The Ascendance (Original, Superpowers)

[Xilph]

I want to help the world trough science, by conquering it. We have a great chance of becoming a Coil/Tinker/Mover hybrid.

Click to shrink...

Why? Serious question but what is the point of conquering the world or trying to? It's much more effort for next to no extra reward, revolutionizing every field of science there is and doing it for heroic reasons would be much more cost effective for results and give basically the same results.

Of of course I expect things to go massively askew once plot starts butting in but it's a better goal.

 

[CreakyDinnerTable]

[X] No matter what, you wanted to help people.
-[X] Look up recent crimes with weird things to them, and recent vigilantism of people in masks. People with super powers might try comic book stuff.

The Ascendance
​

You decide that research is your best bet. You go on news sites. looking for recent, strange crimes or vigilantes. Anything that can't be explained. Despite starting at reputable news stations, you soon find yourself at the crackpot conspiracy theory sites. You carefully navigate your way through webpages, seeking something that might even sound somewhat believable - and you do find something.

In Canada - a forest fire. It had left scientists scratching their heads, because a forest fire? In Canada?

It seemed incredibly unlikely. Impossible. But a scant few hours ago you'd slowed down time. The impossible was becoming possible. Maybe someone up in Canada and Ascended as well? Discovered their Embodiment - Pyrokinesis? Or... more than that?

Other than that there were no cases even close to definite. Claims that someone had sent a man flying with a single punch, but no official sightings. Some claims that a man had set off a flashbang inside an airport, despite security. Witnesses had claimed that he had been holding nothing prior to it, but they were shaky at best.

You sigh. In the end, not much had come of your research - just a reported forest fire in Canada, which could have been the result of bizarre weather and global warming. Or something. You weren't sure of the specifics.

You spend a little time finishing your homework, before checking in on social media for any gossip. Not much was new - just a few posts from friends about various stuff, a news article about school education, and someone had posted a weird story about celebrity look-a-likes.

All boring and pointless. You sighed. Now that you had your power, you kind of wanted to do something with it. Something important. Something world changing. But... what? What was there that you could do with your power that could have a large effect in a short amount of time?

Heh. Time. You felt like you had all the time in the world, but at the same time, not enough. You sighed again, and heard your mom call you down for dinner.

You had some polite discussion about your day with your mom and Clara. Your brother was as unresponsive as usual. But Clara did mention that there had been some weird activity recently.

Clara worked with NASA. That was pretty awesome on its own - but she was a desk worker, not an actual astronaut. Still, she dealt in the working of the satellites, and during dinner she mentioned that some of the internal systems had been giving back garbled nonsense. The problem fixed itself, apparently, but they were sending a team up just in case.

It caught your interest, for some reason. You felt like there was more to it than that, but when you pried, Clara deflected with some excuse abou security.

Still, it was something to investigate. Maybe it would turn out to be fruitful.

You returned upstairs. Preparing the bedding, you pulled back the sheets and slightly shifted the pillows. There was a corner of a piece of paper poking out from under it. You frowned and looked closer. You didn't remember seeing that earlier.

You pulled it out and read the shakily written words on the front:
​

DUCK
​

You didn't think, you just ducked. And the top of your house was suddenly gone in a flash of light and a sound that nearly destroyed your eardrums.

You looked up to see a man hovering in midair, face looking around with vague interest. When he noticed you, a smile emerged on his face. He began floating slowly over to you, eyes locked with keen interest.

What do you do?
[ ] Use what you know of your powers to run.
[ ] Try and find your mother, Clara, and your brother, and escape with them.
[ ] See if you can fight back.
[ ] Try and talk with him.
[ ] Become one with the flow.​

 

[redaeth]

[X] Become one with the flow.

Because invisible text is always the interesting option.

 

[Raron]

[X] Become one with the flow.

We are going to go back in time, leave the note and flee, creating a paradox, aren't we?

 

[Ampersandwich]

[X] Try and talk with him.
[X] Become one with the flow.

It's possible that playing Knight of Time will require our full concentration, but if we can talk to him we might get some useful information.

It's much more effort for next to no extra reward, revolutionizing every field of science there is and doing it for heroic reasons would be much more cost effective for results and give basically the same results.

Click to shrink...

Perhaps, but that's also a quick jump into empire-building-style quest territory, which I'm quite happy not touching with a ten-foot pole.

Also, Reed Richards Is Useless. (Warning: tvtropes.com link.)

We are going to go back in time, leave the note and flee, creating a paradox, aren't we?

Click to shrink...

That wouldn't be at all paradoxical.

 

[CreakyDinnerTable]

[X] Try and talk with him.
[X] Become one with the flow.

The Ascendance
​

"Okay, just... take it easy." You say, as you get to your feet and back away. Your mind races through the possibilities. "Uh, just, tell me what you're doing here, okay?"

You're calm. Too calm.

