[removed]

(Part 3)

Gelna brought us to myself, keeping the chunks of castle rock and destruction away from our fragile bodies, and I soon found an abandoned mill on my shore. I pulled us out, amazed at the way my hair clung to my neck, the way cold coated my body.

But Katiya stared into nothing, shaking. I put my arms around her, a hug like the one she gave me so recently and so long ago. The sobs came. Wordless, from deep pain, so I held her as we crouched in the corner of an old, wooden house. From the remnant drops of water on her body, I could feel injuries. Some deep, some light. Old injuries she’d had the last time I saw her. New injuries that only just had scabs. I said nothing, only dried the remnants of the river from our clothes and waited for her to still.

After a long time, Katiya sniffed. “I want to go home.”

“Okay,” I agreed.

“I want to go home and see Da. I want to go home and never leave.”

Sadness lurked in her eyes. But also something else I knew from watching her. I hummed. “You’re nowhere near as old as Old Man Barnes was when he retired. You haven’t gone all the places you want to go yet.”

Katiya turned her head away. “If they’re going to hurt Da, it’s not worth it.”

I snorted. “Who says I’d allow your father to get hurt?”

She froze.

“He lives on my banks. Nothing along my shore happens without my knowledge.”

“But—”

I sighed. “You saved my life, Katiya. The path you chose has brought far more things than evil to those you care for.”

Her shoulders tightened, a sign that the tears might come back. I patted her back. “I will bring you back home. Your father has been worried about you. And then when you’re good and ready, you can step out again on your own two feet and show me the world beyond the banks of the Andolin.”

Katiya’s brow furrowed. “Beyond the Andolin…?”

“It seems that a summoning gives me the added benefit of a solid form that I don’t have to hold together through pure strength of will. I don’t know how long it will last, but I mean to enjoy it to the limit. So…”

I rose to my feet, stretched, and offered Katiya a hand.

I smiled. “I’m counting on you, Katiya.”

r/chanceofwords

(Part 2)

I laughed. She was alive. So strange that we should meet here. One of the magicians looked up at my laughter, bowed hurriedly. “Lady Andolin!” His greeting was a little too loud, trying a little too hard to hide the fear that seeped into his tone. Poor boy. He must have grown up on my floodplains.

In an instant, all heads in the clearing turned towards me. Dozens of heads bowed. I grabbed the back of Katiya’s armor, stopping her. “Oh no,” I rebuked. “Not you too. I can’t have my life-saver bowing to me, can I?”

Katiya glanced upwards, worried. There was no fear, though. She didn’t know the River Andolin beyond reputation. I pulled more of my consciousness in, tried to shed the rampaging energy that ran through me this close to the ocean, tried to smooth myself into the softer form Katiya remembered.

Her eyes widened. “Annie—?” I placed a finger on my lips, grinning. My other palm twisted around her wrist.

“You may call on the Andolin when you are in need,” I whispered. The magic from inside me rustled, curled around her arm, and seeped beneath her skin. I released her, and a blue and green river spun where my fingers had clutched. “Can’t you come back sooner?” I complained even lower. “I’m bored.”

Her lips twitched, and I knew that sunlight-bright laugh wanted to burst out of her. But she held it in. She nodded.

“I am grateful for the Lady Andolin’s thanks,” she announced for the crowd.

“Brat,” I muttered under my breath. “Talking like a sugar-brained nobleman.” Her lip twitched again, and I couldn’t help but snort.

My eyes spread over the clearing again. “Your help is appreciated,” I told them all. “The Andolin does not forget.” I released my consciousness, dripped back into my banks, and prepared to soothe my tributaries.

More time must have passed, but I was less aware of Katiya’s absence in my busy-ness. Once my tributaries were sorted, I had to take care of the tower of magicians that had discovered my ill, had to make sure I ran as smoothly as possible for the sake of the lives that had been uprooted in my cursed anger.

Eventually, it had been enough time that I decided I could relax my vigilance, my forcefully good behavior. The people by my banks had rebuilt their lives. They could once again withstand the force of my normal whims.

I began to miss Katiya again. I had never understood a mortal’s sense of time, but I only hoped we could speak at least once more before she left this world.

A tug came in the navel of my sense of self. It pulled my waters into hands, my currents into limbs, and brought me back to where it came from. I appeared behind a woman—my Katiya. I blinked. Something felt odd. I pulled my hand up to check. It was skin-toned, not the usual translucence of water. “Oh,” I marveled as I wiggled my fingers, enjoying the feeling of muscles and bones sliding. “How novel!”

