An ordinary guy is given powers beyond imagining and, admittedly, goes a little nuts. He/she embarks on a mad quest across the infinite multiverse but what exactly is that quest? Godhood? Fighting against evil? Nope! Just some harmless fun, honest!
Doing It For The Lulz Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Khaos
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Doing It For The Lulz Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Khaos (Worm CYOA Multi-Cross)
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I'm a god
Mingo
Son of a Hazmot
Universe 78246M72647ME (Groundhog Day)
Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania
02/02/1993
7:58 a.m.
Phil Connors was miserable, but with nothing else to do, and after waking up yet again today, he decided to rob a bank. Sitting on the curb across the street from the bank, Phil waited. He didn't really care about the money, he just wanted to escape the monotony of his new life, for years, or since last night depending on your point of view, he had been living the same day over and over again, a time loop, and while it had been fun at first (and it's not like he got no enjoyment out of it even now) he was now just so damn tired, still, he hadn't successfully stolen the money yet.
Fifteen seconds after sitting down Phil looks at his watch, it's almost time. Looking around him, Phil gets ready.
"A gust of wind, a dog bark…cue the truck."
Right on time the armored truck pulls in and parks in front of the bank. Phil just watches with a blank look on his face, not caring if anyone hears him (they wouldn't). As the two drivers exit the truck Phil resumes his narration.
"Exit Herman, walk out to the bank, exit Felix and stand there with a not so bright look on your face…" Phil finally cracks a grin "Alright Doris come on."
As a woman, Doris, approaches one of the drivers, Felix, for a roll of quarters, Phil gets up and walks slowly towards the truck, counting down from ten, and narrowly avoids being hit by a car (that had hurt last time). Just as he's a few steps away from the truck Felix and Doris drop her quarters and don't notice when Phil swoops in and takes one of the bags that had been loaded onto the truck and walks off. Phil smirks as he rounds the corner, heading to town's car dealership 'Well that was mildly amusing.'
[Quest Completed]
Phil is halfway to the dealership when someone behind him clears their throat. Turning around, Phil finds the person who had coughed and quickly realizes that he's never seen her before and is struck speechless, finally someone new! The girl is maybe eighteen or nineteen and is incredibly beautiful with fair skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes. She's dressed casually, in a black skirt and a t-shirt with a leather jacket and boots, she's also grinning madly at him. Before Phil can say anything, she speaks.
"Wow! What a trip, I thought it would be just a blink but it was a whole…" the girl trails off for a bit "…thing. Anyway, I'll take the cash now" the girl says, nodding toward the bag. The girl then focuses her attention on the bag and Phil can just hear her whisper "observe" before a shocked look forms on her face and she lets out a whistle "280k! For a bank in the sticks - Holy Shit!"
Phil is more than a little confused how she could know that or how he's never met her before when he's met EVERYONE in town. "Listen, Miss…" he begins but the girl cuts him off. "Miss? What are you- Oh right, the new body!" The girl, clearly mad, begins to feel herself up through her clothes, not caring that they're in public "To think I almost went with Grue but I decided being a hot white girl would probably open more doors for me, of course I thought I was just filling out a form, I had no idea it would be real!" With that the blonde refocuses and points at Phil "Ok. Deal: you give me the bag of cash and I tell you how to end your loop!"
[Barter Check Passed]
Hope and shock fill Phil's chest with equal measure at the prospect of the nightmare finally being over and immediately tosses the bag of cash at the girl who clearly has a screw loose but somehow knows of his plight. It is just money after all. Bag in hand, the mystery girl looks back up at Phil and smiles " Ok, this sounds like bullshit but it's true, you've got to become a good person and fall in love, like actually in love with that girl Rita, have her love you back and sleep with her," she pauses, "As in sleep in the same bed, not sex but I suppose it wouldn't hurt, so, over the next dozen or so loops get to know her, learn everything about her, then start helping people, as many as you can. She'll dig that which will make it easier to, you know, seduce her."
Phil scoffs "Are you nuts lady, give me my money back!" Having enough, he reaches out to take the bag back but she pulls it behind her. "Listen I know it sounds crazy but the way I figure it some Random Omnipotent Bastard has decided that you need to learn a lesson and until you 'change your ways' he'll keep making you loop, it's the only way."
Taking a second, Phil actually gives the idea some though. 'It's as good a plan as any, I guess. Ah what the hell!' Phil is so lost in his thoughts that he almost doesn't notice the girl starting to walk away. "Hey! Where are you going, I have questions?!" The girl keeps walking, now several feet away Phil almost yells out "At least tell me your name!"
The girl stops for a few seconds before turning around and, wearing a small smile, says "Promethea." A moment later she's gone, vanished, and for a split-second Phil sees an indescribable whirlpool of colors and fractals that takes his breath away. Phil just stands there, stock still, for a moment as his brain plays catchup, he doesn't notice the multi-car pileup caused by the sudden light show and he doesn't notice the piece of metal shrapnel from a deployed airbag flying straight at him but he feels it. When he wakes up at six am to Sunny and Cher on the clock radio, he laughs, for the first time in years, Phil Connors is truly happy.
----------------------------------------------------
This is just an idea I had, I thought about just adding it to my misc. plot bunny thread on AH but decided to post it separate. This was surprisingly easy to write, only took a couple hours after I thought of the original concept. First of all, here's my Worm CYOA v3 build:
This series is only partially inspired by the superheroine Promethea, as you can see from the character build, I didn't take Crossover, my character doesn't have her powers but they are similar if you squint. For those of you not familiar with Promethea I really do recommend you read it if you're into that sort of thing. One of the cool things about the character is that one of it's iterations was one of the first trans superheroes though don't quote me on that. One version of the character was a man named Bill, he did not have a happy ending, he was shot in the face by his lover who lost it when he finally found out that the woman he loved was actually a man.
The character Khaos that I reference in the title isn't a comic book character and won't be important immediately but it is the primordial god of Chaos in Greek Mythology and many philosophers believed him to be the "true foundation of reality." That concept will definitely be explored. It's basically the ROB/ASB that gave the MC (me) his/her powers.
You can find out more information on Promethea's powers and how they're quantified by her Gamer ability here.
You can vote on which universes you want Promethea to go to here.
Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania
02/02/1993
7:58 a.m.
Phil Connors was miserable, but with nothing else to do, and after waking up yet again today, he decided to rob a bank. Sitting on the curb across the street from the bank, Phil waited. He didn't really care about the money, he just wanted to escape the monotony of his new life, for years, or since last night depending on your point of view, he had been living the same day over and over again, a time loop, and while it had been fun at first (and it's not like he got no enjoyment out of it even now) he was now just so damn tired, still, he hadn't successfully stolen the money yet.
Fifteen seconds after sitting down Phil looks at his watch, it's almost time. Looking around him, Phil gets ready.
"A gust of wind, a dog bark…cue the truck."
Right on time the armored truck pulls in and parks in front of the bank. Phil just watches with a blank look on his face, not caring if anyone hears him (they wouldn't). As the two drivers exit the truck Phil resumes his narration.
"Exit Herman, walk out to the bank, exit Felix and stand there with a not so bright look on your face…" Phil finally cracks a grin "Alright Doris come on."
As a woman, Doris, approaches one of the drivers, Felix, for a roll of quarters, Phil gets up and walks slowly towards the truck, counting down from ten, and narrowly avoids being hit by a car (that had hurt last time). Just as he's a few steps away from the truck Felix and Doris drop her quarters and don't notice when Phil swoops in and takes one of the bags that had been loaded onto the truck and walks off. Phil smirks as he rounds the corner, heading to town's car dealership 'Well that was mildly amusing.'
[Quest Completed]
Phil is halfway to the dealership when someone behind him clears their throat. Turning around, Phil finds the person who had coughed and quickly realizes that he's never seen her before and is struck speechless, finally someone new! The girl is maybe eighteen or nineteen and is incredibly beautiful with fair skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes. She's dressed casually, in a black skirt and a t-shirt with a leather jacket and boots, she's also grinning madly at him. Before Phil can say anything, she speaks.
"Wow! What a trip, I thought it would be just a blink but it was a whole…" the girl trails off for a bit "…thing. Anyway, I'll take the cash now" the girl says, nodding toward the bag. The girl then focuses her attention on the bag and Phil can just hear her whisper "observe" before a shocked look forms on her face and she lets out a whistle "280k! For a bank in the sticks - Holy Shit!"
Phil is more than a little confused how she could know that or how he's never met her before when he's met EVERYONE in town. "Listen, Miss…" he begins but the girl cuts him off. "Miss? What are you- Oh right, the new body!" The girl, clearly mad, begins to feel herself up through her clothes, not caring that they're in public "To think I almost went with Grue but I decided being a hot white girl would probably open more doors for me, of course I thought I was just filling out a form, I had no idea it would be real!" With that the blonde refocuses and points at Phil "Ok. Deal: you give me the bag of cash and I tell you how to end your loop!"
[Barter Check Passed]
Hope and shock fill Phil's chest with equal measure at the prospect of the nightmare finally being over and immediately tosses the bag of cash at the girl who clearly has a screw loose but somehow knows of his plight. It is just money after all. Bag in hand, the mystery girl looks back up at Phil and smiles " Ok, this sounds like bullshit but it's true, you've got to become a good person and fall in love, like actually in love with that girl Rita, have her love you back and sleep with her," she pauses, "As in sleep in the same bed, not sex but I suppose it wouldn't hurt, so, over the next dozen or so loops get to know her, learn everything about her, then start helping people, as many as you can. She'll dig that which will make it easier to, you know, seduce her."
Phil scoffs "Are you nuts lady, give me my money back!" Having enough, he reaches out to take the bag back but she pulls it behind her. "Listen I know it sounds crazy but the way I figure it some Random Omnipotent Bastard has decided that you need to learn a lesson and until you 'change your ways' he'll keep making you loop, it's the only way."
Taking a second, Phil actually gives the idea some though. 'It's as good a plan as any, I guess. Ah what the hell!' Phil is so lost in his thoughts that he almost doesn't notice the girl starting to walk away. "Hey! Where are you going, I have questions?!" The girl keeps walking, now several feet away Phil almost yells out "At least tell me your name!"
The girl stops for a few seconds before turning around and, wearing a small smile, says "Promethea." A moment later she's gone, vanished, and for a split-second Phil sees an indescribable whirlpool of colors and fractals that takes his breath away. Phil just stands there, stock still, for a moment as his brain plays catchup, he doesn't notice the multi-car pileup caused by the sudden light show and he doesn't notice the piece of metal shrapnel from a deployed airbag flying straight at him but he feels it. When he wakes up at six am to Sunny and Cher on the clock radio, he laughs, for the first time in years, Phil Connors is truly happy.
----------------------------------------------------
This is just an idea I had, I thought about just adding it to my misc. plot bunny thread on AH but decided to post it separate. This was surprisingly easy to write, only took a couple hours after I thought of the original concept. First of all, here's my Worm CYOA v3 build:
God Mode +10
Kaleidoscope -8
Gamer -4
Charles Atlas Superpowers -1
Comic Book Pretty -1
Man of Mystery -1
Special Snowflake -1
Reincarnation: Glory Girl, no memories +1
Wanted: Endbringers want me dead +3
Without A Map: Elisburg +2
Kaleidoscope -8
Gamer -4
Charles Atlas Superpowers -1
Comic Book Pretty -1
Man of Mystery -1
Special Snowflake -1
Reincarnation: Glory Girl, no memories +1
Wanted: Endbringers want me dead +3
Without A Map: Elisburg +2
This series is only partially inspired by the superheroine Promethea, as you can see from the character build, I didn't take Crossover, my character doesn't have her powers but they are similar if you squint. For those of you not familiar with Promethea I really do recommend you read it if you're into that sort of thing. One of the cool things about the character is that one of it's iterations was one of the first trans superheroes though don't quote me on that. One version of the character was a man named Bill, he did not have a happy ending, he was shot in the face by his lover who lost it when he finally found out that the woman he loved was actually a man.
The character Khaos that I reference in the title isn't a comic book character and won't be important immediately but it is the primordial god of Chaos in Greek Mythology and many philosophers believed him to be the "true foundation of reality." That concept will definitely be explored. It's basically the ROB/ASB that gave the MC (me) his/her powers.
You can find out more information on Promethea's powers and how they're quantified by her Gamer ability here.
You can vote on which universes you want Promethea to go to here.
Last edited:
I was blind but now I see
Mingo
Son of a Hazmot
Universe 34966C28743CD (Limitless)
New York City, New York
03/18/2011
6:40 p.m.
Vernon Gant is lounging on the sofa in his apartment, thinking about his run-in with Eddie Morra today. His sister's ex-husband had always looked down on him, his drug pusher brother-in-law, and it pissed Vernon off that the prick actually thought he was better than him, like failed writer was a better career than drug dealer. Ha! Drug dealer! Vernon is so far past that now that he's making a hundred thousand a month pushing the new smart drug. Eiben was smart to hire pushers to sell the drug, rather than simple pharmaceutical reps. A lot of people think that street drugs basically sell themselves, and that's true for the most part, but Vernon's always been good at hooking first-timers. The preppy cramming for finals, the jock training like a dog hoping to make varsity but just isn't quite good enough to make it on his own, the mother of four who's working two jobs and is just so damn tired of being tired; Vernon has hooked them all. It's tricky at first, you gotta seduce 'em, frame it like you're just helping them out, like you care, and of course the old adage "the first hit's free" comes into play, damn if it doesn't work every time. A smirk settles on Vernon's face at that thought, without a doubt, Eddie "Hollier Than Thou" Morra will come crawling back, NZT-48 is just too good. He doubts the prick has two pennies to rub together, let alone the 20k that a single pill cost-
Vernon is broken from his musings when someone starts banging on his door. Setting down his scotch, he gets up from the sofa and walks to it, looking through the peephole. Standing just outside his door is a blonde chick, cute too, with muscles, and looks teen-aged. Several of Vernon's former peers would refuse to deal to kids because of some sort of moral code or some bullshit, to Vernon though, age didn't factor in, he had sold to people as young as 13 to as old as 80, kids were easy to hook too. He doesn't know this girl or how she found his apartment but she's too young to be a cop and that certainly looks like a large bag full of cash hanging off her shoulder, Vernon takes off the deadbolt, unlocks the door and opens it, getting a better look at her. The girl is a straight ten, cute face, large breasts, and legs for days. 'Jesus, if girls looked like this when I was in high school, I wouldn't have dropped out!' Vern just gives her (what he thinks is) a charming smile and asks "Well hey there missy, aren't you a little young to be knockin' on my door?"
The girl scowls at him a bit before answering "I'm looking to buy some pills…you know the ones, the smart ones." With that she edges past him and walks in. Vernon lets out a small groan as he watches her enter his living room, his eyes focusing on her firm behind, committing it to memory. Vernon swallows air as the firecracker turns to face him again, Vernon Jr. is fully standing to attention but Vern has no shame "Of course darlin', I'm sure we can come to an arrangement if you're short, those pills are pretty expensive."
