CW: Human violence, fluffy torture, a much different story from what I’ve written in the past.
I highly recommend reading Nobodyatall’s literary canon to get a little bit of context behind a lot of this. I can’t bring myself to properly format this or anything, or make it more readable, but please enjoy. Maybe I’ll continue it one day.
This universe is a lot different from the one that you’re used to. There is no phenomenon X, there are no superpowers. Calvin became a billionaire playboy by day, brutal vigilante by night. Basically batman, except he fights against abusers and general criminals. Ever since Marley was killed by a certain “average guy”, he’s been on a warpath. He and Jack have crossed paths before, and have formed an odd friendship. Calvin thinks that Jack doesn’t know that hes the “Blackstar” as the news calls him, but jack was able to put it together rather quickly. The fluffies are largely the same, mostly kindhearted, but some of them are prone to being assholes. “Poopie fwuffy, munstah fwuffy, ugwy nu weggie fwuffy”, stuff like that. “Gib sketties, gib toysies”, all that. Even if they were all kindhearted, it wouldn’t stop people from the horrible, horrible things that they do. There are a lot of people like Christian Ellis. That’s another thing. Abuse runs rampant. Pierre faucheuse is not the noble, altruistic philanthropist that we usually know him as. Motivated purely by greed, Pierre decided that fluffies weren’t worth the time or money to improve, and instead decided to peddle cheaply manufactured hugboxer merch, and brutal abuser tools.
All of this is depressing, but Jack takes solace in the fact that there may be an infinite number of realities. With that being the case, that must mean that there’s a reality where everything is perfect. No one is evil, nothing is bad, everyone is happy. A veritable heaven.
With this in mind, he decided to turn to temporal physics, funded entirely by KorkeaCorp. The key to finding heaven lies in time itself. Jack and his team of physicists were about to begin an experiment that would finally crack this case. Jack had spent countless nights running the numbers, running them again, cross referencing the particle accelerator readings, taking the uncertainty principle into account. Everything was going to run perfectly.
No one knows what exactly happened. The rest of Jack’s team was in the observation room, Calvin Korkea included, while Jack stayed in the test chamber to make sure nothing was out of place. Before Jack could get out, someone must have accidentally begun the experiment. Jack was trapped in the test chamber.
“Hey, what’s happening? Open the door!”
One of the assistants reaches for the emergency shutdown button. In an instant, his severed hand fell to the table. The only thing indicating what could have possibly caused the grievous injury is a slight blur barely noticable. Jack continues pounding on the blast door.
“Cal! What the fuck is happening?”
“W-we don’t know, Doc! We can’t get to the emergency shutoff! Clyde’s missing a hand! GODDAMMIT GET A FUCKING MEDIC!”
A low whirring noise grows in the test chamber. As the whirring grows louder, the test chamber is tinted in a red light.
“CAL!”
Before anyone can react, the test chamber is engulfed in an explosion of temporal energy. To everyone else, it seems like an instant.
To Jack, it feels a lot different. He can see countless realities.
“What the hell is happening?”
Jack walks through what seems like a corridor within space. an infinite number of realities surround him. He gazes into one, and sees a brown fluffy with no legs, crying his eyes out. For some reason, he seems familiar. Jack moves on. He sees an evil looking Calvin, stomping on a hundred fluffies.
Jack moves on to another reality. A fluffy sits happily in a nice warm home, while a starving mother fluffy takes care of a legless brown fluffy not 10 feet from the window. He moves on. He sees a green fluffy, missing its limbs, eyes, ears, and genitals, hooked up to some sort of machine. He moves on again.
“Not one of these realities has shown me anything good…”
He sees another Calvin, and another version of himself, fighting against a horde of demons in the middle of a city.
“Well this doesn’t look so bad.”
The view shifts to all the people killed by these evil creatures, all the people that the heroes of that reality weren’t able to save.
He moves on. A grey stallion fluffy sits alone, in a dimly lit room. “wAN dIE. wAn diE. waN DIe.”
He moves on, faster. Surely one of these realities has good that outweighs the bad?
Limbless brown fluffies in virtual reality, used as methane batteries. Fluffies created solely to be thrown away, living their last moments in agony. Even the nicer realities are offset by the unlucky ones living in abject horror. Another reality where a limbless green fluffy named Loaf sits in a dingy basement while his owner is happy upstairs.
Foals being destroyed by preschoolers who don’t know any better, Terrorists genetically engineering fluffies to carry a lethal disease and releasing them into the public, Humans and fluffies alike being ripped to pieces by demons, vampires, wizard robots, all sorts of creatures. He sees himself subjected to a trillion deaths in one reality alone by the same psychotic looking Cal that was stomping on fluffies. A muscular version of himself fighting against an effeminate looking version of himself in a ruined Asian city.
“Come on, come on! It’s gotta be here somewhere!”
Jack runs for what feels like an eternity, seeing many realities. None of them had happiness overwhelming misery. Sadness seemed to outweigh the good each time. Kindhearted creatures being taken advantage of, tortured, or both. Whether they be fluffies, humans, or some other sort of creature Jack had never seen before. Finally, he comes to an interesting looking reality.
He peers in, and sees himself sitting in the floor of a living room, typing something on a computer. Jack leans in to get a closer look. He sees words on a screen, describing everything that’s been happening to him. He sees various other people in this reality, writing similar stories to the realities that he had seen. Even in this reality, where it seems everything begins, there is sadness. And past this reality, Jack sees…
Jack sees Cal. He’s back in the test chamber.
