Horizon the Transient presents,
BROKEN CHAIN
Book 3: "Screaming Bloody Murder"
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"You've gotta be fucking shitting me."
There was something, presumably not Jump-chan's conscious intervention, that handled the importing process for this Jumpchain. And whatever that something was, it could kiss my ass, because I did not appreciate this fucking mess that my Drop In Origin was Dropping In to.
Lightsaber in hand, I bisected a rampaging monster that adhered to no body plan I had ever encountered before in my life, and made an effort to clean up and contain this mess that would, hopefully, make the local heroes not think I was a villain. In fact... That new super-planning perk was kicking in already; if I played my cards right, I could make a name for myself here good enough to earn a spot in the big leagues right away.
"Heads up!" one of those aforementioned heroes yelled, giving me barely enough warning to dodge out of the way before peppering the other, bigger monster up the street with a downright carpet bombing.
"I hate my life," I announced to nobody in particular as a humanoid robot on a flying motorcycle circled back around to pull up beside me.
"What happened here?" the robot asked.
"I'm a dimensional traveler," I said. "I did expect to step through into this universe, but... something seems to have gone wrong, and as a result, a bunch of other horseshit from other dimensions ended up coming through. At least the portal's closed."
"Yeah, and all it took was letting a kaiju through," the young man riding shotgun said. He was Rex Splode, a foul-mouthed and foul-tempered teenage boy whose parents had sold him as a child to some shady organization or other to pay off their debts, and had since been subjected to inhumane experimentation that resulted in his superpower: by touching simple objects, he could charge them with his power, and then detonate them in a potent explosion. "Eve's keeping it busy, but-"
"Yeah, I see it," I said, sighing. "It's the last one left, right?"
"All other sectors are clear," the robot- who I knew went by Robot- said. "Covered in dead monsters and the corpses of Dupli-Kate, but clear."
"Fantastic," I said. "Switch out with her. I know how we can kill it, but I'll need her help." I lifted up into the air- a useful EBM perk I rarely used was the ability to fly, reaching supersonic speeds in atmosphere and 2c in vacuum- and flew off towards the kaiju, trying to brush past a flying hero and escape into the ocean.
This flying hero, called Eve by Rex Splode, was Atom Eve, whose own superpower was also the result of unethical experimentation, albeit experimentation performed before she was born, and without her parents' knowledge. She could perceive and rearrange atoms, on a pretty big scale- 'casually turning a wall into a fully-functional door with a knob' scale, at the very least- with only one real limiting factor besides conservation of mass: due to vague mental blocks, she could not rearrange matter she thought of as living. If she could, then this kaiju would already be a pile of ground beef, and she wouldn't need my help.
"Hey!" I yelled, getting her attention as Rex nailed the kaiju with an exploding slingshot bullet. "Atomic Evelyn! I need your help to kill this thing!"
"I'm trying!" Eve shouted back, disengaging and flying closer to me. How she parlayed her power over atoms into flight and force fields, I wasn't really sure, but I'm sure I could figure it out, even without simply asking her. "You have a plan?"
"I've got something in a pocket dimension that'll do it," I said. "It's part of a laser weapon, and shaped like a ring; if you can safely split it in half, put it around the kaiju's neck, then put it back together perfectly, I can fire the weapon and it'll kill the kaiju."
"Okay," Eve said, nodding. "That's something. Let's see it, then."
I eyeballed the kaiju, estimating its neck as having a maximum radius a little below 10 meters, and so located a Size 2 Turbolaser Particle Emitter within my Warehouse, before opening a portal and pulling it through with the Force.
"You got it now?" I asked, continuing to hold up the drive as the portal closed.
"Got it," Eve said, nodding. I let go, and she flew off with it, the ring splitting in half perfectly in barely a second.
From there, it was pretty straightforward: put the two ring halves in place while dodging swipes and fire breath from the kaiju, and then seal them back together around its neck. And before the kaiju could reach up and break the ring...
The Turbolaser Particle Emitter fired, very briefly, and the kaiju's neck erupted into chunky salsa. Also, the emitter fried itself a little, but whatever. It'd be fine. There was a factory churning those things out by the hundreds every hour.
"I love it when a plan comes together," I said as I flew forward to collect my drive. "Excellent work, Atomic Evelyn."
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
"It's just Atom Eve," she said.
"It's called a nicholasname," I explained. "Lengthening someone's name for comic effect."
"...I see," Eve said, looking at me like I was just a little bit crazy.
"At any rate," Robot said, pulling up to the two of us. "We've got a lot of cleanup ahead of us. And I'd like to know just who, precisely, you are."
"Doctor Ophiuchus, world-traveling supergenius," I said. "I'm... really sorry about the mess. I had no idea this could happen."
"Eh," Rex said. "It's Baltimore. Nobody's going to notice."
I snorted.
---
The heroes I'd just fought alongside called themselves Teen Team, a deeply uncreative name that somehow had not been taken before they started their team, which itself couldn't have been that long ago because they were teenagers. Well, except for Robot, who was the chaperone.
