Jump 338: Marvel Magic

Jump #338: Marvel Magic (rebuild)
>The Moon, reversed: Temptations, small problems and minor setbacks overcome. The dawning of a new day.
>Age: 12
Because I'm still going to troll the shit out of Lady Thor.
>Identity: Trickster
No changes here.
>Race: God (-300)
>Drawbacks: (+1900) Mutated Stomach, Nerves Wrecked, Fool Me Twice, Muh Diversity, Jumpersleep, To Love In Hell, The Jumping Storm, Old King Jumper
So I'm a child, but I'm no longer LIMITED as a child would be, I have full power. That's a plus. New complications: conspiracy of universe travellers mucking with things, and Future Crux is on the warpath and is in fact probably responsible for this after his companions left him because he turned out to be an asshat.
Some of these drawbacks didn't exist when I made the build previously, and they make for a more compelling narration.
>Sorcerous Schooling: Arcanum Ego (Free, Trickster)
>Elder God Hybrid (2300, God)
>Skyfather (1800, God)
Gaia had a tryst with one of the skyfathers but she's not saying who. At least I get a boost to things that have to do with earth magic.
>THE POWER IS JUMPER'S! (1200)
Now this is new.
>Enthralling (Free, Trickster)
>Fool Me Once (Free, Trickster)
>Beyond Death (1000, Trickster)
Because I could not stop for Death, she kindly stopped for me. The carriage held but just ourselves. We had a cup of tea.
>Divine Metals: Adamantine (600)
>Divine Metals: Uru (Half price, 400)
It's important to be able to eat. And to be able to make a safe bedroom out of this stuff when you need some alone time.
>Seven League Boots (Free, Trickster)
>Crossing Rings (Free, Trickster)
>All-Black the Necrosword (0)
Again, nothing new here. Once again integrated into what will become the Black Blade.

>"But..."
>"You know..."
>"What?"
>"Come on..."
>"What's happening?"
>"Bobby... you're--"

CLANG. Jean Gray crumbles into a pile as a flying instrument of Asgardian doom grazes her temple. I jog up, moments later. "Oh crap, that's where I sent Thor's hammer! Sorry about that! I'll help Jean, you have somewhere else to be, Bobby."

>"I what?"

I wave my hand. "I said you have somewhere else to be."

>"...I have somewhere else to be."

I haul the redheaded strumpet to her feet as Iceman walks off, shedding the twelve year old facade into something more... me. "Now then. You listen to me, you little red-dye-using harlot, and yes I know that's not your natural color because you've been coloring it ever since that boy caught your eye in fourth grade and you conned your mom into it. You use the mind-whammy on anyone else again. Ever. Fucking EVER. And I will ERASE YOU FROM EXISTENCE."

>"You can't--! Why can't I--?!"

"Because omega-class or not, you're a fucking pitiful excuse for a human, and I? I am as far above you as humans are above a god damned grasshopper. And I noticed your attempt to get into my head just now. You tried to steal that boy's free will... after all you got away with blanking someone's mind earlier. You thought no one else would notice? You're wrong."

>"Let me go! Bobby! Someone! Help!"

"They can't hear you, Jean, they can't even see anything out of the ordinary. Not nice when someone's screwing with peoples' minds, right? And I feel you trying to use telekinesis to fight me. I didn't take away your powers, I'm countering them, and do you know how delicate I have to be to meet it with a matching force and not hurt you? If I wasn't careful you'd be PASTE ON THE GROUND!" And to demonstrate the point, she slams into a nearby tree, painlessly, but held firmly in place.

>"What... what do you want?"

I fix her with a level stare. "I want you to use your god damn brain. You're supposed to be a hero, aren't you? Act the part. Play mind games again... and your friends pay the forfeit along with you."

>"You monster..."

"Only because this is what I must do to get the goddamn message to sink in. Who's the monster here, Jean? Act like a decent human being, don't muck in people's minds without reason, and everyone is fine! What kind of threat is 'don't be a dick because it'll screw over your time-displaced friends'? Then again with friends like you... maybe it would be more merciful for them to forget they ever knew anyone named Jean. Do we understand each other?"

>"Yes... damn you, I understand."

I release the pressure holding Jean in place and she slips back to the floor. "Incidentally, you don't want to mention this exchange to anyone. But this is out of character for you, too - I take no pleasure in this, but someone else has messed with YOUR mind. Also watch yourself around older men when you finally get home, yeah? There's some creepy attraction thing going on, and I can name at least two who are three times your age that want to get in your pants."

