— // —
I merge into the new world going 140 down the Pacific Coast highway from Seattle to LA, I’m driving a tricked out 1966 GTO with all the top of the line upgrades one could fit under the hood, it’s black on black with black rims and it flies. It’s 2001, my name is Jack Toretto. I’m sixty six, and for the first time older than my actual chronological self by over two dozen years, but at least I’m not an actual child. I’m the usual combination of traits that make up the Jacks in all these levels so far, with the added fact that I actually have military training this time. I was in the military through the eighties and nineties. Invested in the dot com boom perfectly, and pulled out at just the right moment. Just before I retired.
My life in the military had been downright prolific. I had rank, tenure and experience. I’d been special forces and worked with spooks during the height of the cold war, I’d been there during Bush Senior’s tangle with Iraq. I’d commanded boys. I sit on a donut sometimes when my hemorrhoids are acting up.
Interesting, I feel like the Jump is actually updating a bit to justify my skill, I’ve had at least 10 years of training when you accelerate my training to five times speed, perhaps upwards of fifteen or twenty years of a normal person’s ability to handle things and handle boredom. This life will make those skills make sense, and my reflexes are still as fast as the day I was born. My skills are sharp as a scalpel, my memory as sharp as a tack, and I’m handsome as fuck. I’m not just a silver fox, I’m a silver Kitsune. I’m the ten tailed silver fox. I look like Roadhouse Era Sam Elliott cranked up a few extra notches. Whats Mine is Mine, in play, making me age gracefully as well as Sexy and I Know It making me look like a ten.
This me, had been doing my best not to get sucked back in, happy with my honorable discharge and retirement with full pension, and off my feet all day. Slowing the car down to normal highway speeds, which honestly feel a bit slow, with my reflexes, I’m in LA by sundown.
— // —
On arrival back “home” I get my affairs squared away, hire a gardener to come by once a week and to replace my lawn with fake grass. The good stuff. No use wasting water, even if climate change isn’t hitting the Fast universe like my own, I’d rather just have the gardener tending to the shrubs. Okay, that was an unnecessary detail, but I’m an old man now, and that’s where my head goes, that and my sciatica.
I get the house squared away, buy a few extra guns, beside those I’d retired from the service that are tucked away securely, and make sure to get some gym equipment and a gorgeous personal trainer as well. I’ll need to work diligently to stay in shape if I’m going to keep up with these kids. I get a new license since I plan to stay in California for the long haul of the year, and finally go visit the family.
It amuses me to try to think like an old man, getting in character is fun. I should find a perk for it eventually! Did I mention I even sound a bit like Sam Elliott now, I think “Sunny” basically cast me into a version of him.
Rolling up to the Toretto Market & Cafe, I spot Mia and pull off my cap as I walk in the door. “Well hello there miss, would you happen to know where I can find a gorgeous niece of mine ..” I began.
As she turned at my voice, her face lit up and she jumped over the counter to hug me, “Uncle Jack!”
“Ho there, I’m old Mia, you’re gonna break me,” I told her and hugged her back with fierce old man strength, lifting her off the ground and then setting her back down. “Where’s your brother?”
“Over here, old man,” Dom called out as he slipped out of a back room. He’s a hugger too, and looked equally as happy to see me.
“Well now, look at you two. Tell me everything, I’m back in town to stay, so don’t leave anything out.”
— // —
Having a family of borderline superheroes is actually pretty nice. These people really care about each other and we have a lot of barbecues, I’ve been taking cooking lessons alongside my other normal lessons so that I can keep up with the BBQ demands. I go to races sometimes and despite the fact that I’m forty-years older than some of these young women at the races (who all look like they could be cast in a rap video or in a magazine,) are all over me. I don’t spurn such advances, but instead, play it cool. Like an old man who has seen it all, I’m just that stoic and badass.
It only took one time for some young buck to call me: “Old Man Viagra.” And subsequently him getting knocked out in a single punch, for the message to sink in. I wasn’t just old, I was hard.
