Megaverse - The IC

The story of displaced champions begins in an unknown universe.

Champions from the Megaverse were suddenly absorbed into massive black swirling portals while going about their business. Waking up in a whole new world, not too far from each other, that they are unfamiliar with. The world known only as New Earth. A futuristic world that was a sprawling metropolis. This specific area was known as Verthaven. A sprawling city half-surrounded by tall, spike-like mountains, which cast a shadow on the city itself. The city itself was massive, skyscrapers could be seen from miles away. The center of the city was down-town, and was surrounded by miles and miles of businesses and residential areas. The city was close to the ocean, and various other wetlands. Rivers and lakes were flowing throughout the city, along with plenty of swamps. Flying above head were massive vessels that took the appearance of space-ships. Constantly leaving and others approaching.

On this strange new world; champions began to slowly appear. With the words, Nanoblack, strangely, in their heads.

Spoiler:

"Alastair!?" A southern voice called out "Alastair? Where'd you go?" Marshall Copeland found himself standing in a dark alley. Rising up at either side of him were massive skyscrapers that seemed to tower into space. Resting on his right shoulder was a well-polished Winchester 1873 repeater, and in his left hand was a silver dagger that tapered down to a razor sharp point. Marshall wheeled around, searching for familiar surrounding, but found nothing.

"ALASTAIR!" Marshall yelled, hoping to find his sidekick. No one responded. Gun in hand, he began to walk down the alley, wary of every howl of the wind and rattle of the littering of trash on the ground. He made a right down the alley and came face to face with a pair of scarlet red eyes. The eyes burned like twin coals and were attached to a slim shadowy figure. A stream a smoke lazily floated from a cigarette hanging out of the left corner of his mouth, and a grey cowboy hat was pulled down just above his eyes. The light from a sparking street lamp illuminated his snakeskin boots, and he soon stepped into the light, revealing his grey form. The brim of the cowboy hat cast a shadow on his face and caused his eyes to glow even more menacingly. Marshall flipped the Winchester down from his shoulder and aimed it at the figure's chest.

"Why, hello there, Marshall!" The Broker said in a cheery voice "Didn't think I'd see you walking around here! Did you lose your dog?"

"Where am I?" Marshall retorted "I'm not playing games with you." The Broker chuckled and slowly began to walk around Marshall like a wrestler sizing up his opponent. He occasionally removed the cigarette from his mouth and blew out a cloud of black smoke from his lungs.

"You're in a place called Verthaven." The Broker replied, Marshall still aiming the gun at his chest "I don't know how either of us got here. This is the wrong universe."

"Universe?" Marshall wasn't buying this.

"Yes you obtuse moron. Don't you pay attention to science? Or do you still think that the stars are the souls of fallen Greek demigods?"

"But this looks identical to an Earth city."

"Indeed. This is known as Multiverse theory. There are an endless amount of universes in creation, each slightly different from the others. This world seems to be more technologically advanced than our's and is frequented by cyborgs and superhumans."

"So I've stepped into the Teen Titans universe, essentially."

"Indeed." For some reason Marshall believed him and propped the rifle back on his shoulder. He frowned, and began to look around the alley. So this was what the future looked like. He expected more flying cars and less trash.

"So how'd you get here?" Marshall continued, beginning to maneuver around The Broker.

"Same as you did, Marshall." The Broker replied, exhaling a black cloud of cigarette smoke "I just showed up a few minutes ago."

"So how do you know what this place is called?"

"By not pointing a gun at anyone I see. I've already signed three deals with cyborgs. Got ten percent from one person for simply making them look like a normal human! These cyborgs are so gullible! Their souls will be so easy to purchase."

"You mean steal." The Broker rolled his eyes, and dropped the spent cigarette onto the ground.

"I don't steal souls, Marshall." The Broker replied, stamping the cigarette out "I buy souls. I'm a legitimate businessman."

"My ass." Marshall retorted, lowering the gun at The Broker's chest again.

"You're not worth my time, Marshall." The Broker seethed, smoke still pouring from his nostrils despite the lack of a cigarette "I have business to conduct and souls to steal. Have fun!" With that, The Broker vanished into a cloud of grey smoke. The last thing of him that disappeared was his burning demonic eyes. Marshall fired once into the smoke, but it was ineffective. he growled and chambered another round in the gun. He rested the gun back on his shoulder and began to walk down the alley, looking around aimlessly. Echoing in his head was one word; "Nanoblock, Nanoblock." He wished he had asked The Broker what that was.

