Artificer [Worm/Essence Meta CYOA - SI]

The feeling of being shunted across dimensions wasn’t one that was really describable. It was like something eldritch, something that you could know to exist, but completely and utterly ineffable to your senses. You could see it, but not know its features. You could hear it, but couldn’t recognize its voice. It was strange, to say the least.

Which was why I was both relieved, and disgusted when the swirling dimensional vortex spat me out in the middle of an alleyway, right into a puddle of muck.

With a face of disgust I lifted myself out of the probable biological hazard, trying in vain to wipe the shit and trash off of my now thoroughly soiled clothes. They weren’t anything special, just jeans and a long sleeved shirt, but they were mine, dammit, and the only thing I had on this god-forsaken rock called Earth Bet.

Oh, right. I never said anything about what I was doing here, was I? Well, let me spin you, my hypothetical audience, a tale as old as fan fiction.

Unsuspecting victim, ie: me, wanders across a certain website on the internet titled the ‘Essence Meta CYOA.’ Of course, this unsuspecting victim clicks on said website out of curiosity, and proceeds to pick and choose the Essences they desire. Unsuspecting victim then writes out the Essences he chose, and then proceeds to go about his day, as per usual.

For most, that’d be the end of it. But, oh ho! Not so for this unsuspecting victim, the chaotic forces of the universe, aka ROB, says.

Thus, the unsuspecting victim finds himself sitting across a desk from a man-shaped blob of complete and utter nothingness. Unsuspecting victim, expectedly, freaks out about the sudden change in venue. Man-shaped nothingness laughs, and puts forth a deal to unsuspecting victim. The terms of the deal were as such:

‘I give you all the power you want, and all you have to do is entertain me for a time.’

No seriously, the man-shaped nothing had it written out on a sheet of paper and everything, the signing line with the big ‘X’ at the front included.

The unsuspecting victim, after calming down a moment, decides in a moment of delusional whimsy that everything he is experiencing is a very vivid hallucination, and stupidly signs on the line. The next thing the unsuspecting victim knows, and he’s being sent tumbling through the space between multiverses, aimed right for the hunk of shit waiting to be flushed called Earth Bet, from the story called Worm.

And thus, we’ve arrived at the unfortunate present! Are you entertained yet, ROB? Cause no one else is laughing!

I sighed, cutting off my little internal monologue. Honestly, if just being sent through an eldritch dimensional portal was enough to have me talking to myself, even if just in my head, I really wasn’t optimistic about my chances in the fucking Worm Universe. Still, I had to at least try and do something interesting, else ROB might get bored and smite me, or whatever.

“Hey, you!”

Hearing the gruff, gravelly voice that called out from behind me, along with the telltale click of a hammer being primed, had me already promising vicious revengeance upon the ROB that had sent me here.

I turned around, slowly, and got a good look at the blatant ‘couldn’t look more like a druggie if I tried’ stereotype standing before me. Balding scalp, sallow skin, blackened and rotting teeth, obvious scarring on the arms and nostrils. Ratty clothes that seemed to be almost falling off of his borderline anorexic frame.

“Yes? Can I help you with anything?” I tried to keep my voice as dry as I could, and I succeeded rather well, in my not-so-biased opinion.

Apparently, the druggie didn’t like my tone. With a growl, the man fired a shot off at my feet, setting bits of concrete dust into my face from the force. I barely blinked. Yeah, something about me: Self-preservation was really not something I excelled at. Like, I could have a bear roar in my face and I’d try and touch it kind of lack of self-preservation. Stupid, I know, but meh.

I just stared at the druggie a bit more. “Was that supposed to do something?”

Mr. Druggie’s eyes bulged and some veins in his forehead pulsed. “Dammit, gimme all yer fucking evr’thin, ya fuckin cunt rag!” Wow. The linguistic skills of what I assume to be a Merchant leave me in awe, awe I say.

“Well, if you had used your eyes and looked,” I drawled, rolling my eyes at the terrible grammar of the druggie. “You would notice that I’m in barely any position to give you anything at all, given I don’t have anything on me.”

It took the Merchant a few seconds to parse my ‘big-boy words,’ and when he did he took a quote-unquote “threatening” step forwards. He raised the gun again and pointed it right at my face, though it was shaking enough that I doubted that the guy would be able to hit anything but the wall behind me, maybe my shoulder, if he was lucky.