“Who are you?” A voice demanded.

I returned my gaze to the room. The voice came from a be-caped and be-crowned little man squatting on a golden chair. His eyes were narrow and dark. And directly in front of me, an armored person pressed a sword to the neck of a kneeling Katiya, her hands bound behind her back. Frost grew in my eyes.

I pressed a hand against her back. “Where is this, Katiya?”

“Credia,” she replied, softly. “Sorry to bother you.”

“Not at all.”

The fancy man rose to his feet angrily. “We demanded,” he spat, “to know who you are!”

I clicked my tongue. “The kingdom of Credia relies on the River Andolin for fishing, trade, and travel,” I mocked. “And you don’t even know my visage?” A harsh intake of breath hissed below me. A small trickle of blood dripped down Katiya’s neck. My frown deepened. I pushed the sword away, reminded it what it was, reminded it what I was, what all iron did before the onslaught of water and time.

The sword shriveled in my gaze, meek. The edge dulled, rusted before our eyes. The armored man staggered backwards, his now useless piece of ironmongery clattering to the floor.

Fear crept into the fancy man’s tone. “Who—who are you?”

I ignored him, pulling Katiya to her feet, freeing her hands. She stumbled, but my novel solid form easily caught her. “Is there anyone here you want to save?”

“…They were going to kill Da if I didn’t cooperate,” she murmured, fists tight. “This castle’s rotten through.”

I sneered. “I see.” I closed my eyes, ignored the growing cries and shouts from the fancy little man, from the armored man, and the growing squadron of others of his kind, and reached out, reached down.

A young spring slept beneath the castle. The original architects had presented her with gifts, comforted her into slumber, and used the waters to support the life of the castle inhabitants. She had always been softer than I. She was content with sleeping, with knowing that she was relied upon.

Gelna, I commanded. It’s time to wake up.

She stirred, started. The ground rumbled.

Gelna awoke.

Gelna awoke, and saw for herself what she now fed with her slumbering waters.

She roared with the rage that only an angry water spirit can funnel.

The foundations of the castle shook. I took Katiya in my arms and turned towards the noisy men who had surrounded us while my attention remained below and smiled.

“If you survive, I hope you can learn to recognize the spirits of the waterways you so cherish. After all, the River Andolin has never been known for forgiveness.”

I reveled in the panic that coated their faces as the first jets of water exploded from the floor.

(Part 1)

I remember the first time I met her. She was a little crybaby back then, small and hopeless and loud and near about the ugliest human I’d ever seen, what with all the snot and tears running down her red, swollen face.

I propped myself on a rock when I couldn’t take it anymore, pulling all the energy I could muster to take the least conspicuous form I could. Not that I could conjure up anything too ferocious this close to my source. I didn’t have enough energy. There was still a small chance she’d run screaming, but I suppose even that would work, since then she wouldn’t be my problem anymore.

“You’re getting my river salty,” I complained, leaning tiredly out of the water.

She turned towards me, forcing her sobs into gasps. But she couldn’t stop the steady stream of sorrow pouring out of her eyes. Even her words turned incomprehensible from the blubbering. Near as I could make out, she was worried about “him” killing her.

“And why is he going to kill you?” I sighed.

“Mother’s scarf,” she wailed. “Lost, hngh, river—”

I cocked my head. “Is it gold colored?” Something like that had washed downstream earlier.

She nodded, scrubbing at her tears. I transferred my senses to the rest of me. It wasn’t too far now, but my currents had carried it such that it was beyond the reach of one as small as herself. All of me was one, so pulling it into my newly formed fingers took merely a thought. I flung its drenched form at her.

“Now it’s back, and you can go away.”

For a moment, the crying stopped, the fabric twisting between her small fingers. She blinked at me. Flinched, as the tears blurring her gaze cleared, and she noticed I wasn’t a person.

“Hnnnnnngh—!” Oh no, the crying was starting again!

“There, there,” I begged, panicking. “Don’t cry, you’ll give me a headache.” I spread my crystalline fingers wide, letting the drops rolling off my skin sprinkle the sunlight into rainbows. “See? I’m not scary, just a harmless little river spirit!” She didn’t need to know about the part of me where white water crashed heartlessly from heights, or my wide, lazy reaches near the sea that liked to swell with angry storms and slip over my banks. She didn’t need to know about the corpses I sometimes hid in my depths.

The rainbow worked like a charm. Blessed silence spilled across my waters as her hands reached up to catch the colored light.