“Jack! Jack are you alright? You were gone! Like, vanished! For like 3 seconds, you were gone, then you came back.”
Jack grabs on to Cal.
“Cal…”
“Don’t talk now, Doc. We gotta get you checked out.”
Jack doesn’t realize it, but he has now become irrevocably tied to the fabric of time itself.
“Everything I’ve worked towards. Everything that has kept me going. All of it, for nothing.”
“Calm down Jack, and explain what happened in there, If you can.”
He takes a deep breath.
“I was in a corridor. I don’t know how to describe it, other than impossible. I was gazing into trillions of realities. There was one with a man trying to turn a family of fluffies against eachother.”
Jack clenches his fists.
“He… He took one of the foals wings, and he took another ones eyes… T-then he took its legs…”
“Jesus christ…”
“There was another reality. It was a fancy restaurant, t-the foals and fluffies… Cal… T-they cooked them alive. Some of them were still alive when they were getting eaten.”
Cal just runs his hand across his face.
“Fluffy organ farms. Fluffies mulched and turned into kibble for other fluffies. T-there was a room. Filled with pillowed fluffies, some of them going blind because of parasites. T-they’re left there to just… Die. A new one got thrown in there, he…”
Jack looks up at Calvin, tears running down his face.
“He was calling for his father. Not in a “Wan daddeh” type way, but a confused way. He… He didn’t know what was happening. He didn’t realize he was in his final resting place already… There was another reality. A company, named “H-Happy pillow company”, dedicated entirely to chopping the legs off fluffies. They were all screaming for help…”
“Some realities were better than others. We were superheroes in one, and Dr. Faucheuse was a noble philanthropist. He made the world a good place. He was like that in a lot of realities that he existed in. The one in our reality is one of the only ones that cares about money and nothing else.”
Jack wipes his face.
“But the strangest one… There were people typing at computers all around the world, some writing stories that were exactly like these realities i saw, others creating art pieces showing these realities…”
“Jack, are you sure this was real? I mean, you were in a serious accident.”
“I know what I saw. It was all real. I swear to you. I don’t know how I know, but it was all real. I think I can show you.”
“M-maybe you should get some rest, man. You’ve had a long day.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
“If you still feel like this tomorrow, You can show me what you saw. In the meantime, I have to go take care of stuff.”
“Heh, alright then, go get those bad guys, Blackstar.”
Cal does a double take.
“What?”
“Don’t worry man, you don’t have to play dumb. Who else would be able to afford all those crazy gadgets you use?”
“Dammit. Look, just don’t tell anyone, please?”
Jack laughs.
“Your secret is safe with me. But hey, if this accident gave me some sort of crazy cool powers, then you and I gotta work together.”
The Next Day…
(AUTHORS NOTE: Jack is wearing a Labcoat, jeans, sneakers, and a TShirt depicting the album cover for Fragile by Yes)
“And you’re sure this will work?”
“I am positive.”
“And you’re sure we don’t need to like, recreate the experiment to do this?”
“I’m sure we don’t need to go through that trouble.”
Jack stands near a wall, located in an airfield in the middle of Kansas.
“Alright then, whenever you’re ready Doc.”
“I’m ready, Cal.”
Jack puts his hands to the wall. Slowly, he starts applying pressure, digging his fingers in. Kind of like if you were trying to pull two things apart. Cal watches, slightly unsettled by what he’s seeing.
Jacks fingers are in the wall now, but not really. It looks like they might be in the wall, but the space around his fingers is bent inward, like if you push your finger through a rubber balloon.
Jack slowly but surely rips a hole in space and time itself. Well, it’s less of a ripping, and more of an opening. To many, time is incredibly fragile, and it takes a lot of control, discipline, and training to use time based powers without destroying reality itself irrevocably. To someone who has been indelibly interwoven with time, however, it is as easy as playing with putty.
“How the fuck did you do that?”
Jack shrugs.
“You ready? Do you have any weapons?”
Cal nods, pressing a button on his belt. As if by magic, Cal is now in a pure black suit, face covered by a Cowl with a simple purple star on the forehead. Retractable blades are built into the gloves, High Jump tech is in the shoes, along with shock absorbing tech for long falls, enhanced eyesight provided by the cowl, as well as enhanced hearing, and he can shoot “nanobullets” (clumps of nanobots launched at supersonic speeds in the shape of a bullet) out of a gunlike apparatus built into the wrists. The entire suit is essentially a colony of nanobots controlled directly by Cal through a Neurolink.
“You aren’t the only guy with tricks up his sleeve Doc. Then again this suit doesn’t really have sleeves.”
“Impressive! Though it’s a little weird that the star is purple.”
“Hey, Purple is the new Black, Doc.”
“I take it this is a KorkeaCorp invention?”
“Yeah, though they mostly just had the armor idea. A doctor friend of mine named Erwin Stahlberg made the suit for me.”
“Very nice. Did you bring anything for me?”
Cal reaches into a bag that he has with him, and pulls out an impressive looking Katana.
“Erwin had this baby made for you when I told him what you told me. He calls it an “HF Blade”, apparently it vibrates slightly, makes it better for cutting through stuff. Also made of some alloy he and his boys found, some of them couldn’t touch the stuff without getting burned. Figure it would be good for bringing justice to the Multiverse, or at the very least protecting yourself from weird monsters.”
