by The Pighead

Hi, everyone! It's me again. This time, I'm here to present to you the first chapter of my second mini-series for IC. Like the name suggests, it will do a bit like Glimpses, by Ben2Dartmouth, and introduce a bunch of new worlds. Some of them were expected (or, at least, theorized by fans on the WMG subpage for the TVTropes page of the fic), some of them will be less expected. In all cases, I hope you'll like it!

In order to start properly, why not introducing formally a universe I've repeatedly teased in my previous IC works?

Disclaimer: I still own nothing, whether it's the properties involved or Infinity Crisis in itself.


Go back to the basics.

Oh, going for a throwback, huh? I see. Well, go for it. Apparently, the chevrons don't show up but hey, we'll try.

A more-or-less young man is standing in the street. It just so happens that today, the 13th April of 2018, is… not really a day of personal significance to him, except for the launch of a project that took a lot of his time and made him famous. His age is pretty irrelevant and, when it comes to a name, he already has one. What is the name of this man?

Juvenile Trashlord

OK, you already have all the basics in mind, it's cool. However, I'm afraid it's not his name. Try again, please.

Andrew Hussie

That's more like it.

So, yes, your name is Andrew Hussie. And goddamnit, you're definitely someone else. You are a WEBCOMIC AUTHOR who is active since the 2000s and you can't stop yourself from practicing a bunch of WEIRD CREATIVE ENDEAVORS on the Internet. You think HORSES are the funniest animals in the world just by their very existence, you can't stop talking about CLOWNS and you love putting on COSPLAYS of some of your characters. You also play OLD VIDEO GAMES at times and know a lot about HIP-HOP, aka the best music genre in the world and everyone who says otherwise should probably dig deeper and listening to literally anything else than the songs who are playing on the radio-

« I think I start to understand people who don't like the way I introduce characters. »

Huh? Oh, yeah, seems I got off-track a little bit. Back to you, yes, you like all of this. What less people know is that, in actuality, you're an avatar for the real Andrew Hussie and you had the same life and the same passions as them, until it diverged. The earliest point was when you started impacting your narrative in a more direct way, like when you tried to mess with some of your characters (namely June Egbert & Jade Harley) for three nanoseconds or that time you kicked the ass of Doc Scratch, a four-foot tall, omniscient asshole with a white cueball for a head and who always dressed in nice suits.

« That's cool but I don't know why you feel obligated to explain all of that. Like, you're already bothering the reader, how will they be invested in the story if you have to subject them to an overtly long presentation of my admittedly really cool feats? »

I forgot to precise that, similar to your real-world counterpart, you're an OVERTLY VERBOSE, TROLLISH ASSHOLE. Thanks for reminding me. Anyway… another important difference between you and your real-world counterpart is that you're supposed to be dead. You had been for quite some time and you were supposed to stay this way, thanks to a green, muscular, omnicidal demon named Lord English, that you messed with in the past when he was just a little asshole named Caliborn… long story.

You spend a long time in the dreambubbles, which is the place the spirits of the dead people in your universe found themselves in. You found love and got rejected in the same breath (and you earned yourself a punch in the face, courtesy of one Vriska Serket. She was a minor, man, the fuck do you expected?). You talked to the aforementionned Caliborn for a long time and had to tolerate his horrible manners and the fact that he fucked up your website two times and you did some other things, too. But no one ever knew about that or even about you. Meanwhile, the real Hussie was busy on multiple projects and made themself the target of ridicule in multiple ways (and not only them). But real life is not that interesting, so let's not make this already convoluted introduction even longer.

« Glad we're in agreement. »

So, you did all that. Then, everything stopped for a bunch of time and you didn't knew what to do. Because you weren't in control of your own universe anymore, from the exact second the adventure ended, and you didn't even had the chance to enter the universe your characters created. The upside was that you weren't submitted to the narrative anymore (at least, your own narrative) so in order to not ending up completely sad and alone, you kept traveling into the dreambubbles. You actually made yourself some friends! Not the ones you were expecting, but friends. You weren't expecting Viceroy Bubbles Von Salamancer to be such a cool and fun person to be around…

« And now, that's the part when you explain why we're in this big collaborative fanfiction thing? »

Exactly. Stop interrupting me.

Some days ago, you turned into dust. You weren't even expecting that, since you were already dead, but it seemed someone was able to kawaii you to double death, bro, whatever that means. You ended up in a large forest and, in front of you, there was the biggest amount of people you ever saw in your life. And you couldn't recognize any of them, at first. Then, you started talking with them and they all explained to you that they came from a bunch of another universes who were totally different from yours. You knew a bit about the Multiverse, but you weren't expecting it to be THAT big of a thing, literally!

