A Strange & Different World, Part Two

I woke up to the sound of a buzzsaw. I tried sitting up, but that didn't happen. I felt like I'd been hit by a car going seventy, which, now that I had super powers, I could probably survive. I tried sitting up again, and this time I managed, breaking apart metal restraints that I didn't know were covering me. I looked at my legs and saw much thicker restraints. Had to break those, now.

Actually, I didn't need to break them. I concentrated on my teleportation ability, but that wasn't working right. Great. I must have been drugged.

Matter of fact, you are, someone said. In my head. I looked around and couldn't see anyone in particular. I tried concentrating again, but nothing happened. Great. That won't work, whoever you are. You're going to be stuck here at least until my boss comes and asks you some questions. I hope your answers are to his liking.

"Who the hell are you?" I asked aloud. "And where are you?"

You can call me Thought. It's actually quite remarkable, you're subconsciously keeping me separate from your mind. That's impressive, even for someone who's consciously keeping me out, like the Benefactor does.

"You still didn't answer my question, where are you?"

In your head, of course. Where else would the name 'Thought' come in?

I started feeling more in control. My regenerative ability must have been kicking in, knocking out the drugs. Good, soon I could get out of here.

I guess you forgot that I can still read your surface thoughts. Not very bright, are you?

"Do you work for the Joker?"

No. I work for a man who stays away from all sides, the Joker's, the Benefactor's and the government's. You're safe here, if you accept it.

I shook my head. "No. I need to get out of here. I have to get back to my reality, and this," I motioned to the restraints holding my legs, "isn't helping. So, if you'll excuse me..." I held my hands to the restraints and they began to ice over. After a moment or so, they cracked, then broke into small chunks of ice that had already started to melt. I hopped off the latest examination table I'd been on and looked for the nearest door.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find one.

And you won't, as long as I'm in here.

"What?"

I couldn't keep you from breaking out of the table, but I can still keep you from finding the door. That's a simple one.

"Let me out of here, goddamnit!"

No. You're staying here until my boss shows up, so that he can study you. You can survive a vivisection, can't you?

"I said, let me out!"

That seemed to work, somehow, as the unconsious body of a woman in a chair beside the examination table appeared out of thin air, and then a set of stairs leading up to a catwalk followed suit, including a door that I assumed had to be the exit.

I focused my attention on the woman, however. She opened her eyes and sat forward, then rubbed at her forehead. I ripped the railing off of the stairs using my metal... something... powers and wrapped the railing around her throat, but not enough to actually choke her. "Start talking!"

She held up her hands in a stop motion, then stood up. I kept my weird telekinetic hold on the railing around her neck. "Take it easy, kid, I'm not going to hurt you. I don't even know if I can."

"I said talk!"

She grabbed her head in pain, which told me I must have been using a power I didn't know I had, which was a lot, really. She waved me down again, so I tightened the metal on her neck. "Fine! Fine! Just let me go!" I loosened the metal. "God! What are you, the evil version of the Benefactor?"

"The Benefactor is evil! In my reality, he experimented on people, and used them to kill others. My girlfriend's dad is dead because of someone he gave powers to, and then he kidnapped me, gave me powers, and now I'm hopping between universes because I don't know how to control them!"

She looked like she was about to laugh. "The Benefactor saved the world, man, so whatever weird reality you come from, you must have a different Benefactor."

"Nope, same guy. He said there's only one Benefactor, and he knew what happened to me. Now, who's your boss, and why does he want to study me?"

A new voice entered the conversation, this one I somewhat recongized. "You're quite skilled, Mr. Saul. If your assault on the Jokerz proved anything." I spun around and watched as that guy from HealAll walked down the stairs. With a pair of crutches. He was missing one of his legs, and was wearing something that looked like a high tech eyepatch. "Distinctive slaughter, almost similar to the way the Benefactor took care of the spawn from the Hellgate." He finally stepped up to me and held his hand out to shake hands. "Gerald Kennedy, nice to meet you."

I just glanced at his hand, then back up at his face. "Why do you want to study me?" I asked.

He smiled. "You're quite the interesting specimen. Every time you barely opened your eyes, I saw a portion of your body regenerate itself. Didn't seem to work while you were out, however."

"No, it doesn't. Is that it, you want your leg back? You work for HealAll, just get some of those nano-whatevers that your company makes."

He looked at me like I'd suggested he walk up the side of a building while eating an apple. "HealAll went out of business six years ago, thanks to the Benefactor's wonderous medical technology, and they never produced any sort of nanotechnology. You really are from an alternate reality, aren't you?"

I mock-saluted him. "Con-glat-ur-ations, buddy, and yes, I said that incorrectly. Now, I'm leaving, so that I can maybe figure out how to use these damn reality-hopping powers, understand?"

I walked around him, up the stairs, had my had on the door knob when he said, "The Joker has something special to use against you. Something he's used to keep the Benefactor at bay."

I stopped, turned my head, and said, "Then he better use it on me as soon as I walk out this door, because otherwise, I don't care." After that, I walked out of the room.

***

The Joker carefully applied the make-up to his secret weapon. He smiled widely as the smile took shape on her face. He tied her hair into the pigtails that she preferred and then watched her dress in her usual attire. She slipped on the tank top with the giant smiley face on the back and the purple and white skirt and then she had a real smile on her face.

"Whaddya need from me, Uncle J?" she asked.

"Just a little favor, sweetie pie."

***

I obviously couldn't meditate, and going to talk to the Benefactor again would probably piss me off even more, so I just walked. I just walked, and walked, and walked... There were very few parts of this East City that I didn't end up seeing, and thanks to my healing factor, I didn't need to eat or sleep or even take a piss.

(Now that I think about it, why hadn't I taken a leak or a dump in the past few days? What the hell? Was my body using the waste to replen - Y'know what, I'm just going to ignore that possibility and go on griping about my situation.)

It was nighttime before I decided to stop walking. I just stood in front of the statue of Knight and Guardian and sighed. This was where I'd entered this reality, maybe being here will help me leave it. Long shot, but what the hell else was I doing? May as well give it a try.

