On a small volcanic island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, which was devoid of life but brimming with possibility, a great battle took place. The battle had not been secluded to one area but had raged across the entire landmass. The bodies of superheroes, villains and monsters of various shapes and sizes were strewn all around in lifeless poses. A strange green smoke seeped from the ground like a snake and drifted away in a light breeze. Toward the inner portion of the island, the last vestiges of the battle played out.
Five superheroes surrounded a man who was sitting with his back against a boulder, beaten and bloodied. He was grabbing his ribs and breathing laboriously with his eyes closed.
“You’re defeated Chaos…” said one of the heroes who surrounded him.
Chaos Stream barked out a bitter laugh, “Defeated? I’ve already won.” He opened his eyes at that and looked around at each of the superheroes in turn. “You didn’t notice while you were beating me senseless?”
But the superheroes did notice and they all looked at each other nervously. Even if they didn’t notice the sky splitting open and the intense pressure it produced, there was no way to miss the screens that popped up in their vision.
The man who was initially talking began again. He was a tall, muscular man, dressed in Camouflage armor. As he spoke, a spike of blue energy formed around his fist, extending almost a meter out, and its tip sizzled the ground. Major Strike, leader of the Justice Coalition said, “Tell us what it is you did and how to reverse it, or you’ll pay.”
“I sowed chaos and now we just need to see what grows,” Chaos Stream declared and more than barked laughter. This time his laugh was long and maniacal. Tears streamed down his face and the laughter became higher pitched and tinged with insanity. “What’s done is done and can’t be undone.”
“What did you do?” Major Strike yelled.
“Idiots! Fools! As if your feeble minds could understand.” Chaos laughed again for a moment, then continued. “I merged…everything! Everything that ever was, is or will be. Desires and thoughts, Shakespeare’s monkeys, and the dreams in dreams.”
“What is he saying? Has he gone mad?” Asked another superhero aloud. This man was dressed in a long blue robe and held a staff of blue ice.
“I told you that you wouldn’t understand. You lose and I win. The world has changed and your power is now meaningless.”
“We need to bring him in to answer for his crimes, whatever they may be,” said a third hero, Beastkin. His skin was a dark cordovan and he wore baggy clothes that would fit in different ways when his body changed shape to various creatures, which were an amalgamation of human and beast. “I’ll get ahold of The Council and tell them the situation.”
“Yes, by all means, please do. I dearly want to see what the world is like now,” Chaos Stream said, then began to get off the ground.
“Stay down psycho” Major strike said, but Chaos Stream continued to slowly rise, using the rock for support.
“Major, I can’t get ahold of anyone. All our communication and electronic equipment seem to be dead,” Beastkin said after a moment of fiddling with a small black box in his hands.
“Ooh, imagine all the people that died in planes since technology broke. Such a tragedy, but you can’t make an omelet without killing some people.” Chaos Stream smiled maniacally at Major Strike; he loved pushing people’s buttons and getting them to act against their nature.
His words certainly struck a chord with the Major, but he had more discipline than that, so while he wanted to pound Chaos Stream for his flippant attitude about killing, he waited until he could gather more information.
“All my systems are working,” said Techno Knight. “But I can’t get ahold of anyone either, it seems that orbital communication satellites are dead. That is the only explanation for me not being able to send a message.”
“How about you Rime Time?” Major Strike asked the man with the ice staff. “Can you use your magic to check it out?”
“Rime Time?” Chaos Stream scoffed. “What kind of a name is that?”
“I thought you were some type of genius? Don’t you know that rime is another word for ice?” Rime Time asked haughtily.
“Oh, you mean like a coating of ice? Yes, I knew that, but it seems you didn’t. Where did you get that word from, the thesaurus of a word document?” Rime Time’s face flushed red with embarrassment. “You did? LAME!” Chaos Stream laughed loudly. “How is anyone supposed to know that’s what you meant when your name literally rhymes? I thought you were some type of magical rapper. You should have used Blizzard Wizard that would have been cooler. Ha, cooler….”
Rime Time’s staff started to glow as he prepared a spell to shut Chaos Stream up.
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“Rime,” Major Strike said. “Just ignore him. We have to find out what he did.”
Rime Time’s staff continued to glow as he glared a Chaos Stream. Chaos Stream met his gaze with a knowing grin.
Rime turned his head and spun his arm in a circle creating a disc of ice that floated in the air. He struck his staff on the ground and started to chant in a harmonious, druidic tongue.
“That’s very soothing,” Chaos Stream said. “But I think you need a big chunk of wood to smack yourself over the head with every couple seconds.” Chaos Stream looked around at the blank stares of superheroes. “What? No one gets the reference?”
Techno Knight coughed and it sounded eerily similar to “Monty Python.”
“I like this guy,” Chaos Stream said pointing at Techno Knight. “Maybe I won’t kill you after this.” Techno Knight powered up his arm cannon and took a step toward Chaos Stream. “Aww, did I hurt your widdle feewings?”
The chanting stopped and Rime Time yelled, “Could you please shut him up? I need to concentrate for this spell.”
