Eve went to college in an un-dilated part of the Warehouse's spacetime, and came back with a lot of new skills... mostly to do with doing the exact same thing she'd been doing with the Docbots in Nigeria except without the use of her powers.
"Alright, well," I said, "I'm pretty much paying for nothing in this doc, and will be rolling for my power on account it doesn't matter that much to me."
We were now sat in the living room of our house at the center of the Warehouse, and working through the document.
"It says roll a pair of d12, but there's only options corresponding to 1 through 8, and there's only four actual options," Eve pointed out.
"Riveting," Karasuba said loudly.
"...Anyhow," I said, politely ignoring her. "I've seen some people resolve the issue by replacing the second d12 with a d8, and I can see how I might resolve the issue even further by simply replacing it with a d4 and lightly editing the results table. However! I think that it would produce a more interesting situation if we were to lightly edit the results table in the other direction, keep the 2d12 roll, and then we get to choose between two different powers by putting the dice in a different order. How's that sound?"
"Sounds workable," Eve said, shrugging. "You wanna go first?"
"Sure," I said, rolling a pair of d12s. "That is... a twelve and a four. I could get the Changer power for turning myself into any physical form up to twenty feet tall, or I could get the Shaker power for point-blank telekinesis... neither of which really impresses me that much. I can already turn into anything less than twenty feet tall, and have simply never done so on account of it having never really been a productive thing to do, so... fuck it, point-blank telekinesis."
"Alright, my turn..." Eve rolled the dice. "...Nine and eleven."
"Woo, nine eleven baby, let's go!"
Eve looked at me like I'd just said some complete nonsense.
"...Well, where I'm from, the convenience store chain is called Seven Eleven," Eve said cautiously.
"That's not what the reference is, but if I explain to you what 9/11 is, I would then have to explain why I thought it was funny, and I don't feel like doing that right now," I said. "Anyway, take a look at yon table."
"Alright, let's see... Wow, that's either Path to Victory or being Dauntless. I... kinda wanted Reverse Engineering, as far as powers go, but..." Eve trailed off. "...I'm tempted. Would I have the option to pick up something similar to Reverse Engineering in a later Jump?"
"Absolutely, yes," I said, nodding. "By the end of this Jumpchain, you'll be able to do pretty much whatever the hell you want. People might have some questions vis-a-vis why you have the same power as Dauntless, but eh, powers do weird shit, and they'll get over it soon enough."
"...Point," Eve admitted. "I... think I'm gonna take Dauntless, then. Being able to understand and design my own bespoke hypertech would combine really well with the power I was born with, but if I can get it later for a better price, then I'll probably be fine without it. Besides, I've got you. If I need hypertech, I just have to talk you into inventing something."
Karasuba wordlessly picked up the dice and rolled them, then wrote down the results on her character sheet.
"Eleven and twelve... Oh, hey, you rolled the Eidolon power," I remarked. "That'll be nice for the year we spend here."
"Wait, I thought Jumps lasted ten years," Eve said.
"I refuse to spend more than a single year on Earth Bet," I said simply. "We're leaving as soon as 2012 rolls around, and I will accept no argument to the contrary."
"...Guess I gotta try real hard to make friends, if I'm gonna convince 'em to come with me," Eve said.
"Speaking of which, any characters you're planning on hanging out with?"
"I'm thinking I'll want to befriend Taylor, and steer her towards the Wards," Eve said.
"I want to go Villain so that nobody is surprised about me carving up Nazis like turkeys," Karasuba said. "I didn't get to kill a single Viltrumite during this Jump, and I'm getting bored."
"That's..." I frowned. "...I'd rather you didn't kill anyone."
"Tough shit."
"...Well, you'll be on your own for as long as you're doing that."
"I'll live," she said dryly.
"What about you, Rose?" Eve asked.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
"I'm going to do pretty much the same thing I did this year: build railroads, factories, and power plants all over Africa, South America, and West Asia to improve the quality of life of the people who live there," I said. "Most of the characters I was interested in back when I read Worm are teenage girls, and I'm not sure if you've noticed this, but I am not a teenager anymore. I am, depending on how you count, either older than any mortal human has ever lived to, or somewhere in my mid 30s."
"Counterpoint: I am also a teenage girl, and you managed to interact with me without being a creep," Eve pointed out. "Just, y'know. Be a reasonable authority figure who's there for them and willing to help."
"That would require me to be present for the plot of Worm, and we've been over the part where I don't want to do that."
