"Superman?" Percy's eyebrows went up. "That's…uh, a little…" he trailed off, not sure how to finish that thought.
"Braggy? Boastful? Egotistical? Full of yourself?" Toph suggested. Apparently, she had no such qualms.
Calvin chuckled. "Yes, I suppose it is. I didn't come up with though. When I started out, I just wanted to help people. It was a young reporter who came up with the name and it stuck. But, if you find it to be, uh, a little braggy then you may just call me Calvin."
"Sounds good to me," Toph nodded.
"Now, can you explain what's going on?" Percy asked. "Cause I am so lost right now. I mean, I've been in really weird situations before but this is…just weird on a whole other level."
"Yes, it is," Calvin nodded. "It is evident from the conversation with Mr. Homelander over there," he nodded to the prone form several yards away, "that we are on another world entirely."
"Well, yeah I figured that," Percy replied. "I've been on other worlds before. But nothing like this."
"I told you, we're in the Spirit World," Toph said. "There's no other place we could be."
"Ah, well, I don't know about your Spirit World," Calvin interrupted. "But there are many other worlds out there. A multiverse, omniverse now, even."
"A what now?" Percy asked.
"Huh?" Toph said at the same time.
"A multiverse. Countless worlds, each one unique, each one with different variants of people across space and time. I am the Superman of my world and yet there are many other worlds with different Supermen."
Percy felt like his mind was going to blow up, melt, and then blow up again. "So…" he started. Always a good starting word, in his opinion. "So, what you're saying…is…that there are, possibly, worlds out there with other versions of me? My friends, my family?"
"Everyone," Calvin assured.
"That…" Toph said, then stopped. "That's crazy. No, I'm the only me out there. There's only one me, one Toph Beifong, and that's me. There aren't any other worlds out there, this guy's crazy."
Calvin just smiled sympathetically at her. "Trust me, it's real. I've seen it, experience it, and now run a team trying to investigate it. Hopefully they'll be able to track me down soon. I haven't been able to contact them." He looked up at the sky as if that would have the answers.
Percy was having trouble focusing though. Other versions of him? After everything he had learned the last few years, he shouldn't be surprised but this was something else entirely. To think there were other versions of him out there, other versions of Annabeth, of Grover and Chiron and the gods. He suddenly began to wonder, were there versions of him who never found out about their parentage? Versions who had chosen to become a god? Versions who had died early on?
"I wouldn't think too much on it." Percy looked up to see Calvin looking back. "It won't do you any good. Ms. Beifong was correct when she said she was the only version of her. You are the only version of you. There may be other variations of you out there but they are then variations, not the true you. You are the only true you anywhere."
Percy breathed out, actually feeling a little better. "Ok, thanks."
"I still say this is all made up. I mean, we don't have any proof that this guy isn't just lying," Toph argued. "Whatever. What I want to know is how I get back home."
"That is a good question," Calvin agreed. "And unfortunately I do not know. My communicator appears to be offline so I cannot contact anyone else." He looked around thoughtfully.
"Do you know where we are?" Percy asked.
"Sadly no," Calvin replied. "As Superman, I have explored many planets out there, but there are millions upon millions. This could be any one of them in the multiverse. For all we know, this could be Earth in another timeline."
Percy blinked. "I don't think Earth in any timeline would have two moons," he pointed out. He also noticed how Calvin talked about traveling to other planets like they were an everyday occurrence while his mind was about to explode again from the revelation.
Calvin looked up and started a little as he saw the moons for the first time. "Huh, didn't catch that. Well, you'd be surprised but yes we are probably not on Earth. Hmmm, well until I can contact my team the only thing to do is investigate how we arrived in the first place."
Percy and Toph both explained how they just appeared and Calvin's was the same, one minute aboard Airforce One after exiting a meeting, the next atop a mountain in the middle of the desert. He had flown around a little bit but hadn't really found anything until Homelander attacked him. Just more desert.
"So what do we do now?" Percy asked. "How do we find out who did this to us or what they want or where they even are?"
"I'll keep flying around," Calvin said. "See if I can spot something."
"No need," Toph butted in. "I know where we can go."
They both turned to her. "You do?" Percy asked. "How?"
