room.
Once everyone was there, the Watcher gestured to the screen. "Before we start, I have to show you something first." Curious, the audience all paid attention to the screen, which immediately showed a strange image that caused a massive headache in the viewers.
"Christ on a stick, it feels like I drank every bottle of Beelzejuice in Hell at once!" Husk screamed, momentarily getting the feeling like he's suffering from the worst possible hangover in existence.
"My apologies, but I needed to give you what's essentially a vaccination to cognitohazards and infohazards first." The Watcher said, truly sounding sorry that she had to hurt them.
Emily blinked, the headache already clearing. "Cognitowhat?" The angel blinked in confusion.
"Cognitohazards and infohazards, my dear." Sir Pentious answered, already starting to go on a scientific spiral. "Cognitohazards are, in essence, weird things that are dangerous to observe with one or multiple of the five senses, like a rainbow that causes people that look at it to spontaneously combust. An infohazard on the other hand would be knowledge that would be dangerous to learn, like the lyrics of a song that turns whoever knows them insane."
"And how the Hell does a hangover help against that?" Lute growled, still consumed by rage, though thankful that she'd gotten this extra time with Adam.
"Because the image is a cognitohazard, one made to protect against other cognitohazards and infohazards." The Watcher replied. "Now, if that was all, I suggest it's time to begin the show."
SCP-001: Awaiting De-classification [Blocked]
THE FOLLOWING FILES HAVE BEEN CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET BY ORDER OF THE ADMINISTRATOR
GENERAL NOTICE 001-Alpha: In order to prevent knowledge of SCP-001 from being leaked, several/no false SCP-001 files have been created alongside the true file/files. All files concerning the nature of SCP-001, including the decoy/decoys, are protected by a memetic kill agent designed to immediately cause cardiac arrest in any nonauthorized personnel attempting to access the file. Revealing the true nature/natures of SCP-001 to the general public is cause for execution, except as required under ████-███-██████.
"Those humans kill people for something like that?!" Emily screamed. "Why would they do that?!"
Lute only growled. "Sinners are the worst of the worst, dead or alive."
"Says the woman who mutilated me for sparing a kid." Vaggie said a bit too casually.
"She did WHAT?!" Charlie growled, her horns and tail materializing in an instant, infernal energies flowing from her like light from a star. Good natured she may be, but she's still the Princess of Hell, daughter of the Fallen Archangel and the First Woman. And there's nothing that pisses her off like hurting those that she loves.
Before Charlie could launch herself to Lute and do something she'd never do otherwise, Vaggie grabbed her girlfriend. "Hon, don't do anything you'll regret. You're better than her, don't sink to her level." The angel's voice was soft, but firm, doing what she could to calm the demon down.
A moment of silence passed before Charlie sat down again, simply content to glare at Lute for now. "If I ever see you during an Extermination, you won't get back into Heaven."
Another awkward silence hung in the air. It wasn't exactly every day that a pacifist with so much love in her heart would threaten to kill someone.
WARNING:
ANY NON-AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ACCESSING THIS FILE WILL BE IMMEDIATELY TERMINATED THROUGH BERRYMAN-LANGFORD MEMETIC KILL AGENT. SCROLLING DOWN WITHOUT PROPER MEMETIC INOCULATION WILL RESULT IN IMMEDIATE CARDIAC ARREST FOLLOWED BY DEATH.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
"Erm, we can't die from a heart attack, right?" Angel Dust asked. He knew that normal shit couldn't kill any of them, he's OD'd with enough drugs over the decades to kill an entire town of humans with ease, but he's never had to deal with something like this.
"Even if we could, the Watcher made us immune to that." Pentious said, gesturing to the screen that now showed some image of strange spirals. "If she wanted to kill us, she'd have done it already." He shrugged, knowing enough about cruelty to know that the Watcher would likely not hurt them. Or, at least, not in this way.
