Niote: read @nobodyatall s stuff for information on stuff here this is basically just supplementary material for his stories. and leave a like to encourage my sugar fueled ramblings disguised as stories.
Hello again, Dear readers. This is Jackson Albert Clockson, of timeline 999999 speaking. I do not know how long it has been since we have spoken from your perspective, but from Cal’s perspective it has been a month. I would have said how long it has been from my perspective, but time doesn’t quite work the way it used to anymore for me.
As expected, Cal has forgotten about the apocalypse timeline. He remembers the events leading to its destruction, but he doesn’t remember any of the finer details regarding that timeline. All of the people we met, all the things we experienced there, all of it lost to time. The only remaining evidence of it ever having existed lying with me, and Cal being the only other person that knows what happened to it.
He has no memory of the fluffy trap he devised that led to that raider getting his head reduced to a 1 cm^3 pellet either. I tried telling him about it and he reacted with what I can only describe as massive incredulity.
Right now we are taking a break, staying at the Inn between worlds. We walk in to the cozy little tavern
There’s a version of Cal sitting at a table, talking to a teenager in a yellow and blue supersuit. This version is the one you’re familiar with, readers.
“Yeah, my dad tried to teach me to be a good superhero, but it turns out he was just trying to prepare me to take over earth in the name of the Viltrumite empire. I didn’t go for it, and he beat the shit out of me and killed a bunch of people. Haven’t seen him since.”
“Jesus christ, my apologies man.”
“Eh, it’s alright. I just gotta get stronger to make sure he doesn’t try that again.”
“Well, I could help you with that, we could do some sparring.”
“Sounds like a plan!”
“Nu weave Mawwey out of it, Mawwey wan’ fight tu!”
I continue to observe the different people.
An african american man, a kid in a straw hat, and a man in a blue spandex suit are all stretching their limbs like rubber.
“You ain’t winnin this time, Luffy!”
“Don’t focus on me, focus on not getting caught in the ceiling fan!”
“This is silly, but I will admit that it is very fun.”
“None of you guys can stretch as much as PLASTIC MAN!” Says a man who LOOKS like he’s wearing a red shirt and blue shorts, but it’s really just, like, skin? It’s weird.
They certainly seem to be having fun.
I look at another table, and I see something that is, frankly, a little odd.
A version of myself, wearing a Tshirt featuring the band Scythelord, sneakers, incredibly long socks that reach up past the mid thigh, and shorts that leave little to the imagination. An alicorn fluffy is sitting in his lap.
Anyway, he’s talking to a man wearing a white cap that seems almost to merge into his black hair, and a large white coat. Sitting next to him is a teenager with a purple school uniform adorned with golden trinkets, and the most magnificent pompadour I have ever seen.
“So you can stop time too? Without a stand?”
The version of myself smiles. “Yeah, and I can do more than just stop time! But you have to be careful when you mess with time. I don’t know if it works the same way with your stands, but if you mess with time too much, you might just end up breaking it.”
The pompadour guy laughs. “I dunno if Crazy Diamond would be able to fix time itself!”
The man in the hat pulls his cap down a little. “Good grief…”
Finally, Cal and I sit down.
“So, what do you have in mind next, Doc? We’ve taken a bit of a break after the, uh…”
“After I obliterated a near infinite amount of innocent people?”
“Well I wasn’t gonna say it like that. You can’t keep blaming yourself for that, Jack. I saw what was happening, that wasn’t you. I’m sure anyone could see that. Plus, there isn’t really any evidence of it happening, right?”
“Things like that are bound to leave ripples in the multiverse. Maybe it’ll go unnoticed, it was a very far off timeline after all. Regardless, I don’t want to talk about this here.”
“Good point.”
We both sit and sip our drinks.
“But what are we gonna do now?”
“I don’t know, Cal. I don’t know where to go from here.”
Another sip.
“I won’t let what happened be in vain. All the people who no longer exist due to my ineptitude, I owe it to them to bring about Heaven. Even if it means that I will no longer exist, I will stop at nothing until I have achieved it. This is The Way that I have chosen, and it only leads to victory.”
“Amen to that, my friend. We have to follow Our Way, and no matter what, that Way leads to the future.”
“But Cal, please make a promise to me.”
“Yeah?”
“If I ever start to seem like I’m not myself, like I might be going off the deep end, please do everything in your power to stop me.”
“I-I mean, sure, I can do that. I don’t WANT to do that, but I can do that.”
“Thank you my friend. Shall we do a toast?”
“Sure, but I don’t know what we should toast to. To multiversal travel?”
I raise my glass.
“To new adventures.”
“Yeah, I can get behind that. To new adventures.”
Clink.
—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Ugh, I can never get used to this place.”
“That’s fair, I think the only reason it doesn’t make me sick is because of my powers. Or that time I tried LSD. Or shrooms.”
“You never struck me as the kind of guy to do drugs, doc.”
“You never struck ME as the kind of person to have a powersuit made out of nanobots.”
Cal laughs.
“Fair enough. So, where we headed doc?”
I take a look around, eyeing different realities.
“There is a version of you that I have seen a few times. He isn’t all there, in the head. In fact, I’d surmise that he is completely, certifiably insane. But even insane people can have a few good ideas.”
Cal looks at me, shocked.
“I know who you’re talking about, and the fact that you say that HE has a good idea is worrying.”
“Relax, I’m not about to say we should do exactly what he’s doing.”
“Alright, what’s he been doing that you think might be a good idea?”
“While that version of you possesses an immense amount of power, more than the average Cal, I might say, he’s also very… Childlike. Rather than use his power to achieve his goals as quickly as possible, he spent a lot of time travelling the multiverse, stealing things from different universes, killing different people. He was like a foolish teenager, left to his own devices in a mall with a credit card.”
“What’s your point doc? Other than to shit on the insane version of me?”
“We will use our power, Cal. But we will not use it like a child.”
I raise my hand, clenching my fist for dramatic effect. It probably didn’t come off as cool as I had hoped.
“We will travel the multiverse, helping people. A version of yourself was just in a universe that I could only describe as miserable. Have you ever read the book ‘1984’?”
“…Yeah?”
“He entered that universe.”
“Wait, are you saying that every book, every fictional work… are those all different universes? That we can head to?”
“Yes indeed. And we will head to all of them, setting things right. We have the power to do it, and it would be an injustice to not use our power to fix things. Also I think we should get a fluffy at some point, it would be nice to have another friend, and for some reason I feel that it would make our adventures more… relevant.”
“But what if we can’t fix something? What if it’s all too far gone?”
“We will cross that bridge when we get to it. In the meantime, which fictional work should we fix first?”
Cal thinks.
“Have you ever seen the Christmas episode of Black Mirror?”
“I like the way you think, my friend.”