In contrast to Vernon's grin, the girl looks like she just ate something sour "I have the money, how much for three pills?"
Vern rubs his chin in thought and decides to markup the price "30 a pill, 90 total."
The girl's eyes widen at that but to Vernon's astonishment she simply reaches into her bag and a minute later is giving him $90,000 in hundreds. Vernon is almost done counting it when he notices something strange, after double checking he looks back at the girl.
"These bills are all from the early 90's, did you rob a bank in pre-school or something?"
The blonde just scowls at him "Or something, look they're still good!" she says, getting defensive.
[Speech Check Failed]
Vernon nods at that but soon looks up at her with a twinkle in his eye as something occurs to him. "Maybe, but if this is stolen money the government can track the serial numbers, I'm afraid I'm going to have to take a little extra to cover the risk."
She does not look happy at that but nods "Fine, how much?"
"Hmm… a kiss from you, sweetness, or another 30." Vern can't help the wide grin splitting his face, 'this is too easy, kids today can't haggle for shit!' It's true, Vernon usually popped a pill in preparation for any big negotiation to even the odds, using it to remember every deal he'd done before in perfect clarity and every book he'd ever read on negotiation, his favorite being The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump, the Apprentice guy, but after seeing what the pills had done to his dumbass sister, who was supposed to be the smart one in the family and the one their parents still talked too, he only did that very rarely. If every deal was as easy as this, he'd never have to take another one of those pills again. The girl was not happy and was furiously digging around in her bag before throwing another stack of bills at him.
"Eww, fine, take your money asshole, you're not my type!"
Laughing, Vernon walks over to his desk and takes out a few samples of the pill and places the clear, plastic baggies in her hand.
"Aww, you hurt my feelings," he declares with a grin, "but still, pleasure doing business with you."
"Yeah, well, the pleasure's all yours," she replies, her face now passive now that she's got what she wants. Without further ado, the blonde takes one of the pills out of it's sample baggie and swallows it dry before turning and walking out. At the door she yells back behind her "Adios creepo!" With that she shuts the door leaving Vernon, once again, alone in his apartment. With a laugh he sits back down on his sofa, setting down the bundles of cash on his coffee table.
'She'll be back. Just three pills? They always come crawling back!' As if to prove his point, someone, again, starts banging on his door. Walking over to his door with a sly grin on his face, Vernon doesn't even check the peephole this time. Opening the door Vern calls out, "back so soon?"
That's the last coherent thought Vernon has that afternoon as fists from one of Atwood's thugs rain punches down on him. With jab to the eye, an uppercut to the jaw and a hard kick to the groin, the drug pusher collapses to the floor.
-----------------------------------------------------
And that's Chapter Two! I felt like I needed to take a shower after writing this, Vernon is quite the snake. Please review.
You can find out more information on Promethea's powers and how they're quantified by her Gamer ability here.
You can vote on which universes you want Promethea to go to here.
New York City, New York
03/18/2011
6:40 p.m.
Vernon Gant is lounging on the sofa in his apartment, thinking about his run-in with Eddie Morra today. His sister's ex-husband had always looked down on him, his drug pusher brother-in-law, and it pissed Vernon off that the prick actually thought he was better than him, like failed writer was a better career than drug dealer. Ha! Drug dealer! Vernon is so far past that now that he's making a hundred thousand a month pushing the new smart drug. Eiben was smart to hire pushers to sell the drug, rather than simple pharmaceutical reps. A lot of people think that street drugs basically sell themselves, and that's true for the most part, but Vernon's always been good at hooking first-timers. The preppy cramming for finals, the jock training like a dog hoping to make varsity but just isn't quite good enough to make it on his own, the mother of four who's working two jobs and is just so damn tired of being tired; Vernon has hooked them all. It's tricky at first, you gotta seduce 'em, frame it like you're just helping them out, like you care, and of course the old adage "the first hit's free" comes into play, damn if it doesn't work every time. A smirk settles on Vernon's face at that thought, without a doubt, Eddie "Hollier Than Thou" Morra will come crawling back, NZT-48 is just too good. He doubts the prick has two pennies to rub together, let alone the 20k that a single pill cost-
Vernon is broken from his musings when someone starts banging on his door. Setting down his scotch, he gets up from the sofa and walks to it, looking through the peephole. Standing just outside his door is a blonde chick, cute too, with muscles, and looks teen-aged. Several of Vernon's former peers would refuse to deal to kids because of some sort of moral code or some bullshit, to Vernon though, age didn't factor in, he had sold to people as young as 13 to as old as 80, kids were easy to hook too. He doesn't know this girl or how she found his apartment but she's too young to be a cop and that certainly looks like a large bag full of cash hanging off her shoulder, Vernon takes off the deadbolt, unlocks the door and opens it, getting a better look at her. The girl is a straight ten, cute face, large breasts, and legs for days. 'Jesus, if girls looked like this when I was in high school, I wouldn't have dropped out!' Vern just gives her (what he thinks is) a charming smile and asks "Well hey there missy, aren't you a little young to be knockin' on my door?"
The girl scowls at him a bit before answering "I'm looking to buy some pills…you know the ones, the smart ones." With that she edges past him and walks in. Vernon lets out a small groan as he watches her enter his living room, his eyes focusing on her firm behind, committing it to memory. Vernon swallows air as the firecracker turns to face him again, Vernon Jr. is fully standing to attention but Vern has no shame "Of course darlin', I'm sure we can come to an arrangement if you're short, those pills are pretty expensive."
In contrast to Vernon's grin, the girl looks like she just ate something sour "I have the money, how much for three pills?"
Vern rubs his chin in thought and decides to markup the price "30 a pill, 90 total."
The girl's eyes widen at that but to Vernon's astonishment she simply reaches into her bag and a minute later is giving him $90,000 in hundreds. Vernon is almost done counting it when he notices something strange, after double checking he looks back at the girl.
"These bills are all from the early 90's, did you rob a bank in pre-school or something?"
The blonde just scowls at him "Or something, look they're still good!" she says, getting defensive.
[Speech Check Failed]
Vernon nods at that but soon looks up at her with a twinkle in his eye as something occurs to him. "Maybe, but if this is stolen money the government can track the serial numbers, I'm afraid I'm going to have to take a little extra to cover the risk."
She does not look happy at that but nods "Fine, how much?"
"Hmm… a kiss from you, sweetness, or another 30." Vern can't help the wide grin splitting his face, 'this is too easy, kids today can't haggle for shit!' It's true, Vernon usually popped a pill in preparation for any big negotiation to even the odds, using it to remember every deal he'd done before in perfect clarity and every book he'd ever read on negotiation, his favorite being The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump, the Apprentice guy, but after seeing what the pills had done to his dumbass sister, who was supposed to be the smart one in the family and the one their parents still talked too, he only did that very rarely. If every deal was as easy as this, he'd never have to take another one of those pills again. The girl was not happy and was furiously digging around in her bag before throwing another stack of bills at him.
"Eww, fine, take your money asshole, you're not my type!"
Laughing, Vernon walks over to his desk and takes out a few samples of the pill and places the clear, plastic baggies in her hand.
"Aww, you hurt my feelings," he declares with a grin, "but still, pleasure doing business with you."
"Yeah, well, the pleasure's all yours," she replies, her face now passive now that she's got what she wants. Without further ado, the blonde takes one of the pills out of it's sample baggie and swallows it dry before turning and walking out. At the door she yells back behind her "Adios creepo!" With that she shuts the door leaving Vernon, once again, alone in his apartment. With a laugh he sits back down on his sofa, setting down the bundles of cash on his coffee table.
'She'll be back. Just three pills? They always come crawling back!' As if to prove his point, someone, again, starts banging on his door. Walking over to his door with a sly grin on his face, Vernon doesn't even check the peephole this time. Opening the door Vern calls out, "back so soon?"
That's the last coherent thought Vernon has that afternoon as fists from one of Atwood's thugs rain punches down on him. With jab to the eye, an uppercut to the jaw and a hard kick to the groin, the drug pusher collapses to the floor.
-----------------------------------------------------
And that's Chapter Two! I felt like I needed to take a shower after writing this, Vernon is quite the snake. Please review.
You can find out more information on Promethea's powers and how they're quantified by her Gamer ability here.
You can vote on which universes you want Promethea to go to here.
Last edited:
Indeed
Mingo
Son of a Hazmot
Universe 33854D97444ST (SG-1)
USS Odyssey, Othala Galaxy
03/13/2007, 8:01 p.m. (Outside Time Dilation Field)
11/05/2018, 9:30 a.m. (Within Time Dilation Field)
For over ten years, Teal'c and his friends have been trapped within the Odyssey's time dilation field, while it has been a decade for them, outside the ship only seconds have passed and they are mere moments away from being destroyed by an Ori warship. With the new Asgard computer core connected to the hyperdrive, the ship was unable to go to open a hyperspace window in time to escape and Colonel Samantha Carter had activated the field in desperation. Most of the crew had been evacuated before the field went up, only the most senior officers, SG-1, and General Landry remained.
They worked hardest during the first two years of their self-imprisonment, Colonel Carter and Daniel Jackson in particular had been had worked furiously, often working sixteen-hour days, while the rest of them could do nothing but watch and help in small ways, making sure they ate, that they didn't burn out. It isn't as if they don't work even now to free themselves from this hell, but it seems that all that is left for them are the longshot ideas, for example, Colonel Carter is now investigating a way for them to send a message back in time to their past selves using the time dilation field, something she had previously discounted as impossible when Vala Mal Doran initially suggested something similar, showing just how desperate they were for any solution.
/not quite as jovial but you get the idea/
Right now, the majority of them were having breakfast in the Observation Deck, with only Colonel Cameron Mitchell not among them though he had come through while on his run. Teal'c was worried for his friend. While none of the crew were happy to be trapped inside their own ship, most of his friends, and Teal'c himself, had decided they simply didn't want to be miserable for possibly the rest of their lives and had chosen to live their lives as best they could given the circumstances. Mitchell, however, was different. As time went on, he had become increasingly frustrated and bitter and it was affecting his relationships with the others. If Teal'c didn't already know that Cameron was taking the anaphrodisiac pills (libido killers) the rest, other than Dr. Jackson and Vala, were taking, he'd suspect that his friend's frustration was partially sexual in nature but the computer had verified that Mitchell was indeed synthesizing the pill every day.
They are just finishing their synthesized meal, eggs and bacon, when the alarm system activates. Flashing red lights and a low siren alert them that something is wrong before the ship's automated alert messaging system activates.
<< Alert. Alert. Intruder on the Main Bridge. Intruder in Engineering. Intruder in the Mess Hall. Intruder in the Crew Quarters. >>
Everyone leaps out of their seats. Danial yells "What the hell?! How is that possible? How many are there?!"
Sam, already at the nearby computer terminal and furiously typing commands replies "I don't know but there only seems to be one, she's somehow teleporting around the ship!" Just as she finishes talking the alert system pipes up again.
<< Intruder in the Observation Deck. >>
At the same time, they hear a woman's voice. "There you are!"
At that everyone spins around find a young woman standing by the door, just a few meters from them, waving and smiling at them. None of those present have any weapons, they hadn't needed any for years outside of routine training to keep their skills sharp, but Teal'c picks up a discarded butter knife from the table and enters a Jaffa combat stance as if he is wielding a deadly weapon (in his hands an old sock would be a deadly weapon!).
The girl, seeing their reactions, puts her hands up in surrender.
"Whoa, I'm a friendly! I'm just here with a simple business proposi-"
Partway through her sentence the girl's eyes widen and her pupils dilate (something Teal'c can see from this distance thanks to his excellent vision). She lets out a ragged breath before continuing.
"A simple business proposition," and then under her breath continues "Wow, the movie undersold this!"
Before the girl can explain what she means there's a loud *CRACK* and she falls to the floor revealing Colonel Mitchell standing behind her, holding the barrel of his sidearm, having obviously bludgeoned the intruder with the butt of the gun. He glances at Teal'c and the others with a satisfied look on his face.
[Critical Hit!]
"And to think y'all didn't want me to have a gun!"
Minutes later the girl was handcuffed to a metal chair in the brig while Carter, Jackson, and Vala went through her things. Vala and Jackson were very interested in the bag of money, Jackson because all the bills were fourteen years old and Vala because, well, it was quite a lot of money. Carter was busy analyzing some strange pills she had found in the girl's pockets and seemed to be getting more excited by the minute.
The young woman eventually wakes up, apparently groggy, and glares at Mitchell who glares back and demands "Who are you and how did you get onboard this ship?"
[Save]
[Speech Check Failed]
[Reload]
[Speech Check Failed]
[Reload]
[Speech Check Failed]
[Reload]
The girl looks exasperated by something. "Fine! My name is Promethea and I arrived here though an interdimensional portal."
Cameron smirks at the obviously fake name while Daniel looks contemplative. Cameron speaks up, "right, Promethea," but his glare hardens and he puts his hand on his holstered gun "now tell us your real name."
The girl opens her mouth to respond but Carter cuts in, walking towards her. "What are these pills? I've never seen anything like them!" Carter exclaims, "It seems to be a memory and intelligence enhancer, where did you get them?"
The girl, Promethea apparently, looks as eager to change the subject as Carter does. "Ok, that's part of the business proposition I was talking about. If you help me synthesize the drug, it's called NZT-48 by the way, you can use it to figure out a way out of here faster. I'll also tell you how you escaped in your original timeline."
Mitchell is not happy, with his hands on his head, digging into his hair he yells "'TIMELINES!' We're not getting involved in that crap again are we?" but he's mostly ignored by the saner minds in the room. The next few minutes are spent with Promethea explaining everything she knows about the NZT and its effects, the chief among them being perfect recall and what she refers to as 'hypermind.' She also goes into some of the negative effects of repeated use.
"It's a bit like a Goa'uld sarcophagus: a single use doesn't have any negative effects but over time it does cumulative damage to the brain, the most common symptoms being memory loss, paranoia, lost time and psychosis. It's possible it also causes rapid aging once you stop taking it but I don't know for sure." Furthermore, she adds "It's also more effective if it's injected as a liquid, I surmise it's creators chose to keep it in pill form because it was, ha, the more palatable option, it's easier and people tend to be pretty wary of injecting crap into their bodies"
The two women continue to talk back and forth about the drug and eventually General Landry gives the order for Promethea to be unshackled which Colonel Mitchell obeys, albeit grudgingly. The girl thanks the general while rubbing her wrists and slyly adds "I could have just teleported out of them but I didn't want to be rude."
Soon afterwards Colonel Carter's tests show that the pills are safe enough and she takes one. At first nothing happens but then her pupils dilate like Promethea's had before. Without uttering a single word, she then begins furiously typing on her laptop and soon runs out the door to the research lab, followed by Promethea and Mitchell, who isn't letting the girl out of his sight. With those three gone from the room, that leaves only Teal'c, General Landry, Daniel Jackson and Vala. After a second Landry looks to Daniel.