Day to day, keeping an eye on ‘the kids’ and generally not interfering with their business. Even though Dom tells me about his business with the heists, I just nod and tell him to be careful nobody gets hurt. Felony Murder is a tough beat.
I also help with money by giving what they need to refurbish the house and garage. I give it to Mia directly and tell her to just pay for things directly when Dom is busy. Family takes care of family.
As I’ve thought about things, the only thing I decide to change is the fate of Jesse. The kid who got killed in the driveby at the end of the first film. I make sure to be at the house after the events at Race Wars and when I see the bikers lining up for their pass, I ready myself and smoothly shoot them both in the head even as they’re getting off their first few shots.
Lightning reflexes and years of training all drilled for moments like this.
Mission accomplished.
That was just the first few weeks, the plot didn’t take long to play out. The remainder was pretty easy going, I “took care” of Mia and the garage after Dom disappeared to Baja Mexico, and Brian was off working his job. Jesse and a few others were still around though, working the garage. The next plot wouldn’t be for a while, so I trained, I ate good food, and I enjoyed life, making sure to do my best to improve things for others as well.
I eventually met Tej and Brian again toward the end of the year: talked shop with Tej about tech and computers, and gave him my advice on investing. “.. and that’s what I think you can invest in going toward 2020.” If the universe doesn’t cease to exist and he follows my advice after I disappear, he’ll be even richer.
When I wasn’t with the cast of the movies, I was enjoying ‘retirement’ as a badass, which meant periodic brawls for no particular reason, stopped a convenience store robbery, and of course.. I was learning to drive even better and driving really, really fast.
My skills as a mechanic also progressed to “professional” levels. It was a better version of the Slice of Life story, once the tumultuous periods were over. Far more family, more connection.
The tablet came while I was out for lunch at the cafe, and time stopped with it:
Another world well handled, you changed fate but not too much. You were a bit lite on the adventure side, but you didn’t run away from the plot. You let it happen and only acted when it felt right. The plot will spin on almost entirely unaltered. Well done. You fit into the plot rather well, and it all felt like a natural continuation of the story could have happened.
For your next level, you’ll be stuck with the Cheerleading Vampire Slayer and Friends. Try to get yourself deep into the plot this time, and get in with Buffy or Willow. Just a suggestion.
— // —
Those were the clearest suggestions I’d had yet, and though I hoped that every Jump in the future wasn’t rife with production suggestions like I was a cheap show on cable, I didn’t mind that instead of being told I was sucking eggs.
Emerging into a new consciousness, I find myself sitting in a classroom while a teacher was droning on about calculus.
I’m not related to anyone on the cast, my name is Jaq’el, or “Jack” and I’m a half-demon. Not a bad deal really, super-strength, speed, durability and regeneration. Similar to Groosalug, but no stupid haircut, and I think I’m a fair shade stronger than him too. In any case, I’m a student at Sunnydale, and nobody knows what I am.
But the plan is to change that.
The tentative plan is to pull a similar “trick” as I’d deployed in the past levels. Help the main characters and ingratiate myself as a means of introduction. No real scouting necessary, I just started going out on patrols that night, staking baby vampires when they rise, and fighting the occasional spooky thing that need not be mentioned. I’m now a veteran in terms of fighting experience and skill, with dozens of intense years of training to several types of weapons.
The plan had been to first run into Buffy in the cemetery and use proximity to make the introduction. Having her on my side would make all the rest fall like dominos.
I’m still not fully accustomed to being a “ten’ however, and by the end of the first week I’m getting serious contemplative looks from: everyone who is interested in guys. I mean, I’d seen similar effects in other worlds, but teenage girls are extra hormonal.
And while I knew them from the show, I decided to get to know the three top options: Cordelia, Buffy and Willow. Personally, rather than just jumping on the one with the biggest chest, rear or cutest face.
Toward that end, I ended up meeting up with them in the library several times over the next month, and they eventually let slip that Buffy was a Slayer.
Shocked Pikachu face.
“I should admit something as well then, I’m uh, half-demon, but totally nice.”
