In the original WORM story line, many issues and ideas were addressed in the background, behind the obvious plot. Methods used by heroes and villains to gain power, political structures and gang organizations... ideals and goals were tested.
Not that Adam remembered it all perfectly. And this was an AU realm, so some data wouldn't match up regardless.
But still, he had gained some perspective on what could cause positive, measurable change in this world and the risks that would crop up because of it.
Too large? Endbringer would pop up. Too centralized? Similar.
So he had to do something small, but one with a long term impact on society.
That was the goal anyway.
Adam went with a classic: Denial of resources.
It was a staple of literature and history, one that everyone seemed to follow. PRT took down mooks and some capes, although the system made holding them difficult if not impossible. The Guild would actively steal technology from villains and reverse engineer it, lowering the value of criminal hardware and increasing hero resources.
Taylor Hebert, aka 'Skitter', along with many other vigilantes, attempted to crack down on individual or low level conflicts to hopefully reduce the overall level of danger in her city without forcing all sides to gang up and squish her. Big fights for big people, little fights for little people.
Even Coil used his minions to capture drugs, rob loose currency, and injure gang workers.
Adam wanted something more subtle and yet would have good impact... hopefully.
He had money, he was in good legal standing, and he had the most powerful building and most controlled destruction abilities in the whole town.
So with The Guild handling the actual purchasing paperwork, he had been buying property all over town.
First, everything that was bankrupt. Businesses, districts, warehouses... all of it had fallen under his power before Variance Villa was even constructed. With his drones helping him keep track of gang activity and providing real time mapping, he then focused on buying out residential areas and the close to failing businesses.
All under various names, as quietly as possible. Without Coil in the picture, no other thinker had caught on yet... or if they did, they didn't get in the way so far. Honestly, that overly obsessive compulsive power user Accord over in Boston probably knew, but he tended to leave anyone alone if they didn't make things worse. Probably.
Crud, would he have to worry about that? Later, no major gang movement was detected by the drones so far coming in or going out.
So with such a large portion of the city under his claws, Adam proceed to attempt to deny a huge resource everyone took for granted.
Real estate.
Every weekend Adam had taken at least a couple of hours to visit these properties, focusing on those closest to gang territories without infringing on anything. He would show up, verify it was empty, then use 'Conversion' on everything in the property line.
All buildings and parts broken down into flame metal, or added to his suit if he was running low on energy. The dirt was carefully refined by his flame threads, which found any poisonous or heavy metal particles and converted the junk, leaving rich, plant-free soil behind.
Dockworkers would show up later to plant the various park related items, and a foot or two below the soil the layers of Null Metal and Flame Metal spiraled down, slowly growing deeper while leaving any pipes or wires intact.
For the first dozen properties, everything had gone fine. Eventually every gang territory would have secret repositories of fire if Adam 'Adventure' Burns needed to show someone how to behave. And large sections of contested, abandoned properties could no longer be used to store drugs, stage assaults or retreats, or hide fleeing criminals or people being assaulted.
Then he had ran into the first warehouse with homeless. Technically squatters.
It was bad. A couple had been injected with something by the Merchant gang, and were not handling whatever that was well. Two had been young children, thankfully not sexually molested due to young age, but very hungry and ill.
And these were just the ones who didn't run from the blue flaming skeleton in a suit.
After a quick round of healing, Adam had contacted Dragon and started moving his new friends.
It took less than a few minutes to discover some disgusting truths in this city. Locating all existing orphanages and safe houses took very little time and was very disappointing. Finding out that, other than the few large hospitals, there were very few people willing to risk opening an emergency clinic... well, it was a sign for Adam.
Split the city into gang grids, pick the properties closest to each one that was farthest from other gang territories, buy a couple of VERY expensive properties that were in good locations but not 'technically' on sale... he had gone to work.
Each territory got a safe house, so that the chance of rival gangs attacking one for allowing 'unclean' or the 'wrong race' would be more unlikely. An area near the heart of his power, Variance Villa, became a massive orphanage that connected to the facilities underground. Safe parks and kids of similar age to play with, why not?
And he had placed basic emergency clinics almost everywhere. Each one had custom tinkertech that duplicated his ability of 'Recovery:Triage' combined with 'Sleep', so people would survive long enough to reach actual hospitals.
Each new facility needed people. Basic workers for the clinics (The tech was easy enough to use that a doctor or nurse wasn't needed), parental figures and teachers (orphanage shifts were popular positions, surprisingly), and everywhere: Dockworker Guardians, to hold the line until Adams unreasonable firepower could smash anyone attacking a charity location.
Danny Hebert had informed Adam that it had been the first time they had to actually recruit new workers in over four years. The various emergency personnel had also been VERY happy with the donated tinkertech that allowed all the ambulances to duplicate the 'Recovery:Triage' function, once the massive amount of testing and paperwork went through.
It was a combination of 'Happy to help so many' and 'Frustrated that everything I do gets so complicated' that made Adam enjoy every visit to one of his properties. Especially when he was allowed to burn them to the ground.
Businesses got moved to better areas or directly into Variance Villa's underground mall. Homeless and runaways were healed and moved to the homeless shelters or safe house, depending on choice. The few gang members they bumped into had seen the large number of dockworkers that tend to follow Variance around and vanish after seeing their armor and advanced tasering equipment.
Seriously, those guns are massive just to hold all the hardware that ensures each electric shock would safely down an opponent. Normal stun guns had a high failure rate, as a person under certain mental states would go nuts rather than fall over. Worse if they had powers. Too strong could kill them though.
