My first move upon opening my eyes in a cold, snowy alley after filling out a Worm CYOA, was to instantly pull three powers from Eidolon's pool.
[Man of Mystery], [Bastion], and [Observe]
I knew I didn't have Blank or Invictus since I blacked out as soon as I chose Eidolon. I would've been asking for a Bad End if I had waited for a moment more. Phew.
Alright. So, I'm in Brockton Bay. Observe confirmed it. Was I in complete control of myself and my abilities? Yes, but Eidolon could forcefully insert powers in slots if I was truly threatened. That's good to know.
Man of Mystery nullified every bullshit precog/postcog in this setting, including Scion himself from reading me, and Bastion wrapped me in a skin tight field of invincibility that no-sold his strongest attacks and manipulations. I was pretty much set for life at this point.
Bastion also helped with what Invictus should have- coping with this surreal shitstorm.
Well, less of a shitstorm since I wasn't in any past, present or future danger, having an overpowered Eidolon with Shattered Limiter helped a lot.
A monstrous grin stretched across my face.
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Crushing Scion's will and shoddy sapience was an extremely easy task. And since there were no means to track the golden man with any level of reliability, it didn't ring any alarms when he vanished.
I used [Reaper], a power very similar to Power Manipulator's ability to turn every possible Shard power/capability into Shardless ones, and took over the entire Warrior network. I shuddered and moaned shamelessly at the sensation of trillions of superpowers at my beck and call. I could command them, control them, manipulate them, and give them away to whoever I wanted. Fucking A.
I fused together powers that were too similar and destroyed those that were useless and horribly inefficient- unfortunately, there were plenty of those. Enough that those trillions were cut down to hundreds of billions.
Shards whose job was only to control other Shards, like Queen Administrator, were now unneeded- I had Reaper for that. Shards that stored data from past civilizations and alien tech blueprints were copied and combined into one knowledge-based power.
Cauldron and Contessa went on as usual, [The Eye] was successfully 'gaslit'- for lack of a better word- and assured its host that there was nothing wrong and she should continue on the preset Path. Completely trusting PTV was Contessa's strongest suit.
I was able to confirm the theory about the third Entity's involvement, PTV was most certainly sending feedback to Abaddon. And what was his deal, you ask? His plan was to disrupt the original Cycle to his benefit. His endgame was the Warrior's death, Glaistig Uaine's/Valkyrie's Titanification and then using her to remotely collect the remaining Shards. This cunning eldritch worm had also planned Eidolon's death in such a manner as to make him a part of Valkyrie's network beforehand.
Yeah, no, that's not happening. If anyone is taking those powers away, it's me. Hell, just for that dick move, once I'm done here I'm coming after you, Abaddon.
I pinpointed all the active Abaddon Shards on Earth, as well as the dormant ones. After gaslighting them, I moved on to Eden Shards, specifically the Endbringer Shard. The next Endbringer attack will go exactly as I want it to.
Parahuman-kind never felt anything change- it happened too fast for them. As per my command, their conflict drive continued as it was, their corona pollentia was still the part that their powers used to connect with them and the restrictions placed over them did not change overmuch.
A few parahumans required my direct intervention. Like Sleeper- the Demesnes-Keeper. Intertwined with his power, Sleeper was a tragic man caught between dream and reality, between Shardspace and Realspace. His Shard was the record keeper, creater, and rule-maker of Shardspace where all data collected by Warrior's and Thinker's Shards was kept.
Since Shardscape wasn't needed, neither was Sleeper. So I edited his memories, removed his trauma, and teleported him into far Eastern Russia, where he had originally come from. The nonsensical rainbow storm remained where it was. Sleeper's storm disappearing would've been a pretty big deal. Now all it did was transport one to an alternate Earth in Scion's "Finite Curve". His power was added to my collection in case I needed to construct a large higher dimension or peruse the memories of previous hosts.
Once done with the clean up, I opened my eyes to find a piece of parchment floating before me. I was a bit wary, I had not felt it arrive.
None of my powers warned me against touching it, but I was still a bit sceptical. I moved closer, and flinched when the scroll unfolded.
"Congratulations, Adventurer!