A man ran in from somewhere in town exclaiming he had found a fresh rope to use and things could go on as planned, but he quickly fell silent and stood with the rest of the crowd to watch the little grey man spin slowly to the left. If he looked closely he could see the thing’s jaw clenching and unclenching rhythmically like a fish’s mouth, straining against the pressure from the thick black tongue inside it. Here and there a shoulder or finger twitched in excitement before apologetically falling still. The bravest of the men and women looked the thing in its black eyes which shone with the unmistakable gloss of ceramic ware fresh from the kiln. None of the spectators knew how much time had passed but a brief glance into those eyes assured them with a certainty beyond expression that something had definitely ended, though it was hard for all present to grasp exactly what that something was. The great black mud had crept sneakily into the little grey thing at the end of the rope and was even now withering it into ash.

~~~

The little grey man did not remember opening his eyes but found himself sitting rather meekly, as if having fallen onto his bottom, in a bright and noisy corner of the world. For half a minute he sat quietly without realizing anything at all had changed.

When finally the dusty wind on his left cheek and the muffled roars of things passing by above him registered on the little grey man's brain, he blinked unintentionally.

Then - slowly - he turned his head. First to the left, then to the right, and then he looked down.

The little grey man was back in his boy's body again. He could see his dark hairy legs and his long arms hanging on either side of his bony chest. He furrowed his brow. With his right hand he felt - gently - at his neck. His left hand rose, too, and helped to squeeze at the fatty skin. He felt no pain. But the boy was cold from the wind, so he gripped the sides of his jacket and wrapped them over his chest.

"Nanoblack," came a voice from somewhere nearby. It was low and raspy and sounded half-dead.

The boy's head turned lazily first to the right, then the left, then the right again. He could not see anything but smooth walls and strange blocks as big as he was and scattered litter shuffling noisily in the wind. "What?" he asked after a moment, and his voice came in the exact same raspy tone, so the boy knew it was he who had spoken.

"Nanoblack," he said again, quietly. "Nanoblack." It hurt his throat to speak so he did not speak anymore.

It must be my name, he thought, then - no - I know my name. It is Whiskeyjack.

When he felt ready Whiskeyjack began to stand but found he could not so instead he rolled gently onto his side and then onto his belly and crawled onto his knees that way. Then he shuffled to one of the gigantic metal boxes and grabbed its top with both hands and pulled himself to his feet. With this exertion the black miasma began to creep forward from somewhere just outside his field of vision and when it cleared Whiskeyjack was on the ground again; he bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut and tried again, and this time when he stood up he did not fall.

Whiskeyjack found that the big metal box was full of garbage and smelled horrid, so he stepped away from it, and since he had taken one step he reasoned he could take another, and another. Upon turning away from the garbage box he squinted, for a familiar white object lay on the ground, half-covered by dirt and trash.

It took a moment for Whiskeyjack to remember what it was. He stood, blinking dumbly, and swaying like a stalk of grass in the light breeze that blew down the alleyway. Then he stumbled over, bent down, and picked it up, and found that it was his mask.

He touched each beady eye hole; his thumbs fit perfectly into each. He traced the three mouth lines one-by-one with his index finger. He removed his hat and let it flutter to the ground, then slipped the mask over his face and tied the string clumsily in the mass of dirty hair behind his head. He found his hat and put it back on. He felt better.

Then the air was split by a thunderclap and Whiskeyjack jumped instinctively and looked quickly around him; both directions ended in an unkempt, possibly decaying metal wall.

One of the ghostman's weapons - but louder, I think. Maybe the ghostmen are here. Maybe they'll recognize me.

Whiskeyjack could not tell from which direction the blast had come, but he made his best guess and dragged himself carefully along in that direction. Twice he jumped when the shadow of a mechanical beetle passed by overhead, but when he turned the corner he saw a tall, imposing figure clad in a black coat and hat standing at the far end of the alley, facing away from Whiskeyjack. A curious cloud of grey smoke blew quietly past Whiskeyjack's face and he shivered involuntarily.

It must be him! thought Whiskeyjack in the rashness of his exhaustion, and, having thus misidentified the figure, stumbled quickly down the alley. "Beninjavin! Beninjavin!" he shouted ahead of him, and waved his hands in the air.

