Chapter Four

Uncharted Earth

Unknown Time

Lucas felt energy flow out of his body and the fabric of space seemed to open and swallow him. Just as he was passing out of the reality behind him he felt the entire universe fall in on itself. Then there was a silent explosion. The force of the shock wave hit him in the back like a tidal wave and shoved him through. He fell between the worlds. There was a field of dark blue all around him and he could see thousands of other Earths. His entire field of vision was filled with other universes. He looked back to where they had just come from and watched the Earth vanish in the explosion that he had just witnessed. He began to lose consciousness.

"Lucas!" Anya was saying. "I can't hold this force field much longer. You have to open another window. We can't exist here. We're not in the fabric of reality."

But even as Lucas faded away, he knew that only part of what she said was true. If the force field fell, she would most likely cease to exist. But he was pretty sure that he would be fine. His body now contained some of the very molecules that surrounded them in this place. He felt certain that one of his new powers was that he could exist between the universes.

But he could not just pass out and leave Anya to fade away. He blinked his eyes and managed to clear his head a little. He had started to lose his grip on her so he pulled her close to him. He angled his body toward one of the earths that surrounded them and slowly began to pull back space so that they could glide into that universe. After a few minutes all of the other planets faded away and were replaced with the deep dark vacuum of space. Only that one planet remained. Finally, he passed out and they plummeted into the atmosphere.

When he opened his eyes he found himself lying on a deserted beach. There was nothing for miles on either side of him but white sand and the ocean lay out before him. The waves were lapping the shore a few yards away. He looked around and found Anya sitting on a rock close by. He had taken the buckle from her belt and was studying a small screen that had been produced from it.

"Are we okay?" he asked, pulling himself into a sitting position.

"We survived," Anya said, not looking at him.

"Where are we now?"

"You managed to get us to another earth. It's not on any of my charts. I guess no one has ever been here before. If they have they didn't record it. It doesn't seem to be inhabited. I'm not finding any civilizations in my readings."

"What does that mean?" Lucas asked. "Could you please explain what's going on? What was that thing back there?"

"I told you," Anya said. "It's called the Anti-Monitor. It converts matter into antimatter and then it consumes it for energy."

"And it ate the whole planet?" Lucas asked.

Anya shook her head. "It consumed the entire universe. There's nothing left of it."

"So everyone that lived there is dead?"

"In a way," she answered. "It isn't so much that they're dead as it is that they no longer exist." She got up and clipped the buckle back onto her costume. "Thank you for saving me, Lucas. Goodbye."

Lucas was up in a flash. She reached for a button on her buckle but by the time that her hand had reached it Lucas had snatched it off of her again. He stood in front of her, holding it up.

"You owe me," Lucas said. "I want the story."

"What story?" Anya asked.

"Where did that thing come from?" he said. "And who are you?"

"I told you who I was," Anya said.

"You told me that you were from the future of another world," Lucas said. "That doesn't explain jack!"

"Please," Anya said. "I have to go. He'll follow me here."

"Then he'll find us both," Lucas said. "Look, Anya, I'm pretty new to the whole superhero thing. A week ago I was only concerned with hostile takeovers and then I became a killer. I can go from hero to relapse real fast."

"I'm not sure of how good you are," Anya said, a hint of fear in her eyes.

"Neither am I," Lucas said. "But I do know that if I squeeze your little toy then you'll have to rely on me to get you off of this rock. And since I haven't mastered my interdimensional powers yet, I'm liable to put us down on some volcano world or something. So let's talk."

"Fine," Anya said, having a seat on the rock. "You asked me why I had points on my ears if I was a human. Well, I lied. I'm only half human. I'm also half Maltusian."

"Maltusian?" Lucas asked. "What planet is that?"

"It's called Maltus," she replied. "And we're the ones that are responsible for the creation of the multiverse."

Lucas arched his eyebrows. "You have my attention."

"In this century Maltus is only a little more advanced than Earth. But in the time that I come from it is the most advanced planet in the galaxy. We know this because of our machine that was invented by my grandfather. With it our scientists were able to view any place in the universe that they desired. We used it to discover countless new planets that had been unknown to anyone before that time.

"After the government of Maltus bought his machine, my grandfather began to tamper with the design. He hoped to invent a similar machine that would enable us to view even more. He perfected it only a few days before his death. It was a machine that could be used to not only see other worlds, but other times.

