Sorry if this ends up being posted later than I planned. New Warcraft expansion released and it's been my first new launch experience since BfA.

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  Ow. Just ow. My everything hurt. Why did my everything hurt? What happened last night? I blinked, eyes adjusting to the dim light of the room. A chill ran up my spine. The room was cold, unpleasantly so.

  Had I fallen asleep in here? How exhausted was I last night? Sleeping on metal would explain why everything felt sore. Why was I even down here in the first place? The last thing I remember was…

  “Snake!” The words that left my throat an understatement. It wasn’t just a snake, it was the largest snake I had ever seen.

  It was close to twice my height, I think. My sense of scale had never been particularly reliable. And I did mean height, not length. It was massive. With a tail adding close to half of its height as length, if its body plan was like a regular snake, it would be giant.

  Dark metal covered its body like armor, overlapping over paler scales. Its head looked small and narrow, despite the metal plated fangs. For some reason, its tail ended in a metal pincher. Most striking though was its arms.

  Because of course it had arms. There was only one way I could describe them. Mantis like. If a mantis had been scaled up appropriately and had arms made of metal. They looked like they could cleave through concrete with some effort. If used on a person, they would likely die.

  I should be afraid. Snakes were far from my favorite thing in the world. Doubly so for ones that were large enough to eat me with a few bites. But?

  I wasn't. I should be panicking. But I wasn't. Instead my mind was calm. Even. Measured. Like some part of me knew without question that it wouldn't hurt me.

  “What are you?” I asked, knowing that nobody would hear my words and grace them with an answer. But the back of my mind twitched. It wasn't like before. The deep need to make. To craft. The compulsive need to make that.

  Describing it was difficult. It was like there was a cord on my subconscious. Some new partition that hadn't been there before. Reaching out mentally, I grasped it in the palm of my hand.

  It was difficult to describe. Like a jolt of electricity? But purely mental. The snake had been moving before, but now it seemed to snap into focus. The weight, the mass. It stilled completely, as I could feel almost a slit. It stilled because I wanted it too. I could control it?

  Yeah, give me the reins of a killing machine that looked like something out of my dreams. Maybe nightmares. Good power.

  I was trying to be sarcastic with a superpower. What was my life coming to?

  Might as well experiment. My brain could only handle so much information right now. Better make it the stuff I could actually process.

  “Here!” I ordered, trying to see if it would respond to a verbal command. It did, in a fashion, its head swinging to look at me. More like a confused dog than anything else. It didn't respond to verbal commands. Or, maybe it needed to be trained to?

  I hope not. Dogs were not something I was particularly great with. Not that I didn't like dogs, because most dogs were fine. It was that I was hardly the firm guiding hand that some dogs needed. Much less a god knows how many pound mantis snake that looked like they could eat rifle rounds.

  Control was something I needed to have over this thing. If all I could make it do was stand there and look imposing? Then it was only a matter of time before someone wouldn't be intimidated. Or just did something monumentally stupid. Or both. Knowing the people I was fighting, combining the two wasn't out of the question.

  This time, I grabbed a tickle at the back of my head, holding the thread firm. Here!

  The command was a purely mental thing. Yet, this time it listened. For something so heavy, whose scales had to be realistically made of metal, it was almost silent. There should be the unmistakable sound of metal grinding against metal. Instead, the sound was soft, almost a light shuffling against the floor.

  Getting closer didn't make it look any smaller. It looked like it could just rip me in half if it wanted too. Those claws weren't for show. I was going to have to dial those back, wasn't I? Looks could be deceiving, but I couldn't imagine a world where they couldn’t bisect a man easily.

  I was not judge, jury, or executioner. Yes, Nazi's were raging racist jackasses, but murdering them was wrong. Even if they were frequently murdered and worse themselves. At least, most would have no problem with murdering people so long as the target was what they felt was appropriate.

  But hopefully, the law would be able to reward their behavior with a pot and a cot.

  It lowered its head toward me, as I rested my hand upon it. Again, I should have felt fear. I was never a big fan of insects on a good day, and snakes terrified me. Combining the two was like mixing fears. Nothing good could come from it. But the scales felt smoother than I expected them to. Almost like.

  Almost like.

  A flood of information slammed into my frontal lobe. Like a dam had given way upstream, information surged forward. It was garbled in its intensity, the speed at which it was flowing making it impossible for me to tell what was what. Information was lost in the rush as I staggered back.

  The moment my hand left it's head, the flood was cut off, leaving my brain throbbing. What. What was that? My head felt as if it had been punched. Repeatedly. One hand went to my brow, massaging the temple, while the other went to the wall behind me. There was a tingle of feedback, but nothing compared to what came from the beast.

  I really needed to think of something else to call it.

  Why was there a difference? Yes, one was the wall of a ship, and one was a metal, snake, thing. They were different things, but both were affected by my power. That just raised even more questions. And there was only one place I could get answers.

