It's probably been too long for this fic to get name recognition, so from now on, all updates will alter the profile tell what's in the new chapter.
The Symphony of the Physics Police
Chapter 2: Initiation
"OK, so let me get this straight," Bob said. "All fiction is actually telepathic visions of another universe!"
"Mostly," replied Joe as he handed Bob another stack of paperwork. The two sat opposite each other at a work desk in a small office tucked in the back corner of the PP headquarters.
"How much of this do I have to fill out?" said the unwitting dimensional traveler as he looked them over.
Joe pulled out an average-sized cardboard box that was still half full of papers. "All of these..." He reached for a large envelope and emptied the contents into his hands. More papers. "...and all of these."
"You have to be joking!" Bob yelled.
"Not at all. Transversing the boundaries between universes is a major offense. Not only did I have to seal up the fissure you made, but because that Microwave is so unstable, it created ripples and fissures all across the multiverse."
"That sounds bad." Bob said evenly.
"You don't know the half of it. The portal was actually opened by a man named Ralph, and he's going to take most of the blame, luckily for you." Joe paused while Bob looked over some details, then signed his name and filled in some other information. "You want something to drink?"
"Yeah, that'd be good. What'cha got?"
"We have just about anything you could want: water, Coke, the nectar of the Greek dieties... Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters..."
"What? You named a drink after the Hitchhiker's Guide novels?"
"No, it is the drink from the Hithchiker's Guide novels." Joe replied. "Douglas Adams was right. It is like the brain/lemon thing. Heck, it's been so long since I've read those, what with having watched actual file footage of it happening..."
Bob stared at him stupified. "Well, can you make me a mild one. I need something hard, but I don't want to be drunk."
Joe smiled. "Coming right up. Keep filling out those forms, and you'll be good to go soon."
o--
"Soon" as it turned out, was several hours later. Joe had given him some little bitter bean that had healed up his writer's cramp and though it had been a long time since he had eaten anything, Bob was not really all that hungry.
"OK. I'm done." Bob said as he wrote his name on the last paper. "What was this about? Can't you pay people to fill this out?"
"Actually, nobody was willing to do this even for pay so we decided that all the bureaucracy was part of the punishment of offenders."
"PART!" Bob blurted standing up. "What's the rest?"
"You actually have a choice. Three year incarceration followed by a memory wipe concerning our existence..."
"Did you just say years?"
"Yes years..."
"What are my other options? Please, Lord, say that they aren't any worse."
"There's only one other choice. You become a Physics Police recruit."
"Become one of you! That sounds like the coolest job ever...!" Bob started to get excited, which quickly ended when he took another drink of his Gargle Blaster. Even 'mild', it was the strongest beverage he had ever consumed. "I could go and actually meet Batman or Luke Skywalker!"
"It's not all glamour. To get the good jobs you pretty much have to be on a Special Unit, of which there are currently only four."
"Oh... still. It doesn't sound like punishment to me. Who's the most famous person you've ever met."
Joe stifled a chuckle. "I've not gotten many good jobs, but I guess it would have to be Zaphod Beeblebrox. After all, he was the president of the galaxy for a while."
"Impressive. Um, about earlier... You said this building came in pink? Where did it come from?"
"This building is older than most universes. Particles in the walls and floor have been dated at approximately 500 billion years old, give or take. We don't know who built it or why. A few thousand years ago, the founders of the Physics Police came from an unknown universe. Although many of the records were destroyed during their journey, those that survive indicate that it was a peaceful place, possessing the technology to travel beyond the speed of light, cure all disease and build incredibly stable worm holes. We use much their technology to this day. Of course I'm too cynical to buy into the 'cure all disease' part..."
"Why did they leave?"
"Apparently, they were fleeing a tyrannical regime of immense power. Upon arriving, they destroyed all data involving the coordinates of their home dimension."
"They traveled to another dimension, then they made sure they couldn't go back. Why?"
"Don't say dimension. It's commonly used, but protocols prefer the term "universe" so as not to get confused with the fourth and fifth dimensions, which are planes of existence rather than alternate realities."
"You didn't answer my question."
"I'm getting to it... They made sure they couldn't return to ensure that future generations wouldn't destroy themselves attempting to battle the invaders. According to legend, the tyrants came from a realm beyond our ability to find. Thus, having seen the ravages that had been wrought on their home by invaders from another universe, they pledged to stop it from happening elsewhere. Thus the Physics Police were formed. Unfortunately, we are only the second most powerful mortal force in all creation.
"And the first is?" Bob asked.
"The IRS, of course."
Bob laughed. "You had me going..."
"That wasn't a joke, kid."
Bob stared at him for a moment, not knowing whether to take him seriously. "OK, enough history. You said that fiction was mostly real... So what fiction isn't...?"
"I'll tell you when you're older." replied Joe.
0000
The fields of Jurai spread out in front of him and John, the Physics Police's second Ultimate Warrior, stood in direct opposition to his foe: himself. Or rather, himself from another universe in which he was evil.
