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New Story: It's A Revolution
🕑 Added 2022-10-23 23:31:36 +0000 UTCThis is the first chapter of a new story. It is the first of many that I will be mass-posting over the next couple days.
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They called it the Matter-Tool.
A revolutionary item that could assemble and disassemble material objects with ease. It was the ultimate tool for construction and synthesis.
Even after a dozen years passed, the Matter-Tool was still their most valuable object.
It took two years and thousands of ultra-rare materials to build a single one. But the cost was worth it, as a single man armed with this tool could change entire worlds.
And that’s what they did with it.
They were called Tool Corporation. And within this corporation was a secret society that held control over the Matter-Tools.
This secret society chose one person every two years to wield each newly made Matter-Tool. And then, through a special dimensional portal, they would send those chosen to other worlds in order to establish a presence there.
But these worlds weren’t just any ordinary habitable planets through the galaxy.
These were worlds in other dimensions. Other universes!
It was the ultimate expansion plan for Tool Corporation. And that meant that their specially few chosen needed to be absolutely loyal to the corporation.
…
My name is Number Six, and I’m one of the special chosen.
The Matter-Tool was prepared a few days ago, and now, I’m going to be sent to some random world in another dimension.
In front of me was the Council. They were the old men who distributed the Matter-Tools and oversaw the dimension portal.
I had fought for years against thousands of others to receive this ‘honor’.
“Six, your place has been chosen. Now, the time has come. Step inside.”
One of the elders waved, pointing to a large canister.
I did as he said and entered it. At the same time, I glanced at the other two canisters that were to the left and right.
I tried my hardest to keep my expression from changing as I saw the items.
The first was the Matter-Tool. I wouldn’t get my hands on it until I was sent to the other world.
The other item though was quite sinister. It looked like a large robotic parasite, and it was the thing that would ensure that even the most loyal subordinates would remain that way until their death.
It made you a minion of the Council, a way for them to control you even from another dimension. So when one of the elders was sent to the same world in order to live the life of a supreme ruler atop the kingdom you created, they wouldn’t have to worry about their loyal subordinates having turned against them in the time they were independent.
In order to keep myself from inwardly cursing, I forced my mind to go blank. I refused to have any kind of emotional thoughts, just focusing on what was ahead of me.
I stepped into the canister, after which it closed.
“Prepare the portal!”
With those words, I could feel the space around me distort.
These portal sequences didn’t cost much less than creating an entire Matter-Tool. They took astronomical amounts of energy and force in order to tear open a dimension with the power of a thousand miniature black holes. And the equipment used in the process was all destroyed, meaning they had to build brand new equipment and prepare all that energy for the portal every single time.
It would cost far more if they were transporting anything other than a single person and two items.
I observed the Council as everything around me changed.
‘Keep it together… Just stay calm…’
I spoke to myself as my vision warped. And then, after a few minutes, the portal sequence finally completed.
My body disappeared, and my consciousness faded.
………
……
I regained consciousness and opened my eyes, seeing an unfamiliar ceiling. It was dark, so it was obviously night time.
But despite the drowsiness that came over me, the instant I realized that the portal sequence was successful, I looked at my left arm.
On it, I could see the parasite burrowing through my skin. It was miraculously painless.
I reacted violently.
“Tool!”
With a shout, my right hand raised. Within my grasp was the Matter-Tool.
The Matter-Tool couldn’t be used against the parasite, a function built into the tool itself.
But I had prepared for this day for a long time. I had studied the tool extensively, and I knew just what to do. In fact, it was rather simple.
“Extract Power Core! Emergency Override!”
[Ejecting Power Core.]
With my command, the tool opened itself and released a small black orb.
This black orb was the tool’s power source, something capable of generating basically infinite power, but only at a rate just enough for the tool to maintain itself and its functions.
It was an amazing piece of tech, but it was also rather volatile.
I grabbed this core and shoved it into the hole that the parasite was burrowing into.
Then, I slammed my arm, and the core atop it, against the nearby wall.
*Bang!*
*ZAP!*
The core reacted violently as it became unstable, releasing waves of its power through my arm.
The power traveled along the parasite’s body that was trying to spread up my arm and through my body. It had managed to wiggle its way to my shoulder, but as soon as the power overwhelmed it, it stopped and convulsed.
Unfortunately, I was also subject to that volatile power.
“Agh!!”
My body shook like a fish as arcs of electricity bounced across my left arm and burned my skin.
But I could feel the parasite convulsing inside. It was being destroyed.
After several moments, the core began to stabilize itself. But the parasite wasn’t completely dead, so I slammed my arm against the wall one more time.
“Ahh! Dammit!!”