“Lis’n ‘ere, fuckin shitstain,” the merchant growled, again ‘threateningly.’ “You’s gonna gimme all ya fuggin money, an’ eva’thin else ya got on ya, or Imma put a bulle’ in yer fuckin brain! Got tha’ you monkey-fucker?!”

I just blinked. “I mean, I could do that,” I said leadingly. “Or, I could do something, like-” I leaned forwards, getting in the man’s guard even as he panicked and fired off again, sending chunks of brickwork over the both of us.

I grabbed the merchant’s flailing gun arm by the wrist, and punched his elbow as hard as I could. A sickening crack sounded out, and the merchant’s arm was bending the other way. His gun dropped out of limp fingers, and I kicked the weapon away. It was unnecessary now.

Another step and a sweep of my legs, and the merchant fell flat on his ass, cradling his arm and flailing and twitching as he cried in agony. I just rolled my eyes.

“You know,” I said conversationally over the man’s screams, crouching down next to his head. “This is why you people need to actually look at the people you try to rob. If you pulled this stunt on anyone halfway competent in self-defense, and you’d have ended up in just the same way, if not worse than how I’ll be leaving you.” It seemed the merchant didn’t care to listen to me, given he was still screaming and rolling around like a pig in mud.

I shrugged, unconcerned. “Oh well.” Then I jerked the man up by his collar, and nailed him in the nose. A crack echoed, and the man’s screams redoubled though they were more blubbery now that his nose, and many of his facial bones, were now either cracked or broken. Another fist to thee face, and the man finally shut up, unconscious or as close to it as was possible while still awake.

I stood back up, skating my hand and trying to flick off the blood that had stained my skin. Turning towards the entrance of the alley, I saw that there was a pair of what looked like teenagers standing there, gawking at me.

The left one, a slightly taller-than-average kid in a white suit decorated with clock faces, seemed to be holding in laughter, as evidenced by his shaking shoulders. The other one, a short girl dressed in a green skirt with a visor on the top half of her face, was looking at me with a slightly disbelieving tilt to her mouth.

I quirked a brow at them. “What? You want an autograph or something?” It seemed that was enough to set of the clock-based Ward, as he soon devolved into cackling hyena laughter. The green teen just sighed at her teammate.

I ignored the guffaws of Clockblocker and focused on Vista. “So? Got any reason why you two decided to just stand there while I dealt with that?”

Vista winced slightly at that, and turned away just a tad. “W-Well, it seemed like you had it under control. Plus, Wards aren’t supposed to actively engage without permission, which we didn’t have.”

I waved a hand. “Excuses, though i suppose they’re acceptable given that no one except ugly over there was harmed, and he had that coming. But for future reference?” I stared at the girl in her visor, and she stood straighter. “If you see someone in danger, regulations or no, permission or no, you save them, got it?”

The green clad pre-heroine looked at me for a moment longer, her mouth slightly open in apparent shock before she collected herself and nodded. “Got it, sir.”

I gave her a nod in return. “Good. Now, you both should be getting on now. I’ll get this bozo somewhere so the proper authorities can take care of him.” Vista nodded again, and made a gesture to the still chuckling Clockblocker. The duo started to walk off, with the both of them turning to wave at me before they disappeared around a corner.

I went and grabbed the merchant, dragging him out and propping him up against the nearest wall. I looked around a bit, and saw a woman walking closer to me. I flagged her down.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” I asked politely. “WOuld it be a bother if I were to borrow your phone for a moment? I’d like to call this idiot in with the police, but my device was broken during our little scuffle.”

The woman flinched a bit when I addressed her, but she nodded her acquiescence. “Alright, ‘s long as it doesn’t take too long.”

I nodded in thanks to her. “Not a problem, miss,” I assured as I dialed 911. “It shouldn’t take very long at all.
Several minutes later, the police came by and picked up the merchant. I gave them my statement, omitting the part about my sudden and unplanned dimensional travel, and then we all went on our merry separate ways.

Well, merry for most of us. I was still covered in muck, exhausted, and with no place to call my own. Well, not really, but I hadn’t tried to use any of my Essences yet, so until I managed to figure out how to do that, I was without shelter.

Seems like I knew what I was going to do next, then.

Walking through the streets of a city that I'd previously known only through fiction was a somewhat novel experience. It was rather sullied though by the fact that it was Brockton bay that I was walking through, the cape capital of the USA, and one of the most crime infested cities in the American country.