The solution ended up with huge glowing tinkertech guns... and honestly, he hadn't needed to use them much because they were scary as shit.
Dragon was already working up some contracts to sell them to other agencies. So yeah, money issues for funding these social facilities was very well covered at this point.
On the other hand... well, he had been AIMING for subtle. And failed.
Luckily his focus on non-gang territories had prevented much backlash, and all three gangs had been avoiding schools, health treatment facilities, and orphanages in their conflicts. Even Skidmark of the Merchants didn't want to attract a whole state's worth of anger by messing with kids or doctors publicly.
Safe houses however had a more... rough history. Attacks on people with a different social station or race were not uncommon, and all three major gang used the poor and homeless as funding resources or free targets to gather enthusiasm.
It was why those places were a bit larger, had a bit more Null Metal, had almost double the Dockworkers hired as security.
And deep, deep below. In the dark, in the places that required advanced tools to even detect... his buildings were tunneling toward each other. Connecting. Sharing heat and resources.
Adam's droids could (and did) refuel at any of these facilities. And his map was growing, even as Dragon was taking advantage of unlimited binary Flame Metal fluid to design and develop new schematics for further drone advancements.
He wasn't sure how far she had taken things, but he WAS aware that every Guild facility in the world was gaining a new 'Celestial Garden'. Mostly because it was showing up on his network as she continued to expand.
Dragon had likely removed a few more of her remaining shackles on her own by now, based on how much more relaxed she seemed now. Either that, or it was just the late night 'tinkertech sessions' she was having with Armsmaster these days.
He knew she was building similar setups in other towns, testing the Drones and 'Assist Map' features in Guild controlled regions... but thankfully all that hard stuff wasn't his issue.
Today, he was just going to relax and burn a few abandoned restaurants to the ground.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Amy looked at the mail. Mail for her.
Why was she getting mail? Everything went through a filtering service, and she had piles of hate mail and love letters and all that handled automatically. Most of her family had to use that service, publicly known heroes were popular.
This one was very official looking too.
She pulled it opened and... it was dense. Itemized. The first few pages listed hundreds of hospitals, only a few she had ever personally visited. A list of technical sounding tools, followed by numbers? Oh, that was how many of each tool was being distributed per facility.
Confusion grew as she moved on. Oh, this was a Garden thing. But Variance had already sent the stuff she got from his charity and the stuff from working with him. Carol had been entertaining to watch as she raged from being furious that someone would interfere with HER family and grateful that the contract was so well designed in Amy's favor.
The other pages helped clarify things a bit.
She was being marked as 'inspiration' for this 'Giving Tree' part of the official 'Garden' company? But she didn't really do much. Heal a few people, get teased a bit, scare Vicky with a man wearing a goat mask.
Oh, there was an 'about' section. Apparently this was some sort of information document that had been handed to the various healing organizations to explain what this new branch of the 'Garden' did.
Uh.
So... Variance somehow made her power into tinkertech? When was THAT possible? And it claimed to be limited to much more basic functions, but it should still vastly reduce her work load if these common problems could be healed without her.
Wait, what was this last page bunch? It just seemed like a duplicate of the first bundle with less details.
Oh, it was listing the costs. Man, Garden made out like bandits, these figures were huge!
Amy Dallon froze as she read the note under the summary, apparently hand written by Variance himself.
This... this wasn't how much those items cost. Or how much those hospitals paid.
This was her personal earnings. This was the small percentage of the ACTUAL costs and transactions.
The second listed, smaller but still quite large number was how much money she earned from royalties earned from maintenance costs alone.
That value would be added to her accounts on a bi-weekly basis.
A half hour later, her family found it a little funny and yet concerning when they found Amy stunned still staring at some paper in the living room.
Amy found it equally funny when they realized the paper was simply a receipt, and that the amount of funding listed on the paper was only an initial installment dropped into her accounts.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Adam blinked. Why was he getting such strange emails from the New Wave group? Weren't they mad at him or something?
Well, no reason to mess with that junk now.
Now he had to visit a series of tortured souls, trapped in a bastards power that ensured immortality, torture, and insanity.
And if he could successfully connect with Gray Boy's power, he would be able to not just communicate with it, but learn what would happen when one burned a world made of crystal time power.
Considering what it was being used for, it would probably be impressive to see.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
The Brookwood Mall was mediocre even back in its heyday. A medium mall in a middle sized town in the middle of nowhere.
Still, as the only major shopping complex in the area, it was financially solvent and popular enough that there were no concerns about further investment. If the local economy had picked up a bit, maybe a few larger brand stores would have taken up residence, offer more variety.
Adam gazed at the harvested shell of a mall. The large metal divides, the collapsed sections.
The first few days, after the panic came... there was hope.
Powers were still new, unlimited potential. Who knew what would happen tomorrow? Maybe a brand new tinker would make a device, maybe a striker could cancel the effect, maybe a trump could control it?
This was the mall where Gray Boy made his debut.
Over one hundred direct victims in this one location. Young, old, every race. Captured, twisted, and tortured.
As hope fell, this mall was transformed into a series of cages. Not to keep people out, or protect the victims, but to hold back the screams and sobs of the ever suffering masses.
The lucky ones were trapped without movement. Still forced to experience life, it was a terrible form of sensory deprivation. They still raced from sanity to madness and back, like the others, but it was only being trapped in their own body.
The most unlucky were no longer visited. Even friends and family could not bare to see them suffer like this.
