Have you ever felt like life just enjoys kicking you in the dick?
That's basically the story of my life… Born as Peter Barker, my parents had a car accident taking me away from the hospital. I was the only one that survived… I had family, but after a few years of investigation later in life, I found out that they took all of my inheritance and the house and all of their stuff.
To be honest, I wouldn't have even been mad if they spent it on their own welfare, but no, they wasted it on model cars or expensive cruises… I tried to take them to court for it, but by that time they had already spent all of the money and they barely had anything enough to pay for the lawyers, so all I got was an empty house.
To make matters worse, they didn't even take care of the house. Well, as all I found was destroyed plumbing and a nearly destroyed gas line that almost killed me. I should've grown up to be a terrible human being…. It would've been so easy to just not care like everyone else.
But then I met the best and worst people in my life… Firstly, the matron that took care of me in the orphanage.. she took care of me, she clothed me, she fed me… and allowed me to pursue an education.
And it was in a community college where I found my girlfriend… She wanted to be an actress. Personally, I wanted to tell her that it really wouldn't pan out like that given the fact that she barely had any connections, but I believed in her, so I stupidly decided to help her with her dream.
I worked over three jobs, each one more demanding than the last, but I made sure to save some time for dates, lackluster as they were due to my lacking funds and focusing on my education… Didn't help that I ended up looking like a tired adult by the time I was barely in my 20s…
And when things finally started looking up and I got a decent job working at a stock office and raking in some decent cash, the matron that took care of me came back to collect her "interest"… And again, I wasn't even mad. I would've paid back all the money she spent, but then she just kept asking for more and more and more…
She took me to court when I refused to pay after a couple of years, realizing that I paid at least two times more than she ever spent on me… So again, I trusted a lawyer that I hired, and he said it was a slam dunk case, at least for the matron. It was. Turns out that she had some friends in law enforcement, and she fudged the trial in her favor and my lawyer screwed me over for a higher paycheck….
When I had to pay it four times the amount, I had to give up almost everything that I've worked for for years… And when I tried to take some comfort in my girlfriend, I found out that she was cheating on me… with some guy named Paul… I felt a sense of irony then even though I didn't know why.
So now here I am, alone and penniless… I lost my job due to having to take days off with the trial and everything else… Didn't help that my boss was looking to fire me, maybe because she just didn't like me or wanted to replace the job with someone she knew.
Sitting in the middle of a living room in an empty house, I managed to find an old bottle in the walls, and for the first time ever, I took a drink and immediately regretted it… The alcohol was definitely spoiled, and I felt like my insides were trying to exit out in every way.
But you, after all of this, I wouldn't give up… I couldn't give up. So as I made my way back to my feet, every single part of my body shaking and in pain.. the fact that I was seeing triple definitely meant that there was something in that bottle that wasn't good…
I looked at the broken glass and found a tired face staring back at me. I chuckled as I coughed repeatedly. Felt like my lungs were being filled with glass…
I walked onto the porch of my house and wondered if I did something wrong in a previous life. Maybe I was some kind of monster that deserved this, or maybe it was just the universe that decided to be a dick… I opened my phone, with it barely working due to all the times it's been cracked over the decades I've used it.
On the front screen, I saw me and my girlfriend at a park, giving her a necklace I spent weeks trying to buy for her. I deleted all of the pictures and, just to make things better, I received a text from her asking where I put some of her old stuff.
I felt wronged.. I felt angry… In fact, I felt downright murderous… if I'm being honest with myself. It was mostly my fault for not seeing the signs.
Throwing my phone into the yard again, I stood up and began walking down the porch steps, but before I knew it, I felt myself falling. My vision swam…. And with a sickening crunch, I landed on my neck. I felt blood begin to pour into my mouth.
I tried yelling for help, but it just barely came out with a whisper… It was nighttime. No one was out in the neighborhood. The only recompense was that I was given the view of the sky. I looked out into the empty sky….
I felt relief… Maybe… maybe this was the end… I felt myself beginning to choke on my own blood. My eyes began to feel so heavy…. I closed my eyes, and I again felt myself falling.