I let out a yell as more pain caused my body to shake.
But I had prepared for this. I knew exactly what I was getting myself into.
Even at the cost of my arm, I wasn’t going to be enslaved by that stupid parasite.
Those elders.
The Council.
I hated them all.
I had fought tooth and nail in order to get chosen for this Matter-Tool. And I had acted like the most loyal subordinate.
I had even gone through torture in order to prove my loyalty. I had killed my opponents and risen to the top. I had shown them that I was willing to give up my life on a whim. I was the perfect minion who would do anything should the elders request it.
Unfortunately for them, I could be considered nothing more than a spy. I won their trust and I won their game, taking the Matter-Tool for myself.
The last obstacle was this parasite. Because those damned elders couldn’t trust even the most loyal minion.
It enraged me even more.
I continued to destroy the parasite.
The process only took a several minutes, but it felt like hours.
Ultimately though, it seemed that my plan worked.
As soon as the power core stabilized itself again, I grabbed it and put it back inside the Tool.
Then, I grabbed the open wound. I grabbed that horrible grey parasite and pulled.
Its tendrils that had spread up to my shoulder through my muscles and blood vessels were pulled out. In the end, I had a dead parasite a few feet long in my hand.
I looked at it with hate as I brought up the Tool.
“Annihilate.”
[Warning. Power Core is damaged. Unable to perform function: Annihilation. Please use Recycle instead.]
“Fine. Recycle.”
I shook my head before activating the function.
Then, a beam of light shot out of the tool, enveloping the parasite and deconstructing it.
It was disassembled and turned into nothing but a hunk of metal which promptly disappeared. All of the complex components were reduced to their bare materials, rendering it properly destroyed.
Because the parasite was already wrecked previously, the Tool no longer recognized it, allowing me to destroy it.
With that, the parasite was gone.
I was free.
“Haah… Hahahaha…”
I couldn’t help as a laugh escaped my mouth.
So many years of secrecy and enduring, and all my work had finally paid off.
Now, I was in some other world. Unfortunately, I was also exhausted.
I didn't know what situation I was in, but I knew how the dimensional portal worked. Because of that, I wasn’t afraid of passing out.
……
I was the son of Duke Charles Fawkes. My name was Audius.
My father the Duke had five children. Three sons and two daughters. Of them, I was the third son and fourth child.
Unfortunately, it seemed like I was a rather ambitionless child who never did anything to better himself.
With no hopes of being my father’s heir to the dukedom and no immediately apparent talents, I had become a ghost in the background.
So while I didn’t embarrass the family by being a no-good deadbeat who went whoring around and throwing money all over the place, I also wasn’t doing their name any justice.
On the other hand, the other two sons, who were the first two children, were constantly competing for the position of Heir. The third child and first daughter was similarly competing, and she could do this because she had amazing talent.
As for the fifth child and second daughter, well, her situation was a bit special.
It was actually her special situation that ended up making us the closest to each other.
That’s also why she appeared beside my bed when I woke up.
“Huh…”
I groaned as my eyes took in their blurred surroundings.
My head hurt due to all the new memories. They were merging with my original memories as Six.
That also meant that, in a way, I had become Audius Fawkes.
It was an incredibly odd experience. On one hand, I was feeling the new emotions that Audius did. On the other, there was the relief of a free man coming from Six.
After taking a few minutes to think consciously…
“Audius. Are you okay?”
I heard the language of this other world come from my sister’s mouth. She seemed genuinely concerned for me as she sat beside my bed.
When I looked at her, I felt the care that I always held for my sister. I wanted to smile, happy that she was there for me.
So I did. I decided that I would adopt this new life, being both Six and Audius.
“Yes, Grace. I’m okay.”
“Good. Can you talk? Who did this to you?”
“I’m not sure.”
I easily lied. It wasn’t like I was going to tell her about the parasite and the Tool.
Turning my head, I observed my arm to assess the damage.
It didn’t look pretty, though much better than it should.
There were horrible black scars across my arm along with some tender skin. Somehow, I seemed to have healed while I was asleep, because last I saw, my entire arm was charred black.
Now there were only the scars remaining, things that wouldn’t go away easily even given tens of years. My arm would be scarred for the rest of my life. It was a price I’d pay any day for my freedom.
As for the healing…
I searched through my new memories.
This world wasn’t an ordinary one.
Here, there were some people who were blessed with supernatural talents. I compared it to magic, but it was a little different.
They were called Sorcerers, and a Sorcerer’s supernatural ability was basically set in stone besides a couple of evolutions when they met certain conditions. Not much was known about the nature of the abilities.
But there were many popular examples. For instance, healing. Those with healing abilities were sought everywhere. Many noble households kept one or two healers with them.