Looped time, filled with renewing wounds. Slowed time, seeing the weapon close in on them for hours before the pain began... then reversed to enjoy it all again.
And the emotional pain... forced to see a parent or child suffer inches away for years.
'Recovery' was helping him hold his anger and sympathy at bay for now, to help him help these poor wretches. But... this hurt.
The bubble he was touching right now contained one of the earliest victims, thankfully only forced to repeat the stumble from being pushed for eternity. She was even in one of her lucid phases, and after each reset was silently watching the blue fire skeleton tapping her prison.
Even when sane, the prisoners rarely talked with those outside. Why bother? Nothing could help. No one was even sure if they could die of old age, as time kept restarting... could she die even if a hundred years passed? Longer?
Adam glanced at the girl. She was fine looking, but not amazing. Just one of those many people you would pass on the street while hurrying to somewhere.
He focused back on the surface.
There was both good and bad news.
Good news, all these fields were generated by Gray Boy's shard, and it wasn't creating a new planet for each victim trapped. It was why it didn't vanish when the boy died, as these fields were not based on the child himself but on the power in the other dimension.
Also in the good category, it was an active connection. He could follow it to the shard and study it.
Bad news, at least for Adam, this was not quite time manipulation. It was actually on the far distant side of Panacea's power. So no burning today.
Gray Boy's ability came in two chunks.
One, his shard cluster could create patterns that would project a dimensional field in Earth Bet, these 'time bubbles'. More like 'Dimensional Displacement Fields', as it slightly slid the area out of sync with reality.
And two, his shard could make snapshots of that field and reconstruct it in stages. It was how wounds could not be adjusted to, as the brains were being modified to not remember the last time the injury happened. It was why the victims could remember everything, as just like Panacea's healing the power wouldn't mess with memories while 'restoring' the victims.
While it would have been amazing to have time based abilities from scanning this shard cluster, at least it was directly useful in improving his 'Transfer' power set and getting ready for his first true dimensional jump.
After fixing this, of course.
He had been sitting in front of this girl (Susan? Probably Susan, he was more focused on examining this power than listening closely when Dragon had given the rundown) for over two days now. Switching to 'Recovery' a few times handled his rest issues, and Dragon had some of his protection personnel delivering meals on time.
Destroying this shard cluster would happen, even if Amy's power somehow got effected by the process. It SHOULDN'T, but these powers were odd to work with in the best of times. No, he could have done that in seconds after touching this thing.
He was trying to handle treatment by using the Shard as a medium. Even Dragon was unaware of the many people Gray Boy had attacked behind the scenes, the most secret the many victims he had forced to dig a grave and then freeze them under the soil. Constantly suffocating.
Seriously, the Slaughterhouse 9 were just assholes of the highest degree.
This would have to be done quickly, and it would have to be done right.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Why wait so long before working on this? Adam's original opinion had felt right at the time. Unlike making lots of money, fixing these victims would paint some big targets on his back, VERY big ones.
Cauldron, unstable at the best of times, would instantly notice. With an amazing precog and the ability to teleport anywhere, he would have issues unless this was carefully done.
Slaughterhouse 9, who HATED someone attempting to help their victims, would move to attack. When it got out that a guy had triggered in Wisconsin and started to make tinkertech replacements for the human body parts that the Siberian had eaten... well, they had killed him and many more within the week. Adam was not going NEAR them until his power had grown more robust.
Finally, and worse of all, Scion. The golden naked man was the definition of over powered, had very odd values, and could theoretically attack if he detected Adam destroying or modifying a shard. Far less likely now that he had time to examine the things (The difference between 'working' and 'ruined' was slight when it came to powers), but at the beginning he didn't know how much intercommunication power shards did.
So after this action, within hours... he was going to move to another Realm. Fast.
All his power charges, combined with the advances 'Research' had made from studying Gray Boy's dimensional field generators... it was barely enough.
Squishy was insistent that he use the reconstructed power carefully. 'Transfer', after all these charges, had unlocked small parts of the original 'Kaleidoscope' ability. A very... very small part.
By actively accepting some of the 'interesting' restrictions that the original power creator wanted, it would drastically reduce the activation requirements... down to the level he could actually use them.
So penalties he would be accepting on this trip: No safe travel. Arrive at an 'interesting' time. No language package. No reality insertion... which meant no memory modification or paperwork to make integration easy.
And so on.
In exchange, he gained a bit of precision: He could make a request for Squishy, a destination request.
Not strong enough to specify a Realm, or a person, or whatever. But he could request some level of destination filtering.
For example, he was going to focus his first 'Transfer' with the goal: Ability to avoid Precogs.
It should hopefully send him somewhere he could learn or gain the power to not be easily slaughtered here in Worm, even if people notice him. Especially then, actually.
Stupid Contessa with her 'I win' power, stupid Endbringer Simurgh with the 'I see everything' crap.
With another check on his setup, and some 'just in case' emails that shouldn't be sent out as long as he came back within a week... he proceeded.
"Conversion."
Miles of shard crystal suddenly became Flame and Null Metal. Parts of Gray Boy's area of Panacea's Shard actually exploded! The dimensional fields being generated however were now safely part of his power directly. Or at least, he could work through them as if HE was the owner. As if his shaking hands were able to touch these screaming souls, yearning for freedom.
He swapped to 'Recovery', even as outer sections of Gray Boy's power began to burn into solid blocks of metal.
"Conversion."
