A/N: wrote this chapter all night. And yeah, it got away from me. what was meant to be a brief blurb morphed into 11 pages' worth.
==================================
After a long three hours of helping the robots unpack everything from the truck and then helping them push the army truck in a strategic position on the fenced-in base outside, it was dark outside.
By this point, Karina was mentally exhausted. More so because Iona kept on pestering her about her summons that she summoned over the entire day after seeing the Bok Choy vegetables because she wanted to jot down every piece of information about all of Karina's summons, both temp and the permanent ones.
Iona was even more annoyed to find out that Karina had neglected to tell her about some of the summonses she did BEFORE she left for Fortuna, such as the Julius one in which she apparently had become a minor apprentice of some male sorcerer using holy light spells. And how she now knew minor healing spells and force field spells.
And the reason why Karina had neglected to tell her? Because she just knew that Iona would insist on holding up Karina in the lab testing every single new ability she had. And considering that she had learned a whole slew of things at that moment? She wouldn't even have the time to go to Fortuna in the first place! That sort of thing would probably take up two entire days' worth of testing, which Iona had to admit was true.
And not to mention, how would they even test the other abilities she had gotten which was unrelated to the Julius one, such as the ability to see inside dark caves and survive easily underground?
There was no way in hell that she'd let herself be buried alive just to see how well she survived. She didn't have a fear of enclosed spaces, but she also wasn't stupid or suicidal. Karina could and would slap the hell out of Iona if she ever thought of suggesting that, because at this point Iona did seem like the typical scientist of this world. Doing something out of sheer curiosity, doing something just because they could, yet lacking any common sense at all.
Lauren had managed to mollify the other woman and get her off Karina's back, by stating that since Karina had fixed some of their security issues, her next few days were cleared to do some testing all day if Iona wanted to. Joy.
Karina wasn't looking forward to that at all… she was the type of person who liked to be active and do things out there, instead of sitting in one place for days straight doing nothing but getting experimented on. She had enough of that of one lifetime… in fact, look where THAT got her!
She groaned loudly as she let her body fall towards the bed she had claimed, and it made a soft thumping noise as her body made solid contact with the soft bed and pillows. She was so tired she was out like a light, just like that. Unknown to her, she had pulled on her power accidentally again before she fell asleep.
>Ring<
https://scifi.fandom.com/wiki/Jadzia_Dax roll 15
Jadzia Dax was a female Trill crewmember of Deep Space 9, born in 2341. She was joined to a symbiont called Dax after the previous host's death.
Effect: Karina gets ś̵̛̖͆͘͝͝o̸̰̥̱̞̖͂͜m̶̟̪̔ë̸̫͙̳͇́ ̶͉̆͊̿̐̎̎ͅȍ̷̢͎̗̓ͅf̷̢͉̮̝̀̓́͝ ̴̙̞͚͔͕̲̳́͑̌̉̍h̴͈͎̥͛͌͛́e̷͕̜̤̱͉͋̕ṟ̴̯͑́̇͂̆̍ ̵̭́̐̉̌͘ --ERROR DETECTED!-- The Prophets overtaking ṱ̶̠̲̜̼̰͆̀͒̈́͌͐ͅh̷̢͙̳̙̙̙͇͆̉̾̉̕ę̴͖̟̅̽͌ ̶̭̜͚͙̩̪̬̊p̴̧̠̹͒̇̈́̒̃r̴̛̜̀̿̾ó̴͚̖͉͔̩͕̥͋̈́̔̚c̴̼̊̇̅̀̃e̴̢̖̼̯̓̅̎̈̎͂ͅs̶͍̩͚͚̯͆̄̋̈̃͠s̵̢̛̹̣̿͛̂̅͝!̴̥̜̒͋̐ |
Karina found herself standing in what looked to be some futuristic spaceport, which she found out right away as she was standing next to a window that was full of stars out there, along with a strange space portal thing that periodically opened and closed on a whim.
