Paul Blart drops to the floor in an empty stretch of Sub-Infinity. He had just exited the Shadow Man's realm, and now, his metaphysical being is frozen. There's no thoughts, no movement, no body. There's just the fact that he indeed exists. But what does "exist" mean to Blart? He doesn't know where to start. His meaningless somethingness permeates through the end of time, as indecisive as Professor Paradox's own sight of the future.

The Shadow Man cracks his piano. He looks around his cell, a pretend torture chamber designed by his own tormentor, Thanos. He smiles, caressing his fingers around his neck, feeling the stitches he sowed on himself. He can't remember when the Mad Titan decapitated him, but he knew it was in the sight of a few teenagers with odd powers. How pathetic, he thinks to himself, that God couldn't even be bothered to guide those doomed individuals to their demise by himself. And how pitiful of Thanos to keep him alive in this time-sealed chamber. Was the decapitation just for show? Most definitely, he reaffirms himself. But how lucky is it that he found a mortal connection to this plane within a bumbling fool. After pondering around his piano, he decides to sit back in his place and play a somber piece representing the duality of experience itself.

The somethingness of Paul Blart heard the piano's reverberations. Every note sparked a neuron in his brain, invoking upon his mass for the first time. Two notes form one sound, then four notes form a chord, then eight chords form a progression. With these rhythms in place, a sense of time is formed. As The Shadow Man, who will eventually be dubbed as Professor Paradox, played his piece about the end times, Paul's reality began to reconstruct. Very soon, a thought blossomed in his head. A memory, his first sight, raised atop a cliff on Mount Everest, lightning striking the stormy blizzard, hearing the chant: "Conflicted be he who doth don the Shadow Man's curse, for though his fiery musings drown in the cold, his undying spirit shall beacon him towards breaking the cycle of heat which defines existence itself." As a baby, these sounded like nothing but reverberations. But now, these memories hold a new meaning: the reference point for relativity itself. For the curse is but mere lyrics to the Shadow Man's song, and without much else to go off of, Blart chooses to follow these musings, and thus, he falls onto a sandy surface and loses consciousness.

Our protagonist wakes up after sleeping for 13 years. The world around him appears differently- several rune-encrusted stone structures circle around the man's body. He wakes up and coughs out sand. His hands caress patches of reinforced sandstone, gathering small crumbles of earth onto his fingers. Finally, some tangibility. And finally, an unfamiliar voice. The man, weakened, believing to be in a state of hysteria, doubts the voices as external forces. He hears a British sorcerer attempting to hold onto an American accent speaking, "he's playing dead."

To the sorcerer's right is Future-Peter, who just a few minutes ago portaled his past self back to the jail cell. He reluctantly asks, "Are you sure he's alive? What if my past self still cast a future cutaway…"

The sorcerer quips, "do you remember casting the future cutaway now?" Peter squints. Then the doctor resumes, "he's alive. You can trust me, I'm a doctor…Good thinking, Professor Paradox."

Professor Paradox, standing behind both Peter and the sorcerer, reaffirms, "I figured. The universe would have been toast if Peter created a cutaway gag with Paul Blart over here."

Peter butts in, "hey, my cutaway would have been funny! Just imagine it…"

The doctor rebutts, "don't tempt the Oneness, Peter, we're lucky…"

Paradox pats his hand on Peter's shoulder and lets out a soft laugh. Chuckling, he comforts Peter, explaining, "well, as long as we don't push Blart too far off the path, our order can be restored. Mister Strange…"

"It's Doctor Strange."

"Oh, forgive me, I've lived so many lifetimes I tend to forget these superficial things such as names."

Blart overhears every word and he suddenly opens his eyes. He bends his neck up and finally faces the rag tag team of post-apocalyptic warriors. Appropriately, he slams his head back onto the ground. He mumbles, "did someone spike my Mug Root Beer? Dios Mio… I should've known better than to trust that cheap dingy old funeral host. The drywall's texture feels like a compressed abrasive sponge brick." The man then rolls over and faces the sandy dirt. After letting out a sigh, he continues, "yikes, I got a bit of sand in my mouth. Gross."

