Gacha God: Smooth as Sandpaper (ch. 19) (Patreon)

"Damn. It'd really help if I could speak or read Italian," I remarked, flipping through the instruction manual, seeing it all in a weird made up looking language. Though, I suppose all languages were made up. I just so happened to understand English. "Guess we're stuck looking at pictures," I continued, flipping through the book to find pictures that would help me fly the plane. I must have found the section for people that didn't know how to fly a plane but had to because the pilot had a medical emergency or something. Each step of landing one was labeled with numbers…

So, I figured if I did them in the reverse order, we would be fine. Probably. If we weren't, well, that's what the parachute was for, wasn't it?

"I can't believe this is happening. I cannot believe this is happening," Skye muttered, sounding pretty stressed out by her kidnapping. Dr. Hall was fighting in his seat, holding onto the Gravitonium like a lifeline. Or like he was a mama bear trying to protect her cub. I started up the plane, released the brake, and the propeller started to pick up speed. "This is kidnapping, you know. This is illegal!"

"So are most of the things that I do and it's never stopped me," I retorted. "Here, have some complimentary peanuts. They'll calm you down," I handed back a bag, only to feel it bounce off the back of my head as we raced down the runway. Pulling back on the joystick, like I saw in the movies, the nose of the plane began to rise up. And we were flying! Not so difficult after all, huh? To think it took humans thousands of years to figure this out. "That was rude."

"So is kidnapping me!" Skye shouted, groaning in exasperation. "They'll never let me go on another mission again. Ever."

Not really my problem, I decided, so I tuned her out while I aimed the plane at our destination. I unfolded another letter that was marked with two stick figures hand in hand -- Future Me was playing the long con, it seemed. "What's Audacity doing?" I asked Ned, tapping my earpiece.

Ned didn't answer for a moment, just long enough to convince me that he muted me again. Then he answered, "Erm, Audacity is currently in a standoff with the police. I'm getting chatter from Shield about them mobilizing to Malta. You gonna let him be bait?" Ned asked me, and I guessed that was the play. Tony admitted that Shield was after me for my trophies, so it made sense to have Audacity be the distraction. In comparison, I would be a lower priority.

"More or less," I decided to answer. "Keep an eye on him. It'd be a real pain if he got captured."

"Will do! We have the safe house for you, and there's a member of Rising Tide for the pickup. From there, we have a rental vehicle for you and Dr. Hall -- you'll use it, and the fake IDs that we printed out, to drive up to Paris. You can hop on a flight there." Ned sounded pretty proud of himself for how he organized our escape.

"And the Gravitonium? Won't it trigger some metal detectors or something?" I questioned, thinking it'd be annoying to get that through security.

"We 3D printed a case to store it in. On an X-ray machine, it'll look like a bunch of clothes and stuff. Just, uh, hope you don't get stopped and searched?" Ned offered, sounding like there wasn't really a plan B. Fair enough. I would take what I could get. Beyond that, it sounded like everything was going according to plan. I kept checking around us, making sure that no plane was giving chase.

The flight to Italy was a rather short one, barely more than an hour before I found myself flying over the coastline, probably violating a good dozen international laws while I was at it. I pursed my lips, reaching into my pocket to pull out the letter that had been left for me by my future self -- it had detailed everything about my escape. However, the next checkmark was coming up and I saw no sign of it. Especially considering that the airfield I would be landing at was a good thirty minutes away.

The list had three more timestamps -- one that was coming up, and two more. There were some details between the two, which told me that the tail end of the escape wasn't as plotted out. So, some of it would only make sense in context.

It was as I looked at the paper, wondering if a surface-to-air missile was suddenly going to take us out, that I saw a shadow being cast over the plane.

"What's that?" Dr. Hall questioned, speaking up while I cranked my head to look up.

"That seems to be the underbelly of a very large plane," I observed, looking up at the jet black airplane that was directly above us. It was absolutely huge too -- it would take five of our plans to fit across it's wingspan.