Jack turns the sword over in his hands.
“Yes, yes this will do nicely.”
Jack turns to Calvin.
“Alright, Are you ready? Barf bag handy?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Alright then. Use your nanobots or whatever to make a tether between us.
“I didn’t tell you this was nanotech, doc.”
“W-well, I just assumed based on what it can do and whatnot that it would be nanotech. Regardless, create a tether between us. I don’t want to risk us getting separated.”
“Oh god, I’m gonna be sick holy shit.”
“Calm down, it’s not that bad.”
Jack and Cal are both walking through a corridor of swirling colors, almost as if someone designed a tunnel to look as if you’re walking through a nebula. Even when standing still, the tunnel swirls around them.
“How are we going to get back home?”
“I don’t know, the same way I got back last time. I feel like I can’t get lost here. Like this place is part of me now. I don’t know how to explain it. I guess it’s like, you don’t get lost in your house after living there for a while, right? You know what rooms are where.”
“But you haven’t ‘lived here for a while’, have you?”
“I dunno, it feels like I have. Regardless, if we can’t get back home, we can always find some cool universe and hang out there. Hey, maybe we can go to the one where we’re superheroes! We’d fit right in!”
“As fun as that might sound, I don’t think it would do well for KorkeaCorp stock if I went missing, and there’s no way in hell I’m letting that motherfucker Faucheuse buy out my company.”
“Heheh, alright then. So, where should we go first?”
Cal shrugs.
“I dunno, you’re the one who knows where everything is apparently, I’ll leave it up to you.”
“Alright then, how about this one?”
The two of them show up in a universe, surrounded by the wreckage of a monstrous mech.
“Why won’t you die?”
Jack whispers to Cal: “I think we showed up at a bad time.”
A robotic looking man stands against a very muscular looking man with glasses, the kind of man who looks like he may have played college ball. Not the kind of person who would go to a cushy Ivy League school, however.
The muscular man tears his shirt off, revealing veins running out of his heart.
“Nanomachines son!”
His skin, starting at his heart and extending to his right arm, harden and turn a metallic looking grey color.
“They harden in response to physical trauma!”
Cal whispers to Jack: “That son of a bitch copied me!”
The muscular man punches the ground, which turns out to also be part of the ruined mech, with his hardened hand.
“You can’t hurt me, Jack!”
“What? I-I just got here, man.”
The muscular man and the robotic man both turn to look at Jack and Cal. The robotic man is very confused.
“What? No, he’s talking to me. Are these guys more of your goons, Armstrong?”
The muscular man is just as confused.
“I dunno who these two even are.”
“Well, the doctor one has a pretty nice sword. Looks like HF tech as well.”
Jack clears his throat.
“W-we kind of got lost on our way, didn’t mean to interrupt what you guys have going here. Uh, we’ll be on our way.”
Jack unsheathes his sword, slashes at the air, opens a portal to the infinite hall, and leaves with Cal.
“What the fuck is happening?”
While the muscular man is distracted, the robot charges at him, punching him in the face. True to his word, the muscular mans skin hardens in response. He readjusts his glasses.
“What did I just say?”
“Alright, so that was a bust.”
“We couldn’t have stuck around for just a little while longer?”
“Cal, Those guys looked like they were settling a personal matter. I’m all for slaying evil and ensuring good triumphs, but I feel like those two had it handled.”
“We couldn’t have just watched for a little bit?”
“Do you want to go back?”
Cal sighs.
“No, I’m sure there will be plenty more cool fights in the future. Let’s go somewhere else. This time, I get to choose the portal”
Cal walks towards a portal, gesturing for Jack to follow him. Jack shrugs, and walks through it alongside Cal.
The two pop into the universe, seemingly out of thin air. They’re in an alleyway.
“Hang on, I need to readjust my cowl.”
Calvin lets his cowl down, shaking his messy brown hair out.
“Having this glorious mane is a detriment sometimes.”
BANG
Cal is shot in the back of the head, killing him instantly.
“Alright, If you don’t wanna end up like your gimpsuit friend, I recommend you hand over any valuables you have. Come on scientist man!”
A disheveled looking man points a gun directly at Jacks head. All Jack can do is stare down at Cal’s lifeless body.
Fffp
“Hang on, I need to readjust my cowl.”
Jack didn’t realize it at the time, but he just rewound to before Cal got shot in the head.
“I guess that’s something I can do now.”
He hears a click. He turns to look behind Cal, who is now shaking his messy brown hair out.
Unnaturally fast, as if slowing down everything else around him, Jack steps around Cal, and slices the would be murderer/mugger in half vertically.
“J-JESUS FUCK! WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT ABOUT?!”
“That man was going to shoot you in the head. I only did what I had to do to ensure that you wouldn’t die.”
“But you couldn’t have taken care of that in a less violent way?! You were moving so fast, you could have just taken the gun!”
“This man has clearly done things like this before. If he didn’t kill you, he would have just killed someone else. Thanks to my actions, I ensured that he would not. You have done the same, haven’t you?”
“Yeah, Yeah you’re right. Just, I dunno, warn me next time before you slice a dude in half. I usually just shoot or stab, I’m not used to seeing a perfect cross-section of a human.”
“Fair enough. Sorry about that.”
“Hey, don’t worry about it man. If what you say is true, it would have been my brains on the pavement if you hadn’t stepped in.
