After the End: Serenity

The Final Reaper woke up.

He looked at the bedroom. It wasn’t one he remembered, but he really didn’t remember much from early on. It had simply been too long.

“Thomas! How do you want your eggs this morning?” A tall, leggy redhead opened the door to look at him, before frowning. “Did you drink too much again last night? I thought you didn’t do that anymore?”

“I … I don’t think I did? My head doesn’t hurt. But … everything’s … I don’t remember … wait .. you’re … you’re … Rissa?”

That sounded right. Rissa had been important to him once. They’d … lost track after the Initiation. Possibly she’d been lost in her Tutorial? No, that wasn’t right. It was worse than that. He couldn’t remember, but he remembered it was bad.

Rissa looked at him. Was that expression disgust?

She turned away from the door. “Scrambled it is. Like your brains.”

He started to get up, only to realize that everything worked differently. Possibly because he was alive again, or possibly because he was pitifully weak. He wasn’t sure which, but thought it was probably both. He could make it work, but it was weird relying partly on muscle memory instead of individually controlling everything.

He concentrated to pull up his Status.

Name: Not Yet Selected

Species: Human (Altered Template)

Path: N/A

Level: 0

Tier: 0

Path History: None

Condition: Healthy

Mana: 110

Stamina: 110

Might: 1

Agility: 1

Phys: 1

Understanding: 1

Will: 1

Mind: 1

Perception: 1

Luck: 1 - 100%

Resistances: Unknown

Affinities: Unknown

Concepts: Unknown

Aspects: Unknown

Titles

Previous Supreme Existence

Altered Template

Almost everything looked like he knew everyone’s status would - simply setting the bottom of what “alive” meant. Stats didn’t always mean exactly the same thing for different species, but that probably wouldn’t matter too much, humans were very common. The odd things were the “Altered Template” … and 100% Luck.

Was that what “Good Luck” meant?

He wasn’t sure he wanted it. He wasn’t sure what Luck actually did, and he’d certainly never seen it as a percentage. It wasn’t something he could control. As usual, though, what he wanted didn’t matter. He had to deal with reality.

Previous Supreme Existence

You were the Supreme Existence in a previous incarnation of the multiverse, and can remember some of what came before. This title is hidden from all but you.

Altered Template

Your form echoes your past achievements. This title is hidden from all but you.

Hidden was unusual, but for the best. He didn’t need people hunting for him. He hoped that the Altered Form wasn’t as severe as it sounded - he didn’t want to take the same path.

While he was musing, he’d managed to find clothes in the closet (which he noted was mostly women’s clothing, but there were a couple of outfits that looked like his). He looked at them, and remembered leaving them there. The more he thought about it, the more memories seemed to come back.

He remembered why Rissa had commented on his drinking. There had been a few years where almost every Friday he left work to go to a bar and tried to pick up a girl. If he failed, he wouldn’t head home until the bar shut down.

Rissa had been the last girl he picked up that way. To this day, he didn’t know why she’d been there; she never went to bars. The next morning, he’d planned to go in to work - it was a Saturday after all, only the other workaholics would be in, so he’d be able to get some stuff done - but somehow Rissa had talked him into going on a picnic in the park instead.

Thomas looked up at the mirror set in the closet door and didn’t recognize the man he saw. Lightly tanned, with brown hair and green eyes - the Final Reaper hadn’t looked like that at all. But then, the Final Reaper hadn’t been human. Not anymore.

“Thomas?”

He turned to look. Rissa was standing in the doorway.

“Breakfast - hey, are you okay? I was just joking about the drinking thing, I know you didn’t - we watched a movie - “

Thomas paused. How to explain? “I - I had the strangest dream last night. The … end of everything. And … I caused it. It was a win, but also a loss. It was because I lost everything … and … the people who did that … they had to pay. And they did. But it didn’t fix anything ...” He trailed off as Rissa went pale, but he had to finish. “It … seemed so real. Now it’s all mixed up in my head …”

Rissa was hugging him tightly. He closed his arms around her. “Am I reassuring you or are you comforting me? I think you’re more upset about this than I am. It’ll - it’ll work out. I’ll remember. It’s coming back.”

Breakfast was uncomfortable. Thomas had to concentrate on eating normally, and Rissa kept glancing at him, then looking away. After the dishes were cleared away, though, Thomas wasn’t sure what to do with himself. He knew the tutorials would be starting soon - they might even have already started, since they didn’t all happen at the same time - so there wasn’t anything he needed to do because of his previous life. He was already late for work since he’d overslept, not that that mattered anymore.

“So - uh. What’s the plan for today?”

Rissa looked at him from across the kitchen. Tears were running down her face. “You - you go to work. I stay home, the doorbell rings. I don’t recognize the man at the door, but he has a gun. He pushes me inside, then everything goes black. I - I hoped it wouldn’t be so soon ...”