This place was strangely empty, save for a fairly attractive-looking woman who had spots running up and down the sides of her head and neck. She had dark brown hair and light blue eyes, and the way the spots ran down her neck suggested that they might go all the way down to her entire body, but she was wearing a uniform along with a distinctive arrow-head-shaped badge, which covered up most of her body.
"Well, what do we have here?" The woman smiled coyly. "You know, I thought that when I died, my symbiont would merely be put into the body of a new host. But I never imagined that somewhere out there in the multiverse, somebody's power would reach out to scan me and try to copy my mind and personality. What a novel experience!"
"Uh?" Karina didn't know what to say to that, so she just made a confused noise. Not to mention, she wasn't exactly at her best mentally when she was asleep. She was still in the weird halfway state where she was both asleep and awake, so her mind wasn't quite all there.
"You see," The spotted woman started to explain, "when I died, I was in the process of trying to protect a sacred orb from this… man, who wanted to harm the Prophets. That moment enabled me to be one with the Prophets for a brief moment, and it was also at the time they were able to notice when some random entity was trying to… shall we say, copy my entire consciousness and transfer it somewhere else?"
She paused, smiling as she walked over to Karina. "The Prophets were annoyed by this intrusion into their personal space. They made me aware of what was going on and gave me the ability to decide whether I would allow it or not."
Her smile became even wider, showing off her teeth. "So! Let's get to know each other, hmm? My name's Jadzia Dax!"
"Um, My name's Karina Munn." Karina wasn't still sure what was going on, but she opted to be polite and go along with… whatever this was.
"A nice-sounding name. Alright, I want you to visualize a place where you feel safe. Can you do that?"
The scene around them shifted like it was made out of quicksand, and in two blinks of an eye, the two of them found themselves at her parents' house in the town of Westby before it got ruined by the Great War and the bombs dropping.
The pre-war house was cheery-looking, with bright yellow paint with white trim on it. The roof was a dark brown rust color, and the steps were painted white though there were plenty of dirt and black marks on them from years of people walking up and down the steps.
There was a large beautiful garden surrounding the home, mainly because her mom Jenny loved to garden and it was also a necessity due to the Great War and other factors causing plenty of food shortages in the marketplaces. Karina couldn't honestly remember the last time they stepped foot into an actual supermarket as most of their food came from the garden if they didn't forage for it in the woods nearby.
Jadzia looked around as she asked, "Nice place. Your childhood home?"
Karina simply nodded.
"They say you can learn a lot about somebody by looking at their childhood home. Mind if we go in?"
Karina shrugged, and then said, "Sure, why not."
But her throat felt like something had gotten stuck halfway in it as they walked up to the door and walked inside. It almost hurt, to see her home like this when she knew it was a total wreck nowadays in real life.
The entire house was eerily empty, with nobody around. But, everything was as Karina remembered it being before the bombs dropped. There were a dozen pictures of Karina and her family on the brown wood-paneled walls inside the living room just right off the entry point, but her eyes were drawn to her favorite one from when she was 15 years old.
It captured the memory of when it was the first time they raised enough money to travel anywhere that wasn't a camping trip to the woods nearby, and so had decided to go to Nuka-world in Massachusetts.
Karina wasn't that big a fan of soda drinks and neither were her parents, but they all had a great time at that amusement park regardless. In the photo, you could see Nukaworld in the background but that's not what caught her attention.
Young Karina was sandwiched between her two parents, who were flashing the I
love you hand gesture toward the camera. All of them were smiling widely, and wearing touristy t-shirts and silly-looking hats that they all had brought from the park.
Looking at her parents, you could tell that Karina was a blend between the two in terms of looks. Jenny had honey-blond hair, while Harry's was plain brown. And there was Karina, her hair seemingly unable to decide whether it was a very dark blonde color or a very light brown color depending on the light. Her light hazel brown eyes were the only thing that was different from her own parents, but even then her eyes leaned towards being more like her dad's brown eyes than her mom's grayish-blue eyes.