"Dr. Jackson, when Promethea told us her name you looked like you recognized it. Anything you'd like to share with the class?" he asks with a patient smile. Daniel nods his head, looking pensive.
"Promethea: possibly a female equivalent to Prometheus. Prometheus was a titan in Greek Mythology and was punished by the gods for giving fire to early humans. He was bound to a rock and an eagle would eat his liver, which would then grow back, only to be eaten again, for eternity. I think Promethea is also the name of a comic book superhero and some kind of Hollywood urban legend but the details of either escape me."
Soon, Carter calls everyone to the lab and tells them that she's synthesized an improved version of the drug using the new Asgard technology. NZT-49, in its liquid state, is nearly twice as powerful and should last for hours with no negative side effects. Promethea proposes a trade: one or two kilos of the drug in pill form in exchange for her future knowledge. Mitchell goes apoplectic at the very thought "HELL NO! We're not just going to give you shi-" but Landry cuts in "I'm afraid Colonel Mitchell is right; we can't just give you what you're asking for."
[Speech Check Failed]
Promethea simply smiles and says "I figured that, I just wanted to give you the chance." Before anyone can ask what she means she looks around the room before whispering "reload."
[Reload]
-------------------------------------------
"I won't ask you again!" Mitchell yells at the handcuffed girl, "Who are you and how did you get onboard this ship!"
The blonde just smiles and says "You'll never know," teleports behind him, grabs his gun from his holster and hits him over the head with it, all in the span of a single second.
[Critical Hit!]
Carter, Landry and Jackson go down next, they don't even have a chance as the mystery girl just teleports behind them and clubs each of them over the head. Vala Mal Doran puts up more of a fight, but too goes down. Finally, it is just Teal'c and the woman. Teal'c, now armed with a zat'nik'tel blaster, fires at her but the girl dodges with inhuman grace and precision. He fires several consecutive shots, missing each time, before abandoning the weapon to fight hand to hand. He never manages to land a blow however and the last thing he sees before he blacks out is the butt of Cameron Mitchell's gun descending on him.
[Critical Hit!]
[Critical Hit!]
[Critical Hit!]
[Critical Hit!]
[Critical Hit!]
[Level Up!]
[Quest Completed]
[Inventory]
Teal'c wakes up, along the others, several hours later with a severe headache, something he can tell the others are experiencing as well. The girl had spent a fair amount of the ship's energy synthesizing several dozen items over the course of several hours, but according to Carter she had wiped the computer's memory of those hours after she had finished. She had left them with a document containing several theories on how to reverse the time dilation field, the apparent location of an Ancient weapon against the Ori, and the patterns to synthesize something she called NZT-50. She also warned that the Goa'uld Ba'al would attempt to travel back in time using the stargate to kill SG-1 and become Supreme System Lord.
With the information provided by the mysterious, unnamed girl, it only takes Colonel Carter a year to find a solution for their predicament and figure out a way to reverse the field using power from the Ori beam weapon itself. The time dilation field is disabled as Teal'c stands in a small localized field and the ship explodes all around him before time reverses and before Carter can activate the dilation field in the first place, Teal'c stops her and hands her the control crystal to disconnect the Asgard core from the rest of the Odyssey's systems and the ship is able to escape destruction in the nick of time. Once they are safe Teal'c explains to his friends what has happened and gives Carter the data drive containing all the records of the Odyssey from that timeline and the data given to them by the unknown young woman. Thanks to her, after over eleven years, Teal'c's imprisonment is finally over.
-----------------------------------------
Wow this chapter did not want to be written! I'm still not totally happy with it, I will look it over in the morning and maybe edit it a bit, if there's any major rewrite I'll post a comment saying so and what the changes are but I'm wiped.
Before people complain that Promethea should have just saved from the beginning, avoiding being clubbed over the head by Cameron, please remember that by that point she's literally had her powers for less than five minutes and was still figuring them out, also the NZT had just kicked in so she was a little distracted.
If anyone artistically inclined wants to draw a picture of Teal'c wielding a butter knife, post it and I'll threadmark it.
The Save/Reload function will be an important element of the story, sometimes I'll simply allude to it happening with the words in bold and in brackets to show that they've been used, other times I'll actually show it to you from Promethea's perspective, I did both in this chapter to show what I mean. This will be a way to introduce more humor into the story, hijinks will ensue. There's something else important that's mentioned in this chapter, any guesses or was it too obvious?
You can find up to date info on what Promethea looks like here.
You can find out more information on Promethea's powers and how they're quantified by her Gamer ability here.
You can vote on which universes you want Promethea to go to here.
Please review! Chapter Four should be ready Tuesday or Wednesday.
USS Odyssey, Othala Galaxy
03/13/2007, 8:01 p.m. (Outside Time Dilation Field)
11/05/2018, 9:30 a.m. (Within Time Dilation Field)
For over ten years, Teal'c and his friends have been trapped within the Odyssey's time dilation field, while it has been a decade for them, outside the ship only seconds have passed and they are mere moments away from being destroyed by an Ori warship. With the new Asgard computer core connected to the hyperdrive, the ship was unable to go to open a hyperspace window in time to escape and Colonel Samantha Carter had activated the field in desperation. Most of the crew had been evacuated before the field went up, only the most senior officers, SG-1, and General Landry remained.
They worked hardest during the first two years of their self-imprisonment, Colonel Carter and Daniel Jackson in particular had been had worked furiously, often working sixteen-hour days, while the rest of them could do nothing but watch and help in small ways, making sure they ate, that they didn't burn out. It isn't as if they don't work even now to free themselves from this hell, but it seems that all that is left for them are the longshot ideas, for example, Colonel Carter is now investigating a way for them to send a message back in time to their past selves using the time dilation field, something she had previously discounted as impossible when Vala Mal Doran initially suggested something similar, showing just how desperate they were for any solution.
/not quite as jovial but you get the idea/
Right now, the majority of them were having breakfast in the Observation Deck, with only Colonel Cameron Mitchell not among them though he had come through while on his run. Teal'c was worried for his friend. While none of the crew were happy to be trapped inside their own ship, most of his friends, and Teal'c himself, had decided they simply didn't want to be miserable for possibly the rest of their lives and had chosen to live their lives as best they could given the circumstances. Mitchell, however, was different. As time went on, he had become increasingly frustrated and bitter and it was affecting his relationships with the others. If Teal'c didn't already know that Cameron was taking the anaphrodisiac pills (libido killers) the rest, other than Dr. Jackson and Vala, were taking, he'd suspect that his friend's frustration was partially sexual in nature but the computer had verified that Mitchell was indeed synthesizing the pill every day.
They are just finishing their synthesized meal, eggs and bacon, when the alarm system activates. Flashing red lights and a low siren alert them that something is wrong before the ship's automated alert messaging system activates.
<< Alert. Alert. Intruder on the Main Bridge. Intruder in Engineering. Intruder in the Mess Hall. Intruder in the Crew Quarters. >>
Everyone leaps out of their seats. Danial yells "What the hell?! How is that possible? How many are there?!"
Sam, already at the nearby computer terminal and furiously typing commands replies "I don't know but there only seems to be one, she's somehow teleporting around the ship!" Just as she finishes talking the alert system pipes up again.
<< Intruder in the Observation Deck. >>
At the same time, they hear a woman's voice. "There you are!"
At that everyone spins around find a young woman standing by the door, just a few meters from them, waving and smiling at them. None of those present have any weapons, they hadn't needed any for years outside of routine training to keep their skills sharp, but Teal'c picks up a discarded butter knife from the table and enters a Jaffa combat stance as if he is wielding a deadly weapon (in his hands an old sock would be a deadly weapon!).
The girl, seeing their reactions, puts her hands up in surrender.
"Whoa, I'm a friendly! I'm just here with a simple business proposi-"
Partway through her sentence the girl's eyes widen and her pupils dilate (something Teal'c can see from this distance thanks to his excellent vision). She lets out a ragged breath before continuing.
"A simple business proposition," and then under her breath continues "Wow, the movie undersold this!"
Before the girl can explain what she means there's a loud *CRACK* and she falls to the floor revealing Colonel Mitchell standing behind her, holding the barrel of his sidearm, having obviously bludgeoned the intruder with the butt of the gun. He glances at Teal'c and the others with a satisfied look on his face.
[Critical Hit!]
"And to think y'all didn't want me to have a gun!"
Minutes later the girl was handcuffed to a metal chair in the brig while Carter, Jackson, and Vala went through her things. Vala and Jackson were very interested in the bag of money, Jackson because all the bills were fourteen years old and Vala because, well, it was quite a lot of money. Carter was busy analyzing some strange pills she had found in the girl's pockets and seemed to be getting more excited by the minute.
The young woman eventually wakes up, apparently groggy, and glares at Mitchell who glares back and demands "Who are you and how did you get onboard this ship?"
[Save]
[Speech Check Failed]
[Reload]
[Speech Check Failed]
[Reload]
[Speech Check Failed]
[Reload]
The girl looks exasperated by something. "Fine! My name is Promethea and I arrived here though an interdimensional portal."
Cameron smirks at the obviously fake name while Daniel looks contemplative. Cameron speaks up, "right, Promethea," but his glare hardens and he puts his hand on his holstered gun "now tell us your real name."
The girl opens her mouth to respond but Carter cuts in, walking towards her. "What are these pills? I've never seen anything like them!" Carter exclaims, "It seems to be a memory and intelligence enhancer, where did you get them?"
The girl, Promethea apparently, looks as eager to change the subject as Carter does. "Ok, that's part of the business proposition I was talking about. If you help me synthesize the drug, it's called NZT-48 by the way, you can use it to figure out a way out of here faster. I'll also tell you how you escaped in your original timeline."
Mitchell is not happy, with his hands on his head, digging into his hair he yells "'TIMELINES!' We're not getting involved in that crap again are we?" but he's mostly ignored by the saner minds in the room. The next few minutes are spent with Promethea explaining everything she knows about the NZT and its effects, the chief among them being perfect recall and what she refers to as 'hypermind.' She also goes into some of the negative effects of repeated use.
"It's a bit like a Goa'uld sarcophagus: a single use doesn't have any negative effects but over time it does cumulative damage to the brain, the most common symptoms being memory loss, paranoia, lost time and psychosis. It's possible it also causes rapid aging once you stop taking it but I don't know for sure." Furthermore, she adds "It's also more effective if it's injected as a liquid, I surmise it's creators chose to keep it in pill form because it was, ha, the more palatable option, it's easier and people tend to be pretty wary of injecting crap into their bodies"
The two women continue to talk back and forth about the drug and eventually General Landry gives the order for Promethea to be unshackled which Colonel Mitchell obeys, albeit grudgingly. The girl thanks the general while rubbing her wrists and slyly adds "I could have just teleported out of them but I didn't want to be rude."
Soon afterwards Colonel Carter's tests show that the pills are safe enough and she takes one. At first nothing happens but then her pupils dilate like Promethea's had before. Without uttering a single word, she then begins furiously typing on her laptop and soon runs out the door to the research lab, followed by Promethea and Mitchell, who isn't letting the girl out of his sight. With those three gone from the room, that leaves only Teal'c, General Landry, Daniel Jackson and Vala. After a second Landry looks to Daniel.
"Dr. Jackson, when Promethea told us her name you looked like you recognized it. Anything you'd like to share with the class?" he asks with a patient smile. Daniel nods his head, looking pensive.
"Promethea: possibly a female equivalent to Prometheus. Prometheus was a titan in Greek Mythology and was punished by the gods for giving fire to early humans. He was bound to a rock and an eagle would eat his liver, which would then grow back, only to be eaten again, for eternity. I think Promethea is also the name of a comic book superhero and some kind of Hollywood urban legend but the details of either escape me."
Soon, Carter calls everyone to the lab and tells them that she's synthesized an improved version of the drug using the new Asgard technology. NZT-49, in its liquid state, is nearly twice as powerful and should last for hours with no negative side effects. Promethea proposes a trade: one or two kilos of the drug in pill form in exchange for her future knowledge. Mitchell goes apoplectic at the very thought "HELL NO! We're not just going to give you shi-" but Landry cuts in "I'm afraid Colonel Mitchell is right; we can't just give you what you're asking for."
[Speech Check Failed]
Promethea simply smiles and says "I figured that, I just wanted to give you the chance." Before anyone can ask what she means she looks around the room before whispering "reload."
[Reload]
-------------------------------------------
"I won't ask you again!" Mitchell yells at the handcuffed girl, "Who are you and how did you get onboard this ship!"
The blonde just smiles and says "You'll never know," teleports behind him, grabs his gun from his holster and hits him over the head with it, all in the span of a single second.
[Critical Hit!]
Carter, Landry and Jackson go down next, they don't even have a chance as the mystery girl just teleports behind them and clubs each of them over the head. Vala Mal Doran puts up more of a fight, but too goes down. Finally, it is just Teal'c and the woman. Teal'c, now armed with a zat'nik'tel blaster, fires at her but the girl dodges with inhuman grace and precision. He fires several consecutive shots, missing each time, before abandoning the weapon to fight hand to hand. He never manages to land a blow however and the last thing he sees before he blacks out is the butt of Cameron Mitchell's gun descending on him.
[Critical Hit!]
[Critical Hit!]
[Critical Hit!]
[Critical Hit!]
[Critical Hit!]
[Level Up!]
[Quest Completed]
[Inventory]
Teal'c wakes up, along the others, several hours later with a severe headache, something he can tell the others are experiencing as well. The girl had spent a fair amount of the ship's energy synthesizing several dozen items over the course of several hours, but according to Carter she had wiped the computer's memory of those hours after she had finished. She had left them with a document containing several theories on how to reverse the time dilation field, the apparent location of an Ancient weapon against the Ori, and the patterns to synthesize something she called NZT-50. She also warned that the Goa'uld Ba'al would attempt to travel back in time using the stargate to kill SG-1 and become Supreme System Lord.
With the information provided by the mysterious, unnamed girl, it only takes Colonel Carter a year to find a solution for their predicament and figure out a way to reverse the field using power from the Ori beam weapon itself. The time dilation field is disabled as Teal'c stands in a small localized field and the ship explodes all around him before time reverses and before Carter can activate the dilation field in the first place, Teal'c stops her and hands her the control crystal to disconnect the Asgard core from the rest of the Odyssey's systems and the ship is able to escape destruction in the nick of time. Once they are safe Teal'c explains to his friends what has happened and gives Carter the data drive containing all the records of the Odyssey from that timeline and the data given to them by the unknown young woman. Thanks to her, after over eleven years, Teal'c's imprisonment is finally over.
-----------------------------------------
Wow this chapter did not want to be written! I'm still not totally happy with it, I will look it over in the morning and maybe edit it a bit, if there's any major rewrite I'll post a comment saying so and what the changes are but I'm wiped.
Before people complain that Promethea should have just saved from the beginning, avoiding being clubbed over the head by Cameron, please remember that by that point she's literally had her powers for less than five minutes and was still figuring them out, also the NZT had just kicked in so she was a little distracted.
If anyone artistically inclined wants to draw a picture of Teal'c wielding a butter knife, post it and I'll threadmark it.