"I don't know why you brought those two to this dimension, Join, but you shouldn't have. You have an interdimensional travel liscence, but the Joker and Majin Vegeta certainly don't."
"Why did we come here again?" the Batman's arch nemesis asked the spiky haired evil Saiyan Prince next to him.
"I came because he promised me a battle far more satisfying than with that clown Kakarot."
"Who?" Joker asked.
"My rival and most hated enemy. I recently defeated him in a fight and was going to go kill a demon... it's complicated... and then he showed up and... well you were there. Why did he take a weakling human like you with him?"
"Weakling? Honestly, my vertically challenged friend, he only offered me the chance to watch a thousand worlds die, and I thought it sounded like fun, so I tagged along."
"You're truly insane," Vegeta said.
"Thank you."
Little did the duo of maniacs know that the real reason Join had brought them there was two fold. One, he did it to draw out his alter ego from the Physics Police home dimension, John in order to destroy him. The other was that the quantum instability his vortexes had caused was essential in what he had planned: the fusion of the Jurais of 1000 different universes! It would be the CRISIS ON INFINITE JURAIs! Join cackled, throwing his head back.
"Dude, must you be so cliché?" John bit out. "I hope the personality karma gave all that cliché to someone else in my dimension, because I don't want to be so pathetic. What were you laughing at anyway?"
"My evil plot, of course. You have been selfless and good long enough, John, and it's time I took over and subdued your life!" He cackled again. Then, Join pulled a small device that looked like a pair of headphones with a starfish lodged in them and pressed an ominous red button on top.
Suddenly, the sky began to twist and bulge in thousands of different places. "What have you done?" John asked.
"The residual distortions from the wormholes to the DC and Dragonball universes have weakened the fabric of reality in the Tenchi reality cluster! Now thousands of Jurais will converge around this spot and empower me with all their energy!"
"This could be a problem," John sighed.
0000
Meanwhile, with time being relative, in those few minutes that had passed in Tenchi dimension TG-3S-8473-TM, half a day had passed in Physics Police headquarters.
"So I have to wear pink! Yeesh. What is it with this place and blends of red and white?" Bob stepped behind a cubicle divider to hide his get up, which resembled a Star Trek original series uniform, but was a bright pink.
"It tests your mettle. The pink drives away a lot of newbies who aren't really committed to the job, as I hope you'll prove to be. I've had enough fuel for my sarcasm these last few months, what with Buffy being canceled and all."
Bob sighed. "Fine. Fine. I'll play this game. What's next?"
"We train."
"Oh, sounds good. You get to train me?"
"Yeah. Our tests have indicated that something in the Microwave altered your physical structure to make you a prime candidate for both Force and ki training, or should I call it chi. It is bodily energy that many universes..."
"Most of them anime," Bob muttered, yet again annoyed by Chaltab's continued forcing of him into such situations.
"...use for fighting, Yes. Anyway, before we go, you're officially older. Now about what fiction isn't actual reality. Well, you can rest assured that The OC isn't. Pornography isn't. If there was a universe that acted like those 'films' would probably self destruct from lack of intelligence."
"So other than The OC and... adult films, all fiction is real?" Bob asked aghast.
"Yes. Except for fan fiction," replied Joe.
Bob arched an eyebrow. "But that would mean..."
Joe put his hand over Bob's mouth."Don't even think about it."
"Why not?"
"Just don't." Joe glanced at a orange-shirted ensign with a passing resemblance to Ashton Kutcher. "Hanson, get over here." The young man came. "Ensign Hanson, consider the fact that you're in a fan fiction."
"The fact that I'm in a fanfic? OK... I am in a fan fiction. Fan fiction is not real, therefore..." POOF!
Suddenly, the ensign disappeared in a puff of smoke and confetti, his orange jumpsuit falling to the ground.
"That's why we don't think about it." Joe said evenly.
"Oh. Gotcha."
0000
Back in Universe TG-3S-8473-TM, John and Join were trading blows while Vegeta and the Joker looked on in curiosity. And wondering why exactly had Join needed them?
Suddenly, a few more of the spacial vortexes spewed their contents into the space above Jurai, as more and more universes merged, making Join stronger. "You can never win, John!"
"Cliches. More and more cliches. My non-deity higher being, Join! You're like a walking fountain of them."
The two clashed again, John punching Join in the face, and Join returning the blow to the stomach. The ground cratered around them due to the force of their blows. Join kicked and missed John returned with a punch intended for Join's lower spine, but missed and hit him below the belt, causing the enraged and now partially emasculated Juraian to go flying into the side of a cliff face. But the villain jumped right back up, and as more Jurais fell into the solar system, and gravity became increasingly ambiguous, Join drew more and more on the power the Jurai trees contained, beefing up.
"Oh, Belgium," John swore. "I was hoping I wouldn't have to resort to this. It's an oldie to be sure, but it's a goody." John cupped his hands at his waist. "Ka-me..." And a ball of energy formed in his hand. "Ha-meeee..." The ball of destructive light grew bigger and began wild fluctuations.
"DIE!" Join yelled as a massive pink energy beam flew from his hands.
