Earth X: A World Without Heroes

[MCP_8000]

Earth X
A World Without Heroes

The disorientation of the sudden transport fades slowly, and it takes even superhuman eyes a moment to adjust from normal earth sunlight to the brilliant pure white glow of the new location. This is not the world you came from, and in fact, you are almost positive it is not a true world at all.

You stand in a vast, seemingly endless corridor that stretches in either direction far past your ability to see, fading into a white, glowing mist at the edges of reality. The ceiling soars above your heads, arched and vaulted like a cathedral and decorated in sweeping patterns of embossed gold and ivory. The walls of the corridor appear hazy, as if made of the same luminescent mist that crawls around your ankles, but you are somehow certain they are as solid as any stone or metal in existence.

Great pillars of marble stand along the walls like silent sentinels. Between each pillar is a door. Not a physical door or wood or stone, but an open, shimmering portal that ripples like the surface of a pond. Through each portal you can make out a sweeping, ever moving image of what looks like Earth, but not your Earth. Each portal seems to open onto a different version of your home. Some seem so similar you might mistake them for your own, while others are so radically different as to be unrecognizable. Some appear mundane, while some are so filled with chaos that it hurts your mind to look on them.

You have a few moments to take in your surroundings, as well as the presence of the other heroes standing with you in this endless corridor of Earths, before a figure materializes from the mist. She is tall, towering above you, with a regal presence that demands your attention and respect. However, her features are kind and gentle, exuding a motherly aura that envelops you with assurances of safety and protections. She is beauty incarnate, in a way you suspect is drawn from your own expectations of the meaning. She is otherworldly, alien and exotic, yet so familiar it brings a longing ache to your heart for something you can't quite remember.

When she speaks, it is with a melodic voice that echoes through the corridor, yet seems to be meant for your ears alone, "Greetings heroes. Be welcome on the Causeway of Worlds."

[Lord Raziere]

Neosight:
She is....overwhelmed by all the things she perceives. Neosight has a vast array of psychic senses that make her....see far more than most. What is already a vast array of worlds to most is even more of a sight from her point of view, bits of past and future drift by, waves of infrared light only she can see, radiowaves and other things only she can hear, things like that. More than one can truly describe. So when she sees this....being she perceives her beauty in ways most will never know as well. She blushes a little under her helmet. Neosight could tell this being was probably divine in some manner, it was obvious to anyone. A being of great respect and power as well as great beauty. But....divine beings tended to be more trouble than their worth if one associated with them too much and she should focus on the task at hand.
"H-hello. I am Neosight. May I-er, we please know your name, Miss? I believe you called us here for something that needs doing?"
She looks around at the other heroes. Clearly people from other universes all called for the same purpose. She thinks. She might be getting the future and past mixed up again. All she knows right now is that she was floating in the random cosmos between universes or dimensions and didn't want to go back.
"By the way I'm thankful for you rescuing me, I was stuck floating in the random cosmos between dimensions and universes after a plan of mine had gone a little awry. I'll gladly be of help in return."

[Darkstorm]

Qareh... No... Amun Ra was standing among the wispy clouds and the large columns. He didn't remember when he had transformed, but somehow, maybe as a reaction, maybe as a safeguard he had.

He stood there more than 2,5 meters high. A true god encarnated, but... as he looked at the woman he felt another kind of power. Larger, different.
It wasn't the cult or something malign. Of that he was sure. He felt it in his magic bones.

Around him thousands of worlds. He could see some filled with lava and vulcanic activity, others of oceans and water, as his was filled with sand.

He looks at the woman and says "By the Gods I, Amun Ra greet you! May their blessing shine on us today and allow us to speak only the truth!"


Amun will use his expertises to see if he heard/knows/read something about this causeway of worlds and the woman
Expertise mythology [roll0]
Expertise Magic [roll1]

[Phobia]

Gravity Gal blinked a few times as the adjustment period faded. Here she was in full costume, and why? Lordly, she could barely recall.

Almost immediately she pulled up her glove and punched a few buttons on a wrist device emblazoned with the Super Alliance logo.

