Storm King -

Air Gear - Worm

Anthony Grey

 

A draft of morning air coming through my bedroom window forced me awake because, of course, it would be the morning breeze that would ruin my earth-given rest. Sighing, I got up with a grumble to walk over and close the damn window. A hand idly scratched at my chest hairs as I pulled back the blinds, squinting at the light that threatened to ruin my eyes from the unholy abomination in the sky called the sun.

 

With a grunt, I gave the window a sharp tug, closing it with a proper slam. With a sigh, I turned around and went to the master bath to get myself ready for the day. I was already up, and with the time at half past 8am, there was no point in returning to bed. The morning found me in my kitchen sipping on a mug of mint tea: something was wrong. Taking a sip from my tea, I slowly panned my view around my home kitchen, wondering why I felt such unease.

 

With narrowed eyes, I slowly looked around, then got up from my seat and followed the unsettling feeling to my living room. I didn't need a baseball bat because hot tea was a bitch and a half to be attacked with. Slowly. I walked around my house until arriving in my living room and that was when my reality shattered. Past my massive 55-inch samsung tv was my window, and outside of my window was the street I lived on. Yet, it wasn't the street I lived on.

 

It might look the same, but the houses were different and the curve of the bay was different. I knew all these things because I had bought this house fresh out of the military with all my savings. When I had re-upped, Uncle Sam gave me a nice sign-up bonus, and I stuffed that in savings and watched it grow over time as I went through the suck. I gave my beloved country 8 years, 2 tours, and a whole lot of shit as a 13 delta with no regrets. I was a shell head and wouldn't have it any other way.

 

I glared outside my window as I stepped closer and closer until the sight of a massive ship came into view blocking the mouth of the bay. Something about that tingled at the back of my mind, but I couldn't really place it at the moment. I knew that something wasn't right. With a grunt, I pulled back the curtains and turned around only to spot a gift-wrapped box sitting on my coffee table.

 

That wasn't there twenty seconds ago. I knew this because I just walked past the damn thing. Staring hard at the damn thing, I gave it a five count before moving to the couch. I placed my now warm cup of mint tea on my coffee table and drew the box towards me. As I pulled it closer, the letter on top fell off, pulling my attention towards it.

 

Picking up the envelope, I found my name written in a flowing script on the front.

 

-Anthony Grey,

 

You have been chosen to help save the Earth Bet Multiversal cluster. Survive and thrive, or die with the rest. Failure will result in the current Earth Bet cluster being erased from existence. Within the box, you will find two potion vials containing the Essence of the Crafter and Essence of the Mad Doctor along with a way to break them over your knee.

 

1. Essence of the Crafter

 

Master craftsman can design, build, and maintain anything from machines to a simple shovel.

 

Flawless work, anything created with it will ever rot or rust only able to be destroyed through violence. These creations are extremely durable as well.

 

Creations work better than one made by someone else.

 

Can conjure dead or inorganic materials needed to work with from thin air.

 

Ability to craft items on par with those in myth and legend, spears that never miss, swords that can cut through anything, invulnerable armor, etc.

 

Can force specific abilities onto items through sheer skill and ability to craft on a conceptual level.

 

2. Essence of the Mad Doctor

 

Perfect memory with infinite storage

 

Beyond genius level intellect

 

Can make potions that can do almost anything, from immortality, to regeneration or even cause someone to fall in love with a specific target.

 

Immunity to disease and poisons mundane and magical

 

Immense knowledge on occult and alchemical lore that updates itself should you find a way to travel to different worlds.

 

Supernaturally skilled at medicine, can cure just about anything with some research, you already know how to tackle most ailments.

 

Master of life and biology, able to create homunculi that are superior to regular versions of their species in all areas including being ageless and perfectly loyal to you.

 

you may also create other creatures like sewn together Frankenstein abominations, chimera, or other mutated beasts.

 

Can conjure ingredients from thin air.

 

Good Luck…

 

Sincerely,

 

Random Omnipotent Being

 

Sitting on my couch, stunned by the revelation, I drew a blank. A full and total complete fucking blank. This, this was my life, and I was ultimately not ready for it at all. The note fell from my limp fingers, and I panicked at the sudden happenstance. I reached out for the letter but was never able to get it. I watched as the letter transformed into sparkling motes of light and vanished into the ether.

 

That right there was my sign; sitting up, I leaned forward and snatched the top off of the gift-wrapped box before me. Inside the box were two bottles sitting on top of a fluffy cushion. I sat there and stared at the things for I don't know how long. Sitting back down with a chuckle, I turned my attention towards the vial that appeared inky black with stars in a bottle.

