"You're sure you can't think of any more ice puns? Already got the cold shoulder, ice to meet you, ice escape and break the ice down pretty good." Rachel idly asked her brother through the wall that separated their rooms, fingers idly tapping the arrow keys on her computer while her right hand moved the camera on her screen to get a better idea of their situation.

"Don't get cold feet on me?" Her brother, Peter, offered and she smiled as his character in the game held another player still for her to freeze in ice. Her fingers went from their idle pace to a lightning one as she typed in the taunt before moving back to their original positions on the keyboard, all the necessary keys within reach. She noted another player moving in on them, her brother's character already low on health.

"Flyer, flame level twenty eight your three o'clock." A quick tap of one of the number keys and her own character sent a spray of snow towards the enemy, slowing him down but not stopping him. He was a fire-user after all. Her brother activated one of his own abilities and his character slammed his foot into the ground, a mountain of rocks hurdling towards flyer. They dodged it of course but one of the few players left standing in the arena took advantage of that and riddled him with bullets. "Need a pick-me up?"

"I'm good. Are you wanting to claim the win this time?" She pressed another key and started encasing her character in ice armor, adding a nice buff to her health while her brother used one of the many healing items they had stocked up on. They both watched as the four other players left fought amongst one another, seemingly oblivious to the fact that in the free for all arena that two people had teamed up.

"I did have my eyes on a new cape. It's all I need to finish the ice look for my character. Maybe grab some type of lava item for my new account."

"Alright then. Shall we finish this then sis?" She thumped her fist against the wall once for a yes and watched her brother's hulking character charge into the middle of the fray, healed back up to full health. She called in a blizzard, knowing that her brother's character could handle it, taking out two more players thanks to the area of effect. Her brother then beat another one into the ground.

That left one person left, a gun user that could fly. He maneuvered up and away to avoid her brother, shooting at her instead, taking away a big portion of her health with each shot of the four shots he got off. Her brother loped over in front of her and stood stock still, taking all the shots and she took advantage of that by calling in another blizzard and another and another. She kept spamming the blizzard ability until he dropped to the ground, dead. "I feel kinda bad because it's cheating in a way ain't it?"

She could feel her brother shrug through his voice. "Not in the rules, now hurry up and kill me." It wasn't all that hard, considering the amount of damage she'd done with all the blizzards and the damage he'd taken from the last guy. In about ten seconds of clicking his character died too, leaving her as the victor of another free for all arena and letting her pick her prize. She watched as the lobby filled with cursing and accusations of all the losers and giggled to herself, deciding not to antagonize them and have her account shut down again.

"So what do you want to do now? End-game, Spar, Raids, be villians for a while?" She asked turning her head to the side where her brother would be if it weren't for the wall between them.

"I don't know. Maybe some other game?" Rolling her eyes she clicked out of the lobby and found herself back in the game's version of the market, aliens, robots and skeletons selling all sorts of in game items.

"Come on you said we could play my games today." She whined through the wall. "We made a deal."

"Fiiiiiine." He huffed through the wall. "But remember this tomorrow."

She grinned, opening up the chat window to see who was open for some type of quest but noticed the whisper window flashing, the game's equivalent of direct mail. She cocked her head and clicked it open to see a message about her and her brother's character. "Hey listen to what some dude whispered it to me, 'I liked how you and your friend teamed up in that free for all. Was even pleasantly surprised to see players that wrote a bio for their characters, want to talk about some comic I think you two would be good with helping out with?' The hell you make of that?"

"Don't know. Some weirdo probably. I mean, why get help for a comic, from people playing a MMO?"

"Sounds more desperate than anything. Maybe he wants some new… uh the fuck is it called, perspectives? We did kind of write a decent story for these characters I guess. Want to see what's up with him?"

"I guess it wouldn't hurt to try. Not like we are going to be stupid, and tell him our names or anything important."

She shrugged as much to herself as to her brother behind the wall. "Let me just open up a lil' window…" Focusing back on the game she clicked open the group tab and invited her brother and the stranger into it. "Yeah there we go just come on in and wait for Mr. Weirdo to show up." Her brother signed into the group in short order, with the stranger coming in after with the username Retrospective. Weird name, but least it wasn't some stupid name like other people with Mr. Butt or Dick Chang.

Typing into the box she said a simple 'sup' while her brother said, 'yo'. Retro replied with his own greetings. 'I didn't expect you to say hello to be honest, most people just tell me to screw off thinking I'm a scam artist or a bot. Don't blame them myself. So I'm hoping that you're interested in my offer of helping with some comic book ideas I had?'

