Fanfic / Zero's Shock

Zero's Shock is a crossover between BioShock and The Familiar of Zero written by the same author who is giving us ToyHammer. Simply put; Jack becomes the Familiar of Zero. While the fic is still in its infancy it has a promising start, with Jack and Louise both having a lot of character depth for a Silent Protagonist - a trait that is somewhat retained - and being spot on with canon (barring the domestic abuse - Jack doesn't give her a chance for that), which has earned this fic praise from the reviewers on fanfiction.net.

Also, there will be BEES.

Word of God says that this is based on a hypothetical in-between ending where Jack becomes King of Rapture while still having the favour of the Little Sisters. Said ending is shown through flashbacks, which gives us glimpses of the Rapture 'Reunification War', with Jack, Tenenbaum, and the rest of the BioShock cast, providing us with Character Development to see how Jack became who he is now.

Sadly, the story is now a Dead Fic as the last update was April 2013 and the author has stopped writing fanfics.

This fanfic contains the following tropes:

• Added Alliterative Appeal: "= Former Fontaine Futuristics, Floor F Fanroom ="
• All There in the Manual: Musings on what happens if Halkeginians took up arms against Rapture, fun little omakes of hypothetical situations (such as Cattleya, ahem, 'doing the deed') a Delta-themed version of Modern Major General, limericks dedicated to Jack, Fontaine, Delta and Eleanor (The first is trumpeting Jack's badass. The latter three each a Funny Moment on their own) are all available on the Spacebattles threads.
• Bee-Bee Gun: OF COURSE! Jack shoots them at Guiche. The results were subdued (less than five seconds of exposure), but still not very pretty to look at.
• Berserk Button: "Would you kindly..."
• Bowel-Breaking Bricks: Subtle, but there.
  Guiche's second Valkyrie failed to form past what looked to be a lumpy bronze brick, which dropped to the ground with a heavy thump at his feet.
• Broken Pedestal: Discussed.
  Salvatore: They're making [Jack] an honest-to-God messiah down here in the slums, and once someone breaks that pedestal, all hell is going to break loose, and we are going to be in the center of it all when the shit hits the fan... and they're gonna blame everyone.
• Butt-Monkey: A literal Leeroy Jenkins is killed repeatedly (sometimes accidentally), only to be revived via Vita-Chamber to continue on with experiments to try and bring back Jack.
• Commonality Connection: Derflinger expresses some resentment as he explains that he was created in a lab to be used as a weapon of murder by others, never being able to make his own decisions. Jack understands exactly what that is like and says so, leading to the sword liking him even more.
• Covert Pervert: Siesta. After she is first introduced, we glimpse her mind as a trashy romance novel filled with Purple Prose.
• Daddy's Girl: The Little Sisters are so attached to Jack, and so cared for by him that they go into an absolute panic when they realize that he isn't there.
• Deconstruction: Of a very small, but significant, part of Familiar of Zero fanfics. Most of them simply take the selected "Familiar" away from his home with nary a by-your-leave. This story shows that there are consequences to that, ranging from the Little Sisters starting to freak out that their "Daddy" isn't there, to the entire city of Rapture on the verge of total anarchy (since the king, who nearly single-handedly ended the war and took control of the place, was taken away at a very delicate portion of the city's reconstruction). Louise's horror at taking away someone from his family, a thing she hadn't even considered, is palpable.
  • It also shows that, contrary to other stories where the Familiar's home is hinted at, but not actually shown, Jack's friends and co-workers are actively shown experimenting so they can copy the teleport he used to get him back home.
• Defensive "What?": Jack blurts out one of these when he sees the reaction of the people at Old Osmond's office when he tells them he's not a noble.
• Domestic Abuse: Averted. Louise is more logical and subdued than in the original series because unlike a certain 16-year-old highschool boy/nerd/otaku, Jack doesn't make cracks about her bust size or otherwise jump up and down on her Berserk Buttons every five minutes.
  • Well, there's also the fact that he doesn't have much tolerance for drama, something he makes very clear to Louise.
  • And then there's the fact that he doesn't make cracks (or talk much) ''period.''
• Evil Sounds Deep: Inverted. Jack's not evil, but his voice is very low and guttural because of the Big Daddy modifications he underwent at the end of the game. This is part of the reason he rarely speaks, and when he does he compensates by raising his voice a few pitches. He also has one hell of an Evil Laugh, one scary enough that it even makes Big Daddies stop to turn and stare.
• Face Palm: Practically a staple reaction of Jack to the [ZnT crew's antics.
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Halkeginia is a world on the doorstep of the Renaissance and contains magic (and magical creatures related to such a setting). It has also been crossed over with BioShock, known to have at least taken things from Halo and Pokémon and possibly others... well, you'd expect this trope.
• Flat "What":
  “What.” No question mark. It was just a flat statement on Jack's part.
• Fridge Horror: In-universe with Louise, who realizes that not only does Jack have family, she took him away from them.
