Mass Craft

So, guys remember Mass Craft? My Worm/Mass Effect/Starcraft fanfic whose prologue I released here before?

Well I gave it an extensive rewrite, and turned it into a Mix of Jumpchain/Waifu catalogue (Without the mind control)/Rule 34 Economy type of story.

MC die, get a new chance to live by a uber Omniversal deity and get reborn in the body of Jane Shepard and her first jump is in Worm. 

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Mass Craft

Chapter 1

I was the first out of the wormhole, as I looked around me, I saw that I ended up in luxurious place, the walls were white and looked modular, the windows seemed to be hightech as well with holograms on the glass, I walked to one of them, it was completely opaque. I knocked on it with my fingers and realized by the sound they made that they weren’t made of glass but of metal.

The furniture was more modern than I thought, it was a mix of artificial wood, plastic and embedded with holographic projectors and other technology. I raised my left arm and my Omni-tool manifested with orange light constructs.

Thump!

Hearing someone fall on the ground and a giggle, I turned to find Miranda who had fallen on the ground and Nova smirking at her.

I noticed that the portal was closing but I had the time to see my Benefactor, the demon Goddess Lilith wave and send me a flying kiss. I waved back, I liked her a lot. Yes we had fucked like rabbits before she sent me on my adventures, but she wasn't an asshole ROB; with her input, she had let me customize the jump system. She was a Demoness ruling on several universal branches of the Omniverse. I still didn't know why she had chosen me though.

Nova helped the other woman from the ground. My eyes could barely leave them, they were so… attractive. Nova, the blonde ghost was wearing a black leather jacket covering a ripped white grungy top with black jeans and black ankle boots. She looked rather fetching. Meanwhile, the ravenette, Miranda was in an all white outfit consisting of sleeveless turtleneck tank top with white painted on leather pants and black calf high boots matching her belt.

The women noticed my gaze on them and Nova was the first to ask, "Where are we?"

With a voice full of certainty, I answered, "We are in our home base." I said as I opened my arms wide.

My Omni-tool disappeared, I knew this place was mine because one of the perks I took fed a list of all my assets into my head. I owned the entire building. Miranda touched the sofa and a hum of appreciation emitted from her. “It completely looks like an upscale apartment on the Citadel.”

“Or Old Terra.” Nova quipped as she showed us the Fifties style kitchen.

There’s no denying that bold checkerboard floors, cherry red furniture were a design dream. At least the refrigerator looked modern and was a french door refrigerator of a good size. This captivating kitchen was full of vibrance and style. Nothing said "cool" like the retro blue with white butterfly wallpaper. Then there was the bright white oven that contrasted with deep navy cabinets.

The retro style hid how advanced the kitchen was, the oven was actually a food replicator, the dishwasher destroyed organic matter to clean the dishes with special radiations. And the painting on the wall near the oven was a flat screen TV. This was my dream house! But I couldn’t get excited because I was in… Worm. My fucking Kryptonian super-hearing was already picking up the cry of despair or people calling for help in the city and its surroundings.

Sighing, I dialed down my hearing thanks to the innate control I’d gained with my perks. Nova leaned against the wall separating the kitchen from the living room and asked me, “So where did we end up?”

Lilith didn’t tell them more than that they were going to be my helpers after a really private interview that she didn’t make me aware of. The girls had accepted to come with me and become my helpers, a tentative friendship was being formed between us. I moved my left arm and showed my Omni-tool.

Planet Earth/North America/Massachusetts/Brockton Bay/July 1st 2007

At least we didn’t appear in the eighties, that would have sucked. I hate not having the internet! Miranda crossed her arms and glared at the holographic screen provided by my omni-tool. “God, we are back to a… really primitive time ruled by a blatantly corrupt and oligarchic government.” Said the girl from the future…

Hey I can’t even defend my own time period, because I thought everyone was scum as well. I laughed at Miranda’s rant. “This is actually worse than that, girls. We need to talk about this world.” I pointed my chin to the sofas in the living room.

