I guess for skidmark it's normal to see small miniature elephants on a daily basis. Huh. So he doesn't care of profit or territory anymore. He's reaaallly mellowed out.
I think that a lot of them probably did, but considering that that class system allows the merchants to potentially get whatever their drugged out little minds desire, the remaining merchants are probably toeing the line so that they can keep their upgrades. After all you don't kill the goose that lay the golden egg.
Skidmark is actually smarter than most people think. In the one fic by Cherico, every other gang gets wiped out except for his because of one rule, "don't be a cunt.". His gang eventually became galactic.
I'm curious if now that Bakus, the System and Variance giving powers for everyone that follow his rules are fairly accepted if he is going to make pokemons, fir fun and to make a Quest to catch them all!
I'm curious if now that Bakus, the System and Variance giving powers for everyone that follow his rules are fairly accepted if he is going to make pokemons, fir fun and to make a Quest to catch them all!
Would he consider adding gang affiliations to people and villain names for everyone to see? Like you see Max Anders walking down the street and above his head is a floating title saying "Kaiser/Nazi/E88".
He could also do the opposite for heroes and use stranger effects to make it diffcult for people to figure out their identities.
Would he consider adding gang affiliations to people and villain names for everyone to see? Like you see Max Anders walking down the street and above his head is a floating title saying "Kaiser/Nazi/E88".
He could also do the opposite for heroes and use stranger effects to make it difficult for people to figure out their identities.
Turbulent times, now that the Endbringers are 'missing' the whole point of the 'Unwritten Rules' may come under question.
Keeping criminals available to fight the death gods was part of the reason for the '3 Strikes' birdcage rule, I believe.
Still, if he does NOTHING then eventually Adam wins. No reason to start conflict deliberately, so unless you are on the 'Kill List' or some VERY specific quests come out, your ID will probably be safe.
it is rare for skidmark to get and kind of positive ending, so seeing this makes me see how it is achievable, even without the system, give him a lifetime of the good stuff, and tell him to retire.
Adam frowned. "I'll be honest, I am not feeling a lot of remorse from Simmy about the whole thing. Not sure she even fully understands the idea of marriage, but at least we found out that the vow thing can empower my loved ones."
Narwhal blinked. "Sorry, I zoned out there for a second. Why did I come in here again?"
Whatever he was trying to say as he turned slipped her mind as the angel started slowly licking her lips. "Right. Yeah. Sorry, what?"
Yeah, you're not going to convince the neurokinetic of much there. Not when you're no longer immune.
Or she used some entirely different method of distraction. Which shan't be mentioned on this site (It's the wings... ).
Several people blinked. Armsmaster especially seemed put off. "Dragon... has a sister?"
He blinked. Oops. Glaring at Emily, he groaned. "See, THIS is why I don't talk to people. I'm terrible at operations security. Just let me punch stuff and make things and everyone will be happier."
Emily smirked. THIS was a weak point that could valuable for a long time. "Well, let's move on then to the next small issue."
Her smirk vanished as some of her internal fury escaped. "Why were you having a Godzilla fight in MY CITY!?"
Miss Militia recovered first, even as everyone was being led to confinement chambers. "Variance, could you please get rid of your Baku projection? This process will be bad enough without exposing more people to it."
The last thing she heard as her own room was sealed was... not encouraging.
While that was relieving, it didn't change the MASSIVE amount of paperwork and isolation she was going to have to experience today.
She blinked as suddenly the room seemed brighter and her back less heavy... and the Yellow Baku was nomming on something black and wiggly it had just pulled from her.
Even as she noted the additional tests she would have to endure later, it didn't feel nearly as soul crushing as before.
This area would be useful, especially now that Leviathan was splashing around in his soul rather than destroying shipping attempts.
However... he was in a hurry. There were at least two beautiful women who wanted to spend time watching bad films and drinking bizarre drinks while snuggling, and he was NOT going to miss that.
