“This was certainly not how I expected to spend my Saturday morning,” Claire thought to herself as she shoved another thick branch out of the way with her hand.
It had all started as a normal day, after a week of intense final exams Claire was enjoying a relaxing drive with her two friends, Anna and Fay.
She was driving up to visit her grandparents in their mountain home to celebrate her high school graduation. Her parents and brothers had already arrived a few days before but due to a lone final exam that happened to fall at the last possible moment, Claire had to stay behind.
“I hope they are all ok,” Claire thought to herself.
The day before had been a rough day for her, and probably the rest of earth in general.
It had all started when Claire suggested a detour.
“Hey girls, any chance we could take a small detour past my old home? Maybe stop to grab a late lunch?” Claire asked.
“We are only about two hours away from your grandparent’s home and have plenty of daylight left. We would have to make sure we are back on the road before it gets too late though. What did you have in mind?” Anna replied.
“I bet it involves meeting your little friend Jake somewhere,” Fay quipped looking up from her phone with a mischievous smile.
“My thoughts may, or may not have included seeing if Jake wanted to meet us somewhere,” Claire answered calmly despite her eyes locking onto the road in front of her and a slight blush beginning to shade her cheeks.
“Riiiiiiiight,” Fay responded with a knowing smile.
Three years prior Claire’s family had moved from their home in Fellmore to a town called Keystone almost four hours away for her father’s work. It had been a very stressful time for the family, the job offer was extremely good, but Claire and her four brothers all grew up in and were extremely attached to Fellmore.
This caused a lot of discourse between Claire, her brothers, and her parents. In the end, however, despite a large amount of protest from the siblings, her parents decided to go through with the move.
“So we are decided then? We will stop somewhere in Fellmore to grab something to eat?” Claire asked in clarification.
The two passengers of the vehicle nodded their heads in assent.
Roughly ten minutes later Claire said, “we’re about fifteen minutes out from Fellmore. I’m going to send Jake a text, he should be getting out of school about now.”
“I knew it!” Fay exclaimed triumphantly.
Claire’s head shook slightly in disbelief of her friend's antics.
Just as Claire was about to grab her phone from the console of her car she felt the engine begin to sputter.
“Huh?” Claire expressed her surprise. A few moments later Claire felt the engine of her car die entirely. Panicked, Claire did her best to use the car's momentum to pull off onto the side of the road. But in her panicked state, she witnessed the weirdest thing she had ever seen. It was like someone had pulled the plug from every car on the road.
In unison, every single car, including her own, crawled to a stop.
“What the…” Anna, who was now staring out of the window, voiced.
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HELLO, OTHERWORLDERS!
You may refer to me as SYS, I am an extraterrestrial A.I. that was given the task 1.85 billion years ago to introduce other races to their new normal when they reach the cusp of invoking New Age Protocol 6. Simply put when a race dominates their planet effortlessly for too long a new age is invoked to test if that race has the capability of defending their planet in the event they encountered and angered a hostile otherworldly entity.
Often the answer to that question is FALSE. Therefore in exchange for the potential power to protect your planet, we do you the service of angering your nearest hostile extraterrestrial enemy for you to test your newly acquired powers on! Aren’t we just the greatest? In seriousness, however, the deaths of both your race and the enemy race provide us enough energy to repeat this cycle endlessly on other planets.
As part of this protocol chemically induced explosions have been suppressed on your planet, this means that all primitive firearms and combustion-powered vehicles will cease to function.
Because initial estimates predict your race to be class POWERLESS, every HUMAN will be given the chance to receive an ability, HOWEVER, do not let this fool you, HUMANS are not the only ones who can acquire abilities, animals on your planet have a significant natural advantage in that they can develop their own heretical abilities, and the hostile entities from other galaxies you face will most certainly have abilities of their own!
In order to fairly distribute abilities while following the natural order the number of abilities you receive and which abilities you receive will be determined entirely by luck! It is possible to receive as many as 10 abilities and as little as 0, however, the chance to receive each subsequent additional ability is exponentially decreased.
Click below to begin ability randomization, it is estimated you have approximately 1 hour before the first enemy’s arrival.
RANDOMIZE
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A long silence followed the screen’s appearance.
After a few moments of everyone just reading their screen, the silence was broken by Claire, “Well, fuck.”
Fay was the next to respond, by promptly throwing all sense of preparation out the window and clicking the “randomize” button on her screen.
The glow from her arm was very obvious to Claire and Anna who just stared in mild horror at their friend.
“What did you just do?! Why is your arm glowing?” Anna asked, eyes wide with panic.
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
“I hit the button the thing told me to hit, what's the worst that could happen,” Fay responded, shrugging her shoulders.
“I don't know, you could explode?!” Anna exclaimed.
Luckily, Fay did not explode. Instead, a screen sprung into existence before her.
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[https://imgur.com/a/XRHTnqz]A temporary placeholder image while Bionic makes up a rune :) [https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=1DOgG8KNz9YizNXgX723CDbthh8XFdAqR]
PAIN Gel (Mind): - Upgrade Points:0
The wielder can secrete a golden gel from their hands that loves PAIN, the only form of this ability is (Mind), the wielder has complete control of this gel using their thoughts. This gel can absorb anything that causes a living being pain, this includes injuries, illnesses, and poisons. As long as it causes pain it can be absorbed. After absorbing any of the above the gel will change color, this differently colored gel can be used offensively and inflicts a portion of the PAIN absorbed as damage to the target.