Nova looked at Miranda and she shrugged and raised a hand in the direction of the comfortable looking furniture.  “Lead on Macduff!”

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_- Mass Craft _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

Two and a half hours later…

I finished telling Miranda and Nova about the fucked up setting we landed in. In the low table between me and the girls was a mini-fridge filled with drinks, such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi or beer and canned mead, my favorites. I took a bottle of water though and drank it, my throat was parched.

“I can’t believe it...” Miranda said in denial after I appraised her of the situation we are in. She had a disbelieving expression on her face and she was hugging herself as if she was cold right now.

*I know the feeling…*

“This is worse than the Great War with the Zerg, I mean… you are talking about roving dimension spanning alien parasites that infest dimensions and use people as think tanks for their creativity, hand them powers on the worst day of their lives and brainwash them to fight for data on how to refine their abilities. The Zerg at least just kill people or convert them...” This scenario was seemingly worse than the situation in Nova's home universe. The Ghost looked at a can of beer in the mini-fridge before seizing and proceeding to open it and gulp it down.

*Yeah, I want to drink as well…* I thought, as I also wanted a drink; I was too sober for Worm.

Unfolding her arms, Miranda calmed down and started to take on a thoughtful expression, then she said, “But from what Jane said, they are unimaginative, more animals without sentience than computers.”

I nodded, but I decided to warn her, “Yes, Miranda. But you shouldn’t underestimate the shards. Fortunately, we are protected from their influence. I shared all my talent and defense perks with you girls.”

Those fucking biological computer alien parasites were insidious, slowly brainwashing people they infected  to seek out conflict for ‘data.’

This was the dire reality of the conflict drive they pushed on the infected hosts. When hosts died, they reconnected to a new host. In addition, once they had accumulated enough information, they fragmented and sent off a bud of themselves to connect to a new host. Each host the Shards connected to was granted powers, a small fraction of the Shard's true potential.

Some Shards were specifically targeted to individuals who would cause conflict or prop up a collapsing host species if need be. Once the cycle was complete, the Entities took back their powers and exterminated the host species. This required both Entities. They then channelled all the energy from every reality they existed in into a single reality, obliterating the planet.

This explosion echoed through the connections between realities they'd formed and destroyed every possible version of that planet. The Entities separated into hundreds of armored Shards, which rode the shock wave in pairs toward new destinations. The energy of this explosion was absorbed and stored, and would form their power source for the next cycle.

We needed to stop those monstrous things from destroying humanity and destroy any members of those entities in the cosmos. Even if they won on Earth, another could come.

Miranda acknowledged me sharing my defenses with them. “And we thank you for it. But what are we going to do, Shepard?”

And here was the question, I was a normal woman placed inside the body of a soldier, I had her skills, her training and knowledge. But I wasn't good at planning stuff like this. “Well… I’m a soldier and I want to just go and smash the threat, but I already did that while choosing my perks, I killed Zion with the For the want of a nail perk, when I made my build. But we need to make sure no other entity is born from the shards here on earth, we need this world to be secure as well and kill all of the remaining entities in this universe.”

My inner Tony Stark was already showing me the bare bones of a plan; I needed something like a superweapon capable of reducing all matter to its basic elemental components at the universal scale by spreading an energy wave tailored to kill those crystalline entities. But I needed to get my hands on Eden's or Zion's body first. I hope the technologies in my head will be able to help.

Miranda kept silent but she watched me as if I was something mysterious that she needed to make sense of. Nova looked somewhat scared by the problems we needed to fix.

“Isn’t this a bit too much? I mean it's just us three, the scale of the mission would require at least a fleet.” The Ghost asked as she looked at me with her shiny blue eyes.

