© Mark E. Becker, 1996
I've been asked to write a brief autobiography by a certain powerful acquaintance of mine. Unfortunately, this acquaintance doesn't seem to realize that the words "brief" and "autobiography" don't belong in the same sentence when referring to me, but since this acquaintance is not the kind of being one says "no" to, I'm going to give it a try anyway.
My story begins with a race of living machines known as The Transformers. They are a species of robots who can alter their shape from one configuration to another - or transform. They are originally native to a planet called Cybertron - an all-metal planet, where robotic life managed to evolve naturally - but have since migrated several times in their recent history.
At the time of my creation, the Transformers were living on a planet whose name had never been determined. (The native populations had several different names each, so an "official" name was never established.) They were occupying several military bases in a desert area away from the organic lifeform populations. These bases were paired off - one Autobot base (the good guys) next to one Decepticon base (the bad guys) - so the opposing factions could keep tabs on each other. One such pair was located in an old volcanic mesa, where they would engage each other in frequent minor skirmishes, each trying to get the upper hand on the other.
At one point, these Autobots developed a procedure by which a duplicate, or clone as it were, could be created of another Transformer, and began making a number of such duplicates - called Duplabots - of themselves, in addition to the neighboring Decepticons.
One team from the nearby Decepticon base that was a particularly favorite target for such duplication was called the Insecticons. These Transformers had the ability to transform into the shapes of insects, and could also shrink to the size of actual insects. It was this second ability that made them such favorite targets for duplication, as they were uniquely adapted for infiltration and spying.
There were three individuals in this team, and of the two duplicates that were created before myself, both were apparently lost. One decided to join a group of Transformers from a parallel universe, and the other was pulled into a dimensional rift and vanished.
The third Insecticon to be duplicated was named Kickback, and as his duplicate, so was I. I never learned much about my original, except for the copied memories I had from him, because I was also destined to be "lost".
I was created for an infiltration mission, which I pulled off nicely, if I do say so myself. Afterward, however, there wasn't much to do, and so I began feeling particularly bored and dissatisfied with life. Luckily, something happened soon thereafter that alleviated those feelings.
The event to which I refer was the return of the second Duplabot Insecticon, Bombshell. As it turned out, the dimensional anomaly that he was pulled into deposited him - mostly unharmed - on a world dominated by humans and other human-like beings, but was very low in technology. These humans did, however, practice an art (or perhaps even science) called magic, which largely took the role that technology did in other worlds.
Bombshell had studied this art, and had become fairly proficient by the time of his return. In fact, his very arrival seemed to have something to do with this stuff, but he didn't quite remember how. The last thing he remembered was traveling with some companions, exploring a ruined castle, and suddenly he showed up back at the Autobot base where he was created. He dismissed it, however, as one dismisses such inconsistencies in a dream.
After performing a mission for the Autobots (and showing off his new magical abilities a bit), he and I went out walking near the dimensional anomaly that he had once been pulled into, talking about how dissatisfied I was with my new existence. He told me about his new life as an "adventurer", and I thought it sounded like fun. As I was just about to ask if I could go with him when he returned, the anomaly suddenly went wild, and sucked the both of us in.
We found ourselves, amazingly enough, back on Bombshell's magical world, but not where he was when he left. Since I was there, we both figured I may as well join his group, so he had me trained as a Thief. (I had wanted to get into this magic stuff, but he argued that the party already had enough magic-users, but needed a Thief.) We then found a Wizard (a practitioner of this magic art) who teleported us (myself shrunken and inside one of Bombshell's interior storage compartments so we only had to pay for one person) back to where Bombshell had left before. (The fact that time should have elapsed since he left never entered his mind, again like one would behave in a dream. It turned out that all this was a dream that Bombshell was having, but had magically been made true.) So it was in this way that I joined his group, and found my way into a new world for the first time.
We adventured there for a while, and in one of our adventures soon thereafter we acquired a magical artifact called Skarda's Mirror. This was a mirror which, if you looked into it and saw your reflection, it would suck you into some sort of pocket dimension. On the inside there were seven different mirror-portals, each of which seemed to lead to a different mirror, but only one of which was open: the one we had. To get out, one had to speak a "command word" (something like a password, but with magical properties) while standing in front of an open portal, and it would transport you back out.