"My father took up the mantle of my grandfather's life's work. He began to look back and forth through time. He witnessed numerous major events on thousands of worlds. He saw the crucifixion of Christ, the great battles of Thanagaria, and even the destruction of your home planet of Krypton."

"How did you know…?" Lucas started.

She smiled. "I've met you before. Remember. Besides, I've used the machine myself. I saw the Kents find you during the meteor shower."

"I wasn't found by the Kents," Lucas reminded her. "I'm a Luthor."

"I'm sorry," she said. Then she continued her story. "My father finally decided that he wanted to witness the creation of the universe. He did so, but at a great cost. Just the fact that his machine disrupted the fabric of time during the creation caused the universe to splinter. There had only been one universe at that time, but his interference caused it to fracture into many different realities. In turn, each one of those caused even more to break off. Within minutes there were billions of alternate dimensions. Each of them beginning with the creation and then heading down various paths to become what they are now."

"That doesn't tell me who this Anti-Monitor is," Lucas said.

"One of the Earths creation was different that the rest," Anya said. "It was made of antimatter, which causes destruction when it is in contact with normal matter. That world broke off of another world and they became polar opposites. They were matter and antimatter…yin and yang. On one world there was a great hero that called himself the Monitor."

"And in the antimatter universe there was an Anti-Monitor," Lucas said.

"Well, he didn't call himself that," Anya said. "We gave him that name because he is the exact opposite of his counterpart. Where the Monitor saved his world, the Anti-Monitor destroyed his."

"His own planet?" Lucas asked.

Anya nodded. "He's pure evil. He lives off of energy that is stored in antimatter. He can get it from normal matter and so he crosses the dimensional boundaries and devourers everything. His conversion causes a chain reaction and an entire universe is gone in minutes. He's erased thousands of worlds from existence. In my time he's become so powerful that stopping him has become hopeless."

"And since more parallel worlds pop into existence all of the time…," Lucas started.

"There is no end to how strong he can get," Anya finished. "He took my world in seconds."

"He destroyed your world?" Lucas asked.

Anya nodded. "My father's lab had just finished perfecting that," she said as she nodded at the device that Lucas had taken from her. "It's called a utilizer. It can do a lot of things. But most notably it can take a person through time or across the dimensional boundary. He just happened to be experimenting with it when the Anti-Monitor attacked. My father slipped into another dimension just as his ceased to exist."

"So, he came back in time to try and stop him at a weaker point?" Lucas asked. "Why didn't he go back to the beginning of time and stop the whole thing from starting."

"Because the creation is much too delicate to tamper with," Anya said. "He could have gone back and caused an even worse chain of events or he could have caused the universe to not be created to begin with. He couldn't have risked that. Eventually, he lost track of him. He settled on another world and met a human woman and they had me. A few days before he died he told me the story that I've just told you and gave me the utilizer. I've been continuing ever since."

"So, what's your plan now?" Lucas asked.

"As soon as my utilizer completes its charging cycle I'm going to go and find him," she said. "I've tracked him many times and I always lose track of him. I never find him until I happen to be in a world that he attacks."

"Have you ever stopped an attack?" Lucas asked.

She nodded. "A couple. A blast of tachyons will push him out of the universe. It disorients him. By the time he regains his composure he moves on to another world. The only downside is that you have to know where he's headed in order to get everything together to create a strong enough stream. In my time we had weapons that used tachyons. However, in this century your people think that they're just something from a comic book."

"I'm stumped," Lucas said. "You're talking to a spoiled rich kid. What's a tachyon?"

She smiled. "They're subspace particles that can move through time. They also exist in all dimensions at the same time. It's what binds the multiverse. The utilizer uses them. It creates a field of them around your body and allows you to exist between the worlds."

"Apparently they let you breath in space as well," Lucas said, looking down at the object.

"No," Anya said. "That's the force field. It can create one of those, too. It also has every world that my people charted during before my father escaped programmed into its memory."

"How are you going to find him?" Lucas asked.

"Time moves a little slower for him than it does for us," Anya said. "It's because of the way time moves on the world that he came from. He just fed. So he probably won't need to consume again for three days. I can find go between the worlds and follow his trail. If I can figure out which world he's headed to I can get there first and prepare a tachyon pulse."

"And that will do what?" Lucas asked.

"It will stop him from consuming that universe," Anya said.