Pain shot through Thomas’s heart as he remembered. That was how he’d lost Rissa. Right before the Tutorials started, she’d been shot in her home. They never found out why, because everything stopped when the world changed.

Rissa had mentioned seeing flashes of the future before, and as far as Thomas knew she'd always been correct. This seemed longer than the flashes she'd mentioned, but combined with his memories he didn't doubt her.

Thomas raised his head from his hands and asked, “You saw this?“

Rissa was about to answer when the doorbell rang. She hesitated, which let Thomas reach the door first. He looked out the peephole to see someone he recognized - someone from the Final Reaper’s life. He hadn’t met Macho until several years after the Initiation, but he’d been a real problem. Powerful and ruthless …. Thomas knew he didn’t have time to think about what to do.

So Thomas opened the door.

He’d already changed Rissa’s vision - his memory - just by oversleeping and not leaving for work, so maybe he could change it more, and not lose her.

There was a pistol pointed directly at his gut. “Turn around and go into the house. Do what I say and no one needs to get hurt.”

Thomas didn’t believe him. That wasn’t Macho’s style, and it wasn’t what Rissa had foreseen. He needed to take the gun out of the equation. He hadn’t been primarily melee - but he’d learned some of the basics over the millennia. Maybe that would help.

Thomas pushed forward, ramming his chest into the man’s hand to deflect the gun. He twisted as he moved forward, trying to put the man off balance and bring him to the ground. As they fell, Thomas heard the gunshot and felt the pain, but that didn’t matter. Winning the fight always came first. The man’s head hit the walkway hard, then Thomas backhanded him in the temple. He wasn’t trying to leave the man alive, but as long as he was no longer a threat it didn’t matter. He saw the man’s skull deform as Thomas hit him, and figured that was probably good enough.

In the background, he heard Rissa talking on the phone. He levered himself onto his knees and checked the enemy. Still breathing, but definitely not moving.

Identify

[Skill not available]

Well, shoot.

He stood and kicked the gun away from the man’s hand. He didn’t think the man would be getting up, but this way Thomas would have time to react if he did.

He checked his injury. It was bleeding freely, but didn’t seem to be all that deep. He’d knocked the gun to the side before Macho shot him, fortunately. “Uh, Rissa … could you get me a big bandage or something?”

Once the ambulance arrived, both Thomas and the man he could only think of as Macho were checked and taken to the hospital. Thomas didn’t argue; he figured it would be easier that way, and he also wasn’t used to injuries lasting long after the battle. At least, not minor injuries like this. He wasn’t sure why they needed to take him to the hospital once they cleaned and bandaged the wound, but it became clear once they took x-rays of his hand and chest.

During the long wait, his injury began to itch. No one else was in the small room they’d put him in, so he pulled away enough of the bandaging to see. It had completely stopped bleeding, and it had visibly started healing. He probably already didn’t need the covering, but he put it back in place. No need to advertise that he was different.

Rissa was waiting with him when the doctor came in to give him a clean bill of health. Apparently he’d been really lucky; with the location of the gunshot wound and the damage to Macho’s head, they’d expected at least cracked ribs and possibly some broken bones in his hand. The doctor had him move his hand, and told him that if there was any pain after a couple of days, he needed to come back in because there could be damage they’d missed.

Thomas wasn’t so sure that it was luck - that Altered Template came to mind - but he didn’t say anything.

When the doctor left, a policeman who had clearly been waiting outside came in. Thomas had never met him, but the Final Reaper remembered him as Lancaster - an opponent, but an honorable one. Perhaps that was something else he could change, if he avoided his old path.

Lancaster was the name on the man’s shirt, so clearly he’d just used the name he was used to being called when the time came. Most had, at first.

“So, you two are the ones who got the better of Macho? I’d say well done, but I’m not supposed to, so I guess I can’t.”

Apparently Lancaster also had a sense of humor - and really didn’t like Macho. Wait a minute. “His name’s actually Macho?” Thomas hadn’t expected that.

“It’s what he went by, probably not his real name. Anyway, I need you to tell me what happened.”

Thomas glanced over at Rissa, to find her looking at him. He’d better start. “The doorbell rang - “

They were leaving the hospital when it happened.

[Welcome to the Multiverse]

[Do you want to attend the Tutorial? The tutorial will begin in 5 minutes.]

Rissa was staring at the air in front of her. She looked pale and worried. Thomas touched her shoulder and she jumped. “Say yes, Rissa. We’ll be in the same Tutorial.”

She looked startled, then angry. “You saw this! And you didn’t tell me?”

“Uh … the doorbell rang?”

Rissa collapsed in laughter.

It took a couple of minutes before she recovered enough to agree to the Tutorial.