His personal emotions caused the blue flames to glow near white and open black mouths filled with plasma fangs. The sea level actually dropped as sunken ships, rocks, sand and soil was 'Consumed', 'Converted', 'Purified', and 'Transferred' into more energy to devour.
...It was ignoring all her attempts to communicate with it.
Well. Adam's response said it should be fine... right?
With a digital sigh, she assigned a drone to follow the slowly bouncing/floating ball of fur as it meandered toward an incestuous region of the south. This could only end well.
Snuggling between Narwhal (Cyber Narwhal, or CN, was doing the paperwork) and CD (Dragon's sister had been coming over nightly for a while now), they had finally gotten to the Star War's trilogy. Technically the middle three, or four, five, and six. No reason to expose poor CD to Jar Jar Binks right now. And this had turned into a long series of movie nights recently anyway.
Simmy had sort of insisted, as the ability to turn off future and past predictions (As well as all the new abilities she gained becoming his wife) allowed her to finally begin to forget things if she tried hard enough. Or to at least not automatically remember the ending of the film and the entire lives of every person related to casting, filming, and processing said film.
So instead of knowing all movies ever made, she could actually feel surprise. Enjoyment. Suspense.
Thus, movie nights.
Simmy was getting the popcorn. Adam was not sure where it was from, but the description in the System's 'Shop' said it was a snack tinker with a 'Dietitian' class who had managed to make the stuff healthy, more buttery tasting, with no oily feeling. Today they were aiming for the chocolate variant of the stuff, since the cheese and caramel flavors had been so popular.
Narwhal hummed, with CN watching from her virtual office. "So... could we go there?"
Adam hummed right back. "Squishy says maybe on my own. If we asked for it directly though, yes I could get to at least a version of that Realm... but the downsides I have to choose would end up with me spending a LOT of time there. They have slavery and stuff, and I would be very hard pressed not to meddle."
CD hummed just to join in, her side pressed firmly to his. "Yeah, but there is Infinite Realms out there. Nightmare Moon has been spending a lot of her free time just working with Squishy to see which ones are interesting, but even the ones she analyzes tend to vanish or duplicate or whatever."
She accepted the floating tub of popcorn even as Simmy entered the room and sat in front of the couch, nestled between Adam's legs and humming some tune.
...They really should try to get Simmy to wear some actual clothing at some point.
CD turned back to her friends. "Point is, if any injustice exists anywhere, you can find an infinite number of nearly duplicate places suffering that specific issue, in copies of that specific world. It would drive you mad with guilt and grief as you spent the rest of eternity fighting that one issue, and it still wouldn't address a percentage of the total places with horrible problems."
Adam sighed. "Yeah, Squishy and I talked about it a bit every once in a while. We decided to address the issues as we ran into them, but not to deliberately search out problems that are not directly affecting us." He frowned. "That said, there is a 'flaw' I can choose to show up at significant points of time in other worlds, an I will likely keep that option active. It saved a few lives already."
Narwhal snorted. "Well, duh. In fact, I am going to go out on a limb and assume you will have a very lax definition for 'not affecting' yourself. For example, I doubt you could watch someone treat a slave badly in the Star Wars Realm without stabbing a few people."
He blinked. "Well..." Huh. No, the idea of actual torture and death didn't bother him as much as it should. "I better take someone with me eventually, now that you mention it. My scale for 'acceptable levels of retribution' sort of go out the window even at the idea of someone beating a baby or whatever."
A few quiet questions between himself and Squishy and he nodded. "Right. I will try to always kill people instead of long sadistic punishments or endless tortures."
Narwhal's look was dry. "Thank you for that, but we meant more like 'Don`t slaughter someone following the law unless it is very strongly against your moral code'. Especially because jerks like slavers could also have dead man switches or whatever."
He blinked. "Not going to push that 'Never kill' stuff from the unwritten rules?"
She snorted. "Ideally you would spare people as often as possible, but I have seen you operate. You start off at overkill and go up." An image popped up, shared by CN. "You could have sent Lung to sleep with 'Recovery'. You went giant monster fight."