Well, one day I was bored, and went inside the "mirror world" (as we called this pocket dimension) to think for a while. I was beginning to get dissatisfied with that life as well, and I must admit that I was moping, and wanted to be alone. The "mirror world" was an excellent place to think (or reflect, as it were), so I hid in there to contemplate for a while.
Well, as I was sitting around, one of the nearby mirror portals suddenly opened, revealing the scene around the mirror that portal was connected to. Looking through the portal, I saw sky, as if the mirror were laying face-up on the ground. Two humans were standing over the mirror, and appeared like giants towering over the mirror. They had obviously not looked into the mirror yet, since they were still outside. They seemed to be arguing about what to do with the mirror.
These humans did not look like the humans on the world we were adventuring on - the ones there usually wore tunics or robes or cloaks or armor, etc. These humans were wearing clothing that more resembled what humans wore in the memories I had inherited from the "original" Kickback, and this piqued my curiosity. So I used the password and exited the Mirror World through that portal.
I suddenly found myself standing in a clearing in a forest, with a large hole dug in the ground in front of me. To my left were the two humans standing over the mirror, and I towered over them. This was my first clue that this mirror had lead me into yet another world, since the humans in the magical world were about the same size as we were, but these humans were the same size as the ones the Transformers were used to.
Needless to say, the sudden appearance of a twenty-foot-tall robot out of thin air sent the humans fleeing to their vehicles - cars, much like the vehicular modes of many of the Autobots - and then driving away quickly, leaving me, the mirror, and a big hole in the ground.
I picked up the mirror - which was particularly tiny now, due to the change in scale - and placed it inside one of my internal storage compartments, so that I would have it with me if I wanted to go back. I then transformed into my grasshopper mode - something I hadn't done for a while - and shrank down to insect size so that I could take a look around without drawing attention to myself.
I hopped along the track left by the escaping humans' vehicles, and soon found a road. The road seemed to be in good repair, which meant that it was still used fairly frequently, but there weren't any cars in sight right at that moment. So I sat on a tree branch and waited, and sure enough, along came a car speeding crazily down the road. I figured that the vehicle would eventually make its way into a city, so I hopped onto it and hitched a ride.
I didn't know it at the time, but this turned out to be a bad idea. Though it did lead directly to the beginning of my incarnation-hopping. This is what happened. Shortly after I hopped aboard, the car was ambushed by a group of heavily-armed bandits. The driver of "my" car tried defending himself with his own armaments (it seemed that heavy artillery was a standard component of automobiles in this world), but was ultimately blasted apart by a lucky shot to his engine block. The driver must have been killed instantly, as the entire car blew apart. Fortunately, my robotic Transformer body was a lot more resilient than the human's, but I was still knocked a considerable distance (to scale) and lost functioning temporarily when I crash-landed nearby.
I learned later that the driver of the car that was destroyed was a snotty rich kid who wasn't a really good Autoduelist (as the freelance road warriors in this world were called), and was only really good at making enemies. I guess a few of them just finally caught up with him. His wealth did confer one advantage to him that the others couldn't necessarily count on: the best medical services available, and on this world there were some amazing ones. My driver had taken advantage of one of these services that would activate a clone of him if he ever died, effectively making him immortal.
When I regained functionality, I noticed that another vehicle had arrived on the scene of the ambush. It seemed to be a medical service vehicle. The crew of this medical vehicle were examining the remains of the driver, I suppose making sure he was dead so that his clone could be activated. When they had concluded their examinations, they packed back up into their vehicle, and prepared to depart. I figured this was my best opportunity to get to a city, so I hopped inside as they packed up and rode back to their headquarters with them.
After a fairly long drive, the vehicle finally pulled in to a large building labeled Hospital. The crew got out, and headed upstairs. Since I didn't want to hang out in the parking area, I hopped on one of the human's shoulders. They made their way to a laboratory, and set to work. I didn't know what they were doing at the time, but I later figured out they were preparing the clone for activation.
Deciding that I needed some time to recover, I hopped over to a large machine terminal, found an opening, and climbed inside, so that I wouldn't be discovered. I found what appeared to be a nice, open spot, and settled down to rest.