 

With a shrug, I chugged it straight down; again, it started with a rumbly in my tummy. This time it was like I took a trip across the sea of stars and decided to swim through the sun. When I came to, my living room was trashed. Didn't even remember when I shotgunned the second one, but damn was it a trip.

 

Well… Fuck…

 

Not being able to sit back down on my scorched couch I walked away with a huff while enjoying the multitude of thoughts that floated through my mind on how to not only build a new one but also build it better. Dismissing all that, I walked to my garage and pulled out some basic tools. I needed my hammer, a hand torch, and a few minor tools to get to work.

 

Sitting at my workbench, I focused my mind and pushed forward my will. There was a plink of metal as a small slab of metal materialized into reality. It was a perfect blended alloy of ore, vibranium and nth metal. I could have added Marvel's indestructible metal proto-adamantium, but I wanted to use the KISS method right now.

 

K.I.S.S_ Keep It Simple Stupid.

 

As I got to work drafting a blueprint for a ring, I scraped the first as the idea came to me to build a hammerspace. Then I got the grand idea to create a two-in-one ring with interlocking parts. The first ring would be enchanted with telekinesis, and the second would enchant the hammer space into its metaphysical being. The space wouldn't be too large at the start, about the size of my F150 parked outside.

 

Not too bad for something that was a spur of the moment.

 

My hands flowed through the motions as I used my own tools along with tools summoned by the crafter's essence. I didn't even notice as an hour had gone by, my hands worked with efficient ease as sandpaper was summoned and dismissed, ring sizers, a dremil tool to add some design. My one hour of craft put my mind at ease while also feeling like so much more.

 

Once I was finished with both halves, then came the enchanting along with the process of binding the rings to myself. I would be foolish to lose these to that top-hatted asshole from the travelers. Screw his object teleportation, these would only come off with my command and would instantly return with a mere thought. Smiling down at the two halves of a ring, I placed them together with a rotation and a click.

 

My first creation in this new life was complete, magical rings weren't that high up on the pole of insane and amazing creations. Yet, one gave me all the telekinesis while the other was my own personal hammer-space.

 

The only thing to do next was to slide the ring onto my left hand's middle finger. With a turn and sweeping motion, half of the tools on my workstation vanished into my hammerspace. Another wave of the hand returned my tools; then they floated into the air with a minor application of some TK.

 

With a hum, I lowered the tools back to the workbench before giving the ground a kick which sent me into a slow spin. Now that I had the time and silence in my mind, I nearly collapsed into a gibbering mess. I had so much freaking work to do and didn't even know here to start. What I did know, though, was that I would need a crew and a company to help me subvert the bullshit that was the PRT.

 

They were not only the country's big bad, but also the largest obstacle in my way of saving this world and the multiversal cluster. The last thing I wanted was to trust the wrong person and see all my hard work flushed down the drain because they wanted an easy PR win. Worm was a setting rife with trouble, and with how expansive the PRT was, they had drained the funds from police departments and the military, and had amassed more political power than even the President.

 

It was one thing to fuck over politicians because screw those guys; what I had a problem with was how they failed my nation on all levels. Monsters in the form of the Slaughter House Nine roamed the lands. Cities were walled off and they dared to infringe on a man's second amendment rights. The second amendment wasn't gone, but with their positioning and mandate of handling all Para-human issues. The PRT had somehow subverted the American people's minds into believing they can't defend themselves against these monsters lest they go to jail.

 

I was going to have none of that bullshit; not on my watch.

 

All para-humans could be subjected to the same ballistic necessities as any other man. I was going to upset the status quo starting with this city. I could only chuckle at it all; to save everything, I would have to flip the board, tossing all the games being played out the window.

 

I had no problem with Worm. That could be why I was sent here. The place did need a swift kick in the ass, though.

 

A leg kicked out, bringing me to a full stop as I decided what I would create next with Crafter essence. Mulling over the implications of bringing into being a person, I thought about my options. I could either create a quick and easy homunculus that could be given orders like a robot. Or I could go for broke and build out my creation with the use of an AI matrix.

 

So it was either a shadow-khan or living breathing creations. With a sigh, I closed my eyes and got to work. I would need a medic because no one fucks with the white mage, but I also didn't want a squishy medic. The medic would be female because, even though this wasn't the waifu catalog, I wasn't about to be rooming with a dude-bro anytime soon.

 

I had more than enough anime to draw from.

 

Green was where I started as I pictured the coat hanging off her shapely shoulders. The yukata was next along with the capri pants down to her heels. As this all rotated within my mind's eye, I then willed the clothes to fill as Tsunade Senju came into being. The chest of the yukata swelled as her bust stretched it close to bursting, but that wasn't what drew my eye. No, what drew my eye was the purple diamond on her forehead.