>"W-what? Now you're just messing with me."

"Oh no, I assure you I am not... but to be fair, only one of them gets into your pants," I tell her as I stroll off, resuming my prior form.

>"No. No. Nooope."

...that exchange felt a little too satisfying...

Really, everything I'd written up previously happened as it happened. I took pleasure in taking the wind out of several idiots' sails. And then the incident with Jean happened. And then I started to look deeper. And once I looked deep enough, I found the cause. Travellers from other worlds. Other Marvel worlds, mind you, but other worlds, and many with a diverse collection of abilities that they were using to play with the world around them like they were badly made cut-out characters.

My companions and I engaged them directly, and it worked... not so well. It wasn't a matter of them being better - they were on equal standing with my companions, which put them damn close to me, and every time we got the upper hand, they'd flee.

And so, I cheated.

We began provoking them, drawing them away one at a time... and then I'd lock them in a room with a moose, disappear into the time-accelerated secure room in the warehouse, and we would systematically disassemble them. With the joys of teleportation and time running at 9500 times normal speed, we were finally able to get them all in one fell swoop - though it looked as though I, Carbon, and Imaginos were grabbing them and teleporting away in rapid succession.

After that, though... well, it turns out that a future version of me had been the one responsible for it. He'd tried to stifle my powers, to lock me onto the path that brought him into existence, but the powers... were mine. Not his. And his existence, time-displaced, set him apart from me.

We had the presence of mind to take ourselves off of Earth when the machinations became too much and we finally fought directly. My companions tagged in and out when they could.

The heavens trembled. Planets shattered in our wake. Stars were harnessed, used for power to fuel our fight. At least we avoided any civilizations.

The only way I won was by running out the clock.

Every time I face a version of myself, it gets worse. I hope I never have to do that again.


Jump #338: Marvel Magic
>Four of Pentacles (Power), reversed: Using your power freely for your own enjoyment and the betterment of others. Letting go and encouraging others to find their own path.
Despite my earlier words... I scrapped and completely rebuilt for this jump. I was going to be a bad person and do bad things. And then it was pointed out that I've lost my way. And that's not wrong. I'll have to pay for that, at least in the short term.
>Age: 12
>Identity: Trickster
Hardly the first time - I distinctly recall being Loki's offspring at least once.
>Race: God (-300)
>Drawbacks: (+1300) Mutated Stomach, Nerves Wrecked, Fool Me Twice, Kid Jumper, Muh Diversity, Journey Into Mystery, To Love In Hell
A hell of a decade coming up and the drawbacks are way worse than I intended before. I'm going to assume that I'm probably some writer's special snowflake, or subbing in for Wesley Crusher - nobody's going to trust me because I'm a kid, and I'm notably weaker because I am a child. Not that I know this, because while I can use my abilities, I have no idea that they're weaker than normal. In addition to that, my hands shake to the point that I'm stuck using a straw if I want to drink, but if I actually WANT to drink anything it had better be magical. Meanwhile the world's gone mad, and I have the feeling that I'm missing someone, and I'll do anything to get them back. Great.
>Sorcerous Schooling: Arcanum Ego (Free, Trickster)
If I am to have magic, I shouldn't need to draw on whatever the local power is - I AM power.
>Elder God Hybrid (1700, God)
>Skyfather (1200, God)
Elder God is strong. Skyfather, too. But both of them? I'm going to assume that the local Gaia had a tryst with... well, I'm honestly probably better off not guessing, if all indications are that I'll eventually have the same level of power as Odin or Zeus.
>Enthralling (Free, Trickster)
At least I have pretty, pretty hair.
>Fool Me Once (Free, Trickster)
This is actually not useful here for the most part, because Fool Me Twice cancels it out for the most part, but at least it helps people give me a FIRST chance. A little.
>Beyond Death (1000, Trickster)
Because I could not stop for Death, she kindly stopped for me. We talk sometimes. She's nice. One of the perks of being what I am now, I suppose. At least she's still sane, but she declined a pod.
>Divine Metals: Adamantine (600)
Ooh, pretty. Liquid gold! And it tastes awesome. Don't tell me that adamantine doesn't fit the terms of Mutated Stomach, now.
>Divine Metals: Uru (Half price, 400)
Also tasty, though you aren't cutting it up with a steak knife.
>Seven League Boots (Free, Trickster)
Well, I suppose they're useful enough.
>Crossing Rings (Free, Trickster)
Nifty. Instant communication.
>All-Black the Necrosword (0)
I've imported the built-up sword of darkness for this, appropriately enough. I think, however, that I'll be favoring my ironwood slugger for the most part.

