24 Fanfic #24 Bottled Power by Massgamer (Worm/Bioshock SI)

This is an si fanfic with the mc as a bioshock tinker. Canon is basically thrown out of the window a couple of chapters into the story.

Synopsis: SI, who is basically Tinker of Bioshock tech, is sent to Worm while only knowing most of it from fanfiction!

Rated: M

words: 67k

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/bottled-power-worm-bioshock-si.927864/reader/

Here's the first chapter:

I really wished that in addition to the ability to mix up superpowers in a bottle that I had some kinda super planner ability, but nope, I'm not nearly that lucky.

Therefore I tried to be more confident as I sat in the waiting room of the Brockton Bay Law Firm - a very uncreative name, by the way. Oh yeah, I also was in Brockton Bay of the popular but grimdark web serial known as Worm where everything sucks cause some space whales put parasites in peoples' head that gave them superpowers, which only came about after receiving a terribly traumatic event so they tended to lean toward the asshole side personality-wise.

That was not getting into the conflict drive included in said powers, the quickly collapsing social order of the world due to legit giant monsters that showed up every three months to wipe out a city, the serious amount of superpower-related crime, a shadowy conspiracy group that did tons of fucked-up stuff for the 'greater good', several WMDs in the shape of people, a physical god that will eventually wipe out countless alternate realities, and that is only a small part of the list! It went without saying that when I first showed up, I had a bit of a panic attack.

My coming to this reality by some unknown source was not pretty either, considering that apparently, I was the only survivor of a terrible car crash that claimed the lives of the parents of the kid who's body I was now inhabiting. For all I know, he was brain dead too before I got shoved into his head. The injuries he had were' pretty based on my stay at the hospital.

It was then I realized several things: One, I was in Worm as said earlier, which left me kinda in shock for a few hours. Two, my 'parents' were dead and apparently, I had absolutely no other living relatives, so... less awkward, but not great. Third, I had apparently just turned 18 recently, my 'family' got into said accident on the way back from a birthday dinner, so I was not the state's problem at all and in fact, got to claim an excellent life insurance policy from my 'parents'' passing, so... yay? And finally... apparently I had powers too, though I highly questioned it coming from a Shard or not since said power was-

"Matthew Anders, Mrs Dallon will see you now," the nice secretary interrupted my internal thoughts, causing me to jump out of my seat, say a quick thank you, and rush into the office of one of the premier superheroes in the city.

I have to say, considering how she was portrayed in the fandom, I was expecting her to look much bitcher or maybe more Karen-like.

"Mr Anders, it's nice to meet you. Please take a seat," Carol/Brandish gestured, and I quickly followed. "First off, I want to apologize for your parents' passing, I can imagine it was a terrible shock for you. You said on the phone you wanted assistance in getting their affairs in order?"

"Yes, and we will get to that, but first things first. Is your office soundproof, and as a lawyer that I'm hiring, you promise not to share anything, yeah?" I got to the quick of it.

That caused Carol to pause and look at me oddly before nodding, "Yes, the room is safe from eavesdropping, and that is my professional obligation."

"Okay good, cause I was not entirely honest with you about my reasoning for coming here. I mean, I am here to talk about how to get my parents estate in order and all the things involved in that, but there is more to it than that."

"And that is?"

"I'm a cape, a Tinker specifically. Yes, I know handing out that information is dangerous, but both as a lawyer and one of the few public capes in the city, I think I am mostly safe about you not telling anyone. The reason I came is that I'm considering joining New Wave if you are still open to recruitment, and I want to pitch myself."

"That... that's very forward and trusting of you, and I am both grateful and honored for your trust," Carol said honestly as she had her full attention on me now. "Might I ask why you came to New Wave in general instead of the PRT and Protectorate? I don't mean to under sell my team, but compared to them, we have much fewer resources to fund a Tinker no matter how useful they might be."

"While it's true the government has much more resources to give me being a Tinker in the Protectorate is very hard since anything you build has to go through a review panel," I said, "and while that is not without good reason, it would hold me back specifically very much."

"And why is that?"

Okay, here it goes. "I'm a Biotinker," I said, something I emphasize by taking off my backpack, reaching in and then placing a large jar on her desk with a thunk. Inside the jar was a giant bioluminescent sea slug that sat in some seawater. I watched Carol back off quickly, and if I didn't miss my guess, she glows a little bit in shock from both my words and my creation. "At least that is what my specialty mostly centers around since I can build other stuff, but this is the big bit."

"I-I see," Carol said slowly as she took me and my jar in. "And... what is it?

"A sea slug."

"Pretty large for a slug... but is that it?"

"Oh, of course not. This slug, which I made from grabbing a few normal sea slugs from a local tide pool and a basic lab I put together, isn't a super monster or anything like other Biotinkers would make. It's much more subtle than that," I said then I dropped the bomb, "It naturally produces a kind of super stem cell that when refined can be introduced into other living beings and rewrite genetic material, allowing the user to alter their bodies, their genetic makeup and their natural abilities without any direct limits whatsoever aside from their imagination. In short, when it's made a certain way it can quite literally give people superpowers, and that is quite literally only the tip of the iceberg of what it's capable of."

Carol said nothing for a few moments, just looking between me and the slug to see if I was serious or not. She opened and closed her mouth a bit before finally just closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.

"You are serious?" she asked.

"Incredibly so. I could try and show you the math and everything, but Tinker."

"Right... right. This is... if you are being completely honest with me, what you are saying is big, very big."

"You can see why I went to a lawyer first. Biotinkering is not technically illegal, but it has an understandably bad rap." I said grim-faced, " this is not helped by the biggest names in it doing countless terrible things with their abilities... and technically what I would need to do as well."

"What do you mean by that?" Carol asked in concern.

"Let it be clear first and foremost that I would never do this. You see, the amount of stem cells the slug can produce on its own is much too low for me to really make anything useful from it. The best way to expand production to useful levels would require... implanting the slug into the stomach of a prepubescent little girl to increase stem cell production by a massive amount." I finished with total honesty.

Carol had a very understandably horrified look on her face. "That's... that's monstrous."

"No argument there, which is why I would never do it," I said, then I took my gamble. "Therefore if I wanted to Tinker with these stems cells at all I would either need to make a huge farm of the slugs and harvest the small amounts each one produces, or I could work with a noted healer whose abilities might just allow me to create a slug that produces large amounts of stem cells easily with no human needed."

When Amy came up Carol's face pinched up just a bit, not terribly so but enough to know she didn't like bringing up her adoptive daughter due to her own mental hang-ups.

"That is... even if that is possible," It is, she just didn't want to admit it. "why in the world would I possibly allow it? What you are proposing is not only dangerous in the extreme but might very well upset what order we have in society in general."

"To be totally honest, we both know that the current 'order' is only holding on by a string at best and at worst is just a sweet little lie we all tell ourselves so we think life can be normal." I said frankly, "I personally believe that powers in the hands of a few people is what allows that huge amounts of inequality and fear we face and that if everyone had the ability to shoot lasers from their eyes, things would be much more manageable in general, but that is not here or there. I wouldn't come to you if that were the only thing I had to offer; in fact, I have tons of stuff to offer that is not related to these super stem cells at all... but I will need lots of them for this next part."

I then proceeded to bring out some basic blueprints for a tall tube like device, something which Carol took a look at.

"This is the real game-changer for... possibly everything," I said with more seriousness than anything else I said so far.

"And this is?"

"It's called a Vita-Chamber, and it works by using a combination of the stem cells I mentioned within a quantum field entanglement to... basically bring people back from the dead."

If Carol was gobsmacked before, I think my words may have broken her brain.