[There's been an error.]

"What?"

[There's been an error in your transference.]

"What kind of error? Did I not make it to Brockton Bay?" Moments ago, I, a random and very average civilian, had signed a contract with a cosmic/eldritch being. The agreement was that I would work as its servant on Earth Bet until the end of the Golden Morning, where upon I will be freed from the contract and then allowed to keep the powers I gained.

Said agreement was made with the service of another cosmic/eldritch being whose primary concern was creating, managing, and upholding contracts.

Hearing that there was "error in the transference" could mean a lot of things, but the central focus of my mind was on "oh shit, I'm not getting powers?"

[Destination has been altered. Contract has been nulled.]

"What?!"

I'm getting sent elsewhere but the destination was different?

[Power augmentation remains. Contract canceled due to inability on Contractor's part to fulfill the initial clause of the contract. Have a good day in your new world.]

And then zap, I was somewhere I knew nothing about (probably) in a body I knew nothing about (very likely) with the powers to make worlds tremble (very likely). I knew the powers I asked for, so it was a simple matter of remembering them and finding one to test.

I held up an arm and hand (human) and then willed it to turn into something that would leave those knowledgeable about such things horrified: Grey Goo.

With a blur, my entire forearm from the elbow down and my hands all turned into a silvery gooey substance.

I laughed.

It wasn't that hard for me to find out who I was. There was a nearly empty wallet containing just the ID of myself.

I was "Armidan Paryti," a Coruscant born 10 year old orphan human, and I knew everything he did.

The orphanage I was staying at was in the middle layer of Coruscant, no more than a few layers above the Coruscant underworld. There were forty children currently staying here, and the matron was a scraggly old Bothan being helped by his extended family.

I was on Coruscant.

I was in Star Wars.

Oh god, I was in Star Wars?

Of all -!

… Deep breath.

Alright, some miscellaneous facts. The year was 2,540 ATC. From what little I knew about Star Wars, ATC referred to the Treaty of Coruscant, which was basically the Sith Empire fucking over the Galactic Republic.

On that note, 2,540 ATC was roughly thirteen years before the Republic Dark Age, which was the time when the Galactic Republic could only support the Core Worlds due to the New Sith Wars. It was something a bit far ahead in the future, and I would take care of it eventually.

The next fact for me to be concerned about was the state of the orphanage.

The patron couldn't keep the orphanage up due to the massive costs and the fact that there were more than two local gangs seeking to control the flow of children for their nefarious purposes. Rather than allow his orphanage to be a hub of children kidnapping, the patron intended to close it down.

I would have to decide what I was going to do.

Before that, I was going to work on the one power among all of my powers that would surpass every other power in time. I searched the room for the item that the former owner of this body kept hidden from the sight of other children and the patron. I found it hidden behind a loose panel in the wall by the foot of the cot. I pulled the panel off gently and pulled the item out.

I inspected the simple if primitive Duranium knife.

To be precise, it was a broken shard of a Duranium with synthweave wrapped around the duller and shorter part of the shard.

It was, however, perfect for what I wanted to do.

I called upon Dauntless. It was an ability held by a hero called Dauntless which allowed me to "boost" an item once a day and I could continue to boost the item. Over time, the empowered items would gain supernatural abilities or effects of their own, growing stronger with each empowerment.

And I could not help but utter the words that were quite iconical for an action like this.

"Boost," I spoke with glee, and the Duranium shiv glowed in response. "Oh… baby."

It was morning in Coruscant underground. What did that mean? It meant that it was six hours away from the busiest time of the day. Unfortunately for the underground, this meant that the morning down here meant it was night on the surface because it was during the night when the wealthier surface dwellers came down to the underground to find their pieces of sin.

The orphans of Patron Kigrujik's Orphanage gathered in the cafeteria, where patron and his eldest son went around serving protein gruels.

I looked around, trying to see if this was the place that I wanted to be.

The other children seemed happy, at least, even as they ate the horrifyingly bland gruel placed in front of them.

But it was the faces of the patron and his son that drew my interest. So as they left the cafeteria to discuss something, I quickly finished my HORRIFYINGLY BLAND gruel in one-go,and then sneaked after them. I moved through the steel grey and sometimes marine blue halls with mismatching panels of metal and concrete, trying my best to not make a sound.

"... make this month's payment, but after this month, I'm not sure."

I stopped just behind a corner.

"Dad, why don't you just let us help you?"

"I'm not dragging the rest of the family into this," the old patron grunted. "You know what's gonna happen if I do. You lot just stay on the surface."

"You don't have to do this. You can just-."

"I do have to do this."

"... If you say so. But what are you going to do about the next month?"

"I guess I can cut off the heating system. We're close to the vents from lower levels so it won't be cold."

"And the month after that?"

"... I guess I can sell the house-"

"Dad!"

"What else do you expect me to do? I live alone in that big ass shithole."

"It's where I grew up! It's where the rest of the family grew up!"

"And there's no one in it except me ever since your mother died. You can't expect me to just keep it."