"HAAA!" John countered with a stream of brilliant blue power, and the two opposing attacks collided somewhere in between, with a satisfying KRAKOOOM!
"I'm glad I came here now," Majin Vegeta said. "Whichever of those clowns wins, I will challenge the victor and show him the true meaning of power."
"Must you keep using 'clowns' as an insult?" Joker looked over at him, his eyes going from gleeful to serious. " I find it offensive."
"Right. You would."
Suddenly, the powers of the two combatants flared and the beams of light fused into one massive explosion with another satisfying KRAKOOM.
"Oh my!" Joker yelled. "This is... STUPENDESS! Oh, WOW, look at the show!"
"Idiot," Vegeta cursed.
0000
For what it's worth, Bob was a good student, despite rejecting most of his chi exercises based on their anime origins. He liked blasters and was a fairly proficient shot, and his connection to the Force was developing quite nicely, especially for someone being, as Yoda would say, "Too old."
Not that Bob considered himself old, just that... he respected Star Wars canon, apparently more than Joe did. But that mattered little, because one had to be proficient in some form of supernatural self defense before getting a Physics Police field job.
The basic training was two days in a Hyperbolic Time Chamber, which equated to two years inside it. Yeah, Bob felt pretty invincible by the time he came out.
0000
Ironically for John, those two days that had become years had passed as a mere two hours and four minutes for him, and he was quite honestly becoming winded and tired of his fight with Join. Both kept getting the upper hand, then loosing it again, in a viscous cycle (that had eventually left both Joker and Majin Vegeta quite board)...
"Funny," John sighed. "You have all the power of 100 Jurais and you still cannot beat me."
Suddenly, as if some cruel manipulator of fate was secretly pulling the strings, the other 900 dimensions spat up their Jurais, making there 1000 semi-identical planets all within spitting distance of each other.
"This could be bad. Then again, unlike my fellow Physics Cop, Phil, the fact that I'm an Ultimate Warrior was not kept secret from me... and I do have my Super Saiyan license."
I suppose this would be a good time to give some back ground on the UWP—the Ultimate Warrior Project. Physics Police geneticists had decided that they needed to combat a growing threat, and that was the rise of superhumans with dimension hopping abilities or technology. So they had engineered a group of then-unborn children to have the DNA of some of the strongest races in the known multi verse. This was primarily in the form of Saiyan DNA, as Kryptionian DNA proved unstable and only small portion was allowed.
John happened to be a mixture of human, Juraian, and Saiyan, along with a few Tamaranian genes, which unfortunately rejected and killed the applied midichlorians that were supposed to have given John Force-sensitivity. But in John's humble opinion, that didn't really matter.
John threw his head back and screamed, his hair flashing from it's dark brown color to a platinum blond, his eyes lost their pupils and became sold teal circles. He was now Super Saiyan John. (SSJ for short.)
"Masenko!" John yelled, hurling the red ball of light at Join. It exploded around him and John plowed headlong into the smoke, finding his enemy and...
Getting caught by the throat in a giant fist. Unable to connect with his punch, John had been grabbed by an unscathed Join. "That's why they always wait for the smoke to clear in the cartoons, do-gooder."
Displaying his knack for cliché once more, Join, rather than crushing John's trachea while he had the chance, hurled him at the ground. John crashed through the surface and skidded about fifty yards, digging a trench as he went, before a rock painfully stopped his momentum.
"Now what did you call that attack again?" Join yelled. "BA-SINK-OH!" And the same ball of energy, tinged purple by Join's clichéd evil formed in his hands. He hurled it at John, hoping this would end this fight that had gone on for far too long.
"It's Masenko, you idiot." John muttered, "MA-senko. Is it really that hard to distinguish between an M and a B?" No, this was no time to be a Grammar Nazi... John decided upon releasing his special attack. It was about time he gave it a field test. Raising both hands, John started to form a Masenko again, but instead of throwing a ball, he brought the red energy down to his waist and powered up another very different kind of attack.
"MA-SEN-RYU-KEN!" He yelled, and the energy of the Masenko and Dragon Fist combined, making a lethal power drill out of his body, which he hurled at Join and his blast. Drilling through the mis-named "Basinko" attack, John pistoned his fist back and let Join have it. The blow resulted in yet another satisfying KRAKOOM, (actually, some might say it was a little closer to a KRAKOW!) followed by a bloody, injured Join falling to the ground of one of the Jurais, and a severely exhausted John landing in front of him.
0000
"Audit Gun?" Joe went over the list.
"Check," Bob replied.
"Reality Checker?"
"Check, no pun intended."
Joe glanced at the operator. "Alright Sam, we're ready to go. Beam us in..."
And with that, Joe and Bob were teleported to TG-3S-8473-TM...
In the Tenchi anime series, the Tree's of the planet Jurai give power boosts to Juraian fighters.
A free bonus no-prize to anyone who can tell me where the Joker's "STUPENDESS" quote comes from.
Masenryuken is a cross between Masenko (Demon Blast) and Ryu-Ken (Dragon Fist)