The Save/Reload function will be an important element of the story, sometimes I'll simply allude to it happening with the words in bold and in brackets to show that they've been used, other times I'll actually show it to you from Promethea's perspective, I did both in this chapter to show what I mean. This will be a way to introduce more humor into the story, hijinks will ensue. There's something else important that's mentioned in this chapter, any guesses or was it too obvious?
You can find up to date info on what Promethea looks like here.
You can find out more information on Promethea's powers and how they're quantified by her Gamer ability here.
You can vote on which universes you want Promethea to go to here.
Please review! Chapter Four should be ready Tuesday or Wednesday.
Last edited:
I'm Immortal!
Mingo
Son of a Hazmot
Warning! Strong Language Ahead! You have been warned!
Universe 68376R42773SS (Misfits)
London, United Kingdom
12/19/2010
5:01 p.m.
When he learned that Alisha had sold her power, Nathan Young thought it was utter bullshit. 'I mean who would even pay for the ability to make anyone want to have sex with you just by touching them, to the point that they'll actually try to rape you if say no?' After a moment of thought Nathan thinks he figures it out 'Oh! Ugly birds! Ugly fat dykes more likely! …Or Barry.' Pleased at having solved the mystery Nathan continues his walk up to the building where Barry (real name Simon) had told him the 'power broker' worked out of. He and his mates in ASBO (juvenile offenders doing community service) had seen graffiti popping up advertising 'money for powers' but Nathan hadn't thought much of it at the time, there was no way he was giving up his own immortality for just a few lousy quid! But that was before he found out people were being given THOUSANDS of pounds for their crap powers, that changed things. Even then Nathan probably wouldn't have sold his ability, in his mind immortality is an A-list power and he'd already cheated death with it several times now, it must be worth at least a few hundred grand. Indeed, several people have killed Nathan in various ways up until now, and there was no way he would ever consider selling it, 'People keep killing me! I mean who would want to kill me? I'm so fucking lovable!' …but that was before he met Marnie. Despite having known her for less than 24 hours Nathan knew that he was completely in love with her and would do anything for her (what can I say, he's an idiot) including selling his power for enough money to give the both of them a better life. 'Also, if she was willing to let me do to her what I did last night after knowing me for all of five seconds, what would she do to me if I came back with a million quid? That girl is absolutely filthy, how I love her!'
Nathan eventually finds the right building and goes up the stairs to the second floor and discovers that there's a bit of a line, six people, as well as three security guards. It isn't a long wait and he's rushed in to see the big guy. Nathan walks into the room and looked around, 'It looks like one of those police interrogation rooms you see on telly!' sitting at the table was a man in a suit, looking bored, Nathan looks at him and says "Hi!" before swaggering over and sitting down with a smile. The man in the suit speaks.
"So what have you got?"
"Immortality," Nathan says with a satisfied look "so that's off the A-List."
At that the man lets out a breath and sits up straight. That had certainly grabbed his attention! Now interested, the stranger asks "How much you want for it?"
A proud look crosses Nathan's face "I will not settle for a penny less than one million pounds!"
At that the man nods his head in thought before responding "A thousand."
Nathan (the idiot) both looks and feels victorious when he answers "Two thousand!"
The man (his name's Seth by the way) grins at the easy mark before replying "Deal" before reaching to shake Nathan's hand. They're about to shake on it when a voice, an American voice calls out "You're a fucking idiot, you know that!?"
The two spin around in time to see a blonde- (you know what, at this point you all know what she looks like) to see our girl shooting Seth's security guard with zat'nik'tel blaster, stunning the man, who then falls to the floor like a marionette with its strings cut. Promethea continues.
"I wouldn't accept less than £20,000 if I were you." Then she points at Seth "When the idiot's done I'm next."
Nathan looks her up and down. 'Ooh! I'd like to truss her up and toss h- NO, I'm with Marnie now, Marnie is love!' "Excuse me you bloody yank, but we're in the middle of a very important business deal, would you kindly fuck off?" Nathan waves her away before turning in his chair and says to Seth "On second thought I can't accept less than twenty…five, yes, twenty-five grand!"
Behind him Promethea just rolls her eyes but her small smile betrays her true feelings. Nathan is an idiot but he's one of her favorite idiots and she's always been quite fond of him, like a king would be fond of a favorite court jester. The same actor's character in Umbrella Academy was much the same, lovable fools the both of them.
At the same time, Seth is not too happy, he could have taken that power for a steal and sold it for thirty times what he'd have paid for it. Now he'd still make a profit, but a much smaller one. Grinding his teeth in annoyance, Seth looks at Nathan. "Fine, £25,000." With that he walks to the desk and takes out the money before walking back, with the cash in his left hand he reaches out with his right "Deal?"
Nathan, his eyes wide, never having seen that kind of money, immediately accepts and shakes his hand, as they touch, he feels a cold, slithery feeling run down his arm, at the same time there's a bright flash emanating from Seth's arm, soon it's over and Seth hands over the money. "It's done."
Nathan's eyes widen "It's done? That was it?" 'It's gone, my power's gone!' Nathan momentarily experiences a bit of 'buyer's remorse' before he looks down at the fat stack in his hands and starts counting his money 'Immortality! Who fucking needs it?! Money is its own superpower and now I'm fucking rich!'
[Inventory]
Nathan gets up and is halfway to the door when Promethea walks to the table and, from seemingly out of nowhere, pulls out over a hundred thousand pounds in £50 notes and tosses them on the table. "A hundred thousand pounds for that asshole's immortality, fifty thousand for your bodyguard's invincibility, and thirty for immunity. £180,000, lets call it 200 even for all three."
[Barter Check Passed]
Nathan's jaw hangs open after hearing that, Seth however, was playing it close to the vest and simply nodded in affirmation. Nathan was not amused. 'What the fuck! All my power could do was bring me back to life, that's shit compared to making money of thin air! This is bollocks! And she's paying a hundred grand for my shitty power? What a fucking moron!'
While Nathan looks on, Seth and Promethea haggle a bit before they come to an agreement and shake hands. Given that he is granting her not just one but three powers, Seth's light is much brighter than before and Nathan has to look away.
[Quest Completed]
Once it's done the girl vanishes in a blaze of colors and impossible patterns that hurt Nathan and Seth to look at. Shortly afterwards Nathan is kindly escorted off the premises (read: booted out) and makes his way back to the center to tell Marnie the good news. Walking up the front steps, Nathan shouts out "Marnie, Barry! I'm back. You won't believe what I got!"
----------------------------------------
That's Chapter 4! Hope no one got offended, it's just how Nathan talks in the show. If you are offended and think any part of this chapter violates SV content rules please tell me which part you want removed and which specific rule I am breaking, provide links and quotes. Next chapter is a Vicky interlude (yes, she's not dead.)
You can find up to date info on what Promethea looks like here.
You can find out more information on Promethea's powers and how they're quantified by her Gamer ability here.
You can vote on which universes you want Promethea to go to here.
Please Review!
Universe 68376R42773SS (Misfits)
London, United Kingdom
12/19/2010
5:01 p.m.
When he learned that Alisha had sold her power, Nathan Young thought it was utter bullshit. 'I mean who would even pay for the ability to make anyone want to have sex with you just by touching them, to the point that they'll actually try to rape you if say no?' After a moment of thought Nathan thinks he figures it out 'Oh! Ugly birds! Ugly fat dykes more likely! …Or Barry.' Pleased at having solved the mystery Nathan continues his walk up to the building where Barry (real name Simon) had told him the 'power broker' worked out of. He and his mates in ASBO (juvenile offenders doing community service) had seen graffiti popping up advertising 'money for powers' but Nathan hadn't thought much of it at the time, there was no way he was giving up his own immortality for just a few lousy quid! But that was before he found out people were being given THOUSANDS of pounds for their crap powers, that changed things. Even then Nathan probably wouldn't have sold his ability, in his mind immortality is an A-list power and he'd already cheated death with it several times now, it must be worth at least a few hundred grand. Indeed, several people have killed Nathan in various ways up until now, and there was no way he would ever consider selling it, 'People keep killing me! I mean who would want to kill me? I'm so fucking lovable!' …but that was before he met Marnie. Despite having known her for less than 24 hours Nathan knew that he was completely in love with her and would do anything for her (what can I say, he's an idiot) including selling his power for enough money to give the both of them a better life. 'Also, if she was willing to let me do to her what I did last night after knowing me for all of five seconds, what would she do to me if I came back with a million quid? That girl is absolutely filthy, how I love her!'
Nathan eventually finds the right building and goes up the stairs to the second floor and discovers that there's a bit of a line, six people, as well as three security guards. It isn't a long wait and he's rushed in to see the big guy. Nathan walks into the room and looked around, 'It looks like one of those police interrogation rooms you see on telly!' sitting at the table was a man in a suit, looking bored, Nathan looks at him and says "Hi!" before swaggering over and sitting down with a smile. The man in the suit speaks.
"So what have you got?"
"Immortality," Nathan says with a satisfied look "so that's off the A-List."
At that the man lets out a breath and sits up straight. That had certainly grabbed his attention! Now interested, the stranger asks "How much you want for it?"
A proud look crosses Nathan's face "I will not settle for a penny less than one million pounds!"
At that the man nods his head in thought before responding "A thousand."
Nathan (the idiot) both looks and feels victorious when he answers "Two thousand!"
The man (his name's Seth by the way) grins at the easy mark before replying "Deal" before reaching to shake Nathan's hand. They're about to shake on it when a voice, an American voice calls out "You're a fucking idiot, you know that!?"
The two spin around in time to see a blonde- (you know what, at this point you all know what she looks like) to see our girl shooting Seth's security guard with zat'nik'tel blaster, stunning the man, who then falls to the floor like a marionette with its strings cut. Promethea continues.
"I wouldn't accept less than £20,000 if I were you." Then she points at Seth "When the idiot's done I'm next."
Nathan looks her up and down. 'Ooh! I'd like to truss her up and toss h- NO, I'm with Marnie now, Marnie is love!' "Excuse me you bloody yank, but we're in the middle of a very important business deal, would you kindly fuck off?" Nathan waves her away before turning in his chair and says to Seth "On second thought I can't accept less than twenty…five, yes, twenty-five grand!"
Behind him Promethea just rolls her eyes but her small smile betrays her true feelings. Nathan is an idiot but he's one of her favorite idiots and she's always been quite fond of him, like a king would be fond of a favorite court jester. The same actor's character in Umbrella Academy was much the same, lovable fools the both of them.
At the same time, Seth is not too happy, he could have taken that power for a steal and sold it for thirty times what he'd have paid for it. Now he'd still make a profit, but a much smaller one. Grinding his teeth in annoyance, Seth looks at Nathan. "Fine, £25,000." With that he walks to the desk and takes out the money before walking back, with the cash in his left hand he reaches out with his right "Deal?"
Nathan, his eyes wide, never having seen that kind of money, immediately accepts and shakes his hand, as they touch, he feels a cold, slithery feeling run down his arm, at the same time there's a bright flash emanating from Seth's arm, soon it's over and Seth hands over the money. "It's done."
Nathan's eyes widen "It's done? That was it?" 'It's gone, my power's gone!' Nathan momentarily experiences a bit of 'buyer's remorse' before he looks down at the fat stack in his hands and starts counting his money 'Immortality! Who fucking needs it?! Money is its own superpower and now I'm fucking rich!'
[Inventory]
Nathan gets up and is halfway to the door when Promethea walks to the table and, from seemingly out of nowhere, pulls out over a hundred thousand pounds in £50 notes and tosses them on the table. "A hundred thousand pounds for that asshole's immortality, fifty thousand for your bodyguard's invincibility, and thirty for immunity. £180,000, lets call it 200 even for all three."
[Barter Check Passed]
Nathan's jaw hangs open after hearing that, Seth however, was playing it close to the vest and simply nodded in affirmation. Nathan was not amused. 'What the fuck! All my power could do was bring me back to life, that's shit compared to making money of thin air! This is bollocks! And she's paying a hundred grand for my shitty power? What a fucking moron!'
While Nathan looks on, Seth and Promethea haggle a bit before they come to an agreement and shake hands. Given that he is granting her not just one but three powers, Seth's light is much brighter than before and Nathan has to look away.
[Quest Completed]
Once it's done the girl vanishes in a blaze of colors and impossible patterns that hurt Nathan and Seth to look at. Shortly afterwards Nathan is kindly escorted off the premises (read: booted out) and makes his way back to the center to tell Marnie the good news. Walking up the front steps, Nathan shouts out "Marnie, Barry! I'm back. You won't believe what I got!"
----------------------------------------
That's Chapter 4! Hope no one got offended, it's just how Nathan talks in the show. If you are offended and think any part of this chapter violates SV content rules please tell me which part you want removed and which specific rule I am breaking, provide links and quotes. Next chapter is a Vicky interlude (yes, she's not dead.)
You can find up to date info on what Promethea looks like here.
You can find out more information on Promethea's powers and how they're quantified by her Gamer ability here.
You can vote on which universes you want Promethea to go to here.
Please Review!
Last edited:
Shit gets REAL!
Mingo
Son of a Hazmot
The REAL World
Alexandria, Virginia
11/15/2020
10:00 a.m.
"…need a little time to wake up. Need a little time to wake up, wake up…"
Victoria Dallon groans as she tightens her eyes and burrows further into her blankets, trying to go back to sleep but the song keeps playing 'Is that coming from Amy's room? It sounds closer…she never has her music up this loud, Mom doesn't let her.'
"…need a little time to rest your mind, you know you should so I guess you might as well…"
Vicky opens her eyes to investigate where the song is coming from and stares blankly at her unfamiliar surroundings before her tired brain realizes This is not my room and adrenaline floods through her veins. "What the fuck?! Where am am…" A single horrifying thought enters her mind 'That's not my voice!' Vicky's eyes dash around the unfamiliar bedroom before settling on a full-length mirror on the opposite wall from the bed. 'No…'
In the mirror is her reflection but it's not her reflection, but a man's. The man is completely average in every way: pale white skin, brown hair, brown eyes, early 30s, about 5'11 and maybe 190 pounds, right now he's looking right back at Vicky with his face suspended in abject horror. 'It has to be a trick, some kind of Striker/Changer power! At least I still have my…My Powers!' After confirming that her powers are indeed gone, Vicki comes to a decision. 'This has got to be some sort of Shaker/Trump/Changer and whoever they are they've got to be nearby!'
"…what's the story, morning glory, well?"
Vicky, still looking in the wall mirror, sees the stranger's mouth twist into a scowl. "'Morning Glory? Very clever, asshole! Step One: shut off that noise!"
Soon, Vicki tracks the music to a smartphone lying on the floor near the bed. Picking it up she swipes the screen, turning off the alarm and is about to turn the phone back off when she notices the date < Sun, November 15 > at the top of the screen. 'It's been four days? What the fuck! Was I drugged?' She tries to examine it further but it says < Enter PIN > so she turns it off before turning the phone over in her hands. 'Where's the keyboard? I always keep my phone's password on the underside of the pop-out keyboard. This touch screen is pretty good, must be tinkertech.' Setting the phone down, she scans the room. The bedroom is small, about a third the size of Vicky's room at home, and about half of it is taken up by exercise equipment, namely a treadmill. On one wall there's a desk with an open laptop, Vicky walks over to it and sits down on the desk chair before tapping a few keys, thankfully there's no password this time.