"You're Ascended, right?" The man says. At your hesitant nod, he continues. "Well, then its only natural that I would want to fight you, right."

"Uhhh..."

"Whatever. Enough talk." With that, he sweeps his hand across his body and a telekinetic wave of force slams into your body, throwing you across the decimated room and out onto the street. It hurts, but not as much as it probably should.

You can't think of what to do. You can barely stay slowed for long enough to do anything, and someone you don't think running a few meters will stop this guy.

You can think of only one thing to do:

Become on with the flow.
​

Active Skill Discovered: Temporal Voyaging
By subjecting yourself to the flows and rhythms of the time stream, you have discovered the skill to randomly place yourself in history. Randomly, at least for now.
​

You submerge yourself in the sea of tachyons and feel them encase your body, slowly draggin you through history.

"No!" The man shouts, and swoops towards you, hand just brushing you cheek as the traversal completes.

You are catapulted through time, and you barely manage to pull yourself out of the river of time to see...

A castle. Bannered, with guards in actual plate armour. Wielding actual halberds.

This... This is incredible. Time travel?! That's possible?

You stand up slowly, watching as the guards notice you and call out - only for on of them to be flung into the sky like a ragdoll, easily twenty, thirty, fifty meters up, and the other's armour to crumple and crush, compacting his insides into a ball of blood and flesh. You turn.

The man is standing there. He looks furious.

"Your Embodiment?" He all but snarls. "What is it?"

"Aeon." You reply warily. He snarls, and tears a tree from its roots and catapults it away. "What about yours?"

"Power." He says, tersely, apparently in control now. He visibly calms himself. "Well, looks like you're my only hope of getting back now, so... If you send us back, I won't kill you."

"I..." You're hesitant to admit weakness. "I can't. The process is random - we could end up anywhere."

He scowls, then stops. "I guess we're stuck here for now, then. I'll protect you, at least until you can protect yourself." He rolls his shoulders and turns, as the first guard returns to the ground with a scream and a splat.

"What's the plan?"

[ ] Enter the castle.
[ ] Explore the woods.
[ ] Enter the flow again.
[ ] Write in.​

 

[redaeth]

[X] Ask him why he thought attacking a brand-new, only one day since Ascension, Ascendant was a good idea.
-[X] Ask him what he knows about Ascendants. Since you are going to have to get you and him back, you need all the information you can get.


Information first. Then we can decide on what to do.

 

[Xilph]

Well that was unexpected, setting change surprise and all.

[X] Ask him why he thought attacking a brand-new, only one day since Ascension, Ascendant was a good idea.
-[X] Ask him what he knows about Ascendants. Since you are going to have to get you and him back, you need all the information you can get.

On a different note, Holy Hell! We have time travel! I mean I know time manipulation is basically one of the most broken powers there is with even a tiny bit of misbalance but time travel is one of the most powerful applications of it there is without crippling weaknesses. The random part qualifies but apparently that's temporary only.

 

[Phantomknight]

[X] Ask him why he thought attacking a brand-new, only one day since Ascension, Ascendant was a good idea.
-[X] Ask him what he knows about Ascendants. Since you are going to have to get you and him back, you need all the information you can get.

 

[Raron]

[X] Ask him why he thought attacking a brand-new, only one day since Ascension, Ascendant was a good idea.
-[X] Ask him what he knows about Ascendants. Since you are going to have to get you and him back, you need all the information you can get.
-[X] Explore the woods.

That better not have been one of our ancestors.

You stand up slowly, watching as the guards notice you and call out - only for on of them to be flung into the sky like a ragdoll, easily twenty, thirty, fifty meters up, and the other's armour to crumple and crush, compacting his insides into a ball of blood and flesh. You turn.​

Click to shrink...

Welp, 1st rule of time travel, don't kill anybody. We are probably immune to changes from the timeflow, but others probably aren't.

 

[Xilph]

Welp, 1st rule of time travel, don't kill anybody. We are probably immune to changes from the timeflow, but others probably aren't.

Click to shrink...

It's quite possible that we're already protected by virtue of precog immunity making our our position in time inherently volatile and how it inherently makes the timeline non-deterministic so just being here naturally screws up everything. At least it has the possibility to, there are two many variations of change ability and paradox stuff to actually know how it works here, anything from parallel timelines to the self consistency principle being in effect for an immutable timeline. Really too much is unknown about the mechanics to make a call any way.

 

[CreakyDinnerTable]

It's quite possible that we're already protected by virtue of precog immunity making our our position in time inherently volatile and how it inherently makes the timeline non-deterministic so just being here naturally screws up everything. At least it has the possibility to, there are two many variations of change ability and paradox stuff to actually know how it works here, anything from parallel timelines to the self consistency principle being in effect for an immutable timeline. Really too much is unknown about the mechanics to make a call any way.

Click to shrink...