Marshall slowly turned around as he saw the figure running towards him. The figure was curious, slathered in mud and clothed in ratty tattered rags. On its face was a mask, and its glowing green eyes unsettled him. They seemed innocent, and at the same time malignant. They seemed shady and distrustful, while at the same time sort of childlike and filled with wonder. It seemed to be waving Marshall down, and was calling him as ridiculous a name as "Beninjavin." Something told Marshall that this creature wasn't dangerous, but in all his years of combat he had learned that the most dangerous monsters are the most innocent-looking. He had seen creatures like this one slaughter men, women, and children alike indiscriminately. Marshall kept the rifle on his shoulder and cautiously began to walk towards the green-eyes figure down the alley.

"My name isn't Benjamin." Marshall said, mispronouncing the name "My name is Marshall Copeland. Perhaps you've heard of me." Marshall's name was well-renowned in the monster world as one of the deadliest men to walk upon the Earth. If this creature was of evil origins, he was certain that it would take off running.

And if it didn't, well, his Winchester still had eight rounds left.


High up above, The burning demonic eyes of The Broker stared down at Whiskeyjack. Oh, how it was an interesting creature, so innocent and seemingly stupid. It would be as easy to tempt as a child would, and The Broker licked his lips as he thought of devouring his first interdimensional soul. The creature absolutely wreaked, and its fumed drifted through the air like the smoke from The Broker's cigarette. The creature had engaged Marshall, and was calling him Beninjavin.

How cute. The Broker thought to himself, chuckling darkly Beninjavin is farther away from you than you think, little mud man.

The void between worlds

...does not exist, per se, any more than there exists a gap between two real numbers.

It is through here that Δ swims, glorying in its hundreds-thousands degrees of freedom. A billion worlds are negligible compared to the quantity at its theoretical disposal.

But Δ doesn't much care which one it'll end up on, really. Its nonexistence grows wearying. And so here it waits in reality's antechamber.

Oh, wait, it's already stepped through.

New Earth

The creature appeared in the intersection noiselessly. It was the sound of the van crashing into it which drew attention towards the tangled mass of metal and undue quantity of 'oil'.

This hardly qualified as an attack. More a case of, say, the contents of a workbench depositing themselves onto their user. A viscous nanoblack liquid flooded into the engine compartment and crew cabin, rendering the stray assemblies back into their raw components.

The vehicle's organic navigation computer curled up about the back of its seat. Although it was sinking, the structure of the cabin itself was collapsing comparatively quickly. Perhaps it could climb out before being crushed.

The liquid surged high enough to lick the nav-system's footwear, driven by fluid pressure from the feeding creature visible through the windshield.

Some of it adhered to the nanoblack soles, then decided to instead soak through these and socks and skin, finding a delightful transport system underneath, as well as a very startled immune system.

Negotiations ensued.

Verthaven

The elephant-bird regained consciousness, surrounded by additional, unsocketed navigation modules. Presumably, judging by formation, they intended to capture or kill it. Certainly, they weren't producing any kind of sensible binary communication.

Animals! That was the word for them.

The nanoblack liquid (what? no, it's pitch) swallowed itself back into the belimbed mass of metal shards. Its wing and tail feathers rearranged and lengthened; the excess bulk of its bones melted away, and was expelled as warning shot.

Blue light spilled from its wide eyes and wider toothless lamprey mouth. The bustard-sized bird stretched its wings, taking first stock of the local atmospheric conditions, and scarcely cleared the head of the most startled-looking primate.

The half-digested van and most of its contents were left to scavengers, with regret.

And so a living sculpture of a bird entered the skies second-floor windowsill-level airspace of the city, turning heads all the way down the street.

Eventually, it just gave up and climbed up the side of a chapel (using its new wing-claws, obviously). Deciding that the religious symbol on top wasn't to its liking, it ate the thing and sat there in its place.

Waiting.

The building was convenient, and it didn't need a molecular trap to smell someone distinctive nearby.

Whiskeyjack stopped - slipped briefly on a sheet of paper and caught himself on a wall with his elbow - when he saw the man's eyes. They resembled the lifeless black eyes of the ghostmen but were set into a real, unmistakable human brow rather than an artificial mask, and looked even more eerie for it. The longer Whiskeyjack stared, struck dumb, the more he thought he could just barely see a flicker of something other behind the blackened pupils and the silver lenses that guarded them. He did not know what it was but it seemed that, though he was looking the man straight in the face, he was only seeing as if through his peripherals. The man's eyes disturbed him deeply and he let his own fall, down, and Whiskeyjack saw a horrible scar on the man's throat.

"Oh," he said quietly, and knew he had made a mistake - "oh. You aren't Beninjavin."

