Ebon of Another World - Black Kingdom Spin-Off Quest [Worm/Original]

Rolling the star-shaped reality warping crystal of power around in your hand, you come to a decision. In this place far away from home, the only thing that you truly own is your own existence. Subordinates and minions come and go but you yourself are your own greatest ally. Thus, there was truly one choice to make. Bringing the Ebon Star up to your chest, you proceed to take in the immense power that is held within.

Immediately, you feel power surge throughout your body as it greedily drinks in the flow of power from the Ebon Star. You hiss in pain as you feel your body quickly reach its limits. You grit your teeth and hold the energy within yourself, letting not a single drop of the veritable storm of power leak out from your body. The false skin of humanity that conceals your true nature as a construct of energy ripples and bulges as imitation bones, muscle and flesh dissolves and are remade repeatedly. It is your power and it shall obey you without exception. Either you adapt or die.

The struggle to control the vast power of Ebon seems to last for an eternity. Such is the pain that your perception of the world seems to fall away with only the agony of breaking through the limit your sole companion. After what feels like years or seconds, your body finally calms down and you feel the familiar sensation of your power simply snapping into place as it stabilizes into proper form.

• Heart of Ebon - Rank 1 -> 2
  • Like all servants of Ebon, you have within you something that could be considered an organ which generates Ebon Power. At this level, you generate a steady amount of Ebon Power, allowing you to slowly stockpile Ebon Power for energy-intensive actions.

• Soul Taker - Rank 1 -> 2
  • An ability common to all who are of Ebon, you are able to drain a living being of the exotic energies that form their souls and convert them into Ebon Power. At this rank, you can drain a person of their life energy in seconds and other types with time. You are also capable of sensing the energies of the soul in a wide area.

• Ebon Champion - Rank 0 -> 1
  • As the Chosen Champion of the Ebon Emperor, you are empowered by the dark energies that permeate your existence. Despite being a clone of the original, you have unlocked a portion of your original strength. What you've unlocked has allowed you to enter the low-end scale of the superhuman realm. At the very least you can toss around a couple of tonnes with little problem. You also no longer have human vitals for enemies to target.

• Ebon Conversion - Rank 1 Unlocked
  • One of the most versatile abilities that the Ebon Lord has is the power to transmute Ebon Power into other pre-existing matter and vice-versa. At this rank, you can turn Ebon Power into any simple mundane substance. You can also create Ebon Iron, a magical type of metal with various properties depending on how it is used.

• Black Arsenal - Rank 2 Unlocked
  • The result of experimenting with the powerset of a Company Magical Girl, the Ebon Lord has obtained the ability to record the blueprints of any conventional tool made for the sake of war and combat and construct perfect copies out of Ebon Power. At this rank, you are able to create any weapon with little cost. They will function just like their mundane counterparts. They can be infused with Ebon Power to greatly increase their lethality however.

You awaken from the trance tired from the exertion of elevating yourself to a higher state of being, your clothes soaked in sweat and some random hobo riffling through your pockets.

....

The unwashed vagrant freezes in place the moment your eyes meet. The man opens his mouth to say something but it is far too late for the unfortunate hobo. Your hand grabs the man by the face and you allow your senses to take in the man's existence and soul. You frown as you try and feel of the man's soul yet you can feel nothing. It was almost as if the man had no soul at all which was impossible. Obviously, you were doing something wrong. Hoping to gain access to the man's soul, you inject a shot of Ebon Power into your victim. The man gasps, either in pain or euphoria as your power cycles through the man's body.

You smile as you finally sense the man's soul, hidden deep within his physical existence. Pulling the soul out from the deepest recesses of the man's metaphysical existence, you mentally grasp hold of it and drink deeply your fill of energy.

Life energy and the smallest amount of mana is coaxed out from the man's soul, immediately transforming into the Ebon Power that fuels your existence and power. Draining the homeless man of most of his energy, you let out a sigh of satisfaction before you unceremoniously drop the man to the ground.

You feel much much better and closer to your original self though you are still a far way off. Feeling out one of your more familiar abilities, you flick your hand out and a stylized pistol appears within your hand. Excellent.

Yes, this will do just fine for the time being.

Tossing the weapon aside, knowing that it would soon disappear without your presence, you kick off the ground, launching yourself into the air, gently landing on the roof of the building to your right. While only a few stories tall, it is enough to give you a view of the city you are in. Brockton Bay for all purpose and intent look just like any other American city that isn't an architectural American-Japanese hybrid. It actually feels a lot more...depressing looking with how subdued the colors are in comparison to the brighter hues that tend to make up Las Angeyoto.

Your shadows and denizens rise from a pool of darkness that appears next to you and look to you, awaiting further instruction. Well, time to get to work then. Next stop, the local library.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Thank god for library computers. Brockton Bay central library was one of the fancier looking places at least on the outside, a throwback to what you assume was Brockton Bay's more prosperous days. The trip here hadn't taken long. An elderly old lady was nice enough to provide you directions to the place and you had arrived shortly after the library had opened so there were plenty of public computers for you to use.

It was both reassuring and dispiriting to find that the internet was pretty much the same despite you being in another reality. It takes you about half an hour to skim through the history of this world. There were a lot of differences in this world like the fact that there was definitely no Las Angeyoto in this reality.

You learnt stuff about the Protectorate, the PRT, the local heroes in Brockton Bay, villains, gangs and a lot of other stuff.

You were shocked to learn about the Endbringers and you couldn't understand why there were villains when there were these three monsters that were wrecking everyone's shit with impunity.

Man, from what you've read on the news and all the articles online, you did not have a good impression of this world. Still, barring finding some cape that could send you back home, you were going to be stuck here for the foreseeable future. The Original Jacob probably won't bother looking for you since you are a clone of him and an expendable one at that. Best to try and make the best of things, you suppose.

Having finished your research, for the time being, you leave the library and take some time to think deeply about what you were going to do from here on out. Of course, you would like to go home but barring a miracle, that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. What are you going to do?

[ ] Go the hero route. Since you're pretty much functioning on your own without any real purpose other than what you decide yourself, you might as well give being a superhero a try. Go check out the Protectorate since they've been doing this hero thing for some plus going legit might be a nice change of pace for a change. You can always bail if things don't work out for you.

[ ] It's hard to break old habits so you might as well stick to what you know and that's being a morally ambiguous mystery guy with powers. Now you just have to find a place to crash and set up shop. Let's see how Brockton Bay reacts to the presence of the Amazing and Mysterious Mage known as Ebon!

[ ] You've regained some of the Original's power and you're just itching to use them. Go find some criminal scum and engage in gratuitous amounts of violence. Maybe destroy a gang or two while you're at it. Honestly, you really need to let out some steam. Getting thrown into another reality was not on your fucking to do list!

[ ] Gangs, villains, monsters. This world is full of dark forces. Why not join them? There's plenty of fun to be had with robbing banks and beating down super-powered thugs in spandex. Who knows, eventually you could conquer this pitiful, grimdark world. You'd love to see Original Jacob's face then.

[ ] Write-in