[John P.O.V.]
Multiverse hopping sucks… it really, really fucking sucks. It's less like travelling and more like getting your atoms tossed into a cosmic blender, set to puree, and then haphazardly glued back together on the other side by a blind tailor.
When my boots hit the floorboards of the final dimension, my body was screaming. My ears were still ringing with the high-pitched whine of a five-megaton nuclear blast, and I could still taste the metallic tang of radioactive ash in the back of my throat and finally, my shoulders ached from the physical whiplash of the strongest Full Counter ever.
For the past couple of hours, I'd been locked in a cross-dimensional demolition derby with Angstrom Levy, and the bastard made me work for it. I rage-baited a discount Galactus into nuking himself, ate a literal atomic bomb, brought Lois Lane and future Tomorrow Man back from the dead, and took the Joker's head clean off his goddamn shoulders. Not to mention I caved in the Green Goblin's skull and intentionally gave Peter Parker a massive anxiety attack by dropping a bunch of comics editorial clusterfucks on his lap.
But the marathon was finally winding down. The glowing green portals were spawning more slowly, and their edges sputtering out. Levy's bloated brain was clearly hitting its limit from all those Mind Blast, and the sliced tendons I left him with back on the bridge.
We burst through one last rift, crashing hard into a normal suburban living room.
I hit the ground rolling. The Rider armor absorbed the impact as I dug my boots in and slid to a halt.
I looked up to get my bearings, only to find out we were in the Grayson household. The Canon Mark's universe. And the place was completely trashed with smashed furniture, cracked drywall, the whole nine yards.
Levy stood in the center of the ruined living room, panting like a dying dog. His swollen head throbbed with thick purple veins as blood dripped steadily onto the carpet from his arms and legs.
Then I saw what he was holding, and the fizzy adrenaline in my system instantly went ice cold.
His right hand was tangled deep in Debbie Grayson's hair, pinning the bruised and terrified woman to his side. In her arms, clutching her tightly and crying, was a tiny purple baby.
'Oliver!'
"Stay back!" Levy shrieked. His voice was finally hysterical as he pressed a small green portal directly against Debbie's temple. "Invincible is a plague! He destroys everything because of this whore spreading her legs to spread the infestation! If you take one more step, I'll scatter this bitch and the half-breed across a thousand dead realities!"
He shifted his weight frantically, his eyes darting to the floorboards. He was trying to open a drop-portal right under his own feet.
I dropped the cocky Rider act immediately.
"Shut the fuck up," I said, my synthesized voice coming out as a flat growl as I raised two fingers.
Clothes Beam.
It was a ridiculous name for a ridiculous power, but it worked flawlessly. A sudden flash of light hit Levy as his tattered trench coat instantly transmuted, shifting into heavy-duty, reinforced canvas and thick metal buckles. In a fraction of a second, Levy was trapped in an industrial-grade straitjacket, his arms violently bound to his own chest.
His grip on Debbie's hair broke instantly.
Debbie didn't hesitate to flee. She scrambled backward on the floor, dragging Oliver away from him.
"What the—?!" Levy screamed, thrashing against the canvas. He stumbled back, lifting his heavy boot to stomp a portal open on the floor.
I snapped my fingers.
Barrier of Light.
A glowing, impenetrable box of hard light snapped into existence, perfectly encasing Levy. I set it to hover exactly two inches off the hardwood floor.
Levy stomped down, but his boot just hit the glowing hard-light floor of his new cage.
"You can't drop through a dimensional rift if your feet can't touch reality, dipshit," I said, slowly walking toward the glowing box.
"Let me go! You're dooming the multiverse, you insufferable prick!" Levy screamed, thrashing against the roots.
"Yeah, and I'm really bored of your victim complex," I sighed.
His limbs were already messed up from earlier. Neel wanted him alive for a plan of his, but the guy needed to be disarmed. Literally. I wasn't going to risk him pulling another rift out of his ass.
Blademaster.
Focusing my aura, I formed a compressed blade of red and blue energy along the edge of my forearm. Moving quickly, I slashed outward in a rapid four-point cross-strike.
SNICKT. SNICKT.
Levy let out a raw shriek. I cleanly severed his arms just below the shoulders, and his legs just below the hips. The heated friction of the energy blade instantly cauterized the stumps so he wouldn't bleed out, but his portal-hopping days were officially fucking over, hopefully.