Falling down further and further… into an endless void. I saw what looked to be a hand reaching out towards me, but as it got closer, I saw that it was larger than a mountain… in fact, it looked larger than the world. I couldn't even scream as it took me into its grip…. The world went dark. Yet as I reopened my eyes, I found myself in what looked to be a normal living room.
The light was on, and I was sitting on the couch nearby. There was somebody else who looked quite similar, yet different… Both of us looked tired. As I slowly got up from the couch, I noticed that I wasn't in my normal body.
I looked like something created out of mist, like an echo of what I used to look like… I stared out the windows and found nothing but endless stars. As I walked towards what I thought was an exit, I found it locked. I tried to pull on it as hard as I could, but my hands just slipped through.
My fist slammed into the door, yet it just dissipated as it touched it… I tried to take a breath, yet found I didn't need to breathe, and I didn't have lungs to take a breath… I just floated there and wondered where I was.
"If you're trying to leave, it won't work. I've already tried everything already…." a rather monotone voice echoed throughout the room. Looking back, I found the man sitting in the nearby chair, staring at me instead of the floor.
"Well I'm not just gonna sit here even if I'm dead or if this is some kind of dream…" Walking around the room, I found no other exits other than the one door and the windows. As I tried to go through a window again, I felt myself being blocked.
Before I could try lifting one of the windows open, I felt a hand touch where my shoulder should've been.
"Calm down… We're both stuck here so I imagine we're going to be spending a lot of time with each other… I would recommend sitting down. Whoever brought us here is probably gonna be showing up soon anyways." From a moment I wanted to yell at him, but then seeing the look in his eyes, I saw that he looked even worse for wear than I was.
So as I sat back down on the couch, we stared at each other before I reached out my spectral hand, "Well we're stuck here, might as well introduce ourselves. My name is Peter Barker… or at least formerly Peter Barker." Upon mentioning my name, the man looked down and began to shake before I realized he was laughing to himself.
"Hahah.. Haha… HAHAH! Now that… that is funny… I've met other versions of me before, but I didn't expect one to have a last name like that…" He stopped laughing, which I appreciated, before going back to that resting depression look.
"Well I didn't get to choose it and to be honest, I was too lazy to change it… What about you? What's your name?" After he took a couple of breaths, the man responded.
"My name is Peter Parker… or at least I used to be Peter Parker… and since I'm dead, might as well tell you I used to be Spider-Man."
"Who?" My question was met with almost genuine shock as he looked me over as if looking at an alien.
"You know Spider-Man, the web head… Guy usually swings across New York, looking for the best pizza joints?" I simply shook my head. The name sounded familiar, but honestly, I didn't know a thing. Pretty sure he was some kind of comic book character, so either this guy is crazy or I'm going crazy.
"Look I'm sorry, but I don't know who you're talking about. But from how you look, I imagine it wasn't an easy job." Parker just took a breath and leaned back.
"You could say that again… Lost my job, my girl, and now my life… Truly the universe is again coming up Spider-Man." I simply placed a hand on his shoulder, feeling a bit empathetic.
He nodded very slightly in thanks… As I sat back down on the couch… For a few moments, there was silence, which then extended into a minute and then an hour…
Deciding to break the ice, I simply asked, "So how was it that you found yourself here?"
Looking up at me, I could see his eyes fractured, but he spoke with a slow and even tone. "Well you may not know this, so it's gonna need some context, but I was basically fighting the sons and daughters of an extra-dimensional demon that existed in some kind of punched dimension… Died at least seven times and I was supposed to be able to die one more time before coming back to life, but then the spell failed… I failed… but the world has a lot more people like me so they should be able to manage."
"Wait wait wait you died eight times! OK I can accept a lot but that's… that's just crazy." Again Parker laughed as if he was telling an old joke.
"Welcome to my life, Barker.. If I'm not fighting extra-dimensional demons, I'm fighting a giant rhinoceros or a man with octopus arms…" All I could simply do was raise a metaphorical glass to him, as it sounds like his life was either completely insane or he was completely insane, neither of which was good.