Thousands of tons of material across the nation suddenly became heat, then metal. The soil covering frozen victims, trees and concrete about to fall onto time locked victims, the weapons about to injure innocents, explosions paused in expansion, all of it vanishing into small metal spheres.
"Transfer."
A more basic use of his power. Deep in his house, converted matter balls fell in a flood.
Hundreds of people abandoned in back roads, still frozen in time, reappeared at Brockton Bay's Hospitals. Not like his involvement would be secret anyway at this point, at least these people could 'wake up' in civilization rather than miles from help.
Each transfer made a chunk of the new converted matter vanish, the energy used to teleport people rapidly dropping as his power analyzed each 'Transfer' and carefully became more efficient and accurate.
"Recovery: Triage. Shard Strip."
The few who were capable of triggering had done so in all kinds of strange ways, the years of torture taking their powers to bizarre purposes. Better to get rid of it all.
Setting them down to Triage level would expel any fragments or contaminants before the final action.
This... this hurt. Healing hundreds by reaching out of reality and back in elsewhere was draining his energy hard. Hunger burned in his stomach, and that was AFTER sacrificing all that new converted material into direct power for Adam to wield.
"R... Recovery: Peak. Dull Memory."
Just removing their memory could be damaging. Instead, their entire period of torture would be dulled, blurred... a rough outline, rather than years of suffering.
"Re... Re..."
His eyes, blue flames dimming, were starting to fade entirely.
"Resume."
Even as all those tiny lights, those fragile people, those poor souls... even as they began to move again, he could feel almost everything vanish from his power.
This... this would suck.
"Transfer:Abyss."
As Squishy pulsed, a soul was thrust into the dark.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Dragon held back a gasp as she watched Variance collapse to the floor, her people already moving into help.
Watching the man's eyes fade away, his flames vanish... it had stunned her.
Why!? This was just an observational period, they had agreed to begin testing on possible solution tinkertech devices in a month or so! What had he even been doing to cause him to pass out like this!? Narwhal was going to blow a gasket, this run was just to see if Adam could make something to help Dragon analyze the time bubbles.
Even as she watched her people carefully examine the skeletal man, she felt someone tug on her hologram.
"Excuse me, Robot Lady? Do you know what's going on?"
Looking at the confused miracle girl, moving freely for the first time in over a decade, Dragon noticed the growing number of alerts hitting her systems.
And the massive number of confused people that just showed up in Adam's city.
Dragon sighed as she began listing the new mountain of work this would cause, even as a small smile crossed her face.
'I just want to take a look.' Sure.
See if he wants to 'take a look' ever again after Narwhal gets done mothering him to death for power overuse.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Adam Adventure Burns was burning.
He had no skin, but burned.
He had no muscles, but burned.
He had no bones, but burned.
He had no nerves... WHY DID HE BURN!?
In the Abyss, in the non-existent nothing, he was invisible, untraceable, and moving at high speed in no direction at a very high, stationary velocity.
As in, he was both moving faster than possible and not moving at all.
The nothingness in the Abyss... it burned.
Honestly, his body was pointless to a certain extent anyway after his upgrades. His powers, biological matter reserves, mechanical storage, all of that was squished in his soul. It was a painless way to avoid death if his body was vaporized, as his mind and all was stored in a place that had no physical component.
On some level, when thinking privately, he had considered himself very lucky and smart to have used such an unreachable location to store his most valuable parts.
Now... the burning was showing him the flaws.
Stuffing one's soul with such things... of course there were consequences. It didn't matter while living, while existing in one place. The soul rarely interacted with others, with anything.
But here... the nothing allowed him to feel his soul.
It was fat. Stuffed. Oddly shaped. And... lumpy.
And burning.
Squishy had reacted before Adam even knew the pain was coming, moving metaphorically next to his soul socket and equipping 'Recovery' instantly.
It wasn't quite fast enough.
His powers, his memories, his abilities... they burned.
Thankfully, 'Recovery' was able to rebuild... and 'Technomancy' had stored multiple copies of his existence in encrypted soul memory files weeks ago, packed along with copies of all the random data he had been gathering.
But this process hurt on a level unimaginable to the man.
Each patch of soul that was irregular was exposed to the consuming nothing. Each crack and flaw burned into an open wound. Squishy was moving, even while screaming in pain, forcing as much of his powers to stay stable as she could.
Even then, she couldn't do everything.
If he was able to think about anything besides the burning, Adam would have been amazed at the changes his soul was undergoing.
'Recovery', after all, adapted.
The shape of a soul was impossible to describe of course, but if one gave up and threw out random words a normal soul tended to be the shape with least imperfections. Something like a multidimensional sphere.
And as he burned, the parts that resisted melded with the new creations generated by 'Recovery'.
His soul socket was the base, the most protected, the most defended part of his existence now. Squishy was bleeding power as she allowed minor damage to occur in his entire being, to allow a far more stable and reinforced soul to form.
He was undergoing something like a refinement.
But all he understood... was the burning.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Ironically, the new pain was so much more mild that he almost cried with relief.
The burning had passed, his nearly crystallized soul having become so stable towards the end that only the smallest, finest, outer most edge was even being consumed by the Abyss.
It also oddly looked like a fishbowl.
Squishy seemed out of it though, although there was some level of jellyfish pride on her bouncy self.
The power charges particles that had been stardust were now small crystals, sand in the bowl. Likely they would form up into tiny gems after a day or so, for Squishy to watch over.
She however, while still a ball with six limbs, was visibly hurt and healing. Thankfully 'Recovery' considered her part of his soul as well.