That got a reaction, and they were wary for a bit, but eventually everyone seemed to accept me at face value, and I was being honest when I said that I had no ulterior motives, and intended no harm.
I ended up going on a date with Cordelia first, because she was the most aggressive about it, wanting to land the “new hottie” before anyone else. As I knew she later would reveal, she wasn’t nearly as vapid and bitchy as she appeared at first, but I quickly realized that she still needed some character growth before I, an adult who’d lived six extra years in six different universes, would want to even consider dating her for anything other than a casual fling. Though as far as types go, she was definitely more my speed, I didn’t want to burden myself with that sort of attitude for a full year.
Buffy and our encounters left me feeling like she was looking for someone damaged. That’s they only way I can explain it. There was something about me that didn’t click for her.
Willow was by no means “the last choice” but she’s the one I’m listing last, because we hit it off like peas in a pod. I hit it off better with her than I ever did with Rey, and that’s saying something. I always patrolled with her, and encouraged her to learn magic, showing her to the Magic Box. I started learning a bit beside her, but I knew none of it would hold outside the Jump without the Perk for it to make it overcome the contextual problems.
From week to week, I trained and studied and basically brought all of my grades up. The help of perfect memory was sufficient. I helped with problems, Scooby’d with them, and helped with problems. Motivation is still as ripe as the day it was given, so training continues, though I’ve of course mixed in training with Buffy. Adding to her repertoire and my own. I’m a better trainer than Giles could ever be, and a billion times better as a sparring partner at her level with decades of training with weapons, hand to hand and a gun, though I never really show off the last bit.
When Miss French showed up a few months in and tried to woo the menfolk, I was apparently somewhat resistant to her call, enough to not be smitten at least. Though I did take Xander and Giles, by force, and evacuate the area for a few days while Buffy dealt with it.
From week to week, the usual encounters that pop up from time to time are fewer than the show might make them seem. There were only twelve episodes in the first year, and so they’re spread across several more months. I help to mitigate damage a bit better than Buffy and the Scoobies had previously, with less collateral death, though I’m not sure I’m helping Buffy become her best self by pitching in too much.
Angel’s attention to Buffy is still weird when he shows up, and I’m trying not to be hypocritical since I’m technically in my forties and dating a highschool girl, but my body at least feels like a teenager, even if I have extra memories crammed in. I am Jaq’el. So my attraction comes from a part of me that isn’t a creep, and she’s a mature girl. It’s a bit of an over justification, but I don’t feel guilty about it.
Come time for Prom, and “the Prophecy” I know that things will work out, so I do my best to keep everyone safe, and help Buffy where I can. She slays “The Master.” And the season is officially over.
The tablet had little hearts on it now.
As you’ve surmised, I’m pleased. You’ve also been guessing that I’ve been making you participate in the past, you were right then. It was a hidden drawback I forced on you for your benefit, I’ll give you additional points for it in the future. You haven’t asked, but no, you can’t have your supersoldier serum until you finish the tutorial. Good job not dying yet!
Keep me entertained!
The next world is extremely long-term not the sort of thing that someone has active daily adventures in, so I’m relaxing all requirements for you and will be focused elsewhere until that siege happens. Also, enjoy trying to figure out the old ways.
Though maybe keep up the sexy times, momma Sunny likes those, big boy.
— // —
There was no warning about what world I’d be going to, just a sudden shift and the bounty of memories. I am Arthalion, and I am the youngest child of Finarfin and Earwen, younger brother of Galadriel. I’m fair-haired, and despite appearing in my teens, I’m as mighty as any full grown adult and perhaps the fairest child in all of Middle Earth. I’m a student of the sword, arts, and all manner of craft, my life prior to my arrival is full of love and learning.
My life is easy going and at an Elven pace. I train constantly with my uncle Fingolfin, who despite all my years of training makes me feel like an idiot child. My one advantage is my reflexes which combined with my natural Elvish grace and some sort of unnatural growth I seem to have, is making me grow exceptionally fast. Both in terms of body and skill.