"You'd really rather be in war-torn Africa dealing with the cape warlords than the American Northeast dealing with a few gangsters?"
"As a Texan, I am obligated by my religion to talk shit about New England at every available opportunity."
"That reminds me, I've never been to Texas with you," Karasuba noted.
"That is not an accident," I said. "I'm not going back there, and you can't make me."
"Now that we're all pretty much done talking about our builds, can I ask why 9/11 is funny to you?" Eve asked.
"I'm not telling you, and neither is Karasuba," I said. Karasuba did know, because she was also from a timeline where 9/11 happened, but she was also just... y'know, psychically linked to me, and had full access to my memories. She would've gotten it even if she didn't have vivid memories of eating popcorn while watching the news.
(She sent a mental apology for her past self being a huge edgelord, and I politely informed her that her past self was a comedy genius.)
Eve huffed, adorably, and I just grinned.
"Well," Eve said, bravely marshalling herself onward. "It's November, so... what do you two do as far as Christmas celebrations go? Any rules for the gift exchange to keep things interesting?"
"I'm Jewish," I said.
"And I'm Japanese," Karasuba added.
"So, uh... we kinda don't do Christmas celebrations," I said, awkwardly rubbing the back of my neck. "That being said, I'm willing to be flexible, on account of you being far less insufferable than my Christian relatives, so... Hang on, lemme check a calendar..." I pulled out my phone, and hummed quietly. "...Oh, huh, Kislev lines up near-perfectly with December this year."
"Kislev?" Eve asked.
"Eve, would you or would you not describe me as your mom?" I asked.
"Uhhh... yes?" Eve said, cautiously.
"Great, so now that you have a Jewish mother, you are now also Jewish, according to Jewish law. I am going to make you read even more long and dry documents after this, but the short version that's directly relevant to you is that Jews use a lunisolar calendar that isn't strictly synchronized to the Gregorian solar calendar that says things like April 13th or December 25th. In the Jewish calendar, one of the months is Kislev, and when the sun sets on the 24th day of Kislev, the 25th day of Kislev begins, and with that, we light the first candle of Hanukkah."
"Right, Hanukkah lasts eight days," Eve said, nodding. "Is it... actually like Jewish Christmas, or...?"
"It is and it isn't," I said. "As I inflict more and more knowledge about Judaism upon you, you're going to more intimately understand this bit, but basically, pretty much everything in Judaism is complicated and a subject of active debate. And what that means here is that, yes, Hanukkah celebrations are frequently celebrated as a Jewish equivalent to Christmas, because parents don't want their kids to feel too left out of the whole holiday gift thing, but it's also the case that, technically, they aren't supposed to be doing that. Hanukkah is, officially, a pretty minor holiday; a celebration of the miraculous oil lasting for eight days instead of one day, which just so happened to happen in the immediate aftermath of the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucids. The actual important high holy days of Judaism are Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, with the pilgrimage festivals of Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot being biblically-grounded but not as important as the New Year and the Day of Atonement. And then there's holidays like Hanukkah, which aren't as important, but can be nice, sometimes, y'know, if you feel like it."
"I... see," Eve said, nodding slowly.
"Also there's Purim, which is in fact Jewish Halloween, and I'm 100% going to do a biblically-accurate Esther costume next year."
"I'm... just going to smile and nod, because I have no idea what you're talking about."
I simply smirked.
"You two are going to put up some absolutely excessive Hanukkah decorations, aren't you?" Karasuba asked.
"We are going to cover this house in ergableds," Eve promised.
----------------------------------------
Hanukkah came and went, with the house being absolutely covered in gaudy-ass decorations as Eve and I attempted to outdo each other with the immense fabrication abilities at our disposal. Karasuba finally ended it with a life-sized recreation of the grand Temple of Jerusalem, complete with the menorah and its eternal flame sustained by magic- she didn't seem to have trouble learning magic, but I still couldn't muster the skill to warm up a cup of tea, which was deeply unfair.
Nonetheless, our time in Invincible came to an end soon afterwards, and we decided there was no point in spending more time between Jumps.
I went to sleep as the interregnum ended, expecting to wake up somewhere in Earth Bet.
I didn't typically remember my dreams- odd, for a psychic, but I never really cared enough to investigate. It just didn't seem important or interesting, and I focused on other things. But this dream was very, very clear, and very, very vivid.
"Point-blank telekinesis... it simply doesn't suit you, does it? Let me fix that for you."
Oh no.
"You didn't think you'd be rid of me so easily, did you?"