Chapter 1: Trigger
"Shit, shit, shit!"
I frantically flip the swtiches and controls on the console to no avail as the shuttle continues to plummet through the lower atmosphere. Fuck, the blast must have fried the relay!
It was just supposed to be a simple run. Take an orbital shuttle down to Grey Terminal, pick up a load of salvage, and make it back in time for dinner. I have made this trip a hundred times before without a single issue.
But today just had to be the day for bandits to take their chance and shoot down a passing flight.
I rush towards the back of the shuttle in an attempt to reroute the busted relay only to slam against the wall as the stabilizers temporarily deactivate and the kinetic redistribution stutters. Once I stumble to my feet, my vision is blurry while the side of my face is wet. When I pull my hand away, I see it is coated in blood.
Oh, I probably have a concussion now. That's not good.
I stumble across the cabin before managing to find the maintenance hatch. With a hiss, I manage to pop it open and see a mass of sparking wires inside. That shot did way more damage than I thought. I can't even tell if I can make enough repairs to get the landing thrusters working.
I stick my arms into the tangled mess as I try to ignore the searing pain when a broken wire makes contact and discharges its agonizing current into my body. Just push through it. Just do it.
Finally, I twist the last severed wires together and flip a breaker to reset the auto landing system. The whoosh of the stabilizing thrusters signals that I mangaged it in time only for a world shaking impact to send the entire shuttle rolling.
An agony I have never experienced before blasts through my right arm as I am thrown across the shuttle's cabin. I can only see the console for a split second before I crash head first into it and black out.
--
When I come to, I blearily push myself up. At least, I try to. I end up just toppling to the side in a stab of pain. Looking down, I quickly realize why.
My right arm is gone. Where the limb used to be is just a bloody stump with a few strands of severed tissue hanging uselessly. Oh, so that's what the pain was about. It must have torn off in the maintenance hatch during the crash landing. That sucks.
I probably should be more freaked out, but I think my brain is too damaged from my concussions and I am still bleeding out rapidly. But hey, at least it's peaceful.
Wait, no. I need to get up. Makino is waiting for me. I promised I would be back in time for dinner. She was gonna make some stew with that boar Luffy managed to kill this morning.
With a grunt of pain, I use my remaining hand to lift myself off of the ground and begin to crawl out of the shuttle's wreckage. The front window of the shuttle had been shattered by the crash and it provided an easy way to get out since I doubt any of the exit hatches are functional anymore.
As I pull my injured body out of the destroyed shuttle, I begin to slide down the side of a mountain of trash. I roll and tumble as it sends me careening to the base as I am left to hope I don't accidentally stab myself on anything.
After a subjective eternity, I finally skid to a stop. I let out a groan of pain as my vision swims again. No, not yet. I need to get back to Makino.
As everything turns dark, I reach out in an attempt to keep moving. However, I lose all strength in my body and my arm drops. Just as my consciousness fades away, I feel my hand hit something and shift it before I succumb to my injuries.
--
(Blue King POV)
"Barnes, what the hell is that infernal beeping?" he groans. "I have been sitting here for the past ten goddamn minutes and it won't fucking stop. I swear to God, I am this close to sticking you in a time loop where you listen to it for a century straight."
"Tone it down, Blue," the other King responds. "It has been a million years, but I am still sorting through all of Stan's old shit. If I knew that becoming the Yellow King would mean finding a half-eaten burrito older than most universes in between outdated files, I would have said no."
"I don't care, just fix it!" he hollers. "I haven't had a headache this bad since the fiasco with baby Gojo(*)."
(*As seen in Get Good #1)
If he had to deal with that little shit anymore than he had to, he would seriously consider killing himself. Somehow, the kid managed to be even more annoying than his pops, the Purple King himself. That would be honestly impressive if it didn't make him such a hassle to talk to.
Or be near.
Or even be in the same universe.
"Haha!" Bucky says as he pulls an old phone out of a filing cabinet. "Finally! What kind of alarm did Stan set before he bit it?"
Bucky just stares at the phone for a second before tossing it to him. He reflexively catches it only to realize Bucky had suddenly disappeared with a flap of feathered wings. A single note trailed to the ground in his place.
Sorry, but I just remembered I have to visit my daughter and son-in-law. They adopted a kid recently and Emma has been nagging me to visit. Hope you don't mind dealing with this!
Your eternal bud,
The Yellow King
He stares at it for a moment but only comes up with a single sentence in response.
"You fucking bitch."
Goddamnit, not another new Contractor! It was bad enough when it was his own bullshit that got him stuck doing the admittance process. Now, it was Bucky sticking him with this shit!
Then again, Bucky was still hiding the whole mini Gojo debacle from Gojo Prime, so this was technically the proce he had to pay.
Unfortunately for him, Stan had the bad habit of tossing the prototype Gacha machines that he was developing for the Consortium on junkworlds. The beeping phone was a notification system designed to alert when someone managed to find and activate one of said Gacha machines.
That old fogie just loved the idea of giving random people the chance to luck into the Consortium by stumbling across one of his Gacha machines. It made everyone else's life a living hell since he didn't even finish the central Gacha system before insisting on spreading machines like goddamn candy.
