Chimera Time 1 (Patreon)

[center]<<A͇̻ͨ̌h̻͓ͭͤ,̤̹͊ͧ ̜̱̑̀ȧ͇͕͗h͎̣ͩ̚,̲͔ͧ͐ ̝͍ͥ̽a͇͓͑̂h̭̥ͬ̒,̹͕̇̓ ̺̬ͪͦn̝̼͗ͮò̗͎ͩ ̤̣̊̓p̳͓̆̎e͎͓̔͛e̥̮̔͌k̪̥͂͋ȋ͎̖̓n̹̠ͫͤg͉̮͒͆>>[/center]

“So we’re in agreement, gentlethings?” the Q asked, mischievous smirk on the serpentine form he took.

“Yes.”

“We.”

“Are.”

“Stupendous! I’ll place all of the wagered Prestige in a safe-” the first Q began, only to be interrupted by three voices at once.

“No.”

“What? Don’t you trust me?”

“No.”

“We.”

“Don’t.”

“Were it.”

“Not for the Q’s.”

“Observations, we would not.”

“Partake in your Scenario.”

The first Q pouted, but conceded the point, “Fine. I can tell when I’m not wanted. I’ll just go get the contestant and then we can sit back and watch the fireworks. Anyone want to recap before I go? F̰̙̑͆o̠̪̾̚r̟̝̔ͮ ͕̩̐ͯt̜̘ͤͣh̪̊̆ͅe̼̟̽̎ ̩͇̈̽r͉͇̄̀e̻͕ͫ͊a̲̱̅̿d̖̭̾̈́ê̺͖̚r̤͈ͭ͆s̲̙̍ͥ?̲̮ͣͪ”

“We do not see the point.”

“But very well.”

“Your chosen mortal will be bound to the Cordon Stream.”

“And placed within a version of the Earth known as Earth Bet.”

“But to make things more challenging.”

“It will not be the Earth Bet he is familiar with.”

“Yup! One mega-shapeshifter dropped into Earth-Bet-With-Extra-Toppings, this’ll make the wait while being a bird stand go by so much faster. Anyway, I’m off to fetch our entertainment. Save a seat for me!”

With that, his mouth opened far wider than it should, his jaws elongating as if he were eating his body in reverse. There was a sound of slurping down a noodle, before his serpentine body was sucked into his head, followed by his head itself. All was quiet until, sure their fellow had truly left, the three remaining Q spoke.

“That.”

“Was.”

“Disgusting.”

“That’s why I did it, HA!”

[center]<<Ŵ̖͚ͩh͔̥̅͋a̭͓͑͑ṭ͕ͨ̈'̹̥͆̂s̩̭̃ͧ ̱͚̄͆ĭ̖͕ͣt̞͕ͪ͛ ͍̗̈̐m̪̥̒̚a̬̱͋ͦt̯̪͊̾t͕̬̄ͭḙ͎̎̔r̙̝̔̆?̱͓̓ͯ ͎͖̓̄H̞̦̑͋e̠̥͐̃'̟̝͋̈s̖̠ͭ͐ ̭̦̓̽n̟͓̽̽ö͈̬͛t̺̝̓ͭ ̯͈̿̚g̘̻͗ͧo̭̔̆ͅi͔̘͛̏n̬̼͑̄g̬̲͊̓ ̻͚̎̆t͍͍́̉o͚̱͂̈́ ͕̤̉ͨk͙̮͗̇e̞̺̾̎e͈̟̓̐p͓͓͋̈ ̺̬̊ͯt͖̩͛̏h̭̝̐̏a̞̲ͣͬt̜͇ͣ͊ ̖̪͗̈n̲̳̾͌a̹̠̔ͧm̜͙̓̋ê͚̻̊>>[/center]

I was at home, munching on some leftover pizza, playing some video games, admiring the high def resolution, while still annoyed that the plane company canceled my ticket. Sure, it let me preorder Cyberpunk 2077, but it wasn’t like I was traveling out of the country! Hell, I wasn’t even leaving the county! And I’d saved for months to buy that skydiving ticket!