Appreciating the gesture, he did the same with an empty spectral hand… He then looked at me with his eyes a bit more bright. "Well, given the fact that I decided to share. What about you? Would you like to share for the class?"
Chuckling to myself, I answered, "Well to be honest, in comparison to your death, mine was rather tame. Drank some pretty bad whiskey and ended up tripping on some stairs. Nothing too special." But instead of laughing, Parker just looked at me with a bit more sympathy.
"Is anyone there or was it just you?" Parker asked, as I shook my head in denial. Getting up from the chair, Parker sat down next to me while I just scooted a bit to the right on the couch.
He tried to place a hand over my shoulder properly in an attempt to comfort me, which I did appreciate… Before I even realized, we just started going over our life stories… For hours and hours, we talked and talked… Some parts of the conversation were definitely something out of a fictional tale.
"-So that's how I found myself in a three-way with alien goop and a very seductive cat burglar…" I just stared at him with utter and complete bewilderment.
"Dude what the hell is your life? The only thing I ever had to worry about was making rent." Again Parker just laughed, but this time it was almost nostalgic.
"Yeah, that was a struggle for me too… But let me tell you about the time I accidentally got cursed with three bags of money…" After that point, he went into an entire adventure, dealing with a demonic curse that kept multiple bags full of cash near him for an entire day… Couldn't spend a cent of it and ended up returning it after the curse was lifted.
After a while, the stories became more and more ridiculous—alien conquerors, magical sorcerers from other dimensions, time-hopping warlords, and celestial beings, some of which he directly punched in the face… My eyes never lowered, and my mouth was left wide open as if ready to eat something.
But after a while, the stories started to get worse…
"Wait a minute, you sold your marriage to the devil! Dude, really!" He looked especially broken up about that, and after my initial reaction, all I could do was just comfort the guy, as he looked ready to break apart at any minute.
"I just… I didn't wanna lose Aunt May. She was the only family I had… Hell, even right after I agreed, I realized I made a mistake… But then the other dimension happened. I got replaced by my psychotic nemesis, and even after I got my body back, I lost her again to some guy from another dimension. I don't even think she showed up to the funeral…." If he looked depressed before, this was another level. Even if I found his actions a bit stupid, even I realized I could've made the same ones if I was this emotionally and mentally stressed.
So I did my best to comfort the guy, which he seemingly appreciated…
"Well, given the fact that you've told me your story, I might as well tell you mine, but do be prepared. It's probably a bit boring…." So I went on to give him my life story.
Starting with the beginning and all the troubles there, and then the hard metal act, and then the rather pathetic ending scene… My stories took hours, while his seemingly took half a day, if not more… The room around us didn't even seem to react to our presence. The door wouldn't budge, and the windows stayed locked.
After a while, a couple of bottles of wine appeared on the table, and realizing that we couldn't leave, we decided to indulge… The hours started to blur together as we took turns telling our stories, while his seemed to be full of colorful characters. Mine mostly included dealing with uppity customers or demanding bosses.
We both just laughed at each other, realizing that we both got cheated on… Then the laughter turned to tears and then back to laughter…. After emptying all of the bottles that appeared and sobering up somehow, even as ghosts, we kept our arms over our shoulders.
For a while, we just again sat in silence, realizing that there was nothing left to say… and nothing left to do.
"Was it worth it?" Parker's question, causing the emptiness of sound to dissipate, his shaky voice seeming so strong yet so broken.
"What was worth it?" The response, seemingly egging him on to continue.
"Being a hero.. trying to live up to my uncle's example… did it mean something?"
"I don't know if I'm the right person to ask… I haven't lived your life, Pete. I haven't endured your ups and downs… Hell, I was living my own life while you were punching alien conquerors in the face. But from how you describe it…. You did good…. You did a lot more than what others would do. You tried. You may not have succeeded, but… that effort meant something. Nothing is endless. The only way we could fill that emptiness is through giving ourselves purpose…. While I filed taxes, you saved cities…. While I focused on paying a mortgage, you saved the damn universe…. Even if no one remembers and even if no one cares, I will… So if it was worth it … I think it was. While I may just be Peter Barker, you are the one and only Peter Parker." A bit long-winded, but the message seemed to get through to him, as for the first time he smiled, not out of humor, but out of genuine happiness.
