Jump 371: Charmed

Jump #371: Charmed
>The Sun, reversed: The warm passing glow of dusk. Peace without vigilance.
>Age: 23
>Location: Demonic Wasteland
Why do I keep starting out in Hell and Hell-like dimensions.
>Identity: Neutral Human
>Scenario: (+600PP) To (Not) Serve In Hell
Though this be madness, yet there is method in't. And those 600 points? They're going toward power negation.
>Drawbacks: (+400) Psycho Cop With Magic And Friends
Aaaaand that's why I need power negation. Pity I don't actually start the jump with it. Don't worry, it'll make sense later.
>Avatar Link (1100, Neutral)
>No Such Thing As Magic (Free, Neutral)
So I'm taking the The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal's approach to magic, then. You see, the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal is a vicious wild animal from the planet of Traal, known for its never-ending hunger and its mind-boggling stupidity. The Guide calls the bugblatter the stupidest creature in the entire universe - so profoundly unintelligent that, if you can't see it, it assumes it can't see you.
>Dreamer (Free, Human)
You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.
>Heartless (500)
Oh. Uh, if I don't actually kill anyone, will I know I even HAVE this potential?
>Badge of Jumper (Free, Neutral)
Let's give the Ouija board a skip. I'd rather have a badge that lets me identify as any agency that I want. I can get a lot of mileage out of that. Crap, no wonder the cop's messing with me - I probably pulled some juris-my-diction crap and it threw them off of what they were doing, or pointed the wrong kind of attention at them.
>Transplanted Power: Power Absorption [300, Neutral]
>Transplanted Power: Power Mimicry [0, Neutral]
I get 600 bonus points for items as a mortal, so let's go with these two things. Again, a pity I won't start the jump with them.
>Power Containing Lantern (300)
I kind of want to just study this and see if I can replicate the empty vessel. Finding one of these near a crime scene, taking it with me to study, it's definitely a thing.
>Companion Import: Coven (0)
Probably a good thing that I brought my companions along. I think they may be better off being something better than mortals, though.

So, starting this jump out, I'm apparently in the employ of some law enforcement agency on the state level. The California Bureau of Investigation. Which accidentally interfered in an investigation on the local level, which involves a small town, its corrupt police force, and a warlocks. Not that I know that yet - apparently interfering with their work once is one too many times and I get exiled to some otherworldly demonic plane, which is where I open my eyes.

I did my best to stay within in-jump bounds as far as my recovery goes - every last one of my companions were imported as witches, and with a LITTLE stretching of things... to wit, encouraging them to scry for me after I didn't call one of them when I was otherwise supposed to... got the eight of them together to find me, and then summon me via local magic. So, the first hurdle was jumped - the ones beyond that were simply a matter of finding out who exiled me and why. While doing my best to hold down my job, of course.

As time progressed, I turned over the lantern to my companions, ostensibly so they could study it, while I went about on my own. My luck seemed to be rather a bit suspicious, collecting parking tickets, finding my personal car towed, and so forth. Annoyances ranging from petty to major. Except... a month later, I was exiled to the wasteland again. Which promptly turned my mood from annoyance to anger. I was promptly summoned back again - a contingency spell had let my companions know that I'd left Earth - but I kicked things up a notch as far as things go.

I filed for a leave of absence and begin doing gumshoe work, keeping a low profile. Found out that the rogue cop was backed by the chief of police and the mayor of this stupid little podunk town. In retrospect once I found that out things made a bit more sense - the town was named Sunnydale - but fortunately the name was just a shout-out and I wasn't actually back on the Hellmouth.

And then I was caught by them, dragged into a basement, beaten for a dozen hours... you know, the usual sort of thing that you might expect from the dirtiest of the dirty. I played off my visits to the otherworldly plane as hallucinations and told them I thought they'd drugged me - my returns as unexplained, falling back through a portal somehow. They extracted the names of my companions as personal friends who were "into wicca or something, they're weird", though I let them take their time trying to beat it out of me - they didn't need to know that I could dampen my pain impulses, that I could have regenerated the injuries from blunt trauma and cigarette burns, that I could have snapped the chains they put on me at any time. It seemed that the lynchpin of their plan was to take my companions out first, and then give me an extended death.

It was at that point that they had their friend the chronoturge rewind time by twenty-four hours, so that their capture of me would never have happened. Except... I forgot to disable my blanket immunity to time-based magics. They ended up in the same basement I was in, where they'd been preparing things a day earlier, but I was there too. And the chair I had been chained to, and the chains themselves, no longer were. Naturally the logical response at this point is to run like the wind, confusing the hell out of EVERYONE who sees my broken and bleeding body, and escape.