"They must be really into music? They're flashing the metalhead sign." Jadzia commented as she noticed the photo that Karina seemed so drawn to.
Karina chuckled. "Actually, my parents are deaf and that's the 'I love you' sign. But it's a common mistake. I've lost track of the times my parents got pulled aside by the authorities because they thought my parents were anarchists. That's a big no-no on this Earth, you see. Families around here tend to disappear into 'correctional facilities' here if they're strongly suspected of engaging in anti-American activities. The ones that might as well be internment camps, although they never call it that, of course. In hindsight, I'm rather lucky that it didn't happen to us, with how prejudiced they are to people with disabilities as well."
Jadzia's eyes sharpened at this. "Tell me more about that?"
"It's a long story. Mind if we talk this over some lemonade?" Karina responded, even though she wasn't thirsty. She just missed her mother's homemade stuff was all.
Without waiting for Jadzia's response, Karina went to the kitchen to get a large pitcher of her mom's homemade lemonade and pulled out two cups for the two of them.
As she poured the drink, she then spoke again. "From your tone, you're familiar with alternate Earths?"
Jadzia smirked as she grabbed the cup that was offered to her, and answered, "Yes. it was a problem for a brief moment back where I came from. There's this alternate universe that some people have taken to calling the mirror universe, although you'll never see that jotted down on any official reports. Apparently, the higher-ups feel that it isn't quite professional enough of us to be giving nicknames to alternate universes like that one. Spoilsports, the whole lot of them."
Karina snorted loudly. "Mirror universe? As in, Good guys are evil over there, and vice versa? No offense, but that sounds like something straight out of those cheesy Silver shroud radio plays. Or Captain Cosmo's TV show."
Jadzia tilted her head and timed her comment perfectly just as Karina was sipping at her lemonade. "Hmm, maybe that's the reason why the higher-ups declined in making that the official name for it. Instead, we've classified it as Timeline-2A. The suggestion of calling them Goatees as a code name was also rejected."
Karina choked slightly on her drink at the goatee comment, causing Jadiza to smile victoriously.
After coughing slightly after some of her drink went down the wrong way, Karina commented, as she put the pitcher of lemonade and her cup on a tray, "I guess I shouldn't be so disbelieving. I've seen some things from other Earths, and it was way weirder than a mirror universe, let me tell ya."
Karina then lifted the tray and walked over to the living room area, and placed it down on the coffee table while Jadzia followed close behind.
Karina then sat down on the sofa facing the TV, and that's when she had an idea. "In fact, if this is my dream… why don't I just show you?"
With that, she tried to focus on the TV, causing it to morph and shift in weird ways until it resembled a
mixture of a retro TV and a flatscreen one. It was so much larger than the old regular one they had in the past, as that one was only a black and white one, but this one could replay her memories in full color.
Jadzia sat down next to her as she commented, "Not a bad idea."
Karina concentrated once again, and a "video clip" of her time traveling with Gus Goodburger appeared on the TV screen.
She then pointed at the screen. "See that cartoon duck? Apparently, he was real, and there is in fact an actual universe out there where cartoons are real and operate on toon logic. Sometimes, I still have a hard time believing that. Might be easier to believe that he was just a figment of my imagination."
Jadzia blinked. "I'm a little lost if I'm being honest? I'm confused as to why there would be cartoon ducks coming to this world. Why don't we start from the very start, hmm?"
With that, Jadzia pushed her mental will on the screen, and it seemingly rewind all the way back to the very start when Karina signed up for vault 129, and afterward sat there patiently while the scientists screened and then prepped her to become a test subject.
Jadzia watched the past Karina become confused as she was woken from her long sleep inside the tube full of bio-gel by the robot, and felt her shock when the robot explained what was going on.
Jadzia made a face as the robot showed Karina the security tapes, which showed the men inside the tubes dying in a very gory way as they fell out of the tubes and started dissolving.
And how Regan himself had the same powers as she did.