“Come in, Super Alliance, can you read me? I’m looking around this freaky place..” Gravity Gal looked around the room, trailing off as her eyes roamed over the gathered mass and the woman responsible for bringing them here. She frowned and pressed another button. It seemed like she was outside of her team’s call zone. That had to mean an alternate dimension. God she hoped she didn’t have to fight her own evil doppelgänger again. Once was enough.

Aw heck, was someone gonna pick up her kids from school?! Steve will probably do it. Fingers crossed he isn’t ticked off.

“Why have you brought us here?” She offered to the figure after a moment. The presence of her touched her deep; tender with a hint of nostalgia. Like a sad movie and a bucket of ice cream. Charlotte was nearly about to cry already. Divine beings were tricky and it looked like there were two of them to contend with.

Good thing she saw a familiar face. Charlotte flushed with relief when she spotted Sovereign and gave him a little bit of a wave. Wait just a dang minute, was that even her Sovereign? Dang it! Now she doubted it and looked like a total idiot waving to him. Hopefully he wasn’t evil.

Gravity Gal was still going to approach him when she saw something that demanded her attention even more. What was she doing here? The woman advanced on her. That infamous super-villain and criminal mastermind...

“Psychosight?” She questioned Neosight.

[Lord Raziere]

Neosight:
"What? No, my name is Neosight. The only being I know of that sounds similar to that name is my former comrade, Psycho-Might. Its a long story, but basically we were both students of the same hero, I was a pure telepath, she was a pure telekinetic. Differences....accrued until she snapped in jealousy and killed our mentor, I had to concoct a plan to get out of my universe since I couldn't face her directly and well...its how I ended up here pretty much. I'm guessing your referring to some villainous alternate version of myself."
She makes the standard thinking pose of putting her hand over her chin.
"Sigh....why is it always the smart masterminds that end up the villain? Civilization is built not on force but on planning and the willingness to explore new ideas. Our minds are our greatest tool to help solve our problems. Sad to see that some turn it to darker ends. Apparently even, an alternate self. Hmm...I probably don't want too many details but can you tell me whether I fell more towards a selfish villain psychological profile or a selfless extremist villain profile, it would help inform the contingency plans I should write up for my own universe to give to other heroes in case I ever fall myself and maybe this group as well if we work together long enough. The two kinds of villain are very different in goals and motivation after all and while given my current mindset I'd probably tend towards breaking in a selfless extremist direction there is always the possibility of psychological break where one instead decides to stop caring to indulge their own desires at the expense of others in response to an unfair, cruel world.

However another contingency worth writing up would be the possibility of Psychosight deciding to hop universes and take their chances on other Earths in which case they might either try to eliminate or recruit me, as they, knowing my own mind better than anyone would know all the desires they could tempt me with, in which case I'll have to make sure I can resist whatever I offer myself and be prepared to match wits with my own counterpart in whatever scheme they'd be trying to pull, but the question is what scenario would I if I was evil decide to do all that in the first place? What would I be after? Questions for later.

I apologize. I was rambling. Hm, maybe thats where some villains get their monologuing tendencies from....as for you all, I admit there are many superheroes and villains in my world and I don't really know all of them. I'll try to remember if I've seen a version of you among them as my precognitive abilities take me to many places to help prevent disasters before they happen...."

[Dr.Gunsforhands]

An android stands still and listens helplessly as Neosight goes on about psychology and parallel universes. Her silver eyes dart nervously from the monologue-prone sentai character to the other collected heroes to the mysterious summoner cosplaying as Palutena.

LXI - the droid's name and model, sort of - is embroidered in place of a name tag on her uniform-torso, using the same metallic fabric that comprises the rest of her body. Other than being made of shiny tinsel, she looks human enough, though Coinshot's metal sense might be going a little nuts in her presence. It's as though someone packed an entire aluminum factory in a small person-shaped package.

"Um, hello!" she says, raising her hand when it seems to be her turn. "If we're introducing ourselves, I am Lexi Egbolt, Sky Tether 63, from Budhapest. I'm afraid I don't know much about superheroes. Your costumes are all amazing, though!"

