Chapter 4: Cars 2: Electric Boogaloo

Bubbling and emerging from the egg-like lava from a volcano came it. First with a single golden wheel and then with the whole car. Shaped with fiery accents on its sides and two large eye-shaped lights staring back at Lev and Jameson. The car was solid gold the same color as the egg it came from. As the car came ou, the air got hotter and Lev started to sweat.

The car seemed powerful and it was giving off the same kind of energy that Lev felt inside of his mind.

Everyone was still as they looked at the car. After a second, nobody moved, the gears inside of Lev’s head started to turn. What could this car be, what could its purpose be nobody knew. Lev could see his reflection wobble and turn in the car's gold exterior, it’s features turning and morphing like the tip of a candle after it’s exposed to air.

Finally after what felt like minutes of nothing happening. The car started to move, it’s wheels started to rev, it was going to crash into Lev. It started to move faster and faster, dust flew everywhere from its wheels and right exactly before it could touch Lev it stopped.

Lev looked into the reflection of the car, his eye twitched, and the car laughed. Or whatever a car laugh would sound like. Like the roar of a car's engine mixed with the soft tinkle of it whishing by. Hearing it felt like it was almost your imagination, almost like this car wasn’t alive.

Then the car spoke.

“Humans respect me. Give me yourselves and I will grant you my boon.” The sound of its voice was like the sound of a car's horn but somehow understandable. Lev could understand it, and seemingly everyone else could too.

“What-, what are you?” One of the men said. His face painted with a thick pink brush. He looked like a flamingo.

“I’m well how do you say this in your tongue. Not a god, not really like a pixie either, more like a house-elf? No that’s wrong, more like an embodiment, an Embodiment, capitalize that one” The Embodiment said.

Everyone was confused. First a car had appeared out of nowhere from an egg, and second, now it talked and spoke like, well not a human, but like something else? They couldn’t comprehend it, it just wasn’t correct. The man in red looked like half his face had been taken off, a mixture of half shock and half disgust perused his features.

“You’re a car? An Embodiment. A what?” Jameson said.

“Yes, yes, yes, I’m a car. And I’m an Embodiment. No, not all Embodiments are cars, that would be ineffective. I’m here to introduce your humans to the glories of our magnificent overlords, I mean system, yes system.” A bead of motor oil fell down the cheek of the Embodiment.

Lev stared still shocked at the car. However, the shock did not last for long. The ticks and whirls of his brain began anew.

“So if you’re so good at this system. What is it? How do we use it?” Lev said. The car drove a little backward in disgust. The end of the Embodiment just touching the body of one of the random grunts, who recoiled in fear at the love tap.

“None of you have the System? Yes, that’s with a capital. How come? Didn’t your city have a little meeting, a good old System meeting with your current Overseer? We embodiments are supposed to come after the meeting. Anyways it should’ve been on whatever media or internet or whatever bullcrap you humans invented.” Lev turned to look at Jameson, while the man in red turned to look at the man beside him. They had both made the same mistake.

“The internets working? TV is working? Everything is working?” Lev asked, his voice getting higher and higher pitched as he realized his mistake. As they all realized their mistakes.

“Oh, you’re a slow class. Every species has one of these. God what was it, section 3.4592 of the Handbook, yes that’s capitalized, that warned about these. Yeah, something about immediate eradication and destruction probably doesn’t matter anyway.” The Embodiment said his voice trailing off into a handful of mutterings. Lev and Jameson started to back away from the Embodiment when it started to huff. Air whooshed and moved and tried to get inside the car and they all heard a large gust of wind go by their ears. Lev and Jameson felt themselves get pulled closer to the Embodiment. They dug their feet and hands into the ground but it did them no good, they were getting pulled faster and faster and faster until they were all touching the Embodiment in a bunch of weird angles.

“That should’ve gotten all of you folks to come here and all I need to do is… Where’s that System-damned button, oh of course, right next to the total eradication button. I should’ve known. Now, where were we? Ta-da is how you would say it but how I’d say it would be Vroom-oom.” As the Embodiment said it’s words, energy cackled away from the car and into all the people attached to it. And they all saw the most mystical thing, something that even for this giant car that can talk that came out of an egg, was strange.

Welcome!

An Embodiment™ has granted you access to a System interface. Good luck in your new world.

Again the blue box had returned from before. Lev stared at it for a while, his hand jerked in a weird position but he didn’t care. He ignored that and stared at the beautiful almost golden blue. After a second of staring and looking, it changed and soon streams and streams of blue boxes appeared in front of Lev and the rest of them.