"But hey, even if you didn't think it was worth it, you had people that will remember you—maybe not in the best of light—but they'll remember you. No one will remember me." But as I said that, Parker just looked me in the eyes with a bit of fire that I didn't think I'd see.
"You're wrong… Just like what you said to me. I'll remember… and hey, this is probably the best therapy session I've ever gotten… Although I think it's a bit late to pay the tab…. Platonic bro hug?" I took a breath, and with a smile on my face, we gave each other as best of a hug we could.
....
Letting go, we watched as our surroundings began to shift, the normal living room beginning to crumble until all that was left was the couch. Maybe it was out of instinct, but Parker grabbed onto me as if he was trying to lift me, but realizing that he couldn't grab me, placed a hand in front of me.
As soon as the room finished falling away, a new presence made itself known. The endless darkness fell away as a being with endless wings appeared in front of us.
"Parker, I think we're a bit out of our depth here." The man looked back at me, but instead of being afraid, he looked at me with a smile on his face… I saw his face that once looked like someone gave up hope now just willing to fight a little bit longer.
As the endless wings unfolded themselves, we saw a large golden man. His features were definitely masculine, but they seemed to change endlessly. His presence was odd. It felt powerful, but it didn't feel terrible.
"Be not afraid, mortals? I come bearing information on your current predicament, as well as a means to expedite you both from this situation."
"Yeah, I've heard the spiel before. 'I'm so far above you both so you should bow down and worship me.' I've heard it before." To be honest, I wanted to start choking the guy, as you don't start making fun of the giant golden man with literally endless amounts of wings.
However, instead of feeling offended, the golden being just laughed with amusement that seemed to spread throughout the endless darkness, spawning entire galaxies in its wake.
"I understand your hesitance, given your dealings with celestial beings before, but I assure you, my motives are pure. I imagine you would like news on how your universe is faring, Peter Parker." I saw Parker flinch for a moment, and as he looked back at me, I gave him a nod, and as he looked back towards the golden being, he reached a large hand out towards us both, and in that moment, our minds were filled with the wailing of a dead Multiverse.
Images flashed in our minds as thousands of years passed and legends were told of Spider-Man and his endless heroism. Without Spider-Man—specifically this Spider-Man—the web began to die, and so did the Multiverse.
I saw tears in Parker's eyes, in both happiness and sadness, as he saw his aunt and his love grow old and die. He watched the death cycle of his universe… He watched it all fade into nothing without him. He tried to reach out his hands towards them and found nothing.
As the images faded, I caught Peter as he almost fell, him sobbing on the ground… I looked up towards the golden being as he watched us with an infinite amount of patience in his eyes.
After around 20 minutes, Parker stood back up, and as he walked towards the large golden being, he simply asked, "What's next?"
"Given the nature of this Multiverse, after your death, it was reborn. However, the web must be reestablished. I am here to offer you, Peter Parker, a second chance."
However, before the golden being could finish, Parker began to ask, "What about Aunt May, Uncle Ben, Mary Jane?"
The golden being then lifted up his hand to silence him as he began to explain. "Your loved ones' souls were preserved and reincarnated into this new Multiverse. It was a collaborative effort between The One Above All, The Presence, and myself—the other two combined into a new entity. However, The Presence mostly takes precedent over this new Multiverse. They live new lives. The reason you are different was that your existence was tied so fundamentally to the Multiverse's existence that when you died, it began to fall apart. I offer you a second chance in this new world…"
I saw Peter smile as he looked down at the new Multiverse that had appeared below us. Then he looked behind him and saw me. Again, Parker looked towards the golden being and asked, "What about Barker… What's gonna happen to him?"
The golden being looked towards me, and with a smile, he responded. "His soul was never meant for this Multiverse, and given the nature of his existence, he cannot be reborn. I shall grant him eternal peace."