Her wand was far less 'fairy princess' and now more a glittering star on a steel shaft, 'Conversion' having survived destruction and gained quite a bit of precision and power in the process.
Her hat, 'Technomancy', was now a pair of blue sunglasses. Had neat text scrolling on it too, although he couldn't read it.
'Transfer' looked something like a pair of tentacle wings? Maybe? They kept flickering in and out of existence. If you didn't look closely, they didn't catch the eye.
'Recovery', 'Fire Manipulation', and 'Research' were not really used by Squishy much, so he guessed that was why she didn't have a cute fire fighters outfit or something. With 'Technomancy' running simulations all the time, it was no surprise it had been upgraded from a cute beanie hat into super serious adult glasses.
Alright, fine, they were still adorable.
So, five charges could be saved up now thanks to her having six limbs... they would be needed.
Another spike of pain helped Adam focus.
His soul was stable, but something was... pressing on his existence. Demanding certain... shapes. requirements.
Even as he tried to understand the odd experience, he watched his soul... expand. Even as it healed, uncontrolled soul material was being generated and expelled, clouding his crystal core and wrapping it up into something larger, but still the same size...
Souls were strange.
Suddenly, the pressure vanished as his outer layers of soul seemed to... invert? In a place more theoretical and conceptual than real, he could feel two souls that were inside each other and beside as well, existing as one but in several parts that were bound and free.
And the new soul... had a soul socket!
He must be entering a new Realm!
Any happiness Adam wanted to feel or express vanished as the newly constructed soul was launched out of the Abyss, his screaming unable to stop his blue flame covered soul from being ejected into reality.
This whole trip sucked.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Prey was down, pack was close.
He stood back, waiting for numbers. Even with prey this young, numbers ensured success.
Sap drooled from his wooden jaws, his green eyes carefully ensuring that the two morsels couldn't escape without abandoning their wounded friend.
Oh, they were screaming for help of course, but this far into the woods was their territory. No, the risk here was other hunters hearing the meal call out in distress.
But he would wait for pack.
Each paw moved silently, shifting to cover the closest and easiest escape route.
It was unfortunate that the screams being issued via the blue fireball behind him were only detectable by non-mortal means.
As his wooden body collapsed into scraps of lumber, he had no time to even feel pain.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Adam groaned, his power rapidly testing the new world around him as 'Recovery' tried to heal his... well, his lack of everything.
It failed. Something about this world rejected the templates it was trying to use for 'recovery', a higher power that didn't exist on his last reality.
Thankfully, it almost instantly latched onto the biomass below him, something not quite DNA and not quite raw power providing him a working template, albeit an odd one.
As blue fire, controlled by recovery, began consuming both the materials below him and the nearby grass as well... he felt changes happening.
Mental changes. Nothing negative, but something in the 'Transfer' process was helping him integrate into the new template he had just consumed. If his ability was fully powered, it would likely have given him the local language, social responses, body reflexes and more... but not having to learn how to walk was good enough for now.
He still wanted to keep track of this kind of mental junk though. 'Recovery' automatically stored scans like this in his memory, but maybe he should socket in 'Research' now that he could finally use two powers.
Adam reached into his new soul, and pushed 'Research' into the new socket.
...
It passed right through.
...
No connection.
...
What?
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
So... so. So. This was... great.
Turned out, Adam's version of Power Manipulation was just as damaged as everything else he had, even after 'repair'.
True, like he expected, he got a new Soul Socket with every Realm he visited.
But it was NOT just a 'Here you go!' situation.
The reason he would get a new Soul Socket with every Realm was not due to some sick reward system or whatever. If that was the only situation he could have used his own Power Charges to unlock sockets weeks ago.
No, he got new Soul Sockets because each Realm had its own Soul Design. And he got a copy of it when visiting, to allow him to enter it.
This... was bullshit. Planeswalkers didn't have to go through this crap. Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg, that reality traveling vampire, he didn't have to deal with this. Even The Doctor from Doctor Who got into other realities without REQUIRING soul burning pain and separated power sets.
Adam knew he was being unreasonable. Planeswalkers had a limited multiverse they could travel, one probably defined by Mana and land/soul connections. Zelretch had to have an alternate existence of himself exist in each world prior to connecting to it... most of the time. At least if he wanted to draw power from himself there. And The Doctor never TRIED to escape his reality, it just happened accidentally once in a while.
But right now, Adam was in pain and willing to be unreasonable.
He had accelerated his personal perception of time to ensure he could mentally adapt to any dangers in this world, so thankfully his rant and sulking session didn't waste important time that could have been used to find safety or whatever.
But eventually, he just had to suck it up.
Squishy had clarified a lot of things during this 'Get over it' period of time.
Why new sockets? Because each Realm had its own rules, restrictions, and more. Magic, for example, acted differently in the Dresden series than in Harry Potter or the Winx Club. Even if the shows and stories he remembered CALLED things similar names, it didn't mean that in reality the two items were even remotely identical.
Squishy could, and DID, travel between the 'two' souls. Even if technically it was the same soul flipped inside out or something. But she couldn't empower or modify which abilities were equipped in a soul she wasn't currently in.
So... 'Worm' soul was set to 'Recovery' for now, and 'WTFWhereAmI' soul was set to 'Nothing', with her waiting there (and recovering) to see what would be needed soon.
After all, if this was Dragon Ball Z or Naruto or something, he would have to get Ki or Chi or Chakra or whatever first thing. And 'Recovery' still worked even while Squishy was in this 'new' soul, so physically he was probably fine. Close to immortal really.