As the TV was mostly just recapping everything Karina went through, Karina opted to sit there in silence as she sipped at her mother's lavender lemonade. While very pointedly ignoring the TV screen, because she really wasn't in the mood for that kind of memory trip.
Hmm, strong flavors of lavender and lemons in it, just how Jenny always made it. And due to the lavender side, it sometimes came out slightly purple-tinted, unlike other regular lemonades.
…. Damn, now she was craving her mother's Knoephla soup too.
"You know what? You can go ahead and watch my entire life from birth to the present day, I don't care. I'm gonna go make my mom's soup." Karina mumbled as she got up to check the fridge.
Because she had wanted it so badly, there was a large bowl of it sitting there and all Karina had to do was reheat it. Or simply will it to be instantly warm, which she did so.
She carried it over to the kitchen table and sat down to eat it.
Moments later, Jadzia Dax walked in.
Karina raised her eyebrows. "That was fast. I thought you were watching my life story in there?"
Jadzia shrugged as she responded back, "When you're in a non-physical space like this, time flows differently. Not to mention you gave me permission to go through your head, so I was able to look through it quickly and find out all the relevant facts I wanted to learn about you in a nano-second."
The trill woman then pouted. "I got to say, you're taking the fun out of this. I was envisioning this poignant moment where your most imitate self was exposed to me, I'd judge you on whether you were a good person or not by how much you justified your own actions, and I'd tease you a little bit either way. Also, I'd have a running commentary on each chapter of your life thus far. Gonna have as much fun as I can have that I'm dead and waiting for my symbiont to be replanted in a new body, you know. But nooo, you had to deny me that."
"Sorry?" Karina wasn't feeling talkative thus far, and it didn't help that she still didn't know what the heck was going on other than the fact that she was dreaming and was talking to a supposedly dead woman from another universe.
Jadzia's expression became mildly concerned as she asked Karina, "Were you aware that you suffer from depression ever since you were a young preteen? It ebbs in and out like a wave, and sometimes that wave pulls back for months so you aren't cloaked in it constantly, but it's pretty troubling. You've got to watch out for that."
Karina chuckled. "What do you mean? I'm not suicidal at all."
Jadzia crossed her arms as she gave Karina a stern look. "There's such a thing as non-suicidal depression, where you don't suffer from suicidal ideation. But you still have low moods and other symptoms such as feeling apathy toward everything in general. But I don't blame you for not knowing that, as the suicidal variety does get more press and attention for obvious reasons. But, that doesn't mean that yours shouldn't be treated any less seriously just because you didn't have any suicidal tendencies. If it gets bad enough, it could very well cross over into being the suicidal variety."
Karina mentally mulled this over as she chewed on one of the Knoephla dumplings from the soup.
Finally, she spoke. "Maybe you're right. But sadly, I think I know the source of my depression. And as long as that's still around… I don't think I'd ever be able to get rid of it completely."
Jadzia sat next to Karina. "Oh?"
Karina sighed. "I think I got it as a preteen when I realized that I was just one person and that I couldn't change the whole world to be the way I wanted it no matter how much hard I worked or wished for it. I mean… you've seen my memories of what the pre-war world was like, right?"
The trill nodded.
"On the surface level, everything seems so shiny and perfect. Every American's got a nice house with a perfectly green lawn. Hell, it wasn't uncommon to have a robot butler in your home, if you truly wanted one and saved up enough money for one. Even poor people were able to get one with a loan. And that was the kind of world I thought I was born into for a while there. But the more I got older, the more I noticed things."
Karina paused, trying to think of how to word the things that unsettled her when she was growing up, the small things that tipped her off to the fact that this world was broken in such a way that she couldn't easily fix.