After I used my Warehouse portals to clean up the mess- sending the monster corpses to a lab where someone else could figure out just what the hell had even happened there- in record time, Robot had invited me back to their headquarters to discuss where things would go from here.
"Oh, habla usted espanol?" I asked.
Rex Splode, now that I could get a better look at him, was an interesting figure, wearing a loose red-and-yellow jumpsuit with a tight hood and goggles, leaving only the bottom half of his face exposed- still, I could tell he was built like a gymnast under that jumpsuit, just from the way he moved. At his hips were holsters and deep pockets that he kept filled with shit he could use his power on, so he didn't have to rely on throwing random shit he found in the field at people. And while only the bottom half of his face was exposed, that was enough to tell that he had skin on the darker side of olive. So, while his voice very much lacked the telltale accent of someone who spoke Spanish... I might as well ask, right? Probably wouldn't be any harm in it.
"Si," Rex said, warily. "Y usted?"
"Soy de Texas," I explained. "Yo trabaje en un supermercado, y necesiti aprender hablar espanol si quieri poder hablar con los espanoles en la tienda."
"Entiendo," Rex said, nodding. "Pues, bastante bueno para un gringo."
"Gracias, gracias," I said. "Now, if anyone else has a native language besides English they're wondering if I speak, the answer is probably no; the only Earth languages I know at the moment are English, Spanish, and Japanese."
"Why Japanese?" Dupli-Kate asked.
She was young, but already growing the telltale muscles of a martial artist; her power of spawning clone bodies endlessly may have allowed clothing like her numbered bodysuits to clone with her, but didn't seem to allow for weapons, so for her to matter in a fight, she had to be able to fight bare-handed. She was also, by my reckoning, Han Chinese, and kept her black hair cut short into a bob that didn't even reach her shoulders.
"Because I used to live in Japan," I said with a shrug. "I'll probably get around to learning more languages as they become either necessary or interesting, though. It's not really hard for me anymore."
"As interesting as this is," Eve said, drawing my attention. "I think it might be a little more important that we figure out what we're doing with you?"
Atom Eve, a teenager like Rex and Kate, was the token white girl, with bright red hair and pale skin. And, also, a fucking fashion disaster of a costume. Her bodysuit was tight like Kate's, but whereas Kate's was one single piece, Eve had replaced the legs with high-cut shorts and boots that didn't quite come up to the knee, and then dyed the whole thing an awful shade of red that was in the sour spot of desaturation where it looked like she'd been trying to make it pink, and then failed.
It was endearingly ugly, in that characteristically teenage way.
"What you're doing with me," I repeated. "That phrasing makes me sound like either a teenager or a prisoner."
"Same thing, isn't it?" Rex muttered bitterly.
"I assure you," Robot said, ignoring Rex, "you are no such thing. And while you have been acquainting yourself with the team, I have been in contact with my superiors, and attempting to arrange accommodations for you. At the moment... they're preparing a job offer."
"I see, I see," I said, before pausing. I felt something through my bond with Karasuba, and focusing on it... ah. She's on her way to Earth, and would like to arrange a rendezvous point. "...Well. If they'd permit me to take the rest of today to recover from the excitement, and come back to this tomorrow?"
"Of course," Robot said, nodding. "And if you require anywhere to stay..."
"Then I am an adult with money who can book a hotel room," I said dryly. "Your consideration is appreciated, but unnecessary. In point of fact, considering the balance of things, I should be asking if you four need anything."
"A better superpower," Kate said.
"A pony," Rex said.
"Can I get a chocolate shake?" Eve asked.
I snorted. "Yeah, sure." I waved a hand, and three portals opened, issuing forth an enchanted sword, a pony, and a chocolate milkshake.
"...Can I get a chocolate shake instead?" Rex asked, as the pony took in its surroundings, dismissed them with an audible puff of air through its nostrils, and then started trotting over towards the refrigerator.
"Do you not want the pony?" I asked.
"I was joking about the pony," Rex said.
I shrugged, sending the pony back through another portal and summoning another chocolate milkshake for him.
"Thanks for the sword, by the way," Kate added.
"Have fun with it," I said. "Now, if y'all will excuse me..." I opened another, larger portal, and stepped through, into the Warehouse, and more specifically my house in the Warehouse, where Karasuba was there to meet me. "Hey babe. You would not believe the day I just had."
"You wouldn't believe mine either," she said. Despite importing as a half-Viltrumite, she didn't look any different than usual- well, body-wise, anyway. She'd always looked ambiguously thirty-something, and while Viltrumite aging slowed down near-exponentially as they got older, meaning that a Viltrumite who looked as old as Karasuba did would have to be upwards of five hundred years old... well, she still looked that old, and the import process did not make her look like some teenybopper pipsqueak who wasn't even old enough to drink.
It did put her in that dumb Viltrumite bodysuit though, which was... worrying.
"You first, though," Karasuba said.
"Alright, well..."