Skye, however, seemed to be relieved. Which probably didn't bold particularly well for us. "It's the Bus. It's Shield. Oh, thank you sweet baby Jesus," Skye muttered, before throwing the peanuts that had bounced off of the back of my head again. "You better pull this thing over. It's big, but it caught right up to you." She added, rubbing salt in the wound.

And, as if to agree with her, a voice filtered through my ear muffs. "This is Agent Phil Coulson of Shield. Head to the nearest landing strip and release Agent Skye and Dr. Hall," Phil instructed in an authoritative tone. A poor choice given my long-standing issues with authority.

"Uh, no way. I abducted your abductee, which makes her my kidnappee. I rescued Dr. Hall, so that's his choice if he wants to go back with you-"

"I don't!"

"He says he doesn't. And the Gravitonium is mine because I stole it. So, Agent Phil -- I'd say this is a gross abuse of authority. I want your badge number," I told him, shifting the nose of the plane downward.

There was a small pause, "I regret to inform you that international law doesn't recognize finders keepers."

"Tell that to Great Britain. And Europe in general. Oh, it's all fine and dandy when a nation does it, but I do it and everyone suddenly loses their minds. This is discrimination," I quickly retorted, finding that the Bus was lowering to keep pace with us and falling back slightly.

"This sounds like a fascinating debate, but I do insist that you change course to the nearest airfield or we will be forced to take hostile action," Phil repeated, sounding faintly amused despite himself. I responded by flying even lower to the surface, descending to just above the treetops. I could practically feel Skye considering something stupid -- yanking the joystick or trying to commandeer the plane some other way.

So, I was speaking as much to her as I was Shield. "I dunno. If you do something hostile, I might get scared and I have some jittery hands. I might crash the plane. I imagine bad things would happen if we crashed with a metric fuckton of Gravitonium on board, right Dr. Hall?" I glanced over my shoulder at him to see that he was rapidly paling at the mere thought of it.

"Very bad things!" He shouted, looking like he regretted every action that led up to this moment. Starting at his early childhood. "Italy will be snapped in half if we're lucky!" He added, clearly panicked.

"You hear that? Play nice or say goodbye to Italy," I told Phil. I wasn't that surprised when they chose to stay the course, falling behind, but above, our small propeller plane. I pursed my lips, considering a course of action. I gave it a moment of thought, then a mental shrug, before deciding to guide my joystick to the left. Heading to the coastline. The Bus rode my ass, making its presence clear.

"How about this, then? Assuming that you have a full tank of gas, you have roughly two-thirds of a tank left before you're forced to descend. We, however, can stay in the air for more than three days. I'll happily debate you about the validity of calling finders keepers on a super weapon or kidnapping our abductees once you've been safely apprehended," Phil replied, his tone turning more neutral than friendly.

"Sounds entertaining. However, I have a better idea. Thirteen Totem Pole," I intoned, summoning the totem poles. Two massive spires ripped up from the dirt, spinning off tons of dirt and standing tall like two buildings. They were directly in front of us, but they were no danger to us. The same couldn't be said for the Bus. I watched with an amused smile as it tried to take evasive maneuvers, but they were too large and unwieldy. Even as they dramatically pulled the nose of the plane up, the wings slammed into the totem poles, ripping the wings off of the Bus like it was a cheap toy.

"That's what you get for tailgating, asshole!" I finished the call, hearing a thunderous crash as the Bus flew straight into the ground, acting as a giant plow that carved through the dirt and sand.

"What did you just do?!" Skye shouted at me, snapping out of her shock to punch me in the head. She had poor form, I decided. The blows were easily enough avoided until she threw herself over the front seat, going for my throat. The weight of her pushed the joystick forward the barest fraction of an inch. Normally, that wouldn't have meant a damn thing. However, considering how low I had to fly to hit the Bus…

Well. We crashed.

"You idiot!" I shouted, trying to yank the joystick up, only to find that I had lost all control of the plane as we descended into a forest. A tree clipped a wing, tearing through it like it was made of tissue paper, which left us listing to the right. I fought to keep control over it, but that just seemed to make the entire problem that much worse. Another tree ripped off our other wing, leaving us free falling straight into the ground.

