Chapter 1: Chapter 1.0

Immense pain laced my body as I barreled out of the portal, colliding harshly with the floor, then some desk, and finally a wall. I could feel the multiple fractures and open wounds in my body mend and I thanked Upgrade for the twentieth time today for strengthening my power for the final fight. Thanks to her I was able to borrow Regenerator and Invincible's powers, which is the only reason I am alive right now.

 

Using the super strength from Invincible, I managed to prop my broken body up in time to see the rapidly closing portal. My heart raced and I scrabbled to use the last power, the one I took from the Apocalypse Bringer: Conquest, the giant monster that sent me here and is killing my friends just on the other side, a few meters away.

 

I extended my hand and worked my mind into using Conquest's telekinesis to stop it from closing. A brain splitting headache grabbed hold of me as I tried my best to keep it open. I also used its power to telekinetically propel myself towards it.

 

It was all for naught, however, since it closed when I was halfway to it, the backlash almost making me blackout from pain. Fuck. It must have turned its attention away from the battlefield for a brief moment just to close the portal.

 

Breathing hard, sweat pouring down my face, I attempted to open up a new portal, but all my attempts failed. After all, my shitty powers only take a fraction of whoever I grab them from. In other words, I could steal others' powers, but I wouldn't be as strong as the original.

 

Now, with the portal closed, I could feel my connection to the lenders break, my powers rapidly waning. "No, no, no!" I screamed. "This can't be happening!"

 

I shakily stood up and started pacing, almost tearing out my chin length black hair out in frustration. However, I stopped shortly after noticing the wall paint in the room I was thrown into out of the corner of my eye--it looked identical to the one in my room.

 

Now, I was torn between investigating the room or immediately trying to contact this reality's hero organization.

 

In the end, I decided to investigate the room. I had no idea what was out there and I had heard horror stories of parallel realities full of zombies and shit. With every second that passed, I felt like I was failing my friends and humanity for not being there, but the more I looked at the room, the more convinced I grew that it was mine or this world's equivalent of me. Not all, but almost all the posters of bands and games I had hanged up were still there…but they were changed. The Bioshock poster had little boys instead of girls and the giant drill monsters had tits. Dead space had a female engineer. Others were the same, main characters were replaced by female versions, games which had large casts of romanceable females now possessed femenine-looking males, or maybe they were also women.

 

To confirm whether this was my room or not, I went to the desk. Where normally things would be scattered all over the place, they were now in perfect order. I rummaged around looking for tests or assignments—something with my name on it—and after a few moments I found one. It was a math test, I remembered this one, fucking pre-calculus. What I don’t remember is getting such a high grade, it should have been in the seventies but here lies a rotund ninety one.

 

I put down the test and moved to turn on the pc. As always it made a loud whirring sound from how much dust there must be inside. Once the login screen came up, I plugged in my password and hit enter…denied. I retyped it and hit enter. Denied again. The third time I made sure to type it key by key, still to no avail.

At this point I gave up on the computer and walked away. I opened the door of the bedroom and stepped out into the hallway of the upper floor of my house. From the lighting of the sun, I could tell it was late afternoon.

Regenerator’s powers hadn’t healed me up to 100% and so when I started jogging down the stairs and across the living room, I felt more than a little sore.

When I entered the foyer, the sound of keys and the locks of the door opening, made me reflexively dart to the side and hide behind a piece of furniture.

The door swung open with a whine, followed by the sounds of keys being dropped into a bowl. Then, the person, a woman, sighed wearily and started walking in my general direction.

 

I stayed silent and as packed together as possible, but rather than walk past me she—my mother—stopped right in front of my hiding spot, facing away from me. She sniffed and frowned. “What’s that smell?”

 

It was a matter of time before she turned her head and spotted me. This woman with black hair and blue eyes was not my mother; my real mother was more petite and waiting for me in my original reality. At the moment, I only had one goal, to get in contact with someone who can send me back, so I didn’t have time to interact. For all I knew, in this world she could be a killer or villain. With that in mind, I sprinted out of my hiding place and slipped past her thanks to her being petrified from surprise or fear for a second.
I twisted the door handle and practically slammed the door open, exiting into the street.