A memory surged through my head and I saw an old man looking at me and telling me, ‘Enter the fray with boldness, timid action is often met with strong opposition.’ That was why I found myself saying, “No, I believe we can pull it off. Doing the impossible is going to be our shtick, we have the catalog, the jumpchain perks and the technology in my kabosh to make us win this.”

My attention fell on Miranda first. “You, Miss Lawson, you are awesome at finance and a good manager and intel gathering is your thing. And you are a people person while I'm not. And you'll be able to get us the people and resources we need to succeed.” I said without doubts and with decisiveness lacing my voice.

My head swiveled to Nova. “Nova…”

The young blond woman raised her hands in placation and began to say, “I am just an assassin-”

I smiled at her and instantly said, “...And a soldier, and a pilot, and a good spy and a really caring person despite your past. There’s a reason why I chose you girls, you are the best of the best and I can’t pull this off without you. Together we can stop Cauldron. We don’t have to submit to the entities’ tender mercies. We can beat them!”

There was an awkward silence between the three of us. Nova was the first one to break as she chuckled at me and said, “You are really into those inspiring speeches, huh?”

I shrugged. “I am used to doing this for my troops and friends when they lose their spirits. Anyway, I’m going to do exactly what I was brought to do in this world, I’m going to win this covert war with Cauldron and the shards. I will do it without sacrificing the soul of our species like those idiotic assholes.”

Miranda, who had a thoughtful expression on her face, stood up. “I see, then you won’t mind if I start right away working on establishing an intelligence network?”

Raising my arm, I manifested my omni-tool and entered some different command and Miranda looked at her own handheld device that notified her of a change. “Please do, Miranda, you have admin access to the computers.”

The attractive ravenette frowned at me. “You would trust me with your systems, just like that?”

Shrugging, I answered, “We are in this together, if I can’t trust you two, who can I trust?”

I trusted that Lilith wasn’t going to shaft me after choosing those two. And… the feelings and memories that Jane Shepard had for Miranda were influencing me.

She looked at me for a long while, saying nothing. “...” Then she gave her back to me by turning heel and walked away toward the bedrooms.

*Is it me or is it getting hot in here?* I fanned myself while my eyes didn’t leave her back for one moment, my eyes settling on her perfect bottom until I got interrupted by a coughing.

My eyes turned to Nova who asked me, “And me? What are my orders?” She was smiling, having caught me staring at Miranda’s ass.

It took a moment for my brain to reboot. “Orders? I see.”

Standing up, I began pacing. Army respected values was something Jane Shepard believed in. In the Soldier's Code, we pledged to ‘treat others with dignity and respect while expecting others to do the same.’ Respect was what allowed us to appreciate the best in other people. Respect was trusting that all people have done their jobs and fulfilled their duty. I wasn’t going to treat Nova like her superior had treated her, a resource to be exploited and discarded or enslaved. No, I wanted Nova to be able to think for herself.

Because I also believed in teamwork, I couldn’t do everything alone, that was why I asked, “I may be the leader here, soldier. But I value your mind and opinions. Tell me, what do we need to do?”

Nova stood up as well and put herself at attention, by standing straight. “Ma’am, we need to go on a reconnaissance run of the city, we must know the lay of the lands, the actors in the bay, then this country and next the others ones, we can’t stay reliant on your meta-knowledge, the world may be different. Then, and only then can we plan what to do.”

I grinned at Nova, gave her a thumbs up and said, “There you have it, Soldier! That’s what I wanted to hear, you have a plan and I approve of it. So come with me, we must go get our gear from the warehouse.”

“Yes, Ma’am!” Nova stood even straighter, smirked and gave me something akin to a US marine salute.

Snorting, I rolled my eyes at her antics. “Okay, now be at ease, you can stop with the salute and formality.”

Nova pouted. “Aww, but I still wanted to continue playing soldier.”

I laughed. “Maybe later, now follow me.” A silver key appeared in my right hand as I moved to the closest door; the entrance to the apartment.

