Story Bored 051 Rebirth by Dinosorceror 09-29-97 The bar at the Dinosorceror Testing Facility, or DTF, wasn't as seedy as one might think a bar deep in the heart of the Crab Nebula would be. In fact, it was quite a high-class operation, with the exception of one seemingly permanent fixture at a corner booth. The aging Dinosorceror. Well, one of many Dinosorcerors, to be sure. That was the purpose of the DTF. The Council tested each of the thousands Dinosorcerors in the universe it served about once every ten Earth years. Many of the Dinosorcerors, including the subject of our story, were completely unaware of this fact. Many, like the subject of our story, thought they were the only one. Many found the discovery that they were just one tiny cog in a larger machine rather disappointing. However, the subject of our story found being tiny rather pleasing. "Goddamn kids, that's what I'm seeing here. Like you, boy. Yeah, believe it or not, I was a Dinosorceror once. Until I failed the Test thirty years ago. Failed the first damned part. But don't get your hopes up, kid. I'm not telling you what the answer is. I'm a bitter old bastard, and I'm damned proud of it. "You just better think good and hard, boy. Thirty years ago, I had the same choice you have now. You can either take the test and maybe fail, or you can just walk away, and forget you ever were the Dinosorceror. You can forget about your arch- nemeses, forget about your stupid missions, and...what? What are you looking at me like that for? Oh, all right. I guess you heard the rumor, eh? Or does it just show? Yeah, it's true, kid. I did decline to take the test. Who wouldn't? You've heard all the other stories, haven't you? That you don't always survive the test? Heh...damned right. I've seen plenty of body bags. I think the Council thinks Dinosorceror's are a dime a dozen. "Oh, you haven't? Geez, you must be just off the boat. Sucked you out of your reality just a few minutes ago, eh? Well, here's what I hear the tests are. They take what you love the most and make it lethal. Then you have to face it. And let me tell you, with what I loved most, it wouldn't've taken much to make it lethal! That's why I turned 'em down. Of course, with all my old associates working with another Dinosorceror, they had no more use for me. I had nowhere else to go, so I just sweep up here for a few credits, and sleep in a room in the back. Yep...take a good look at your future, boy. Oh, so you want my honest opinion?" "Well, no...not actually, uh...sir," Dino said. "You've been babbling on for the past ten minutes, and I really just want to get a goddamned cola and get the hell out of here. You really are a bitter old bastard." The elder, former Dinosorceror just grunted. "Young upstart. You'll learn. You'll learn!" "Yeah, sure, gramps. Or should I say cramps? You just sit back, and watch the master at work there in the test room. I've got a Patriarch to dethrone! I've got children to foster from parallel dimensions." The waitress finally gave Dino his cola, and he quickly guzzled it down. "Punk," the old 'sorceror said. "If you had time to think, you'd reconsider." Dino belched as he finished his drink. "Yeah, sure, fossilbrains. Why am I sitting here talking to you, anyway?" The elder Dino said, "Well, because this was the only free seat." "Oh, yeah...right." Suddenly, a voice came over a crackly intercom. "Dinosorceror 3263827. Dinosorceror 3263827. You are required to enter Testing Chamber 203 in three of your minutes. Please proceed to Testing Chamber 203 immediately." Dino looked down at the chit they had given him when he teleported in. It read 3263827. "Hmm...guess you weren't kidding, geezer. Time to get famous!" As Dino stood up and went to the elevator, the old wheezing Dinosorceror called out, "When you fail, don't go looking for a job here!" It didn't take three minutes to reach TC203. The room was plain and off-white, like the entire facility, what little of it he had seen in the half hour since he was ripped from his own reality and informed he would have to prove his worth. It was par for the course, though. Dino had been through more crazy situations than he cared to recall. As the door slid shut behind him, he looked around. There wasn't anything in the medium-sized room but a speaker in the ceiling. A moment later, a voice from it startled him. "You have one minute to decide, 3263827. You can leave the room and abdicate your Dinosorceror status, or you can endure the Test." "One minute, eh?" he thought. "I can possibly get myself killed, or I can just walk away. Walk away and...what? To what? Eh, I'll just stick it out." As the minute passed, he started to think. He _could_ get killed, quite readily, if that old geezer was right. And for what? For stuff he was thrown into a year ago by someone who made him Dinosorceror and never told him about any of this crap he'd have to go through? Was it worth it? Was it-- "You have ten seconds, 3263827." "Deee!" he said aloud. "Um...ah...well..." He nearly peed himself as a loud buzzer sounded