At least, that's what I wanted to happen. I closed my eyes, ready to try and leave this reality, and then I was knocked back twenty feet into the glass of a small Italian resturaunt. I stood up, pulled the glass out of my back (pushed it out, in some cases, with my own spine) and looked around for this new threat. Man, however the hell long it is I've had powers and I've been attacked... Seven times. Is this what Charlie deals with on a daily basis? And she still manages to offer to give me a massage every time she thinks I need one? Damn... I give that girl way less credit than she deserves.

I stepped out of the resturant and kept my eyes open, ready to defend myself against... something. I thank that tingling (that didn't go off just a few seconds ago) for the warning it gave me. I jumped to the right just as an energy blast arced its way toward me. It missed me by a couple inches, and snipped off some of my hair. I punched the asphalt for some reason I can't understand, but was very grateful for seconds later, when I absorbed the asphalt and turned into Kid With Double Yellow Stripe Down Face just in time to withstand a blast to the head. I shook it off and looked in the direction of the attack, and that was when i saw her.

She was wearing a black tank top, along with a purple and white skirt. Her boots were purple, with white zippers up the sides. Her purple and green hair was tied in two pigtails high on her head, and her face was covered in clown make-up. She had a real smile to match the one painted on her face and it was this smile, the real one, that scared the life out of me. I'd seen that smile. I saw it here, in this reality, in the last one, in mine.

It was Charlie, hovering in the air, with purple light surrounding her hands. She stood on a purple disc that looked like it was made of energy, and her eyes were glowing bright purple. And she was staring at me.

"No," I said, barely aware that I'd spoken. I shed the asphalt and turned both my arms into those flesh swords. "No!" That time I knew I'd spoken. I broke into a run, and used the swords to block every attack she sent at me, then jumped into the air and knocked her to the ground. "Stop this!"

"Sorry, cutie," she said, still smiling. That smile terrified me. "Uncle J's orders."

"No!" I shouted, jamming my flesh sword into the pavement by her head. She just giggled and flicked me on the forehead, except that it was powered by whatever enegry she could generate, so it sent me flying back about forty feet. People everywhere were scurrying for cover. I changed my arms back to normal, then generated fireballs. I threw them in her direction, but not directly at her. She still ducked out of the way of each one, and countered every fireball with an energy blast that kept hitting me square in the chest.

My shirt was torn to shreds. I ripped it off and grit my teeth. Dozens of attacks at the same spot could actually cause pain, it seemed, but my body was already hard at work healing itself. I didn't want to be here. I didn't want to be fighting her. Was Charlie the secret weapon that Kennedy was talking about? Why is it Charlie could keep him at bay?

I didn't have time to think, because Charlie clamped her hands together and fired a very large energy beam straight toward me. I ran toward it, hoping to stop it from destroying anything behind me. Much to my surprise, my feet stopped me from moving, my hands stuck straight out to either side, and my body... well... turned into a wall. Nice big metal one, too. Stuck there, my body stopped the beam from going any further. Looks like I got my wish, nobody else got hurt, but I was still fighting Charlie. This was still horrible.

Charlie gave up the beam attack, and my body shrunk down to normal size. I stood there, ready for whatever she'd try to throw at me next. Or, at least I thought I was. She flew toward me now, her hands balled into energy-powered fists. I steeled myself to grab her and stop her, but then the unthinkable happened. As soon as she touched me, we weren't in the city anymore.

I threw Charlie at the wall in front of me and looked around to see the same room that Charlotte and I had last spoken in. Speaking of the blonde version of my girlfriend, Charlotte was standing there, complete shock splayed across her face.

"What?" was all I could stammer out.

"You just left! What the hell are you doing back here?"

I shrugged. "Accident." After that, an energy blast hit me in the face. "Move!" I shouted, grabbing Charlotte and pulling her out of the way. She yelped in surprise. Anti-Charlie threw energy blasts at us as we ran, but I managed to get Charlotte out of the building. I looked off in the distance and saw the smoke from the damage to the Banter Industries building. It really was mere seconds after I left. That's weird.

"What the hell is going on?" Charlotte asked.

I was starting to feel out of breath. "That freaky chick throwing energy blasts at us, that's you, from another reality."

"Um... what?"

"No shit, Charlotte, now, can you web her to the ground, or something?"

Before she could answer, the wall of the building exploded, and Anti-Charlie stood there, energy practically bleeding from her hands. "Okay, cute boy, either come with me or sit still and die, 'kay?" She looked at Charlotte and a surprised look came over her face. "What's goin' on here? That's..." She started shaking her head. "No... No way... You're... me!"

Charlotte shook her head. "No way I'm you. I'd never wear anything that tacky."

Anti-Charlie bared her teeth and growled. "Shut up, suger plum!" She threw an energy blast at Charlotte, but I pulled her out of the way. A few of her hairs were singed, either way. I picked Charlotte up and teleported us to a nearby rooftop. I set Charlotte down.

"Shit!" I shouted, punching the fence that surrounded the building's air conditioning system. "I can't fight her!"

Charlotte brushed dust off her shirt. "Why not? She's a major bitch."

I looked back at her. "Same reason I wouldn't be able to fight you."

"Because I'm an alternate version of the girl you like?"

"Yes!"

"And?"

"And, what and? Every goddamn time I look at you, I see my Charlie, it's the same with her!"

She smacked me on the head. "And neither one of us is your Charlie! I'm different, she's really different. Don't look at the face, look at that gaudy make-up. Don't think about kissing her, think about knocking her stupid face off, because she's trying to do that to you. Don't think about her as Charlie, think about her as a threat."

At about that time, Anti-Charlie floated up the side of the building and stared us down, that wicked smile on her face. "What's it gonna be, cutie? You gonna come, or you gonna die?"

