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 30 years and thousands of ultra-rare materials to build a single one. The bulk of the difficulty came from the creation of antimatter, as well as self sustaining reactions to maintain equal antimatter-matter pairings within the device. The power it could generate, despite being such a small tool, was astronomical, the principles that founded its conception unfathomable to all but a few. 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 30 years to wield each newly made Matter-Tool. And then, through a special 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 months ago, and now, after decades of careful scrutiny and approval, I was cleared to become the next Controller, wielder of the Matter-Tool who could go on to take over an extra-dimensional world.

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 my entire life, against thousands of others raised from birth just like me, to receive this ‘honor’. I was the best, but also within their grasp. Quite the paradoxical position.

“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 for them, 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 countless 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. Under normal circumstances, that was.

My preparations for this day ran deep. My endeavors were not executed by me alone. I had studied the tool extensively with help from insiders I had befriended over many years, and I had this particular tool specially engineered. It was identical to all the others, except for just a single missing program.

The Parasite Integration Program. It was overseen by the Council itself and a select few engineers who actually understood the tech. They were screened just as extensively as everyone else, and yet I wasn’t alone when I began my life of rebellion.

The risks I had taken by making those friends were nothing short of lethal. They would have been, at least, if they hadn’t paid off massively.

Now, I was about to reap the fruits of my labor.

“Tool! Emergency emission protocol!”

[Designate target.]

“The parasite crawling into my body!”

[Confirmed.]

“Haha!”

I couldn’t stifle the laugh when the Tool’s power actually targetted the parasite. The pain that followed was hardly worth the attention.

I felt my hand change, but when I was going to take a look, all the power within the power source, the Antimatter Core, was emitted.

My body was used as the conductor, the mediator for massive electrical currents. My nerves were directly fried, especially if the parasite had gotten to them already.

“AAAGGHH! HAHAHAHA!”

My laughs came out with the screams. I was ecstatic even as my heart was stopped and restarted dozens of times over.

This pain felt so damn good. I had never felt anything better.

The faces of all the others I had been forced to fight flashed into my mind. The death games, the intelelctual battles, the constant subterfuge and backstabbing. The loneliness, knowing that despite someone being flawlessly loyal for decades even under scrutiny, it was always possible for them to turn around one day and stab you in the back. Because in the end, only one person could win.

But I didn’t win because I had been heartless. I hadn’t betrayed everyone who ever followed me. I had been betrayed, I had almost died. But I was also followed by many. There were those who proved that they were loyal with their lives. And I had watched them die, let them die, without so much as a change in expression.

It was all necessary. Every second of perfectly constructed personas and personalities was all necessary for the sake of being chosen. I had to admit that many things lined up perfectly for me. I was lucky no small amount of times.

And yet I still felt all the same rage.

The Council. Those old bastards who had killed my brothers and sisters.

Someday, they’d pay with their lives. Someday, I would return to collect.

This pain was the first step toward that goal. And I couldn’t fathom a better feeling than finally getting started.

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At some point, the process stopped. My body stopped convulsing, relaxing into the bed I happened to be on.

My arm, now a burnt mess of meat, fell limp. At the palm I could see the parasite no longer moving, its tail sticking out of my skin.

I grabbed it and pulled, yanking out the skinny 4 foot long snake.

“Annihilate.”

[Unable to Annihilate. Antimatter Core damaged. Cause: hostile reaction from designated target.]

“Shit. Then Decompose.”

[Decomposing.]

A beam shot out of my hand, deconstructing the metal parasite. It fell to the bed sheets as metal dust. Then I watched as the beam went over all the metal dust, scattering it into fine particles unseen by the naken eye, barely noticeable as an ashy substance like graphite.

I let out a breath, blowing it all away. It felt like all of my life’s problems were scattering with that ash.

Then, I heard footsteps. Lights flickered on in the hallway leading to my room.

I didn’t know anybody here, not yet anyway. But I was also too tired to care. For the first time in my life I was allowed true respite. It would take time to get used to that fact, but for now, I was too exhausted to care.

[Warning: Host heart failing. Taking resuscitating measures.]

Oh, I guess that’s why I felt like passing out so bad.

[Shocking. Shock unsuccessful.]

“Audius?”

[Shocking… Shock unsuccessful.]

“Audius!”

[Shocking…]

……

…

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, socially inept yet self aware enough to realize it.

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. I hid in the background, afraid to try anything for fear of failing to live up to expectations, or even worse, embarrass myself and my siblings.

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.

“Huuhh…”

I let out a long breath 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. It was half uncontrollable, and half allowed. My persona as Six was strong, but that didn’t easily trump all the memories ingrained into this body. However, I also didn’t fight it too much. I had to adopt this new character, else risk being exposed.

“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 massively 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, a tool.

“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.”

“...Yeah.”

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. The Tool was supposed to integrate with the body and manifest when summoned. It was a neat function that prevented it from ever being lost, stolen, or tampered with. In fact, the Tool had some biological functions that made us genetically reliant on it. If the Tool failed, we would die. If it was broken or lost in transit during the dimensional jump, we would die.

These genes were given to us at birth, and the only reason we didn’t die before getting the Tool was because they kept us alive with special devices. Those devices were also leashes that they could use to kill us whenever they pleased. They simply had to turn off the devices, and our bodies would kill themselves.

Either way, it was immediately apparent that things had changed. I noticed some of these changes before, but had obviously been occupied with more important things.

This time, when I called on the tool, it didn’t appear. Instead, I felt something change with 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 Antimatter Core, a pitch black orb with a bright sparking light in the center, the power source for the Tool. It was embedded into the center of my hand, and seemed to be connected directly to my body through black scars that spread from it and across my hand. I could tell that they were no longer flesh.

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 physical 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 using my arm as its body. Still, it retained the general shape necessary for it to operate.

Even this though had been talked about during my training. Tool Corporation knew that anything could happen in other dimensions. Not even the laws of physics may necessarily be the same.

For now, I just checked its functions.

Hopefully the parasite didn’t damage the core too much.

“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 the first time. It was like losing your virginity, but with biodata transfers instead of sex.

[Diagnosis: Partial structural damage. Significant decrease in antimatter levels and reduction in power output and self-sustaining antimatter generation. No irreparable damage. Reserving majority of power output for antimatter generation and maintenance. Estimated time to return to equilibrium: 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 irreparable damage. That was a very good sign, but it also meant that a full repair could take a while.

It was working, at least

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 atomization or molecular reconstruction.

This also meant that more complex blueprints couldn’t be constructed. I would have to develop 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 ones. 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 being written into this universe, the physical laws were automatically applied to it, allowing it to function generally as it did before. The only problem was that the blueprints and knowledge on the Tool realied on information from the previous dimension and couldn’t necessarily be applied here. It didn’t actually know how it was able to function as it did before and therefore couldn’t apply those solutions to its existing information. I would have to develop it personally.

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.