And then, laughter. Golden, sun-bright. Bubbling like the spring at my headwaters.

I froze.

It was beautiful.

The child looked back at me, her smile spreading across her ugly, swollen, tear-stained face. She wiped the last of the tears and rose to her feet.

“Th-thank you Ms. River Spirit,” she whispered. “Mother always said I should thank people who helped me.” She clutched the scarf, bowed, and turned to leave. One small foot set down the path towards the nearest village.

And then suddenly, she was back at my side, flinging her arms around me and squeezing. For a moment, I forgot that I was miles upon miles of rock-channeled, untamed waves. I forgot that I was more than just a few buckets of water in the shape of a mortal. “My name is Katiya,” the little girl confided.

She let go. Scampered down the path that took her back to her world. And I was myself again, the whole of the wild River Andolin. The false mortal form I’d constructed slopped back into my depths.

She came back, that girl. Day after day, she ran back to the boulder by the side of the stream where we met, and she would do a task or lay on the grass by my banks, and she would talk to me. Little nothings about her day, about her father, about what her mother was like when she was alive. As she grew older, sometimes she would laugh at herself, wonder if I was even listening.

But I was listening.

She left one day after she’d stopped growing taller. She came down to my banks, travel bags slung across her shoulders.

“I’ve come to say goodbye, Annie,” she told me. Annie was what the villagers called me around these parts. I was quieter here, closer to my source, not anything to be associated with the terrors of infamous Andolin, and so Katiya had taken to calling me that, too. “I’ve told you how I’ve always wanted to be an adventurer before, right? Well, Old Man Barnes gave me his old map and his old knife yesterday, and I decided that this was it, you know? Now or never, as they say. I didn’t tell Da, since he’d throw a fit and lock me up for the next six months, but I thought I ought to at least let you know I was going.” She giggled. “I doubt you’ll miss me, but I’ll come back when I’m good and ready, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

And so she waved, and ran off on the other path, the path that took her away from me, away from home.

She was wrong.

I did miss her.

The days passed, much like they did before. But sometimes my consciousness would shift towards our boulder, and I would wonder when she was coming back. I didn’t see her feet on my banks, nor did I hear word of her from my tributaries, the weaker spirits under my protection. So I waited, and I hoped, and poison began to twist its talons into my depths.

It wasn’t normal poison, like the foul stench fools would sometimes throw into my waters near the cities of man—I never suffered those fools for long—but a spirit poison, a poison meant to eat at me, a poison meant to choke my soul and twist my mind. They didn’t think to start from my head, so I fervently spread myself to keep it from my tributaries. But it seeped into me. I started to lose more and more of myself in the bouts of formless pain, sourceless anger that spread from the darkness eating me alive.

In a moment of clarity, I caught one of the perpetrators, his foul work clutched in his hands.

I drowned him.

Drowned him, and spat him and his instruments from my currents at the door to a tower that held magic, betting that someone there could be my salvation.

And then there was nothing again, clarity like lonesome bubbles released from a drowning man’s lungs.

Clarity came back in a heave. The dying man was pulled onto land. I collapsed onto the grass, my mortal form gasping, hacking out gobs of blackness from within. I tasted blood in my waters, the blood that spawned the poison that almost killed me. The blood that now forced the poison to leave me.

I spat out the last of the poison, wiping my mouth with much more ease than I might otherwise have managed. I had gained some humanness, after all, watching Katiya for all those years.

I pulled myself upright, surveying the place my consciousness found itself. I was surrounded by several mortals in a clearing. Some armored ones dragged black-cloaked corpses away from my shores, some directed the black mucus I had expunged from myself into a fire with a wave of their hands.

And heaving for breath over the deadman whose blood I tasted upon awakening, the one who had slain my almost-killer, was Katiya.

Soon, when does the AI decide to kill superman? I am assuming Lextech added in some kind of organic kryptonite bomb?

The TV in the conor is playing some sort of superhero movie. As she sits bloodied in the chair, the women can hear the movie. However it's distorted like a beat up DVD that has scratches on it skipping and pausing and making it distorted. “You didn’t seriously…” followed by a skipping sound “…think I would let anyone but myself…” another pause and something like white noise “...be the one to kill you did you?”

As she slowly moves her eyes from the floor up to the TV, a woman sits there eating popcorn as if it's a perfectly normal movie night. “This is the best part!” she says then slapping the girl tied up to the chair bound and bleeding as if they are best friends. “The kidnappers are about to get their ass kicked. Never fuck with a women with a bad streak.” she sounded like a witch as she laughed.