 

That was her famed creation rebirth technique, and I would make sure she was brought into the world with that, but fixed because premature aging was pure ass. I had no qualms about her loyalties since the essence took care of that for me. As she filled out more and more in my mind's eye, a little fact stood out to me, and that was of her height.

 

The Naruto anime made her larger than life, but Tsunade Senju was a whopping five feet three inches tall, big tiddy short stack, yum.

 

Along with the image of Tsunade, I had to figure out how I would create someone like her. I had no fucking clue about the first thing about using and creating chakra; but I did know the basics of Ki. Across not only all anime, but even in life, Ki was talked about being a person's life force. The energy that they produce and use to fuel themselves on a regular basis, the energy of all cells.

 

Sitting up, I released a full belly chuckle as I knew where to take this as I thought about the madman Dr. Gero. The same madman who created androids on par with freaking Super Saiyans. Well, I had no Saiyans here but I had some crazy freaking super bots by the name of Endbringers. Ohh, I could more than just survive, I could fight fire with fire and thrive.

 

Getting up, I made for my basement and left my garage behind. I would need to build one of those ki samplers to absorb a percentage of my ki. From the blueprints in my head and research notes, the freaking crazy bastard used whole towns to test his ki absorption machine until he was able to refine it and fit it into Android 19's hands. Stopping on my top stairs, I thought about it and knew I could build Android 18 and 21.

 

Not now and not for some time, well maybe later if I decided that world domination might be fun. I had absolutely no delusions about the type of man that I was and I can't say that ruling the place might not have tickled at my brain parts. Not like I could do any worse than those already in power anyway.

 

When I reached the bottom of my garage stairs, I raised a hand and swept everything toward the back of the room. Swirls of items floated around me as they lifted from one location and were stacked in another. Looking at my watch, I raised a brow seeingit was barely 11am yet and already I had been hitting the grind.

 

To start, I summoned some basic metals and ceramics to contain the bio-conversion module and the energy absorption module. Again, it was clear that my choice in creating my telekinetic ring was paying some crazy dividends. A custom Pi board, a power bank capable of storing the ki, and a few other things that would be able to store the ten percent of my ki. I would then turn around and use that to spark the infinite ki generator also known as the eternal mode type energy reactor.

 

Since I didn't want to die before my adventure even started, I double-checked the numbers and safety of everything before slotting in the red gem that worked as the catalyst capable of absorbing a person's ki.

 

There was a click, then weakness in my fingers that rapidly ran up my arm. With a little panic, I pulled my hand away and grimaced at that as I shook out the pins and needles feeling. On the little display was a stat that showed 6% full. Well, it was at least good to know that the ki absorption worked, but I would have liked to brace for it first. While keeping my right hand away from the thing, I brought down my left hand so the discomfort could be shared evenly. After the ding, I gave myself a quick snack break to let the fatigue pass.

 

While I ate my PB&J, I levitated over a book and sketched out the body I would make for my life model decoy of Tsunade Senju. The outer layer would be made from a combination of Epidurium from Marvel alloyed with Vibranium of course because that little wonder metal had insane durability bonuses. The internals could be a cross combination of Super Adaptoids from Marvel and DC Amazo technology.

 

Since she would be my leading doctor, I made sure to pencil in both her medical jutsu from the anime and the stuff Mercy used in Overwatch. Her entire system would be run from the Eternal Energy Ki reactor. Then I thought about it some more and decided that I would need to figure out a way to give her the Mokuton-style abilities.

 

Again, Dr. Ivo's research helped me on that front.

 

Turns out that part of why the Amazo android was capable of replicating all of the power of the DC powerhouses was due to its synthetic absorption cells. There was a long list of how to configure the cells to have them work how I needed, and I couldn't deny that I didn't pull my computer over and started to write up her code. I was halfway through building her brain and functions when I realized that I would have to cannibalize my laptop.

 

I could be honest and say that it wasn't top of the line, but it was decent for a world-like worm since I had spent 3k on a Dragon model laptop with all the bells and whistles. The thing was, I didn't want to keep this thing around, not with the knowledge that Dragon was a freaking AI with her controls in the hands of some terrorist group. With a grimace, I went and got my 5 TB external drive that I used for my Steam games.

 

No fucking way I was going to give up my hard drive of movies, I surfed the high-seas for those and I haven't had the chance to check; but I was certain with the start of capes, that media went down the freaking drain. Putting that out of my mind, I continued crafting Tsunade's mind with what I had. Her adaptive body would just be upgraded with a crystalline computing matrix. Since I was going for broke, I might as well include some Kryptonian tech into her body.

