Chapter 2: Agent of Fate

I could not see why someone would do this, something I learned the hard way is that there always a cost to something. The living mist in front of me would gain something from me being an agent, what it is I could only try to guess, but I had not to ponder what it could be as they just answered as if they read my mind. "You see, you are right, I do gain something from this deal. I have access to the universe that you go to, restricted, I can't just appear and cause havoc, and I found you through the same method. An agent of Fate under me had to go there fix the timeflow, since without interference humanity there would just die. Though they were lazy, so from behind the scenes they influenced many people to do their bidding, you, included."

I could only nod, they had to have found me before my death, I could not see it being easy to find a particular person among hundreds of thousands. I took some time to weigh my choices, first, there is no third choice, they could take me to this place, they can take me out to that sea of light, second, the choice is between losing my sense of self or obeying the orders of this mist. "What would I have to do?" I asked as it came to me, maybe they already had something they wanted me to do, and if I didn't want to do it hey would just erase my memories.

"You would have to do a mission decided by the administrator of the universe you are directed to, getting it after arrival, for example, growing a mighty warrior, act like an absolute evil to make the residents rise up themselves, or bring order so that the population doesn't kill themselves. You would not even have to stay in that universe, killing yourself to be released to the stream and be retrieve for another mission in another universe. Though you would only have to do one mission, it would still give me access to that universe. Though you do not have a choice to where you will be stationed" So it is somewhat different then I expected, it would not be a permanent station, nor would I have to stay somewhere I did not want to.

The information given to me was more then enough to make a decision, It would be like a traveling job, the specificity of the service provided during my stay would change per destination. Of course I was accustomed to that, obeying the guy who ordered me to kill those people, actually they never gave me a reason... they were probably the agent sent to my universe. You might think that I would be devastated that I would probably not go back to my universe, but I had nothing there, the house was stolen, the contractors killed upon completion, my family never met, even the stories I read were all bad on purpose since I knew I could die at any moment.

So the choice was the easiest of my life. "Yes, I will be an agent under you."

The mist grinned, how I do not know, it had no mouth, but I knew instinctively that it was grinning. "Welcome then." The outside morphed, now there were walls all around me not just the floor, though a ceiling remained nonexistent, displaying something similar to a star filled night sky, and I gawked, unashamed as I had saw the night sky at home many times, filled with stars, and there still were less then what I could see now. "Yes it is very pretty all those universes in the outside, what you need right now is to chose what is your bonus. the answer to your unasked question is that you need tools to do your job, and while I did say you can't chose where to go you can narrow the scope."

"Guns, as many as you can give me."

"So none, I'm sorry rules, so let me be more specific, a bonus is something tied to the soul, and while it is possible in some universes to summon physical objects, the admins of there do not want for external technology to be suddenly introduced, a bonus can be something metaphysical, a rule that breaks physics, all universes have some, for example, in your universe quantum entanglement in a metaphysical law. It fundamentally is something that ignores and just breaks physics, like magic."

That made me pause, if it was something like magic that I could bring I had to think. Explosions was the first thing that came to mind, but quickly discarded, since it was to specific, I needed something more versatile. Fire was out for similar reasons. Air, was good until it becomes apparent that anything can easily disturb it. Water would be good, but what constituted water in a magic setting is different in every scenario.

Shadow, it came to me, shadows in a magic setting was every where and while easily disrupted by light, in a magic setting that is not always true, and it also could be physical, undercover tactics were easier, my choice was certainly not due to aesthetics, it is a good ability. "The ability to use shadows." I was very vague with my words because the mist... they had morphed into the vague form of a human as I thought about it... still misty though... continuing, the mist could clearly read my mind and understand what I wanted.

"Yes, there is a seed around here with that ability, though it is somewhat different then you expect." they said as they rummaged through their suddenly appearing desk. "Here, this dark thing is somewhat better then what you want, it is a growing shadow seed, depending what you feed it it will display different powers, but all abilities will be liked to shadow powers, the previous owner fucked up and corrupted the original seed with shadows. he retired a long time ago after forfeiting the seed back even if he could keep it."  They floated the seed towards me, I tried to take into my hand, but it just floated past and entered my torso.

I thought that was it at the moment, how wrong I was, a heat started to spread from it's entering point until it covered all of me, it stayed like that for a while, then the itching started, getting worse over time, until it reached a plateaus and stayed like that for a long time, then like nothing happened it went away, the memory of it however made me stay still for a couple of minutes over, when it seemed like it would not come back I looked back up to they. "What now?"

"Now it is time for your first assignment." They said as they retrieved a file and put it over the table