  Reaching out, I touched its head again. This time, I was prepared for the tidal wave of information. For all the good that it did me. No amount of mental bracing could prepare me for it. Gibberish, distorted, all coming at once and all too quickly. I pushed against the tide, even as it threatened to sweep me off my feet.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  It wasn’t like I could suddenly phrase the information. More, I got vibes. A feeling. Most of the exterior was either dark metal armor, focused mostly on the arms, head, back, and stomach. Followed by a softer but still rough layer of scales that covered everything else. But the insides?

  The inside was wonderous. The inside was terrifying. Metal was wrapped like steel wires to create muscles. Tubes pumped something that was close to blood, but not quite. Lungs breathed, pushing oxygen through the body. And deep inside? At its very core? A heartbeat. A dull, but constant rhythm.

  With gasp, my hand left its place upon the creature's head. Not from information overload. Not this time. No matter how much my head throbbed and ached. No. What pain I felt was dulled by shock, surprise, and fear.

  Life.

  I'd created something that was a living, breathing, thing. How was that? Why was that? Just. What! What part of my powerset let me make something like this! I wasn't even. I didn't remember making this! Was this?

  Something my power wanted me to make?

  No, surely not. That would imply a lot of concerning things if that were true. And yet.

  It wasn't like I had any other explanations, though.

  This was. Big. No, big was a hilarious understatement of how things were. Huge? Gigantic? Concerning?

  Problematic? Alarming?

  Those were better words. I may not be the best with social norms or social cues. Sometimes I would consider them a manner of suicide pact, given how they could nakedly be abused and calling out that abuse was in turn a violation of those very same rules. But I at least understood them. Everything had unwritten rules and unspoken implication.

  But I knew PR, and I knew people's phobias.

  How good was the PR of making a giant mantis snake out of metal that was also a living being? I have an answer, and the answer is, not particularly good.

  People don't like snakes, and they don't like bugs. I'd just mixed them together and scaled it to the point where it could fight a car and win. I hadn't just done that, I'd done that while unconscious!

  And. Well, fuck. My hand snapped out again like lightning, wading back into the raging surf. Please don't tell me! Please don't tell me in my stupor that I forgot to put any measures to stop it from going Jurassic Park on me!

  A sigh of relief left my lips after a few moments. I had no way of knowing if it was sterile, of course. But that didn't matter. It had nothing to even attempt any Jurassic Park crap with.

  Life may find a way, but at least my subconscious didn't make it easy for it.

  Okay, okay. I seriously needed to think this over. A giant metal snake-mantis is under my control to some unknown extent. My powers were well beyond touch based metal manipulation.

  I didn’t have any intention of joining the PRT beforehand. Law wasn't always on the side of good, and other things. But being able to create some measure of life? That changed the equation drastically. And only a fool would assume otherwise. Even without the risk of it going Jurassic Park on me, any government alive would absolutely lose its shit over something like this.

  There were pros and cons. There always were. But would that part of my powers be acknowledged? Would I be even allowed to use them? Or would the stuff I made be condemned to a laboratory? To be poked and prodded every day? And that was the best case scenario if they wanted to go full experiment on them, much less me.

  No, that wasn't going to be an option. Not one I had the stomach for. Creepy snake-mantis it may be, it was still my creation. It deserved to have life not as a science experiment.

  Letting out a yawn, I could feel everything in my body just, pop. Reminding me that yes, I had just spent the entire night sleeping on a metal floor.

  I needed a checklist. Food, an actual mattress would be good places to start. Combine that with an actual night's sleep.

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  A man once said that money was the root of all. The man in question was far from the smartest man, but in this case? He would be completely correct. Money was the root of all of my problems.

  Even having my wallet on me wouldn't do me much good. I never carried much cash, and my debt and credit cards wouldn't be issued until years in the future. Combined with me being from a different reality, any identification, and information that came with it was useless. No papers meant that getting a job would be difficult, but not impossible. Getting a bank account would be much more difficult.

  And that was stuff I was going to need. The woman's shelter had food, but it was a walk, and my clothes wouldn't stay fresh forever.

  I needed money. Everyone had needs for money. That was how society functioned. And my current avenue for acquiring legal tender was, limited.

  I would like a new mattress, absolutely needed food and bottles of water, and new clothes. Nothing fancy, just functional clothes.

  Was my only option to steal from the Empire? Was that my only recourse?

  Sadly, I kinda expected it was. Using blood money earned from technical theft wasn't the most ideal. Never mind how much was likely originally stolen in the first place. But it would be taking money out of their system and putting some of it back into legal circulation. Plus, I could donate what I didn't need anonymously somehow.

  It was a better use than what they were going to use that money for. And I could convert any weapons I found into more useful things.

  I really should have looked up laws surrounding this sort of thing when I had the chance. That would have been the smartest move. But I wasn't heading back to the library. It was too late in the day for that, and I had other problems to solve.

  Most importantly, where to find the Empire itself. How to fight them was, less difficult. I was outnumbered multiple times over. A straight fight at the moment was not in my favor. It might never be in my favor. Employing hit and run tactics was going to be my bread and butter.