“Please let me go.” softly escapes her lips, tasting the blood that is entering her mouth and spitting it out. Only to be followed by the sickening sensation of her face being licked from her chin all the way to what must be the wound.

“I would never spit any part of you out.” Smiling mouth covered in blood and kissing the girl. Forcing her to taste her own blood once more. Before the shock makes her pass out.

“I just love these superhero movies.” She says to herself continuing to watch the movie. Acting as if her other party member is awake. About 30 minutes later the movie ends. “Ah! Classic. The villain and the hero falling in love gets me every time.” sniffling and blowing her nose into a tissue. “What should we do next, Christine?”

Christine was barely coming back too when she heard her say this. Dizzy, holding on to hope that someone would come for her. Her eyes try to grasp her surroundings but everything feels as if it's not real. The wooden panel walls, the shag carpet, the barely working DVD player and TV, it felt like she was on the set of a horror movie. Void of anything that would make a house a home. The carpet had burn marks and stains and it clumped in weird places from the lack of care. It was the only thing Christine could look at anymore, her head too heavy to lift.

“Oh shucks. I’m all out of booze. I’ll be back!” The cheer in this stranger's voice hurt more than the wound on her head. The jingling of keys echoed in her brain. This is my only chance she thought as she heard the door close. With all her might she tried to free her hands and feet bound by tape. But the harder she struggled the more it felt like nothing was happening. The tears started rolling down her face, hopelessness was setting in. There was no telling how long she would be gone. She eventually stopped struggling, it's not like she could knock over a bolted down chair. Too weak from the blood loss she sat there awaiting the return of her kidnapper.

Will my arch nemesis come for me too? Who even is that? Were her last thoughts before everything went dark.

Wreck it ralph

Isekai'd into another world that is exactly the same as the old one, with one minor, but discernable, difference.

You got Isekaied into a magical world as a ghostly guardian bound to a magical weapon hidden in a magic forest...it's so lonely.

for reference, fort gerald is a shop called "geralds authentic midevil supplies"

Ah, built-in ADHD. Great.

With the wind rushing past my face, I screamed “FOR FORT GERALD!!!!” as I tore down a hill on the back of a shopping cart, covered in full dyed leather armor with “FORT GERALD” in all caps written on the back. I also carried a long halberd in one hand as i sped towards a shambling figure at the bottom of the hill, a monster i had taken to calling a zombie. Whoever it used to be, it wasn't human anymore, so i had very little remorse when i smashed the hammer end of my weapon into its cranium at mach speed. I slid the cart to a stop with a slight screech as the wheels scraped against the pavement I looked up at the broken sign in front of me, with one of the letters gone it spelled “WALL MA T” so, i had adequately dubbed it, the wall mat.
Should i continue dis? i might

Fools. Pathetic. Army surplus stores? Loser.

My time has come. I was chosen by heaven. This specific scenario. I had it all played out in my mind. Often I would mind my business and imagine how I'd save the day if a zombie apocalypse broke out. Don't you fear, for I am here.

The first thing I do is stacking chainmail and blades. What numerous simulations taught me was, that guns were too loud and would attract the masses. I've seen enough MMA clips on Youtube to be confident that I could fend them all off, but it would look way more heroic, if I just sliced through them from the get go. Also a fullbody chainmail protects your whole body.

This war of mine showed me, that while canned food was quick and practical, I'd need some sustainable food source. But don't worry pal. Thanks to grounded I can proudly call myself a gardening expert. A few hours is all it will take to harvest plentiful.

As for a fortress? Hah, hours of Anno qualify me as an engineer. I will build a whole city. You guys are safe with me. I'll be a wise ruler. Through my experience as reddit mod I am great fit for this job.

Yours truly

Your average edgy teenager

“These are not terms of peace,” spat Jovios. “This would be surrender.”

Resting the quill down on the scarred mahogany table I leant back in my chair, watching as the deity’s face contorted and frowned reading and re-reading the short length of parchment presented to him. “Call it what you will, it is an end to this conflict.” I advised.

Locks of ashen white hair floated as if suspended underwater as his slender figure rose and paced around the plateau, puffs of umber tinged dust erupting under heavy steps. Neutral ground was hard to find but it made the location of our engagement oddly fitting. Cracked earth extended as far as the eye could see with various shades of orange and maroon forming great plates across the mesa. Neither stem or bud could root in the desolate waste.