After about five minutes, the machinery around me started to hum, indicating that the machine had been activated. Before I had any indication that I might be in a bad spot, I was suddenly hit by an enormous surge of power, and lost consciousness.
When I came to, I felt really strange. I opened my eyes, and found myself looking at a bright-colored ceiling. Then I realized that I had had to open my eyes, instead of them automatically switching on when I reactivated. I tried to sit up, and that's when I discovered why my body felt so strange: It wasn't my body! Somehow I was in a human body!
At that point, humans in white clothing -- Doctors, I learned later -- came over and started examining me and asking me questions. When I finally figured out how to work that body's voice, I tried to answer, but it came out garbled. As they poked and prodded me, it seemed that all of the body's automatic functions were working properly, but I couldn't get it to do anything consciously.
The doctors decided that there must have been some sort of problem in the memory transfer unit, and put me into a rigorous physical retraining program, which wasn't a retraining for me, but did help me learn how to work the new flesh body, and gave me some time to get a handle on my new situation.
I eventually figured out that I had somehow been transferred out of my natural robot body and into the clone body of my human chauffeur. I determined that the machine I had climbed into was an integral unit to the clone activation procedure, and was the one primarily responsible for inputting the memories of the original person into the clone. I must have settled down right in the path of the data stream for the clone's memories, and (somehow) when I was hit by the clone's mind, it drove me out of my own body to take its place in the clone body. Whether the clone's mind was intact and conscious inside my body, I never found out. I did eventually manage to acquire my original robot body, by coercing one of the hospital employees to open up the machine for me, but it was deactivated and inert - essentially just a little metal grasshopper. If the clone's mind was in there, it apparently hadn't learned how to work the body.
After a little while, I did manage to convince the doctors and psychologists that I was mentally competent, but has simply lost all memories of my former identity. They gave me what education they could about life on that world, but since I could not be considered the same individual as the original, I was not allowed access to his money or identity. So they gave me a couple sets of clothing, and a little money so that I could start a new life for myself.
I quickly discovered that this world was called Earth, but it was not the Earth that I remembered through the memories I inherited from the original Kickback. For one, the Transformers had never been heard of in this world, except as a fairly successful toy line at the end of the last century. The year was 2035, and this world was a lot more dangerous than the Earth I remembered. The most popular sport was Autodueling, and anyone could play, whether they wanted to or not.
Just about every car on the highways was heavily armed (as I had discovered before), and the working motto on the road was 'the best defense is a good offense'. I figured that since I had been an Autobot, I should make a pretty good Autoduelist. (Despite the fact that I wasn't actually a car, I still understood heavy artillery pretty well.) So I went to the local Dueling Arena and signed up for Amateur Night. Luckily, they provided the cars for that, since I didn't have anywhere near enough money to buy one for myself.
I actually turned out to be pretty good, and not only did I win my first match, but I kept coming back week after week, doing it again and again, and eventually started to earn a fair reputation for myself. As soon as I had earned enough prize money to be able to afford a car of my own, I had one built, and entered one of the professional competitions. That was a lot of fun, and helped me really earn a name for myself. Literally, even though it was my old one.
Let me explain. I forget exactly how the situation came about, but that night, the competition got down to me and two other opponents. I got stuck with one of them in front of me, and another coming up from behind. I had gotten a large hole blasted in my rear armor, and he was planning to creep up and take me out while I was distracted. Complicating the matter was the fact that my power plant (engine) was all but demolished, and trying to get the vehicle to move would probably just blow me up before either of my opponents would have the opportunity. I had to take out both of them quickly, but had almost no way to do it.
The only weapons I had left were a pair of autocannons facing forward, but trying to fire them would just knock me closer to the guy behind me. In the brief moment I had to think, I was appreciating the irony that a force based on my own real name (I still hadn't gotten used to using my adopted human name yet), the recoil -- or kick-back -- would get me that much closer to death. And that was what gave me an idea that saved not only my life, but my chances of winning. I disengaged the shock absorbers on the autocannon, so that the recoil was as powerful as it could be, and sent a couple of rounds hurtling toward the opponent in front. I then heaved the steering wheel around as the recoil pushed me backwards, and turned to face the one creeping up from behind. This guy must have been very surprised by this maneuver, because he hesitated as my cannon came to bear. This gave me the perfect opportunity to disable him, and win the contest.
