The Gardener [Worm/HSDK]

The Gardener
Seed 1.01​

There is a theory in which multiple worlds and universes exist, branching out as time goes on. In a simplified parable, in one world a person would choose to take one path in the road and in the other he would go the other way. To say something as simple as taking a different road to work would create an entirely different parallel world, however, would be somewhat misleading. Not in that it doesn't- But in that, for all measurable purposes, the 'Two' worlds would still essentially be the same afterwards. A handful of lives among millions might be effected at most- And if the walker himself were swapped from world to world, odds are good that he or she would not even notice the difference.

However, there are more... Significant changes which can occur. The winner of a major election, the successful assasination of a political figure, and other such events can create pivots, which change the course of history dramatically from universe to universe. Say that there is a world where the Japanese did not invade Pearl Harbor, or where Einstein decided to work with genetics rather then physics- The resulting world would be very similar, but at the same time startlingly different. Or, if one were to go earlier- If in one world, Lief Erikson founded a proper colony on his journey to America? If the first industrial revolution, taking place in China during the Song Dynasty, had expanded across the world rather then grinding to an eventual halt? These worlds would be drastically changed, to the point where one might not even recognise them beyond base geography.

Knowing this, it was almost a shock when on September 30, 1992, Max Tegmark flung a switch with an entirely undignified cackle and ripped a hole to another reality almost completely identical to our own up until the point where, in our world, Scion was discovered.

There were some minor differences from before the era of Scion- not terribly important historical figures that existed in one world and not the other, the specifics of celebrety scandals, and all of that- But for the most part, the difference started when on our world, which would later become known as 'Earth Bet', Parahumans began to emerge...
-Excerpt from a school assignment on Earth Aleph
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The walk to the Garden club's flower room was long and slow. It gave Kenichi plenty of time to think over the last few days, and consider his life as a whole.

Since finding Ryuzanpaku- Well, being guided to it really, but it was close enough- his life had, for lack of a better word, changed. He still felt like the same person- Weak-knees Kenichi, the coward, the loser. But at the same time, it was fairly obvious that something else was going on- After just a couple month's training, he was winning fights against people with more experience, more training, and more muscle behind them.

His teachers, he thought grimly, didn't seem to see that as any progress at all. If anything, Kenichi suspected they'd been upset at how slowly the training was going- Poking glaring holes in his technique, making sarcastic comments about his performance, the works- It was enough to make him question if his improvement was all just a trick of his mind.

As he approached the end of his walk, Kenichi let a smile grace his face. At least there was one place in the school where he would be left in peace. Taking care of his plants was a few moments of blissful serenity in a world gone mad, and he didn't regret joining the Gardening club for a moment. There weren't as many people as the Karate club had been- Honestly, it seemed most of the 'Members' had used it as Go-Home club. Still, the president was a nice enough girl, and he didn't have to deal with the constant abuses of thugs and bullies.

Here, he could snatch a few moments of respite.

Opening the door, however, revealed chaos- The room looked like bulls had been set loose in it, broken shards of pottery scattered between lumps of dirt and half-dead plants. It was only a familiar and brutish laugh that snapped him from his horrified staring.

"Oy, Kenichi! It's been a while." Daimonji sprawled across a bench that had previously held a variety of flowers. With one arm he held the struggling and whimpering club president close to his body, the other waving in a jaunty wave. In an almost friendly sounding tone, the oversized slab of meat wondered- "Have you been working out lately?"

There were no words. Kenichi couldn't even think of how to respond to this- Daimonji had always been a bully, but before he'd always attacked him- Not his friends, not his things. Even at his worst, Kenichi hadn't needed to worry too much about destruction of property or theft as anything except collatoral damage. And to have this happen here, where he had thought it was safe... He felt sick, disgusted, even angry that the place had been so desecrated.

"Why..." He began, before stopping and trying to get his thought straight. "Why are you doing this?"

"Why? Isn't it obvious?" Daimonji's face was inscrutable as he shook his head. "Isn't it obvious? We haven't had a real fight yet. See, thanks to that joke before, I've been put in an awkward position- But then I heard you'd defeated the club's Captain." Raising a massive hand up to his chin, he pondered- "Now, knowing that- What would happen if I beat you now?"

At this point, Daimonji's demeanor changed from almost affable to downright manic. "I could never beat the captain- I just don't have the confidence to win! But against a pathetic, shrimpy little cheater like you? There's no way I could lose! So I'm going to beat you down and drag your carcass to Ragnarok, here and now!"

At Kenichi's speechlessness, he gestures widely. "If you hadn't taken so long to get here, maybe I wouldn't have broken all this worthless crap too- But I get bored easily, so I decided to smash these pots to pass the time. Don't worry- I saved the best for last!" He pulls out a small pot, with an even smaller plant sprouting from it.