“Hey! Come back here! Who the fuck are you?!” I could hear my mother shout behind, in hot pursuit, her footsteps pounding the sidewalk.

 

I didn’t say anything, preferring to save my breath.

Unfortunately, this world’s version of my mother was faster and stronger and that added with my currently fatigued state meant that she was catching up with me. If I didn’t do something, it wouldn’t be long until she caught me. So, I made a sharp left and ran into the space between two houses…only to realize it was a dead end. Fuck my luck.

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I turned around to see my mother approaching.

 

I raised my hands placatingly, “Look, I know how it looks,” I said. “A guy appears in your house out of nowhere. But, I’m actually a hero. I got teleported there by a villain in the middle of a fight.”

She looks unimpressed, “Uh-huh, and I’m Hillary Clinton Jr.,” she retorted. “Now, I don’t like to hit males, so let’s do this the easy way and come with me to the police. My son has been missing for five days and I think you have something to do with it.”

“Look, I can understand where you are coming from but there’s people I need to protect back where I’m from. Time is of the essence and I can’t afford to sit through paperwork and interrogations. You have to believe me.”

“No. My son is missing and I’d be an idiot to let the only lead I have go. You are coming with me.” she said, stepping closer.

I consider fighting and running away, but that would just make her call the cops on me and waste even more time and paint me as a villain. It would be more efficient to cooperate and get this cleared out.

“Alright, I’ll go.”

“Great,” she said, grabbing hold of one of my arms to make sure I wouldn’t run off. However, her hold is strange, as if she is trying to respect my personal space.

We walked like that all the way back to her car and from there it was a long and uncomfortably silent ride to the local precinct.

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The police did not remove my mask, which was a great relief. It seems that didn’t change across worlds; secret identities are almost sacred and people respect them, only confirmed and heinous villains get unmasked. Instead they left and called in a superheroine. Through the open door I could see one of the policewomen (there were very few men in this precinct surprisingly and none of them were masculine) open a cigarette lighter and after a moment the flame exploded in size. When it retracted back to the original size, a redheaded heroine was left standing there.

She entered the interrogation room I was sitting in (unshackled) brimming with confidence, with a cocky smile and her hands in her hips.

“Hey there handsome, I’m Trailblazer” she said in a sultry voice. “Girls here tell me you got caught illegally entering a property and then tried to run away. Wh-”

“That’s wrong,” I corrected. “I was teleported there by a villain that as we speak is destroying my home reality.”

“Be a gentleman and don’t interrupt me again,” she said. “Now, with that said, what villain has this power to teleport others across realities?”

“It was one of the Apocalypse Bringers, Conquest.”

“I see, and how was Erin Lane involved in this fight? Where in your “home reality” did the fight take place?”

I sighed. “I know where these questions are going. Why don’t you bring a mind reader or lie detector and see that I am telling the truth and then you can send me home.”

“We will, but why don’t you show me your powers first. You claimed to be a hero after all.”

“What are you talking about?! Even with the drawbacks you are asking me to use powers for something so stupid. How can you call yourself a hero?”

She smiled triumphantly. “Ah, there it is, the excuse. There is no such thing as drawbacks” —she activated her power and produced a flame on the palm of her hand—”See? I think that it’s not that there are drawbacks, but rather you don’t have powers.”

“All powers given to us by the fucking alien are a curse! They all fuck with us in the end!”

“Why don’t you confess? I know you are a boy, and I don’t want to be rude, but you are full of shit. There is no alien and out of all the superhuman serums that have been developed, out of all of the tens of thousands of possibilities that have been recorded across different serum types, none can open portals to parallel realities and shit, no one has that ability—it is not possible.”

“Just bring the mind readers and you’ll see I’m right.”

“I think you are crazy, but as I said they will come.”

“When?” I asked.

“Tomorrow or the day after most likely.”

“No! Bring them now! I have to get back now! Don’t you understand?! My whole world depends on this fight!”

“Or so you say, so long crazy boy.” she said, walking away, already turning the handle of the door.

Anger, frustration, and desperation war inside me as I make the split second decision to steal her powers.

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