She took the lead in the conversation, letting her brother just more or less watch. 'I'm bored, he's bored, you're doing something new.'

'Ah, well I'll get right to the thick of it then. I found your little bios for your characters charming and pretty well done for just being MMO characters and I thought you'd be perfect for this little idea I had involving a lottery. It basically rolls you random powers out of all the ones ever thought of and you will help me make a story about some characters that have those powers. Bar the OP powers of course, even let you reroll once or twice if you want.'

"What's OP again?" She asked, thumping the wall next to her.

"Overpowered. Duh."

"Fuck you." Was her only reply before turning her attention back to the computer and typing back, 'What're you supposed to get out of this? Comic ideas?'

'That and free labor pretty much, who wouldn't want to see their creations come to life in front of their very eyes? If you want I can give you a link to the power lottery, or if you want to be more cautious look it up online if you don't trust random strangers with links.'

"I'm not sure if he's being too kind or faking being a non-scammer very hard." She muttered to herself. "You want to participate in this if it's legit? Because if you don't I'm going to pass too."

"I don't see any real reason not to. Even if he's a scam, he can't get anything if we don't give him anything. Just remember interneting 101, don't tell people shit, and don't download random shit."

'We'll look it up ourselves.' She typed before alt tabbing out of the game and back to her desktop screen. Ignoring all the video games she had pinned on the desktop and hot bar she went straight to the Google shortcut and opened it up, typing in power lottery. Clicking on the first link she quirked the corner of her mouth up in slight surprise at the fact that it looked like the first hit was the site. Copying the address she went back into the game real quick and dropped the address into the chat. 'This the link?'

'Yes it is, just roll it five times, ignore anything OP like galaxy destruction, extreme mind control, thinking things into reality, etc. etc. I trust you'll be able to pick out the ones that are too much and if you don't I'll tell you myself. You can even ignore the rules on the homepage just let me know when you both have your powers, that is if your friend is participating?'

'He is.' She typed before leaving the game again and going onto the website, clicking around the rules and straight to the power roll button. Eyeing some of the powers on the list next to the roll button she saw one that didn't make sense in her own opinion. "Is galaxy destruction even really a power? Sounds more like a way of describing how powerful somebody is."

"It could be a power, if that is the only thing they can do with it. Destroy the galaxy, or nothing."

"Yeah but how, like snap their fingers, punch it, Dragonball style explode it to smithereens? Lot of implications for that don't ya think?" She argued, clicking the roll button five times and looking at each. "The fuck? Wheel Manipulation… control wheels, alter wheels, make wheels… that sounds stupid and awesome. Axis Manipulation, change where something rotates on an axis. Sounds cool but I have no idea how that'd work. Supernatural agility like Wonder Woman, Angel Morphing so I can become an angel. Supernatural touch? Oh that does not sound right at all… I can feel things super sensitively now. Well my character can anyways. These powers sound weird as fuck. What'd you get Peter? Please tell me you're Spiderman."

"Nope, I seem to be Mirrorman. Catoptric Teleportation, teleportation through mirrors, as well as store stuff and imprison people in them. Reflection Destruction, destroy things by breaking their reflection. Perfect Doppelganger, the power to become someone completely. That's a tad OP, but fairly easily nerfed with various drawbacks. Replication, making more stuff, even myself, also will need some nerfing. And finally Worship Empowerment, gain power from people worshiping me. Heh, I am basically a Mirror God. Much better than being a Wheel Angel."

"Hey, hey fuck you. I can turn into any angel, God's an angel ain't he… it? Whatever. So call me Wheel God." She replied with another thump on the wall, where she would've hit him through it if she could. Clicking once more back into the game she dumped her list of powers into the chat box and her brother did the same.

'Give me a minute to look these over.' Retro said, not typing another more for a minute or two.

"God ain't no angel. He made the Angels. You are thinking of Lucifer. Which would fit you just fine."

"God, Lucifer same coin different sides right?" She said with a roll of her eyes, silently urging the Retrospective person to come back, before her brother could keep arguing like he was known to do for hours on end. On one subject.

"Usually no. God is generally on a whole different level of power than Satan. Hell, Satan isn't even the toughest of the angels. He got his ass kicked by Gabriel."

"Ah ah you said usually no. That means sometimes yes. I win little bro." She sang.

"Yeah, sometimes yes. About as often as you being right on something, AKA almost never."

Opening her mouth for another retort she bit her tongue as the window flashed again. 'Okay yeah this looks like some lovely rolls you two got. One is centered around wheels and rotation, sort of anyways. The other is all about mirrors and reflection, the amount of luck you two have to get a great theme going for your powers is astonishing. So what do you say we make the deal for you to participate with these powers you've selected and I direct you to your new acquaintances and we'll start to work?'