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“Awesome! Look guys, I got superpowers!”
Upon seeing Fay’s excitement, Claire and Anna shared a look of disbelief.
Claire re-read the box in front of her, eyes instinctually focusing on the “randomize” button tempting her from the bottom of the screen.
She looked over to Anna and asked, “Do you think we should do it?”
“Well, nothing bad happened to Fay…” Anna glanced into the back seat of the car where Fay was experimenting with her new power, twirling a ball of a glowing golden liquid on her finger like a basketball.
“There could be some sort of side effect or cost that isn't openly displayed though,” Claire countered.
“I still think we should do it. Just like Fay said, what's the worst that could happen?”
Claire nodded her head in agreement with Anna, “True, Worst case scenario it kills us, but this ‘hostile extraterrestrial enemy’ would probably kill us anyway if we don't accept.”
Having made their decision, Claire and Anna glanced at each other before both hitting the “randomize” button at the same time.
Claire’s arm began to glow the same ethereal silver color that Fays did a moment ago, but for Anna, nothing happened at all.
A screen appeared before Claire, followed shortly after by an entirely different screen appearing for Anna.
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[https://imgur.com/a/XRHTnqz][https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=1WZg4Qt8y4xSrneffkxqbO0vAz-7_JdBo]
Sun Magic (Invocation): - Upgrade points:0
The wielder can harness various forces that affect, and are created by the sun.
(Invocation): The wielder must associate each "spell" they discover with an invocation that can be used to cast the spell again quickly in the future.
[https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=104tAnFnQIJ8MwmtKqo8ezcJPOJ1cLKyo]
Environmentally Minded (Activation): - Upgrade points:0 - Minds Distributed:0/2
The wielder can give any plant a simple semi-sentient mind allowing it to follow basic orders.
(Activation): This ability is activated by saying "Activate Environmentally Minded"
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“Huh,” Claire remarked after reading her abilities.
“Did you get any abilities, Anna?”
Anna, who was still staring at the screen in front of her, responded slightly distracted, “No, but it looks like not having an ability isn't as bad as the screen made it out to be.”
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Unfortunately, you have received no abilities. However! not all is lost! You can still be useful to your fellow HUMANS! You are still allocated the same amount of energy that a person who did receive an ability is allocated. This energy can be used for other purposes beyond just powering abilities. For example, it can be used to improve the body beyond its normal limits! With enough perseverance, you can become much more powerful than most ability users. So work hard!
Happy hunting - SYS
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Anna finished reading over her screen before looking up from it.
“So, what did you guys get!” Fay, who had been pulled out of her distracted state by Claire’s arm glowing, asked rejoining the conversation.
Claire responded first, “Basically, Sun related magic, and the ability to make living plant monsters.”
Anna followed up after her, “Well I got no abilities, but apparently I can train my body past human limits.”
Fay nodded in understanding before responding, “I got a healing ability that can also damage enemies with the pain I take from those who I heal.”
Looking down at her watch, Claire began to worry slightly, “Guys, we only have about thirty minutes until these enemies appear. I think we should get off the road, it will probably get extremely chaotic here with all these people everywhere.”
“Especially with the number of supplies we are sitting on,” Fay mentioned.
Looking through the front window Claire could see a whole bunch of people beginning to emerge from their vehicles, one group was even having an argument a few cars ahead.
“I think that would be a good idea, but where should we head?” asked Anna.
“I know the perfect place, do you guys remember the treehouse I told you about that me, Jake, and my brothers built when we were younger?” Claire replied.
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That was how Claire ended up spending her Saturday morning hacking through overgrown vegetation in a forest.
It had taken the rest of Friday to make it to Fellmore.
Luckily, despite having quite the scare when the hour finally elapsed and everything got really loud, the three girls had yet to encounter any monsters.
That didn't mean the girls weren't prepared for monsters, however. Fay had been perpetually playing with her ability since receiving it in the car. Claire, meanwhile, had begun experimenting with solar magic and seeing how broad getting “sun powers” really was.
Anna, while lacking any abilities, had begun experimenting with strengthening her body. About halfway to Fellmore, when the girls had taken a short break to rest, she had filled up every empty crevice in her backpack, that wasn't full of clothing or food, with rocks hoping to accelerate the process of strengthening herself. It seemed to be a slow process but after only four hours of walking, Anna swore she began to feel a slight increase in the strength of her legs.
After stopping for the night at the edge of Fellmore forest, Claire, Anna, and Fay took turns keeping an eye out for any monsters that might sneak up on them while sleeping.
As soon as the sky began to lighten Claire got the others up and began finding her bearings in the forest.
“We're in luck guys!” Claire said. “This trail is one I recognize, I've never actually been down this far, but if we follow this we should end up at the treehouse before nightfall.”
Following the trail for the rest of the day, Claire began to recognize some landmarks and just as the sun began to dip below the horizon the treehouse came into view.
Exhausted from the long trip, all three girls let out a long sigh.
“We are finally here guys!” Claire said.