The titles were earned for a reason. As I walked closer towards the beaches of the bay, the structures and constructions became worse and worse. More of the buildings became pitted with holes and what I assumed to be buckshot scars. More windows were broken, the shattered glass still lying where they first landed.

Streets and sidewalks became more pitted with dents and potholes, and the graffiti and gang tags grew almost exponentially in number. I also took notice of how they were becoming more and more East Asian inspired and themed, and the increased presence of red and green in them.

I knew that the ABB, Lung’s gang, was situated in the Docks, which I guess let me know where I was in the city. Luckily, no gang members afflicted me with their presence on my trip to the Boat Graveyard, and I made it to the beach in rather short order.

And now I could finally discover if what the ROB promised was true.

Using the bits of meditation and breathing techniques that I knew, I tried to focus on something out of place within me, to see if I could make them activate, or work, or whatever I had to do to get the Essences to operate like how they were supposed to.

I searched deep within myself, and… found what I assumed was the right thing almost immediately. What, were you expecting some big explosive find, like something from Naruto or Dragon Ball? Please, the real world doesn’t work like that, my hypothetical audience.

I shook my head, grimacing at how my thoughts had tengented into talking to myself again. I tried to focus back on what I assumed were the Essences that I had chosen.

All six of them were burning within the core of my being, what I assume most would call my ‘soul.’ I didn’t doubt that that was the place they had decided to situate, given how deeply in twined the Essences should become with a person once they are imbibed.

I reached out towards the Essences, each of them an individual flame burning within a larger inferno. I knew with a certainty I didn’t know I could muster that once I activated these Essences, there would be no going back to what I used to be. I would be completely and utterly different. Would I be prepared for that?

‘Fuck it.’ And I touched the inferno.

Blazing power rushed through my veins, though not in the sense that most would have expected. My body was strengthened to the peak of human ability and then some, but it stopped there. I felt my appearance shift towards something more ideally me, but it wasn’t anything too crazy. No, the power I felt rushing through me went almost entirely to my mind.

Locks that I didn't know existed shattered as the power touched my mind, and I felt as if everything was different, despite remaining exactly the same. Knowledge poured into my mind from sources unknown, and I felt the potential of what could be rise to the forefront of my mind.

Machines of limitless power, hordes of cybernetically enhanced homunculi, nanomachine swarms that could shape and reshape landscapes with but a thought, tools and utilities that boggled the mind and allowed the facilitation of near-infinite possibilities to go from mere fantasy to reality.

I sucked in a deep breath as the information and blueprints and Ideas swam to my mind from wherever they had recessed, and I tried to calm myself from the overload of information, knowledge, and sheer potential. Several long moments of battle with an uncooperative mind, and the ideas waned, leaning into the darkness of my subconscious, ready to be called upon once more.

I slumped where I stood, opening my eyes and glancing around myself. Circuit-like details had been inscribed in the sand, all of them centering around me and extending for several meters. Bits of sand seemed to have been glassed as well, leaving the sun to gleam off the beach in patches of rainbow colored light.

I sighed, letting my body relax. I was drenched with sweat from the power that rushed through me, and I was left feeling thankful that I decided to come to the beach to do this. I didn’t know what the effect could have done to my surroundings if they were concrete and brick instead of sand. Plus, this was much easier to hide away.

Shaking my head, I went about scuffing all of the marks from the sand and burying the glass as best I could. When I was done, it looked like someone pushed around a bunch of sand with their shoes, but it was better than the obviously supernatural marks it was before.

With that little thing done, I looked around the beach for a moment. No one was present from what I could see, but this city had Armsmaster and, occasionally, Dragon to monitor it, so I had no doubt there would be someone here in a matter of minutes to check on what was probably a massive energy spike.

Sure enough, if I strained my ears hard enough I could hear the telltale rumble of a massive vehicle on concrete, and it was getting louder.

“Alright,” I muttered. “That’s my cue to skedaddle.” Raising a hand for dramatic effect, I snapped my fingers and channeled the Essence of my choice into the world.

A swirling, blue black tear in the fabric of reality opened before me, and I couldn't help but grin. With a step and a hop, I was through the portal. And with the tear in reality fabric snapped closed behind me, the only evidence of something having been there was the scuffs in the sand.