Disappointingly, I won't be looking for the Infinity Gems here, because I don't think that's even going to cross my mind. Instead, I'm just going to do the same thing that most kids in the Marvelverse do - walk around and get into trouble, and depending on who's doing the writing, either poke holes in malformed logic, or use common sense to look like a stupid kid.

Among the many events while I was here... Civil War 2: Electric Boogaloo. Except it doesn't happen because an annoying kid is tagging along behind Tony Stark this week:

"Wait. Bruce Banner isn't the Hulk anymore, right?"
>"Well, yeah, but if he gets irradiated he'll destroy everything."
"But he isn't the Hulk so he won't, and even when he was, he could control it."
>"Someone who could see the future saw it happen!"
"Sooo... change it, right? Easy. Plus precognition is unreliable. They've got radiation meters, right?"
>"We're all going to pile in and arrest Bruce. Get out of the way, kid."
"But even if it happened, you can deal with him. Hulkbuster armor, right? Why are you all preparing for a war?"
>"Because he's the Hulk."
"Okay. Repeat after me: Bruce Banner. Isn't. The Hulk."
>"But he--"
"I SWEAR I'M GOING TO TURN YOU INTO A LITTLE PURSE DOG IF YOU DON'T CEASE YOUR YAPPING, ANTHONY STARK."
>"Look, you stupid kid--"
"ASDFGHJKL."
>"--arf! Bark arf!"
"NOW ALL OF YOU WILL SIT DOWN AND LISTEN OR SWEET CHRISTMAS IT'S GOING TO BE A KENNEL IN HERE."

Bullshit averted, with this and a couple of other things, and as usual it all comes down to a lack of people talking unless forced to. Apparently I'm entitled to flip out once in a while in the storylines, as long as I go to someone else's title next month and make myself look like a fool. Or a glutton. There was an issue where I was on Olympus and was drinking adamantine. Until I spilled it and suddenly there was a golden puddle on the floor. (Hephaestus turned it into a shield before it ALL solidified and saved my ass from everyone being enraged at me for ruining the floor of a temple, and Hera apparently appreciated it, but still. Embarassment.)

Jane Foster's a bit ridiculous, though. Especially when she knocks out someone who already surrendered. I followed her home, and watched her refuse treatment for the cancer she had. Repeatedly. Which was hilarious.

"Okay, so... I can fix you. Magic. It's simple, hocus pocus and you're set."
>"No. I don't even know how you got in my home."
"I followed you, I saw you looked sick under the hammer's blessing. How about divine intervention?"
>"No, kid. No magic."
"Divine energies aren't the same as thaumaturgy! Ugh, you're as bone headed as Thor himself. You know, a doctor could cut out most of the tumors if you wanted."
>"Are you for real right now?"
"Well, it's not like it's hard. I mean, I could tell them what to do and how. Okay, not that. How about biokinesis? Telling your body to cut off the blood to the tumors, let them die and get flushed out! I've used that before, or at least I think I have."
>"Get out of my house."
"Hey! I'm trying to save your life here--!"
>SLAM.
"Rude. Calm thine tits... just because I'm flat chested..."

The issue of Mephisto having Gaia, though... well, that really stuck in my craw. And yeah, a lot of what I did was wheeling and dealing (at a twelve year old level, which amused him) to have him let her out every so often, if with an anklet of hellfire, while he had me do things for him. Which accounted for a few times where I was the would-be villain of the issue but it was okay later because I was a kid, or something. Meanwhile despite being let out, Gaia would try to stop me, or mitigate the damage.

This was fine and dandy right up to a point about halfway through where I got her out for a brief period again, and promptly grabbed her, dragged her into the warehouse, and locked the door behind me. The hellfire wasn't kind, but a little bit of work and the rest of my companions working on it, and it was broken. Gaia stayed in the warehouse for the rest of the jump, but I had no such luxury.

One of the edgier moments was an issue near the end of my stay where Mephisto sought to destroy me for my transgressions directly - he'd tried via proxies often enough and not succeeded - and ended up being run through by the black sword. Which screwed with the political landscape of Hell. Which had ripple effects that bounced much further than I expected. But he left me alone, so that was that, if nothing else.

Also apparently a comic book with a twelve year old impaling Satan on an evil sword sold surprisingly well. Let's hear it for being the Wesley.

(I'm never going to live this decade down.)