Major Strike walked up to Chaos Stream purposefully, the superhero wanted him to know the gravity of the situation and that he was serious as he asked, “Are you going to be quiet, or do I have to shut you up?”
“You’re going to have to shut-” A loud clack sounded as chaos Stream’s teeth were forced together from the strength of Major Strike’s blow to his jaw.
Chaos Stream was lifted into the air and his back slammed against the rock he had used to pick himself off the ground. He slid back to the ground but he wasn’t unconscious. He dropped to his knees and steadied himself on the ground with his right arm extended.
“-me up,” Chaos stream finished his sentence and spat blood. “They should call you Sissy Slap with hits like that, or Aggravated Assault. Oh, I know, Domestic Abuse.” Major Strike’s eyes widened as Chaos Stream smiled with a malicious gleam in his eye. “Yeah, I know-” Chaos Stream’s sentence was once again cut off by a hit from Major Strike. He fell to the ground, but Major Strike didn’t take any chances and struck him again and then one more time to be sure.
“Do your spell,” Major Strike ordered. “What’s the status?” He asked immediately afterward, not letting anyone get a word out.
At least three of the other heroes made a mental note to look into the words uttered by Chaos Stream once they got back home. Unfortunately, that mental note was wholly forgotten as Rime Time relayed the results of his spell. He was confused at first with what he was seeing. So confused that he started to talk, only to stop and then start again, and this process repeated a few times before Major Strike yelled at him to, “Get yourself together,” and “Spit it out.”
“I see scenes of destruction and lots of death when I look closely. Er, at street level. Whatever he did…there’s bodies everywhere. But worse than that, I see people fighting and killing, but it’s on a different scale than before and it doesn’t seem to be a panicked killing, more of a controlled violence. There’s also people banding together and fighting alongside each other, but they’re fighting all types of different creatures. It’s sort of overwhelming, all the different things I see. What’s most disturbing though, is when I try to look at a large portion of the globe at once. It’s as if it’s changed.
“What do you mean changed?” Major Strike asked.
“It’s hard to explain,” Rime Time didn’t take his eyes off his disc as he continued to speak. “Take North America for example, I can see its shape, but it’s not right. I would have to compare it to a map, but it looks like it isn’t shaped the same. Florida is cut off and it even looks like Alaska is a little smaller. The mountain ranges look like they are in different places and the colors are wrong, it’s like the deserts and forests are in different places than they were.”
“What about the cities?” Beastkin asked.
“San Francisco looks to be in ruins like it was struck by a giant earthquake,” Rime Time stated dreamily, overwhelmed by what he was seeing and in a state of shock.
“What about New York?” Major Strike asked.
“It’s-” Rime Time Paused for a moment. “It’s gone,” he said finally.
“Destroyed?”
“No, there are trees and forests and hills there. It’s just gone.”
“The fuck,” Major Strike muttered and went over to the unconscious form of Chaos Stream. He grabbed him by the front of his black button-down shirt, lifted him off the ground, and started shaking him violently. “Wake up you son of a bitch! You have some explaining to do. Wake up! Where are they? What did you do with them?” He didn’t get a response since Chaos Stream was still clearly unconscious with his arms hanging limply to the ground. “Wake up!” He yelled one more time and threw Chaos Stream to the ground so hard that he bounced slightly.
An awkward silence fell upon the area for a moment as the other superheroes not only stared at the shaking form of Major Strike but were also lost in their own muddled thoughts. Major Strike took a moment to calm his rage and try to get ahold of himself, but too many thoughts flew through his mind that made him feel as if he was trying to watch a movie by staring at a reel of film as it was being unwound.
“What else is there?” He asked Rime Time in an attempt to give him something else to think about.
“Well-” Rime Time began but he was interrupted.
“Uhhnnn,” moaned Chaos Stream as he regained consciousness. Major Strike went back to him, picked him up by his shirt and dangled him at arm’s length.
“Where is it you monster?” Major Strike yelled in Chaos Stream’s face. He was quickly losing his cool at the state of the world and the fate of the people in New York City. New York was his usual base of operations and that was where his wife, well, ex-wife and his young son lived. He was the only one who could protect them and if it was gone, he failed. If he failed, then to him, there was no more point in anything.
Chaos Stream lifted his head up and looked over to the only superhero that had yet to speak. “You’re awfully quiet over there,” he slurred from the beating and lisped from newly broken teeth and swollen lips. “What do you think of all this?”
“His voice is his weapon, he won’t answer you,” Major Strike said not thinking about either the ridiculousness of the question nor his normal response.
Oh,” Chaos stream said and then lifted his arm up and flipped the silent superhero off.
With that simple action, Major Strike lost all composure and patience. He activated his power, the Strike Blade lighting up and extending from his fist. It crackled like lightning but its power moved like lava. Major Strike reared back and then plunged the blade into the chest of Chaos Stream. Blood poured from his back as the life drained from his eyes, but he had a smile on his face while the heroes wore masks of shock.