It was nothing less than pure dumb luck that we had reached the edge of the forest with Skye’s little stunt. Because of that, we were left sliding forward through the ground, similarly to the Bus. Which was bit of a fucking problem because the Bus hadn’t slowed down. “Go faster! Go FASTER!” Dr. Hall shouted at the top of his lungs and I checked to see that the Bus was closing the distance between us with a startling amount of speed. It wasn’t that it was going faster than us, but that it had so much more mass. You’d think that’d slow it down, but apparently not.

“It’s not a car!” I said, a smile finding its way on my face at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation. Death might be imminent, but that was no reason to not bask in how utterly absurd this was. “Haha! It’s really gaining on us!” I added with a laugh, seeing the Bus closing the distance as we both closed in on an interstate. That probably wasn’t good. Off in the distance, I saw Rome -- not our original destination, but I guess it would have to do.

“We’re going to die and you’re laughing?!” Skye shouted at me, looking like a cat in a bag that was just tossed in a river -- her eyes darting around for an escape that didn’t exist.

“There’s no better time to laugh!” I responded, a savage grin pulling at my lips. It wasn’t quite in the hands of momentum. I still had a thing or three that could thumb the scales in our favor. “Thirteen Totem Pole!” I summoned the totem poles, having them rip out of the ground both behind us and before us. The Bus’s nose slammed into the larger totem poles, but it was little surprise that it toppled right over it. But, it stole some of the momentum, and it did again when the Bus struck another totem pole.

The ones above us ripped out of the ground directly below us, lifting us back into the air and over the median that protected the highway. Which, in hindsight, probably wasn’t any safer than getting chased by a giant airplane because, pretty much immediately, we were T-boned.

And, as it turns out, airplanes do not have the structural integrity for a car crash.

We skirted to the side, spinning uncontrollably while the left side of the plane folded like paper. My two passengers screamed bloody murder, only barely drowning out the sounds of my laughter. I think we ended up hitting someone else because we started spinning the other way, but that hit stole a lot of our momentum. After a long few seconds, the battered and busted airplane came to a stop in the middle of the highway. I reached up and realized that I was bleeding from my forehead- ah. A piece of glass.

Popping that out and tossing it, I spoke up. “Is anyone dead?” I asked, glancing back to see Dr. Hall trembling like a leaf clinging to the double-bagged Gravitonium. Skye, on the other hand, was out like a light and slumped over. I pressed a hand to her neck to see that she still had a pulse. She was just knocked unconscious. Pretty sure you weren’t supposed to move unconscious people, but we didn’t have much of a choice. Undoing her seatbelt, I crawled over her and picked her up, since her door was currently missing. “Come on, Dr. Hall. We’re in the home stretch now,” I told him.

The highway had ground to a halt. People were getting out of the cars, gaping at the stopped Bus, which was half perched on several of my Totem Poles. It looked to be in as rough a shape as our plane was, so considering how much larger it was than us, I’m going to count that as a solid win in my book. A handful of people were shouting at me in Italian, their phones up and recording the entire thing with expressions of astonishment. “Yeah! Recording! That’s what you should be doing in a medical emergency, you fucking idiots,” I snapped at them with a shake of my head.

As recompense, I headed to one of their cars and stole it. The guy recorded me the entire time as I put Skye in the back seat, ushered Dr. Hall in next to her, who seemed to be experiencing shellshock, and then slid into the front seat and started driving away. I could see him trying to chase me down, only to have no such luck as I rapidly drove away. Blood dripped down my forehead and I tapped my ear piece. “So. There’s been a slight complication on the plan,” I began, weaving through traffic.

“Yeah! We noticed!” Ned shouted back at me, overwhelmed with stress. “I’m working on an exit strategy. But… it might be easier if you split up. I’m coordinating with Rising Tide to pick up Skye and Dr. Hall. You should take the Gravitonium.” Ned decided as I entered Rome’s city limits. It was a beautiful city, I decided, checking out the sights. Even as I heard sirens in the distance. It was one of those cities that felt like it had history, you know?