I hope I don’t grow too tall.
The rest of the year was rather unremarkable from my point of view, and more of an opportunity to study with a genius-among-genius once in a multiversal level talent like Fingolfin. Some of my inability to participate stems from my age still being too young as the Noldor measure things, but I do my best. Ever trying to improve.
Every time I wander into the woods, there are bandits. I’m not sure where they are coming from, or how they exist here, but they do, and I am forced to slay them. My plan to gather mercenaries for this adventure has proven fruitless, and my wealth is meaningless.
Several months, and many bandits later, we attended a festival where my uncles finally reconciled. Apparently they’d been quarreling over something.
The attack happened then: Melkor and Ungoliant attacked, killing the Two Trees of Valinor. In the battle that followed, I fought valiantly for a young man with the perfected training of the elves, nearly five year’s worth of training under Fingolfin, plus all my own studies. His training further amplified my learning, and there was the environment, very conducive to the experience.
I fought the hordes brought by the Dark-er Lord, and the giant Spider.
And then I died. Valiantly.
— // —
Laying on the ground are you? Well, you have three options. Repeat this level–
Even as the voice spoke, I let out a blood bubble from my mouth and cut her off, “Repeat the level.”
— // —
Same verse, same as the first. Again Arthalion, youngest child of Finarfin and Earwen, younger brother of Galadriel, nephew of Fingolfin, grandchild of Finwe. My family is kind of amazing. I train every day now, with more intensity, compounding on previous learning. I’ve started trying to learn some of the ways of Elvish crafting but they would take me years and years of study, even with my increased learning speed, so I decide that now is not the time. I just need to survive the battle.
I decide to focus a bit more on learning woodcraft this time, learning to slip among the trees like a leaf in the wind.
And of course, my bow-work and swordsmanship grow exponentially with every lesson I can squeeze from my betters. Every day of training is like five, every time I see a move, it’s like I’ve practiced it already, and I never need to have anything repeated.
Sharpening myself on the bandits now, trying to kill their number with the exact number of motions that make up their count. Twelve heads, twelve movements. It takes timing and skill, but it sharpens my skill, making it a game. The inability to experience PTSD is a godsend.
Death comes quicker in the next siege. I push my luck and try to land a killing blow on Ungoliant and take two blows which end me, just as fast.
— // —
Repeat? Repeat.
— // —
This is the thirteenth attempt of the Lord of the Rings, Silmarillion. I have tried hiding through the battle, I have fought with tooth, nail and bow. I have borrowed a weapon from the hand of a fallen master, and it has proven only marginally better than my own in prevailing against the tide of darkness.
I was once again Arthalion, youngest child of Finarfin and Earwen, younger brother of Galadriel, nephew of Fingolfin, grandchild of Finwe. My family is kind of amazing. I train every day now, with more intensity, compounding on previous learning.
My learning has approached what a normal highly focused person to learn, and a normal man five times that because I never grow bored, and though I practice ten thousand shots with the bow a day, changing my posture and the angle, I can fast-forward through it. It’s the same with the sword, my training when I can corner uncle Fingolfin (and I know his habits this year like my own, where he eats, where he likes to meet with friends, etc.)
Practice against the bandits is now done in a manner that involves the fewest movements I can manage. Killing three with a single swing is considered a success, anything less is a failure.
Through guile, I have managed to finagle a method of improving my gear in all respects, it takes knowing too much and seeing patterns across resets. I have a bow, sword and mail all of the finest make, short of mithril. My blade is unnamed, but it is as sturdy as necessary.
Fighting again, but maintaining my distance from the heart of the problem. We cannot defeat the terrible Spider and Melkor, or save the Trees. But we can live.The battle is long and hard, a true siege. I send out thousands of arrows and fight in concert with the glorious warriors in their shining armor around me.
In the end, as the trees die, I live.