"To hell with that, Anya," Lucas said. "You need to kill that thing!"

"I don't know how, Lucas," Anya said. "There hasn't been a lot of scientific study on this thing. As far as I know, you and I are the only ones that even know that he exists. Everyone that sees him is gone a second later."

Lucas looked off at the ocean in thought. There had to be a way to stop this monster. If it was allowed to continue on the way that it was going it would eventually reach his world and destroy it. Then it could go on and destroy the world that Clark was from. He turned back to Anya and saw that she was staring at him with questioning eyes.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I told you that I've met Kal-El quite a few times on different worlds," she said. He nodded in agreement. "I've never heard you say anything like that before."

"Like what?" he replied.

"Like when you said that the Anti-Monitor had to be killed. All of your counterparts have a self-imposed rule against killing anyone."

"So you want me try and stop this thing without killing it?" he asked. "Didn't you just say that the tachyon blast was only a temporary fix?"

"I didn't say that it shouldn't be killed," she said. "I'm only pointing out how different you are."

"You don't have to point out my differences from Clark Kent," Lucas said. "I'm well aware. I was raised as a Luthor. Remember? I didn't even know that I was from another planet until last week."

"I have to warn you," Anya said, getting up from her rock. "I've seen five of your counterparts take this thing on. It killed three of them. One of them was unable to escape from a universe that it consumed."

"What about the other one?" Lucas asked.

"I don't know what happened to him," she said. "Are you sure that you want to help me?"

Lucas nodded and handed her utilizer back to her. "I've got a lot of sins to be forgiven for. Maybe if I save a few billion people from being wiped out I can make up for the two that I took. What's your plan?"

Anya pressed a button on the device and a holographic image unfolded in the air around them. All around him there were drawings of the earth popping into existence. Each one had a number beneath it. The first thing that he noticed was that several of the Earths were in clusters of three to five with a large space between the groups.

"This is a representation of every Earth that my people discovered as well as the ones that my father and I charted since he came to this century," Anya said. She pointed at one of them and it vanished into a puff of digital pixels. "That's the one that we just left. It will most likely take him three of our days to reach another world."

"Why are they in groups?" Lucas asked.

"They tend to be attracted to worlds that are closely related to them," Anya said. "The world that we're on now would be drawn toward another world that is not inhabited. We were never able to figure out why they did that. It makes it easier to travel between the worlds in a cluster."

"Easier for whom?" Lucas asked.

"Anyone," Anya said. "You and I, for one. And the Anti-Monitor of course. This is your world." She pointed at an Earth that looked like it was off in the distance. It seemed to grow larger as it drew nearer. "It is one of three worlds in a cluster. There is your's, Earth Seventy-Four, and Earth S."

"Earth S?" Lucas asked. "Why is it named that?"

"I don't know," Anya said. "My father had a strange numbering system. Some of them were numbers and then there was Earth S, Earth M, Earth Prime, and so on." She looked closer at the three Earths that she had highlighted. "That's odd."

"What?" Lucas asked. "What's odd?"

"There's a strange signal coming from your cluster," she said. "It's like a field of some kind of energy that's surrounding all three realities."

"I've got to get back to my world," he said. And he lifted up into the air.

"Lucas!" Anya called. She jabbed at the utilizer and it sent her soaring up after him. She caught up with him in the sky and paced him. "What about the Anti-Monitor?"

"I'll deal with it after I find out what's going on," Lucas said.

"But another Earth will be gone by then," she answered.

"Look, Anya," he said, slowing his rate and looking at her. "My world is first. Okay? I'll help you save the multiverse when I get back!"

"I'll go with you," she said.

"Why?" Lucas asked.

"Because every time I find you I lose you again," she said. "And I don't want to lose you, Kal-El."

Lucas stopped his flight and hovered in the sky. Below him was the uninhabited world that he had just left and above him was the stark darkness of space. He looked at Anya and saw what she was feeling in her eyes. She had fallen in love with some other version of him and he had died. Now, she had found him.

"Anya," Lucas said. "I'm not him."

"I know that," Anya said. "But I don't want to lose you just the same. I'll go with you to your world and help you do whatever it is that you have to do. Then you can help me save the rest of the multiverse."

Lucas nodded. "Okay." He reached out and took her by the hand and her force field enveloped both of them. Then they shot up into space and vanished from that reality.

End of chapter four.