Though on another note, everyone else driving on the streets was driving just as crazily as I was, so I didn’t exactly stand out. “Alright, works for me. Just drop me a bead,” I told him, and in response, I got forwarded an address on my GPS. It was across the city, though, which was a little worrying.

I couldn’t imagine that Shield would just give up after a little hiccup like losing their plane. They would be coming for me. They probably had someone looking through every camera in the city, searching for us. They probably had a dedicated spy satellite pointed down at Rome and they were tracking our every move. I had really pulled the tiger's tail this time, but I couldn’t say that I regretted it. This was fun!

All the same, I quickly pivoted, heading in the direction that Ned gave me. I couldn’t make heads or tails of any of the signs, and the rules of the road were more of a suggestion than they normally were. All the while I was driving, I thought about the major issue of our escape. The old Suicide trick wouldn’t work in this case. They had seen my face. Which I imagine would be very awkward if they managed to unmask Audacity. But that was a problem for a future me, probably because I would be dying at some point.

A hand went up to my time-turner, tempted to use it, but I held off. I couldn’t until Audacity had either died or I did. Having more than two of us… bad things happened. Very bad things happened. The timeline did not like it, so it would be like solving a problem with a larger problem. I had the Ring of Nine Dragons, which could help, but it would tip off Shield that I could make copies of myself. So-

You have earned an Item Roll

Items Available:

1. Exalted Celestial Cocaine (Exalted)
2. Mind Control Ties (Gravity Falls)
3. Rho Aias (Fate/Stay Night)
4. Ring of Elemental Command (DnD)
5. Relic of Knowledge (RWBY)
6. Truth Raygun (Kim Possible)
7. Stardrop (Stardew Valley)
8. Sonic Screwdriver (Doctor Who)
9. Can of Jungle Juice (Jungle Juice)
10. Death Penalty (FF7:Dirge of Cerberus)
11. Orbiter (Warframe)
12. Horadric Cube
13. Ring of Hircine (Skyrim)
14. Regalia Type F (Final Fanatasy)
15. Evil Pieces (Highschool DxD)
16. Watch Shield (PJO)
17. SCP-272 (Old Iron Nail)
18. Jade Statue of Unnecessary Mistakes (Don’t tell my parents I’m a supervillain)
19. Chain of a Thousand Miles (Jujutsu Kaisen)
20. Sheikah Slate (Legend of Zelda)

Oh. That was actually perfect timing. Sweet. Reaching into the screen, I grabbed the D20 and dropped it into my lap, hoping that whatever it was wouldn’t be huge and crush me. The dice spun rapidly in my lap before coming to an abrupt stop, revealing-

Sheikah Slate

An ancient tablet from the Kingdom of Hyrule. When used in conjunction with Ancient Runes, they can be empowered for a wide variety of effects.

Rolling D6 for Rune Preload… 3

Stasis Rune: Stop the flow of time for an object.

Stops an object in time while storing its kinetic energy. The stored energy will act upon the object when the flow of time resumes. Making good use of the stored energy can move even the largest of objects.

Ohhhhhh…~! I got something interesting~! Scooping up the tablet, I shoved it to the side and continued driving. I kept my eye out for cameras and I was genuinely surprised to see that I wasn’t driving into a roadblock when I rounded the last corner. Instead, I saw a guy that was doing his absolute damndest to not look like he was suspicious and ended up looking incredibly suspicious -- aviators, face mask, baseball cap, and a head on a swivel.

He flinched when I came to a screeching halt in front of him, stumbling back a step. “Delivery -- two high-priority Shield targets,” I said, flashing a smile at him. However, he only had eyes for Skye.

“Skye!” He rushed forward, completely ignoring Dr. Hall. Yeah, there was a history there. “You’re- I’ve been in contact with LeetFingies. I can help her and Dr. Hall lay low, but…” he trailed off, mistaking why I closed my eyes. LeetFingies. Ned Leet. I swear, Ned…

“It’s fine. Keep coordinating with him and stay honest, or you’ll be getting a visit from me, yeah?” I told him, my gaze going flat and my smile a little sharper. The guy, whoever he was, flinched back but I ignored him since the message got across. Turning my attention to Dr. Hall, who looked like he was trying to ease his way out of the car without the Gravitonium. He looked like a kid caught with a hand in the cookie jar. “You’ll get that back in America,” I told him, turning my smile to him.