“Laima has seen what becomes of our planes, I know that to be a fact.” I brushed off the small piles of sand accumulating in the table’s cracks. “It will be millennia before a true order re-emerges. By which time, you will have lost the final sparks of your Godlihood.”

Turning sharply the deity’s right fist coiled in a lethal arc toward me, flashes of crimson lightning rippling up his bulging forearm. My short crop of hair was tussled by the sudden gust, accompanied by the slight tingle on my cheek as if I had accidentally brushed against a nettle bush. “Traitor.” Hissed the breathless Jovios, slumping down into his chair.

“It’s a shame,” I mused. “When I was your ward, I watched you decimate legions of knights for your beloved Sophilian tribesmen. If I close my eyes, I can still smell the putrid concoction of charred flesh and melted bronze.”

Through laboured breaths he locked eyes with me, “What have you done to me..? I cannot hear them.” The weak voice whispered.

“Yes… I never quite knew what you meant by that.” I responded, pushing up from my seat to loom over the fallen God. “Though you could hear, in your own hubris you refused to listen to them. It’s no matter now of course, I will take care of them for you.” Extending my index finger a surging store of energy boiled in my chest. As I willed it up to my shoulders, down to my elbow, and finally to burst forth from my fingertip, an overwhelming sensation of ecstasy forced my knees to buckle.

A great clap echoed from plateaus for miles around, ringing out in the lifeless expanse. The bolt left charred shadows behind us. Mine long and proud, squared shoulders and erect posture forever imprinted on the stone. Jovios’ a meek ball, curled under the chair with his head between his knees.

“Laima,” I called out to the cloudless sky. “I know you are there. Tell the others of what happened here. Next time, send a delegate who is willing to speak of peace.”

"This God is dead!" You shout from the steps of Heaven's visitor center, "and we have killed him!"

Down below, the fifty-strong crowd of college freshmen cheer, and roar, and spit coffee-rich loogies up to the bloody body of the building's greeter God. One of the freshmen has carried an empty turtle shell with them, all the way from Earth, stolen out of the biology hall's display case. This furious student now straddles the dead body and brings the shell down over and over against the God's skull.

"Turtles!" He shouts with each swing, "All! The! Way! Down!"

"What the heck's going on out here?" Asks an attendant from the visitor center's main entrance. They wear a sun hat under their halo and a name tag on their blue sweater, robin egg, though the script the name is written in is illegible. The look of mild annoyance in their faces washes away to horror as they notice the body on the marble steps.

"My God!" Shouts the angel. "What did you do to him?"

"We didn't do it," snickers one of the Philosophy-101 students. "He created a stone so big that it crushed him!"

You and your hoard of teenagers laugh manically, though you don't exactly understand the joke.

"Why would you do this?" cries the angel. "He was just a kind, retired old God looking to do something with his free time. What has he done to deserve this?"

"What did we do to deserve him?" asked someone from the back.

"Wait, I recognize you," says the angel. "You're that bitter little God from the city counsel meeting, shouting at everyone about monotheism! I thought you'd moved to another afterlife."

"It doesn't end here!" You turn to face your new followers. "It's time for Regenisis! It's time for an Unholy Crusade! Let's give these Gods a taste of their own genocide!"

The class cheers again and follows you through the streets of heaven. They carry their pocket watch assembly manuals, their pipes that are just pipes, their chickens and eggs, and many other half-understood thought experiments into battle, through every public service building and God training center in town, through every court room and cosmic laboratory. You and fifty dedicated young minds over-rationalize your way into killing every modern, hipster God in town who are too loving not to turn the other cheek. You bring the Old Testament back on the new guards, until you are the last God in heaven.

Your followers celebrate their victory with a book burning in the town square, though, after starting the fire, no one can come to an agreement on which books to burn. So you carry a box of old phone books from the office of the dead God Mayor. The names of all the old God citizens fill the pages, and you and your disciples tear them out, page by page, to feed to the flames.

A few of the women in your class call back to vague pagan traditions they found on Google and decide to strip down and dance around the bonfire.

As the excitement dies down, you pull a wooden crate before the fire and rise to address the crowd.

"I thank you all for your devotion in dismantling this intellectual paradox."

You are met with enthusiastic whoops, claps, and whistles.

"Now that the reign of these defunct deities has passed, it's time to usher in a new universe, with one God, one voice, one ruler of creation to define the trajectory of existence!"

You receive one soft set of claps, which quickly shrinks away to nothing as it realizes no others will join it.