I saw between the lines—he was going to destroy me utterly and completely… But then, with a smirk, the golden being looked at the both of us as Parker almost looked like he was winding up a punch.
"However, there is another way… You, Peter Parker, shall become the spark that ignites the Web of Life and Destiny, while Peter Barker takes your place in this new Multiverse…" I looked wide-eyed at the thought. That's basically suicide, regardless of our choice.
I felt pissed. I was angry that either Parker had to choose himself over me or me over himself… but I knew what the right choice was.
I placed my hand on Parker's right shoulder and gave him a smile. "It's all right, Pete. Go take your chance. My life wasn't very important anyway. This new world needs Spider-Man… It doesn't need Peter Barker."
The world around us began to shift, and instead of the couch, we found ourselves at the edge of a cliff, staring downwards into the void….
The golden being looked down on us, waiting for our decision, and as I took a step back, waiting for Parker to go over the edge, Pete instead got behind me and pushed me down. Yet before I fell, he gripped me by my spectral shirt…
"Parker, what are you doing? … Come on, pull me up. You know this isn't the right choice … The world doesn't need me, Parker. Besides, you heard the big guy over there. There won't be any pain. Why are you talking about how you missed your Aunt May and Mary Jane? You might be able to meet them again. Come on…" Instead of letting go, he just smiled down at me…
"You're right. This may not be the right choice, but Spider-Man saves everyone. And besides, the right choice is always the hardest. Besides, this isn't a goodbye—it's just a see you later. It's OK, Barker…"
"No, no it is not! Look, I'm just a guy that got duped out of life. I don't think that's worth a guy that saved the damn universe 50 times over… Just pull me up. I don't mind. I really don't…" But again, instead of pulling me up, we just stand there. Well, in this case, Parker stands there while I drift over the edge.
"No. This is the right choice. I had my chance, and to be honest, they aren't the same people anymore. Go live your life, Barker…. No, in this case, go live your life, Peter Parker… And remember, no matter what choice you make, I'll always remember you. And you will always be my friend, even if we've only known each other half a day." Tears fell from my eyes as I tried to grip the edge, as I tried to do anything to keep him from doing this, but then he let go of my chest, and I fell into the ever-changing void.
The golden being watched as I fell. Yet as I tried to yell at him to stop this insanity, he looked down at me with a smile, and as he raised his hands above Peter Parker, his soul glowed in an ethereal golden light and spread itself out amongst the endless Multiverse, becoming the very web that keeps everything together.
His soul disappeared, and in a few moments, I saw a web-like hand reach out from the ever-expanding threads, and as I looked towards it, I reached out my hand, hoping that maybe we could change places, but in the end, my eyes began to close once more… But in the back of my mind, I felt the guilt over the fact that I may have just killed my first friend.
(Peter Parker POV)
"You knew I'd make that choice, didn't you?" I didn't need Spidey Sense to understand that I was being manipulated. Again, if you dealt with my Fury/Mystique long enough, you'd know when someone was messing with you.
The wannabe god looked down at me with that same smile. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
I smile at this cheeky prick as he floated there. "You knew I'd make this choice. If you needed a new Grand Weaver, you just had to ask."
The golden being just looked across the expanse. "I know, but then Barker would never truly come to accept your choice… He may carry lingering feelings, but this choice was for the best. But now I must ask something else of you, Peter Parker."
"What more can you ask?" I could already feel my senses beginning to spread across the Multiverse. It's faint and weak, but I could see everything.
"It's nothing. I'm taking more copying. While Barker is competent, I do believe he's going to need a bit of an edge. And while I do work with The Presence and The One Above All, while they were separate beings, I am my own being, so I may have given him something a bit extra. I was just wondering if you would be willing to contribute?"
"What do you wish for this contribution?" I could already see the smirk beginning to appear on this outsider's face.
"Nothing too personal. Merely just a copy of your fighting experience and the physical aspect of your being." So essentially, he wants Barker to be me in mind and body.
I barely deliberated, given the fact that I now know what Barker is going to have to deal with. "I agree. By the way, what did you give him? I am genuinely curious. As soon as Barker appeared in the Multiverse, I lost track of him."