The first thing Vicky sees is some webpage about worms and advantages and disadvantages, obviously whoever kidnapped her is a freak, but she disregards it and closes the window. Vicky then sees the date on the Windows task bar and goes completely still as her brain catches up, after a second, she looks at the date again < 11/15/2020 >, it hasn't changed. Unable to believe it, she opens a new tab and types infomole.org into the address bar but nothing happens, growling a little, Vicky instead types in the name of the 'other' search engine, Google, and once there types in 'what is today's date?' but gets the same date as before. 'No…I'm not in the future, I'm not in some random future guy's body, I think I'm going to be sick.'
For a minute Vicky fights the urge to vomit and thankfully the feeling passes and she types 'news' into the search filter. After a few minutes of searching she's stunned. 'What the fuck is Covid? And Donald Trump is President! And I suppose Kim Kardashian is the Vice President!
'Wait, how come there's nothing here about the endbringers? Holy fuck, did we kill them somehow?' Vicky quickly does a search on the second-rate search engine 'Google's OK but it's no infomole and always has too many adds!'
Vicky types in 'Endbringers' into the search bar but all she gets, after the adds, is another website apparently about worms. She's about to type in something more specific when she reads the first line of the description:
'The Endbringers are monstrous beings that take turns attacking locations around the globe to cause as much damage as they possibly can...'
"Well that's it at least, though why the hell are they mentioning it here and not on the news…" Vicky clicks the link and immediately gets confused by the first thing she sees:
'This article contains Major Spoilers relating to some of the most pivotal parts of Worm.'
"Spoilers! What the hell!" Vicky continues to read through the page. (I'm not going to go through all of what she reads or all of her reactions but these are the highlights)
'Are they trying to say Endbringers aren't real?
'Holy shit! Someone killed Behemoth!?'
'Three more of those monsters? Fuck!'
'Leviathan attacked Brockton? Oh my god!'
At that Vicky clicked on the link titled 'Battle Against Leviathan' and a second later sucked in a breath 'Only six months from now…or nine and a half years ago.' Reading down the list of casualties, three named 'Gallant…Manpower…Shielder.' 'Oh, Dean!'
Vichy reads through the article and it seems that, for an Endbringer battle at least, it was a victory. 'Thank God Armsmaster was there, it sounds like his nano-blade thing made all the difference.' After reading it again and seeing no sign of her name she types it into the search bar and goes to a page all about her. "Antares? What's wrong with Glory Girl?! There it goes again saying I'm a 'character!'
The first thing Vicky reads as she scrolls down is 'Victoria was a hot-tempered and prideful cape.' 'WHAT! Well fuck you too asshole!' Vicky continues to read the page but again stops dead when she reads something that doesn't make sense.
'Victoria found Amy after she healed Mark and ran from their house. Victoria attempted to calm Amy down, but worn out Amy, unable to hold back anymore, imprinted love for herself into Victoria's brain, causing Victoria to leave in disgust.'
'Oh, you had me for a second! Ames can't even do brains, and of course I love her, she's my sister!'
Having had enough with the obviously (to her) bullshit website, Vicky gets up from the desk and walks to the door. Readying herself for a possible fight, she takes a steadying breath and opens it. The door opens out into a hallway, leading to the rest of, not a supervillain's lair, but an ordinary apartment. It's a nice apartment, pretty albeit cheap, a woman definitely lives here. At the thought Vicky turns around and walks to a closed door in the same hallway and opens it. This bedroom is much bigger than the other one and is pitch black, or was, the now open door illuminates the room, revealing to Vicky a woman lying in the bed, now somewhat awake and not looking happy. Groggily, the woman yells at her "James? What are you doing?! Go away!" Vicky mumbles an apology before leaving the room and closing the door, walking back to the other bedroom. 'It's just a regular apartment, just a regular family!' Vicky starts to feal guilty for the woman 'she lost her…friend?...brother? and doesn't even know that I killed him!' but in a moment shakes her head defiantly 'No! I didn't kill him, I didn't choose this! This was done to me! I'm a victim too! …never wanted to be a victim…'
Back in h-James' room, Vicky looks around and finds a wallet with a drivers license. 'James Campbell, huh? You were just a regular guy, weren't you?' Sitting back down at the computer, Vicky closes the window supposedly about her life and instead opts to learn what she could about the guy whose life she'd taken. Aurora, huh, some kind of video game? What's this…' Vicky clicked on the notepad icon and finds this:
Worm: Choose Your Own Adventure
Revised v3
Name: Promethea
TOA: 11/11/10
Difficulty: God Mode 10
Powers: Gamer 6
Kaleidoscope -2
Advantages: Charles Atlas Superpowers -3
Comic Book Pretty -4
Man of Mystery -5
Special Snowflake -6
Disadvantages: Reincarnation: Glory Girl, no memories -5
Wanted: Endbringers, want me dead, -2
Without a Map: Elisburg 0
A Brighter World: NA 0
Things Get Worse: NA 0
END
The bit about advantages and disadvantages rings a bell and Vicky remembers the page the browser was open to when she first turned the laptop on. It's the bit about reincarnation that grabs Vicki's attention! 'He…he chose this, is he in MY body?! Is this some Freaky Friday shit?!' Vicky goes back to the browser and goes through the computer's history, finds the page, clicks on it, and reads it.
'Aliens? It's saying I got my powers from aliens?'
'There's that Taylor again, who is that?'
'Crossover...Gamer…Emperor of Man! This is so stupid! Who would waste their time with this crap?' Vicky looks in the lower left side of the page "80,000 views? Get a life!" Eventually, she finds the bit about resurrection. 'He could have gotten three points if he had made it random, he CHOSE to be reincarnated as me!' After reading the whole of the CYOA she goes back to the beginning and rereads James' character build again. 'Kaleidoscope, so he's supposed to be able to jump around universes then? And who's Promethea? There's no option for that here.'
Back to Google she types 'Promethea' into the search engine and gets some interesting results:
'Promethea was once considered by most to be an urban legend and easter egg (as the term relates to media) and is considered to be the first ever easter egg as the term is today defined, going all the way back to 1939 when she first appeared in the script for The Wizard of Oz. The altered script, where a magical character named Promethea met the main characters and essentially took over the story, was taken as a prank and largely forgotten as the scripts were corrected and reprinted with no further issue. Since then, Promethea has appeared in the scripts of hundreds of movies, television shows and video games as well as in the final drafts of dozens of novels and over a hundred comic books, she doesn't always give her name in all these stories but her name still appears in line scripts, story boards, and character lists. With some of these instances, after the myth became widely known, the character was left in the script and scenes were actually shot, but mostly just added to the DVD as an extra (Stargate SG-1, Lost Girl and Supernatural just to name a few) but a couple movies and a few tv shows, however, at least partially aired the scenes, these were usually irreverent comedies like Rick and Morty or Misfits.
Some TV shows were actually saved from cancellation by the interest generated by Promethea, most notably the space western series Firefly and the fantasy-mystery-comedy series Pushing Daisies. A couple of these were discovered to be hoaxes though, the most notable being the cartoon comedy King of the Hill.
Article continues…
Vicky clicks the link and keeps reading…and reading…and reading (it's a long article I'm not going to write the whole thing) …and reading before backing away from the laptop, disgusted. "He's certainly having the time of his life running around in MY BODY!"
Vicky spends a great deal of time thinking things over before coming to a decision. Reopening the page to the CYOA, then reopening the notepad, she starts typing, replacing Jame- replacing Promethea's build with one of her own creation, giving herself most of the same abilities but making a few key changes. As she types 'END' one thought runs through her mind:
'If this works, I'm coming for you asshole! And then I'm gunna fucking kill you!'
---------------------------------------------
For those of you who knew what infomole was without having to look it up, bless you, for the rest of you, well, you're all clearly doing something wrong in your lives! Kidding aside, I love this chapter and I might have rushed through a bit to get to this point, I hope you like it too, if not, please be gentle in your critiques!
For the record, while Kim Kardashian was born a couple years after the entities arrived, the timelines didn't start to really diverge until the early 80s so for this fic at least Kim Kardashian is alive and well and famous on Earth Bet. It probably won't come up again but I didn't want to throw the line away once I thought of it (kudos if you caught the Back to the Future reference.)
Yep, Vicky's going to be a recurring character in this fic, thanks goes to Zerak for essentially giving me the idea, give yourself a cookie Zerak! As for the fact that Promethea is somehow affecting the real world, that was mostly so that Vicky could learn what she's been up to and find her. It might be important in other ways later on, who knows? I also wanted to save Firefly, it got six seasons and a movie this time!
They'll be one more chapter in this arc, mostly introspective, and then we'll jump into the second arc where her goal will be to unlock her magic and find out just who/what her mysterious "patron" is and there's only one person in all of the omni-verse who can help her with both those things, and no, it's not Hot Pie from Game of Thrones but good guess!
You can find up to date info on what Promethea looks like here.
You can find out more information on Promethea's powers and how they're quantified by her Gamer ability here.
You can vote on which universes you want Promethea to go to here.
Thanks for reading, and please review!
Alexandria, Virginia
11/15/2020
10:00 a.m.
"…need a little time to wake up. Need a little time to wake up, wake up…"
Victoria Dallon groans as she tightens her eyes and burrows further into her blankets, trying to go back to sleep but the song keeps playing 'Is that coming from Amy's room? It sounds closer…she never has her music up this loud, Mom doesn't let her.'
"…need a little time to rest your mind, you know you should so I guess you might as well…"
Vicky opens her eyes to investigate where the song is coming from and stares blankly at her unfamiliar surroundings before her tired brain realizes This is not my room and adrenaline floods through her veins. "What the fuck?! Where am am…" A single horrifying thought enters her mind 'That's not my voice!' Vicky's eyes dash around the unfamiliar bedroom before settling on a full-length mirror on the opposite wall from the bed. 'No…'
In the mirror is her reflection but it's not her reflection, but a man's. The man is completely average in every way: pale white skin, brown hair, brown eyes, early 30s, about 5'11 and maybe 190 pounds, right now he's looking right back at Vicky with his face suspended in abject horror. 'It has to be a trick, some kind of Striker/Changer power! At least I still have my…My Powers!' After confirming that her powers are indeed gone, Vicki comes to a decision. 'This has got to be some sort of Shaker/Trump/Changer and whoever they are they've got to be nearby!'
"…what's the story, morning glory, well?"
Vicky, still looking in the wall mirror, sees the stranger's mouth twist into a scowl. "'Morning Glory? Very clever, asshole! Step One: shut off that noise!"
Soon, Vicki tracks the music to a smartphone lying on the floor near the bed. Picking it up she swipes the screen, turning off the alarm and is about to turn the phone back off when she notices the date < Sun, November 15 > at the top of the screen. 'It's been four days? What the fuck! Was I drugged?' She tries to examine it further but it says < Enter PIN > so she turns it off before turning the phone over in her hands. 'Where's the keyboard? I always keep my phone's password on the underside of the pop-out keyboard. This touch screen is pretty good, must be tinkertech.' Setting the phone down, she scans the room. The bedroom is small, about a third the size of Vicky's room at home, and about half of it is taken up by exercise equipment, namely a treadmill. On one wall there's a desk with an open laptop, Vicky walks over to it and sits down on the desk chair before tapping a few keys, thankfully there's no password this time.
The first thing Vicky sees is some webpage about worms and advantages and disadvantages, obviously whoever kidnapped her is a freak, but she disregards it and closes the window. Vicky then sees the date on the Windows task bar and goes completely still as her brain catches up, after a second, she looks at the date again < 11/15/2020 >, it hasn't changed. Unable to believe it, she opens a new tab and types infomole.org into the address bar but nothing happens, growling a little, Vicky instead types in the name of the 'other' search engine, Google, and once there types in 'what is today's date?' but gets the same date as before. 'No…I'm not in the future, I'm not in some random future guy's body, I think I'm going to be sick.'
For a minute Vicky fights the urge to vomit and thankfully the feeling passes and she types 'news' into the search filter. After a few minutes of searching she's stunned. 'What the fuck is Covid? And Donald Trump is President! And I suppose Kim Kardashian is the Vice President!
'Wait, how come there's nothing here about the endbringers? Holy fuck, did we kill them somehow?' Vicky quickly does a search on the second-rate search engine 'Google's OK but it's no infomole and always has too many adds!'
Vicky types in 'Endbringers' into the search bar but all she gets, after the adds, is another website apparently about worms. She's about to type in something more specific when she reads the first line of the description:
'The Endbringers are monstrous beings that take turns attacking locations around the globe to cause as much damage as they possibly can...'
"Well that's it at least, though why the hell are they mentioning it here and not on the news…" Vicky clicks the link and immediately gets confused by the first thing she sees:
'This article contains Major Spoilers relating to some of the most pivotal parts of Worm.'
"Spoilers! What the hell!" Vicky continues to read through the page. (I'm not going to go through all of what she reads or all of her reactions but these are the highlights)
'Are they trying to say Endbringers aren't real?
'Holy shit! Someone killed Behemoth!?'
'Three more of those monsters? Fuck!'
'Leviathan attacked Brockton? Oh my god!'
At that Vicky clicked on the link titled 'Battle Against Leviathan' and a second later sucked in a breath 'Only six months from now…or nine and a half years ago.' Reading down the list of casualties, three named 'Gallant…Manpower…Shielder.' 'Oh, Dean!'
Vichy reads through the article and it seems that, for an Endbringer battle at least, it was a victory. 'Thank God Armsmaster was there, it sounds like his nano-blade thing made all the difference.' After reading it again and seeing no sign of her name she types it into the search bar and goes to a page all about her. "Antares? What's wrong with Glory Girl?! There it goes again saying I'm a 'character!'
The first thing Vicky reads as she scrolls down is 'Victoria was a hot-tempered and prideful cape.' 'WHAT! Well fuck you too asshole!' Vicky continues to read the page but again stops dead when she reads something that doesn't make sense.
'Victoria found Amy after she healed Mark and ran from their house. Victoria attempted to calm Amy down, but worn out Amy, unable to hold back anymore, imprinted love for herself into Victoria's brain, causing Victoria to leave in disgust.'
'Oh, you had me for a second! Ames can't even do brains, and of course I love her, she's my sister!'