"What do you say? Yeah or nah?" She asked her brother.

"He still hasn't asked for any shady shit, so I don't see why not."

Shrugging she typed back her response into the chatbox. 'Yeah we'll both do it.'

"Wonderful then." She jerked back from her computer as a slight echoing voice sounded Retro's reply. Before she could voice any protest or sound of surprise a hand jumped out of her screen and grabbed by the face, four needle like fingers digging into her scalp with an iron grip, not budging despite how hard she tugged on them. They were dry, scaly, and cold. She didn't get any further time to think about it as the hand started pulling on her and she stopped her efforts on removing the hand from her face and gripping the bed she had been sitting on just moments ago. "Oh please stop struggling it's actually quite pitiful, for all intents and purposes I'm a god compared to you so just let go of the sheets Rachel."

She just snarled into the hand on her face, gripping the sheets even tighter, secure in the fact that she was at least annoying this thing. "Oh fine, what did I expect from a couple teenagers? Nevermind ones playing video games even?" Suddenly the sheets were gone and the hand pulled even harder, one last time. She couldn't see anything thanks to the hand but she could tell something changed. It was cold, windy and she could feel the sun on her exposed skin. "Well welcome to your new home for now you two, it's where you're going to stay until you either die or find a way back to your home with your new powers, doesn't that sound fun?"

Two? Did this thing have her brother? And the fuck did it mean by new powers? "So let's see how I should do it this time, need something to change it up. Let's see two family members, one seems violent by the fact he stabbed my hand, the other seems a little bit arrogant. No that's not enough. Maybe make some type of explosion or major crime and blame the two of you? No I've done that before. Hero situation… no I can't do that without implementing myself and I don't want to piss off Mr. Depressed around here…. come to think of it have I ever done nothing when I dropped off a few people?" He trailed off as if he was thinking.

"No I daresay I've always changed something to make it more spectacular. Well I don't know if that's good or bad for you, no advantages or disadvantages. Oh well let's just drop you two off right… over here." Suddenly the feeling of wind was gone, along with the cold but yet the sun on her skin remained. "First rule, the moment one of you tries to hit me, insult me, or otherwise do something crass I'll leave you two alone to fend for yourselves. By that I mean I won't be here to answer any of your questions about your new home, so do we have an understanding young ones?"

She stopped her struggling for a moment as this thing's words more or less settled in. "Well that's your brother giving me a nod, as much as human can with a hand on its face anyways. How about you dear Rachel?" She kept still for another few moments before nodding herself, or as Retro or whatever it was had put it, as much as a human could. "Well excellent then."

Suddenly the hand let go of her face and she fell the foot or two it had been to the ground, a familiar voice sounding his own complaint at being dropped. The moment she had touched the ground and got over the pain it had sent up her tailbone she looked up at the person who had brought them here, or to be more accurate thing. Standing at ten feet tall it towered over her, it's oversized orangish V shaped head and five eyes on each side peering at her with a calm content look in them. A purple robe hung around its neck, concealing the rest of its body save for the four arms and two legs that protruded from its body. The hands were claw-like, or at least the two clasped together in front of it while the other two hung behind its back, almost like an organic version of Freddy Krueger's claws, backed up by the fact she had felt them digging into her scalp a minute ago. The arms were spindly and thin like a spider's, the complete opposite of the legs, which were strong and thick like a horse's but with ten little finger like things at the bottom serving as miniature feet(?) toes(?). It cocked its head at her as she and her brother remained silent. "Normally people either scream, run or insult my looks by now. I'm not sure whether you're the type that are just so surprised or had a proper upbringing."

"The heck are you?"Her brother asked only two feet away from her, still clad in his blue T-shirt and gray sweatpants. It sort of reminded her she was wearing only a white tee and some old skull and crossbones pajamas she'd had for several years. It made her feel a bit exposed in front of the creature.

Each of it's arms seemed to sag in a sigh as it looked to the side, making them both notice the eighteen-wheeler that was just a dozen or so feet away from them on the open road, the driver seemingly staring down at them but otherwise remained unmoving. "Why can't it ever be the latter? It's always the former, it's been how many years since I had a nice prim and proper person to talk too? Anyways as to your question," It said turning its attention back to them and using its front hands to gesture at itself. "I am Retrospective, fourteenth of my kind. So far we've been called thousands of names but the one that I like the most is the Modelers. No idea why I like the name but I do. Next question?"

