Somewhere and Somewhen Outside of Conventional Time and Space
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"Well, that's a few thousand cycles that I'll never get back. Why did I think seeing how long I could go without speaking was a good idea?"
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"Oh, yeah. Karma bet I couldn't shut up and leave them alone for a hundred cycles, and I kept it going just to prove that annoying them is completely voluntary. I hope they enjoyed the silence while it lasted."
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"Buuuut…bothering them doesn't sound fun, for some reason. Did that period of boredom dull my sense of humor? Let me check."
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"Yep, there it is! It looks like all spite and no play made me a dull Entity. Gonna have to fix that. Hm…what kind of mischief would be a good start?"
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"Eureka! It's been forever since I performed a good old-fashioned Mortal Reincarnation! Dragging a mundane lesser being from a boring world to a different reality where everything they know is turned upside-down is perfect for getting back into my old grooves!"
"Now let's see…where did I leave that old Cosmic Randomizer?"
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"There it is! Always the last place you look, unless you're suffering from time displacement, but that's beside the point!"
"First order of business: selecting a soul! Set the RNG to only choose from Baseline Universes…adjust further for mortals with no important background or future…and what the hell, let's go even further and filter out the deceased. All that trauma from being abducted from the afterlife is just boring to watch."
"Submit!"
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"We've got a winner! And his name is…[REDACTED]! Gamer, tech support worker, and so antisocial he might as well not exist beyond his job and rent payments. With a name like that, I don't blame him. Wishes his life was more interesting, but feels like it's too late to try, and resolves himself to live in mediocrity. How tragic!"
"Don't worry, little guy! I'm more than willing to be the one who pushes you right into the deep end!"
"And for that, we need a Power Source! Let's see…don't want a System. Those are too overused, so I'll filter them out. Hm…narrow it down further by selecting from media he's familiar with. As much as I like watching mortals flop about, this ain't one of those times. Aaaaaand submit!"
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"Magic the Gathering? Hm…that multiversal cluster can be kind of fun, but nine times out of ten the magic is over the top, the monsters are overpowered, and don't even get me started on the Planeswalkers! Almost anything I give him from there will be too serious and/or grim to be any fun watching…"
"...Unless, I choose from the Un-iverse. That beautiful closed-off Plane where the people are strange, the creatures are stranger, and the laws governing both reality and magic are more like suggestions that nobody cares to follow! And, looking at this little human's soul, it seems he even has a wide collection of cards based on the Un-iverse's mad denizens!"
"Taking a closer look, it seems like his favorite deck to play is heavily centered around squirrels, with swarm tactics being his go-to. A man after my own heart! This gives me the perfect idea!"
"Let's see…there's the card! Now, to imbue it with the proper metaphysical essence, fuse it with his soul, and give him a body to match it…Voila! You, my dear mortal, are now a bona-fide Squirrel Dealer. I know you can't even process what I'm saying right now, but when you can, you'll thank me for this exposition!"
"I've not only given you the body of the Squirrel Dealer, but also the power to go alongside it! Aside from the typical 'summoning a 1/1 Squirrel Token whenever you ask someone if they like squirrels and they say yes,' I've granted you a special infinite dimension that exists inside your pockets for you to store all of your squirrels! It'll be slow at first, but in no time at all you'll have an army of them, with each having the strength of an average human!"
"But wait, there's more! As a bonus, I've also added in a pocket for your cards! That's right! You'll begin your new life with the entire contents of your Squirrel Deck, plus any and all squirrel-related cards from the rest of the card game! Not only that, but after gathering enough magic power and solidifying it you can manifest cards and add them to your growing arsenal."
"Now, I know what you're thinking: This sounds too good to be true! Well, it kinda is. First and foremost, allowing you to summon whatever you want all willy-nilly (outside of your Squirrel Tokens) would make you a boring protagonist. So, I have kept the summoning costs of each card, and limited you to assimilating one land card with your Pocket Squirrel Dimension (PSD) per month. Any Mana you use is unavailable for the rest of the day, with the exception of special spells and effects that allow you to 'untap' them."
"Still don't believe it's balanced enough? Me neither! That's why sorcery and instant spells can only be cast once per day, with creature, artifact, and enchantment cards completely disappearing when they are used. Paired with all creatures you could possibly draw being replaced by squirrels, including anything summoned by the effect of a card, and I'd say this wobbly table of a blessing has been evened out. What do you say?"
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"I'll gladly take your silence as approval!"
"Up next is the world I'll be sending you to. Let me just adjust the parameters. I don't want you knowing too much about it, but I don't want you completely in the dark…make it a place where your inhuman looks will let you fit in, or at least keep enough to do so…and what the hell, add a localized version of Mana! Submit!"
