[Freeform] TCGM Quest

TCGM Quest 1.3​

{META

Aight, I broke my RCV parser. I give up. I’m just gonna go with a simple pool system where the number you give the option is the pool the vote enters. Biggest pool wins. Tiebreaker vote if necessary. Let's KISS.

Also, fuck 2020. And 2021. And it looks like 2022, too.

Edit from 2023: yep this year too }

Spoiler

[Vote][Send the question?]
Vote winner: [1][Leave It and Eat It]

Phoenix14
[1][Leave It and Eat It]
[2][Delete This!]
Amacita
[1][Leave It and Eat It]

---

You’re out of time.

...Probably.

If the spy agency who’re still working on their name have any brains in any of their heads, they track what’s typed into their chat program even before it’s officially ‘sent’. Plus if Darcy isn’t throwing a panic on her side of the connection about your lack of response, given the constant messages she’s spamming you with, you’ll eat a hat.

You don't know how much time you have left unsupervised.

Instead of trying to reassure Darcy or waste more time with what you’ve just uncovered, maybe you can do something with it. You don’t know, modify it or spread it to the world or somethi-

Your eyes drift over the poster of Tony Stark on your wall, posing in front of his suit of armor.

No.

You suddenly get it, a little.

The world doesn’t get better systemically. Not with the current systems. They’re all designed to favor those who built them, those in power, and only someone with abilities outside the context of that system can hold them accountable for their actions.

Like Stark is.

And the spy agency is nominally part of those very same systems. Worse, you wouldn’t be surprised if they were complicit in ensuring they continued to stagnate. Others had been. They'd be the first agency to not be involved, honestly.

They’ll take this from you. You know they will. Whether because they’re buddies of The Man, or because you’re not cleared for the knowledge or whatever other reason they come up with, they will not be okay with a civilian like you having access to it. You just have to look at what they did to Darcy’s seniors to know! Despite her reassurances, there were obviously elements of the organization that you and she nominally worked for who couldn’t be trusted to welcome in the future.

You tab out of the chat program and back to the DNA system, twirling the strands around as you think. Long and hard.

There really is only one way to ensure this is used responsibly, not hidden from the world. If it truly is the code of life of a being powerful enough to be considered gods by humanity…

You have to take it into your own hands.

Like Tony Stark did.

You… you should immediately take the DNA to your sequencer and see if you can make a stable, physical version. You probably don't have much time before they realize something is up, and… you might be able to get actual, real superpowers! God-level, even! Take that, Stark!

Or you could just get, like, all the cancers. But who dares wins, right?

Okay, you have to do this fast. You take one of your spare flash drives and shove it into the port on the front of your computer, then copy the data you’ll need to build this in the Stark Assembler.

DNA printing, yet another thing Stark randomly gifted the world.

The machine accepts the data and after a few hair raising moments, says printing of the strands are possible.

Just injecting it into yourself probably won't work. It wouldn't work for Terran DNA, and triple helix or no it's still fundamentally DNA.

So you're going to need a retrovirus.

Coincidentally there are a few blank ones that the machine suggests after a few moments of you wondering aloud where you're going to get a retrovirus.

You're not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially not when dealing with super sketchy things like this, so you very pointedly thank the machine and ignore the totally coincidental, happy chime it lets off in return.

The machine reports ready, and that it requires a suspension cartridge for depositing the resultant solution in. That cartridge will then go into the hydro injector helpfully provided with the machine. Which you'll then press against your thigh and pull the trigger on.

Yep, totally normal stuff here.

Freaking Stark. If you do wind up with god powers you're going to slap him for being such a damned inspiration.

You open the drawer with the cartridges and fish one out, placing it into the dispensing chamber and locking it with the hiss of hermetic sealing.

The machine spins up with a hum, and you nervously settle in to wait.

...Might as well start some contingencies if this all goes wrong, so you go and grab your laptop, come back, and wait while activating some rather unfortunate things and knowledge releases that will occur if you don't stop them in 24 hours.

Just in case.

---

You're about to pull the trigger into your thigh when you think about this yet again and find your nerve fleeing you.

You have no idea what this will do to you. You're going to add an alien sequence to your DNA which has an entire additional helix! Well, two, since the machine had to compensate for human genetic dual helixes, but that only makes it more insane!

Just as you sigh and move the injector away from your body so you can carefully place it on the counter, something makes a loud thump-

And then your living room explodes.

"...Shit."

You can see human figures in head to toe riot gear with extremely gunny guns rapidly scanning about in your living room through the one still functioning security camera left.

Yeah, those guys aren't friendly. You squeak, and several of the figures immediately sweep their guns towards your lab and start running for you.

That's a hit squad. You've seen enough movies to know that. They're here for you, but not to take you in.

They wouldn't need assault rifles for that.

Nothing left to do but try, you guess.

You rapidly pick the injector back up and press it into your thigh again, then take a deep breath.

The door to your lab bursts open, and a loud, aggressive male voice is yelling at you to put your hands on the ground.

You scrunch your eyes shut and pull the trigger.

Forgive me, Allfather, you silently pray, for the first time genuinely.

Nothing happens for a few seconds other than the hiss of the injector firing into your bare leg.

"What was that? What did you just do?!" the man, now backed up by his buddies and all of whom are aiming weapons at you, demands.

You blink at him owlishly. "Huh," you say, stumped. You felt it break your skin, you know the solution went in. And the retrovirus is supposed to be stupidly fast in its modifications. It always was whenever you used it on a test subject. "Nothing, apparently?"

Maybe it's because you're a little bigger than a Tardigrade?

"Put your hands on your head!" another demands.