MEMETIC KILL AGENT ACTIVATED
CONTINUED LIFE SIGNS CONFIRMED
REMOVING SAFETY INTERLOCKS
Welcome, authorized personnel. Please select your desired file.
The screen showed many files labeled [ACCESS DENIED], but six of them seemed accessible. The Watcher selected the first of them.
A purple haired and purple eyed woman with a lab coat, one eye being a pixelated representation of an eye on an LED screen where the right eye would be, appeared on the screen. Her right arm is also replaced with a mechanical limb. "Good afternoon everyone, my name is Doctor Nori, and today we're going to be studying one of the SCP-001 proposals. Specifically, Jonathan Ball's proposal, AKA the Sheaf of Papers."
Alastor growled at the image of the woman. "It seems that Vox and his ilk aren't the only morons that are obsessed with such frivolous technology."
Emily blinked and looked at the other demons. "Erm, what's he talking about?"
Husk shrugged. "The bastard is from the 1930's and hates any tech that was made after his time, and Vox is an Overlord of television and other modern technology. You can do the math yourself."
Containment Class: Keter
Secondary Class: None
Disruption Class: Amida
Risk Class: Critical
Special Containment Procedures: To date, no adequate containment procedure has been developed to deal with the possible threat posed by SCP-001. This is due, in part, to the controversial nature of the item and debates concerning the necessity of its containment. This controversy is reflected in the item's changing object class and the procedures utilized in its containment. The current administration, despite charges of paranoia, has classed the object Keter, while requesting permission for a higher object class to be created and applied uniquely to this item, considering it to be the most dangerous of all known or possible items. The reason for this classification and changing attitudes towards SCP-001 are dealt with in the description and notes.
Sera started to get uneasy. If she understood this Foundation correctly, she knew that this "Sheaf of Papers" would be quite dangerous in the wrong hands.
At present, SCP-001 is located in a code-locked briefcase made of a high-tensile reinforced polymer. The room and the briefcase are monitored at all times by security cameras. The briefcase cannot be opened without unanimous special clearance from all current O5 officers. The briefcase itself is stored in a small, fully lit, single-room off-site building erected in ███ ██████ ██████. Class D personnel are posted to guard the building but may not enter without the aforementioned agreement from the O5 officers, under threat of immediate termination. This off-site building exists for the sole purpose of housing SCP-001 and is wired for detonation in an emergency.
Cherri whistled at that. "Dang, wiring an entire building for a nice self destruction. Don't see that often, usually it's just an attacker blowing up some shit."
It is the opinion of the current administration that SCP-001 represents the greatest threat to national and global security known to exist. Nevertheless, due to special circumstances regarding its mode of function, further research on the item is disallowed, despite its promotion in the past, when SCP-001 was contained in minimum security conditions.
Alastor chuckled at that. 'Poor fools probably thought it was harmless, before it showed its true nature.'
Description: SCP-001 is a simple sheaf of papers, stapled together in the top left corner. The top sheet is a covering sheet reading simply, "Confidential Report on Special Items—Classified." The number of subsequent papers stapled to this covering sheet is indeterminate, and have ranged from three to thirty. The report is unsigned and its origin is unknown.
"Finally, we get to the interesting shit." Angel Dust smirked, not really caring for those containment procedures.
The first appearance of this report was on ███████ █, ████, when it appeared on the desk of ████████ █████ (deceased). The report at that time described "The 'Living' Room" (SCP-002). Shortly after reading the report with incredulity, ████████ █████ was contacted by phone regarding said item. The next time ████████ █████ perused SCP-001, it described not "The 'Living' Room" but "Biological Motherboard" (SCP-003). ████████ █████ immediately closed SCP-001, thinking it was a different report, and searched for the original report on SCP-002. Not finding it, he again opened SCP-001, and this time it described not SCP-003 but "The 12 Rusty Keys and the Door" (SCP-004). ████████ █████ closed the report once more and opened it immediately, to read of "Skeleton Key" (SCP-005). It is not known what the next actions of ████████ █████ might have been. At varying times following this incident, the aforementioned items were discovered.