"While Mr. Full-of-Himself over there was talking, I decided to some investigating of my own." Calvin snorted at the nickname, trying to cover up a smile. "I stretched my senses below, trying to find something. And I did." She pointed straight down. "It's pretty deep but there's a cavern down there. There's a whole network of tunnels beneath us actually, but there's a really big cavern too. And there's other stuff in there too. I can't tell from here, it's too far down for me."
"But it's something," Calvin surmised. "Sounds like a plan."
"Ok, so how do we get there?" Percy asked. "Is there like an entrance nearby."
"No need, I'll just burrow my way through," Calvin said. "Won't take a-"
Before he could finish that sentence, Toph clapped her hands together and then pushed down. The earth beneath their feet suddenly shot away, taking them down below the surface, like an elevator. Percy stumbled a little, feeling like he was 12-years-old again riding that elevator up the Empire State Building to something else entirely. He didn't like that feeling.
Calvin seemed a little shaken as well, but quickly recovered. He eyed Toph with interest. "You're quite powerful," he said. "You remind me of some other people your age with similar powers."
"Thanks. Coming from the Superior Being, that means so much," she replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
Calvin let off a loud laugh. "You are not going to let that go, are you?" he chuckled.
"Nope," she told him. "With a stupid name like that, you deserve to be made fun of."
Percy smiled as well, the girl reminding him a little of his friends like Leo and Sadie. Full of attitude and wry humor. She would fit right in amongst the other demigods and heroes.
Moments later, they came to a stop. Toph then turned and faced a blank wall and pulled her arms apart, the rocks following suit and opening up a doorway for them to walk through. As they did, they each sucked in their breath as they saw what was on the other side. Even Toph, who saw everything differently through her feet.
"What happened here?" Percy muttered.
"Something that is all too common with civilizations," Calvin said sadly. "War."
It was a mass of skeletons and corpses. Percy saw plenty of humanoid ones carrying weapons and armor, but there were other ones as well. Some that looked like dinosaur skeletons at the Natural History Museum, some that looked like the bones that belonged to ogres or giants, and others a mix of creatures of all sizes. It wasn't just bones. Percy also saw giant insect shells and husks, the actual remains having been broken down long ago. From the looks of things, it looked like an invasion of the monstrous creatures into the cavern and the humanoids defending it from them. It wasn't clear, but Percy guessed that the humanoids lost. There were more bodies of them than the monsters.
While the mass of bodies was eye-catching, Percy began to look around more and noticed other things. There was a huge statue above them, one of a man with a large staff in his hand that had a ball at the end with designs that seemed to make it look like it was glowing. At the bottom of the statue was a plinth with a message written on it but it was incomprehensible, written in an alien dialect. Around the statue were arches and pillars with a dome formed overhead that didn't seem like it happened naturally.
"Who do you think he was?" Percy asked. "Could be their god. I've seen statues like that to worship gods."
"No, he's their leader," Calvin replied.
"How can you tell?"
"Because he's right down there," Calvin pointed and Percy saw the corpse near the end of the cavern next to a dragonesque skeleton with the exact same staff except the ball at the end was a glowing sphere of gray light, very dim in the darkness. Which then made him realize something else.
"How are we seeing right now?" he wondered aloud.
"The crystals," Calvin pointed out, showing all the small crystals around the cavern, emanating a prismatic light that Percy hadn't noticed before. "They absorb light somehow."
"What do you think happened here?" Toph asked.
"The monsters invaded," Percy said. "The people fought back, but I think they lost."
"Yes. Their skeletons continue out into the tunnels that way," Calvin said, pointing to the tunnel entrances on either side of the statue. "I believe this was a spiritual place for them. I've seen similar designs for shrines and temples on many worlds."
Again, Percy felt a chill go through his spine as Calvin said that. "Wait, are you saying there are aliens?" he asked.
Calvin nodded, a little distracted. "Of course there are aliens," he said. "I'm an alien."
Percy nodded, eyes wide. He wasn't sure how to take that at first, that aliens were real. And then he just did. If gods were real from all sorts of cultures and apparently a multiverse was real as well, then it made sense aliens were real too. And he had other things to think about then aliens right now.
"What are aliens?" Toph asked him.
"Doesn't matter," he replied. "Look, we need to search this place, see if we can find any sort of clue to why we're here."
"Hold that thought," Calvin said. "We're going to have visitors."
Percy instantly looked around, but the room was still empty except for them and the corpses. He peered down the tunnels but saw nothing but shadows. "How do you know?" he asked.