Well done. You didn’t go out of your way to pursue intimacy, but sometimes it isn’t in the cards, and you were entertaining despite the nature of being an Immortal Elf in a land of Immortal Elves. I continue to be pleased. The only thing I can tell you about the next world (that’s a lie, I could tell you way more) is: “War never changes.”
— // —
♪ I don’t want to set the world on fire. ♪
The intro to his jump is a trippy one for a moment, I find myself sitting on the exact seat in the exact train that I’d been on when the Jump has started. I’m in the Capital Wasteland, and this Jack had been taking a break from kicking the business out of the local version of bandits. This version had been experimented upon with FEV and is in fact a super-mutant. I’m almost ten feet tall, strong enough to lift a car, and tough enough to soak weapons fire long enough to retaliate. I also soak up radiation and get stronger because of it. I’m missing an eye, but that’s not the worst thing to be dealing with, I lack binocular vision, but I can make up for that with a lifetime of experience.
I can also safely say that I am the best looking super mutant to ever exist in this universe, other Jumpers may have had a similar experience, but in this one, I am definitely it. I’m like a sexy Hulk more than a lump of tumors and green mottled skin. My Sexy and I Know It also makes me as clean as if I’d just bathed, so there is no dirt on me, even though there should be. My face is actually pleasant to look at, somehow the oddness of being a giant with no body or facial hair just works for me.
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_3L_.../s1600/slashfilm.jpg
I’m wearing scrap armor made out of pieces off a tank, and carry a sword six feet long. I am smart enough to put together a ranged weapon, though it’d need to be one of those modified to work with power armor.
“I can handle this.”
— // —
After some thinking about it, I decide to try and make contact with Megaton. I’ve had little need for it so far, but seeing as this is my first time I don’t have a steady source of food, I make use of my Treats perk to get myself a big bucket full of chicken fried rice mixed with lots of vegetables and eat it all while I walk through the tunnels. Moving quietly and smoothly.
From my memory of the game, Megaton is directly west of Arlington Cemetery what seemed like a few blocks but I knew would be several times further in the reality of the situation. Which meant I’d need to cross the Potomac or travel down to the Metro Station and remember which tunnel leads out west. Knowing my immunity to radiation, and in fact, the fact that I could thrive with radiation, I opted for the river route and headed south to the next station. From my stop it’d be Dupont Circle, or I believe it appears to be called Dupont Station in this universe.
The whole area was swarming with raiders and a few feral ghouls. None of which was looking for companionship, but with my skill, resilience and armor, was able to make short work of by moving quietly and taking many of them by surprise. The fact that I even could take them by surprise was a surprise to me, but I suppose all that time practicing as an elf had paid off in making me able to walk unnoticed.
My strength is enough to kill most of the raiders with my bare hands in moments, and the ones who make noise enough to open fire don’t really hurt all that much. I’m able to soak a lot of damage with this body and heal quickly afterward.
The tunnels are a mess of collapses and crashed subway cars, and I’m enormous, but with a bit of work, I manage to get to the surface. Climbing the long disused and locked-in-place escalators that descend up out of the dark dreary hellscape. The world above is worse.
I’ve only missed a few steps so far with a misjudge of distance, and the drawback disability are definitely not the worst thing I’ve had to deal with.
— // —
As I pass through the Capital Wasteland I make sure to pause and collect a lot of useful items, anything that might have resale value if I can sell it in Megaton. That is assuming I can at least trade with Megaton, if not get a house there. I find the latter somewhat unlikely, given my status, but I can survive the radiation and the monsters, I think.
Heading west, I swim across the Potomac, the radiation is refreshing really, and I slide my head under the water to drink of the water and then pause to fill a few Nuka-Cola bottles with the raw river water. I pause by the shore after killing some mirelurks with my sword, to eat a quick meal of chicken fried rice, my Treat of choice.
I could probably camp out nearby the whole year, but that sounds boring and uneventful. It wouldn’t go over well with Sunny, and seeing as how I am going to be doing that Horror genre level next, I need to keep my benefactor happy.