After I told people how I came up with the idea (without mentioning the part about my name), people started calling me Kickback, in honor of the maneuver, which was fine by me as I was still more used to it than the human name I had adopted anyway.
After that, I started taking on some courier jobs, to raise money and gain experience. In this world, large corporations liked to hire well-known Autoduelists to transport valuable information or cargo from city to city, because they're more likely to make it there than anybody else. With the reputation I had been building, it wasn't hard for me to get a number of contracts fairly quickly, and soon I had more money coming in than I knew what to do with. In fact, I was quickly catching up to the wealth that the man whose clone body I was using had originally had, even though he had inherited most of it! It also expanded my reputation, and I quickly came to be known as one of the deadliest people on the road. After a while, anybody who thought about giving me trouble tended to reconsider as soon as they recognized my car. Because of this, I decided to give my car a distinctive look, which I based on my original robot body. (By that point, I had given up hope of getting myself transferred back, so I had encased in plastic, to make it look like a 'bug in amber' paperweight, and kept in my car as a good luck charm).
Unfortunately, the novelty of all this started to wear off, and I started getting dissatisfied with life again. All I was doing was running around shooting people, and didn't have any sort of real purpose, similarly to when I was just hanging around the Autobot base. This time, instead of moping around, I decided to take a vacation, and booked passage to England, where society had not degenerated nearly as badly (or, at least, had not become as dangerous), and spent a lot of time wandering around the countryside, relived that I didn't have to constantly carry weaponry with me to be safe.
One day, after a long afternoon's wandering, I settled down on a hill to take a brief nap. I still hadn't found any of the answers I was looking for, not that I knew what the questions were in the first place. Just as I was dozing off, however, I heard a strange buzzing noise from the next hill. I opened my eyes just in time to see some sort of blue flash fade from sight, and heard something drop to the ground with a thump.
I got up and walked over to that spot, and found a small bundle wrapped in a cloth of some sort. It was lying in a circle of stones, and there was a quickly fading bluish glow in the area. When I picked it up and opened it, I discovered that the cloth was actually a map, and that it was wrapped around a pair of books and a small medallion, which was shaped like an ankh.
I put on the medallion - since that's what you do with things like that - and carried the books and map back over to the tree I had settled under earlier. I wasn't feeling tired anymore - the strangeness of this occurrence had reminded me of some of the old times of running around in the fantasy world - so I decided to examine the books. One of them was written in runes that I couldn't decipher. Bombshell could probably make them out, I thought to myself, since he was into magic himself, but he had never let me get into any of that stuff. The other one was written in standard letters - English, it would be called in this world - so I started reading it.
The book described the history of a world called Britannia, and some of the major events of its history. The world had undergone some pretty big catastrophes, but sounded like a fun place nonetheless. But as I finished reading it, I heard something in the distance. I stood up and climbed up the next hill, and discovered some sort of carnival that had appeared out of nowhere. They must have set up while I was reading, and I hadn't noticed. All of the people were dressed in outfits very similar to the fantasy world. This piqued my curiosity, and I walked down to check it out.
At first, the man at the gate looked like he was going to charge me admission, but then he saw the medallion I was wearing, and let me in for free. It almost seemed like he was expecting me. As I wandered around the carnival, something drew me to a covered wagon sitting nearby. I went inside, and found a gypsy woman; apparently a fortune-teller. She told me to sit down, and began a casting.
What she did was this. She drew cards from a special deck, and lay them face-up on the table. Each card portrayed a particular virtue, and for each pair, she told a story and had me pick between them - to determine which would be more important to me. After collecting enough information on me, or whatever she was doing, she declared the casting finished. At that point, the world went swimmy, and I passed out.
I found myself standing in a clearing in the woods. For a moment I thought I was back at the spot where I had come through the mirror, and that everything since then was a hallucination of some sort; since I didn't wake up, so much as I just suddenly became awake. But since I was still human, I dismissed that theory pretty quickly. There was a road that led to a bridge, and across the bridge was a small village, so I walked into town, and began a great adventure. I won't go into details about this, but I will summarize the quest.