Sir Pentious quickly started writing down what was said. "Fascinating, truly fascinating."
"Watcha doing there, Pent?" Cherri Bomb asked the Sinner turned Winner.
"Simply writing what we learn down, my dear. Madman I might've been, but I've always been a scientist at my core."
Insufficient research exists concerning the correlation between SCP-001 and all other known items. However, it has been established that every event regarding the discovery of a new SCP item has followed a report on that same item appearing beneath the cover sheet of SCP-001. The current administration regards this coincidence as proof of causal connection.
Additional Notes: Whether SCP-001 is to be regarded as an advance-warning system or whether SCP-001 itself is to be regarded as the creator of the items requiring special containment remains to be seen. However, the distinction is unimportant in the eyes of the current administration. The fact remains: no new SCP items appear unless SCP-001 is opened and read. It is for this reason that the current administration refuses to repeat the mistakes of the past, mistakes that have resulted in over one thousand SCP items coming to the knowledge of the SCP unit.
Emily blinked in confusion. "So it's just something that makes random magic things? How would something be that bad?"
Charlie winced. "Some magics can be pretty nasty. Curses are kind of a thing, ya know?"
Lute only frowned at the screen, imagining what kind of things that Sheaf of Papers made. "Maybe I'll see something that'll help." She muttered, glancing at both the demons who took everything from her, and at the man she thought she'd lost for eternity. With over a thousand anomalies, there must be something she could use.
Arguments concerning the non-lethality of SCP-001 itself, its theoretically beneficial use as an SCP warning system, or its use as a progenitor of advanced biological and non-biological weapons have not swayed the current administration. Nor have arguments criticizing the extreme containment procedures employed in respect to an item that displays no nefarious qualities and is not animate as such. Critics are reminded that these procedures are intended not to contain the item itself, but to isolate it from human interaction, which is to be regarded as the true threat.
Emily paled, already imagining what kind of weapons it could cause. She's been entrapped by a lot of human media over the centuries, and has seen a lot of imagined weapons that could cause an apocalypse. If even one of those things would become real…
Although the current administration refuses to remove the object from isolation barring special authorization as noted above, past administrations have counseled daily with the item, and future administrations will no doubt counsel similar behavior. Nevertheless, it is the opinion of the current administration that, barring the destruction of SCP-001, it is to be contained until such a time when responsibility for its containment falls upon future administrations.
Alastor, having manifested himself some coffee, quietly set his cup down. "While I do not enjoy our host's chosen form of medium, I must admit that the content is quite interesting." The static in his voice started growing louder. "Quite interesting indeed."
"Oh great." Both Lucifer and Husk sighed, both knowing that Alastor being interested in something can't be good.
Doctor Nori appeared on screen again. "A bit tame for a 001 if you ask me, but it gets the point across."
Adam just scoffed. He was smart enough to realize what those papers could do, but with all that he'd seen in his life, afterlife and after-afterlife, he expected something more epic than that.
Doctor Nori was then shown standing in a lit room next to a briefcase, revealing her legs to be cybernetic as well as a thin mechanical tail. "So, this is the case holding 001?" One of the guards nodded. "To think that this all started with a single sheaf of papers."
After the video ended, some of the audience members still had some questions. "So was that the real one, or is one of the others real?" Niftty asked, her eye blinking in confusion.
"Could be." The Watcher said cryptically. "So, what do you guys think?"
"Meh." Adam shrugged. "Expected something more epic, like some fucked up demon looking thing or something."
The Watcher only smirked. "Then I guess you'll enjoy the next one." She then selected the next of the 001 proposals, showing Adam what he wanted.
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And that's a wrap. For any of you wondering about Doctor Nori, I based her on the Murder Drones character Nori Doorman, with some traits of the titular Murder Drones of the same show. TheDoctor1998 here, signing out!