I ignored the face. I ignored my feelings. I ignored what I saw. Charlotte was right. This wasn't Charlie, no matter how much she looked like her. Charlie would never hurt people. She'd never threaten me. She was the sweetest thing I'd ever met, and I loved her, and this bitch was stopping me from getting back to her. My hands started glowing with fire, and I was suddenly floating in midair.

"No," I growled, disturbingly calmly, "you die."

I flew at the Enemy. It looked frightened, but I didn't care. I knocked it off of its floating purple disc and spun it around at violently dangerous speeds, then threw it down to the street below. It struggled to get out of the crater that I'd left it in, but I didn't even let it finish its crawl. I landed in the crater with it and pulled my Enemy up, grabbed it by the face and started pumping heat into my hand. It screamed, but I wasn't listening.

I threw it out of the crater and flew upwards, grabbing it before gravity brought it back down to the ground. A swirl of water surrounded the Enemy and I, and I knew that I as the cause. I forced water down its throat, then turned the water into freezing cold ice. It gagged, trying to catch a breath, but I didn't let it. Ice was in its lungs, and I turned the ice into fire. It screamed again, but that didn't last long. I grabbed it by the throat and just started squeezing.

I felt the fire burning inside me, now. I threw the Enemy back down into the crater, deepening it in the process. I landed on top of the Enemy and just started throwing punches. Blow after blow after blow, I punched and punched and punched. It tried to scream one last time, but I still wasn't paying any attention to it. I was saying something, I don't know what. Whatever it was, I wasn't even paying attention to myself.

Suddenly, a hand grabbed me by the wrist and stopped me. I turned to see who or what it was, ready to lash out at them now. I was killing my Enemy, why couldn't I keep going? The Benefactor looked at me like I'd just committed a sin. "You can stop now, Timothy," he said, a sadness in his voice. "She's unrecognizable, now."

I looked down at my Enemy - at Anti-Charlie - and saw that he was right. Her face was a mess of blood, bone and teeth. One eye was hanging out of its socket, the other torn in two. No one would ever recognize this dead creature. They'd never know who or what she was, where she was from. And that wasn't even the worst part of it.

I'd done it.

I ripped my arm from the Benefactor's grip and then knocked him into the air with a violently strong backhand. "You did this to me!" I shouted/growled. It was like I was in animal mode, or something. "You made me kill her!"

He caught himself in the air, floated there, but that didn't stop me. I flew upward and slammed my fist into his face. He tried to match me, but he couldn't. I kicked him in the stomach, flew around behind him and elbowed him in the back of the head, thrust my fist through his chest. Unfortunately, the animal part of my brain that was obviously in control didn't realize that I was just wasting my time. The Benefactor had all the same powers as me, and had had them for longer. Even if I was hurting him, it didn't last long.

Eventually, he grabbed me by the throat. "I can see you need a time out, Timothy. Don't worry, when I can, I'll give you some of the answers you need." He squeezed, and I fell unconscious.

***

I awoke on the roof where I'd left Charlotte. She was waiting for me, a concerned look on her face. I shook off any questions she asked, and just sat there, thinking about what I'd just done. About what I'd been able to do. About what I'd said.

About what I'd become.

"I have to leave," was all I'd said to her, and she was understandably disappointed in that answer, but I didn't give her anything else. Instead, I concentrated, and traveled somewhere else. Another reality. I had to get away from that one, from the things I'd done there.

***

Where ever the hell it was that I appeared in, I landed in somebody's apartment. There was trash all over the floor, some major computer equipment in one corner, and a bed on one wall. If I could have seen my own face, I'm sure I would have been shocked, because laying on the bed was a human-shaped cat in a plain white tee-shirt.

The cat-girl opened her eyes for a second, saw me, then shrieked. She jumped onto all fours and I saw bared teeth. I held up my hands to show that I wasn't there to hurt her.

"Whoa! I'm not here to hurt you!" I also said it aloud. "I'm... from another dimension?" I said with apprehension. Cat-girls exist here, doesn't mean they know that alternate realities exist.

Her eyes lit up. "You, too?"

"This has happened before?"

"I'm from another dimension. I'm... yeah, not from here."

"Okay... voice of experience... um... Can you go back to your dimension?"

She shook her head. "No. I've been stuck here ever since I melded with my cat and got sucked through a dimensional rift, or something like - "

I cut her off. "Melded with your cat?"

"Yeah."

I shook my head. "I'm outta here." I concentrated on getting the hell away from there.

***

I opened my eyes and found myself in what looked like a desecrated shithole. Literally, too, I was stepping in shit. I quickly jumped out of the feces and used my water making powers to wash my shoes off. I had to figure out where I was.

I walked through the doorway in front of me and found myself... on the other side of a wall that was simply standing up in the middle of what looked like a bombing zone. I looked around to see if I could make out where I was, but I couldn't. My only clue was a poster that wasn't written in English. Actually, it looked an awful lot like Korean. Great. I'm in another one of those realities. I shook my head, then concentrated again.

On to the next one!

***

I opened my eyes in another building. This one was completely dark, save for the minimal light coming from the open door to my left. I thought about my different powers and then my hand started glowing, illuminating the room. I looked up at a large spider's web, with probably sixteen human-sized coccoons dotted around it.

"Light go away!" someone shouted, swatting at my hand. I looked in the direction of the voice and saw a horrific abomination of human and spider. Worse: It was Charlie. The Charlie of this reality, apparently, turned into a mutant spider, with her lower half being completely tarantula-like. Four legs, four arms, yep, eight limbs. She hissed at me with that weird spider-mouth she had.

"Oh, I'm gonna go away..." I said, closing my eyes. I heard her jump at me, but I managed to get out of there just in time.

***

The new reality I opened my eyes to was made out of candy, so I immediately shut my eyes and left again.

***

My next reality actually looked like East City, but things just looked... wrong somehow. I was on top of a building, and from there I could see a very large landmark, another building, with a giant rotating globe on top. I jumped down to the ground floor (AKA: The Street) and found a news stand. I paid the ridiculously cheap twenty-five cents for their most popular paper and found it to be called the Daily Planet, which, to me, meant it was probably that building with the globe.

