Adventures of John: Heart of the Void
Chapter 9: Fallout
I woke up in my bed on the ship, the group I had first gathered clustered around me.
"Well done," the Doctor told me. "Well done."
"I knew you could do it," Jack said proudly. "Of course, you never would have been able to do it if it weren't for my help."
"We shouldn't have underestimated you, little man," Dean chuckled. "That was some freaky stuff you pulled there, but you did it."
"You saved the bloody multiverse mate," Pirate Jack laughed. "I'd say that's cause for celebration, wouldn't you?"
"What happened to everyone else?" I asked.
"You mean all of those heroes you brought through those portals of yours?" Iron Man asked. "They got sent back to their own universes not long after you collapsed. Same thing happened to the other versions of you." He looked around thoughtfully. "You know, I wouldn't mind taking a look at that disk of yours…"
"Sorry Tony," I laughed. "It's magical, not mechanical. Not exactly your specialty."
"So what happens now?" Elsa asked.
"A lot of things," I answered. "For one thing, with the Void back to its natural state, time should go back to flowing evenly between the realities. That means that there will be no more spending minutes in one reality and having that be hours in another."
"That's wonderful!" Elsa exclaimed with an exuberant smile.
"Of course, that means that while my trips to Arendelle will be more often, they won't be nearly as long as either of us would like." I smiled then. "But I should be able to find a way around that, given enough time."
"Anything else we should know?" Batman asked, sounding suspicious. "Seeing as you seem to know everything about this."
"Calm down, Bats," I told him. "All of us here should remember, but those who I brought through the portals won't. They may have dreams about what happened here, but other than that they won't have any memories of this. All of those people will never know they helped save all of creation. Most of them already knew that they were heroes, but some of those other versions of me… they will go back to their ordinary lives, never knowing what they did."
"Is that it?" Batman asked. "Time goes back to normal and everyone but us forgets?"
"Well, the remaining groups of the Brotherhood of the Void across the multiverse will fall apart without the Heart of the Void directing them. With the Void back to its natural state, there will be no more Void demons, no more Void magic, no more Void anything."
"What about the Voidstone?" Cas inquired.
"Nothing more than a remnant," I responded. "It's still got some power in it, but not much. I'm not sure it would be able to power even a single trip with my Reality Disk. Now it's just a fancy rock."
"What exactly did you do back there?" the Hatter asked.
"The Void became what it was because eons ago, wizards and others started messing with it, trying to get more power. They altered it fundamentally, and so over the eons it became what it is now. But the process started with Creation. People never would have been able to mess with the Void if creation hadn't happened. And so, just like how a cancer tumor can both start from and be eliminated by radiation, I eliminated the corruption of the Void with creation energy."
"That doesn't really make since," Iron Man countered. "A cancer tumor is in no way related to this situation."
"Tony, this is magic we are talking about," I chuckled, "it doesn't have to make sense. In fact, it rarely does." I began to get out of the bed. "Now come on. It's about time we got all of you home."
. . . . .
And so they left. First it was the Winchester brothers and Cas, then it was Elphaba. The Avengers and the Justice League were next, but not before deciding to make me an honorary member of both teams. Cool, right? Then the Hatter waved goodbye, falling through a portal summoned up by his hat. I have no idea where he went, but I have a feeling our paths will cross again. Hermes said his farewells and then vanished, probably late for something back on Olympus. After that Jack left, promising to check on me soon. All that was left then was me, Elsa, the Doctor, and my crew. Elsa had only been able to make her way here by making a deal with the dragon from the Dragon's Pass.
"What do we do now, captain?" Pirate Jack asked.
"I have to return to my own universe," I told him. "You are now the captain."
"But the Great Adventure is your ship!" he protested.
"It is," I laughed, "and if you damage her, I am going to have to kill you. But I have a family I have to go back to. Two families, actually. My family in my universe, and Elsa's family in hers. You are now the acting captain of this ship. This ship can travel through the Void to any universe, so you shouldn't have any difficulty finding adventure. I may need you, and this ship, sometime in the future. If I do, I will call, and I expect you to come to my aid. But until then, there is still the mystery of Captain Scrawl. There must have been a reason he fell to your ship from the future. Go find it."
"Are you two ready?" the Doctor asked. "We've got to hurry if we want to get both of you back to your own universes. The boundaries between the universes are already beginning to stabilize themselves."
"Let's go then," I said, grabbing Elsa's hand. "We've got a time machine to catch."