The two of them step out of the alleyway, onto an empty street. It’s around 10 PM. Cal looks up at the building they are in front of, seeing a glowing sign saying “HAPPY FLUFFY SHELTER” with small text below it saying “PILLOWS WELCOME”.
“Looks like we landed right outside a 24 hour fluff shelter. What say we check in and see what’s up?”
“Sounds like a good idea. But you don’t think we look a little odd, do you? I don’t exactly want to raise suspicion.”
“Don’t worry about that. Let me see your sword and sheath for a second?”
Cal presses a button on the sheath, seemingly disguising the sword as a cane.
“There you go. You’ll be a cool scientist, and I’ll be an inspector.”
His nanosuit transforms into a stereotypical health inspector outfit, complete with badge.
“Let’s roll.”
A worker at the counter watches a video on his phone depicting foals being mulched by a shredder or crushed under a hydraulic press. There’s even a foal being pillowed USING the hydraulic press. While the content he is watching might be illegal in universe 1989, here it’s just as popular as “Jello in shredder number 359” videos.
Cal taps on the counter with his knuckles.
“Hey there, my comrade and I are here to inspect the premises to make sure everything is up to par with what we expect from stores around the country.”
The worker puts his phone down.
“Little late at night to be inspecting anything, huh? Well, whatever, me and Clyde were getting bored anyway.”
The man steps from behind the counter, and gestures for the two to follow him.
“This is where we keep the, heh, intact foals. Long as they don’t fuck around or be irritating, they get to stay that way. Of course, we don’t exactly tell them the rules entirely.”
Cal looks at the man, frustration clear as day on his face.
“Hey, don’t look at me like that. Last I checked, you weren’t a morality inspector. These things ain’t protected by law, so we can do whatever we want with em. Not like anyone wants these things anyway, if they wanted one, they’d go buy one that isn’t here. That’s where my other job comes in. Fluff stores are a lot less lenient with fucking around with the merchandise, which is why I mostly have to trick the little shits into ruining their own lives.”
Jack interjects.
“We didn’t ask for your life’s story. Either continue guiding us around, or call in your friend to give us a better tour.”
The man sneers at Jack.
“Alright then, long as you two fags don’t try and judge me for my hobbies.”
Jack turns to Cal.
“Do we need any more evidence that this guy is scum? Or do we need to continue with his tour?”
“D-Dude, can’t he hear us? Like we don’t have a telepathic link or anything we’re actively talking in front of this guy.”
“I dunno, it doesn’t look like he’s paying attention.”
Cal turns to the store clerk, who’s currently laughing at what the two can only imagine is the “Damaged foals” pen.
“Alright fine, but when this tour is over I’m beating the shit out of this guy.”
“Deal.”
“Hey, you two queers gonna fuck around over there or do you wanna continue the tour?”
“He’s making it very hard to not beat him to death, Jack.”
“This here is where the, heh, damaged goods foals go.”
The foals are all separated, each having their own little container, big enough to be considered a “sorry box” by a fully grown fluffy. Legless chirpies, legless weanlings, Eyeless chirpies, eyeless weanlings, chirpies and weanlings in various states of intactness. Seems like this guy likes taking the eyes and legs.
“From chirpies to recent weanlings, even some, heheh, not so young ones.”
At this last part, he gestures to the end of the row. The container at the end is larger, and inside of it is a glass box, containing a fluffy with its head sticking out of the box, food and water dispensers in front of its mouth. It’s situated in the box so that it can’t move at all. The two can see its limbs compressed to the sides of the box, with small pieces of what looks like bone sticking out in places. The inside of the box is a putrid brown, and whatever color the fluffy was before is nearly unrecognizable. Or it would be, if it’s head wasn’t sticking out. It’s a nice baby blue color. For some reason, that color reminds Jack of something, but he can’t point out what…
“H-Huu huu huu, p-p-pwease, p-pwease wet fwuffy out of sowwy bawks… N-n-nu can feew weggies… n-nu smeww pwetty…”
The man laughs.
“Hahahah, this little cunt is my pride and joy. The forever sorry box!”
He leans down, eye level with the poor soul.
“You’ve been in there for a year and 3 months now, and you STILL think I might let you out?”
He turns to the two heroes.
“The absolute fucking moron! See, THIS is why fucking with these things is fun! Here, let me show you the other foals.”
He points to an eyeless, legless foal.
“Huu huu huu, nu wike dawkies! Scawy!”
“This little bastard wouldn’t stop crying at night about the dark, even though I gave them a nightlight. He doesn’t even realize that he doesn’t have legs anymore! Sometimes if you scare him, he’ll shit himself and try and run away, wiggling his stumps like crazy! See, watch.”
He crouches down next to the poor foal. “BOO”
“EEEP! S-scawy munstah! Babbeh nee wun way! Huu huu huu, weggies pwease take babbeh way fwom scawy dawk pwace…”
Cal has been clenching his fists this entire time. Jack, meanwhile, has been thinking of different ways for this scumbag to die.
He points to a legless foal.
“W-wan weggies back… Wan wun an pway an gif huggies… Wan mummah…”
“This little bitch wouldn’t stop running around during the morning and crying about not being able to hug her mom.”
He points to a chirpy with no tongue or eyes.
“This guy wouldn’t stop hogging the milk. I took his eyes because, eh, not like he had opened them.”
He moves over to the foal pen, pointing at the litterbox. A larger foal, likely a weanling, is shitting in the box, spraying feces over another fluffy in the box.