"I have super-hearing," Calvin replied. "And super-sight. One person will be entering through the main entrance in a minute. The other one is down the tunnels in what I believe are the records room. That'll be the place to check for answers as there's nothing here."
Percy blinked. "That's…something." Part of him wished they were underwater or at least near water. He felt useless with Toph bending the earth and Calvin using his superior abilities to help them. But he also knew that wasn't important. What was important was getting back home.
A couple minutes later, he heard the footsteps of the person approaching. He fingered Riptide's handle, hoping he wouldn't have to use it. He could see Toph also tensing beside him but Calvin seemed at ease, waiting patiently. Of course, he was invincible so he was probably always like that.
As the person entered, Percy then had to blink, not sure what he was seeing at first. He had seen some crazy things in his life from seeing his math teach transform into a demon hag, seeing his best friend suddenly have goat legs, seeing his friend become a cyclops (and then turn out to be his brother). He'd seen a man with hundred arms, a man with two faces, and a man with three chests. Dragon ladies, clay men, blue giants, and so many other strange creatures. So while it took him by surprise to see what looked like a woman with orange skin and a white headpiece that drooped down her back and shoulders, he also quickly got over it, just accepting it at this point.
The woman saw them and instantly dropped into a defensive position, gripping what looked like two sword handles but there were no blades. "Who are you?"
Toph and Percy readied themselves but Calvin simply walked forward, hands raised peacefully. "My name is Calvin Ellis," he said. "These are my companions, Percy and Toph. We mean you no harm as long as you mean us the same."
The woman eyed him carefully for a second before lowering her guard a little. "What are you doing here?"
Calvin sighed. "Looking for answers, but we have yet to discover any. All we have found are more questions."
The woman now looked around and her gaze softened at the sight of all the skeletons. "More death," she said sadly. She looked at them all scrutinizingly before lowering the handles in her hands. "My name is Ahsoka. Ahsoka Tano."
Percy nodded at her. "Percy Jackson," he said.
"Toph," Toph told her shortly.
Ahsoka peered around the room, taking in the statue and architecture, studying the creatures as well as the weapons and armor. "A slaughter," she surmised, almost to herself.
"Yeah, that's what we thought. Only real question is why we were brought here in the first place. I'm guessing that's how you arrived, appearing out of thin air?" Percy checked.
Ahsoka nodded without looking up. "I was sitting, eating my dinner, when I fell down in a riverbed on a different world entirely. I have...never seen anything able to transport anything that fast."
And why us? Percy thought to himself. He hadn't yet decided to explain that he had traveled like this before, technically. He had been plucked from his life and dropped into the unknown with absolutely zero warning from Queen Cow-Patty Hera, though there were the additional factors of memory loss and the six-month gap in his life. He wondered if he should explain this to them, but something told him to keep it to himself. He didn't know why, but he wasn't ready to start talking about the gods.
"I think we should check the records room now," Calvin suggested, looking down the tunnel with his apparent super vision. "If anywhere is to have answers, it will be that room."
"Sounds good to me," Ahsoka agreed, walking over to the tunnels followed by Calvin and Toph. Percy hesitated for a moment, walking past the skeleton of the man with the staff in the statue. He eyed it for a second and then, acting on impulse, reached down and grabbed hold of the staff. Instantly, the ball at the end seemed to reactivate, a tiny glimmer of sea-green light appearing in the center, so small he had to squint to see it.
"Huh," he muttered, looking it over before hefting it up. "Wonder what you were for?" he muttered. He then turned and followed the others, staff in hand.
So, as you may have noticed in the first chapter, Ahsoka was one of the characters mentioned. And I thought it was time to bring her in. Her character arrives from I'd say a little after her appearance in Mandalorian Season 2. As for who the other mysterious character is, well you'll just have to wait and see.
I've also started rewatching the old Ben 10 series before I see the others I've never seen before so I can add some of those characters in. I've also started reading the Wheel of Time. I plan to start watching My Hero Academia pretty soon.
Also, what are people's thoughts on Mass Effect cause that may be the next game I play.
LGSgotTaken, that is technically true about the Levicorpus spell but Hermione does say it out loud in the Deathly Hallows, even though its meant to be a non-verbal spell. Still, thanks for the note and please let me know of any other inconsistencies.
Leave a review if you can and thanks for reading.