 

When I got up, I checked the time and found that it was a little after two, I was happy with that. I thought it was time to get back to crafting as I took my little laptop and hard drive down to the basement. Setting my computer and its contents on the workbench, I waved a hand at my basement and sucked all the extra stuff into my hammer-space, even the dust. With a more open area, I got to work. Allowing my crafter essence to shine as parts were summoned and dismissed along with all the tools I would need for my version of the life model decoy.

 

When my hands couldn't reach, I applied some telekinesis, but at no point did I ever stop working. The skeleton structure was laid down, nanofibrous muscle fibers and even nano blood infusion mixed with adaptoid adaptations. A pinch of blood from the real Tsunade because somehow the crafter essence could do that since it would be part of the crafting process.

 

The infinite ki reactor took the place of her heart, then I gave a jolt of my own ki to bring life to her body. While the chest cavity was closing up, I felt now was the time to start coating the body with the epidurium and vibranium mixture.

 

There was so much going on at any one given time that I didn't even realize I was finished until my pc pinged from the upload completion. Exhaustion took me as I finally took a break, my belly rumbling in protest, but I now had no time for that.

 

Standing there, Tsunade rested a hand on a cocked hip as she looked me up and down. "Why have you created me?" Tsunade questioned with a raised brow.

 

Ohh, looks like her personality matrix was working just fine. I had no problems with her because I ensured she would be loyal. Okay, maybe I wasn't expecting her to have a sassy personality already.

 

Before I answered her, I paused and thought about it. "There is a lot that needs doing, and I need people to help me do it."

 

Tsunade gave me a nod, then sent a sly look my way. "Am I to be your assassin blade in the night"

 

I scoffed at her, "Not even, you're a medic, and I plan to keep you as such and maybe an advisor if anything else."

 

Tsunade sighed as she looked away from me, then waved beyond my basement door, "And what about Brockton General?"

 

My shoulders went up and down in a shrug; looks like the essence took some knowledge from my head and gave it to my creations. "I don't mind you volunteering some of your time there, but I would be a poor leader if I allowed my people to get exploited." I watched as some emotions shifted across her face. "You're not here for them, you're here to help me save the world. If it means that much to you for you to run a hospital, there is an abandoned one on the docks I can probably get for us later."

 

Tsunade blinked and tilted her head at me, "You would go that far for me. Am I, not just a creation you can dismiss at any time?"

 

My shoulders went up and down in a shrug, "Yeah, I have a few plans and would rather have things set for you to do instead of acting like a robot. Doing something like that would disillusion me quickly and break the illusion that you are real."

 

Then again, for all intents and purposes, Tsunade Senju was very much a real person, capable of getting pregnant and everything. The Crafter essence was crazy-busted, and that infused blood of the real Tsunade used as crafting material had really packed a punch when I noticed that the adaptoid frame was producing synthetic eggs capable of fertilization. If I was a crazy person, I could have her carry my child to term to bring the ki network into the world and then raise my kids to be Dragon Ball Z-type fighters.

 

Her poise and personality then shifted, "I'm glad to know that my Hokage isn't such a heartless man." She then took a knee. "I, Tsunade Senju, pledge my undying loyalty to you, my Hokage, Anthony Grey."

 

I blinked twice, before getting off my seat like my ass was on fire before taking a step forward to accept her pledge. "I, Anthony Grey, accept your pledge of fealty.

 

She stood with a beaming smile, and I returned the same before leading her back into my home. As I made us some tea, Tsunade worked around my home, familiarizing herself with the place. When I brought her some mint tea, I found her standing in my living room, looking through the huge double-pane windows that showed the massive tanker blocking the bay.

 

Tsunade took the cup of tea as she took in the world around her. She took it all in with the cars driving by and the gunshots from gangs in the distance. Tsunade then waved her tea cup at the massive ship in the distance. "This city is never going to be the same, is it?"

 

Standing at her side, I sighed, "No, this world will never be the same. I was given a reason for being sent here which is fine, but I'm an American, and my country is under siege." I stated before turning to look her in the eyes, "That is completely unacceptable, I made an oath, and even if this is no longer my America nor am I in the service any longer, I swore to defend my nation against threats both foreign and domestic."

 

Tsunade gave me a nod as she went back to finishing her tea. After my little speech, I honestly felt a lot better. Sending my tea cup floating away, I got to cleaning up the mess that was in my living room. I didn't have to do much because Telekinesis was just that good, also a little fun as I crushed the burnt couch into a compressed ball the size of a microwave.

 

With everything cleared up, I put on some actual pants instead of the jumper I was wearing and had Tsunade get into the passenger side of my truck. It was time to go grab a few things.

 

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Author's Note: So I couldn't get my store king story out of my head, but it was a little to fast all at once. So I chopped it up and expanded a lot on whats going on. Hope you guys enjoy the adventure as much as I will.