This world that I found myself in was that Britannia I had read about, and they were going through another crisis. They needed someone to become an Avatar of Virtue, and retrieve some sort of book called the Codex of Infinite Wisdom from a large dungeon. This Avatar person was supposed to be a person who was perfect in all of the eight virtues that the world revered (Compassion, Honor, Valor, Honesty, Humility, etc.), and I was supposed to become this person. The quest to become this Avatar took me across the face of the world and back again several times, and I gained a number of companions (whom I will never forget). This was the first time I really had a purpose, and the experience changed me forever.
In this world, I discovered that I actually had an aptitude for magic, which I was quite happy about. I had wanted to get into that stuff ever since the first time Bombshell had told me about it, but was frustrated that I had never had the opportunity. Now that I was expected to practice magic myself, I threw myself into it full-force, and became quite an adept wizard, which helped considerably in the quest.
Well, eventually, I completed the quest by becoming the Avatar and retrieving the Codex from the Abyss. At that point, the magics that brought me there in the first place coalesced around me, and tried to return me to where I came from. Unfortunately, the magic must have gotten confused by the fact that my soul wasn't native to the world that it found me on, and so it deposited me on a similar, but different, Earth.
I found myself in the same geographic location, but no one had ever heard of me, nor did anyone know anything about Autodueling. It was also considerably in the past (from the perspective of the world I had been on before), the year was approximately 1980. Since I was still in England, I made my way to the closest city - which happened to be London - and found myself a job. Since this world wasn't as dangerous as the other one, courier jobs weren't as important, but I did find a job driving a taxicab in London. The driving was much tamer than I was used to, but at least I knew how to avoid getting in accidents.
This new lifestyle was actually a welcome change from what I had been doing previously. It gave me a good chance to settle down, and take stock of how my life had been going so far. Starting out as a Transformer, then becoming an adventuring Thief in a fantasy world; jumping suddenly into a human body and becoming an Autoduelist; and finally being a fantasy wizard and Avatar of Virtue. It had been quite an adventurous lifetime, and I found myself happy to not have to fight for a living, for a change.
One day as I was driving some really annoying people around London, something bizarre happened. Afterward, the government explained it away as hallucinations; but suddenly, large, lumpy yellow spaceships appeared in the skies, and threatened to destroy the Earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass.
After that, they all disappeared, but I could somehow barely tell that things weren't the same as they were before. I couldn't explain how I knew, or exactly how it was different, but I knew it was. I decided that I had to figure out what that all was about, but didn't know how to go about doing so.
A few months later, I got some inspiration when a spaceship actually landed in England, and two men and a woman stowed away on the ship when it left. Since UFO sightings had increased in frequency since the hallucinations, I simply flagged down a flying saucer one night, and hitched a ride.
I found myself launched into a new lifestyle -- full of adventure and excitement and really wild things -- as an intergalactic hitchhiker. It turned out that this was actually a fairly popular lifestyle, despite sleeping in dirty spaceports and scavenging scraps out of the kitchens of space freighters.
I eventually became a fairly accomplished intergalactic hitchhiker, and one day found myself working for the research branch of a company that published a guidebook for such people. (How I came into their employment, I still cannot adequately explain, it just kind-of happened .) During their employ, I discovered that the Earth had actually been demolished, but a backup had been retrieved out of somewhere and replaced it. How this was possible, I never quite figured out either.
Well, despite being a lifestyle different from what I'd ever known before, it was actually a lot of fun, in its own way. I might have eventually retired and settled down on some quiet planet somewhere, except that one day I was experimenting with an Improbability Generator (a device that could practically perform miracles by making unlikely events extraordinarily likely), and something went wrong. The generator exploded, and took me with it.
Now, under normal circumstances, this would be the end of the story. But these were not normal circumstances. My best theory is that the Improbability Field from the generator somehow mingled with magical energies that were left over from Britannia, and spontaneously induced a miracle.