"There were the obvious things, of course, such as the food shortages that led to the food riots. But there were also the subtle things, a sort of 'blink and you miss it' thing. The way people tried too hard to fit in with the crowd because there were witch hunts all over the damn place looking for possible traitors to America, and nobody ever wanted to be accused of unamerican activities. Because of things like that, my parents stood out too much and got alienated. So many companies refused to hire my parents simply because they were deaf and didn't fit the cookie-cutter image they were going for. That was the first thing that tipped me off that things weren't quite right in America. My parents tried to hide that from me for as long as possible, but kids aren't stupid. I knew all about it when I was like six years old. And like the naive little fool I was, I thought that once I got old enough to do something about it I'd change everything. That I'd find a way to magically change everyone's minds and make them all get along together. After all, we were so close to having this perfect utopia, everyone just had to stop obsessing over our differences and instead focus on the fact that we were all human beings! And all human beings were supposed to get along, no matter what our differences were. That's what I thought as a child."
Jadzia Dax smiled at that. "Far as childhood dreams go, that doesn't sound so bad."
"Yeah, but my dreams were no match for reality. The older I got, the more I realized that the problems I wanted to tackle were too big for me or anybody else to do anything about. I finally knew and accepted that I couldn't change the world when I turned 13. I may or may not have turned into a brooding angsty teenager by that point. Is it any wonder why I might suffer from depression?"
"Heh. tell me, did you ever wish on a star?" Jadzia asked, and Karina blinked at the seemingly topic change.
"What?"
"They say that if you ever wished on a star, it would take years if not decades before it finally reached that star. It might've taken a while, but where I'm sitting it seems like you finally gained the power to change the world. Hmm?" Jadzia smiled as she arched one eyebrow at Karina meaningfully.
Karina mentally digested that for a few moments and realized what Jadzia Dax was getting at. and could admit that the spotted woman had a point there. Thanks to her superpower, she already transformed Capitol Town in the ruins of Bismarck from a shanty town to a proper-looking town with an actual defense fence all around it instead of that shitty junk fence it had. And had the power to do that for every town if she tried her best, to ensure that nobody was living in shitty conditions or whatnot.
And beyond that? Maybe she could finally set up her own ideal form of government…. Because, really, who was going to stop her? The old American government was effectively dead now. Huh. she finally had the power at her fingertips to change the world. And all it took was to lose her past life, and she was now stuck in this nuclear wasteland that she barely recognized half the time.
Karina let out a slightly bitter hysterical laugh at this, and the scenery suddenly turned into a white void, startling her.
Glowing orbs surrounded Jadiza, as they said in a weird telepathic voice, <<You have made your decision, Jadzia Dax?>>
Jadzia grinned. "Yeah, I did. I think this woman's a fairly good person, but she does definitely need help. I'm willing to lend her a copy of my knowledge. But maybe not the entirety of my past hosts and my memories? Might be too much for a non-trill like her. Humans typically aren't the type to have the capability for such things biologically. And I'm also wondering if this might count as violating the prime directive If I give her all of my technological knowledge?"
One of the orbs spoke up. <<Meaningless now. I have learned that one of the pawns in both @̵̯̆̈́#̷̭̻̃̎!̷̰͋%̸̰͙̤̈́̃̇ and $̶̹̮̳̂%̸̢̱͉̍̚^̵̖̲̩̆̿^̷͂͆͜%̴͍́̕ͅͅ&̵̪̣̏'s contest already accessed your universe to copy the entire tech-base from there, and is in the process of making a replicator. Having $̶̹̮̳̂%̸̢̱͉̍̚^̵̖̲̩̆̿^̷͂͆͜%̴͍́̕ͅͅ&̵̪̣̏'s pawn here learn some of the technology from over there would do nothing but even the playing fields slightly.>>
Jadzia Dax's smile became even more feral at that. "Great! Then I don't have to feel guilty about this at all. Karina, I officially accept you and award you the sums of my knowledge."
At this, she rippled as if she was standing behind a plane of water that was distorting her features… and suddenly there were two of her.
The second Jadzia moved to stand by Karina, while the first one moved away to stand closer to the orbs.