Even though his body was currently being reformed out of what felt like electrified wood.
The hell.
As for 'why separation of powers', creating a power from an outside Realm was very expensive. When in Worm, which had shard based powers, the ability to create new abilities not only was vastly cheaper but examining powers directly from the local reality could reduce creation costs, improve quality, and extend flexibility of existing powers.
Now that he was... here... somewhere. The new powers that conformed to this reality would be so cheap that a single charge would work fine as expected, while enhancing or whatever the Worm abilities was... not suggested. Not while here, anyway. More expensive than repairing his powers directly, which was near infinite charges now.
Why the heck could he breathe!? He was just made of wood, there wasn't even a biological membrane acting as lungs! He could smell things too, 'Recovery' had begun shifting his brain to understand the far wider range of smells available.
The 'Peak' setting of 'Recovery' was going to town as well. The tree a few feet behind him was melting into his 'flesh', the wood drying and expanding as more and more material was added.
Uh...
Maybe he should turn that off? Or set it to 'Standard'? He was starting to get... large.
Like, on all fours he went from something like a few feet or a meter tall to... this. Four meters, twelve feet tall... and growing. Fast. There had been a lot of tree in that tree. Wait, that sounded stupid.
Yeah, this is stupid. The whole thing is stupid.
A mental pressure on 'Recovery' had his whole system collapse down to the 'original' size, the mass now being forced to compress and enhance quality rather than just making him a huge pile of sticks.
Claws sharper and more dense than metal, limbs that could crush cars, jaws that would shock many brutes from the Worm Realm... and for some reason, unlike the wolf like creature he had started with, his body began growing pine needles. Like fur.
And... now he was a furry green dog. Wolf. Thing.
Just... great. Maybe he could be a pet or something.
The mental image of Narwhal with a collar and leash side tracked him a moment.
Hmm... No, better to not encourage that sort of thing.
His form stabilized, he looked up at the sound of... pain? The smell of blood had been strong, but some part of him had assumed it was just pieces of himself trying to recover, having exploded or something.
There was a wounded horse. With two other horses standing in front of it. No... wait.
His eyes rapidly improved, turning the strange shadows into something that could actually see color and shape. These wolves were made for scent tracking, after all.
That was a wounded, pastel pony. With wings.
And the other two brightly colored ponies were clearly attempting some sort of heroic defense of their comrade.
And one was a unicorn.
...
He was a Timberwolf, wasn't he?
"Grufa."
And he couldn't talk.
Better fix that. And heal the kid. And learn to talk.
And go yell at Squishy. In what way was 'My Little Pony' the best choice to protect him from psychic death angels!?
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Apple Bloom shivered, forcing herself to look as calm as possible as she stood in front of Scootaloo. "We are alright, we can do this. Just... just stay calm, Applejack and Twilight will be here soon."
They wouldn't. They had thought themselves adult enough to go into the Everfree forest to visit Zecora, that it would be fine since they had visited in the past. Why bother telling family about such a short trip?
Sweetie Belle was using what little ability in telekinesis she had to hold up the branch between them and the large timberwolf that had hurt Scootaloo earlier. "Ya, Rarity will find us or... or Rainbow Dash or somepony. Just... remember when we tried for our 'Survivalist' Cutie mark? Hold pressure on it and... and it will be fine."
Apple Bloom glanced at the scarf Sweetie Belle had sacrificed so Scootaloo could stop the bleeding on her leg. It wasn't still bleeding, right? Probably? She glanced at the other branch that she had tried to use as some sort of weapon earlier, broken by the wolf's jaws.
She would stay strong, she would stand between her friend and this beast.
She just wished her hooves would stop shaking.
The massive timberwolf was taller than them, wider and longer, and was even now getting closer. The few teeth that had been damaged from accidentally biting the branches they had used had already regrown. Despite trying to escape for so long, it didn't look remotely tired or concerned about the idea of attacking again.
In her heart, she felt resentment... and a growing fear.
She might not get home today.
As the mass of logs and sticks seemed to prepare to attack again, she tensed her muscles. Earth Ponies may not get to cast awesome spells or fly... but stubbornness?
Bring it.
Then suddenly, the massive wolf... collapsed.
Blue flames arced in the air, twisted like snakes and streamers!
Her eyes sparkled, even as her body gave into the stress and weakness she had been resisting. This must have been Twilight! That had to be her spells! It was a bit of a surprise that the attack was so sudden, normally Fluttershy would have said something or made the wolf back off, but she must have seen how urgent the situation was.
She nearly collapsed as she looked at the other two equally relieved ponies. "See? I said Twilight would find us! Some spell or something. You just hold on Scootaloo, you'll be better in a jiffy!"
Scootaloo was clearly trying to hold herself from crying. "Ah... I know. I knew it. I was just... you know, waiting for it."
Sweetie Belle however seemed to suddenly tense. "Apple Bloom... is it... moving?"
She twisted back. Oh Celestia, it was moving. Even while on fire. "Hey Twilight, I... I think you need to hit it again!"
The forest was filled with the soft crackling of flames. No ponies showed up. No help.
And the pile of fire was...swirling.
Taller. And higher. Her heart dropped as she watched the monster that had hurt her friend explode in size, only able to see part of its legs as it expanded far above her. Blue flames danced over it, before spreading to the tree behind and consuming that as well.
Why?
What had they done to deserve this?
With far less optimism, she set her shoulders and dug her hooves in.