  But hitting any running wasn't an effective strategy if I didn't know where I was hitting in the first place! They wouldn't be that advertised. I needed some type of way to scout. To have something investigate for me.

  Not for the first time, the pool of metal at the bottom of the derelict hulk pulled at my mind. I could make something. I had that power. But still, the vypex was a mistake. Nor was it fitted for that purpose. It was too big, with too much bulk. Not stealthy at all. And yes, I had named it vypex. Apex viper. Simple.

  But mulling things over in my head wasn't going to fix anything. I had to try something.

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  There was a difference from doing this lucid. Obvious statement being obvious. Sticking my hands in the metal pool had brought forth a tide of just, information. Information that I was desperately trying to phrase.

  I needed something that was stealthy. That could be undetected. Would serve as my eyes and ears as I worked. But.

  “No! Wrong! Just wrong!” I snapped at my power, like it was some sort of listening, thinking thing. If nothing else, I'd found something less PR friendly than a vypex, that's for sure.

  My power was offering me humanoid forms. Human sized, human shaped. Yes, I was sure they would be under the same sort of reproductive restrictions that the vypex was. But that did little to change everything else.

  Making a humanoid creature? If the vypex didn't cause a mess, this absolutely would. Of that, I had little doubt.

  I didn't want to be labeled as a mad scientist trying to replace humanity with snakes and lizards under my control. Which is exactly what I could end up being labeled, heroic intentions damned. I was pushing an envelope. No need to shove it all the way into the atmosphere.

  What I needed was something like a vypex. One that was a lot smaller. Really, I just needed something that looked like a snake. Nothing fancy. Slowly, I stuck my hands back into the pool.

  While designs bloomed in my mind, I forced them down. Where were these even coming from was a perfectly valid question I needed to ask at some point in the future. Doubt I would find an answer, but I certainly needed to ask them.

  But right now? This was my power. Sure, it had ideas of what to make, but in the end? I was the one in control. Not my power. I wasn't going to let myself be limited by what it wanted me to make.

  Though transcribing some notes could be useful.

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  One might figure that creating life through a vat of metal would be an entertaining process.

  They would be wrong. Either letting my power take control actually provided some measure of benefit to process, or at the least, following a design it had did, because I knew for a fact that I wasn't down here for that long, given the vypex's size.

  Maybe my power was filling in the biological blanks that I overlooked? I wouldn't consider myself anywhere close to an expert. I knew you needed things like heart, lungs, stomach, brain, all those good ones and more. But how do they work? How to make them work?

  A mystery. Still, there had to be some reason why it was taking so long for it to, what was the word I wanted? Cook? No, that didn't sound right? Marinate? No, that sounded like I was on the grill. Gestate?

  Gestate was probably the right word. Didn't exactly feel right. Too, impersonal. Like I was creating something creepy. Which objectively speaking, I was. There were plenty of people who would find this beyond creepy. I would have been one of them.

  But it was starting to feel like it wasn't going to need me babysitting it to make it. Even from the start, it always felt like it was a minute away from just dying on me. Like I said, it had to be correcting for whatever mistakes I made when it came to its internals.

  Inside the pool, something stirred, the metal rippling as my creation slithered to the surface. Somewhat less than a foot long, it was hard to spot as it slid onto solid metal. Still slightly bigger than I'd like. Its head was similar to that of the vypex, a connection forming in my mind. But this one was, more. I wouldn't describe my vypex as willful, but I got the feeling this was less so.

  Smaller size granted me more control, and I think at a greater distance as well. Its scales were a simple dull gray, matching the floor with uncanny precision. That was far more planned. While I didn’t want to create the humanoid creatures because I understood the concept of bad PR, it didn't mean I could take notes.

  Or in this case?

  Copy shamelessly and hope that my powers didn't punish me for it. I wanted something that wouldn't be noticed. A snake close to winter? Would be noticed. A stealthy snake that could blend into the background? Would hopefully be less noticeable.

  “What do I even call you?” I muse to myself, a simple flick of mental command ordering it to climb up my arm. It was meant to be a spy, in a sense. I called the larger snake monster a vypex.

  Spy? Spypex? Apex spy?

  It looked too, cute, to be an apex of anything. Still. Spypex was the only thing coming to my mind at the minute. And I didn't trust my mind not to come up with something even worse in the future.

  I named my childhood pet cat an adjective, giving me the power of naming things is a mistake. So Spypex it is!

  “Spypex, you mission, if you chose to accept it, is to ferret out Nazi's and the places they gather in!” All the Spypex did was flick its tongue at me, not caring for the contents of anything I said.

  Christ, it has been maybe a day of social isolation at most and I'm already losing it. Losing it more, at any rate.

  Right, time to add friends to the list of needs. Right below food and water, but above a mattress.

  A twinge of pain runs up and down my spine.

  Maybe a mattress first. Sleeping on metal sucked!