"Hey," I said to the guy at the news stand. He leaned forward. "You got any super heroes here?"

He laughed. "Yeah, kid, we do. Look, up in the sky."

I did, and saw two very obvious things: a bird, and a plane. "What? The bird? The plane?"

He smacked me in the head, then pointed to a speck flying between the bird and the plane. "No, dumbass, Superman!"

Suddenly, the flying speck came a little closer to Earth and I saw the red cape and blue tights that did, indeed, signify Superman. I turned back to the news stand guy. "So. There a Gotham around here somewhere?"

"Huh? You talkin' about Jersey?"

Okay. Christopher Reeve Movie Superman. "No, thinking of something else, sorry." I walked around the corner into the alleyway and made my way to the next reality.

***

I appeared, this time, in a well-furnished office. Where all the writing appeared to be in Japanese. Why did I keep ending up in realities where things were Asian?! This is all punishment for failing miserably at trying to learn Chinese when I was younger, I know it is.

I was about to leave this reality when these two Japanese guys appeared from out of nowhere. I'm sure I had about as surprised an expression as they did. They said something to each other, but I couldn't understand it.

"Um... Either one of you know English?"

The shorter one with the rounder face and the glasses nodded. "Yes, we both speak English," he said, in a slightly ridiculous accent. Then again, it was probably his real accent. "Who are you?"

"Um... Tim. You?"

"My name is Hiro Nakamura, and this is my friend, Ando Masahasi."

The one named Ando asked, "Do you control time and space, like Hiro?"

I shook my head. Actually, that wasn't true. Penelope mentioned that I had time powers, who the hell knew, maybe I could travel through time and space. "Uh, are people with super powers common here?"

Hiro nodded. "Well, somewhat. I have met many, like Takezo Kensei, Peter Petrelli, Nathan Petrelli... um..."

I scratched my chin. Those names sounded awfully familiar. "Awesome," I said. "Any who hop realities?"

"Hop realities? What?"

I shook my head. "Never mind. Um... Bye...?"

"You are leaving?"

"Yeah, showing up here was kind of an accident."

"Ah, I see. I went back to the year sixteen seventy-one doing that."

"Awesome," I repeated, then I closed my eyes and moved onto the next reality.

***

My next reality looked, again, an awful lot like East City, but I was easily clued in to this one being different when I saw Stark Tower from The Avengers and watched as Iron Man destroyed one of those big leviathan things. Clearly, every movie ever made exists in its own parallel universe to our own. This is gonna take some time...

And of course, Thor landed beside me. "You, mortal boy!" he shouted at me. Damn, he really does do that. "'Tis not safe to be here. The Chitauri are invading Midgard, and the citizens of New York need to be elsewhere, out of harm's way."

I nodded. "Yeah, yeah, I know. By the way, the Hulk's gonna punch you in a little bit."

"What?"

"Bye." And I hopped to another reality.

***

Somehow, I ended up in the reality with the cat-girl again. I didn't give her a chance to speak before I hopped to a different reality.

***

The latest reality was looking closer and closer to mine. It actually felt like East City, this time. I looked around for any possible hints, but I couldn't see anything that would suggest this was my East City.

Until I saw Guardian flying across the sky.

I would have leaped up into the air and flown up there to tell Guardian just how happy I was to be back home, but then I saw him fly down to the El Train, pick it up, and throw it into the river. I realized quite quickly that this wasn't my reality, but I couldn't let Evil Guardian get away with that. I had the power to do something, may as well do it.

I finally leaped up into the sky and flew toward where Evil Guardian was, loosing his heat vision on a group of unsuspecting citizens. For a vague moment, I wondered why he'd be doing this, but that passed, and I just decided to hover there, arms crossed. Staring at him. He turned around and glared at me. "What, kid?"

"You got a reason to be killing these people?"

He shrugged. "It's fun."

I smiled. He didn't even notice the ice starting to form around his legs. "So's this." I covered his entire lower half in ice, then let gravity do its thing. He landed on the ground, smashed the ice and flew upwards at me. I cocked my fist back for a punch, and then shot my arm forward. And forward. And forward. Much like that elastic woman from a couple realities ago, my arm stretched out impossibly far, hitting Evil Guardian right in the face.

That didn't stop him, however. He recovered from my attack and let loose a powerful heat vision attack, which I didn't even jump out of the way from. For some reason, my body was on auto-pilot, and I literally swatted the heat vision blast away from me. This really pissed Evil Guardian off. He fired off more heat vision blasts in rapid succession, and all of them I either knocked away or absorbed into myself. I wondered if this was an effect of one of my powers.

Evil Guardian figured out that his blasts were useless, and instead flew toward me again. Auto-Pilot Me decided to counter his attack by doing the same thing. We each cocked back our arms, ready to punch, and when we did, there was a shockwave. That sounds non-chalant, but it's the best way I can describe such a large event. If anyone had been watching, they'd probably have a seizure.

The attack knocked Evil Guardian down to the ground while it knocked me into another reality.

***

I landed in a crater that was being pelted with rain. I looked around and saw tens of thousands of people in suits looking down at the crater. Not just tens of thousands of people in suits. Tens of thousands of the same guy wearing dark suits and dark sunglasses. The weirder part: That same guy was also in the crater, fighting a guy wearing a trenchcoat. Neither one of them were wearing sunglasses.

That was when I realized it. The Matrix. I was in the third movie. Don't know why this was a reality I went to, but what the hell? I did just go to the Marvel Cinematic Universe a little bit ago. Charlie was gonna geek out when I told her that. She'd probably ask me to take her there.

I closed my eyes, concentrated, and left this reality.

***

I opened my eyes, this time, to the reality where the Benefactor was considered a hero. I sat down on the closest curb and just took a breath. This was getting out of hand. What was I gonna do this time, hop somewhere where Charlie's a giant bird with seventeen eyes? I sighed. I needed to calm myself, and soon.