Yukidaruma-o, a species of orchid native to japan. He'd seen a picture and the name, and had bought the plant on a whim- But despite all his work, it hadn't grown. Ironically, this had made him feel almost sympathetic with the flower- Both of them were tiny things, small and unimpressive, and much like him he doubted the flower would ever reach full bloom.

"You're pathetic," Daimonji stated simply as he let the pot fall to the floor before him. "If a runt is weak and slow, it should just be killed to make room for something better." And with that, he brought a foot down and ground the sapling into the floor.

Kenichi did not see red. He saw black, painted with countless specks of light. In between, in the spaces where there was neither light or shadow, they turned- Countless and endless forms writhing together, forming a twisting and gyrating pair of immense forms. A tiny blue planet flashed and flickered before them, and after a moment of consideration a number of the lesser forms fell away from the greater ones- Down, streaking across the sky as they crashed into to earth.

As one crashed into him.

It was like watching a film, fast-forwarded ten-thousand times over- The broken, scattered plants came to life, twisting and writhing, grasping and clawing at the delinquents' legs and knees. Kenichi could feel them in the corner of his mind- Not cold, not warm, not aware or unaware. He didn't pay close attention except to note where the writhing tendrils swept and waved as he moved in towards Daimonji and his lackeys.

Confused by the suddenly aggressive plants, the delinquents hardly put up a fight at all- Within moments, their unconcious bodies were bound and tied down by the foliage. Kenichi felt his heartbeat lower and stop, and watched as the plants did the same.

What... Had just happened?

 

Seed 1.02​

"NIIIJIIIMAAA!"

A single pointed ear twitched, and Haruo frowned over his mouthful of fried lizard. That had sounded like Kenichi... Roughly fifty feet behind him, and maybe twenty feet to his left. The rapid pounding of footsteps in the hall suggested that-

The door to the abandoned classroom Niijima had claimed as his own slammed open. Kenichi stood, panting, in the doorway- A young, red-faced girl peeking through the gap between the doorway and him. Ah, yes, the captain of that gardening club... What was her name, again-?

"Niijiima. I need your help to hide something," Kenichi said clearly. Haruo's face began twitching into a grin, despite his feeble attempt to stop it. O-ho~ Could it be that his naive friend had been seduced by his 'innocent' club captain, cheating on dear Miu? If that was so, then 'Helping' his dear friend in such a way that would 'Accidentally' reveal the truth to the world... Well, Miu would certainly need a shoulder to cry on, wouldn't she?

"Is that right~," Haruo drawled out slowly. "Well, my good friend, it seems like the least I could do is see if I can help you out. What is it you need hidden?"
___

"This... Is absolutely not what I expected," Niijima admitted, looking over the trussed up, unconcious delinquents in the ruined remnants of the Garden Club's greenhouse. Kenichi frowned, wondering slightly what his worst friend had expected, before burying the thought. It wasn't important right now.

"Well, it's what's here," He mumbled out awkwardly. "I can't exactly leave things like this- I don't even know what happened, but I'm certain that Daimonji's going to try to blame it on me."

"... You said the plants started growing when you attacked the brute here, right?" Niijima punctuated his sentence with a swift kick to Daimonji's ribs. There was a slight grunt, but the brutish young man didn't even flicker his eyes. "How do you know it wasn't you who did it?"

Kenichi could feel Izumi stirring near the wall, and felt a wave of panic flood through him. "That's ridiculous," He derided quickly, "Who's ever heard of a person who can just control plants like that? Besides," He stopped. What was he going to say? That he was just an ordinary guy? He certainly didn't feel special, but then... Daimonji had nearly crumpled around his fist, where before it would have provoked laughter at best. Kenichi shook his head to get his mind clear. "Well, anyway, it's a ridiculous idea."

"Something made the plants grow. And strangely, too- See these long tendrils? They aren't vines. It's a branch, that somehow grew in a way that ended up with it wrapped around this guy." Niijima looked Kenichi dead in the eye. "If I didn't see this with my own two eyes, I wouldn't believe what you told me was even possible." There is a moment of pause, and then Niijima goes from the abnormally serious tone he'd carried through the whole conversation to a more standard one- For him, anyway. "And after we dispose of the bodies, neither will anyone else!"

"Waitwaitwait, bodies?" Kenichi blurted, startled. "I don't want to kill anyone!" Daimonji was an ass, sure, but he didn't deserve to die for it.

"Hnn?" Niijima's eyes glinted funnily for a moment before he shook his head with a cackle. "Ah, yes, I suppose that dragging a bunch of dead people through the school would attract some attention, wouldn't it? Still, perhaps just disposing of evidence will work." A single hand snakes out, grabbing an abandoned pair of garden shears which are used to quickly snip the vegetation in several places. After a moment, Kenichi and Izumi joined in.