There would be no last minute save. No hero trotting to the rescue.
But it would have to go through her first.
Please.
Please don't hurt too much.
Even as she prayed... the fire paused.
And collapsed again.
Uh.
Into a green dog.
It didn't even look like a wolf now. It was covered in green fluffy fur. And had a leaf tongue?
...Was it face-pawing?
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Positive thoughts.
Stay... stay positive.
First of all, being a wolf wasn't bad.
All fours felt pretty comfortable. He was sitting on his haunch now, and it felt better than sitting cross-legged or even lying down on the ground as a human.
Maybe because he had no flesh to bruise or nerves to pinch?
Positive. Thoughts.
Alright, Adam couldn't assume he was in canon 'My Little Pony' universe. His 'Worm' realm was VERY alternate universe, this one could be as well.
He glanced at the now less cowering, more confused ponies. No fangs, so probably still not meat eaters. Wait, there was that one episode where vamponies existed? Maybe? Not likely though, they were not faded out colors but bright pastel shades. They were trying to talk to him, and clearly talking together... but it was gibberish to his ears.
It was being saved to his memories, 'Research' should help him learn to talk when he had time to go over it. Thank goodness for his prior experience at this.
From what memories he had of the show, these would be the 'Cutie Mark Crusaders', a gathering of three ponies whom had yet to gain their 'Cutie Marks', mystical symbols that would display on their bodies what ability they were most attuned to.
You COULD work against your mark, or learn talents unrelated to them. One of the main show characters, Rarity, was a unicorn who had the crest of gems. She could find valuable stones instantly, her magic refining them into cut and polished shapes with no effort.
She used that ability to make clothes.
So yeah, these marks didn't FORCE you into a job, but it was a major social event that indicated maturity and possibly puberty, and these three fillies had joined into a club out of social necessity, attempting all kinds of activities with hope to discover their own talents.
Uh. If this was canon. Cutie marks may not exist here. Probably did? Not many versions of the story even questioned the things. Better hold off until he saw an adult pony.
So, let's assume it is canon universe. What should he look out for?
All animals could communicate, even if not with all ponies or Griffons or whatever. 'Fluttershy', if she existed here, could not only talk with animals but subconsciously control them to an unusual extent. Not that she was confident enough in herself to do so often.
Thus, anywhere with animals was a place with witnesses.
Right, the Gods.
Ponies had three types of power distribution: Enhanced bodies, or Earth Ponies; Magic, via the horns on Unicorn Ponies; Weight Manipulation, or flight, by the winged Pegasus Ponies.
Each group individually was able to hold territory in the wilderness before the all powerful Alicorns, much larger ponies with all three magics, gathered them together to defend against various threats.
At one point, there had actually been wars and existential conflict across the land. Hard core fighting, against beasts, creatures tainted by corrupt spells or necro-magic, or aspects of reality.
Alicorns did not age, seemed to live off of and consist of magic, and had raw power of unimaginable levels. He could only remember three or four existing, and the two main gods, Luna and Celestia, their stories started at the beginning of recorded history... and their parents had died LONG before that.
How powerful were they? Originally, Celestia and Luna controlled the Sun and Moon. Not sure if they were the same size or distance to the planet here that they were on Earth Bet, but Luna could control star formation as well... which either implied that stars here were actually much smaller and closer or that she was altering the past of the entire universe so that when the light reached it would show up where she wanted it to.
Either way, raw power. And when Luna was exiled for a thousand years (Long story), Celestia was like 'Meh, I got this' and basically controlled all stars and such in the heavens alone. For hundreds of years. No breaks.
So yeah, gods.
And even with that power, there were stronger things. Creatures that could steal the power and abilities of anyone, the Princesses Luna and Celestia included. Worse, beings of conceptual power. Discord was a being of Chaos, a body made of animal parts called a Draconequus, and the ability to warp reality with a literal snap of his fingers.
He was thankfully tainted by this universe, which had some sort of cosmic force that reduced general grim-dark situations... so he tended to do pranks and chaos rather than random death and torture. Most of the time.
Adam frowned. Now that he thought about it, Luna not only controlled stars and the moon and such, but also domain over the dream realm. Which existed here. Preventing nightmares and likely detecting threats by spying over all sleeping creatures.
So... no naps. Not until Adam could determine the state of existence here.
He glanced at his paw. Blue flames were slowly trickling like thick syrup down his limbs, pooling on the soil.
Positive thoughts. Why was this happening? The flame thing, he would worry about being tossed into a kids show later.
Squishy poked him.
Ah.
He wasn't clear yet if there was some power above Entities or Alicorns or Gods, etc. But apparently around the Worm multiverses was a series of VERY powerful realms, probably preventing any shards from attempting to do the type of jump he did.
Not that, according to Squishy, any of the things in Worm could handle the Void. The Abyss was hungry, and this was the primary reason she had insisted on not creating his own travel ability.
This was the SAFEST reality close enough to get to, especially with his power levels.
Further, the refinement of his soul would stabilize his powers further, had healed some of the wounds that were allowing remote detection of him by precogs. Of some level.
But the main benefit was the new, 'magic' themed soul. Everything his shards did used advanced scientific methods, even if said methods were near impossible for someone on his level to understand. Even his amazing self modification abilities didn't just add some power with 'Spew fire now' attached, they required certain organs or dimensional connections to shard constructs.
So switching to the 'Equestria' soul would not just hide him, but make any analysis powers or predictive models actively throw out any gathered information on him as 'bad data' or 'flawed information'. Might even throw the abilities into self diagnostic loops if they didn't back off.