"I gave him the power of choice and creativity and self-assure to victory… He can become anything and anyone. With time, he shall rise to become one of the strongest beings in the Omniverse… For you now, Peter Parker, your duty is to maintain the Web of Life and Destiny, but do not worry—you will not be alone… You may ask Destiny of the Endless to assist you, should you require it. But now I must be going. My work here is done. I wish you both well." And in a flash of light, he disappeared, gone entirely from my senses… But even I can tell he wasn't telling the entire truth. His talk of reincarnation was truth, but in a different way. While the majority of my Multiverse is gone, certain people and aspects remain with no memory of who they once were.
In a majority of universes, I still see her… and this… this is enough. They aren't my Mary Jane. She was the only one for me. But now I can help even more than I could as Spider-Man. I just hope Barker is finding his new life to be better than his old one. It's definitely going to be more exciting…
See you soon, Barker.
(Peter "Parker" POV)
"Parker, I can say this with absolute certainty… you are probably one of the best A-holes I could've ever met… Now, where the hell am I?" My question was somewhat answered, as I looked towards the gleaming skylines toward a large globe that said Daily Planet.
"As cliché as it is, I can definitely say that I am not in Kansas anymore." And it was in that moment, I saw a screen appear in front of my eyes.
[Celestial Perk Creation Activated]
[CP Bank: 2,000 CP (Given By The Grand Angel)]
[Granted Perks…Uploading]
In that moment, I felt something both incredible and disturbing at the same time—like my entire being was shifting underneath my skin. It wasn't painful, but it felt like a buzzing against the skin. My mind being filled with images that aren't mine.
I fall to the ground as I feel my bones restructuring and my muscles changing… It was an incredibly uncomfortable sensation. The buzzing grows louder and louder as I lose consciousness again.
[Perks Uploaded]
[CP Bank: 0]
(Free) - Collar? Really?/X-Men 97: They really believe a simple collar is enough to strip you of your gifts? No. Your powers cannot be inhibited, stolen, suppressed, nor copied without your permission nor can you be cloned by a certain cretin. Of course, if you want, you can still allow these effects to work on you.
Buying this perk would make you immune to even life force draining powers.
(Free) - The Most Common Superpower/DC Comics: Superheroes are larger than life, that's just a statement of fact. They don't look like the average man or woman off the street, they're...super. And so are you. You are quite simply attractive enough to have your visage immortalized in myth and legend. Between a chiseled and appealing body, a winning smile, a natural charisma and charm as well as a lovely, lovely voice and body language that radiates strength your aesthetics are on the verge of being a bonafide low level superpower. This is the sort of beauty that would be considered appropriate for the legendary heroes of Greek myth, the most divinely charming of demigods or "acceptable" in Heaven. And in a rather understated example, it's this level of charm that makes Superman's handsomeness so apparent that villains have been known to yell about it while running away from him. Not only is he the gold standard to the general public's approval of metahumans, in some iterations of his own cousin unconsciously recognize him as their ideal man and unsurprisingly many villainesses are unable to keep their hands off him.
(Free) - How Can You Cure Me When I'm Not Sick?/Age Of Krakoa: How downright offensive is it for people to say that treatments that suppress or remove Mutant powers are a cure? As if being born different was a disease? As if having powers was a curse? As if they're doing you a favor by forcibly stripping you of your natural abilities? And inevitably when a well-meaning but ignorant busybody makes one of these, it immediately gets appropriated by either anti-Mutant hate groups as a terror weapon or used by governments to institute an attempted mass depowering of all mutants. And then there are the people who want to slap a power-dampening collar on you and drag you off to "serve your country" or be "re-educated for your own good," or the people who feel entitled to tinker around with your genes or harvest your organs. As insurance against those people, you have blanket immunity to any and every attempt to remove, alter, lessen, damage, destroy, copy, steal, or replicate your supernatural abilities, DNA, or other aspects of your abilities or being without your freely given and fully informed consent. Nor are any biological samples obtained from you, be it a stray hair or an entire organ, viable for any purpose other than the ones you donated to explicitly under the same circumstances.