from the speaker, akin to an airhorn, and it felt as if his feet were glued to the floor. The door opened from behind him, and he nervously looked at two reptilian humanoids enter the room. "You have passed the test, 3263827..." the feminine one of the two began. "You mean...but...that was it? No giant reptiles? It was just a fake? To see if I had the nerve?" Dino exclaimed, his heart racing. "Well, sort of," the masculine one spoke. "We don't have the funding to test every Dinosorceror. Only a certain percentage is. What that percentage is, I cannot tell you." "You can't?" "Okay, only 97% of the Dinosorcerors are tested. There, are you happy now?" the masculine one snickered. "Well, not...really." "Excellent," the feminine one said as she stepped forward, holding a small shoe- sized box. "Here is your new Device, and your new assignment." "Whew...my n--what? My new what?" "Well, 3263827, your progress in your previous assignment was, shall we say, less than evident," the masculine one again snickered at him. "The Patriarch was way out of your league. The one that passed the reigns on to you was barely capable of handling him." "But, again, budget problems," the feminine one continued. "We already had our best Dinosorcerors on even more important tasks. We had to make do." "So, here is an assignment more...suited to your capabilities." The masculine one opened the box that the feminine one was holding, and revealed a ring and a handbook. "The ring operates as the Lens you are familiar with operates. The members of the Council couldn't help but notice your affinity for the powers it possessed, so we wanted to keep your learning curve as...small...as possible." Dino just smirked, quickly donning the Lens Ring and grabbing the handbook. The cover read "Maintenance and Study of the FD-120a Spatial Anomaly." "What the hell does this mean?" Dino asked, looking at the cover with a puzzled look, then flipping through page after page of diagrams. "You will be overseeing a small wormhole in the Andromeda galaxy," the feminine one said plainly. Dino rubbed his eyes. "I'm going to sit around and watch a wormhole?" "Well, I'm afraid the Council ruled that it suited you the most." Dino sighed. "I see. Deep Space Boring. Well, what about the Apotheosis? And the gang?" "Well, we've retained the Apotheosis for you. I'm afraid that all of your former crew have been re-assigned to a new Dinosorceror. We have reinstated 'Darwin,' the shipboard virtual dolphin control program, however," the masculine one said, exhaling heavily. "So who has been assigned to me?" Dino asked. "Well, we re-assigned some beings that you should be vaguely familiar with. You see, before your planet Earth was destroyed, it was visited by another Dinosorceror. We were aware of the planet's imminent demise, and we detected that there were two more beings present on the planet who were possible Dinosorceror material. Their genetic makeup could have possibly been mutated in the same way yours was, most likely to the use of radioactive energy sources in the vicinity of your hometown. You see, that was what attracted the dying Dinosorceror to you. Your genetic makeup exhibited traits common to all Dinosorcerors. When he arrived at the highest concentration of this trait, he discovered you were the only one of the three that still remained in that vicinity," the feminine one explained. "However," the masculine one continued, "when the mutations in the two subjects were realized, they became...less than desirable Dinosorcerors. They could not pass the initial tests." Dino sighed and rolled his eyes. "Oh, great! I get some Dinosorceror rejects!" The feminine one smirked. "I'll remind you at this point that you, too, would fail the initial tests had you been subjected to them." "Is that supposed to make me feel better?" Dino asked. "No," they answered in unison, and then next time Dino blinked his eyes, they opened to view the bridge of the Apotheosis, with Darwin twirling on the monitor before him. "Hey there, tubbs! Oh, wait...you're not...who are you?" Darwin asked. Dino blinked a few more times, looking from the FD-120a handbook to Darwin on the screen. "I'm...Dino. The Dinosorceror." Darwin smirked. "Oh, boy...another winner." Dino heard some movement from behind him, and saw that a grey morphic apatosaur and a blue...something...were approaching him. "Hello there," the apatosaur said to him, craning his neck down a bit. "My name is Astor." Dino squinted. "Wait a minute...weren't you...didn't we meet..." Astor waved a clawhand. "Just a side job." Dino smirked, but then shrugged, and looked at the...other guy. "And you are?" The blue reptilian dusted off a clawhand before extending it to shake with Dino's. "The name's Helvetica Bold. I'm the...uh...science officer." Dino tossed the manual at Helvetica's chest, where it landed gently thanks to Helvetica's floofy chest fuzz. "Here, Foofs. You can take care of this. I've got more important things to do." They looked at him curiously. "Like what?" Astor asked. "Like dethroning a Patriarch."