• Genius Ditz: Derflinger, of all... sentients... has this. He's knowledgeable enough about golems to know their mechanics, and has extensive knowledge of their magical anatomy.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  Derflinger: "Golems this big always have a magic-saturated catalytic core to help run the whole thing! Its like the heart, or a lung, actually. Maybe a kidney? Dunno about squishy bits, you people have such complicated names for them."
• Instant Expert: Played with in a meta context. Jack seems to be an Instant Expert with his plasmids during the events of BioShock, but here it is subverted in that the plasmids can be much more effective and more EVE efficient after he's gotten some practice in.
• Irony: Noted by the author: At the moment, Rapture (a formerly free-market capitalist society designed to be Ayn Rand's utopia) and its population would be more than eager to crown Jack a king or equivalent thereof if it had more spare time from rebuilding after the Civil War. However, most of Halkeginia (a pre-Renaissance era + magic setting) is itself on the verge of a commoner's rebellion (which is, in canon, already in progress up in Albion), which would push its society towards capitalism...
• The Lancer: Salvatore, back in Rapture, acts as one for Jack and perhaps later for Tenenbaum as well. Shows hints of becoming a Supporting Leader as well.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Jack "sees" a blue EVE bar and plasmid selection cylinder.
• Mathematician's Answer: Once again, Jack.
  Colbert: And what does [having a wrench] make you?
  Jack: Jack.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Jack eating bread.
• Mundane Utility: Winter Blast as an impromptu icepack.
• Oh, Crap!: Jack's enemies whenever he starts using plasmids, especially since they're much improved over the ones found in the games, with this Jack having much finer control than 'burst of fire in that direction'.
• Original Character: One of the rare non-Mary Sue ones in the form of Salvatore; he's a splicer who acts as Jack's right-hand-man back when he was still in Rapture.
• The Quiet One: Jack isn't totally silent, but still displays economy of words. So far, his longest speech is six words long.
• Painting the Medium: Siesta's aforementioned trashy fantasies get a different font.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "Bring. Back. Jack. Ryan." Said to Sinclair.
  • “Can. You. Just. Stop. It. With. The. One. Word. Sentences!?”
• Raised by Wolves:
  • Jack doesn't understand the concept of "dueling", and attempts to brain Guiche with a wrench as soon as the challenge has been made.
  • He also thinks that alcohol is to be drunk by chugging down all of it straight from the bottle. He's puzzled when Siesta tells him that that's not how he's supposed to do it. Which becomes even funnier when you go back a few paragraphs and read about the "other method" that she has been thinking of.
• Rock Beats Laser: Inverted: Jack uses his Incinerate! plasmid to create what amounts to a laser made of fire, and it slices bronze Valkyries into much smaller chunks.
  • Also played straight as Jack recalls a Big Daddy getting bitten in half by a shark, armoured suit and all.
• Running Gag: Tabitha telling Sylphid "no eating".
• Shout-Out: Several.
  • *CLANG*
    “What in Brimir's name was that!?”
  • Destroying four Valkyries with a method similar to both the Death Blossom and the Iron Man 2 laser-spin.
  • “Make an impossible machine from a box of scraps? Some of us are living and working in caves, Sinclair, we can't work miracles in there!"
  • “Are you my Daddy?”
  • Mustn't run away, she slowly repeated to herself. Mustn't run away.
  • Items in the vault include a plasma grenade and a Pokeball. That gets used on Fouquet.
  • "But one thing's for sure; the best thing is to go for the core, partner!"
  • ”I have a new spinning power thanks to Jack's plasmid. The question is... will you blend?"
    • Should be noted that the 'will you blend?' segment is just a gag omake post.
  • "You gotta attack its weak point, partner" "Only real way to bring it down is through massive damage!"
  • Leeroy falls afoul of a certain literally fiery Little Sister with a bear called Annie.
• The Silent Bob: Jack doesn't really need to talk to be expressive; see Face Palm above. It's actually one of the reasons he gets along so well with Tabitha.
• Squee: Done by Siesta when Jack thanks her for the bread.
• Take That!: To BioShock Infinite.
  Floating continent?! The splicer tried to wrap his head around the concept of a floating city. Sure, Rapture was a bizarre place on its own, but it still had a foundation! It was at the bottom of the sea, rather than in the freaking sky!
  • Though this could also just be lampshading the general ridiculousness of the concept of a flying continent, AKA a large landmass suspended in mid-air with no notable means of staying up there, and not specifically towards BioShock Infinite.
• Terse Talker: Jack and Tabitha barely speak more than one word each time they open their mouths. When they have their first conversation, which Kirche states to be the longest conversation Tabitha's had with anyone ever, it's entirely done with one-word sentences.
• This Is Reality:
  [Siesta's] life was not like ''A Country Maid in the Hall of the Duke''! This would end badly, no matter what those romance novels had said! She lived in reality, dammit!
• Who's on First?: Louise doesn't understand what's so special about killing Big Daddies.

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