I was born (for the first time, since I was created originally) as a human on a low-tech world, similar to the fantasy world I had been a Thief on. I didn't remember anything about my previous life/lives until much later. I grew up as a normal boy, and when I began entering adolescence, I got involved in a game that was quite popular on that world, called Blood Bowl. I found that I had quite a talent for it, especially as a kicker. Not only could I boot the ball a fair distance, but I also developed a rather formidable rearward kick attack, which earned me a nickname: Kick-Back. (Its amazing how these things work out sometimes.) This was the first thing that actually started reminding me of my previous existence, but I never fully regained my memories until much later, after I had become an extremely successful Blood Bowl star player, and my teammates and I all retired as filthy rich individuals.
Over the years that I had been playing, every now and then, I would remember something bizarre, and would not be able to explain where it came from. Most of the time, I would just ignore it (usually at the recommendation of my coach), but after I retired, I decided to look into it a little more closely. I hired a powerful wizard to use his magic to find out what was going on, and he managed to bring back all my memories from my prior life/lives. Suddenly remembering who and what I was and what had happened to me... gave me an idea.
I apprenticed myself to the wizard right then and there, and -- since I had been a wizard once before myself -- quickly became quite adept. As soon as I had enough power, I embarked on a major magical research project: to make my reincarnation automatic and perpetual. That is, I wanted to make sure that whenever I died from that point on, I would be assured of being reborn in another world - effectively becoming immortal, but with a change of scenery every now and then.
This research took a bit longer than I had originally expected, and when I realized that my lifespan was quickly reaching its end, I took up a different project. I had heard of magics that would enable someone to continue existing after death, and discovered some magic books (that my old teacher had left me when he passed away) which, by chance, included a fair amount of information on this subject. With this advantage, transforming myself into an Undead was easy, if somewhat unnerving. Literally.
Now that I didn't have to worry about running out of time, I continued work on my original project. Every now and then I came to a section that didn't require much direct attention, so I started running an Undead Blood Bowl team on the side - to keep me entertained, and bring in a little revenue to pay for incidental expenses. (A broken bottle here and there, some ingredients for a spell, etc.) This lasted for a few centuries, but eventually I was successful. I had the incantations perfected, and so I performed the last spell, and vacated my ancient, decrepit body to begin my next life.
In this next life, I was born as a human male (again, though this must have been at least partially coincidence, since many of my incarnations since then have NOT been human, and a few have not even been male), and again on Earth. This was, however, yet another Earth, and it was considerably in the future of the others I had been on. The year was 2324 by classic reckoning, and I grew up in a city called New York. During my adolescence, my memories from my prior lives started to resurface on their own, until by age 18 I remembered everything.
Shortly thereafter, I traveled across the continent to attend Starfleet Academy, with the intent of joining Starfleet, which was the exploratory/military branch of the Federation of Planets, of which Earth was a member. After graduating, I was posted to various ships, slowly gaining experience and rank until I was finally awarded my own command in 2362.
During one of our later missions, we picked up a passenger from a world that had just suffered a massive planetary catastrophe. Her name was Yroli E, and I quickly found myself falling in love with her. Unfortunately, I already had a girlfriend at the time, so this created some problems. In fact, the situation quickly turned into a full-fledged disaster , and both Yroli E and Sarah ended up leaving the ship. I had learned a hard lesson on the meaning of love - I still didn't understand human emotions very well, despite the fact that I had been one for some time - but needed some time to assimilate this new knowledge. It turned out, though, to be a very good thing she had left at that particular time.
You see, in 2367, the Federation was invaded by a race called the Borg, who were intent on conquering Earth. Actually, that's simplifying things considerably, but is sufficient for this narrative. My ship was one of those ordered to ambush the Borg ship in the star system Wolf 359. However, the Borg were stronger than we expected, and our ambush failed. Nearly every ship at the ambush was destroyed. My own ship was crippled, and nearly the entire crew was killed. There were only about ten people left on the ship: myself, my science officer, and an ensign on the bridge, five engineering crew members, and one or two survivors scattered here and there. I decided that the only way we could do anything at that point would be to ram the Borg ship with ours, using the warp drives to gain speed.