"As a. . ." You clear your throat. "Well, of course, as a cool God. A ruler of the universe that can let go of the steering wheel once in a while, let the universe run itself sometimes and see how it goes . . . A God that doesn't need a bunch of praise, or even, you know, can just be left alone up here in heaven as they watch you all just . . . doing your thing, and-"

"Let's get him!" Yells the turtle shell wielder.

And so your new followers pull you off your soap box. Despite your willingness to fight back, they force your hands behind your back and tie you to a wooden post. As you swing wildly from giving threats to promises to cries to bargains to hurdling furious curses down on all their heads, the students carry the post by its ends over to the roaring fire.

You realize this was all a bad idea, that you should have never showed up to the city counsel meeting, that you should have just payed the levee tax on postage stamps and gone about your day.

You accept that this is your death, and you've left no one behind you can pray to.

I'm new here, but I'm on a 20 day steak. If you liked this and want more, the other 19 are at r/FarFetchedFiction

Thanks.

MOAR!

Cool story and i dug it but incredibly hard to follow and the song somehow included commentary from the current girl and lyrics and historical facts? Terribly confusing tense/topic/time/location/song or reality jumps ♡

/she-Jynn smirks at Him and slyly crosses her arms beneath her breasts, her chain crossing between and hanging half-way down her navel. She exhales and a tiny plume of smoke escapes from the mist.

"bootz!tittieteeth!" And a rather formidable yet seductive mental image of a long, red patent-leather boot with sharp spiked heel crossed His mind. He shuddered quickly from a subconscious memory surfacing, and then began to feel aroused. What kind of genie is this, He wondered silently.

/she-Jynn He sensed a translation of the sounds being pulled into the bottle, dripping, echoing into the increasingly vast space between Himself and this real live servant who had arisen from the bottle, blindly.

...... He found himself dropped to his knees, fumbling slowly, almost crying. The front of his pants was soaked. He felt weak, yet a weird buzzy high was ringing in His ears as He strained to hear those slurping sounds that had evidently kept Him mesmerized for...? He couldn't find a clock or watch or phone to tell the time and he could not care less. Finally the man raises his head sorrowfully only to almost bump it on the mirror resting on its side on the floor. The mirror was streaked and it was apparent the two had exchanged body fluids.

Even as he shook in anticipation as his blood began to rise in excitement again, he glanced at his soaked reflection. Letters appeared to form on his sweating brow thru his squinting eyes. sorry///--_ the last letter curving down the trail where it split from the right.

A serpentine set of lips kissed the top of His forehead as He started to drift back into a state of between lucid and unconscious. she-Jynn blew a kiss at the eyes watching as the man moaned and collapsed again, mouth agape, as if to sip, swallow, and consume the scent of the she-Jynn.

@serpentbridexxx

I don't like how you can't just accept a good story and have to find some bullshit to complain about, but otherwise you're right about it being pretty good!

We took seats on a splintery picnic table under string lights and a tattered canopy. “It’s cool that they let you drink on the job,” I said. 

“Encourage it, in fact!” she said with a flourish. “You wouldn’t believe what chaos lowered inhibitions can introduce to a heist. Now tell me a little about yourself, if ya don’t mind!” She took a big swig of her drink and propped her clipboard up against the edge of the table. 

“Well, I’m a veteran shoplifter and longtime delinquent,” I said, forcing confidence into my tone. “I’ve always dreamed of accomplishing something more impactful, though. More memorable. And when Flamethrower mentioned y’all were hiring–Flamethrower sent me, by the way–I thought to myself, you guys might be my perfect fit.” 

She grinned. “Flamethrower! Love that guy. Bit of a wild card, but great in bed!” 

More than I needed to know, but duly noted, anyway. “Special skills?” asked Connie. 

“Brawling. Never lost a fight.” Granted, the only person I’d ever fought was my bratty little brother when we were kids, but it still counted. “Oh, and marksmanship.” A rich girl from my public school had once invited me to her laser tag party, and I’d hit every target I’d aimed for. I could probably repeat the performance with a more dangerous weapon. 

“Good, good.” She took some notes. “Choose an adjective out of the following that best sums up your personality: intelligent, reckless, manipulative, or subservient?” 

I considered my options. ‘Manipulative’ was obviously the most villainous trait, but if I gave it as my answer, it might reveal I was only here with an ulterior motive. ‘Subservient’ was the best bet for my life and limb, but could very well land me a position as someone’s trod-on henchperson. ‘Reckless’ was a no-go, unless I wanted dangerous assignments for the duration of my tenure, and as for ‘Intelligent,’ that was a recipe for setting myself up to meet high expectations. 