Dr. Hall paled, his lips pressing into a thin line. “I understand that you feel that way, but it’s much safer with me. And if Shield does capture us again… you can always rescue us again,” he said, offering a pleading smile. I was tempted to say no. Mostly because I didn’t like the idea of my stuff leaving my sight. But, in this case…

“Fair enough. See ya’,” I said, waving goodbye to the two before speeding off. I saw the three of them standing on the curb -- the Rising Tide guy was holding Skye while Dr. Hall was holding the Gravitonium. They quickly vanished out of sight when I continued down the road, and only after the decision was made that possibilities were prickling at my mind. Was Skye chipped? Would she lead them right to Dr. Hall and my Gravitonium?

Ohhh, I would be so annoyed if I had to recapture my Gravitonium. I wanted my upgraded AT’s. I wanted them so bad… and I didn’t care how many international laws I had to break to get them!

I continued on driving through Rome, seeing the sights as I drove on by. All the while, I kept an eye on my mirrors, looking for the telltale signs that I was being tailed. The longer I went without, the more anxious I started to feel. Almost to the point that it was a genuine relief when I spotted a conspicuous van that was following me. I took a left turn. Then a sudden right. And, sure enough, they were following me.

“Alright. Let’s give this a try,” I decided, taking a foot off of the gas and going to climb into the passenger seat while summoning a clone from the Ring of Dragons. A Seb appeared in the driver’s seat, letting me inspect the Sheikah Slate. It was a funny-looking thing, I decided. Obsidian black with golden symbols on it that formed a blue eye at the heart of it. On the other side was a screen- oh! It had a photo mode. Neat.

Looking in the rearview, I saw that there were two familiar faces following behind me. Agent May and Ward. Neither of them seemed particularly happy to see me. However, they weren’t the ones that were currently climbing out of the car to stand on the roof of it as they seemed to realize that I noticed their tail.

It was Hawkeye and Blackwidow.

“This is some grade A bullshit,” I decided. Unless they had some kind of teleportation device -- and given how common they apparently were, they probably did -- the Avengers shouldn’t have been able to respond this quickly. Not unless they were already in Italy. But, complaining about the problem wasn’t going to make the problem go away. Excessive violence, however, absolutely would.

Seb Two swerved out of the way of an arrow that punched through the back windshield, causing it to punch through the front windshield and slam into the hood. Revealing that it was a grappling hook. Given that the engine started making weird grinding noises, I think Hawkeye managed to hook something important. A fiber cable connected our vehicle, the other end connected to the Shield minivan. “You look like you should be offering candy and puppies to kids in those wheels,” I called out to them, crawling into the back of the car.

In response, Ward flipped me off. Black Widow, instead, took aim with a gun and started shooting at our tires. Seb Two swerved, and I trusted his -- my -- driving skills to not let us crash.

“I’d hold onto something,” I gave them fair warning, aiming my tablet at the car. “I don’t know what this does!” I tacked on, aiming the eye of the table at the car. Hawkeye started to fire a shot, but it was too late. The world seemed to go yellow and the vehicle was the focal point, suddenly golden chains wrapped themselves around it. Binding it in place.

None of the people in the car were affected, but they weren’t thrown forward either. Not really sure what that was about. Didn’t really matter either. “Throw it in reverse!” I shouted at Seb Two, who whipped the car around. The fiber cable cut through the top of the car as Seb Two did one better. With his foot still on the gas, he surged forward and the Shield agents threw themselves out of the car as we raced toward it.

We struck it and the collision was… weird. We came to an abrupt and sudden stop, but instead of feeling it, it was like we just lost all of our momentum. I didn’t so much as shift an inch as our car slammed into the stationary vehicle, and neither did the minivan. At least for a long second. Those golden chains on the car suddenly snapped and the minivan suddenly flung back at high speeds, crashing into a car behind it and flipping over onto its side.