My father kept a healer, a nice middle aged lady. It was no doubt her that fixed me up.
Unfortunately, Sorcerers weren’t exactly accepted by common society.
Just about every kingdom and empire in this world either enslaved or outright hunted Sorcerers. There were only a few groups that supported them, and those groups were similarly hunted.
Only healers were a protected minority, and even then, they had very little human rights. They were treated more as a resource.
“The guards searched your room, but they found nothing that would indicate an assassination. It just looks like your arm got set on fire. The whole situation is rather confusing. Are you sure you don’t know anything?”
I looked back at my sister. She was a cute girl a few years younger than me at around 18 years old. As the daughter of a Duke, she was naturally beautiful with exotic purple hair and black eyes.
And although she seemed to be asking with suspicion, I knew she wasn’t actually suspicious of me.
I gave her the obvious answer.
“Do I look like I would set my own arm on fire?”
“Some are suspecting that you’ve awoken.”
“We both know awakenings don’t go like that.”
“...Yea.”
She nodded with a sigh.
“Get some rest. A maid will be in soon to tend to your wounds. Father also wishes to speak with you, but he’s willing to wait until tomorrow if you’re too tired.”
“Then if you can, tell him that I’ll see him tomorrow. I’d like a day to collect myself.”
“Of course.”
After that, Grace exited the room, leaving me alone.
I let out a long breath and organized myself.
I raised my right hand.
When I did, the Tool didn’t appear in my grasp like last time.
Usually you could call on it with your mind. It should have integrated with my body by now, a neat function that eliminated the risk of losing or breaking it.
But it would still appear as the Tool when needed.
I tilted my head, but then, I felt something in my left arm.
My arm only had light bandages that exposed the wounds. So, following the odd feeling, I removed the bandages around my hand.
And on my palm…
The black orb, the power source of the Tool, was there. Embedded into my skin, it seemed to be connected directly to my body through black scars that spread from it and across my hand.
Not only that, but on the tips of my fingers appeared metallic pads. These pads sharpened to a point over my fingernail.
I faintly recognized the structure these anomalies were forming.
“The Tool…”
It had integrated itself with my body, but in a non-standard way. It seemed to have taken on a new form.
Even this though had been talked about during my training. Tool Corporation knew that anything could happen in other universes.
For now, I just checked its functions.
Hopefully the core didn’t take permanent damage in my brutish use of it.
“Run a diagnosis on the power core.”
With that command, I felt a sting in my brain. The process of information being directly written into my mind wasn’t nice.
[Diagnosis: Significant increase in volatility and reduction in power output. Unable to diagnose any permanent damage. Self-repairs are active and reserving a majority of remaining power output. Estimated repair time: unknown.]
[Warning. Several functions of the Matter-Tool have been locked due to insufficient power.]
[Warning. The laws of physics in this dimension are slightly different than normal. Complex blueprints are unable to be constructed. You must carry out research in order to rectify physical values.]
A slew of lines appeared in my mind, outlining a standard diagnosis.
I sighed while rubbing my temple.
I wasn’t given a schedule regarding repairs, and the Tool couldn’t detect any permanent damage. That didn’t mean there wasn’t any, just that it didn’t know right now.
So the diagnosis was vague, but at least it was working to some extent.
As for the research part, that was standard procedure.
Tool Corporation knew that other dimensions might have different physical laws. Thankfully, they could tell which dimensions had physical laws that were closer to ours, and those were the ones they chose to send us to.
In this instance, I would need to rectify the informational values of the physical laws. Stuff like finding out if gravity was stronger or if the electromagnetic force was weaker. They could be infinitely small differences, but that stuff was necessary to know in order to carry out things like chemistry or reassemble materials.
This also meant that more complex blueprints couldn’t be constructed. I would have to unlock them after carrying out research.
This physical law difference was also the reason for me taking over someone else’s body instead of me being dropped into the world as if I were an alien.
In order to adapt to the physical laws, the dimensional portal basically rewrote the code of the universe. At least, that’s how I understood it. The reality of that technology was beyond me.
Anyway, by doing this, they could spawn in objects and even overwrite existing objects. That’s how my memories and will were inserted into Audius. We are now both the same person, with two merged sets of memories and emotions.
It was also how the Tool could still exist. By spawning into this universe, the physical laws were automatically applied to it, allowing it to function as it did before. The only problem was that the blueprints and knowledge on the Tool were information from the previous dimension and couldn’t necessarily be applied here.
It was all a convoluted system.
Either way, I was here in this new body. And I wasn’t lying when I told Grace that I needed a day to collect myself.
It was time to figure out what the hell I was going to do with myself in this new place.