They're still pointing guns at you, so you slowly do as they ask. "So uh, hey guys, you know I work for, uh… what the hell was it? Strategic Homeland Intervention and Enforcement Division? Man that's a mouthful. Hey, can you guys call Phil, Phil Coulson? He can vouch for m-"

You find yourself cut off as something, a pulse of energy, or tingling from hell, whatever, runs through you.

And then everything is LIGHTNING.

---

[World Rolls 1d100+30(divine xform): result 63, success against 50]
[Event Triggered: Notice Me, Senpai]

[Vote for Notice Me, Senpai]
You have ascended to a higher form. While the mortals in front of you are unable to take notice due to their incapacitation, not all in existence are mortal. Choose the first upon this world to witness your arrival.
[#][The Dorkness]
[#][The Fool]
[#][The Paragon]
[#][The Brother]
[#][The Wife]

---

When you're next aware of yourself and reality, it feels like days later. You spent so long immersed in the LIGHTNING that you can barely remember your name for a few moments.

But then the pain hits. And you sit straight up with a blood curdling scream.

"-AAAAAH, FUCK, WHY? GODS DAMN IT! " You curse at the top of your lungs. The pain you didn't even know was there is receding rapidly, but your body still feels like it got run over by the Energizer bunny riding a zamboni.

Wait, weren't there other people in your lab?

You force your eyes open and try to resolve the room, but all that's around you is a bunch of blurry black and white. For a few moments, anyways, then a tingling feeling not unlike the LIGHTNING races towards your eyes and they clear in an instant.

And you witness… destruction.

Your lab looks like it got hit with the hand of an angry god.

The genetics machine is tossed aside, blown back from you. Your lab computer is a fried mess that more resembles a head of cabbage than a computer. The door itself, reinforced against pretty much anything that could happen to it due to the suspiciously high funding from the agency, is a glowing puddle. The only intact thing is the floor, and even that has a few gigantic scorch marks, like a cluster bomb went off, directly underneath you. Your chair is just gone, probably atomized by whatever the fuck happened.

...Did Odin smite you or something? What the hell?

A flicker off to the side tracks your attention and you turn your head towards it, that sense in your head that just lets you know something is there.

There's… the best description you can provide yourself is that one of the hit squad agents is still twitching as what looks like tiny lightning bolts leap out of his body and then back in on arcs which don't look too dissimilar to solar flares.

"Shit," you say, but then halt in your tracks.

Your voice doesn't sound normal.

"H… Hello?" You ask out loud, trying it on for size again.

Yep, definitely not normal. You still sound like you, only… powerful, somehow. It's your voice coming out of your mouth but delivered with what you can only call godly emphasis.

You're not stupid, despite what your cousin says sometimes. "Well," you breathe out, the ramifications definitely being pushed to the back of your mind for later, "I guess it worked."

With your lab ruined, you slowly stand up and effectively waltz out of the remains. You need to see what else happened, what happened to your house.

As you leave, you notice a few holes burned through the metal ceiling of the lab. They were directly above you, but you weren't looking previously. That ever present LIGHTNING makes it hard to focus.

The rest of your house looks okay, shockingly enough. Other than the broken down front door that you can see across your living room, it's almost like nothing happened. It is surprisingly mundane considering the feeling you know, almost in your soul, that you are more now.

You stick your head out the destroyed front door and notice a large, curved, winged aircraft of some kind just parked on your driveway. Right next to your car. It's completely surreal.

The thing has two gray wings sticking out to its sides, and doesn't look airworthy except for the giant and obvious vetole engines mounted on swivel joints inside the wings themselves.

You pop your head back inside, and return to your lab. The guys on the ground are no longer twitching, but they're definitely out for the count. Every piece of equipment including your servers inside your lab is toast. There's no recovering any of it. They clearly got hit, well, by LIGHTNING.

Charles is okay. Your bedroom is fine, so your personal computer is also acceptable. It doesn't have the messaging program that Darcy gave you, it simply wasn't powerful enough to run it, but your phone is next to it on your desk. You could just call or text your cousin. It would definitely be intercepted by the agency they work for, but you were already in that position with the chat program.

Plus, you don't find yourself that worried about them anymore for some reason. They just… don't register as threats. That's a very strange feeling, considering you were very concerned about them before, But you bookmark those thoughts for later examination because there's way too much going on right now already.

Now that you think of it, you don't remember putting your phone on your desk in your room, but there it remains. As far as you know, I should have been in your lab and thus LIGHTNING toast.

Maybe you just forgot it. It happens a lot. Or, if your new instincts and what feel like slightly out there thoughts… you're just going to call them god senses, are to be believed, happened. For you are certain, despite your own knowledge of yourself, that you will never forget another thing ever again unless you wish it.

That surety of self surprises you. You're not used to it. You don't even know where it comes from, just like you don't know where the lightning comes from. They feel like you and yet not. Is this what being an Asgardian is like? Or are you something else? Hell, you don't even know for sure what the DNA you constructed was! You could be an alien for all you know!

---

[Vote for What do you do?]
[#][Inspect Yourself]
It's better to check yourself before you wreck yourself. You've just undergone something that to your knowledge no one else has, potentially turning you into a being of a type called gods. You should figure out what's going on with your body and your mind.
[#][Check out the aircraft]
That aircraft looks way too high tech for the current time. It's no doubt what those assault thugs arrived in. The agency spoke to previously were nothing like those creeps, so either the previous agents were lying to you, or there's something else going on. That aircraft could hold more information.
[#][Contact Darcy, Unsecured]
You're not ashamed to admit that you're panicking a little, and you could use the cousin who's had more experience with this kind of stuff and her advice. It doesn't matter if it's unsecured, because the agency already has your communications. Just call her. Or text her. Whatever will get her to pick up.