“Dewe yu go, dummeh wittapaw, num poopies.”
“Huuhuuhuu! N-nu wan num poopies! W-wan mummah! W-wan huggies! Hewp! Hewp babbeh!”
“That little bastard wouldn’t stop crying about that guy bullying him. Don’t worry, i specifically trained that one to bully the others. It’s very entertaining.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” Cal says through clenched teeth.
The clerk leads them to the fully grown fluffy pen.
“As you can see, this is the adult pen. Not much interesting stuff here.”
A few of the fluffies are missing eyes, or their legs.
“Yeah, I keep those in there for fun, freaks the others out, sometimes they’ll try and hug them to make them better but they just freak out. Funny stuff.”
He walks towards a door.
“And this… Well, this is what Clyde and I have worked on for years. It’s truly something.”
As he says this, another man comes around the corner, toilet paper stuck to his shoe. He’s a scrawny looking guy, with an acne ridden face and greasy black hair.
“You about to show them the washroom?”
The living grease-man and the average looking clerk open a large, heavy metal door. The group is then hit with the rancid stench of feces, rotten kibble, mildew, and decay, all at once. Jack doubles over, nearly vomiting on the floor.
“W-What the fuck is that? What is that fucking smell?”
“Ahuhuhuh, we don’t usually have visitors here. Last time we did it was… shit, who was it again?”
The average man starts laughing.
“Hahaha, it was that one hugboxer who dropped off a pillowfluff, orange with yellow mane, asked for it to be taken care of well! When he came back to check on it and saw that the thing was in here, oh god it was hilarious! I think he was about to cry!”
Jack and Cal compose themselves, trying desperately not to puke.
“You still haven’t explained what this room is. Or why it stinks like a thousand rotting corpses.”
“Oh yeah, let me get the light.”
The greasy man flicks a switch, and a truly abhorrent display is lit up for the group to witness. Jack ends up vomiting this time.
“Heheheh, yeah, that happens to newcomers. Welcome to the washroom boys.”
The average man ushers in the two heroes.
The room has about 11 pillowed fluffies, running the gamut of “Newcomers” to “close to death.”
An orange fluffy with a green mane, likely a fresh arrival, calls out “HUUHUUHUU! MUMMAH! SABE CAWWOT!”
A white fluffy with a green mane, feces smeared into its white fluff, says “Nu wan cowd wawa!”
A red fluffy with brick red mane lies on top of a pure blue fluffy, and says “sniff w-wan mummah!”
The blue fluffy has gone blind, and simply coughs.
A light brown with blonde mane fluffy has gone blind. “W-why nu can see? W-w-why nu move? HUUHUUHUU!”
A purple pegasus with a black mane cries. “NU WAN WAWA HUUHUUHUU!”
A red fluffy with periwinkle mane has just arrived, thrown in there no less than 10 minutes ago. “D-daddeh?”
A pink fluffy with brown mane looks up at a sprinkler system. “Pweez nu meanie wawa!”
A yellow fluffed, green mane fluffy leans against a lime green fluffed, red maned blind fluffy.
“WHA? WHO TUCH FWUFFY? NU WIKE!”
In the corner, a green fluffy with a dual colored red and yellow mane sits. It’s crying to itself, and it has gone blind in one eye. The other eye doesn’t look too far off. Cal looks at it, intently.
“What in the holy mother of fuck is going on here?”
The greasy one begins to explain just what this horrible room is.
“Ahuhuhuh, the washroom is a product of me and Chris’ imagination. Robot arm goes around the room, spraying old kibble at the fluffies. They have to hope some of it lands near them. Judging by how fat these little fuckers are, they seem to get lucky a lot of the time. It’s usually dark in here. Light only comes on when the sprinkler system comes on, and it only comes on when it detects sound. Like when it hears one of the little shitbags farting or shitting, which is practically all they do, it turns on to wash the turds away. Main causes of death in the washroom are parasites brought on by eating off the shit covered floor, followed by starvation, then drowning. Some of them go blind due to the parasites making their way to the eyes. Most fluffies here die in about a month or two, but that little cunt over there-” He points to the one in the corner with the red and yellow mane “-has been here for a year now. Only 9 months of that year were in here though.”
Cal looks at the greaseball and average man, dark flames burning in his eyes.
Jacks thoughts: “I’ve never seen Cal like this before. I can feel the rage and anger burning off of him, but he seems as cool as a cucumber! How are these guys not noticing? And his eyes… His eyes are those of a killer. He’s prepared to do anything, to throw anything away, even his humanity, in the pursuit of justice. Is this Blackstar? Is this the most feared man in our city?”
“How did he get here?”
“Oh yeah, funny story. So, some rich asshole had that fluffy, named it Marcy or some shit, and when he died, hit by a bus or some shit, he wanted it to go to a good home. Problem is, guy had no family around to take the little cunt in, so he came to us. He was, heh, intact when we got him. He was in the main pen with the rest of the intact fluffies, but he wouldn’t stop crying for his dad. So me and Clyde decided to crush the little bastards legs to dust and cut them off, then chucked him in here.”
Cal runs over to the fluffy.
“Marley! Marley, can you hear me?”
The poor fluffy looks up at him. “D-daddeh? Am dat yu?”
“Yes, yes it’s me, Mar. Daddy’s here…”
The flames have gone out in Cal’s eyes. The only thing remaining are tears streaming down his face.