I was in the middle of a Gym Battle when things started getting… weird. For starters, instead of what all the online reviews, Let’s Plays, and my own time playing this game in the past had told me, the first pokemon they called out wasn’t a pokemon. It wasn’t even from the pokemon franchise.

“Hello there, hairless ape!” the CGI form of Discord greeted with a wave towards me… Discord was in my pokemon game… My gaze turned towards the leftover pizza I’d been eating. I did bake it a few days after the expiration date, maybe it’d gone bad?

“No, none of that now,” Discord’s voice chided through the speakers, “hold on a moment, lemme get out of this box.”

I turned back to the screen just in time to catch Discord’s legs turning into a circular blur like he was in a Road Runner skit, before he ran towards the camera and popped out into my living room. Well, I’m definitely in a coma or someone slipped me something much worse than a mickey.

“Greetings, it is I, Discord, spirit of chaos. And you, hairless ape whose name I’m not going to say because it isn’t important, are given the opportunity to compete in a game I arranged with three of my fellow so-powerful-we-are-basically-gods-even-if-we-say-we-aren’t beings. What say you?!”

“… you’re not very good at your sales pitch,” was all I could say.

“Eh, fair enough, if your opinion in participating mattered I’d go for a softer sell. Anyway, I’ll be taking this,” before I could so much as blink, Discord moved in front of me and placed a claw against my forehead, before pulling it away, along with a silvery string. As he slurped down the string like a piece of spaghetti, I tried to figure out just what he did. “There, the other important elements of the cliche established by that orange lantern story have already been dealt with, so that was the last one. Now, since I’m not completely heartless, and it would make for a short and boring game if you got killed five minutes in, I am permitted to give you one power of your choosing. You have five minutes, or I’m picking, starting now.”

As I tried to process what was happening, Discord had pulled out an hourglass from… somewhere. I admit, it took me longer than it should have to realize what was going on. I was about to be isekai’d by Discord. And I was given five, now two, to pick out what power I’d have. It needed to be something that I could use in just about any situation but would be powerful enough to solve any problem, while still being intuitive enough that I wouldn’t take me a thousand years to get to the point of usefulness.

The first thing that came to mind was magic from Harry Potter, but that ran into the problem of taking time to become truly all applicable, and had a single point of failure in the wand. A power ring? Same problem, to say nothing of the mental issues that most of them had. The Force? Again, time and training. Shit, all the truly OP powers that I could think of off the top of my head had that problem.

Wait… what about the Omnitrix? No, the ten aliens in it were too limiting. But maybe…

“Ooh, good choice!” Discord practically cackled in amusement.

“But I didn’t-” I began, before he cut me off.

“No take backsies! Now, a few tweaks to your game avatar before I send you on your way.”

Anyone who said that Discord wasn’t so bad had obviously never had to deal with him showing up in their living room before radically changing their body. It fucking hurt like HELL! All while that bucktoothed asshat floated there cackling away, eating my pizza and drinking my beer!

“Yeah, yeah, I’m a spirit of chaos and discord, being a douche is kinda my thing. Now, off you go.”

[center]<<???>>[/center]

One moment I’m in my living room, the next I’m in a wooded area with nothing more than a snap of Discord’s… fingers? In any case, I’m stuck in the woods with no food, no water, no supplies, and no idea which way civilization is. I’m just glad I was fully dressed and had good walking shoes on before I was dumped here.

A quick examination of myself to see what sort of changes Discord had made came back with surprisingly pleasant results. I felt like I was ten years younger, but in better shape than I was at that age. I threw a couple punches and kicks, reveling in how smoothly my body moved and responded to my commands. No aching knee, no joints popping every two minutes, everything moved like a well greased machine. If nothing else, I was happy for the shot of youth and physical upgrad… A quick check showed that I wasn’t made part horse as part of the tune up, which was a bit of a disappointment.