However, this was a pretty great time and you almost forgot that you got turned into dust and that you weren't even aware of what was the deal here. Ah, losing your omniscience, how sad. But it's not a problem because after that, you were transported to Earth. And to your surprise, you were alive. Again. Like, no tricks, no shady deals, fully resurrected and, in addition, you were finally in the Earth your creations made, an Earth we will name Earth-413. Because of course.

And that's your story. Now, you are a full-blown character and are standing in the street, alive again. You intend to stay that way. What will you do?

Hussie: Neigh like a horse and drink some alcohol.

You try to resist the urge of not doing this stupid thing. You fail miserably. Tho, you don't have any alcohol so no, no drinking today.

Hussie: Realize you have something to do today.

You suddenly remember that not only you met some of your characters inside this forest but among them was robotician ninja extraordinaire Dirk Strider and he told you that if they were all able to make it, maybe he could do something for Hussiebot (you managed to found his severed head and his body while you were traveling in the dreambubbles). Now, he called you on the phone a few hours ago and told you to come to his place this afternoon, which means right now! Fortunately, he gave you the address and the way to it. You start to run because time goes by pretty quickly and you don't want to be more late than you already are.

Hussie: Be Dirk.

You can't be Dirk because right now, you are running towards his house, I just told you! Doing that when you are not standing still is not recommanded. Tho, we can try to see what he's up to.

Check on what Dirk is doing, right now.

Dirk Strider is in the living room and is waiting. He had to call a bunch of people, today. He wasn't stressed, but… in a way, he was. Just a bit. He was among those who were Dusted and, quite frankly, he could have lived his whole life without it. Not that learning more about alternate universes was a waste of time, it was the opposite, in fact! But now, he was slowly coming to the realization that people who weren't Lord English but were still as powerful as him could screw him and his friends over if they wanted to. He tries to act like it's not that big of a deal, as he usually does, but he doesn't make a good job at it.

In fact, he was starting to think it was a bad idea to invite everyone. He knew himself and he knew that the need for control that screwed him more than one time before wasn't ready to disappear. For sure, he would start rambling about the fact that who the fuck is responsible for this and seriously, guys, we totally need to do something in response to that.

Hey, man, chill out a bit. It's not like you invited them to discuss plans of sort. It's not for that, remember?

Dirk decides to go take a drink. Yeah, he didn't really invited people for that. He just wanted to spend time with his friends, his ectobiological children and his boyfriend. Oh, and also this strange orange man that he found pretty entertaining, Andrew. Definitely, being in this forest changed his mind in some subtle ways…

Go back to Orange Man.

You manage to not be late and there's also Jake English, Tavros Nitram & Sollux Captor who are also here, in the front door. They greet you and you crack a smile, trying to show that you have social skills. Jake seems more convinced than the two Trolls about it but Sollux wasn't the type of guy to smile anyway and you suspect Tavros of being a bit wary about you, since he learned about your history with Vriska while you were in this bizarre forest (this moment when you, him & her confronted each other was funny for the others, much less for you three).

So, you and them tried to talk a bit, how were you doing, this sort of pleasantries, while waiting for Dirk to come. Then, after two minutes and the arrival of his brother/ectobiological son, Dave, Jake reminded himself that he forgot to ring the doorbell and did so. Just a second after, Dirk opened the door and invited everyone to come. He sounded relieved, which was strange to you because nothing really bad happened since the return of the Dusted ones, but who were you to theorize on this?

Make yourself comfortable.

You put your coat on the hanger (you were wearing your usual outfit, the green shirt with a sword and the grey jeans) and decide to sit down on the couch after taking a light beer in the fridge. You didn't really knew what you could talk about, which could seem pretty ridiculous because after all, you know what their hobbies are and what they like. But that didn't mean you could talk about it for hours. At best, you would just say nothing while they were doing all the conversation. Except with Dave and Terezi. You could talk to them about drawing and webcomics and exchanging stupid ideas with them for hours. Granted, you did that only one time but you wanted to do that again! You consider creating a Pesterchum account.

Be interrupted in your thoughts.

« Ah, Andrew, here you are! »

You looked up to see Dirk coming towards you. You also realize that, in the short amount of time you were in his place, the rest of the gang was already here, you could recognize Feferi discussing with Sollux, there was June, Dave & Karkat goofing off (the latter of the three still being as grumpy as he usually was)…

« Yeah, yeah, I'm here. Still here and that's not a thing that stopped being true, my man, you happily say.

« Oh, I'm perfectly aware of this. But I don't want to try to evaluate your rate of being here-ness. It's about the robot. I told you he was entirely functional so maybe you wanted to check it out for yourself. »

You nodded your head in approbation and finished your beer before getting up and following Strider to his laboratory. It takes you just ten seconds.

Dirk' lab is, as you can expect, a bit messy. His two cybernetic homies, Squarewave and Sawtooth, are here, just chilling in the distance. There's a lot of scraps of metal, anime paraphernalia, puppets and other Japanese swords everywhere. And, laying on a sort of operating table, was your beloved Hussiebot, entirely repaired and ready to go.