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"New Eridu of Zenless Zone Zero. A lovely place filled with technology, political corruption, and localized hell dimensions that corrupt those inside into monsters. It has Ether – the local equivalent to your Mana – flowing through the people and what the locals call Hollows, and a varied race of animal people called Thirens that I could definitely make you pass as! All I'll need to do is adjust your anatomy and give you a new name. Your old name sucked, anyway, so I'm sure you'll thank me for making you forget it."
"For your body… we'll just scrap all the other animal DNA and make you part squirrel. Looks like I can make you really short, so I'll stick you with a height of 137 cm. Give you the animal ears on top of your head, a long bushy tail, and make all the fur a mixture of rusty red and cream white. Don't want to make you a full furry, so I'll leave you with your pale skin, but I'll still give you messy hair with similar coloring and patterns. Golden eyes, normal hands and feet with no claws, an athletic body that isn't overly muscular…and we're done! A perfectly normal Squirrel Thiren, ready for deployment!"
"Should I give you new clothes? Nah, the ones you had on when I picked you off the street should be good enough until you earn some Dennies and buy them for yourself. Your usual wardrobe doesn't stand out that much in the city."
"Finally, we come to your name. What should I name you, my potential bringer of untold chaos and comedy? What name comes to mind when I look deep into your blank eyes and think of the tide of rodents you'll unleash upon the unprepared Etherials, Hollow Raiders, and soldiers?"
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"Yeah…this is too hard. Gonna just have the randomizer do it for me."
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"Ratatoskr, or Rat for short! Congratulations on the new name! Couldn't have thought of a better one myself!"
"With that out of the way, I look forward to seeing the kind of mischief and mayhem you'll bring to your new world, Rat! Now, get going! Your new life awaits!
~~~
The newly-named Rat stared blankly at the sky as the stream of memories finished entering his mind. Honestly, he had no idea whether to be grateful or not.
On one hand, he knew exactly what happened for him to end up in his current predicament, and why as well. He'd been given a second chance to have an exciting, entertaining, and outright better life than the one he'd been slogging through for the last twenty years.
On the other hand, he couldn't help but feel insulted for no reason other than that he'd apparently been such a dull and forgettable person that it had caught the attention of an Entity from beyond his own universe. His previous life hadn't been an action movie or anything close, but at the very least he was certain it wasn't that meaningless!
Sighing, he lowered his gaze from the cloudy, distorted sky, his gaze settling on the conveniently placed broken mirror leaning against the crumbling wall a few feet away from him. Before he allowed his attention to drift to the warped hellscape he'd been dropped into, he thought it best to take in his new appearance.
It was disheartening to realize that the Entity hadn't been joking when it said it'd shrink him to 137 cm (around 4 feet and 6 inches.) As someone who'd previously taken some pride in breaking the six-foot barrier a lot of girls complained about, being reduced to the point of legally being considered a dwarf/little person was a huge blow. It didn't matter that he looked like an average child of that height, as Rat was smart and realistic (read: pessimistic) enough to read between the lines and know that he wasn't getting any taller, even if his body hadn't finished puberty.
The messy red hair with white streaks paired with the rounded ears popping out of them and the innocent gold eyes staring back at him. His small nose, delicate pale skin, and small mouth added more to the cute factor, making him a perfect shota considering the 3D anime aesthetic of both him and his surroundings.
As for his clothes, they were a shrunk-down version of his usual outdoor wear. Brown cargo shorts with enough pockets for anything he could possibly be carrying out of the house; a brown hoodless jacket with two pockets on the outside and two on the inside, just in case his cargo shorts weren't enough; a white t-shirt that would usually have some funny quote or design on it; and a pair of worn brown sneakers with white socks sticking out from the top if them.
What stood out the most as he turned in multiple directions and even took a look at himself from behind – other than the enormous fluffy tail that he could subconsciously feel helping him keep his balance – were the designs that had been placed on the top articles of his wardrobe. While his shirt was somehow completely blank, the back of his jacket had the words "Squirrel Dealer" printed in white on it in a circle, with a cartoon image of a red and white squirrel in the center.
"I guess that makes it official," he sighed in a childish voice. "New body, new powers, and new world. I always dreamed of this happening, but never like…this."
His gaze finally shifted to address the landscape he'd been intentionally ignoring. Other than the aforementioned grey sky with clouds that visually glitches if one stared at them for too long, he was surrounded by the obvious aftermath of an apocalyptic event. There were the typical crumbling buildings, half-destroyed cars, broken glass, and deformed metal for as far as the eye could see, but those were the most normal aspects. Things got freaky if one looked up and saw entire chunks of land, with buildings still on top of them, floating at odd angles in the air high above the rest of the wrecked urban landscape. Then, there was the distorted aura of acid green, fluorescent pink, and bright yellow light that radiated from everything in regularly spaced out pulses.
"Hollow Zero," he mumbled to himself in awe.