Adam paused. Huh. "You know, for as much as I use 'Recovery', I really sort of ignored the crowd control functions." He nodded. "Right, my bad. In my defense, it was easier for Twilight to map his shard while he was using it."
Also, Simmy had thought it would be awesome, and she had been totally right. It was really fun having her around and be all non-murdery. He felt her pat his shoe leaning back against him, humming away.
Narwhal chuckled as she took another handful of popcorn. "And wanting to fight a giant dragon god had nothing to do with it?"
Damn it, that had been awesome! "Hey, let's focus on the tiny furry Muppet things fighting an army!" Those Ewoks... did those actually exist there, or were they only included as a toy option for Lucas Arts? They didn't affect the story much... or show up anywhere else. Hmm.
Either way, perfect distraction.
Narwhal idly stroked Simmy's blue hair feathers. "When CN and I merge we both experience the same stuff, so you could just bring her along once in a while so we can explore a bit like a couple. CD can join in easily enough, although I think Twilight wants to stay here and keep messing with the System. Also, Nightmare Moon has become something of a nightclub idol. Seriously, she has like a following online and on the System forums."
Alright, distraction was only partially successful. Ah well.
He sighed. "I hate being a stickler about this, but no. I don't want to risk traveling with people when possible. After a few more trips, hopefully I will feel strong enough to risk taking you girls on trips into unexplored Realms, but not likely any time soon. Really I only really allowed it before because of my crippiling loneliness, a sense of responsibility having created the cyber girls, and the inability to return home safely."
Adam frowned. "We got lucky that the most powerful entities encountered were more focused on flirting and friendship rather than conceptually crushing me. Or at least, attempting to do such."
Narwhal grumbled but gave in. "But you WILL take Simmy. She can entirely fit in your soul and is able to see problems before they become issues."
He felt his angel wiggle from praise and chuckled as he gave her a hug using his ankles. Arms were a bit busy after all. "Fine, not like I can't see your point."
CD tapped his knee. "If you do travel again, what will happen to System? It won't shut down or whatever, right?"
He hugged her tighter. "Nah, it will be fine. System is a faith based magical system, and while it took a ton of power and effort to set up on my end... once we hit 10,000 followers in a small region it became self sustaining. It would take literal millennium for it to start having issues at that point, and we passed that low number a LONG time ago."
Their conversation drifted off until the end of the movie, and as the credits scrolled they discussed what they would consider worth taking from various movies or books and what penalties he would have to be accepted to lower the cost enough to actually attempt a trip.
Bottom line: Aiming for a specific place shot the price of transit through the roof. Better to ask for a particular ability or technology base instead and hope for the best, and even then he would sort of be dropped into active situations with little or no idea of what was going on or any support.
He could handle that.
As far as morality goes, the general consensus was to use a self based code of ethics. After all, some worlds may encourage cannibalism, murder, or who knew what... best for Adam to make internal judgments that he would be comfortable with rather than try and follow billions of laws from trillions of countries.
Still, the idea of Adam being off on his own again seemed to put the others on edge.
He had no clue why.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
The 'Night Life', as it were, turned out to be VERY profitable.
Nightmare Moon, or 'Luna Dark' as she was called now online, had discovered a fascinating fact after visiting the local night club.
With her human form, scantily clad as she enjoyed, she found that most men and many women were worshiping her.
Literally.
The faith was filling up her weakened reserves, and although it would take a long, LONG time... she could reach and eventually surpass the power levels of her glory years.
She continued to move to the beat, a wonderful drink in one hand and a beauty dancing to her side.
This world... lived in the night. Thrived in it, no less.
Unlike the far less industrialized world of Equestria, people staying up past dark was not only common but almost socially required. Going home before midnight was considered an 'old people' thing.
It felt more warm here and now than the last decade spent in her old home. No terrified whispers, no claims of demons and night feeding and dark teeth.
Yes, the majority of the worship was sexual in nature. Not even a surprise. But even now she felt more and more people just enjoy her dance moves or her singing voice. It didn't hurt that she had close ties to The Guild and Variance as well, as far as her online presence was concerned.