The severed limbs hit the floor with a few wet thuds. Levy convulsed in the barrier for a few seconds before the pain and shock of the trauma forced his brain to shut down entirely, dropping him into unconsciousness.
The room fell dead quiet.
And then, little Oliver took a breath.
A second later, the kid unleashed an ear-shattering screech that rattled the remaining windows.
WAAAAAAAH!
The tension in the room instantly snapped. I sighed, rolling my shoulders. "Show's over."
I tapped the Pepsi insignia on my chest plate.
[CAST OFF]
The fusion disengaged as the driver retracted off my body, folding back into Ship's sleek canine form with a few metallic clicks and the red and blue suit dissolved into bubbles, pooling onto the floor before reforming into the faceless, muscular shape of Pepsiman.
Ship gave a robotic bark and sat by my leg while Pepsiman stood at attention, snapping a crisp salute with a tsssh sound.
Seeing them both doing okay after the longest polymerisation of my life, I turned my attention to the corner of the room.
Debbie Grayson was huddled against the overturned sofa, clutching the screaming baby to her chest. She looked at me, then at the sludge puppy, then at the soda mascot, and finally at Levy's amputated body floating above the floor.
She was hyperventilating, pushing herself backward until her back hit the wall, her eyes wide with shock and terror.
I watched her scramble with a sigh. I didn't blame her. It suddenly hit me exactly how fucked up this looked from her perspective. A stranger just burst into her house in a weird robotic suit, pinned her kidnapper to the ceiling with a magic box and magic vines, and then casually butchered him into nuggets in a spray of cauterized smoke. I looked like a complete, unhinged psychopath.
"Hey, it's okay. Easy," I said, hastily dropping the tough-guy act. I raised my open hands to show I was unarmed and dropped down to one knee to make myself look as small and non-threatening as possible. "I'm not going to hurt you, Mrs. Grayson. I promise."
"Who are you?" Debbie stammered, her whole-body trembling. "Where is Mark?! He said he was going to find Mark and kill him! Where's my son? Is he okay?"
"Mark is safe. He was the one who sent me to find you," I explained, keeping my voice soft and grounded. "My name is John and I'm sort of a friend of your son. You're safe now. Levy can't hurt you anymore."
She kept her guard up, her grip on Oliver tightening. "You... you chopped his arms off."
"He was trying to scatter you across the multiverse. I took away his toys," I replied pragmatically. "Please, let me help you. You're hurt."
Before she could argue, I activated Greedy Healing.
A warm golden aura flared to life around my hands. I gently extended the energy, letting it wash over Debbie and the baby.
Debbie gasped, her eyes fluttering shut. The dark purple bruises on her cheek and jaw melted away into healthy skin, the cuts and bends on her arm knit themselves together perfectly and finally, exhaustion just evaporated.
The light washed over Oliver next, erasing the scrapes on his fragile purple skin. The baby's shrieking slowly tapered off into a confused, sleepy cooing.
Debbie opened her eyes, looking down at her healed hands, then at her calm baby. The terror in her eyes faded, quickly replaced by the bone-deep relief of a mother who had just survived a goddamn nightmare.
"Mark..." she whispered, a tear slipping down her cheek. "Is he really okay?"
"He's more than okay. He's probably pacing a hole in the floor of my castle waiting for you," I smiled, standing back up. I turned to my Mechamorph. "Ship? Can you call home please?"
"Ship", He chirped and bounded across the ruined living room and leapt directly onto the shattered flat-screen TV mounted on the wall.
His green circuitry spread across the broken electronics as the shattered glass fused back together, the plastic reconfigured, and within a few seconds, Ship had upgraded the broken television into a makeshift quantum-communication array.
The screen flared to life, showing the green field and holy cow mooing instead of the endless wooden corridors I was expecting. Standing in the centre of the frame, looking anxious and tired in his shredded blue-and-yellow suit, was the Canon Mark.
He looked up at the screen and his eyes immediately locked onto the woman sitting on the floor.
"Mom?" Mark choked out, his voice cracking.
Debbie let out a broken sob, scrambling toward the television. "Mark! Oh my god, Mark, you're alive."
"I'm here, Mom. I'm right here," Mark cried, tears streaming down his worried face. He pressed his thumb against the screen on his end, his broad shoulders shaking. "I'm so sorry. I thought he fucking killed you. I thought I lost you guys."
"It's over. John saved us," Debbie wept, holding Oliver up to the screen so Mark could see him. "We're safe. You're coming home, right?"
[A/N]:
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