I returned three hours later in a business suit, with a small army's worth of weaponry, and proceeded to completely liquidate the Sunnydale PD and Mayor's office. I didn't get the men who I was after, but nearly everyone else? They were very much dead. (And don't worry, I'm not being bloodthirsty, I can guarantee you that they all had it coming.)

In the weeks that followed, there was a cat and mouse game between them and myself. They broke the masquerade but I was seemingly the only witness - turned out that lead wasn't a match for magic shielding, and I had many close calls that wounded me, but they couldn't keep their shields up ALL of the time. So I bought some silver from a pawn shop, melted it down and made a crude knife out of it, then had a (very confused) priest bless it. That... that worked just fine to cut the chronomancer's throat, because you have to take out the weakest link first. Especially when the weakest link keeps rewinding time whenever he realizes he's been cornered.

After that, the other two weren't quite as difficult to deal with. Mostly because I fought smarter than a simple direct assault, luring them into fights where I wanted them to be - and magical shielding is good against many things, but standing on a land mine is NOT one of them.

When I cornered the last one in his basement-slash-ritual-chamber and introduced him to silver buckshot, he ended up being in too much pain to do a great deal else, though he was frantically trying to heal himself when I ended up cornering him and putting that crude silver knife through his stomach. And then we had ourselves a chat.

>"You... you can't do this, man, this isn't how this is supposed to go!"
"No? I don't know how you pull all this crap off, but it ends, here and now."
>"...heh... hahahaha! You think... oh, you think we're the only ones! That's... haha, we thought you were a witch hunter... you and your coven."
"Witch hunters are a thing? Great, next you'll be telling me there are vampires."
>"You are a... ruthless one," he admitted, slowly gathering his breath, arcane energies coursing over his form occasionally. "But okay. Give me... ten minutes, and I'll be good as new. No more of this... you win, kemosabe."
"I win?" I tilted my head as he pulled the silver knife out, landing next to him with a dull clatter. "If I let you walk away, you'll come back. Again and again. Nope, not happening."
>Fear began to grow in his eyes. "H-hey... come on, now. You're one of the good guys. That'd tip the scales, wouldn't it? Killing me in cold blood... that isn't what good guys do."
"Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun," I replied cheerfully, channeling my inner Harry Callahan. "Do I look like someone who cares about the good and the bad?"
>"But your witch friends- ask them! About how it works! Or are they-"
I cut him off. "No, they're on the side of good. Me... I'm just a guy. No powers here."
>"They'll- other warlocks, demons, all of that, they'll come for you if you do this! They'll wipe you out!"
"I suppose the only languages they understand are power and violence, right? Demons," I snorted, standing up and dusting my knees off. "And if I kill you, it puts me on the side of the devils instead of the angels."
>He nodded frantically. "Yeah... now you're getting it! It's like the Force, man! You go dark, you don't come back!"
"Mm." I picked the shotgun up from where it was, laying off to one side, and brought it to bear. "Well, from what I hear, 'tis better to reign in Hell. Maybe I'll try it."

The universe felt like it went a bit off-kilter when I pulled the trigger of that shotgun. I suppose, looking back at it, my choice of words was an acceptance of a potential role. A fraction of his power left to me, though not his powers. Though of the two jars that I located in the basement... I took them, I gained what they contained.

Really, everything that happened after that point simply fell into place a little too quickly. I now had Power Negation, Power Mimicry, and Power Absorption. Combined with the avatar link that I established with my companions after that incident, that set of three powers would pretty much trump absolutely everything short of outright reality warping and sneak attacks.

The plot in canon is... well, what do you expect from this sort of show? Things are very, very black and white, after all. So I murdered everything that was Evil, carved a throne out of demons' skulls, and rested there.

Oh, and the Halliwell Sisters met me. I was cheerful, told them I was just an ordinary cop before I got wrapped up in all of this, and I'd chosen to be a necessary evil rather than a baby-eating-pants-on-head-retarded evil. Wished 'em well, told them our paths would never cross again.

I literally have all of the powers of everyone who was evil on the show, including the Source himself, while sparing certain characters their downfalls because of the stupidity that is the Source Of All Evil. And boy, isn't THAT a self-righteous title.

I'm not certain whether the good guys were happy that they won because for all intents and purposes evil ate itself.