She had even made deals through CD to have merchandise released and an album recorded... and her fans were actively eating it all up. Loving it. Loving her!
The idea of exploring realities seemed less desirable when she could feel an ocean of people who enjoyed having her here. Who wanted to just know about her life, about what she wanted, about her opinions. They may not know her magical powers or years of conflict for the peace of the realm, but the desire was real and plentiful.
She was pulled back to the party as they pushed for her to sing another tune. To be honest, the musical choices of this world were both varied and fabulous, they had been such a wonderful surprise gift in many ways. So many tribes of people, so many cultures, so much media and communication! Even now hundreds of songs and plays and such were being created and shared and spread, even BEFORE the System powers began lowering the difficulty for normal people to create amazing new products and services. 'Home Movies' were rapidly becoming a new genre of media, and theoretically could challenge big box office creations!
The evening thrummed with sound and life and music...
She wasn't alone in the night. Not here.
Sometimes, while friendship was magical, acceptance could be just as amazing.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Twilight wish she could go home and tell her former life how amazing this was.
Global research into new forms of power! Teams of people, some members of Variance's business, others in The Guild, many more simply with compatible 'Class' choices, working together!
There were human magical research teams now, and they worked under HER, Twilight, in return for contribution points and System levels.
Sure she had to remain in human form, even if she kept the horn. But... in Equestria, while she loved her friends, she had been alone.
Only the Alicorns could even understand magic in the way she did. And more and more often, only she could explain what she was attempting, why it might work, what could be achieved.
But here?
Nightmare Moon may have wandered away, but now Twilight had whole teams of people who could follow along with her, argue with her, debate the ideas behind belief and magic itself!
She barely got sleep, not that her non-biological body cared. She ate rarely. She studied and worked and tested constantly. Being a cyber intelligence made all her old issues and weaknesses optional, age would no longer stop progress, and her life was focused on investigations, study, and research... about MULTIPLE REALITIES!
Was it even possible to be more happy? To feel more accomplished?
Eventually she would want to visit her friends and family back home, to show them how much she had done and how much she would do...
But Adam could choose 'when' to go back. So... she could take her time and enjoy this thoroughly. No friends or family ignored, because she was a digital clone. No guilt for leaving anyone behind, because she hadn't!
Have her cake, eat it too!
She paused, before taking another bite of perfectly duplicated triple-layered double-dipped chocolate-fudge cake. This one had chocolate sprinkles.
Perfectly duplicated as if freshly cooked, totally cybernetic cake.
No tummy ache, no getting fat. Unlimited amounts.
She sighed with joy as she pulled up the soon to be constructed 'Auction House' for the System. Life was awesome.
"She accepted the floating tub of popcorn even as Simmy entered the room and sat in front of the couch, nestled between Adam's legs and humming some tune."
~Jonas Brothers - Sucker, Official Music Video.
"He felt her pat his shoe leaning back against him, humming away."
~Lauv - I Like Me Better [Official Audio]
So Star Wars are next? That can eighter be fairly short visit with just few chapters or long one with dozens of new characters introduced and few dozens chapters to finish.
Well, it will be original. Important to people in real life, but in canon, to the movies, to the fictions... it is less than a sentence long, a foot note, part of a longer montage segment.
Part of me WANTED him to pop in during a space fight or one of the famous scenes (Pod racing, captured (pick any), I don't like sand, etc etc) but well...
There is only a few places that I feel would really fit this character if he wanted to make small, meaningful changes that are similar to past actions.
That said, it will still be an AU version of Star Wars. It is too loved and too researched, if I stuck too close to standard then everyone would know all the tricks and such.
Well I'm looking forward to it eagerly, SW verse is big as hell and have a ton of intersting places and characters so I can't really contain my exitment thinking about what is Adam going to do there, I hope for pure chaos and totall trolling or curb stomping of both the Sith and the Jedai.
Can I suggest something other than Star Wars, at least? Of course, if you already have plans there or want to go, it's fine. But if you are still thinking about it, I just don't find the setting all that interesting.