You have managed to complete the first win condition [Kill The Warrior] in record time, without Blank and Invictus too! It's only right that you get to keep this power. You can leave the Wormverse on your own whenever you wish. You may also tear this parchment up for instant transportation to your origin world.
Good luck and regards, The CYOA Team."
I snatched up the parchment and inspected it. Shockingly, none of my powers had the capability to comprehend who had sent it and how. I could feel what enchantments made it up but not who casted them. Oh well, I guess I wasn't that strong yet. I looked forward to the day I'd be able to pinpoint who these people were and why they'd sent me here.
Was definitely keeping this parchment in case I ever wanted to use it's teleportation function.
A light blue Door opened to a planet with high gravity, a dozen or so light years away from Earth. I did not have to search long for the body of the asshole who was camping out here- there was a giant mishappen, serpent made of deep black crystals gulping a thick stream of solar energy from the local star. Let me take a picture of this cursed thing so I can use it as a reference for any Worm artwork I make when I go back to Earth. I'd probably make a lot of money with the commissions, especially when I had several skill-based powers.
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The creature felt pain. Then there was darkness, the one its ancestors had feared. Death.
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I whistled appreciatively. Abaddon's Shards were the most optimized and efficient ones I had ever seen. Many of these could outright replace or be merged with Scion's and Eden's trashy powers. There was a reason this worm was smaller than the pair, he had discarded or given away any useless Shard a long time ago. More importantly, the worm was enlightened to a vast range of emotions and free thinking.
I scoffed. Regardless of how enlightened he was, I knew he was a total cunt. He knew reality would collapse under the weight of Scion's unattended Shards one day. The sick bastard wanted to see that, observe it. He was curious to see what would happen when reality was rent apart and collapsed in on itself. Juicy data, yeah? Fuck him and fuck every one of these space ringworms.
I turned my attention back to my surroundings and felt a bit disquieted. This was all so creepy and surreal, standing on an alien planet light years away from human civilization. So bloody weird. I snapped a few pictures with my extremely modified phone and put it into a pocket dimension.
Let's dip. Space is creepy and you can't convince me otherwise.
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24 November 2010, Brockton Bay, New England, USA.
I knew for certain and had confirmed it with Observe. I may have crushed Scion, Abaddon and solved the Shard problem for this Finite Curve (fuck you, I'm gonna keep calling it that), but the Shardless powers I had added to my team were now a part of me. If I fucked off back to Earth, they would be ripped away from everyone and come with me. I wasn't powerful enough to keep these powers active here while I was in another multiverse.
So leaving abruptly would be bad. Some governments would be all too happy to crack down on people they didn't dare touch before, some people might be harshly tried for crimes they never committed. Tinkertech would blow up in everyone's faces and S-class Threats like the Machine Army would be harder to contain.
Most importantly, once they realised Scion wasn't active, many nations would be back in the nuclear arms race. With knowledge of some vaguely understood tinkertech principles, who knows what weapons they'll pump out.
I knew it would be chaos (civil war in some cases) anyways if powers stopped working down the line, but at least it wouldn't be as sudden.
I was definitely not leaving them behind now that they were negentropic, so there were two different solutions.
I could create copies of these powers and swap them out with ones that would run out in a decade or so. The powers would grow weaker and weaker, and with no more trigger events, it would be enough time to signal the end of the parahuman age. As for the other issues, I'll place a few safeguards or outright eliminate others.
Or I could go on a Fairy Queen rampage and pretend to rip out powers out of every parahuman. And there were a lot of parahumans. Man, I don't know about this one. Be kinda boring after the first thousand.
I settled for a third, less drastic but still pretty drastic solution. I would kill all the nasty supers and make it look like I took their powers away while not bothering the heroes/vigilantes until they fucked with me. Heh. Maybe I'll deprive a few self-righteous bastards of their precious powers just to rub in that I'm not to be fucked with. I'll also replace every remaining power with a limited copy and then finally leave.
Why was I looking for more reasons to spend time in this reality? Why not? It wasn't as if I wouldn't be piss bored on good ol'Earth. Why not have a bit of fun while in Vegas? Hahaha.
Author Note: Crossposted from QQ. This was written as a one-shot which became something more. Enjoy the carnage!