Of course, all the reality hopping itself wasn't helping. Things were starting to bleed together. Some realities had similarities, some were radically different. I had no real way of knowing whether or not that reality with the cat-girl had an East City, because all I ever saw of it was an apartment. That could have been anywhere.

"Tough to process, eh?" a voice behind me said. I looked up and saw him. The Benefactor. I would have tried to kill him, if not for the fact that I was tired as all hell. I just nodded. "I understand. I had that problem, too, when I first developed the reality shifting ability. You get all mixed up. You see places that look familiar, even friendly, and you lose the fact that it's not the same place you used to be." He pulled me to my feet. "But it's something you can never forget. Understand? It's something you need to remember."

I pushed his hands off of me. "Why the hell do you care? Why did you do this to me?!"

He didn't answer the question, he simply said, "Come. There's some things I want to show you." He pointed behind himself and a vortex appeared. I looked around and realized that no one else was moving. He must have frozen time so that he could open that vortex. He walked inside it and motioned for me to follow, so I did.

I walked out of the vortex into what looked like a super market. "What's this?" I asked. He pointed to the window. I watched as first a blinding flash of light erupted from an unknown source, then a shockwave of fire burst out in all directions. It ripped apart the super market, but the Benefactor stopped himself and I from being killed in the wave. I looked as the mushroom cloud grew, even while the explosion itself hadn't ended.

"This is your future," he said. "Not in your reality, not even in your timeline. But this is your future." He turned to me. "Everything you know will end. It's simply going to happen."

I grit my teeth. "And, what? I'm just supposed to let it?!"

"You can't stop it. My giving you powers is the act that caused it."

I grabbed him by the collar. "Then why the hell did you do it?!"

"To ensure it. Apparently you've forgotten, I'm the villain of this story, whether I've been beneficial or not. I don't help the heroes, I destroy them."

I pushed him aside. "Take me back, now. You've proven that you really can, so do it. If this - "I motioned to the destruction around us. " - is my future, then I want to spend what's left of it with Charlie."

He nodded. "She'll be the first casualty. It would be best if you spent your last moments with the one you love."

I balled my hands into fists. "What do you know about that?"

He tapped me in the forehead. "I've lived your life, I've lived hers. I've lived everyone's. I know every moment of love you've ever had. And I've known every moment of pain you've yet to have."

"If you know all this, why do you want to cause it?!"

He shook his head. "You're too young to understand. I'm going to send you to another point in time, this one not so long ago." He opened another vortex, grabbed me by the arm, and pulled me through with him.

The time we arrived in appeared to be extremely early. Probably pre-dawn of man, even. I didn't see or hear any living creatures, I just looked out upon an untouched landscape. It looked alien and beautiful and familiar all at the same time. It was the strangest thing.

"No, this isn't pre-dawn of man," the Benefactor said. He pointed across the way and I saw them: a group of hunters prowling around. Suddenly, a glowing white being appeared in front of one of the hunters, touched him on the forehead, and then a pink and green mist surrounded him. The Benefactor walked in front of me. "That was the dawn of the Chosen." He turned to look at me. "It's because of this event that people such as Charlie even exist."

"What are you talking about?"

He pointed at the still-pervasive mist. "If it weren't for that Chosen living on, procreating, and the children of that Chosen living on and procreating, there would be no Chosen. It's a big secret of the Choosers, that their precious specimens aren't randomly selected. No. They were chosen from an early age, before they even knew."

"You're saying that all the Chosen on this planet are descendants of him?"

"And the various others coming into existence all across the planet." He turned back to me. "Things would have turned out very differently had that event not happened."

"So why don't you stop it? You obviously want to be the strongest man alive, to slaughter billions, why don't you?"

He shook his head. "If I stop this event, I'll cease to exist. I can't stop the dawn of the Chosen, I can only destroy them all when I get the chance, and that chance is coming soon."

I shook my head. "Why the hell do you keep telling me this?"

He grabbed me by the throat. There's that throat grabbing again, goddamnit. "Because I want someone to know."

***

The Benefactor brought us out of another vortex. This one led to a building, one slightly more modern than our last location. It looked like there was a shootout going on. I saw ECPD on one side and a group of Upscales who were hiding out in the building. I looked around the room at all the tables covered with bags of white powder. Cocaine, I guessed, maybe meth. Either way, I didn't care, I just wanted to be out of the firefight.

"Wait," the Benefactor said. "There's something I want you to see."

Grudgingly (because I couldn't figure out my own time traveling powers), I waited for whatever it was the Benefactor wanted me to see. The shootout raged at least another thirty minutes before a man I had only seen recently in alternate realities walked in. Charlie's dad looked weird in a beat cop outfit, but he looked right at home pointing that gun at everybody.

"Hey! Lafayette! Get in here and get these guys handcuffed!" Mr. Harkins shouted. He didn't even pay any attention to us. We must have been invisible. "Get the photographer in here!" I watched as the cops went about their business, doing everything from bagging and toe tagging to cuffing and even taking what few witness depositions there were. "Hey! Kid!" Charlie's dad shouted, looking in my direction.

I looked around and I couldn't see the Benefactor. That bastard must have left me without keeping me invisible. The photographer snapped another picture, this one included me, but I made myself invisible before Charlie's dad got over to me. He looked around, surprised, then shook it off. "Must've been dreamin'."

"No, sarge, there was a kid there. I got him on the photos."

"Then where the hell did he go?"

"I dunno."

Charlie's dad shook his head. "Forget about it. We've got other shit to worry about."

Another cop shouted, "Sarge! Dispatch!"

He grabbed the radio clipped to his shoulder. "Go for Harkins."

Over the radio, I heard the dispatcher say, "Sergeant Harkins, grab yourself a cigar! Hospital just called, you're officially a father!" I saw Mr. Harkins' eyes widen in surprise, then he grabbed and hugged the nearest other officer. He was cheering like a wild man.

"C'mon," the Benefactor said. I turned around and saw him standing by the vortex. "You saw what I needed you to see."