Having had enough with the obviously (to her) bullshit website, Vicky gets up from the desk and walks to the door. Readying herself for a possible fight, she takes a steadying breath and opens it. The door opens out into a hallway, leading to the rest of, not a supervillain's lair, but an ordinary apartment. It's a nice apartment, pretty albeit cheap, a woman definitely lives here. At the thought Vicky turns around and walks to a closed door in the same hallway and opens it. This bedroom is much bigger than the other one and is pitch black, or was, the now open door illuminates the room, revealing to Vicky a woman lying in the bed, now somewhat awake and not looking happy. Groggily, the woman yells at her "James? What are you doing?! Go away!" Vicky mumbles an apology before leaving the room and closing the door, walking back to the other bedroom. 'It's just a regular apartment, just a regular family!' Vicky starts to feal guilty for the woman 'she lost her…friend?...brother? and doesn't even know that I killed him!' but in a moment shakes her head defiantly 'No! I didn't kill him, I didn't choose this! This was done to me! I'm a victim too! …never wanted to be a victim…'
Back in h-James' room, Vicky looks around and finds a wallet with a drivers license. 'James Campbell, huh? You were just a regular guy, weren't you?' Sitting back down at the computer, Vicky closes the window supposedly about her life and instead opts to learn what she could about the guy whose life she'd taken. Aurora, huh, some kind of video game? What's this…' Vicky clicked on the notepad icon and finds this:
Worm: Choose Your Own Adventure
Revised v3
Name: Promethea
TOA: 11/11/10
Difficulty: God Mode 10
Powers: Gamer 6
Kaleidoscope -2
Advantages: Charles Atlas Superpowers -3
Comic Book Pretty -4
Man of Mystery -5
Special Snowflake -6
Disadvantages: Reincarnation: Glory Girl, no memories -5
Wanted: Endbringers, want me dead, -2
Without a Map: Elisburg 0
A Brighter World: NA 0
Things Get Worse: NA 0
END
The bit about advantages and disadvantages rings a bell and Vicky remembers the page the browser was open to when she first turned the laptop on. It's the bit about reincarnation that grabs Vicki's attention! 'He…he chose this, is he in MY body?! Is this some Freaky Friday shit?!' Vicky goes back to the browser and goes through the computer's history, finds the page, clicks on it, and reads it.
'Aliens? It's saying I got my powers from aliens?'
'There's that Taylor again, who is that?'
'Crossover...Gamer…Emperor of Man! This is so stupid! Who would waste their time with this crap?' Vicky looks in the lower left side of the page "80,000 views? Get a life!" Eventually, she finds the bit about resurrection. 'He could have gotten three points if he had made it random, he CHOSE to be reincarnated as me!' After reading the whole of the CYOA she goes back to the beginning and rereads James' character build again. 'Kaleidoscope, so he's supposed to be able to jump around universes then? And who's Promethea? There's no option for that here.'
Back to Google she types 'Promethea' into the search engine and gets some interesting results:
'Promethea was once considered by most to be an urban legend and easter egg (as the term relates to media) and is considered to be the first ever easter egg as the term is today defined, going all the way back to 1939 when she first appeared in the script for The Wizard of Oz. The altered script, where a magical character named Promethea met the main characters and essentially took over the story, was taken as a prank and largely forgotten as the scripts were corrected and reprinted with no further issue. Since then, Promethea has appeared in the scripts of hundreds of movies, television shows and video games as well as in the final drafts of dozens of novels and over a hundred comic books, she doesn't always give her name in all these stories but her name still appears in line scripts, story boards, and character lists. With some of these instances, after the myth became widely known, the character was left in the script and scenes were actually shot, but mostly just added to the DVD as an extra (Stargate SG-1, Lost Girl and Supernatural just to name a few) but a couple movies and a few tv shows, however, at least partially aired the scenes, these were usually irreverent comedies like Rick and Morty or Misfits.
Some TV shows were actually saved from cancellation by the interest generated by Promethea, most notably the space western series Firefly and the fantasy-mystery-comedy series Pushing Daisies. A couple of these were discovered to be hoaxes though, the most notable being the cartoon comedy King of the Hill.
Article continues…
Vicky clicks the link and keeps reading…and reading…and reading (it's a long article I'm not going to write the whole thing) …and reading before backing away from the laptop, disgusted. "He's certainly having the time of his life running around in MY BODY!"
Vicky spends a great deal of time thinking things over before coming to a decision. Reopening the page to the CYOA, then reopening the notepad, she starts typing, replacing Jame- replacing Promethea's build with one of her own creation, giving herself most of the same abilities but making a few key changes. As she types 'END' one thought runs through her mind:
'If this works, I'm coming for you asshole! And then I'm gunna fucking kill you!'
---------------------------------------------
For those of you who knew what infomole was without having to look it up, bless you, for the rest of you, well, you're all clearly doing something wrong in your lives! Kidding aside, I love this chapter and I might have rushed through a bit to get to this point, I hope you like it too, if not, please be gentle in your critiques!
For the record, while Kim Kardashian was born a couple years after the entities arrived, the timelines didn't start to really diverge until the early 80s so for this fic at least Kim Kardashian is alive and well and famous on Earth Bet. It probably won't come up again but I didn't want to throw the line away once I thought of it (kudos if you caught the Back to the Future reference.)
Yep, Vicky's going to be a recurring character in this fic, thanks goes to Zerak for essentially giving me the idea, give yourself a cookie Zerak! As for the fact that Promethea is somehow affecting the real world, that was mostly so that Vicky could learn what she's been up to and find her. It might be important in other ways later on, who knows? I also wanted to save Firefly, it got six seasons and a movie this time!
They'll be one more chapter in this arc, mostly introspective, and then we'll jump into the second arc where her goal will be to unlock her magic and find out just who/what her mysterious "patron" is and there's only one person in all of the omni-verse who can help her with both those things, and no, it's not Hot Pie from Game of Thrones but good guess!
You can find up to date info on what Promethea looks like here.
You can find out more information on Promethea's powers and how they're quantified by her Gamer ability here.
You can vote on which universes you want Promethea to go to here.
Thanks for reading, and please review!
Last edited:
A pretty cage
Mingo
Son of a Hazmot
Important Note: In real life, while Mercury is tidally locked to the Sun, it is a 3:2 resonant tidal lock, not a synchronous one. For the purpose of the story in which this chapter takes place however, it is synchronous. For those of you who are astronomy geeks, please don't blow a gasket over such a small detail. I can only assume the author of A Town Called Sunrise wasn't aware of the difference at the time and decided that he didn't care once he found out. With that out of the way, please enjoy the chapter.
------------------------------------------------
Universe 74625S78674JD (A Town Called Sunrise)
Sunrise, Mercury
04/18/2211
7:08 p.m. (Earth GMT)
Sophie Miller, age seven, is idly playing on the swings of Griffith's Park, one of the enclosed parks on the north side of the Hab Dome in Sunrise. She didn't want to have to play here, she wanted to play with her friends outside, the REAL outside, but her Mum said it wasn't safe for her. Like a lot of children born on Mercury or Mars, which were about at equal gravity, Sophie has some health problems but the most annoying are her lungs, they hadn't developed right in the womb, and because of that the planet's unstable atmosphere was dangerous to her. While modern science had made it possible to almost fully terraform Mars, Medicine hadn't come nearly as far, and Mercury's small size and closeness to the sun means it's constantly losing huge chunks of its atmosphere which have to be replaced, so sometimes the air is a bit too thin for Sophie and the others like her. 'I suppose I could have worn my oxygen mask, but I wouldn't have been able to play with it on anyway, it might break.'
Life stuck inside most of the time isn't so bad though, Sophie figures, 'At least there are trees and grass and dirt and worms and birds and little furry creatures here at Griffith.' But sometimes she'd see one of those birds sitting on a branch and looking up through the clear dome and into the real sky, wanting to be free. 'It's a cage, but at least it's a pretty cage' Sophie thinks as she jumps off the swing and onto the grass, feeling her toes dig into the soft earth. 'At least I can go outside at least some of the time, I wouldn't be able to do that on Venus.' It's true, while Venus' high gravity, almost as high as Earth's, meant that kids born there didn't have the same problems that afflicted almost 8% of those on Mercury or Mars, it's still not a good place. Half-terraformed, the Venus' surface is a hellhole of sulfur-swamps and super-volcanos so because of that, all of its colonies float in the sky and only grownups are allowed on the ground.
Sophie soon stops her playing when her lungs start to burn and she realizes it's getting dark. Even though Mercury is tidally locked, meaning one half is always facing the sun and the other's always dark, the Habitation Dome still has a 'night time' when the lights turn low and the windows tint, it gets colder too, even though the town is in constant sunrise, which is how it got its name. Checking her watch and seeing it's almost 7:30, Sophie decides to head home before her parents have to call her. Walking alongside the path near the lake, Sophie looks at the ducks playing in the water. She is almost at the exit near her house when she sees someone sitting alone on one of the benches, a woman she's never seen before. While Sunrise has over 30,000 people, they're all either the original colonists from 40 years ago or are their children or grandchildren. While Sophie has obviously not met every single one of Mercury's 30,000 inhabitants, that would be silly, she has seen most, if not all, of the northerners who come to Griffith's and this is not one of them. Her curiosity once again getting the better of her, Sophie walks over and sits down next to the woman.
The lady is pretty, with blonde hair and blue eyes, wearing a business suit that reminds her of George Bailey from It's a Wonderful Life. She's looking straight ahead, at the ducks, and doesn't seem to have noticed Sophie yet. Sophie just sits there for a minute, looking at the ducks, thinking of what to say and is starting to lose her nerve but she's so curious 'I've never seen anyone in real life wear a suit like that. Maybe she's from Shadowtown!' So, she clears her throat and says "Hi!"
The woman turns her head a bit, but her eyes are still firmly focused on the ducks in the lake, after a few seconds she responds.
"Hello, Sophie."
Sophie immediately remembers everything her parents ever told her about talking to strangers, which was mostly "Don't!" but Sophie figured that there are no strangers in Sunrise so she never really listened. She knows her Mum is famous, just for being the first person born on Mercury, and that means that Sophie is a bit famous too, her teachers are always talking about how she's the daughter of Virginia Miller, it's brought up at least once a week! Sophie looks back at the woman. 'She didn't even look at me though, how did she know it was me? I've never seen her before!'
"How do you know who I am? You didn't even look at me!"
"Because I knew you'd be here, walking home."
Sophie's forehead wrinkles a little, like it does when she's tries to do a math problem. "How did you know?"
The woman turns her head but doesn't quite look at her "Because you checked your watch at 7:29."
Sophie's eyes widened "How do you know that?!"
For the first time the woman looks at her and gives Sophie a sad smile but the girl's focus is on her eyes, they're shining, not in a nice way, but like there's tears in them. Finally, the lady answers her.
"I know, Sophie, because I wrote it. I created you, Sunrise, this whole universe. I wrote you into existence."
(Yes, I am the author of this universe, moving on…)
Sophie is confused. 'Is she saying she's God?' but decides that the woman must be playing a game with her.
"What does that mean? Are you saying you're God? Prove it!"
The woman takes a deep, shaky breath but smiles.
"I'm not God, Sophie, but if he does exist in this universe, then I made him too. Earlier you were grumpy about not being allowed outside, but decided it wasn't too bad here after all. 'It's a cage, but at least it's a pretty cage.'"
Sophie doesn't know what to think, there's no way she could know what she was thinking, she hadn't spoken out loud, and even if she did Griffith's and the other parks don't have cameras watching everything like most everywhere else in town. Sophie is confused and despite her earlier bravery she's starting to get scared.
"How- How do you know that?! You wrote me like a story? What's your name?"
[An error in Emotional Suppression has occurred. Gamer's Mind compensating]
The lady puts a hand to her mouth for a second but puts it back down and looks at Sophie in the eyes.
"My name is Promethea, and Sophie? I'm sorry, I'm so, so, sorry!"
"Why are you sorry?" the girl asks. Promethea is a pretty name.
[System Error. Gamer's Mind rebooting]
Promethea's voice is shaky when she replies "Because when I wrote you, I also wrote your broken lungs, the way your back hurts sometimes, the way… the way your brain is sick …the tumors." The lady was crying now. "I am so, so sorry Sophie, you don't deserve that, any of it! I just wrote it to make you more interesting! I didn't know! I completely fucked up your life, and you're just one person! How many universes have I created and absently discarded when I got writer's block?! How many untold trillions or more of my own creations have died before their time or were forced to live in abject poverty?!"
Sophie thought. She had known about the tumors in her head, her parents didn't always whisper as quietly as they thought and Sophie could hear them sometimes talking through the wall of her bedroom. Sophie looked back at Promethea, really looked.
"Can you heal me? The tumors at least? I …I don't want to die."
[Inventory]
Suddenly Promethea is holding something in her hands that wasn't there before, it's a round, red and grey… thing, Sophie had never seen anything quite like it. Promethea slips it onto her hand and touches it to Sophie's head and a red glow comes out from inside. Soon the glow fades away and Promethea touches the device to Sophie's chest, an then her back, each time it glows the same red color.
[Gamer's Mind online, purging error…]
"There that's done. You're fixed." Promethea's smiling now. 'She has a pretty smile' Sophie thinks.
"It's done? The tumors?"
"The tumors, the spine, take a deep breath!"
Sophie, eyes wide, takes a deep breath, and is shocked by how good her lungs feel. 'They don't hurt anymore!'
Sophie crashes into Promethea in a big hug, crying and laughing. "Thankyou! Thankyouthankyouthankyou!"
[Inventory]
Promethea just laughs, her eyes are still wet but she looks happy. "You're very welcome! Now, there's just one more thing!" She's not holding the device anymore; she has a pill bottle in her hands now, taking out a pill, she looks at Sophie. "Just take one of these and you'll feel even better."
"Sure anything!" Sophie grabs the pill and swallows it dry. It tastes bitter going down her throat but Sophie's a big girl. She looks up at Promethea, giving the hero her brightest smile but Promethea doesn't smile back, she looks sad again. Sophie is about to ask what's wrong when she starts to feel very sleepy. Just as she's about to fall asleep right there on the park bench, she hears Promethea saying something but it sounds like it's coming from very far away.
"I'm sorry Sophie, but you shouldn't have to remember this."
With that Sophie drifts off to sleep.
[Error purged. Apologies for any inconvenience]
"…Sophie?"
"…Sophie!"
Sophie opens her eyes; she's feeling very sleepy. Opening her eyes, she sees her Dad standing above her. Confused, she asks "Daddy? Where am I?"
Her father looks down at her with a soft smile. "You fell asleep on the bench sweetie."
Sophie doesn't remember that, the last thing she remembers is walking home and looking at the ducks. Shrugging she says "I'm sorry Daddy."
Her father just smiles at her. "It's OK, sweetie. Let's go home and get you to bed."
With that her father picks her up and Sophie rests her head on his shoulder. Her father just smiles and carries her home.
-----------------------------------------
Like I said, A Town Called Sunrise is actually my own creation, originally intended to be a web serial. It was only after I'd committed to the idea that I found out that Mercury isn't tidally locked the way I'd assumed it was, I thought it was like the moon, the same side always facing one direction, in this case the sun. When I found out otherwise, I only barely stopped myself from outright deleting everything about it and decided to write it anyway. Unfortunately, I got writer's block and started writing this CYOA to get rid of it, still working on that. I won't stop writing DIFTLO:HILTSWALK though, all the intelligent, insightful comments have really motivated me, I mean it hasn't even been a full week yet!