Name:

Lev Hernandez(Hidden)

Stats: (A 1 is the average human with 4 being peak human).

Physical Skills:

Strength:

2

Agility:

3

Mental Skills:

Creativity:

4.5

Logic:

0.5

Interaction Skills:

Will:

1

Presence:

2

Skills:

Writing: 1

Titles:

First Born Skill

Energies:

Mind: 1

XP Till Next Level:

0

Love For Embodiments:

100%

He saw it all. Every single part of him categorized into just a couple of categories. They knew everything those people at the System or well probably not people but weird interdimensional alien computer things. Strength and Agility were normal Lev had seen them before but skills like Creativity? Logic? His mind couldn’t even wrap itself around them. And don’t even mention Will and Presence.

As everyone looked at what had been given to them, the Embodiment started to laugh. Lev still couldn’t get over that weird semi-state of sound that it put out. The strangeness of it overwhelmed him. The Embodiment started to grow and grow, it’s wheels enlarging and it’s stature growing mightier. It looked like it could run over Lev a million times and still not be done with him.

“You have it. You actually have it. I got one. One of the originals. One of the original bastards. Oh I’m going to have fun, well probably not, I’m not allowed to have fun down here he said, well seems like I will.”

Lev had never actually met a car that could sound sarcastic. Though thinking about it the old crappy Ford his parents left him did always seem to quip and quirl about him. Lev’s thoughts, however, were not able to quip and quirl. The energy within his mind seemed like something had called out to it. It had been summoned by something.

It kept on ramming against his mind, ramming, ramming wanting to be free, and a sharp pain went through all of Lev’s body like the final exit of the knife wound. And there the energy broke free, it pierced through Lev’s skull and out into reality. The energy was like a cloud of purple mist mixed with stars. It sparkled and glowed, and called to Lev. Its beauty shone like, something told about in a story or a book that Lev had written. Only the prettiest of maidens or highschool crushes could look like this energy.

“Ah, beautiful I know this kind my uncle Ben had it, nice enough guy little problems with the ladies, something about him being too into perfection not that it matters. You’re the real prize, one of your kind is worth millions… In potential benefits for me.”

The energy leaving Lev’s body felt wrong. The Embodiment stole something precious, something vital to Lev. Lev squirmed under the feeling, squirmed like a worm about to be crushed.

“Just give it back.” Lev croaked out, his voice sounding like a hollow organ in an empty church building.

“Later, later, time to give you. A random skill. Brought you by the lovely people at System Corp. Well, honestly I’m going to grant all of you guys a random skill rolled from the great olde list of car skills. Every single one of them in probably all of existence except those assholes who don’t share. Well, do you wanna spin the roulette?”

Sweat dripped down Lev’s back and spilling out onto his shirt. A large white stain appeared, and the cold air moving against it making him shiver. After a second, the Embodiment started to Rev, it’s engine pumping out hot air into the winter breeze. And after the people around Lev hummed, hummed a song, a loud song into the air. And after Lev, himself started to hum, and vibrate. He didn’t know the lyrics or even the song he sang but the singing filled the air. All starting with the hum. And a message appeared in Lev’s vision

Skill Gained:

Internal Motors: Level 1, Max Level 10. Evolution Cost: 100 GP

Turn yourself into a car! Sponsored by Mikael’s Automatic Emporium “Bringing motorized love to the Skalgan Galaxy”

Inside his mind, something appeared. All of the knowledge related to this skill “Internal Motors” appeared. The skill itself seemed to describe using some sort of energy to make the body function as a car. The effects seemed almost magical to Lev.

“What is this?” Lev asked everyone else wondered this as well.

“Well see the system collects all of the creations of man or not man and combines them all into a list. All of the skills, and artworks, and magics of the world are combined into this list and sold. It’s the greatest money-making scheme in the world and the currency to get all these skills is energy.”

A zap went down Lev’s back. They were completely at the mercy of these people of these things. All of Earth couldn’t compare to these gods.

“Well you guys, it has been a pleasure but I have to fuck with, I mean introduce more people to the system. So go along and remember. Don’t die!” Lev’s energy that had been floating in the air returned back to Lev’s body, making him “normal” again. The Embodiments engine revved and surrounding each of the men a portal started to envelop them.

Lev closed his eyes as the portal went over him, but opened them as soon as he felt it. The cool air against his back and the green, green all around him. All around him as far as he could see trees and more trees went on in an infinite expanse.

“Jameson I don’t think we are in New York anymore”