« So, it wasn't complicated to fix him, it just took me four days. I have to admit that even by knowing about your past status as the author of our adventures, I was still wondering how did you managed to have the same technology as we had. Not that I'm complaining, because otherwise, I would still be busy with it and it would have took more than two weeks. Maybe more than one month, if I'm generous. »

You listen to him while looking to your robotic double and reminiscing about his creation and how you took time before he became exactly what you wanted him to be. You were just starting on this so, of course, you weren't very good at the time. But at the end, it was totally worth it, especially when you managed to trick your readers into thinking that you roboticized yourself when, in fact, you still were your good ol' organic self. Ah, good times.

« Yeah, you say, that was… the most difficult part was when I had to check on Google about what I bought in order to build him but when I understood that « OK, so this thing needs to be put here, this other thing here and this one here », it became a piece of cake. Plus, hey, it helped me for later when I had to turn Slick into a cyborg after Alternia got fucked up! »

Hussie: Remember dear sweet, precious Spades Slick.

The mention of his name makes you feel suddenly overwhelmed by emotion and feelings of nostalgia. You say a quiet prayer adressed to your only true friend and the coolest mobster from this side of Paradox Space. You will always miss him stabbing you. Dirk doesn't seem to understand but after all, he only saw him for a few seconds. After this important moment, you decide to go back to the subject.

« Also, is his personality the same? Like, he will wake up and be exactly like he was before? »

« Not exactly, say Dirk in response. He will still mostly behave like you do but I also wanted to test some things. So, basically, I decided to copy the brain patterns of some of us, myself included. Which means he got some of our passions and will act like we would. Though, it will manifest itself as quick and often unexpected changes, mood swings of sorts, if we can call it that. »

You say nothing and nod your head. Strider sees that there's nothing else to explain and activates him.

Hussiebot: Ascend.

The first signs of him waking up are his eyes becoming red (for the left one) and blue (for the right one). Obviously, you're reminded of Sollux before he got blinded. After that, he starts to very slowly get up. His movements are a bit clumsy, like he has a bad hangover, but he seems to be OK. He turns his head towards you and Dirk, then his body follows and he gets out from the table. Surprinsingly, he manages to not trip and fall on his face like a big fat shit. He says nothing.

You decide to greet him with a friendly hand gesture. He salutes you back and finally decides to speak.

« Y0, what's up, my dudes? »

His voice is synthetic and monotone, in contrast to his casual and friendly vocabulary. You think this is a pretty funny vocal dissonance.

« Yeah, I think he's good to go, says Dirk in a proud tone of voice.

« At least, he will talk more than me when we're in public, you respond to him with a laugh before adressing Hussiebot. Hey, skinny guy, glad you're here, uh… I guess you remember me? »

« 0f c0urse. 1 als0 remember that 1t wasn't very n1ce 0f y0u t0 let me d1e aga1nst that Engl1sh p1ece 0f sh1t. 1s he g0ne? »

Ah yes, you remember that. Though, it wasn't entirely true, it's just that you didn't saw it coming and when you realized it was here, it was too late to save him. Plus, Slick was more important to save… OK, now, that was a lame reason, man. You try to ignore my comment.

« Yup. He's gone. At least, he will probably not bother us for a very long time so your sacrifice has not been in vain! »

Everyone in the lab stops talking for some seconds, seconds that you take to think about all that. No, he will not bother anyone anymore. He's gone, he's the only one that is trapped in the canon so not a chance.

Plus, it's not like he was the best villain in the whole webcomic. All the other ones were better.

You decide to not think too much about that.

« Anyway, there's a whole lot of people upstairs, it'll be cool if you met them and there's a bunch of things that happened after you died, that will be cool to tell you all of that! »

« Exactly. Plus, I have to say that with- »

Dirk' sentence got interrupted by a distant, loud noise. Similar to a crash. You look at him, then at the robot, then at Dirk again and it's at this moment that the three of you decide to dash upstairs to see what it was. You immediately see several people looking out the windows and asking each other what just happened. June decides to tell everyone that OK, guys, no panicking here, we go outside, we see what it is and if it's dangerous or not, plus, we're gods, so we can actually fight, right?

Everyone agrees, you included. You all go outside, June & Rose Lalonde leading the way.

The entire gang: Check out the trail of smoke in the sky to see where it comes from.

This trail of black smoke comes from the inner city, which was not too far from Dirk' house. It took you and the others only a couple of minutes to reach it. What you saw was the last thing anyone expected to see.

Hussie: Look at what just crashed.