Despite Promethea's fears it's not so easy to create a new universe or multi-verse simply from your imagination. More on that later. It would be more than a little ridiculous if every half-thought out story became a universe of it's own. I'll be fleshing out the How's and Why's of it in later chapters.
This story is primarily about Promethea going on crazy adventures, thing is, we haven't had any adventures yet. The first arc is about getting the NZT-50 as well as all the other goodies Promethea made on the Odyssey, and getting those much needed powers she bought in the Misfits universe. The real adventure begins next chapter! I won't be able to keep up the pace I've established with these early chapters. The new arcs will require planning which takes time. Vicky won't show up immediately either but we will get another interlude before too long.
One last thing, as it has been established that even some unpublished works are real, many fanfictions too can be visited by Promethea & Co. If you have a fanfiction you're writing and are interested in doing a crossover , pm me and we'll discuss the details. Do be warned that an irate Glory Girl might (temporarily) blow up your universe!
If you haven't already voted on what universes you want Promethea to go to, you can do so here.
Please leave a comment!
------------------------------------------------
Universe 74625S78674JD (A Town Called Sunrise)
Sunrise, Mercury
04/18/2211
7:08 p.m. (Earth GMT)
Sophie Miller, age seven, is idly playing on the swings of Griffith's Park, one of the enclosed parks on the north side of the Hab Dome in Sunrise. She didn't want to have to play here, she wanted to play with her friends outside, the REAL outside, but her Mum said it wasn't safe for her. Like a lot of children born on Mercury or Mars, which were about at equal gravity, Sophie has some health problems but the most annoying are her lungs, they hadn't developed right in the womb, and because of that the planet's unstable atmosphere was dangerous to her. While modern science had made it possible to almost fully terraform Mars, Medicine hadn't come nearly as far, and Mercury's small size and closeness to the sun means it's constantly losing huge chunks of its atmosphere which have to be replaced, so sometimes the air is a bit too thin for Sophie and the others like her. 'I suppose I could have worn my oxygen mask, but I wouldn't have been able to play with it on anyway, it might break.'
Life stuck inside most of the time isn't so bad though, Sophie figures, 'At least there are trees and grass and dirt and worms and birds and little furry creatures here at Griffith.' But sometimes she'd see one of those birds sitting on a branch and looking up through the clear dome and into the real sky, wanting to be free. 'It's a cage, but at least it's a pretty cage' Sophie thinks as she jumps off the swing and onto the grass, feeling her toes dig into the soft earth. 'At least I can go outside at least some of the time, I wouldn't be able to do that on Venus.' It's true, while Venus' high gravity, almost as high as Earth's, meant that kids born there didn't have the same problems that afflicted almost 8% of those on Mercury or Mars, it's still not a good place. Half-terraformed, the Venus' surface is a hellhole of sulfur-swamps and super-volcanos so because of that, all of its colonies float in the sky and only grownups are allowed on the ground.
Sophie soon stops her playing when her lungs start to burn and she realizes it's getting dark. Even though Mercury is tidally locked, meaning one half is always facing the sun and the other's always dark, the Habitation Dome still has a 'night time' when the lights turn low and the windows tint, it gets colder too, even though the town is in constant sunrise, which is how it got its name. Checking her watch and seeing it's almost 7:30, Sophie decides to head home before her parents have to call her. Walking alongside the path near the lake, Sophie looks at the ducks playing in the water. She is almost at the exit near her house when she sees someone sitting alone on one of the benches, a woman she's never seen before. While Sunrise has over 30,000 people, they're all either the original colonists from 40 years ago or are their children or grandchildren. While Sophie has obviously not met every single one of Mercury's 30,000 inhabitants, that would be silly, she has seen most, if not all, of the northerners who come to Griffith's and this is not one of them. Her curiosity once again getting the better of her, Sophie walks over and sits down next to the woman.
The lady is pretty, with blonde hair and blue eyes, wearing a business suit that reminds her of George Bailey from It's a Wonderful Life. She's looking straight ahead, at the ducks, and doesn't seem to have noticed Sophie yet. Sophie just sits there for a minute, looking at the ducks, thinking of what to say and is starting to lose her nerve but she's so curious 'I've never seen anyone in real life wear a suit like that. Maybe she's from Shadowtown!' So, she clears her throat and says "Hi!"
The woman turns her head a bit, but her eyes are still firmly focused on the ducks in the lake, after a few seconds she responds.
"Hello, Sophie."
Sophie immediately remembers everything her parents ever told her about talking to strangers, which was mostly "Don't!" but Sophie figured that there are no strangers in Sunrise so she never really listened. She knows her Mum is famous, just for being the first person born on Mercury, and that means that Sophie is a bit famous too, her teachers are always talking about how she's the daughter of Virginia Miller, it's brought up at least once a week! Sophie looks back at the woman. 'She didn't even look at me though, how did she know it was me? I've never seen her before!'
"How do you know who I am? You didn't even look at me!"
"Because I knew you'd be here, walking home."
Sophie's forehead wrinkles a little, like it does when she's tries to do a math problem. "How did you know?"
The woman turns her head but doesn't quite look at her "Because you checked your watch at 7:29."
Sophie's eyes widened "How do you know that?!"
For the first time the woman looks at her and gives Sophie a sad smile but the girl's focus is on her eyes, they're shining, not in a nice way, but like there's tears in them. Finally, the lady answers her.
"I know, Sophie, because I wrote it. I created you, Sunrise, this whole universe. I wrote you into existence."
(Yes, I am the author of this universe, moving on…)
Sophie is confused. 'Is she saying she's God?' but decides that the woman must be playing a game with her.
"What does that mean? Are you saying you're God? Prove it!"
The woman takes a deep, shaky breath but smiles.
"I'm not God, Sophie, but if he does exist in this universe, then I made him too. Earlier you were grumpy about not being allowed outside, but decided it wasn't too bad here after all. 'It's a cage, but at least it's a pretty cage.'"
Sophie doesn't know what to think, there's no way she could know what she was thinking, she hadn't spoken out loud, and even if she did Griffith's and the other parks don't have cameras watching everything like most everywhere else in town. Sophie is confused and despite her earlier bravery she's starting to get scared.
"How- How do you know that?! You wrote me like a story? What's your name?"
[An error in Emotional Suppression has occurred. Gamer's Mind compensating]
The lady puts a hand to her mouth for a second but puts it back down and looks at Sophie in the eyes.
"My name is Promethea, and Sophie? I'm sorry, I'm so, so, sorry!"
"Why are you sorry?" the girl asks. Promethea is a pretty name.
[System Error. Gamer's Mind rebooting]
Promethea's voice is shaky when she replies "Because when I wrote you, I also wrote your broken lungs, the way your back hurts sometimes, the way… the way your brain is sick …the tumors." The lady was crying now. "I am so, so sorry Sophie, you don't deserve that, any of it! I just wrote it to make you more interesting! I didn't know! I completely fucked up your life, and you're just one person! How many universes have I created and absently discarded when I got writer's block?! How many untold trillions or more of my own creations have died before their time or were forced to live in abject poverty?!"
Sophie thought. She had known about the tumors in her head, her parents didn't always whisper as quietly as they thought and Sophie could hear them sometimes talking through the wall of her bedroom. Sophie looked back at Promethea, really looked.
"Can you heal me? The tumors at least? I …I don't want to die."
[Inventory]
Suddenly Promethea is holding something in her hands that wasn't there before, it's a round, red and grey… thing, Sophie had never seen anything quite like it. Promethea slips it onto her hand and touches it to Sophie's head and a red glow comes out from inside. Soon the glow fades away and Promethea touches the device to Sophie's chest, an then her back, each time it glows the same red color.
[Gamer's Mind online, purging error…]
"There that's done. You're fixed." Promethea's smiling now. 'She has a pretty smile' Sophie thinks.
"It's done? The tumors?"
"The tumors, the spine, take a deep breath!"
Sophie, eyes wide, takes a deep breath, and is shocked by how good her lungs feel. 'They don't hurt anymore!'
Sophie crashes into Promethea in a big hug, crying and laughing. "Thankyou! Thankyouthankyouthankyou!"
[Inventory]
Promethea just laughs, her eyes are still wet but she looks happy. "You're very welcome! Now, there's just one more thing!" She's not holding the device anymore; she has a pill bottle in her hands now, taking out a pill, she looks at Sophie. "Just take one of these and you'll feel even better."
"Sure anything!" Sophie grabs the pill and swallows it dry. It tastes bitter going down her throat but Sophie's a big girl. She looks up at Promethea, giving the hero her brightest smile but Promethea doesn't smile back, she looks sad again. Sophie is about to ask what's wrong when she starts to feel very sleepy. Just as she's about to fall asleep right there on the park bench, she hears Promethea saying something but it sounds like it's coming from very far away.
"I'm sorry Sophie, but you shouldn't have to remember this."
With that Sophie drifts off to sleep.
[Error purged. Apologies for any inconvenience]
"…Sophie?"
"…Sophie!"
Sophie opens her eyes; she's feeling very sleepy. Opening her eyes, she sees her Dad standing above her. Confused, she asks "Daddy? Where am I?"
Her father looks down at her with a soft smile. "You fell asleep on the bench sweetie."
Sophie doesn't remember that, the last thing she remembers is walking home and looking at the ducks. Shrugging she says "I'm sorry Daddy."
Her father just smiles at her. "It's OK, sweetie. Let's go home and get you to bed."
With that her father picks her up and Sophie rests her head on his shoulder. Her father just smiles and carries her home.
-----------------------------------------
Like I said, A Town Called Sunrise is actually my own creation, originally intended to be a web serial. It was only after I'd committed to the idea that I found out that Mercury isn't tidally locked the way I'd assumed it was, I thought it was like the moon, the same side always facing one direction, in this case the sun. When I found out otherwise, I only barely stopped myself from outright deleting everything about it and decided to write it anyway. Unfortunately, I got writer's block and started writing this CYOA to get rid of it, still working on that. I won't stop writing DIFTLO:HILTSWALK though, all the intelligent, insightful comments have really motivated me, I mean it hasn't even been a full week yet!
Despite Promethea's fears it's not so easy to create a new universe or multi-verse simply from your imagination. More on that later. It would be more than a little ridiculous if every half-thought out story became a universe of it's own. I'll be fleshing out the How's and Why's of it in later chapters.
This story is primarily about Promethea going on crazy adventures, thing is, we haven't had any adventures yet. The first arc is about getting the NZT-50 as well as all the other goodies Promethea made on the Odyssey, and getting those much needed powers she bought in the Misfits universe. The real adventure begins next chapter! I won't be able to keep up the pace I've established with these early chapters. The new arcs will require planning which takes time. Vicky won't show up immediately either but we will get another interlude before too long.
One last thing, as it has been established that even some unpublished works are real, many fanfictions too can be visited by Promethea & Co. If you have a fanfiction you're writing and are interested in doing a crossover , pm me and we'll discuss the details. Do be warned that an irate Glory Girl might (temporarily) blow up your universe!
If you haven't already voted on what universes you want Promethea to go to, you can do so here.
Please leave a comment!
Last edited:
Up Yours!
Mingo
Son of a Hazmot
Universe 94335W66673MD (DC Comics, Constantine)
London, United Kingdom
08/11/2007
5:06 p.m.
John Constantine tuned out the boy's screaming as he took another drag from his cigarette. 'Fucker doesn't know what's good for him. Pick your battles, mate!' Father Ramsey was performing the incantations perfectly so far, John had been very clear that that the young man of the cloth needed to practice saying them every day, a single mispronunciation would spoil the exorcism and possibly even damn his own soul to Hell, as well as the boy's, something John knew more than a bit about. All Constantine had needed to do what carve some runes, brew a potion or two, and ship them express to the ungrateful sod, as well as listen in on the actual exorcism, just to make sure he didn't fuck it up. 'Didn't seem very grateful though. Did he really expect me to drop everything for a garden variety demonic possession? Don't people know I'm busy?' John signals to the bartender that he wants another drink before taking another puff of the fag. The bartender eyes him warily and John notices that there's no one sitting on the stools near him despite the fact that the bar had been full to bursting ten minutes previously. 'I suppose I should have turned down the volume of my mobile, they could probably hear the screams.' As the bartender pours him another glass of Scotch Constantine schools his expression into one of contrite repentance and shrugs "sorry about your customers, Mick" but just gets a grunt in return. John isn't sorry though, not until a thought occurs to him 'Shit. I'll have to actually leave a tip now. Ordinary people are so bloody sensitive!'
While John debates with himself over how much of a tip to leave '5% seems fair. Hang on, I can't do that to Mick… better make it seven.' Father Ramsey isn't having a good time of it, it isn't that the kid was doing anything wrong, he's just dealing with a very stubborn demon. The exorcism is actually taking place in some place in Alabama, John can't remember the name of the town 'he told it to me… Bahi? Bashi? Something like that.' Lots of demons like to possess children, they get their jollies destroying their innocence, and, if they can, try to drag the kids off to Hell before their time, sometimes while they're even still alive. It happens. Most demons know to 'vacate the premises' when the incantations begin, but sometimes the dumb ones don't know how to quit and expend all their energy trying to stay in their vessel, but it's just a matter of time. 'On the plus side, when he gets there the prick will be so weak that his brothers and sisters will probably eat him. As long the padre doesn't fuck it up it should only be a few minutes, max.'
The second that thought crosses his mind, John gets a bad feeling "Fuck!" 'I just bloody jinxed myself, didn't I?' John is out of his seat and halfway to the loo, his mobile phone still to his ear and cigarette hanging from his mouth, when he hears the damned priest mispronounce the incantation. 'It's omnis incursio infernalis, not infernelis. Bloody amateur.' It sounds like the demon got the upper hand, now it's Ramsey screaming his head off, not the boy. Constantine walks into the men's toilets and ducks into an empty stall. Groaning in frustration, he opens a portal to the abbey in Whothefuckcares, Alabama. He doesn't walk through though, consecrated ground and him… well, they don't mix well. Checking that the portal is in the right place, just over the bed the boy is tied to, he begins to chant through the portal after taking one last drag from the cig before dropping it in the bog water.
"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas!" John can hear the boy screaming again. It's a good sign. "Omnis incursio infernalis adversii omnis congregatio et secta diabolica! Ergo, draco maledicte, ecclesiam tuam securi tibi facias libertate servire! Peto te. Audi me!" He repeats the incantations a few more times but the stubborn fucker refuses to leave, his power reserve should be nearly empty but he's still there. 'Perhaps not garden variety after all.' Constantine stops the incantation to take a deep breath before walking through the portal. He immediately regrets it.
Church sickness, what John calls incredible sea-sick feeling he gets whenever he's on consecrated ground, is a consequence of his partly demonic blood. It's hard to believe but it used to be even worse than it is now. It used to make his blood literally boil, making it extremely painful, rather than just make him lose his lunch. He had a former friend to thank for that, as well as a few other 'upgrades' she had made to his body. Fighting the urge to vomit, John looks around the room. There, by on the bed, is the boy, clearly terrified, on the floor near the foot of the bed is the priest, not moving. 'He sounds older on the phone, he's still a kid himself. Constantine walks over to the body and feels for a pulse. Still alive.