Placing the key into the keyhole, I opened the door only to see the inside of a four thousand square foot space. It was full of basic metal shelves and on the wall there were futuristic terminals looking like devices that you’d find in Mass Effect or Starcraft. It seemed that my warehouse was heavily inspired by those two franchises.

Nova and I started touring the place, we saw the medbay that was definitely Mass Effect inspired with the medical machine attached to the bed in the middle of the room, there were cabinets and other modules labelled on the walls. I was going to look at what it was about later.

We went to the furnished loft inside the warehouse, it was a cozy place with a big bed and all amenities. The sofa and gigantic flat screen called out to me, but there were empty shelves at its side, no books or DVDs, nothing. I promised to change that, the entire place needed decoration. Nova took my arm and pulled me toward the workshop and god was I in heaven, there was a fabricator there, linked to a bank of servers and computers.

No resources or materials to construct anything though, it seemed that I needed to procure them myself. Easy peasy, the fucking boat graveyard was in Brockton Bay, but later I wanted more quality material, I thought I would need to get myself some asteroids later, but there was the Simurgh in orbit. I needed to plan for that. Nova walked toward a bank of lockers and noticed that they had our names on them.

Nova put her hand on the scanner on the door of the locker and the door opened with a hiss revealing a mannequin covered in her suit of armor surrounded by a frame holding it together. It consisted of a tactical stealth suit, a Ghost Visor, a canister rifle and an assortment of gadgets such as flashbang grenades, an ionic forcefield and other useful things such as other types of grenade.

I let her inspect her equipment and went to the main computer terminal. I sat before the holographic screen placed on the desk between the fabricator and some kind of vault that looked like an armory. The computer was connected to the servers that had a massive amount of storage space on them and an immense amount of computing power. They were clearly of alien design, a mix of Xel’naga and protoss technologies, I couldn’t even quantify how much space there was on this or how it worked despite my knowledge. A sure sign that I needed to get to work and experiment to know what I was doing.

This computer clearly responded to my thoughts and was now showing me Protoss, Terran, Xel’naga and… Zerg technology. It was interesting to see the tech trees they had at their disposal and how efficient and redundant their physiology was. I felt a hand on my shoulder and my chair abruptly swivelled.

I could see a really upset Nova who looked at me as if I was planning to kill puppies. “Shepard? Please tell me this isn’t what I think it is?”

“Nova?” I didn’t back down at the intensity of her gaze.

She pointed her finger at the holoscreen behind me. “This is showing you how the Zerg are made.”

She had been looking over my shoulders and I didn’t even feel her do it. When they said she was the best Ghost ever, they didn’t lie. “Calm down.” I said in placation, as I tried to stand up.

Nova pushed me in my seat again and loomed over me, her hands on my shoulders. “Promise me, please promise me that you won’t unleash the Zerg on this world.”

We looked at each other for a long moment until I nodded and said, “I promise, I won’t; I’m not crazy enough to create things that see us as food.”

I let her probe my mind voluntarily and let her see my intentions. I was being truthful, the Zerg were a problem that better stay in Starcraft, we had enough problems with the shards. Nova let go of me and stepped back, but her eyes were still on me. “I believe you… But! I will watch you.” She pointed two fingers at her eyes then at me.

A kinky smile spread on my face, I crossed my legs and said sultrily, “Fine with me, look all you like.”

“Good.” Nova simply said and then a haze of blue light shone before me and began to bend the light around the Ghost, allowing her to simply disappear from view.

“I guess you need time to process that we have access to Zerg science. So, I guess going out right now is a bust.” I said knowing that Nova was still here, I could still see her with my enhanced vision; thanks to my Kryptonian powers I can see well into most of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Nova said nothing, so I turned to the terminal and began to work, deciding that we may need something like drones. Surveillance Drones. A spy unit to scan things and with other options. It could be a good peace offering to Nova.