"Charlie's dad the day she was born?"

He nodded.

***

I don't know when I fell unconscious, but I know when I woke up. I looked around and saw my bedroom, exactly as it had beeen when Harmony rushed in and kidnapped me. I burst from my room, looking for my parents. They were both looked shocked. "Timmy?" Mom said. "Oh! Timmy! What happened? How'd you get here?"

I shook my head. "Too much to tell ya, ma. Long story short, I've got more in common with Charlie now."

Dad asked, "You shoot webs?"

"And then some. I've gotta run, I'll be back as soon as possible, okay?" I didn't give them a chance to answer, I simply ran. It probably didn't help that I super speed ran, but I needed to get to Charlie. I needed to. She needed to know. I had to tell her everything.

***

Charlie Harkins heard a rapid knocking on her bedroom door. Groggily, she awoke, got up from her bed, and stumbled her way to her door. She opened it to Tim, looking like he'd been run through a washing machine.

"Babe, I've got so much to tell you!" he said, an intensity to his voice she'd never heard from him.

Charlie yawned. "Okay. Lemme get some coffee, okay?"

***

Charlie sat crosslegged on her bed, yawning. I was pacing the room, talking a mile a minute, telling her the whole story. Not once as I was talking did she ask questions, nor did she ever call me crazy. She didn't ask for me to demonstrate any of my powers, but that probably had to do with the fact that I was demonstrating them in the room, setting off her smoke detector once, even.

"And then, I did some rapid-fire reality hopping, for reasons I still can't explain, and I think I went to probably a thousand different realities, like one with this cat-girl and one with these two Japanese guys... I even - "

"Tim," she said, cutting me off. I stopped pacing and looked at her. "What about you made this Benefactor guy pick you?"

"Huh?"

"Baby, I don't mean anything by this, but... why you?"

I shrugged. "I don't know! And he never told me, other than because he was 'like me'."

She raised an eyebrow. "As in you both got your powers synthetically, or what?"

"I don't know. It didn't make any sense to me. Hell, this whole... adventure didn't make any sense to me. I saw so many different versions of you, one of them was a cheerleader, one of them - "

She cut me off again. "A cheerleader?"

"Yeah. She went by Charlotte, and her dad was still alive."

"Charlotte? I can't even stand Charlotte."

"I know that. Still, this wasn't you."

"Well, it kinda was. I mean, technically, she was me had my life taken a different turn."

"No, I don't think so."

"Why's that?"

"Well, because there, Chosen were fugitives."

"Oh."

"And then there was this other one, where that Charlie was half spider."

"Gross."

"And..."

"What?"

"One where that Charlie was just like you were, except when she was wearing Joker make-up."

"What?"

"Yeah. I... I didn't want to talk about that one."

"Joker make-up? As in worked for the Joker?"

"As in called him 'Uncle J' and treated him like he was her father. She also had different powers, she shot energy blasts out of her hands."

"But, before the Joker make-up came on, she was just like me, right?"

I nodded. "Yeah."

"Sounds like that Melody girl I dealt with in Los Milagros."

"Huh?"

"She was this weird kind of Chosen, but these government guys came and took her away after I softened her up for 'em."

I thought back to when the Benefactor had me in his lab, and I remembered. Melody Hunter, the terror of Los Milagros. Isn't that what he called her? I'd seen the news when all that stuff was going down. That girl had murdered hundreds. And now she was with the Benefactor.

"What is it?" Charlie asked.

"That Melody Hunter... She's with him."

"Him who? The Benefactor?"

I nodded. "He also had Harmony Sprite and some other girl named Korra."

She raised an eyebrow. 'Wait, huh? Harmony? The Harpie girl with the super powers?"

"The wha - "

She cut me off again. "Do not ask me what a Harpie is!"

I held my hands up defensively. "Okay, okay. Sorry."

There was a knock on the door. Charlie got up, walked past me, and opened it to reveal her mother standing there. Mrs. Harkins looked surprised to see me. "Timmy, what are you doing here? It's two o'clock in the morning."

"He's... well... It's a long story, Mom."

I nodded. "I was, um... Y'see, a lot happened to me tonight, and I - " That was when it hit me. "Heroes!"

Both Charlie and her mom both looked confused.

"The reality with the two Japanese guys, Heroes. Remember, the time traveler who's dad was Sulu from Star Trek?" Neither one of them said anything. "What?"

Charlie turned back to her mom. "So, what is it?"

"I just got paged, I need to head out to the hospital."

"Okay."

"The hospital," I asked.

Charlie closed the door. Her mom had left. "Yeah. My mom's an on-call nurse. Didn't I tell you that?"

"No."

"Oh. Sorry." She grabbed me by the arm, opened the door, and shoved me out into the hall. "Now, go babysit my little brother until I get dressed, okay?"

I went to protest, but she had already shut the door. Instead, I just sighed. Babysit Chris? That's easy, after what I just went through. Maybe it'd actually be a little fun, I don't know. I walked out into the living room and saw Chris lying in his crib. He made a baby noise then I think he made a mess in his diaper. I shrugged, then picked him up. Charlie had taught me how to change diapers a few weeks before, when I had to babysit the kid.

Hrmph. A few weeks. Feels like a few years ago, now. I went through so much shit in those alternate realities, I felt like I was ten years older. I took off the crappy diaper and went to get another when I felt a weird shock. I dropped the diaper, thankfully in the trash, and then fell backwards. Smoke filled the room for a moment.

I coughed, then stood up, and where, moments before, there had been a six month old child, there now sat a fourteen year old kid, desperately trying to cover his privates. "What the hell?!"

Charlie ran out of her room, still not totally dressed. She was wearing jeans, but the only thing she had on up top was a bra. "What was that?" she asked, concern in her voice.

The kid covered his eyes while still trying to cover his crotch. "Oh, God," he said. "I'm seeing my sister in her underwear."

Charlie covered herself. "Chris?! What the hell happened to you?"

I raised my hand. "I think I did that."

