Dyna Corp Central Shipping
One Week Earlier
Deep in the cacophony of whirring conveyor belts and delivery systems humming away, a mail clerk going through a small pile of packages in the returned shipping pile raised his glasses to get a better look at the bright orange box he pulled out.
DynaCorp Prototype #524
Name: [Redacted]
Address: [Redacted]
Priority: 15
TO BE SCRAPPED IMMEDIATELY
The mail clerk shook his head. Some rushed intern probably put the redacted sticker on the name sideways so the address was unreadable. And on a Priority 15 package? In his twenty years working here he'd never even seen anything more then Priority 7! What were they shipping, those gemstones the big purple guy was collecting in that one movie? He'd better go find the boss and ask what to do with this.
Inadvertently setting the package label-side down, he rushed off down the hall right as another poor mail room clerk fighting a bad cold wandered up with an armful of orange boxes, frustrated that they hadn't been labeled with the beta tester's addresses yet. Dumping the whole mess onto the desk next to the first package, she sleepily went over and attached the large stickers to each box, appending a great big label with Brooke Wider's name on it to the returned package and carrying the whole pile to the outgoing package drop.
The first mail clerk would return to find that his 'returned package' was nothing more then one of the standard products sent out for beta testing. A few good-natured jokes were shared over the slip up, and the incident was quickly forgotten about.
All was well.
Present
"What is it?" Mikayla asked excitedly, invading Brooke's personal space to try and get a look at the device. "Looks like a remote!"
Brooke mulled over the heavy box sitting in her hand. It did look like a remote, but not any she'd seen before. Aside from the big slightly glowing diamond shape in the center, none of the buttons seemed to be shaped correctly, but upon a second glance the older Wider sister realized that said buttons were shaped like playing card symbols; spades, clubs, diamonds, and hearts, alongside the numeric keypad. Experimentally pushing the buttons, she reached for the small booklet she set aside, only to find it was missing.
"What the hell? They didn't print anything here!"
Brooke looked up to see Mikayla rifling through the stolen manual, which she quickly snatched back before her little sister could brawl her for it. A few flips proved that indeed it was entirely blank, save for a tiny stamped note on the back cover.
"SAR-ZA Omniversal Remote...and it looks like a serial number..." Brooke tossed it aside with annoyance. "There's no way this is correct, if it was far enough into development for beta testing it would have had a-AACK!"
Brooke felt a shock pass from her hand all the way to her head, making her vision blur for a split second. Looking down, she noticed she accidentally pushed her thumb on the large glowing diamond shape in the center. "And it just shocked me too!" she kept complaining, looking back at her sister. "Ugh, what a waste of time, I bet those assholes at R+D are-"
The words caught in her throat as Brooke looked up and saw someone standing behind her sister, someone with dark red skin who smiled at her with pointed teeth.
"Sup."
Brooke shrieked and hurled a nearby plastic at the stranger's face, Mikayla shrieking as well and ducking as the mug passed through the strangers face without harm.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" her sister shouted at her.
"WHAT-" Brooke screeched, pointing frantically at the demon-thing. "THE FUCK. IS THAT?"
Mikayla spun around and looked right into the stranger's face, who stuck her tongue out in response. "If this is some sort of joke, it's not funny," she said, turning back with a look of indignation.
Brooke's eyes were bugging out as she stared in disbelief. "But...but it's right..."
"Gawd, you're such an ass. I'm going back to my show." Robbing a few spare oreos from the bag on the counter, Mikayla marched back out to the couch, the stranger showing her out with a flourish. Brooke wasted no time diving for the kitchen knives in self defense, though when she got there the stranger was already leaning on the counter behind her.
"Not going to work, I'm only up in here," she said, poking at Brooke's forehead. This didn't stop the older sister from pulling a knife to point it frantically at her illusionary tormenter. Getting a better look at her, she looked to be some sort of demon, and a well-dressed one at that, adorned in a purple jacket, vest and trousers, and a fez of all things perched on her horns.
"The fuck are you supposed to be!?!" she demanded of the being, who merely rolled her eyes.
"Isn't it obvious? I'm here to help and assist you in the use of your omniversal remote. Your very own Stellernomic Asset-Rationalizing Zophisical Avatar." The being showed off some jazz hands.
"O-okay," Brooke stammered out, lowering the kitchen knife slightly. "Well, whatever you are, this Stella-gnomic Asset-Ratio..."
"Goodness gracious you're giving me a headache saying that," the demon interrupted, rubbing her temples. "Just Sarza is fine."
"Fine, Sarza!" Brooke snapped back. "What's your deal here? Why the hell are you some ghost that only I can see?"
"The omniversal remote is an enormously complex device to use to its full capacity," Sarza explained, with the air of an annoyed teacher talking to a difficult student. "I'm here to help in that regard, to facilitate the usage of the remote's functions."
"Which are...?" Brooke prompted.
"Everything."
"You're not helping."
"I'm not mincing metaphors sugarplum, you can literally do damn near everything with this," Sarza repeated. "Barring anything paradoxical of course."
Brooke glowered at the demon thing. Even if she was to believe that this was some sort of snarky AI assistant, the idea that this was a literal universal remote (or omniremote, whatever) was just too stupid for her to fall for.
"Yeah, sure..." she practically sneered in response. "Why don't you start by making me taller or something."
"Done."
There was a sharp pain in Brooke's head, and when the stars stopped popping in front of her eyes, she found herself staring DOWN at Sarza, towering over the kitchen counter and needing to crouch to fit in. Giant-sized in an instant. "What the fuck..." she gasped. "What the ever living fuck..." She blinked again, and suddenly she was back to normal, which she of course responded to by chucking another plastic cup at Sarza. It passed through her again and landed with a clunk on the wall.
"Y-you're for real, aren't you?" she declared, almost sounding manic as she grabbed onto the kitchen counter for support. "This omni-remote thing is REAL!"
"As real as you are annoying," Sarza snapped back, lounging on the same counter. "So, what'll it be? Anything special you have in mind?"
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