Thank the Lord that the pain in his ass had finally skipped his happy ass to Heaven and left Bucky to take his place.
Based on what the surveillance system was telling him, the Gacha machine ended up in a funky hybrid universe. It was currenlty on the junkworld of Grey Terminal in the Goa system, which just so happened to be in the East Expanse of the Great Blue Galaxy. The fortunate soul who happened across it was one Nero D. Monkey.
Of course. It ended up in the sci-fi variant of a Devil May Cry/One Piece crossover universe. No wonder Bucky bailed the first chance he got.
It's fine, it's fine. He can work with this.
--
He can't work with this. Everything is not fine.
As he stands above the temporally frozen Nero, he realizes that the guy is literally on Death's door. If Nero's severe concussions and broken bones weren't bad enough, his right arm was literally gone and still leaking blood. He legit had barely any of that important red stuff left in his body.
What was he supposed to do with this?
Oh, yeah. He totally forgot about the whole Gacha thing. Any newbie got three freebie rolls with a minimum rank of Uncommon to give them something useable. If he just rolled for the incapacitated Nero, then the guy will probably be fine with it.
"You cool with that?" he asks the frozen guy.
Taking his silence as a yes, he decides to go along with it. Wait, why were these prototype machines abandoned again?
Shit, Stan couldn't manage to program in the Uncommon minimum for the beginning rolls after they were already made. That's why they were scrapped in the first place.
Oh well, he can just give the guy an achievement for managing to get this far. That should balance everything out in case something bad happens.
Achievement Unlocked
Survive a shuttle crash long enough to join the Consortium (Epic Feat: Two Rolls)
There, that makes everything cool. Let's get rolling!
(Legendary Power)
(Common Magic)
(Legendary Item)
Oh, fuck you.
Who the hell rolls two Legendaries with their beginning three?! This is such bullshit. He didn't need to nudge the system for those two other rolls.
[Legendary Power: Cursed Spirit Manipulation]
[Common Magic: Architect Magic]
[Legendary Item: Green Lantern Ring]
This loadout is already broken as shit to start out with. Well, at least the Green Lantern Ring will have plenty of life support functions to help him recover. Let's see what else he rolls.
(Major Curse)
(Rare Item)
That is not his fault. He blames Stan's shoddy programming for this clusterfuck. It can't be too bad, can it?
[Major Curse: Cursed Blade]
A katana with the power of a legendary kitsune spirit bound to its steel. It seeks to kill its user at every turn and make their life as difficult as possible.
Note: Connection to Host reders an incompatibility with [Legendary Item: Green Lantern Ring]
Oh, goddamn it. He doubted that getting a [Rare Power: Teleport] from Tron really balanced this out. So, he might as well start rolling for Curses and hope that kid managed to find something that would keep him alive in the short term.
Great, another Major Curse.
[Major Curse: Big Mouth]
You really should learn to shut yours. You have the bad habit of something the worst possible thing at the worst possible time to the worst possible person. They will not take it kindly.
On the plus side, that means two more rolls.
(Junk Demiplane)
(Epic Companion)
Neat, the Epic Companion is actually useful.
[Epic Companion: S-Snake]
While she might not technically exist in this universe yet, she can use her copied Love-Love Fruit powers to freeze Nero for a minute and get him medical attention. Shit, he needs something else to help him out though. Let's just keep going until he gets something useful.
(Minor Curse) (One Roll)
(Common Knowledge)
Okay, let's just try to give him a couple rolls for stuff he has done. Nero can just figure it out later.
(Rare Summon)
(Common Magic)
How is he so bad at rolling anything that either, a) heals Nero directly, or b) helps him get off the planet?
(Minor Curse) (One Roll)
(Legendary Companion)
Perfect! He can just stop here. But... what if he rolls something even better next time? It's just one more Curse, right?
(Major Curse) (Two Rolls)
(Common Item)
(Major Curse)
Oof. That wasn't the best call. He can't let this end on a sour note. One more Curse!
(Minor Curse) (One Roll)
(Epic Summon)
There we go. A nice Epic Summon to finish with. In all honesty, he should have stopped after the Legendary Companion, but he was kinda having too much fun. Whoops?
Anyway, the Legendary was exactly what he needed.
(Legendary Companion: Kara Zor-El/Super-girl)
A quick freeze and a quick flight will get Nero some medical attention and him out of here. Sure, he had to use some time loops to skip ahead and get a couple of those rolls, but that is a problem for Future Nero.
--
Author's Note:
The time loop rolls will be marked later.
(83, 3) Legendary Power
(40, 8) Common Magic
(87, 1) Legendary Item
(4) Major Curse
(62, 3) Rare Power
(2) Major Curse
(24, 4) Junk Demiplane
(73, 5) Epic Companion
(10) Minor Curse
(34, 2) Common Knowledge
(62, 6) Rare Summon
(28, 8) Common Magic
(9) Minor Curse
(82, 5) Legendary Companion
(3) Major Curse
(45, 1) Common Item
(4) Major Curse
(6) Minor Curse
(77, 6) Epic Summon