The orbs then suddenly addressed Karina, << Tell $̶̹̮̳̂%̸̢̱͉̍̚^̵̖̲̩̆̿^̷͂͆͜%̴͍́̕ͅͅ&̵̪̣̏' that they should be more careful in handing out abilities such as yours. A young child like you, improperly wielding such an ability recklessly?? it may lead to a future disaster down the road. We did not appreciate it when your power intruded into our space, but we are magnanimous enough to take it in grace. However, there are other beings out there, who are just as powerful as we are, who may react violently if you do a similar thing again. Take care and keep that in mind.>>
"Uh, okay??" Karina blinked. She honestly did not know how to react to that properly, because some of this sounded like she needed a lot of contexts to understand everything that was going on. Not to mention she hadn't been called a young child in so long that it caught her off guard. She was practically in her thirties, so…
The second Jadiza hugged Karina from behind for seemingly no reason, everything was suddenly engulfed in bright white light to the point that it hurt her eyes and forced her to close them.
>ring<
https://scifi.fandom.com/wiki/Jadzia_Dax roll 15 19 (because the prophets will it, and they're petty enough to interfere with this contest just once, to piss off both the ROBs watching over this story. Mostly to serve as a warning to not enter their space without permission again, or they might become twice as petty to the point of derailing this contest completely. You have been warned,@̵̯̆̈́#̷̭̻̃̎!̷̰͋%̸̰͙̤̈́̃̇ and $̶̹̮̳̂%̸̢̱͉̍̚^̵̖̲̩̆̿^̷͂͆͜%̴͍́̕ͅͅ&̵̪̣̏ !!)
Jadzia Dax was a female Trill crewmember of Deep Space 9, born in 2341. She was joined to a symbiont called Dax after the previous host's death.
Effect: Jadzia Dax, with some help from the prophets, recognized Karina as a fairly good person who indeed did need her help in changing this world. As such, she willingly awards Karina with the sum of her technological knowledge as well as her emotional maturity and some of her wisdom. Karina doesn't get all of Jadzia's past host's memories, however, because that would be too much.
Unfortunately, Karina didn't get ALL of the star trek tech trees like Regan did, she only knows what Jadzia knows thanks to all her past hosts. Which amounts to learning how to make a phaser and making things like warp drives. As well as astrophysics, exo-archaeology, exobiology, and zoology, which were all the things that Jadzia had studied in university before she became joined with Dax. Still, all of this combined with her Stargate tech should help her get a leg up over Regan. |
Karina woke up in her bed with a throbbing headache that felt as if five lifetimes' worth of knowledge had been gently crammed into her head.
'Man, what a weird dream…' Karina mumbled as she tried to remember everything that happened, but the more she tried to remember the more she forgot most of the dream's plot.
She did have a craving for her mom's cooking though, so she supposed that dream had been about food. Heh, goes to show you that you should never go to bed hungry.
==================================================================
A/N: Yeah, that one kinda got away from me a little. Jadzia Dax was so hard because I couldn't decide what skill or knowledge Karina should get from her.
I was also bummed that Karina wouldn't get to interact with the real Jadzia Dax since she was one of my favorite characters on DS9.
I rewatched the episode where Jadzia Dax died, and it occurred to me that Jadzia was getting pretty intimate with that prophet orb when she tried to protect it from Dul Dukat. So I thought to myself, hmm, what if Jadzia got to talk with the prophets for a brief while there?
So I kinda created a mental model of her in my head and then asked Jadzia directly what she thought Karina should get from her.
And then I realized it'd be kind of hilarious if the Prophets got huffy about their personal space getting invaded just because a pair of ROBs were letting their pawns' abilities run wild. And honestly, to me, the Prophets are just a bunch of low-key ROBs…. So wouldn't they know who the ROBs running this contest is, even if they're not of the same species? And I can see them being that petty somewhat. heh.
So this happened. Hopefully, I captured Jadzia Dax and the Prophets' characters pretty well. This thing where I changed the roll is only going to happen once because this time I had a canonical justification thanks to DS9 lore and the prophets. It won't happen again.
Okay, so I was bitter over the fact that Regan got the star trek tech tree and wanted Karina to have something from there! Sue me!