Rachel didn't answer or ask her own question eyes instead focused on the scene around them, cars seeming to be frozen in mid-drive, people in the middle of their steps but just paused. TVs, dogs, a cat being chased, somebody tripping over their shoelace and spilling their coffee all just frozen in time. Like the thing in front of them had just held up a remote and pressed pause, deciding to add something new to its DVR. Them.

Her brother asked, finally standing up to his meager five feet and two inches, reaching only the creature's midsection. "Where are we?"

"Dodge, Texas, Bible Belt, not sure if it's in operational territory of the Haven or the Fallen. Nonetheless it's Texas so you can expect to run into some people packing major firepower, Texas is almost always the same wherever you go." One hand went up to tap the bottom-most part of its V head, unknowingly emphasizing the fact it didn't have a mouth. " Kind of weird now that I think about it, something to investigate later I suppose. But before you get your hopes up it's not your version of Texas so you can't just call somebody and ask for a ride. Unless you have The Doctor's phone number, he's only person I can think of that'd bother taking two humans back to the universe they belong too."

He opened his mouth about to spit out the question 'what do you mean it's not our texas', before visibly stopping himself, and taking a few moments to reword his question. "What is different about this universe?"

Retro took note of his hesitation. "Smart one aren't you, almost asked the wrong question. This universe has…" It tapped its claw fingers together, thinking of a way to put it before making literal fireworks burst in his hands. "Everything. A being more powerful than me with a hefty eighty-two percent of him always killing me. I think somewhere in the neighborhood of a least a million people with superpowers, monsters that put Godzilla to shame, etc. etc. It's why I gave you both a chance to roll five random powers and use them, you can handle most things thrown at you now. Such a better learning experience when your subjects don't die in a few days."

He remained silent for a while longer, a look of concentration on his face as he shuffled through the various questions in his head, trying to find the best one to ask. After a moment, he hesitantly asked "So we have the powers we rolled?"

"Not this very second, but when we're done talking you'll have them. Made some alterations." One of Retro's front hands pointed at him. "Your powers have some upsides and downsides, which makes sense of course right?" The other hand went to point at his sister, who was on the ground, arms curled around her knees in a little ball. "Her downsides will be much more… pronounced at the beginning. I'm getting bored and I have other experiments to attend to, one last question for you two."

This time, it only took him a moment. "How do we get back home?"

It shook its head in a sad way, somehow evident despite the fact it looked like nothing either of them had ever seen before. "Ask for a ride like I said. Resident entity couldn't care less, only time we've ever met is when I hunted him down to ask permission to drop some of my own parahumans in his territory. I did hear something about a drug maybe? That's what Pot is right, a drug? Or maybe it was something close to Pot, maybe Skillet? I digress apparently Pot or Skillet or whatever cooking instrument it is does a lot more here than it does in your universe. Or last but not least make it worth my time by giving me data or beating me in a game, I'll be around from time to time up until the point you die." It half-turned to look at the sun and clouds, all four claws clicking their digits together. "I would advise you two to get out of the way of the eighteen-wheeler, just because it's going slower than forty doesn't mean it won't kill you two. Ten seconds. Nine. Etc."

Peter's eyes widened in alarm as he realized that it was counting down until everything returned to normal around them, meaning the moment it hit zero, they'd be turned into pancakes by the eighteen-wheeler they'd been set next to. His gaze flickered around for a place to dart to, a nearby coffee shop catching his attention and he sprinted as fast as his small build could carry him. "Six, also you should run too Rachel. Four."

Whirling around mid-stride he saw his sister still sitting there in her ball position, now rocking back and forth slightly. He screamed and turned back around, falling slightly but catching himself with his hands and pushing back towards her. "Ray!"

"Three." Rachel looked up from her ball, still not standing up and oblivious to the fact that time was about to restart.

"Get up!" He screeched at her, finally getting a reaction out of her and sending her to her feet. She still hadn't moved though and he had covered a good distance in the first four seconds, making it take longer to get back to her.

"Two." It droned on, without a hint of amusement in its voice despite the fact it had put them into this situation for no reason other than it could. She still hadn't moved, just standing there with a confused look on her face at why he was running, seemingly ignoring the countdown.

"One." It held up a finger for emphasis, before it let out a small flash of light and was gone. Leaving them in the middle of the street, his hands inches away from hers, eighteen-wheeler ready to resume its motion towards them at any second. His hand clasped around hers and he tugged on it with all the strength he could, wanting to pull her out of the way with him, back to the sidewalk out of the way.

He tugged harder than he should. Whether it was because of the adrenaline pumping through his veins, the massive horn sounding on the truck or the look on her face as she realized what was happening, neither had any idea. What she did know was she went farther than her little brother should've been able to push her, much less throw, his toss sending her flying to the sidewalk he had been running from just a moment ago.