The smoke comes from a silvery spaceship. Said spaceship looks unremarkable in any way, shape or form and you're more interested by looking all around you. There's a bunch of people, mostly Carapacians, who are looking at the ship and talking frantically. No one seems to be hurt. It's great. You look at the ship again and notice two things : a round, red and black figure with little white eyes and a crudely painted inscription in red saying « BEA ARTHUR ». That doesn't strike you as something you know. Except the fact that what kind of stupid person names their spaceship after an old-time actress? At least, Snoop Dogg and Donald Glover are more hip names!

You don't pay attention to a particular conversation, even with all your friends talking about where the hell this thing was coming from. Then, the door opens and everyone looks at it, wondering who was the person in charge of this ship. Maybe they needed a medic?

Stupid person: Reveal yourself!

I got just told by my boss that this command was insulting and that I had to change it. Hey, why don't you type the command yourself, smartass ?

Extremely sexy, badass, funny and perfect person: Reveal yourself in all your glory and show the hoes how you do an entrance!

You see a woman with long blond hair tied up in a ponytail, clad in a red and black suit and with her mask similar to the round figure on the ship, come out of the door, looking like she wasn't bothered at all by the fact that she crashed on another universe. She looks at all of you before speaking in a very bombastic voice.

« Hello, cheering crowd! Sorry to disturb you by this beautiful day, but uh… it seems we crashed on your universe and we're not that skilled when it comes to repair a ship so we would like to know if someone here knows how to do that, without having to kidnap someone if possible! Plus, we have tacos and are absolutely willing to share them with you so if you never tasted this absolutely perfect dish, I suggest you to raise your hand! »

Be Lady Deadpool.

You are now Wanda Wilson, professionnally known as Lady Deadpool and hailing from Earth-3010. You are the leader of the recently recreated multiversal team known as the Deadpool Corps and you just did an extremely awesome speech directed towards a bunch of various people, including ones with their skins as black as shadows wrapped in what you think is a particular form of toilet paper and a bunch of grey people with horns and yellow eyes.

You think that with an entrance like that, everyone will try to help you. After all, who doesn't want to try tacos? You see people with their skins being as white as paper raising their hands.

You are satisfied about that but you also have the feeling (feeling that they probably share too) that it's going to be a long day.


Meanwhile, on another, unspecified Earth, a team of comic-book writers and illustrators are laying in a pool of their own blood while the floor is full of broken objects and torn drawings. There's a man standing. Another Deadpool, a particular one who, after suffering brainwashing to the hands of a doctor with a pretty morally ambiguous certificate, saw the truth about his existence and decided, in reaction, to slaughter everyone in his way in order to reach freedom and peace. With such a goal, it's not a surprise he got called « Dreadpool ».

Be Dreadpool.

No. It's better not to be Dreadpool. There's some minds who are better left alone.

Be yourself.

You got a necessary reminder that the only way you can live your life to the best of your abilities and feel fulfilled is to stay true to who you are and to not act like a person you are not. It's pretty obvious but it doesn't hurt to remember this. Never hurts.

Look at what Dreadpool is doing.

Well, he's doing nothing, he's just standing here. Because he was already supposed to feel the universe disappearing and… it seems that nothing changed. Of course, he knows that he will have to kill you in order to truly disappear, but let's be honest, if there has been any successful assassination attempt towards you by any character, no one has ever heard of it yet. Anyway.

His attention is diverted by the sudden opening of a portal. He smiles. He was starting to getting impatient and, at least, that would make everything quite easier. It's like the Multiverse wanted him to pull the trigger and end its suffering.

Without waiting, he jumps into the portal, ready to visit another universe and deliver its superpowered inhabitants from their fates.


And there you go! A bunch of things got introduced in this chapter and it will not stop until the end, let me tell ya!

So, to do a condensed version, Earth-413 is the Homestuck universe (in canon, it's named Earth C but hey, 413 is the main arc number of the comic, how could I resist?). The characters (mostly the Kids and the Trolls), in terms of physical appearance, are a slightly older version of their Pesterquest designs. Also, there's June Egbert on it because I wanted to pay homage to the popular headcanon (who became apparently canon but no one is too sure about it). For those unfamiliar with Homestuck and who thought it was a quick introduction to them, don't worry, I'll have another opportunities to introduce them.

For the rest, Lady Deadpool is coming from Earth-3010, like said above, and the Deadpool Corps was a multiversal team of Deadpools who traveled in space for a time. Their original adventures are canon here and happened years and years before the Dusting and the start of this fic. Tho, nobody would believe Wade if he said it.

Dreadpool comes from Earth-12101, which is the Earth from Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe. This last sequence happens minutes after the end of the original comic (which means that this Earth is without heroes or villains... and probably doomed, right now) but the next two comics of the Killology (Killustrated and ...Kills Deadpool) doesn't happen here. Why? You'll see later.

For the rest, I hope you liked this chapter. The next chapters of the two series will be released in tandem so when one is posted, watch out for the other!

See ya later.