Immortality is BS

To make it clear: All rights to characters, setting, story and central concepts in this story remain the property of Wildbow, Worm's author, and the good people who created GURPS. This is just me playing in the sandbox. Worm can be found at parahumans dot wordpress dot com, and GURPS Fourth Edition can be bought from warehouse23 dot com.

Elseworld

Raquel woke up with a start as his doorbell rang. He wondered who the heck would visit him unannounced before midday. Such things happened, well, never. Everyone knew that he was a night owl who usually slept way past midday.

He climbed out of bed just as his doorbell rang again. Impatient, whoever it was. Raquel walked through his two-bedroom condo, made sure he was dressed (he was - boxers and T-shirt was plenty enough) and opened the door.

"Oh, hi, Mr. and Mrs. Sloane. What brings you here?"

"Where is Eric?" were the first words out of Mrs. Sloane's mouth.

"What? How should I know?"

"Sammael told us that you three were out drinking or something, he wasn't too specific, and that you were talking most of the time about some special pistol."

Raquel thought back. Well, tried to. "Sorry, not ringing any bells. Not surprising as I may have forgotten the last couple of days. What is the date?"

The question wasn't actually that rare for him. As a travel gadgeteer who semiregularly visited other worlds, dimensions and times dates were sort of difficult for him.

"April 12th, 2011," Mr. Sloane said.

"Huh. So yeah, I'm probably missing enough time that I have no idea what I might have done to Eric. Let me check that pistol," Raquel said and walked to his computer.

"Alice, give me the inventory. X-11 type B pistol," he said to his computer AI.

"That pistol was fried and recycled as per your standing orders. It was activated several times along the path shown on the map on the screen now, and finally overloaded at the location indicated by the marker," Alice said.

Raquel eyed the map and the date. "Yep, it's quite possible or even likely that I might have shot Eric with that pistol."

"So where is he?" Mrs. Sloane asked.

"Beats me. I'll have to check the diagnostic data. Gonna take a while, and even longer to figure out a way to get him back. That pistol was wicked. I designed it to punch through dimensionally locked realities. Apparently it couldn't quite handle the power throughput required for that particular shunt," Raquel said scratching his stubble.

"Give me a few days, a week tops, to go through the data and I'll have a better idea where he ended up. Getting him back might take longer as the reality he's in has to be pretty well protected," he continued.

Mrs. Sloane looked murderous but Raquel didn't notice. Apparently he had forgotten his visitors and slumped down into his office chair, going through the arcane screens of text that probably was the diagnostic log.

"Come on, he's zoned out," Mr. Sloane said and gently turned Mrs. Sloane around towards the still open door. "Let him work. Nothing we can do right now. And it's not like Eric's going to die."

The concerned parents left the condo, Mrs. Sloane glancing back. They left the door open.

Earlier

"Snorting Pig? How the heck do you keep finding these hellholes, Raq?" Sammael asked. He was dressed in cargo pants and a screaming yellow/red Hawaiian shirt replica. It was open on the front, giving everyone a good look at his sculpted body.

"I'm a travel gadgeteer, dumb ass. Ending up in strange places is sort of my shtick," Raquel replied. He was dressed pretty much like he always was when not home, in business casual black. It didn't even fit too well, sleeves and pant legs being too short for the tall and lanky man. It also conflicted with his crow's nest and stubbly cheeks.

Eric looked at the seedy bar with something resembling resignation. "You're going to drag us there no matter what, aren't you?" His chosen look was similar to Sammael's, except that he had a much more sensible T-shirt with a generic band logo. He had no idea who they were or what kind of music they made.

"Yep," Raquel said, popping the P and heading inside.

Eric shook his head and headed inside after Raquel. Sammael followed muttering something unsavory under his breath.

The bar was as seedy inside as it was outside, as was its clientele. They looked like folks doing heavy manual labor during the day, or like low-status career criminals. In some cases both. Eric had to wonder how the cops didn't raid this place on a daily basis. Perhaps they did.

The three of them stood out like a sore thumb. They usually did on these excursions. Eric really didn't know how he got dragged to go along. Probably because he didn't have anything better to do.

Sammael wandered to order something horrendously vile and alcohol-based, Raq looked for a place to sit and Eric checked that they weren't being targeted by the clientele. Wouldn't be the first time they were stabbed, shot at or otherwise waylaid mere minutes - or seconds - after going into one of these places. It was a good thing none of them really minded such things.

Eric ruminated on that for a moment as Raq waved them over to a booth that had seen better days. They were a strange bunch. He himself was immortal, Sammael was very nearly invulnerable, and Raq was a gadgeteer with... something. Eric didn't actually know how Raq survived their excursions. He seemed always come through without injuries, though.

The seediness and the clientele didn't apparently mean much. They drank, listened Raq rant about his newest invention - some sort of pistol that made its target jump realities or something - and watched as he drank something foul-smelling from a flask when the bartender's back was turned. Raq became more and more belligerent as the night progressed.

"You know what this is? This is the alcohol of champions, this is! It's the vilest stuff I've ever drunk, and that's saying something!" Raq shouted.

The bartender didn't miss his flask this time. "OUT!" he shouted and they obeyed. Sammael had to help Raq walk.

"You know what, you pansies? I bet you understand the greatness of X-11 better if I show it!" Raq yelled and shot a dumpster. It promptly vanished. "See! It works!"

Raq kept shooting random items until they reached Chinatown and even through it he kept singing the weapon's praises. They took a shortcut on Raquel's muttered advice: "Much faster that way, you know." Eric went first, then Sammael supporting Raq.

"You now what? I'll show you this works real well," Raquel stammered to Sammael. Before Sammael could do anything Raq had already shot Eric. The pistol began to smell really acrid and an occasional spark came from it. "Oh poo. That sucks," Raquel said and fell unconscious.

Eric heard screams coming from ahead and rushed over, seeing a woman in her late twenties being accosted by gang members.