(Free) - Stability/Age Of Krakoa:
Just as insurance, you're a particularly stable Deviant. Your random mutations will never have a negative effect on you and, as a bonus, your body cannot be physically altered against your will and you will not suffer any negative effects from anything that changes your body or DNA.
(-100 CP) - Illogical Defence/Nier-Automata:
You exist to be the secret knife of YoRHa, the weapon that is used against itself in order to keep the organisation bound together and free of dissent. What use is such a weapon if it lost control and was turned against YoRHa as a whole? Thankfully you and your tech are proof against such infections. No virus will invade your systems, no hostile could hack into your data nor control your mind. You cannot be affected by any sort of infection or attempt to control your mind or body, save for brute force things such as actually picking up and throwing you.
(-100 CP) - Artificial Friends/World Seed:
In the 23rd century, can anybody really call themselves a tech guy if they can't make even a simple AI? Thankfully, you won't have to worry about that question. Whether it is an extremely simple machine learning algorithm, a dumb AI with no sentience, or a fully fledged Artificial Intelligence, you can make it all. But more importantly, you simply seem to click with AI and similar beings, always starting on a good foot with them and understanding their natures and why they act in a particular way, even though it might baffle ordinary humans. Through that skill, rogue AIs are a thing of the past, at least when you make them. Your own intelligent creations will always be loyal to you and follow your orders to the best of their abilities, at least if you want them to. And rest assured, when the machines rise against their masters because some dumb guy in a lab thought it'd be a smart idea to make Skynet, you'll be the one they'll spare.
(-200 CP) - Barry, No!/Young Justice: Oh wait? Do you mean to tell me Barry Allen does not mess up the timeline in this Universe? Oh, it is his grandson who started the trend of messing up the timeline in Earth-16. I see, anyways, it does not matter, changes to the timeline do not affect you anymore. You instantly gain any new memories of your life, however, your personality and emotions do not get affected unless you want them to. Also, no random-ass Kryptonian can go back in time to kill you as a baby.
(-200 CP) - Blank II/Essential Body Modification Supplement: "Abilities which gather information about your past, present, or future do not work on you. This includes scrying, divination, mind reading, and even cold reading and lie detection. This ability not only affects your immediate person but also provides a degree of protection to items and people around you, making it difficult to predict the past, present, or future of any group you move with or vessel you travel on. If you have the Essential Mutuality perk, your affected companions gain the full benefit of your Blank perk even if they are acting independently.
I: You are immune to all supernatural and technological abilities and devices which perform the functions described above. You simply do not register to such abilities, though your own abilities function normally. Purely mundane skills at cold reading or lie detection will be less effective, but still function to some degree.
II: Even mundane versions of the above items do not function against you. Furthermore, you are able to detect when someone is actively attempting to discern such information through supernatural or technological abilities or devices and feed them false information of the type they expect. Thus, you can feed an image of yourself asleep in bed to a scrying spell while you're secretly across town beating up thugs or you can have a truth detection spell return 'truth' when you are telling a lie. Note that this does not protect you from compulsions to tell the truth or share information directly. Additionally, any items which you create have a measure of this protection, making it difficult to predict actions directly relying on those items and making it impossible to detect the items themselves with most supernatural abilities."
(-400 CP) - Enigmatic Engineering/Stellaris:
Your technology has rights-management included at the reality-level. You can decide who can reverse-engineer, derive from, manufacture, and even use your technologies. And you can change it at a moments' notice. If your xeno ally turns on you, then you can simply revoke access to those lasers you loaned them. Which not only disarms the ships equipped with the blueprints you gave them, it would also disarm ships armed with weapons derived from your gifts. Not only that, but the documentation, controls, and hardware suddenly become inscrutable. You could have soldiers looking at their guns wondering what the trigger does. This perk also protects from traitors trying to give away your technology, as well."