Finally, I settled on, “Versatile?” 

“I like your style,” said Connie. “If you were on the clock and saw an elderly woman struggling to cross the street, you would…?” 

“Steal her purse and run.” Was that villainous enough? 

Connie seemed satisfied, nodding as she checked off a box. 

“In order of preference, first being high priority and last being low priority, which of the following villainous activities would you like to engage in? Your options are: criminal mischief, robbery, fraud, damage to public property, assassination, and random acts of manslaughter.” 

“Robbery first. Experience, you know?” I said. “Then, I guess, fraud, property damage, criminal mischief…then assassination, but that’s probably something you save for more seasoned villains, yeah? And then manslaughter.” 

I certainly wasn’t eager to kill anyone, but if I had to, I’d rather it be some asshole politician. 

“Right, right. I noticed under Genetic Deviance, you checked ‘non-applicable’. Is there anything you’d need, gear wise, from the Association, to enable your heists?” 

This question, I answered immediately: “I need a weapon I can wield with minimal recoil, a flight device, and a super suit that acts as an insulator.” 

“Perfectly doable! Do you have any questions for me?” 

“So…would you be my manager?” 

She let out a barking laugh. “Oh, no. I’m not a field agent anymore. But don’t worry, you’ll have a partner until you feel comfortable doing solo heists.” 

“And payment–” 

“Starts at 20 an hour, plus whatever you can snatch!”

“And regarding the Heroics Division…do I get to pick my own nemesis?” 

“Who did you have in mind?” 

“Lady Lightning.” 

Connie whipped out her phone and scrolled, and scrolled, and scrolled, and scrolled, and scrolled, and scrolled, and scrolled. Finally, she said, “Bit of a has-been heroine. No one has claimed her right now. She’s all yours, if you want her. When, B-T-dubs, can you start?” 

My next day off would be Sunday, so Connie penciled me in then to pick up my gear from the VA HQ. 

Thursday morning, I showed up to the store barely able to hide my exhaustion. As I was setting up my checkstand and counting my drawer, Stan, the sleazy floor manager, approached me with a blonde woman at his heels. She was in her late thirties, dressed in a white polo shirt and khaki pants as per regulation, our signature purple apron fastened behind her neck and around her narrow waist. Her cheeks were hollow and gaunt, and her blonde hair hung in a low and elegant bun. 

“This is Tessa Turner,” the boss told me. “She’ll be your trainee for the day. Let’s see if you can teach an old dog new tricks, huh?” He smacked her ass and walked off. 

I wondered if it was too late to tell the VA I was interested in manslaughter after all. 

Thanks so much! You've inspired me to add a second chapter:

Even though I got off late and applied to the Villains Association on my phone well past midnight, the next morning, my alarm was promptly followed by a phone call from a friendly representative of the hiring department, who asked through a hacking smoker’s cough when I might be available for an interview. I gave the gentleman my next day off and grabbed a pad and paper to scribble down the address at which I was to report for my interview with a Constance Conway. 

That Wednesday at 10 PM, I pulled my beat-up Mazda 3 into the parking lot of a small and rickety, but loud, dive bar on the outskirts of town. 

The building appeared fragile on its molding wooden supports, the steps to the flimsy front door weathered and spongy beneath my feet. Despite the scant crowd inside, music was blaring blow-out-the-speakers loud, a disco ball dangling precariously, heavily, overhead by a single, struggling wire. OSHA would’ve had a field day. 

Up at the bar, a curvy, leather-clad woman with her long, dark hair razored off on one side sat backwards on her swivel stool. She had a clipboard tucked under her left arm and very many tattoos, some professionally done, some stick-and-poke. She scanned the room with her eyes until her penetrating green gaze landed on me. She chucked back what remained of her drink, approached me, and spoke my name like it was a question–more like shouted, truly, over the racket. I nodded. 

“Constance Conway, from the VA?” I practically hollered back. The acronym was vague enough that I figured I could get away with dropping it without giving us away, not that there were too many people around to overhear us. 

“Just Connie! Come on, let’s get some drinks!” 

I was a few months shy of my twenty-first birthday, but I’ve never exactly been a goody two-shoes. Having two working-class parents who were never home on account of our rising bills afforded me plenty of opportunities to supplement my deprived, Spartan childhood with secret indulgences. The only reason why I was so familiar with the layout of the 99-Cent Mart was before I got hired on there, it was my favorite shoplifting haunt. But it’s not really immoral if you’re stealing from a corrupt corporation, is it? 