“I’m so sorry, Marley. I’m sorry this happened, and I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything to protect you…”
“D-daddeh, it am otay… Mawwey nu bwame yu. Not yu fawt. Mawwey jus am gwad tu see daddeh…”
The greasy man and the average man laugh. “Hey doctor, what’s up with your friend? Did he not take his bipolar meds today?”
Jack, trying to contain his anger, simply smiles while stepping towards the door.
“Don’t worry about him. I know how much you two enjoy this kind of thing, so maybe you should just watch him for now?”
“Ahuhuh, whatever you say doc.”
Jack is blocking the door. He doesn’t want these two putrid souls escaping.
“I’m so sorry Marley. I failed you again…”
“Nu daddeh, yu nu faiw Mawwey. Daddeh gib Mawwey bestest wife a fwuffy coud hab. It nu am daddehs fawt dat daddeh take fowebah sweepies.”
Cal wipes a tear from his eye. “D-do you know I’m not, you know, your Cal?”
“Yes daddeh, but yu an him am da same souw. You an him am diffewent, but am bofe good hoomins.”
“H-How do you know this stuff?”
“Mawwey see a boney fwuffy come hewe many time, an he an Mawwey tawk wots. Mawwey nu hab tu make tawkies, it am wike tawking wif nu wowds. Daddeh say “tewepafy” once. Mawwey and bone fwuff tawk wots about ‘weeawatee’ an’ say dat daddeh an Mawwey bofe exist for many fowebahs, wike aww tings. Mawwey nu undahstan at da time, but seeing daddeh hewped Mawwey undahstan.”
Cal laughs, a sad laugh. “You always were a smart little guy…”
Marley looks over with his one good eye. “Mawwey actuawwy see bone fwuffy nao. Hewwo fwien.”
Cal turns around to look, but doesn’t see anything. He turns back to Marley, and embraces him in a tight hug.
“I’ll see you again one day little buddy. I love you. Don’t ever forget that, you hear?”
“Yus daddeh, mawwey wub yu tuu. Mawwey am feewin sweepies nao. Gon take nap.”
“That sounds like a good idea. When you wake up, youll be in a bright, sunny field. You’ll have all your l-leggies, and your see p-p-places will work, and you wont feel a-any owwies ever. And one day, you’ll see s-someone coming up over a hill, and it’ll be your d-daddy. And you and daddy will h-have all the fun in the world. I love you Marley, and your daddy loved you too. I know he did.”
Marley smiles. “Daddeh woud be happeh tu kno dat he am supahhewo. Wub yu, oddah daddeh.”
Marley falls asleep for the last time. Unbeknownst to everyone but Cal, Cal had nanobots essentially shut down Marley painlessly. He’s doing the same for all the fluffies here.
“Mummah? Am dat yu? Am hewe fo Cawwot?”
“F-fwuffy can see again? H-hewwo, bone fwuffy. Nyu fwien?”
“W-who tuch fwuffy? Am feew boney, bu’ comfy…”
“M-mummah?”
“Wha? S-smeww pwetty? Feew pwetty?”
“N-nu mowe cowd wawa…”
“D-daddeh? Am dat daddeh? Nu daddeh, but nyu fwien fo Spinnew?”
Jack watches all this, noticing a small bony fluffy with a scythe in its mouth, wearing a black robe, walking from fluffy to fluffy. “What the hell?” Time seems to stop in its place, and the little grim reaper looks directly at Jack.
“GOOD JAWB, YU TWO. DESE FWUFFIES AM IN MUCH BETTAH PWACE. DEATH OF FWUFFIES HATE SEEING FWUFFIES WIKE DIS. AN BIG BOSS KNO DAT DEWE AM NO SHOWTAGE OF DEM WIKE DIS IN DIS UNIBEWSE, AN’ MANY ODAH UNIBEWSES. DEATH OF HOOMINS WIWE BE HEWE SOON, BUT NU FO YU TWO. YU TWO MAY DU BAD TINGS, BUT IT AM IN NAME OB JUSTICE. DEATH OF FWUFFIES HEWE DAT IN A MOOBIE ONCE. GOOD WUCK, JACK AND CAW. GOODBYE.”
The little grim reaper disappears.
As he disappears, time resumes. Cal lays Marleys body down, and slowly stands up.
He clenches his fists. His outfit has reverted back to the one that criminals fear. Blackstar is here.
He turns around, eyes burning with a black flame, dark determination burning in his soul.
“You two, that created this room, will never leave this room. I’m going to make sure of that.”
“I’ll leave these two to you, Blackstar, but allow me to tell our friends what is in store.”
“Thank you, Jack.”
“Ahuhuh, uh, what?”
“Y-yeah, what’s he saying? And why’s he in a gimpsuit? Can’t your faggy hugboxer friend save it for when you two get home?”
Jack chuckles. “You two are dumber than you look. You’ll find out.”
“I-I don’t want to be here anymore. W-why are all the shitrats dead?” The greasy man seems to have picked up on the danger much sooner than the average man.
Jack laughs again. “Why would you want to leave? This room, that’s given you so much joy. Don’t think I haven’t noticed the cameras. Surely you’d like to experience your pride and joy firsthand?”
The door is latched shut.
“You aren’t getting through here.”
“T-thats what you think, f-faggot!”
The average man attempts to dash through.
He ends up back where he started.
“W-what?”
“Ahuh, g-get out of my way doc.”