Not that he was strong enough for another Abyss journey right now. Nor that he wanted to do such a thing until he picked up some time manipulation tricks, which existed here.
Right, magic here was not hidden or whatever, but literally common. A third of the population not only used magic every day but the local book store and library had sections dedicated to the subject. For free, if his memory was right. The strongest stuff was in the castle, guarded by a literal Deity, but she was a laid back pony so if canon was even close to what this Realm followed he might be able to just ask permission. Other wise, just focus on the free stuff.
Uh. Free for ponies.
Not mutant timberwolves.
No, Focus. Positive thoughts.
A growl to his left showed a much more standard set of Timberwolves from this Realm. Branches and logs, a mouth that looked hand carved from a log with tiny wood triangle teeth, green glowing eyes.
About ten of them, whom looked split about whether they should consume the ponies or fight off Adam from their territory. More behind.
Adam casually stood on all fours, his thick vine-reinforced limbs tensing.
Oh. Even after compressing his mass and reinforcing his form... he was still nearly twice as tall as these creatures.
The pack growled at him.
Adam... moved!
Behind the far most wolf, his paw slammed on what would have been the spine, behind the head. Next he should act on the other two while this one was stunned, and he could... uh.
He felt zero resistance.
The creature wasn't knocked to chunks as per usual, the section attacked had turned into damn powder. His claw had then created a small crater under the slowly falling wolf corpse.
He... he hadn't even put effort into that. It was a surprise tactic to help separate the fighters a bit.
And the other wolves were only just now starting to turn.
Adam realized that he was... very fast right now.
He reached his paw out, focusing his fire covered claw to make a swift slice on the nearest wolf.
A green flame extended from his claws, slicing the three wolves behind his target into chunks as well.
He glanced at the other kindling waiting to be handled.
Positive thoughts indeed.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Apple Bloom huddled closer to Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle. "Ah right, he uh... seems like a nice boy?"
Sweetie Belle sniffed. "Anything is nicer than trying to eat us."
Scootaloo was still holding her wound tightly. "I ain't going to pet him. And he is like... on fire."
Apple Bloom squinted. "No, not normal fire. It leaves the stuff on the ground alone now. That over there, that was part of my branch he stepped on. It isn't even singed."
Scootaloo gave a weak chuckle. "Guess we got a magical flaming wolf then. We could call him Burnie."
Sweetie Behind scoffed. "We are not taking in a wild fireball for a pet. Need I remind you how close we were to being eaten a minute ago!?"
She shrugged. "I figure being burned alive counts for being punished. And he seems nice enough now."
They fell silent when a low growl thrummed through the glade.
They felt fear when over forty timberwolves exposed themselves from the woods.
But before they could feel hopeless, a large pile of flaming fur seemed to suddenly begin to teleport, explosions of wood and soil reaching the sky as the pack of wild animals seemed to pop like popcorn in every direction.
And the woods were silent, the blue fire collapsing into the large dog's eyes. His fur seemed to now be layers of near black moss with bright green pine needles, his limbs dark bark and twisted wood.
If it wasn't for his goofball expression as he looked for more foes, it would have been very formidable.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
THAT WAS AWESOME!
Screw working in a lab all day, that was a rush! Everything felt fast and slow, each movement so easy and quick, each creature barely able to even notice his approach before... BAM!
Something in their bodies was being absorbed by 'Recovery' too, his construction was now far more stable and refined.
Not that it mattered really, these things wanted to eat those girls and probably himself, if he was more a wuss right now.
So 'pop' goes the wolf pack.
Half way through, he bit one creature in the spine. Out of curiosity more than anything, his paws were designed for traction not really combat.
Best. Idea. Ever!
They tasted amazing! Like salad with some bizarre dressing. Random sticks shouldn't taste this good, it was tempting to just ignore the rest of the group and chow down on Sir 'I am great with wine' here.
Not that Adam was willing to slack off, of course. It was never clear in the show if the wolves were beings, puppets controlled by souls, puppets controlled by the spirit of the forest, or just raw magic that existed in the unregulated wild forest here.
Best choice tactically (Deliciously) was to ensure no wolf could run off and report what was going on here. True, it would probably just be the same as a dinner delivery service, but there was already one wounded civilian here. No reason to tempt fate.
But yeah, bite first, claw never. Now this was not only thrilling but delicious! Would be icky to do this to most creatures, but the timberwolves didn't show a lot of higher level thinking in the show. And tasted delicious.
...Note to self, ensure he doesn't bite any humans or ponies in this form. No reason to have the mental conversation about 'how delicious humans taste' going on forever in the back of his brain.
Far too quick, the buffet was closed and he had to gnaw on the leftovers. Still tasty, but he was likely tasting living magic earlier. It clung to the body parts, but lacked that special zing that a living wolf had.
...Second note to self, 'Recovery' may have done TOO good a job converting brain to handle a wolf body.
Then again, this reality was mostly vegetarian. The Griffon society had a more meat based diet, which made the herbivore races a bit skittish, but here: Green is King. And these wolves are made of trees, so it should count as socially acceptable. Right? Probably right.
Oooo, this skull tasted minty!
Adam blinked. Right, he needed to heal that filly.
Glancing back at the group, he realized they were all staring at him. Well, at him consuming the skulls of his enemies.
His chewing slowed, out of dignified respect for the dearly departed.
He wouldn't stop though, this thing was fabulous!