Between the impressive company and the fantastical portals - likely simulated, but still fancier than anything she can do - it seems very unlikely that this is all just a show for Lexi's benefit. She doesn't remember how she got to this superhero convention, or why she might have been invited, or what everyone is supposed to be doing, but it seems redundant to say so at this point. It sounds like everyone else here is in the same boat. At least that rules out a software glitch on her part.

[Phobia]

“Y’all sure do talk a lot, like my youngest, bless him. Wants everyone to know how smart he’s getting.” Gravity Gal looked wistful under her mask for approximately two minutes before trying to regain her professionally. “You mean like Neo-Might, the superhero? Not very pleasant from what I’ve heard but she gets the job done..”

“In any event my sincere apologizes for misidentifying you. I’ve encountered evil versions of superheroes I’ve known but never a good version of a known villain. I suppose everything’s relative, isn’t it?” She said sweetly, but would keep a weathered eye on this Neosight. Charlotte knew in her heart that they weren’t the same person but it was still a hard feeling to shake.

“Well..” Charlotte took a moment to ponder, “I’ll spare you the sordid details but from what I’ve heard Psychosight completely snapped... maybe her intentions started merely well-intentioned extremist but last I heard she was dominating folks and linking them to her own hive mind- basically overwriting..” Gravity Gal stooped before she went much further with the sordid details, after all.

“I don’t know if she is able to access other universes. I sure hope not. It’s a sobering thought in a sea of many.” She shook her head and let her gaze linger on one of the portals showing a version of Earth beyond; this one an obvious barren rock with no water or life. “But how rude of me. I am Gravity Gal, a professional superhero. Charmed.” She continued once she was regarding her again.

“Why, thank you precious.” Gravity Gal beamed at the robot upon the compliment to her attire. “Budapest? Egbolt? That isn’t Dr. Egbolt in there, is it? Certainly doesn’t look like one of your battle-suits, Piroska.”

[TekHed]

Seeming to be utterly out-of-pace, there stood near the others what appeared to be a homeless man. His posture was slightly stooped and he wore an old but still serviceably warm heavy wool coat and a beanie. His jeans and boots were as scuffed and worn as his weathered face. Fingerless woolen gloves held a large ladle, and his posture indicated he had been in mid scoop of serving some sort of stew.

Startled by his sudden change of venue, he looked around with a furtive expression in his eyes, regarding the room and the others assembled. After a moment regarding the situation, his demeanor changed. He suddenly stopped stooping, standing tall, and sipped the remaining stew from the ladle.

"Well then...I suppose there's no point to playing coy in present company." he said.

With the flaring of a gleaming golden aura, his disheveled clothes vanished, seeming to disintegrate in the glowing halo, and in place of the weathered vagrant floated the countenance of a shining demigod. His features were the same...but it was hard to imagine that the two men were the same such was the effectiveness of his former disguise.

The being before them was equally if not more glorious in comparison, and Karl felt himself filled with awe...which was almost immediately followed by a self-protective instinct. It naturally dawned on the mighty posthuman that the devil had once called himself Lucifer, or in more modern mythology, that the Dark Lord Sauron once came in the guise of the Lord of Gifts. Therefore he did not let his guard or skepticism down immediately. While he was resistant to mental manipulations he was by no means immune. It might be an illusion. It might be real, yet still a ruse. Or his present setting and host might be completely authentic...in any case more information was needed and there currently there didn't seem to be any immediate danger.

"I am called Sovereign on my world." he said to the others. Directing his own, and thus the group's attention to their mysterious abductor, he continued. "Where I come from it is considered a crime to abduct a person without warning or consent...however there are sometimes extenuating circumstances and I for one am willing to hear you out. You've indicated our location; the Causeway of Worlds, of which I am unfamiliar. How shall we address you, our host?"

[Dr.Gunsforhands]

"You know Doctor Piroska?" says the robot to Gravity Gal. "Or, I guess a parallel universe version of her? Mine doesn't have any battle suits, but I can definitely imagine her getting into that sort of thing."

Now that Lexi is warming up to talking about different worlds, it's probably time to get on with the more pressing subject of what's suddenly making them overlap like this. She has some ideas, but none of them really seem right yet, and there are still two people who need to introduce themselves.