Either way, I wasn’t going to get anything done just standing here, so I picked a direction and started walking. I had no clue where I was, didn’t know what the time of day was, and all I knew about wilderness survival was ‘don’t feed the animals’. But if Discord wanted me to be entertainment, then it wouldn’t make sense for him to drop me someplace where I’d die the first night before I encountered another person.

I managed to keep that attitude for the first five-ten minutes. Let me tell you, seeing nothing but trees when you don’t have the supplies or experience hiking gets really old, really fast. I figured I’d see if I got the power I had been thinking of when Discord sent me here, but if so I couldn’t figure out how to use it. After the twenty minute mark, and the only thing I achieved was a concern about giving myself hemorrhoids, I gave it up and just kept walking.

“‘I say, I’m going to invite myself into your home and send you on an isekai. But as a consolation prize, I’ll let you pick a power.’ ‘Well how about,’ ‘Wonderful, splendid! I’ll send you along without an instruction manual or even confirming that you got a power and I wasn’t blowing smoke up your ass!’ Fucking chaos asswipes!” I shouted as I shoved my way through some bushes.

Unfortunately for me, the bushes hid that there was a very sharp drop. Not a long one, but I ended up rolling down a steep slope onto a (thankfully empty) mountain road. Pushing myself to my feet, I brushed off the dirt and took stock of my new surroundings. A mountain road who-the-fuck knows where, but it was asphalt, which meant civilization.

Once again, picking a direction, I continued walking. This was going to get even older, really fast. Why did people do this for fun? My feet were killing me! There wasn’t another person around for miles, the birds wouldn’t shut up, the pollen was making my nose run, and there was a green fireball flying overhea… wait, what?

Looking up, there was indeed what looked like a green ball of fire flying through the sky. I couldn’t follow it’s path completely, not with the trees blocking my vision, but judging from the sounds of a crash, it couldn’t have landed far. I know what they say about cats and curiosity, but dammit, I wanted to see what could make a green fireball.

There was another steep hillside between me and the meadow where the fireball crashed, but I was able to see it in advance this time, so I slid down as I made my way to the small crater, leaking green smoke, but no flames. Slowly walking forwards, eyes narrowed in the bright sunlight, I just barely made out the shape of a person hunched over in the center of the crater.

“Ya alive down there?” I called out, only for my eyes to widen as the figure leapt out of the crater, right at me.

What happened next… it was like moving my arm, or taking a breath, I wasn’t consciously aware of each step in the process, but I just… did it. My legs grew, my feet elongated, bone blades grew from my arm, a beak pushed out of my face as three horns grew on my skull and my neck elongated, my center of gravity shifted as a tail grew from my back. All of this happened in a fraction of a second, my transformation finishing just in time to receive a heavy blow to the chin from a set of metal arm binders.

I went flying back, my now reptilian body crashing into a tree. Shaking my head, I took a moment to glance down at myself. I vaguely recognized the alien species I’d turned into, but it definitely wasn’t from the franchise I’d been thinking of. Instead of being an alien from Ben 10, I was from a 90s kid book series about a buncha kids fighting an alien invasion by turning into animals. For the life of me I couldn’t remember the name of the species, but regardless, I was just cold cocked in the chin.

Looking up at the one who’d hit me into a tree, I blinked in surprise. The orange skin and red hair made the identity of the woman who’d hit me obvious, but I was still surprised to see the scantily clad form of Koriand’r, AKA Starfire, in the flesh.

“Slaut-for nhe vhor thaht!” she shouted as she pointed the arm binders at me, a glare on her face. I had no clue if this beak would let me speak English, but parrots could so I might as well give it a shot.

“I have no idea what you’re saying,” I managed to get out, the movements to make the right sounds without having lips not quite but close enough to instinctive.

“Hak shak thor rho!” was her reply, before leaping at me, her arms up to hit me arm binders first.

“Oh shit!”