"What the hell did you do to my little brother?!"

"I don't know! I still don't know half the goddamn powers I have!"

The kid I now knew was an older Chris removed the hand from his face and asked, "Can somebody get me some clothes, please?"

Charlie nodded quickly, then ran back into her bedroom. I turned to face away from him, because seeing another guy's dick was something I just didn't want to do. A moment later, Charlie returned with a handful of clothes, having also quickly put on a shirt herself. "Here, pick something. Quick!"

She walked over to me, turning away from her little brother. I leaned in and whispered, "Why do you have guy clothes?"

She turned red-faced. "Um... I..."

Fourteen year old Chris answered, "Because she used to be a guy."

My eyes widened. "What?!"

She shrugged. "Well, it never seemed like it was something I had to explain, 'cuz we were... y'know..." She looked at me. "What?!"

"You used to be a guy? I've been dating a transgender chick this whole time?"

"Kinda... um... I dunno?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I'm only a girl 'cuz I was Chosen."

"What?"

"Yeah. All the Chosen are like that. They were one gender, they got Chosen, then they were the other. I'm not the only one."

"So, Seeker used to be a girl?"

"Yeah."

"Same with Guardian, and... Wait, what about Knight?"

"He's just a regular guy in a costume, not a super powered Chosen. He's a hero, just not with powers."

"And you've been keeping this from me the whole time? Wait a minute, why the hell were you keeping your old clothes?"

She pulled a piece of fabric from her back pocket. "I knit scarfs in my spare time."

"You do?"

"What?! It's peaceful!"

***

Charlie sat across the table from her now-teenaged brother, who was busy chowing down on a bowl of Cheerios. He moaned almost orgasmically for a second, then gulped and said, "This stuff is way better than baby food!"

Charlie passed him a napkin. "Well, clean yourself up. You're makin' a mess."

He took the napkin from her and did as she instructed. "Thanks."

"Why aren't you acting like a baby, anyway?"

He shrugged. "I don't know."

"I mean, it only makes sense that you would, right? You were only six months old five minutes ago."

"I really don't know." He jerked a thumb towards Timmy, who was pacing the floor again. He's gonna wear a hole in the floor doing that. And, who the hell knows, one of his powers may actually be to wear holes in things. "Ask him. He did it."

"Tim, why isn't my little brother acting like the baby he was five minutes ago?"

Tim shrugged. "I don't know!"

"Did I make you mad because you just found out I used to be a boy?"

"No, it's more along the lines of I could kill both of you because I don't know what I can do!"

Chris wolfed down more Cheerios. Charlie sighed. They'd need more. "He needs to chill out," Chris said.

She sighed again, then walked over to her overanxious boyfriend and webbed his feet to the floor. "Stop, okay? Just stop."

"I'm only stopping so that you feel like you did something," he said, grabbing her hands and rubbing at them. "I could break free from this stuff easily. I can make this stuff."

"You do webs, too? Do you have any of my other powers? Wall-crawling, spider sense?"

"What's that last one?"

"Spider sense? Danger warning sense? It tells me when there's danger."

"That, I know I've got that one."

"Okay. And you say that this Benefactor guy has all these powers because he... erm... killed all these Chosen before? Even me?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. He said he's lived everyone's life, too. He said a lot of things, and I can't figure out half of them. Plus, there's no guarantee he was even telling the truth! He's supposed to be the bad guy, from his own words, but he goes around letting people call him the Benefactor."

"Wait, what? Letting?"

"Yeah. He said that's what people call him, that his real name wasn't important."

"So, this guy doesn't even use that name himself?"

"Well, people in that alternate reality called him that, too, so I imagine he told them that that was his name."

"But he didn't make it up himself?"

"I guess not, no."

"That means that his image is largely made up by the opinions of his subordinates."

"Huh?"

"Like, um... Well... Actually, I'm having a hard time thinking about anybody. Um... Well, I guess, the Wizard of Oz?"

"Huh?"

"Well, people thought he was this big floating green head, but he was just a guy behind a curtain."

"And you're saying that the Benefactor's kind of like that?"

Charlie shrugged. "I don't know. It just sounded good at the time." She locked her fingers between his. "Look, just because you have all these powers doesn't mean you can't control them."

He shook his head. "Doesn't change what I did to Chris."

Chris said, "Saved me from potty training, years of time outs and being teased by a sister who was twice my age? All fine, to me!"

Charlie rolled her eyes. "Stopped me from having an actual baby brother?"

***

Chris Harkins didn't feel weird in any way, despite the fact that he had been prematurely aged fourteen years. Somehow, knowledge that any fourteen year old would have was already downloaded into his head, as if whatever it was that Tim had done to age him had helped him avoid being seen as awkward. Whatever the reason, he was glad.

He wasn't glad, however, to be sitting in a hotel room that overlooked a warehouse on the outskirts of the city. Charlie was sitting beside him, munching down on Doritos. He would have been doing the same, but eating an entire box of Cheerios negated any need to eat that he had. He was just bored.

"How long do we have to be here?" he asked.

Charlie shrugged. "'Til we see something, I guess. Tim said this was the building in the other reality that he realized had been the one in this reality that the Benefactor had shot him up with super powers."

"That didn't make much sense."

She shrugged again. "I crawl on walls and shoot webs out of my wrist. My friend jumped long distances and could feel where people were through the ground. My boyfriend has more super powers than a man with a million fingers can count. Seeing as this has been our reality for several months now, nothing makes sense." She munched on a few more Doritos. "Oh, need I remind you that you were still in diapers this morning?"

He yawned. "No." He grabbed the binoculars and looked at the entrances that they could see. "So, why isn't he here, busting this place down? He's sure this is the place, right?"

"He said he needed a place to rest, in peace and quiet."

"Where's he gonna find that here?"

She shrugged again. "The sky, maybe? He says he can fly, now."

Chris set the binoculars down and leaned back in his chair. "If these guys are so secretive, do you guys really think any of 'em are just gonna walk out the door and take a leak?"