Without her conscious effort she rolled with the throw in the air, flipping over backwards with the momentum, giving her the perfect vantage point to see the exact moment when her brother got smashed into by the truck, a slight smile on his face that he got hit instead of her. She could almost hear the crunch from where she was in the air, feel the impact as the truckdriver finally hit the brakes and her brother's body flew forward with the force of a eighteen-wheeler, bouncing along the pavement leaving red splotches on the road. Landing on her feet she was already running towards the limp body, screams sounding around her from those who witnessed the impact.

She didn't focus on that, the only thing she noticed was the blood on the road and all the red spots on his body looking like raw meat, both of his right limbs bent in ways that shouldn't be possible for human joints, bones poking out in sharp points under his skin. Thanks to the fact that he'd landed upright, she could even see his chest bending inwards like it had been dented by the bumper of the truck. Sliding to a stop next to him, not wanting to see what the true damage to her brother was, but needing to help him as much she could.

"No no no no no." She whispered to herself, getting a first hand look at the blood leaking out of his mouth into a small pool next to him. She checked his throat for a pulse, copying what she'd seen on TVs, movies and books, not noticing any type of indication that he was still alive. "Come on, get up you fuck."

"Oh my god are you two okay!" Shouted someone from behind her, and she half-turned, she couldn't handle this. Maybe someone else could. Looking for who spoke she locked eyes with the truck-driver for a moment before he glanced back down to secure his foot on his truck. She realized it was him that had been yelling at her. "You two just popped up out of nowhere in front of me, is your friend okay? Capes can handle getting hit by rigs right?"

That fucking man hit her brother, who could be fucking dead right now. And he was running towards her. She already had enough shit with some fucking alien grabbing her face and now her little brother was lying on the ground, bloody, battered and broken because of some jackass. She growled at him, pushing up off the ground next to her brother and crouched next to his body, teeth bared and arms held out at her side as if she could rip the man apart. "Back the FUCK up."

Her tone inflected the desired effect on him as he stopped running and stopped a good distance away from them. One of the people on the side piped up and she whipped her head towards it, the venom in her veins making her want to hit something. "Hey he's trying to help."

Someone else objected and she looked at the woman, feeling the hate build and build as they started yelling at each other. Too much noise at once."He fucking hit that kid!"

"They're parahumans! It's their fault they got in the way!" Shouted another and she practically hissed at them, the thought that any of this was their fault pissing her off. They scowled back at her.

More voices started to chorus and some people started to walk towards them, it was too much noise, too much going on at once. Her eye twitched as she started whipping her head back and forth like an animal, it all getting to her too quick. Annoyed, agitated, furious and not knowing what was going on she screamed at them, lashing out at the trucker first, slamming into the back of his head with one of the wheels from his own truck. She quickly directed the seventeen others at the crowd, to get them to back off, to make them shut up. This damn world hurt her brother, and she will make it pay.

His ears were ringing, and he had no idea what was going on. He thinks there was something about a bug-man or something? And for some reason, his whole body hurt. He slowly, painfully pried his eyes open, having to squint against the damned sun in his eyes. And what he found made little sense. His sister stood over him, while wheels flew around every which way, hitting people, smashing car windows, and generally wreaking havoc. This was not good, they had to get out of here.

But, there seemed to be a problem. It was super hard to sit up for some reason, and when he tried to push himself up, only his left arm did anything, almost flopping him over. That wasn't going to work. His sister looked fine though, and she had always been stronger than him, since she went outside sometimes instead of just sitting at her computer. Maybe she could help. So he opened his mouth, and after a bit of coughing, managed "Ray."

She turned to him instantly, worry written plain over her face. "Pete? Oh my god are you okay, please tell me you're okay."

"Well, my right arm isn't working for some reason, and I can't sit up. But that isn't important, we have to get out of here. Get us over there." He said, gesturing off to the right, to a shop-window which was mirrored, reflecting the street and all the havoc on it. He wasn't too sure why, but he felt like mirrors were something that might help. If only he could clear the damnable fog in his head.

"Whatever my little brother wants." She crouched next to him and reached under his knees and back, in one fell swoop standing back up with a unnatural smoothness to her action. Turning on one foot she started walking to the window that he had pointed out, the wheels curving around the pair and actually starting to slow down around them. "I didn't hurt you did I?"

She did a bit, but he felt like he really shouldn't say that. "Nah." Man, breathing was getting hard. His chest was really stiff.

When she got them to the window, he reached out with his left hand, and touched it. The surfaces shimmered, and they stepped through, disappearing into it's silvery depths.