This was obviously suicidal, but it didn't really matter for me. It would, however, matter a great deal for the others, so I took a vote. I was not surprised - but was impressed - when the result came up unanimously in favor of the plan. So, after jettisoning our log reports, including commendations for the entire crew, and these last few in particular, we managed to get the ship turned in the right direction, and activated the warp drive. The ship blasted into the Borg ship, and I made my way to my next incarnation.
(To this day, I still don't know if we actually did anything to the Borg ship or not. I can only hope that we at least slowed them down sufficiently for the Enterprise, the Federation's flagship and the crew with the most experience with the Borg, to catch up to them and stop them.)
Well, now that my incarnation hopping has been established, I won't go into details about all the various lives I've had since then. Just about any world you can imagine, I've probably lived in. But my last few have been pretty interesting, and since that's where I am now, it probably deserves some description.
The incarnation immediately previous to my present life was on another Earth, this time the date was shortly after the beginning of the 21st Century. I was born as a normal human boy, and my life itself seemed extraordinarily ordinary. The world had undergone some interesting events in its recent history, which included super-heroes (people with powers above and beyond the normal person) battling to defend the world from super-villains and other various threats to the safety of the world and its people. However, by the time I arrived, most of this had died down; actually, most of the supers (as super-powered people were sometimes called) had either died or lost their powers in a massive war several years previous.
However, a friend of mine in High School turned out to be the daughter of one of the surviving heroes, and I discovered this fact one day, when my memories began to resurface in her company. When she noticed that something unusual was happening to me, she took me to the former headquarters of one of the largest super-hero organizations from the Age of Heroes -- the SuperKids -- and had me checked out. She thought I might have been a mutant (a human with a genetic aberration that granted the person super powers), but I had no such luck. They simply reactivated my memories for me -- which doesn't usually happen all at once, so I had to take some time to get a grip on everything once they were done -- and I decided that I wanted to be a super hero too. Unfortunately, I was physically normal, so I decided I would have to work up something on my own.
Since I knew who and what I was again, I decided to try to tie it in with my real identity and be able to use my real name, Kickback, as my hero name. Eventually, calling upon knowledge from other worlds with significantly more advanced technology - and a little bit of magic - I managed to rig up a slugthrower harness for myself, which allowed me to fire projectiles of varying natures by conscious control. (This felt almost like coming full circle, as I earned my name through the principle of recoil similarly, as an Autoduelist, the first time I had become human.)
I showed my achievements to my friend (actually, she was a classmate who I had a crush on -- her name was Julia, and her father had been a member of the SuperKids back in the days of heroes, and she had the ability to transform her body into a crystalline form), and eventually convinced her that I'd make a good teammate for crime-fighting, so after we graduated (her parents had told her 'School first'.) we set up a team, and continued the legacy of her parents organization. We managed to pick up a few more team members, including the son of one of the original founding members of the SuperKids, and made quite a name for ourselves.
Over time, Julia and I actually found ourselves getting closer and closer. Now, in my previous incarnations, I had, of course, had relationships with many different people, but I had never really found someone I truly loved ,and could have a relationship with. I had never truly loved Sarah, back in my Starfleet incarnation, and I couldn't have a relationship with Yroli E, because I had already been involved with Sarah. Julia and I, however, almost without realizing it ourselves, found ourselves falling for each other, and this time it worked out. We never actually got married, as we both felt that our lifestyle was a little too unstable for that sort of thing, but we did commit ourselves to each other in an informal sort of bond, promising to be together forever.
There was only one thing that would complicate this, however, and that was my incarnation hopping. I had told her all about it shortly after my memories were reactivated, but we had never really talked about it much since then. I would tell her stories about my previous lives every now and then, but we never really discussed it as a serious matter. When we promised ourselves to each other, however, I felt obligated to remind her of it. She, however, didn't see it as a problem. She simply decided, in a slightly irrational manner typical (or stereotypical) of females, that she'd find a way to come with me. I didn't take this very seriously at first, but when we made contact with some powerful entities who felt a debt to us, she brought up this problem and they agreed to arrange things so that it would work.
I was absolutely amazed, as I had never even thought of the idea of taking someone along when I transferred to a new life, and I couldn't even imagine how it would work . . . until, of course, it happened.