"Well, considering only one of them has a dick, the other three aren't likely gonna go outside to pee."

"It was all I had."

"I know." She yawned, now. "You know Mom's gonna freak, right?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

"And, if Dad were still alive, he'd be taking you to the first ball game this season."

He smiled. "I know."

"I miss Dad. I wish you could have known him longer than a couple months."

He nodded. "Me, too."

"He would have loved having a son, again." She looked to her side, out the window, then dropped the Doritos bag. "Hey, what's that?"

Chris grabbed the binoculars again and lifted them to his eyes. He saw someone walking up to the warehouse, someone with scruffy brown hair. "I... I think it's your boyfriend."

Charlie grabbed her mask and pulled it over her face. "Fuck!"

***

I reached out toward the giant roller door at the front of the building, using my telekinesis. I ripped the door off the building, then walked walked inside. I had to find them. I had to stop them. There was nothing else left to do. The Benefactor wanted that future with the fire, he wasn't getting it. I was going to turn this curse of powers into a weapon against him. Against him.

I ran forward, further into the building. In the other reality, it was six rooms in. I broke down walls, ripped open doors. I had to find him. There was no other choice. I finally found my way into the room where he did it and...

And nothing. There was no one there. The freshly dead body of that Cloak guy was the only thing there. I wondered if there had even been any lag between my going to the alternate realities and waking up in my bedroom. I may have only been gone seconds to this reality, even though it had been days.

"Dammit!" I shouted, kicking the corpse hard enough to knock the head clean off, into the wall. It splattered against the wall, sending blood flying around the room.

"Jesus, that's gross!" Charlie said, behind me. I spun around to see her standing there, wearing plain clothes save for her mask. "Did you kill that guy?"

I shook my head. "No. The Benefactor did, before I got sent to those alternate realities."

"Well, why'd you kick his head off?"

"Because I wanted that bastard to be here! I wanted to kill him!"

"Um... Okay."

I sighed. "You don't get it. He's going to cause everyone to die. He told me that giving me powers was the first step toward that, and I need to stop that."

"Well, not by yourself."

"Who's gonna help me, Charlie? Who?"

She meekly raised her hand. "Your super powered girlfriend? Plus, there's Guardian, Knight, Angel, whoever's left in Pine Ridge, that Banter Industries super team in Glassview City and those weirdos in Los Milagros. You're one of us, now. And that means that you'll always have help."

I looked at her, and saw something that surprised the hell out of me. Charlie wasn't just the same girl to me, now. I've loved her since the first time I saw her, but that was just ordinary teenage love. Instead, I saw that this girl standing in front of me wasn't just any other girl. I truly loved her, now. And I really didn't want her to die.

"Charlie... I can't... I can't let you help."

"Why?"

"Because, he told me... You'd be the first to die."

I couldn't see her eyes under her mask, but I imagine they were widened in horror. "What?"

I nodded. "I can't let you die, Charlie. I love you, and I don't just mean in the normal teenager I love you, I love you too way. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and I don't want you to suffer what this bastard has planned."

She grabbed my hand. "Then I'm helping."

"No!"

"Timothy Barthalomew Saul!" I winced as she said my full name. I didn't remember telling her my middle name was Barthalomew. Dammit, Mom... "The only way I'm not helping is if you kill me now, and considering you finally told me you loved me, I don't think that's gonna happen any time soon."

"You could die."

"Then I die fighting side-by-side with the one I love. And that's important to me. I've always done what I think is right, and I think this is right."

I pulled her mask off, grabbed her face, pulled her close and kissed her in the closest thing to passionately that I think I've ever been able to do.

***

Chris helped Charlie go through some of the boxes that the Benefactor's people had left behind. He couldn't even figure out what some of that crap had been, let alone what it could have done. He poked around in one of the boxes and found a notebook. He picked through it, saw that it belonged either to some girl named Korra, a girl named Stephanie, or a guy named Brandon. All three of them seemed to have written their names in the small box that read property of. The creepy thing was that all three of them wrote with the same handwriting.

He tossed the notebook away and picked up another box, this one significantly heavier. "Jesus, what the hell did they keep in this thing?"

"Open it up and see," Charlie said, looking through some papers. "Man, that Cloak guy did some freaky things to Chosen. Looks like he'd been doing it since the Dark Ages."

Chris opened the box, reached inside and pulled out a weird looking robot head. "What the heck does this thing do?" He looked over at Charlie, who looked like she'd just seen a ghost. "What?"

"Gimme that," she said, shooting a webline at it and yanking it out of his hands. C'mon, sis, that was kinda rough! "Holy shit..."

"What?"

"The Harpies... um... HARP, Humans Against Rising Powers, they're a bunch of assholes who hate Chosen because we have super powers. They think that we think that we're superior to humans."

"Don't some of you?"

She glared at him. "Not the point, Chris. The point, is that HARP builds these robots."

"And?"

"Charlie!" Tim shouted from another room. The brother and sister team followed the sound of his voice, where Tim threw a switch and illuminated the entire room. All six miles of it. It took Chris a second to remember that they'd traveled down stairs to get to where they were. They were underground.

"Holy shit..." Charlie repeated. "This means..."

"It means exactly what he told me. He said he's been playing HARP. He meant he's been running HARP."

Chris couldn't believe what he was seeing. Six entire miles of eight foot tall robots, all of them decked out with one deadly looking weapon or another. He felt Charlie grab his hand. He couldn't understand why she wasn't grabbing her boyfriend's hand, but then he realized that Tim was too busy holding onto the railing, looking like he was about to give an army a command.

He could, too, Chris thought, if we can figure out how to reprogram these things.

***

The Benefactor watched on the screen as Tim, Charlie and Christopher looked out upon his robots, and he smiled. All was going according to plan. Now, he would wait. He would wait until the time was right for his final step. The step he'd spent countless lifetimes planning. The step that would ensure the future he wanted.

The Benefactor took a sip of coffee, and then smiled again.