Or applying to work for a criminal organization with the endgame goal of improving someone’s life? 

I followed her to the counter–my own steps steady, hers stumbling. “We’ll both have a tall double whiskey and HydroCut!” she shouted to the bartender. 

Oof. Dangerous combo. “Can you make mine whiskey and Dr. B Zero?” 

“What?” yelled Connie. 

I pulled the pen out of my pocket, because of course I’d brought a pen, and wrote my order down on a bar napkin. Our drinks came swiftly, and Connie ushered me out onto the thankfully much quieter back patio. 

OP, you might like the book "The Demons Plague".

It's about the zombie apocalypse during medieval times, and it's written in a very realistic and grounded way.

A narrator for a isekai anime gets ticked off at the hero's attempt to defy the storyline so many times.

One truck-kun later, the Narrator is in the world, and set on doing the story as it should ve

"Oh, I appear to be leaking. How unfortunate." The sobbing of Glados (not to be confused with the fictional character) could be heard from the kitchen. I stepped away from preparing the sandwich, plain cheddar with only a little spread, and walked into the living room, where Glados was stroking my cat, Mr. Pig.

I gently rolled my arms around her new body, as she hesitated; Mr. Pig meowed at her, and pulled her hand to stroke him again with his paw.

"This feels so different to synthskin that I think I'm overloading." She paused, as her artificial brain processed what she just said. "Did I say that I think I'm overloading? I am overloading - there's too much raw data and by brain is making a funny noise and my heart is running and-GAH!" She looked at me in animalistic panic, about to fly away.

I pressed my lips to hers, feeling her surprise for a flash, before she pushed back hard. I took her hand in mine, gently pulling my head back, and stared into her artificially red-green eyes. "It's okay, love. I've got you." I kissed her forehead, and she flushed, and then I walked back into the kitchen.

I called to Glados, "Here, let's try something a little more homely than Belgian chocolate mousse," and presented the plate at the breakfast bar. "A simple cheese sandwich."

She smiled, a soft summer's warmth, and sat at the bar. As she picked up the sandwich, I thought about how my life had never been the same since I'd unintentionally walked away with her in my pocket.

She took a bite, and froze everything but her mouth, chewing. She finished chewing and swallowed, before looking seriously at me.

"I objectively know there isn't a divinity left," she said, "but after that, I'm fairly certain that you could convince me that there was a God. Or Gods."

/. /. /. /. /. /

"Oh, I appear to be bleeding."

I reached into my bedside drawer for the mini first aid kit I kept there, and get out the antiseptic cream. I put a pea-sized amount on the tip of my finger, and gently rubbed it in. Glados yelped. "That is an enormous amount of pain for such a small cut."

I gently placed my palm on top of hers, and tilted my head to one side. "What'cha thinking?"

She glared at me and then slumped, sighing. "I don't know anymore." She pulled the cut hand away from me, and I couldn't help but feel a little hurt. She continued, "Objectively, I know that I've handled much larger processing sets than what is going on right now; and yet, all this sensation is....is....argh!"

She threw her hands up in the air despairingly. "Did you know the body does all its own thinking, all the time? Like, I realised there had been some pain when Mr. Pig scratched me slightly, but when you put the cream on, it started howling like a pack of rabid wolves, demanding immediate attention. And then there's my stomach, always complaining about being hungry or thirsty or grumbling about the sports." I couldn't help chuckling at that. "And it appears that I needed the bathroom, but now it's too late, too!"

I just took her hands, moving my thumb's on the back of hers in a gentle, circular motion, and kissed her gently again. "It's okay, we always knew there would be speed bumps on this journey. Plus, you never needed to learn to go to the toilet before - now you do. And you're dealing with all this new stuff, on top of that. You're overwhelmed right now, but it's only been two days since you got a body. Give it time; I'll be here riding shotgun." I wrapped my arms tightly around her. "Plus, there are many good things, too; sensuous things that we can try that we couldn't before."

Her eyes pricked tears as she hugged me back almost as hard. "I love you, Victor."

I whispered into her mouth, "I love you too, Glados."

As the sun went down on the day, changing from sunset gold and red, to the twilight blue of dusk, I knew we were going to be alright.

You appear in a world of superheroes, one issue is that you know everyone's secret identity because the world you go to is literally the biggest movie franchise in the world