In the course of our adventures as super-heroes, we had had a number of close calls. Eventually, however, we came to a situation where it was impossible for all of us to get out alive. I won't go into details, but there was something that some of us had to stay back and keep an eye on, while the others made it clear and detonated the place from outside. Since whoever stayed would go up with the place, whoever stayed had to be ready to sacrifice him/herself. Solitaire (that was the name Julia used as her hero identity) and I just looked at each other, and knew that this was as good a time as any. I don't know what would have happened if we had not died in that life at the same time, but we decided to make it simple. So we stayed behind, and when the place blew, we met our fate together.
The transfer was a little different this time. Between incarnations, I'm really not conscious, but I do generally remember something about it, though not until after my memories resurface in the new life, of course. Usually, it feels somehow unfettered; almost as if I'm floating in pure chaos, and the world I end up in is just the luck of the draw. This time, it seemed as if we were being guided by something -- in order to keep our souls together, and even to determine our destination.
We were born on a fantasy world; the name of the planet was Toril, and we were born as Elves - a human-like race, but with a more magical nature. We were born as brother and sister - fraternal twins, actually. I can only guess that this was due to the fact that our souls had to be so closely tied together during the transition that we had to come into this world together. Of course, growing up, we didn't remember anything from our previous existence, so we didn't realize how weird it was.
It was only during our adolescence that our memories began to resurface, as usual. It was actually rather difficult for her, but as it progressed, I was able to help her through it. When we finally remembered everything, including what we had once been to each other, it was far too late to try to continue such a relationship. We had already grown up as siblings - though we were extremely close, even for twins - and enjoyed our relationship as it was. Actually, after regaining our memories, our relationship did get a bit awkward, but eventually we decided to just continue as we had been so far, in this life, and simply remember what had happened before as what it was: a different lifetime.
This world that we found ourselves in, though, was actually very much like the first world I found myself dropped into when this whole story began; the magical world that Bombshell had lived in. I now remembered what fun it was adventuring there, and talked my sister into giving it a try. So we apprenticed ourselves to a wizard, and joined a local Thieves Guild, in order to learn a trade (or two, in this case).
When we finished our educations, we set off to find our fortunes, and since a wizard's "true name" is not something that he or she gives out lightly, we each took a pseudonym reminiscent of our previous lives. I, of course, chose Kickback, and my sister decided to call herself Gem. We traveled across the Moonsea, to the ruins of Phlan, to assist the humans who were trying to resettle the demolished city. We acquired some companions for this project, but disassociated from them when we finished. After a fair adventure there (which I won't go into detail about, since I kept a Journal during that time), we struck off westward, and were captured and thrust into another significant quest (during which I again kept a journal). Again, we gained some companions -- other unfortunate individuals abducted and thrown into this, who we actually liked well enough to remain with afterward.
First, there were the humans. Stephan, a male Cleric who had recently become a Fighter; and Tempest, a female Thief who had recently converted to a Cleric. They had apparently had a relationship beforehand, and were traveling together when they were abducted. Then were the other non-humans. Balthezar, a half-elven Ranger/Cleric, and Teleskon, a Dwarven Fighter. They too had known each other previously, but the six of us quickly learned to work together, and became good friends.
However, during that quest, the other two non-humans each disappeared - when they hit their maximum levels, they retired. First Balthezar, then Teleskon. Each time, though, a new human appeared to take his place. Balth was replaced by Harrison, a human Ranger, and 'Skon was replaced by Rolane, a human Paladin. These two were good people too, but we all did miss Balth and 'Skon.
After finishing that adventure, however, things really started to get weird. I have been keeping another Journal of the events since then, so I won't go into detail about that here, but to summarize: We were all thrown into another reality, each of us separated from the others, and ended up adventuring with other companions for a time. Eventually, we all found our way back together, and embarked on a new quest. Actually, Rolane and Harrison never showed up again, except briefly, and we acquired a new member, in one of the people that Gem had been adventuring with before we got back together. But for the most part it was back to the old group.
This quest was for the benefit of one of our members, and we have been working it since. And since this catches me up to the present, this is where this account ends. Thank you for reading, and have a nice life!
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