The trip to Megaton is filled with several encounters, though they aren’t quite as dense as the game might make one believe. There isn’t a new rash of monsters every few hundred feet, no new encampments of raiders, but it’s not hard to spot where there are groups of them. I move between the shattered remains of the older buildings and start to approach where the suburbs used to be. No longer made entirely of stone, the atomics that’d dropped here have leveled the ground and left only craters and battle fields. Tumbled over concrete structures in places the sole remains of a life once lived.
Megaton is different. It’s built around the remains of a stadium, much like Boston’s Diamond City, though the bulk of it is actually being used now, and it’s proper sized. Shrouded in corrugated steel to reinforce the walls in places, and cresting over the walls slightly in places. The skeleton of a roof still visible in places even from outside.
At the entrance are a handful of folk entering, though I keep a great distance, watching with the scope of a rifle I’ve taken off a dead raider.
The main defense of the gate is handled by a robot that if my memory serves, and it does of course, is called Deputy Weld. He wouldn’t mind me, but I’d need to get him to have “Sheriff” Lucas Simms come out to talk to me, since if I walked in, I’d certainly get shot at. Super Mutants are not usually too friendly, though there are exceptions, like Strong and others.
It takes a bit of planning, so I wait for nightfall. The Deputy remains at his post, and when it seems like foot traffic has died off, I approach and am greeted: “Howdy pardner!”
“I need to talk to someone in charge, can you contact them for me?”
“Affirmative.”
There was a wait then, robot information being sent into town, somehow? Some manner of wiring unseen? The rugged Simms emerged not too long later and I kept my hands up, and hoped for the best, ready to run off at the slightest provocation. “I come in peace.”
“You’re a mutant, don’t see many of your kind talking to folk around here.”
“I imagine not, I’m not violent and just wish to be able to trade in town from time to time. I expect I wouldn’t be welcome to live here,” I began.
— // —
I was wrong.
I’m not sure if I was supposed to be able to survive the way that I did for the following year, but I managed to become a fixture of the town. I remained that way, going out to hunt for the resident science sorts, collecting and delivering, and generally doing the quests that the Lone Wanderer would have done or repeated whenever they showed up. Simms even tasked me with security at one point, and got me a cyclical Laser Canon. I don’t know if I ever read the name when I played the game, briefly, but it looks like a gatling gun and shoots lasers. Apparently they’re commonly used by “my folk.”
I sat in the pit near the bomb, which had a much bigger area cleared out around it in the case of this universe, and the hazardous radiation was more heavily minded.
Eventually about six months in a vivacious redhead who everyone was calling “the Lone Wanderer” showed up. It was bizarre how they addressed her like that, she called herself Diane. On that whole business to do with water.
I made myself available to tag along in case she needed backup, and she did, though she seemed to prefer the company of others who didn’t get her shot at by random people who might be otherwise friendly. Or rather, she didn’t like seeing me get shot at.
She didn’t blow up Megaton.
I offered to teach her some improvements to her melee skills if she ever wanted, it was a simple relationship. Quid pro quo. I was handsome, for a super mutant, but even that didn’t make me liable to get anything out of the ladies of Megaton. No matter how much bigger the population was, I was still not a viable alternative.
— // —
By the end of the year, I’d learned to survive in the wasteland. Though not survive in the way that I’d imagined, it was a lot more scrounging, scraping, scrapping, shooting and selling than it was hunting for berries and building lean-tos. But I suppose it was as much as, if not more so, a struggle to survive if I didn’t use my Treats perk to get myself buckets of food that way. Water was never scarce, with the decline of climate change problems, there were fewer droughts and so the Potomac seemed to run heavy the entire time I was there.
The tablet showed up one day while I was sitting in the shallow pool of water around the bomb in town:
You survived and made it look not so difficult, but kept it relatively interesting. Not your best work, but not so bad either. That’s the nature of the survival tutorial, I could have dropped you in the Yukon with a buck-knife and a prayer, and let you sort it out, and that’d have been equally boring but more of a challenge, At least you fought giant scorpions this way. Anyway, my comment going forward is to just remember that if you ever find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin’.