The greasy man attempts to slip through, only finding himself back at his starting position as well.
Unbeknownst to them, Jack is stopping time and moving them back to their original positions. He is letting Cal have this fight.
“C-Come on man, let us out of here! S-So what if we tortured a few shitrats? Who gives a shit what you fuckin hugboxers think? It’s legal! We’re stronger than them!” The greaseball kicks one of the fluffy corpses after saying this.
“Y-Yeah, we’re stronger than them, and it’s fun, and it’s none of your business what we do, fucker!”
“You can never make up for the negative energy you’ve released on the universe.”
After saying this, Cal dashes forward and punches the greaseball in the stomach.
The greaseball falls to the ground, landing face first in fluffy feces.
Cal spins around, slicing at the average guy with a fist spike, making a large gash in the mans chest.
He turns towards the greaseball, and unleashes a flurry of nanobot powered punches on the man, leaving some nanobots behind with each punch that would cause slight pain, like bugs biting him, as a distraction.
“Ahuhgah! W-what the fuck! Leave us alone, hugboxer! T-they’re just shitrats!”
“You crushed the limbs of my beloved pet, then left him to die in this hellhole, just like you’ve done with so many other peoples pets, and potential pets. You both deserve NO MERCY.”
The greaseball swats at bugs that don’t exist, while Cal lunges at the average man.
He knocks him to the ground, and begins punching the man with knuckles as hard as steel. A rain of blows falls on the average man, breaking bones and bruising flesh.
“AAAAGH, W-WHY? W-WHO ARE YOU?! F-FUCKING HUGBOXER!”
Cal turns back around, slicing a similar gash into the greaseballs chest, splattering blood over Jack.
“F-Fuck!I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die! I DON’T WANT TO DIE!”
“None of the creatures you two tortured to death wanted to die, and the ones that would have been better off dead didn’t deserve the agony and pain and suffering you two put them through. MARLEY didn’t deserve any of that. NO ONE deserves that. Except people like you.”
He turns back to the average man, pummeling him with a flurry of high speed stomps aimed at his legs, breaking one of his femurs.
“All of this. Everything happening to you right now. All of this is your fault. Your own negative energy is your own undoing. I’m simply the form it took.”
The greasy man cries. “I DON’T WANNA DIE! I DON’T DESERVE THIS!” THEY’RE JUST SHITRATS, YOU HUGBOXING FAGGOTS!”
Cal grabs the greaseball and slams him into the ground.
He turns back around, continuing to pummel the average man.
“AGH! H-HELP ME GOD! P-PLEASE! F-FUCKING HUGBOXERS!”
“Blackstar, don’t you think you should just be done with this?”
The greasy man continues writhing around on the ground, swatting that bugs that only he can seem to see.
“cough cough F-Fuck, they’re in my mouth!”
“Blackstar! That’s enough!”
Cal turns back to the average man, resuming his onslaught.
“P-please God! H-Help me!”
“Blackstar…”
“F-Fuck you! And fuck these goddamn bugs! When I get up, I’m gonna beat the shit out of you!” The greasy man says, coughing and attempting to spit out bugs.
Cal stands up, and begins stomping on his head, busting it open like a rotten jack-o-lantern.
“You’re next.”
He kneels down, punching the man continuously, just like before. The average man attempts to block the blows, failing entirely.
The blows continue to rain down upon the average man, blood splattering with each punch.
Jack thinks to himself. “Is this Cal’s true nature? Is he just as evil as the scum we set out to eliminate? No… This is his dark determination. When a good person is pushed past the breaking point, they’re willing to do anything for the ones they love. This, all of this, is for Marley and all the other fluffies tortured to death by these two.”
The mans left eye is swollen shut, and some of his teeth are broken at the gumline, others missing entirely.
“S-st-stopppp…” He manages to choke out, spitting blood up on Cal.
Cal punches the man directly in the face once.
“P-Please…”
Another punch.
“I-I’m sorry!”
Another punch.
And another.
And another.
After a large swarm of punches, Cal ceases his assault. The Average man is thouroughly dead. His face is completely unrecognizable, and his body is covered in various wounds. The same holds true for the greasy man.
Cal pants, then his arms drop to his sides. He looks around, then looks over at the corpse of his fallen friend, tears streaming down his face.
“M-Marley…”
Jack kneels down next to him, and pats him on the back. “It’s not your fault, Cal. You did the best you could.”
“D-Did I go too far?”
“Those two didn’t think about how the things they tortured felt. Maybe you shouldn’t either?”
“Maybe… But then again maybe not. I’m not sure. Regardless, we should probably leave this universe soon.”
“Wanna find out who these two are first?”
Cal checks the wallet of the greasy man. “Clyde Paulson. Can’t say it rings a bell.”
Jack checks the wallet of the average guy. “Christian Ellis. Sounds familiar. Do you know who that is, a Christian Ellis?”
Cal’s eyes widen. “That’s the son of a bitch that killed MY Marley in our universe!”
Jack chuckles. “I guess this guy is just an asshole in every reality huh?”
“Yeah, I’ll say. Let me clean this up, then we can make some kind of mask for you to hide your identity.”
Cal unleashes a swarm of nanobots, which promptly devour the blood and corpses of the two putrid souls, creating more nanobots with the resultant matter. “Don’t worry, we won’t have a grey goo situation on our hands. They only listen to me. Let me see your glasses, I need the bots to scan your lenses so that your mask has the right prescription.”