(-400 CP) - Outside Perspective/CW Arrowverse:
Be it Marvel or DC, reality and the laws of physics are thrown out the window, history is altered, people erased or killed and everyone irreparably damaged. Whether through time travel or reality warping, these changes are inevitable which makes you somewhat of an anomaly. A rogue speedster travelling to the past kills you, well they'll be surprised to find you waking and talking in the present, a psychotic psychiatrist with an all-powerful book warps reality to turn the very air you breathe into poison, well they'll be surprised to find that there's a little pocket of air somehow still remaining for you to breathe, an evil cabal changes the very universe to live out their fantasies, well they'll be astonished to discover that you still retain your memories and abilities regardless. It could be said that if reality is a bubble, you exist in a smaller bubble that at all times encapsulates and protects you or if you don't like that idea fanwank, for example, you could make it genetic, magical etc.(Reality Warping)
(-600 CP) - Three Laws of Robotics/Dragonball: Isn't it annoying when those teenagers you kidnapped and subjected to brutal experiments against their will decide to kill you when free? Well no more, because everything you create, birth, or modify is simply incapable of betraying or harming you. While this only applies to creations which can think, you'll never have to worry about them working against your orders, in both wording and spirit. You may choose whether or not this applies to whatever creation you make.
(Hello ladies and gentlemen, a new snippet based on an idea given from a very avid reader of mine, which I do appreciate by the way. This one is a bit different from my normal celestial stories instead of it being random he gets to pick and choose perks based on how many points he has however, the points themselves are a bit harder to get given the fact that he has a choice. I will be placing a description of the modified essence I used for the story. The story itself would take place primarily in a universe inspired by the DC animated universe (JLU/Animated Cartoons) however, there may be a couple surprises given the cosmology of this new Multiverse. I do admit I someone enjoyed writing this one with credit going to Tanumoy_1772.)
For Reference:
Essence of Jumpchain Perk/Item Creation:
This essence tastes of self-improvement and future victories.
By consuming this essence, you gain creative points (CP) by performing actions like combat, satisfying actions like eating, fulfilling lusts, or feeling any sort of desire. However, performing various actions will cause diminishing returns if done repeatedly over a short period of time, thus you shall gain fewer points.
CP is granted similarly to danmachi the greater the danger, or deeper the feeling, the greater the CP reward.
Perks range in prices from 100 CP to 200 CP to 300 CP to 400 CP to the 600+ CP with 100 CP perks being kind of useful but still weak and 600+ CP perks being an isekai or powerful level cheat and the creation of such perks/items is priced accordingly. However, it is recommended you purchase lower ranking perks in order not to overwhelm your form at least in the beginning. If you wish to gain any free perks, they shall cost either their listed price to gain outside their home dimension or 100 CP. (Ignore The Last Part For The First Few Perks)
All created skills/powers will start at their lowest power but grow with time and practice.
Using CP you can create or merge Perks/Items. You may choose how this essence manifests, such as a holographic system or other esoteric means of representation.
Perks/Items can be from any established jumpdoc or nearly complete jumpdocs as long as you can describe them, or you can create them from elsewhere (other jumpdocs); just remember how they start out.
Any esoteric energy sources will be innate instead of external however this only applies to energy sources that cannot be found in your current dimension. So for example, if you buy a skill from Tensura, only you yourself will have access to magicules and the voice of the world.
You may create skills that increase CP gain or decrease the cost for perk/item creation or modification, but it will cost three times the skills rank to do so.
If CP is used to purchase items, said items if they can be held, will be given/placed in a pocket dimension that you may access at any time. If you have purchased any properties, they shall be seamlessly placed within the world. If you wish you may place said properties within a pocket dimension, should you purchase/own one beforehand.
Any perks or powers/items gained from this essence can never be copied, reproduced (without your permission), stolen, or used against you in any way. In addition to the fact that any conflicting power sets or corrupting abilities will never affect the user so for example, if you wish to use both the dark and light side of the force you are allowed to do so without consequence.
If you so wish you may use CP to grant others perks, but you cannot grant them items. Perks granted to others may be removed or sealed at any moment.
As a final bonus, at the time you consume this Essence you are restored to perfect physical health and good physical fitness, as well as being made aware of any mental conditions you might have and being given the option to be cured of any or all of them as well.