"Sorry."

"... It's time for you to go to work. Thanks for coming by again, Jue."

"It's not a problem."

I scrambled out of there and entered my room.

As I just learned, the situation for the orphanage was dire but not too dire. I still had at least two months before the patron had to take drastic personal measures to pay for the upkeep. I didn't hear any additional talks about local gangsters, but the tension was still there.

Did I want to stay here, though? This was the big question. If I stayed here, then I had a stable place for food, water, and shelter, no matter how low-grade all of those were. If I left, then while I might have the freedom, I would also be far more vulnerable than I am right now. Yes, I could use my powers freely to get what I wanted, but it was always that starting phase that did capes in on Earth Bet. Why would it be any different here?

In fact, I wagered that in this pre-New Sith War Republic era, there was bound to be Sith and their spies rummaging around the Coruscant underworld.

… No, I had to stay out of sight at least I could make myself some minions with my powers. Then I will need to take a chunk of the Coruscant underworld as mine, no matter how small it might turn out to be.

Speaking of my powers, I was in possession of seven Twin powers and one Wildcard power.

Panacea.

Upgraded Blasto.

Dauntless.

Strider.

Snag.

Squealer.

Hero.

Flood.

Dauntless was a slow equipment power-up while Blasto, Squealer, and Hero were all Tinkers. Snag was also a Tinker power but had other powers like emotional munition. Flood was a Breaker/Changer power that made me into a Grey Goo, but this left me vulnerable to electromagnetic pulses. Panacea was a Striker/Tinker/Thinker that allowed me to manipulate biology freely. Strider allowed me to move wherever with whomever.

Now, how was I going to go about this…

Being an orphan, I didn't have a lot of things to work with to do my planning. It wasn't like paper was a thing on Coruscant and as advanced as the entirety of Coruscant was, an electronic was still expensive for a poor orphan. As such, all of the planning was done in my head.

It wasn't great for remembering but at least it would be a secret no one could extract from me.

Unless they are a Jedi or Sith, but fuck them both. I can teleport away from them, no biggie.

The plan was thus.

During the "day" when orphans were expected to be out and about, I would go far from the orphanage using the underworld trams, use Grey Goo to devour anything from trash to people (if they try to fuck with me), and I would come back to the orphanage before "night." Once safe inside the confines of the orphanage and my room (apparently, due to unspecified reasons I had a room to myself), I would convert the extra nanite into biomass, use the existing biomass to generate new biomass through Blasto's upgraded power, and I would start to make gears for myself.

And thus, I found myself outside the orphanage. Like the rest of the Coruscant underworld, it was underground and thus devoid of natural light. Everything was lit with artificial light, and this created a lot of dimly lit spaces.

It was, essentially, a Grey Goo's perfect hunting ground.

And hunt, I shall.

But first, I didn't want to reveal my location so early to any of the major players, which included the Jedi Temple that was very close to me, and so I had to move away.

Now, time to head over to the tram.

I ended up taking an elevator instead.

I was on Level 1402, some twenty levels below where my orphanage was. Compared to there, this place was certainly dimmer, dirtier, and dustier. Right outside the small elevator that I used, which required me to pay 1 credit, were hookers.

Their bright and lusty eyes quickly grew dim and disinterested the moment I, a small child, stepped out of the elevator. I ignored them and moved deeper into the underworld level. I intentionally walked about an hour before I found a dark alley with no camera or watchers.

Perfect.

I stepped into it… and immediately found myself being accosted by a mugger.

The mugger, some humanoid blue skinned reptilian species, jumped out of a door, hissed at me with a gun pointed at my head, and gestured with his free hand.

"All of your ch-."

I moved before he could. My body turned into a goop of nanite on the spot and rushed him. He screamed very briefly before I was traveling down his throat and digesting him on the spot. His species' version of the vocal cord was the first to go, the brain, and then everything else. It took me no more than four minutes to do so. Finally, I broke down his gun, clothes, and other possessions.

Because honestly? With my tinker powers alone, I could make better shit than an outdated blaster pistol.

Then I retook a humanoid shape, but this time, I tried to change my height and appearance. I didn't check it; I just moved on. As I moved through the alley, I picked up trash, converted it to more nanites, and repeated this. If anyone decided to accost me, then they joined the ranks of the dead.

By the time I was at the other open end of the alley, I gained sixty kilograms in weight.

That was … already kind of a lot. Actually, if I gained even half that, I don't think I could use elevators or even go back to the orphanage without issue.

"I mean," I thought out loud to myself as I looked around. "This place ain't bad." It was an out of the way level that wasn't a center of crime like 1313 or famous. Or at least, this particular level in this particular area wasn't.

Which meant that it would serve PERFECTLY as a hideout, safeout, or whatever I wanted to make of it. There were also plenty of buildings in this area of this level so…

I grinned.

"I might not have to go back home at all today," I said with a drawl to myself before turning to look for a potential hideout and workshop.

The tinker in me was gushing with glee.