John takes the small crucifix from the priest's hands, it's the object he carved the runes into. They didn't need to be carved into a cross of all things, it's not like in the movies, the 'power of Christ' does jack shit against demons, but people are comforted by their little superstitions, so when the padre asked for the runes to be put on a crucifix Constantine just rolled his eyes and went with it. Checking the boy, he noticed that he had burn marks from the runes on his feet and hands, not his forehead like John had said. 'Like the stigmata did anything for Jesus, dumb fuck!' Pressing the crucifix into the boy's forehead, John repeated the chants, careful not to throw up on the boy. 'And to think, in the movies it's the possessed that always puke their guts out.' The demon in the boy begins thrashing about and tries to bite Constantine, anything to get him to stop the incantations. Soon the cries turn from that of a child to those of both the boy and the demon itself, the fucker's starting to feel it! Soon, and this time with a bloody professional doing it, the demon is excised and sent back to Hell in short order.
Constantine collects himself and, after making sure the boy is alright, kneels down next to the priest and gives him a hard slap. Ramsey wakes up and, after seeing Constantine, immediately starts sputtering. "Who are you? How did you get in here, the door is locked?!" Ramsey then pales considerably and his eyes bulge out, "The child, it's not what you think! He's dangerous! Don't free him, whatever you do, don't free him!" Having a bit of fun, John goes to unlock the boy's chains and finishes one leg but the priest, panicking, leaps onto the bed to stop him. Having enough, John speaks. "Look Padre, the demon's gone alright? It's probably already being ripped to pieces and consumed by its brothers and sisters right this moment so bloody relax and let me untie the poor sod!"
Ramsay sputters again "Constantine?! How did you get here, you said you were in England?!"
John rolls his eyes "I used a portal, yeah? Decided to pop in when I heard you fuck up the incantations."
At that Ramsey looked furious. "What the Hell! So all it would have taken for you to do this from the beginning was to open a… a portal? Why did you insist that I do it?!" Having enough of the attitude, John just summons another portal and walks through without a word. 'Ungrateful…'
Back in the loo, he immediately empties his stomach into the toilet. 'Shouldn't have drank so much on an empty stomach, it certainly didn't help. Speaking of, damn, I need a drink.' After flushing the toilet and washing his hands at the sink Constantine walks back to the bar only to find someone has taken his seat, there's a suit jacket over the stool but whoever left it seems to have popped out. John picks up the jacket from his chair and dumps it on the one next to it before sitting down and ordering another scotch and lighting up another cig. He's about to take a sip of his drink when he hears a familiar voice "I was sitting there you know!"
John turns around slowly and looks Promethea up and down. Her face is the same, she never ages, but she's not carrying herself with her usual 'Queen Bitch of the Omniverse' air. It takes him a second to figure it out 'Bloody hell, she's early in her timeline!'
"Promethea," John nods his head "what are you doing here?"
Promethea's eyes widen "Wait, you know me?"
John lets out a sigh "Christ! I'm not drunk enough to have this conversation!"
After knocking back a few shots he continues "Yeah, we knew each other… thought so at least." After a second, he remembers something. "Fuck, you told me this would happen, hang on a tick, I know I got it somewhere…" John opens a portal to his personal pocket dimension and sticks his head and arm in. Promethea's eyes widen further when, a minute later, he pulls out a dusty notebook and hands it to her. She sits on the other stool and reads the first page.
"Here, you told me to give this to you. It's her… your diary" Constantine says, not looking his old friend in the eyes. 'I know she hasn't done shit to me yet, but she will.'
As Promethea reads the first couple pages of her future self's diary, John racks his brain trying to remember what it says, it's been years after all. "If you want to unlock your magic and learn about K- your patron…" when he sees her turn the page, he snaps the book shut "Don't read ahead! Follow the books instructions, find an identical empty journal to write in, and absolutely DON'T READ AHEAD"
Promethea looks contrite and simply nods her head, lost for words, this is not how she thought her meeting with one of her favorite superheroes would go, he doesn't seem to like her much.
John looks her in the eye for the first time "One more thing, don't rely too much on that book, use your wits, and don't go thinking you can't die 'cause of this because that's not how it bloody works! Got that?" She nods again. "Good, then get the fuck out!"
Promethea gets up and puts on her suit jacket but before leaving turns back and looks at him.
"I don't know what my future self did to you. But whatever it was, I'm sorry."
As she walks the door, John turns back to his drink and upends the glass, eager to forget that entire conversation.
Meanwhile, Promethea walks outside into the street and rereads the first line of the second page, trying to puzzle out what it means.
Extremely Important! You must kill your alts and steal their powers, everything rides on that! Just remember: they're not really you!
--------------------------------------------
I understand if a couple diehard Constantine fans are unhappy with this chapter. I think I captured his personality well enough but for the life of me couldn't find the incantations he uses in exorcisms in the comics so I just used the version from Supernatural. If someone finds the real incantations he uses in the comics then send them to me and I'll change it. In DC comics the rules for exorcisms seem to vary wildly, sometimes it's a carbon copy of The Exorcist "The Power of Christ compels you!" other times the Christian or Catholic stuff does absolutely nothing so I just chose the one I felt like writing.
The Diary is partly inspired by River's diary in Doctor Who and John's journal in Supernatural, it will be one of the major plot devices I'll use in the first half of this fic.
One more powerup and then the adventure truly begins! Please leave a comment!
London, United Kingdom
08/11/2007
5:06 p.m.
John Constantine tuned out the boy's screaming as he took another drag from his cigarette. 'Fucker doesn't know what's good for him. Pick your battles, mate!' Father Ramsey was performing the incantations perfectly so far, John had been very clear that that the young man of the cloth needed to practice saying them every day, a single mispronunciation would spoil the exorcism and possibly even damn his own soul to Hell, as well as the boy's, something John knew more than a bit about. All Constantine had needed to do what carve some runes, brew a potion or two, and ship them express to the ungrateful sod, as well as listen in on the actual exorcism, just to make sure he didn't fuck it up. 'Didn't seem very grateful though. Did he really expect me to drop everything for a garden variety demonic possession? Don't people know I'm busy?' John signals to the bartender that he wants another drink before taking another puff of the fag. The bartender eyes him warily and John notices that there's no one sitting on the stools near him despite the fact that the bar had been full to bursting ten minutes previously. 'I suppose I should have turned down the volume of my mobile, they could probably hear the screams.' As the bartender pours him another glass of Scotch Constantine schools his expression into one of contrite repentance and shrugs "sorry about your customers, Mick" but just gets a grunt in return. John isn't sorry though, not until a thought occurs to him 'Shit. I'll have to actually leave a tip now. Ordinary people are so bloody sensitive!'
While John debates with himself over how much of a tip to leave '5% seems fair. Hang on, I can't do that to Mick… better make it seven.' Father Ramsey isn't having a good time of it, it isn't that the kid was doing anything wrong, he's just dealing with a very stubborn demon. The exorcism is actually taking place in some place in Alabama, John can't remember the name of the town 'he told it to me… Bahi? Bashi? Something like that.' Lots of demons like to possess children, they get their jollies destroying their innocence, and, if they can, try to drag the kids off to Hell before their time, sometimes while they're even still alive. It happens. Most demons know to 'vacate the premises' when the incantations begin, but sometimes the dumb ones don't know how to quit and expend all their energy trying to stay in their vessel, but it's just a matter of time. 'On the plus side, when he gets there the prick will be so weak that his brothers and sisters will probably eat him. As long the padre doesn't fuck it up it should only be a few minutes, max.'
The second that thought crosses his mind, John gets a bad feeling "Fuck!" 'I just bloody jinxed myself, didn't I?' John is out of his seat and halfway to the loo, his mobile phone still to his ear and cigarette hanging from his mouth, when he hears the damned priest mispronounce the incantation. 'It's omnis incursio infernalis, not infernelis. Bloody amateur.' It sounds like the demon got the upper hand, now it's Ramsey screaming his head off, not the boy. Constantine walks into the men's toilets and ducks into an empty stall. Groaning in frustration, he opens a portal to the abbey in Whothefuckcares, Alabama. He doesn't walk through though, consecrated ground and him… well, they don't mix well. Checking that the portal is in the right place, just over the bed the boy is tied to, he begins to chant through the portal after taking one last drag from the cig before dropping it in the bog water.
"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas!" John can hear the boy screaming again. It's a good sign. "Omnis incursio infernalis adversii omnis congregatio et secta diabolica! Ergo, draco maledicte, ecclesiam tuam securi tibi facias libertate servire! Peto te. Audi me!" He repeats the incantations a few more times but the stubborn fucker refuses to leave, his power reserve should be nearly empty but he's still there. 'Perhaps not garden variety after all.' Constantine stops the incantation to take a deep breath before walking through the portal. He immediately regrets it.
Church sickness, what John calls incredible sea-sick feeling he gets whenever he's on consecrated ground, is a consequence of his partly demonic blood. It's hard to believe but it used to be even worse than it is now. It used to make his blood literally boil, making it extremely painful, rather than just make him lose his lunch. He had a former friend to thank for that, as well as a few other 'upgrades' she had made to his body. Fighting the urge to vomit, John looks around the room. There, by on the bed, is the boy, clearly terrified, on the floor near the foot of the bed is the priest, not moving. 'He sounds older on the phone, he's still a kid himself. Constantine walks over to the body and feels for a pulse. Still alive.
John takes the small crucifix from the priest's hands, it's the object he carved the runes into. They didn't need to be carved into a cross of all things, it's not like in the movies, the 'power of Christ' does jack shit against demons, but people are comforted by their little superstitions, so when the padre asked for the runes to be put on a crucifix Constantine just rolled his eyes and went with it. Checking the boy, he noticed that he had burn marks from the runes on his feet and hands, not his forehead like John had said. 'Like the stigmata did anything for Jesus, dumb fuck!' Pressing the crucifix into the boy's forehead, John repeated the chants, careful not to throw up on the boy. 'And to think, in the movies it's the possessed that always puke their guts out.' The demon in the boy begins thrashing about and tries to bite Constantine, anything to get him to stop the incantations. Soon the cries turn from that of a child to those of both the boy and the demon itself, the fucker's starting to feel it! Soon, and this time with a bloody professional doing it, the demon is excised and sent back to Hell in short order.
Constantine collects himself and, after making sure the boy is alright, kneels down next to the priest and gives him a hard slap. Ramsey wakes up and, after seeing Constantine, immediately starts sputtering. "Who are you? How did you get in here, the door is locked?!" Ramsey then pales considerably and his eyes bulge out, "The child, it's not what you think! He's dangerous! Don't free him, whatever you do, don't free him!" Having a bit of fun, John goes to unlock the boy's chains and finishes one leg but the priest, panicking, leaps onto the bed to stop him. Having enough, John speaks. "Look Padre, the demon's gone alright? It's probably already being ripped to pieces and consumed by its brothers and sisters right this moment so bloody relax and let me untie the poor sod!"
Ramsay sputters again "Constantine?! How did you get here, you said you were in England?!"
John rolls his eyes "I used a portal, yeah? Decided to pop in when I heard you fuck up the incantations."
At that Ramsey looked furious. "What the Hell! So all it would have taken for you to do this from the beginning was to open a… a portal? Why did you insist that I do it?!" Having enough of the attitude, John just summons another portal and walks through without a word. 'Ungrateful…'
Back in the loo, he immediately empties his stomach into the toilet. 'Shouldn't have drank so much on an empty stomach, it certainly didn't help. Speaking of, damn, I need a drink.' After flushing the toilet and washing his hands at the sink Constantine walks back to the bar only to find someone has taken his seat, there's a suit jacket over the stool but whoever left it seems to have popped out. John picks up the jacket from his chair and dumps it on the one next to it before sitting down and ordering another scotch and lighting up another cig. He's about to take a sip of his drink when he hears a familiar voice "I was sitting there you know!"
John turns around slowly and looks Promethea up and down. Her face is the same, she never ages, but she's not carrying herself with her usual 'Queen Bitch of the Omniverse' air. It takes him a second to figure it out 'Bloody hell, she's early in her timeline!'
"Promethea," John nods his head "what are you doing here?"
Promethea's eyes widen "Wait, you know me?"
John lets out a sigh "Christ! I'm not drunk enough to have this conversation!"
After knocking back a few shots he continues "Yeah, we knew each other… thought so at least." After a second, he remembers something. "Fuck, you told me this would happen, hang on a tick, I know I got it somewhere…" John opens a portal to his personal pocket dimension and sticks his head and arm in. Promethea's eyes widen further when, a minute later, he pulls out a dusty notebook and hands it to her. She sits on the other stool and reads the first page.
"Here, you told me to give this to you. It's her… your diary" Constantine says, not looking his old friend in the eyes. 'I know she hasn't done shit to me yet, but she will.'
As Promethea reads the first couple pages of her future self's diary, John racks his brain trying to remember what it says, it's been years after all. "If you want to unlock your magic and learn about K- your patron…" when he sees her turn the page, he snaps the book shut "Don't read ahead! Follow the books instructions, find an identical empty journal to write in, and absolutely DON'T READ AHEAD"
Promethea looks contrite and simply nods her head, lost for words, this is not how she thought her meeting with one of her favorite superheroes would go, he doesn't seem to like her much.
John looks her in the eye for the first time "One more thing, don't rely too much on that book, use your wits, and don't go thinking you can't die 'cause of this because that's not how it bloody works! Got that?" She nods again. "Good, then get the fuck out!"
Promethea gets up and puts on her suit jacket but before leaving turns back and looks at him.
"I don't know what my future self did to you. But whatever it was, I'm sorry."
As she walks the door, John turns back to his drink and upends the glass, eager to forget that entire conversation.
Meanwhile, Promethea walks outside into the street and rereads the first line of the second page, trying to puzzle out what it means.
Extremely Important! You must kill your alts and steal their powers, everything rides on that! Just remember: they're not really you!
--------------------------------------------
I understand if a couple diehard Constantine fans are unhappy with this chapter. I think I captured his personality well enough but for the life of me couldn't find the incantations he uses in exorcisms in the comics so I just used the version from Supernatural. If someone finds the real incantations he uses in the comics then send them to me and I'll change it. In DC comics the rules for exorcisms seem to vary wildly, sometimes it's a carbon copy of The Exorcist "The Power of Christ compels you!" other times the Christian or Catholic stuff does absolutely nothing so I just chose the one I felt like writing.
The Diary is partly inspired by River's diary in Doctor Who and John's journal in Supernatural, it will be one of the major plot devices I'll use in the first half of this fic.
The 'alts' mentioned in the diary will appear later this arc. They are not truly alternate versions of Promethea but they are "inspired" by her in an "art imitates life" kind of way. More on that later.
One more powerup and then the adventure truly begins! Please leave a comment!