The non-ghostman's voice - did he say his name was Marshall? - was shaped by a curious accent that Whiskeyjack had never heard before, a rugged drawl backed by deceptive precision, and even his clothes suggested that he came from a different world altogether. One thing Whiskeyjack did recognize was the weapon Marshall carried slung over one shoulder. It was unmistakably a fire-stick but had none of the grimy, grotesque qualities about it of the weapons that Whiskeyjack was used to seeing and using. This was polished, sanded, well-cared-for, and the way Marshall held it suggested he knew how to use it. Upon recognizing the thing Whiskeyjack took an involuntary step backward.

"What - where am, am I? Who... who," was all Whiskeyjack could manage, licking his lips behind his mask, and it was all he could to not to turn and run on the spot. He took another step backward but did not dare turn around. "Who, who are..." and he swallowed something that had jumped up in his throat. He wished for a weapon but had none.

Marshall

"Apparently we're in a place called Verthaven." Marshall replied, answering Whiskeyjack's question "That is, if you trust a demon with names." Marshall was starting to realize that maybe this creature wasn't as dangerous as he thought. It had the physical characteristics of a trolls (minus the mask and eyes), but not the physical size or the grossly dangerous extreme stupidity. Marshall hardly recognized trolls as threats, and this one, without troll-like size, was not at all a threat. Yet again, this world was out of Marshall's universe literally speaking, so this monster could still possess magic. Marshall continued to approach with caution. The smell sure says 'troll' to me Marshall thought to himself. The smell wafting off of this mud man could stunt a horse, and Marshall was reasonably certain that if he lit a match, the entire alley would go up in flames.

"Speaking of names, what's your's?" Marshall continued, leaning up against the wall.

The Broker

The Broker watched as Delta appeared in the city, destroying a van and watching as its driver died. He felt the woman's soul pass on and into Purgatory, that is, if people who die in this universe go to purgatory. The Broker wasn't sure, actually; there were laws about creatures from different universes, but demons don't generally read laws and also don't expect to get swept off to a new universe someday. He watched as Delta arose and flew across the city, where it perched and ate the cross off of the top of a chapel. A smile spread across The Broker's face as he moved towards the bird. He caused a "minor fire" to ignite in the gas tank of a car on the street, causing it to burst into a magnificent explosion of crimson flames. The bird's pursuers would either run from the explosion, die in the explosion, or extinguish the fire. All three of the options would prevent them from attacking the bird, and so it would be safe from harm. The Broker materialized on the roof of the chapel, the removal of the religious symbol allowing him to appear without burning himself. He removed his hat and bowed to the magnificent bird.

"Hello there," he said to it "I'm Satan. Nice to meet you."

Perched atop the steep pyramid, the pseudofractal suspension of shards in tar turned its head away from the star whose light drowned out all the rest. The edges of its crown-feathers blazed white.

(Is is a memory of loss which makes it hesitate?)

What was this, then? Another ape in tailored sheets? It smelled faintly of hydrogen sulfide, rather than the butyric acid and other byproducts released by the majority of specimens.

But of course, there was the issue of its familiar self-transmutation. A mimic, then.

Such an inculturated one that it used that obtuse set of composite soundwaves to encode communications, even. Oh, dear. Had the animals been trying to communicate, as well?

(Pedestrians three stories below and one street over reeled from the blast, quite failing to appreciate its beauty. Some screamed; many ran. A few picked themselves up off the concrete, and at least one did not.)

Delta flapped its wings, and for a moment the sunlight caught them in a specific binary patterns, translatable (under kauinskan encoding) to BUSINESSLIKE GREETING .

Likely, this appeared about as meaningful as a pigeon startling. Regardless, Delta turned fully towards the mimic, intending to retain its attention with additional intricate display. However futile.

REQUEST FOR ADDITIONAL VERBAL DATA . QUERY REGARDING FAMILIARITY WITH TERM NANOBLACK .

Whiskeyjack stared blankly at the strange man and would not have replied at all had it not occurred to him that leaving Marshall's question unanswered might bring about his wrath.

"Nanoblack," he blurted, startling himself. "No, I mean... No. Whiskeyjack's mny nm..." - for a moment his tongue tripped over the sounds and he puffed his chest out in childlike determination - "Whiskeyjack is my name. I don't know, I mean I don't know what Nanoblack is. I am not Nanoblack. You see. I'm Whiskeyjack..."

And, for good measure, another "You see." Whiskeyjack folded his fingers behind his back and unfolded them just as quickly to scratch the backs of his hands. He took each breath one at a time and snapped his back straight in case the strange man Marshall was a general after all, and Whiskeyjack was to be his soldier.

In the brief silence that ensued Whiskeyjack was suddenly hit by what Marshall had said, for in the moment panic had shut his ears.

"Demon," he stuttered, "sir? What is a demon?" The word certainly sounded Angoly but he had never heard Sixtrout or any of his other friends use it.