This is gold. Lemme just write this down...

 

[Xilph]

This is gold. Lemme just write this down...

Click to shrink...

I've put a lot of thought into the different ideas of time travel, plenty enough to poke at anything to see the possible implications for this. Anything from unchangeable timelines to Back to the Future to the many styles of Futurama is out there with different possible ways to screw up in all of them. Although on thinking about it I don't think we can have a self-consistent timeline, the fact that we make the timeline unpredictable just with our presence means that the timeline is not immutable and thus it is possible to make changes, of course we could still have jumped to a parallel timeline so we're not making changes to our home one, who knows we might not have even travelled through time, just jumped to a different timeline where the world is hundreds of years less technologically advanced so it seems that way and upon going home nothing will have changed, the randomly placed in history comment makes that unlikely but not impossible.

Lots and lots of different possible options, it's why I said we really can't guess at what would happen without more info.

 

[CreakyDinnerTable]

[X] Ask him why he thought attacking a brand-new, only one day since Ascension, Ascendant was a good idea.
-[X] Ask him what he knows about Ascendants. Since you are going to have to get you and him back, you need all the information you can get.

The Ascendance
​

You're silent for a few moments, watching him as he peers around. He eventually notices your silence, and glances at you. "What?" He says irritably.

"Why did you attack me?" You ask, abruptly. When at first he doesn't say anything, you continue. "I've only been Ascended for a day. How did you even know where I was?"

He remains silent for a few moments, looking at you appraisingly. "... I..." He starts to say, before lapsing into silence. "When you Ascended, you saw the vision, didn't you?" He asks, instead of answering.

You nod, remembering it vividly. The winds tearing at your body, the seas boiling - the light. "And the Light asked you what your Embodiment would be?" You nod again.

He shakes his head. "I didn't get that choice." You frown.

"What?" You ask, confused.

"I didn't choose my Embodiment." He slumps his shoulders slightly, and you suddenly see him as the awkward, reed-thin twenty year old he must have been, before his Ascension. "Everything else happened normally. I saw the vision of the trembling earth, the boiling water - the Light." He laughs, almost a bark. "But when the Light told me of my Ascension, instead of asking me what my Embodiment was, he just said, 'You Will Perform Dark Deeds One Day. Take The Gift Of Power.' And then I saw the end of the world. A fist, gripping the planet in one hand - crushing it. And ever since I discovered my power... I've been confrontational. Angry. Prone to violence. And... Sometimes I just... Know where the others are. Not always - it's random, almost."

He shakes his head again. "It's almost as though he wants me to find the other Ascended and fight them." He laughs bitterly. "Do you know, when I Ascended, I nearly killed my girlfriend? She said it was as if a bomb went off beside her." He stares into the distance silently. "She'll never walk again."

You're silent while he talks. After a few moments of quiet reassurance, you talk again. "What do you know about the Ascendants?" You ask, finally. "About all of this?"

He snorts, drawing himself back up to his full height to become the powerful, dangerous man you first saw. "More than you do, not as much as I'd like. I've been trying to find them. At first, to contact them ask them what they know, but my bursts of violence have gotten worse, recently..." He shook his head. "I came across an Ascendant. Her Embodiment was Memory, or something like that. She was the one who first told me about the visions, about how she was able to choose her Embodiment. regardless, she said she could look into the past, see times long past... The ancient Gods, as we know them - Zeus, Ra, Odin - were almost certainly the first Ascendants. The gift has been passed out over the years, although no-one knows why - and now it's hit the current generation. It's been dormant for a few centuries, now, but it's reawakened again- no-one I met knew why."

"There have been several, recently." He laughs a little. "One guy in Connecticut, his Embodiment was Deception - he could form illusions. Craziest motherfucker I knew. Made a whole wedding think that they were being attacked by bees, nearly drove the groom of a cliff-" Seeing your unsmiling face, he sobers up a little. "Had to be there. But, other than that, nothing. I don't think anyone does. Unless you could find someone whose Embodiment was Knowledge, or something, I don't think we'll ever know." He shrugs. "Whatever. So. What's the plan?"

[ ] Enter the castle.
[ ] Explore the woods.
[ ] Enter the flow again.
[ ] Write in.​

 

[redaeth]

[X] Meditate on the Flow. Feel how it ebbs when you slow down time. Learn how it surges when you enter it. Know the Flow. And let it take you home.

 

[Xilph]

[X] Meditate on the Flow. Feel how it ebbs when you slow down time. Learn how it surges when you enter it. Know the Flow.

So basically what Redeath had, only without the part that might get us dumped in the original Jurassic Park by accident. Could be worded better but it is basically just letting them examine their powers to try and figure out how to get home but not actually attempting to get home.

 

[Raron]

[X] Meditate on the Flow. Feel how it ebbs when you slow down time. Learn how it surges when you enter it. Know the Flow.