After a few minutes of work, Kenichi turned to his fellow gardener. "You know, you don't have to do this. If you want, you could just go home instead- Niijima and I can pick this up."

"Ahh..." For a second, Izumi seemed lost for words. "No, I want to help. Whatever happened, you tried to save me earlier- Right? So it only makes sense that I pay you back."

Saving her... Kenichi didn't want to admit it, but looking back he hadn't thought a bit about saving his club captain. All that had seemed important at the time was to get revenge- For the months of torture and humiliation, for destroying his safe haven, for the sake of his plant. The idea that he'd ignored his friend's safety in order to save a little bunch of roots and wood bothered him slightly. That... Didn't seem quite right.

Soon enough the last remnants of the jumble of limbs and leaves that had spread across the floor was safely bagged up and tossed in the school's dumpster.

It was halfway through cleaning up the piles of broken pottery and heavily rooted potting soil that a knock rang through the room.

Miu poked her head in, slightly, and frowned. "What happened in here?"

 

Seed 1.03​

There was a strange air as she went towards the greenhouse. If Miu had been a more superstitious type, she would have called it a bad omen- But having wandered the world with Grandfather since she was a young child, she knew better then to always judge things based on her first impression. What appeared to be supernatural almost always had an explanation behind it, and once you understood the background you were always better prepared to deal with a situation.

Nevertheless, seeing Niijima help Kenichi clean up dirt and shards of baked clay while thugs lay unconcious in a far corner of the room wasn't what she had expected- Hoped, she corrected herself quickly- To find.

"What happened here?" She asked without thinking, before mentally kicking herself. What had happened was obvious- Kenichi had been attacked again, this time during his club activities. A frown crossed her face as she saw that all of the planters had been destroyed. A psychological tactic? Kenichi was obviously fond of gardening, or he wouldn't attend the club as obsessively as he did, but she hadn't thought that any of the local gangs were... Sophisticated enough, she supposed, to utilize such tactics to attempt to gain an edge. And given they were on the ground and Kenichi wasn't, she suspected they had bitten off a bit more then they could chew.

Kenichi fidgeted awkwardly, and looked down towards the dirt. Niijima, however, wasn't nearly so bashful- "I'll tell you what happened, Miu-chaaan~ Kenichi here-"

"I thought you said you'd help me!" Kenichi interrupted quickly, covering Niijima's mouth. The creepy looking young man quickly escaped by simply biting Kenichi's hand, and Miu's frown deepened as Kenichi let go and cradled his hand. Obviously, he needed to step up his training if that had phased him.

"Whaaat?" Niijima drawled out, "Why should I hide it from Miu? It's not like she'd spread it around, after all- She's a friend!" She wasn't sure if Niijima knew the meaning of 'Hypocrite', but she couldn't help but agree with what he said- If only because now she was curious. "Besides," Niijima finished with a smirk, "Weren't you just saying that it couldn't have had anything to do with you? If you're so sure of that, then what's the point of even hiding it at all!"

"Because-" If Miu didn't stop this soon, she was sure that the argument would start going into circles. Fortunately, she knew the perfect technique for this situation.
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"Kenichiiii... Why won't you tell me?" Kenichi stopped and turned to look at Miu, and immediately realized it had been a mistake.

Her eyes were wide and teary, lower lip trembling slightly. A small sniffle accentuated her demeanor, and he felt the will to fight drain out of him in an instant. With a sigh, he bowed to the inevitable- "Alright, fine."

Niijima's reply, at this point, was quick and simple. "Kenichi learned to use Black Magic, and he disabled all the thugs with flowers."

"I thought you were going to tell me?/THAT'S NOT WHAT HAPPENED!"

 

I like it. From what I gather this is on the mundane earth that the travellers were from? Are more people going to get shards? Because giving a character a power up without subsequently attempting to drown them in flaming sewage is against the spirit of Worm. Kennichi needs something terrible to happen to him to balance out this new power.

 

I don't want to give away too much too soon, but rest assured that Kenichi isn't the only person getting 'Upgraded'.

 

Let me guess: Odin?

 

Nah. It's going to be Sho, and he'll have (at least) the ability to fly. Maybe he'll be turned into a bird-man.

 

Actually how does his sense of hopelessness and weakness net him Master/Trump powers?

And on that note guessing!

... Miu post brainwashing. Heck Ken might go 2nd Trigger due to it.

Oh or Apachi when fighting that one guys with the bird. Of course then Kenichi might actually die...

Demon Fists underlings like all of them.

Odin is likely because of the pin thing.