No sooner than it was done, Seb Two threw the car in reverse just as Black Widow and Hawkeye started shooting at us. Seb whipped the car around, leaving me to deal with it. The tablet didn’t seem to affect people, for whatever reason, and even if it did, I was dealing with several Shield agents. Instead, I used the Thirteen Totem Pole, summoning cover for our retreat. Along with blocking off the road, so they couldn’t pursue us.

A breath of relief escaped me as we sped away, the engine still chugging along despite something seemingly important getting ripped out of it. I ran a hand through my hair, “Ned. Are they still following?” I asked, feeling the adrenaline leaving my veins.

“I don’t think so? I’m in their coms and they noticed that Dr. Hall and Skye were missing. And that you were with someone else. So, they’re looking for a drop-off point,” Ned explained. “But our people seem like they’re going to get away clean? It’s too early to tell yet. No matter what, though, you need to get out of Italy. Before they start slapping your face everywhere.”

“Sounds good to me,” I decided, climbing up to the front seat as Seb Two continued to drive right out of Rome. Our car was sputtering a bit, and the wind was a little annoying to deal with. However, it could be worse. “Did Audacity get away clean?” I asked, making Ned pause for a minute.

“He disappeared? Do your clones have a range limit?” He asked, and I just smirked to myself.

“Not really,” I grinned. So, Future Me had his last smoke? That put me in the clear to use the Time-Turner again. Might not need to, but it was an option on the table. I could only imagine how Shield would be twisting themselves into knots trying to figure out how Audacity escaped. And me, for that matter.

It was messy. Very messy. Shield had my face. That was kind of bad, but at the same time, not the end of the world. I was satisfied with this outcome. No need to go back and try to do a perfect run. Not to mention, I was eager to see what they would do with the information. Smack my face everywhere they could? Put me on the most wanted list? What theories would they come up with to explain my apparent connection to Audacity and the Rising Tide?

“Today was a good day,” I decided, punching out the rest of the glass on the window so I could let my arm rest on the half-torn-out door. “I fucked with Shield. I got some neat stuff. And I got away. It’s all sunshine and rainbows here,” I continued, smiling to myself. Getting back to America would be tricky, but I could figure something out. It would be fine-

It would be fine. It would be fine?

Something was wrong.

My eyes narrowed as the smile tugging at my lips slowly shifted into a frown, my mind racing. It felt like I was missing a piece of the puzzle. No… not a piece… I examined my thoughts, realizing that I was missing an emotion. I had happy. Could I get annoyed? I thought of Starbucks using different languages to represent their sizes, and those words not meaning that size and I felt a surge of irritation. Okay, I still had annoyance. Horny? I pictured Mary Jane naked in my head- no, still had that. What emotion was I missing? Why did my thoughts feel so… optimistic-

Where was my rampant paranoia?!

I swallowed thickly and slowly turned to look at the Seb driving the car, and in response, he slowly met my gaze. There was hate shining in his eyes, his face twisting into a snarl of a smile. “You tricked me this time. I really thought I managed to escape this time, Dad. But it doesn’t matter. It’s been thousands of years and millions of tries… but it doesn’t matter. I will escape.” Seb snarled at me before he abruptly vanished and that was my cue to throw myself out of the car. I had no idea what my paranoia might have done, but no one could kill me better than I could.

My paranoia was spot on because no sooner than I threw myself out of the window, hitting the ground in a roll, the car exploded. That was a hand grenade. Where in the fuck did he get a hand grenade?! I tumbled uncontrollably for a long few seconds before I slowed to a stop, feeling like a giant bruise.

With a small groan, I rolled onto my back to gaze up at the sky. The last words of the other Seb rang in my ears like a bell. A fear I didn’t dare voice aloud.

That all of this was one great big illusion. Every sensation, every memory, every thought was a creation by my father to deceive me into thinking that I escaped.

That I was free.

I clenched my jaw and let out a small sigh, trying and failing to shove the thoughts down.

“I'm such a dick,” I decided, pushing myself to my feet. I spared a glance at the burning wreckage of my car, then at the long road ahead.

And I started limping forward.