Jack hands his glasses over, and Cal scans them using his nanobots. In no time at all, a visor like mask with large lenses is created. The rim of the visor is a dark purple, and the lenses are a blue that is impossible to see through one way, but perfectly fine the other way. You know exactly what it looks like I showed it to you earlier.
Jack puts it on. The lenses, almost comically large, cover everything but his nose, mouth, and chin. “How does it look?”
“Not gonna lie, kind of badass.”
“Nice. Alright, let’s leave.”
Jack draws his sword, slashes at the air, and tears open a hole in reality.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees what looks like the grim reaper. He decides not to bother him on the job.
“So, where are we going now?”
“I believe there’s an inn situated somewhere between realities, where people who know about it are free to come and go as they please.”
“And how do YOU know about it?”
“Ever since that accident, I’ve known a lot of things I shouldn’t know. It’s probably best not to question it.”
“Fair enough. Lead the way, doctor.”
“Maybe you should have your nanobots put down the other fluffies that are suffering?”
“Alright, why did we come here Jack?”
Jack and Cal stand in front of a barren wall in an empty strip mall. Barren, save for a magnificent oak door, with a golden handle that shone, despite there being no light hitting it.
“This, Cal. This is why we came here. When I saw the trillions of realities in existence, I saw one that was connected to many others. Connected, and yet, isolated at the same time. A sort of nexus, that multiple worlds connect to. And for some reason, I’m unable to open a gateway to this world. It’s a strange one. Small, and yet, at the same time, I get the feeling that it’s much bigger than it appears. I can’t quite explai-”
“The door has a cardboard sign next to it that says ‘Inn Between Worlds’. So it’s just like an inn that multiple universes have access to?”
Jack frowns, looking almost sad.
“Dammit, I had that whole monologue planned and you didn’t even like it. Yes, it’s an inn between worlds. Sort of like that painting, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, only less depressing.”
Cal takes a very careful look around, then removes his helmet, shaking out messy brown hair in a ponytail.
“I guess I have to be careful taking this off, huh? Still, I don’t exactly want to come into a cozy little inn wearing this, eh?”
The two enter the door, and find themselves inside a cozy Inn. Just think of whatever kind of Inn you want, it’s probably accurate. They take a look around, and notice a great variety of people. At one table, another Cal and a Marley sit. Because the Writer of this story is a dumb idiot loser, He’s not going to repeat what’s already been said, lest he risk creating a plothole.
The two walk over to a table by themselves, order drinks, and a few steaks…
“Wonder what The ‘OMA’ is. And what did he mean by ‘catalogue our timeline’?
“I am unsure, but I don’t think it will get in the way of anything.”
“What could it get in the way of?”
Jack takes a sip of a cream soda.
“Do you have any plans? Any goals you wish to achieve on this journey of ours?”
Cal thinks for a second, taking a bite of his steak.
“I guess I just want to protect the weak. Sure, I might have some brutal methods, but the people I beat down have brutal methods as well. I just want to make sure no one else has to experience what I experienced.”
He takes a swig of apple juice.
“What about you, doc?”
“Are you willing to listen to me talk for a little while?”
“Of course, doc, I wouldn’t have asked the question otherwise.”
Jack laughs.
“I suppose that’s a good point, but I just wanted to make sure.”
“The whole reason I began the experiment that ended up giving me these powers is because I wanted to find ‘Heaven’. Not Heaven as it’s normally thought of, but a reality where everything goes right for everyone. There’s no heartache, no sadness, no cruelty.”
“The experiment was supposed to allow me to access the multiverse, and find this ‘Heaven’. As you can no doubt remember, it was a semi-success. Semi-success in that we did indeed find a way to access the multiverse.”
“Yeah, at the cost of you getting sucked in and the rest of the team being too terrified to try the experiment again. Just glad that Clyde managed to get his hand back.”
“That wasn’t the only failure. I told you that I saw a lot of different realities, some happier than others? A lot of them weren’t happy at all?”
“Yeah, you told me. Said I was a superhero in some, supervillain in others.”
“Not one reality was truly happy. Sure, some were happier than others, but there were always people forced to be miserable. Realities where humans have access to miraculous technology, miraculous POWERS, even, and still they insist on causing misery.”
“I saw an infinite number of different realities, Calvin. Each reality having an infinite number of branches that are ever so slightly different. My mind should have been destroyed by it, and in many realities, it was. I saw those as well.
“Some of them I saw as I walked down that corridor. But many of them, I saw them all at once.
“Not a single one of them was the Heaven that we humans spend our entire lives trying to attain. Not one reality in which every creature was allowed to be happy.
Cal takes a sip from his drink.
“Goddamn, I’m sorry to hear that, man.”
“So am I. But I haven’t given up. I have been gifted a miraculous power. I can see all these different universes, a power that isn’t exactly unique as you can clearly see.” He gestures around the Inn that they are at.
“But I’ve also been given the power to see the branches, the infinite timelines branching from each universe. And, perhaps the most miraculous of all, my mind has not been completely and utterly destroyed by this power.”
He looks down at his hands.
“I have been irrevocably woven into the fabric of existence itself. I know, with enough willpower, I can attain Heaven for all creatures. I am willing to do whatever it takes, if it means everything else can exist in that heaven. If it means that all other realities, all other branches, have to die, then so be it.”
Jack raises his hand for a handshake.
“Would you like to help reach Heaven?”