Doctor Strange looks frustratedly at Paradox and bluntly asks, "so this is our new lord of time?"

Blart's so fucking confused right now he doesn't care to respond.

Strange continues, "judging by his stature, he should be the lord of the danish rings."

Blart farts.

Strange facepalms. He confesses, "well, that's it, I'm out of here. I stayed in this timeline for too long." Then, Doctor Strange creates a portal and travels out of this timeline.

Peter and Paradox look at each other in absolute befuddlement. The professor smiles and pats the family guy on his back, thanking, "well, Peter, you're certainly the patient mortal. Now, back to Paul. Wake up, Paul Blart. You're sober, and we mean no harm."

Paul remains lying face-down. An intense amount of stress crushes through his heart at an equally intense velocity. He couldn't seperate fact from fiction anymore. Paradox and Peter both sensed this dysfunction. Smiling, Paradox asks Peter, "well, time to activate the runes. It's our last resort." Suddenly, all the runes surrounding Paul glowed a neon purple. The fat man on the ground felt the vibrations and screamed bloody murder, then he felt the ground around him scorch so hot it liquifies into water. Yet, something about this feels… comfortable. The pool was deep enough to where Blart could theoretically perform a sick underwater backflip and sit upright. But this mall cop doesn't live in the realm of theoretics. After delivering his emotional stunt, Blart faces forward and finds two hairy men with exposed chests and swim shorts covering their scrots. In this moment, Paul could feel the simply complex duality inside him, and him alone. The existential pain of deciphering his personality through the lens of a liminal reality fights with the comforting image of hairy men resting next to him in a hot sauna. The professor, now vibing to Paul's right, pulls out a small brown bag and shakes it in front of Blart. He smiles and asks, "care for a gumball?"

For a second there, Paul looked at the professor and felt an immediate sense of trust in the quirky individual. He reaches out for the gumball and starts chewing on the sugar-coated novelty. It helped calm down his chest, which was feeling aggravated by the bubbling sauna water. He chuckled, for the revelation that sugar helped calm these pains should have been instinctive to him. But after what he'd just gone through, this part of him felt irrelevant to any discussion surrounding himself. Yet the man gave him the gumball anyhow. This comforting scenario finally inspired Paul to speak for the first time in 13 years relative to him and 869 years relative to his audience. He held the wad of gum under his tongue and calmly asked, "who are you guys?"

Professor Paradox replies, "well, I'm Professor Paradox. And to answer the following questions, no you're not under the influence of psychoactive drugs, the year is 2890 A.D, you've been in a coma for thirteen years, and you got here through metaphysical means only the two of us understand. And to answer your second-to-last question, yes, I am the Shadow Man, in the flesh. Despite what you may have assumed, I mean no harm to you. In fact, without me, you would not have been able to start your quest to save our timeline."

Peter, not reading Paul's mind-blown face, announces in a bold demeanor, "and I'm Peter Griffin, mortal, memory channeler, and stronger than Doctor Strange."

Professor Paradox looks back at Peter and remarks, "your memory channeling only gets you so far…"

"And my patience gets me farther than Strange does."

Paul squints at Paradox, feeling thoroughly flustered at his superior rapport. A fledgling intimidation brews within Blart's mind. He screams, "this sauna, your appearance, your gumballs, your mind reading powers… it makes so much sense, Shadow Man. Quit playing your tricks, for the cold justice of malice will drown you out."

Professor Paradox grins and in a snarky attitude he corrects, "and what happens to the flame, if not providing a beacon…"

"...towards breaking the cycle of heat that defines existence itself… Dang. That's a seven-layer burrito of cyclical existentialism."

"Remember, Blart. You're my sun. The light to my dark. I declared this years ago, for when I was trapped in Thanos' time cell, I realized that our timeline was thoroughly screwed, unless I had a beacon to guide humanity forward. I was familiar with your work saving the West Orange Pavilion Mall from countless evils, and I was thoroughly moved by your heroic acts during the Wynn Hotel Hostage Crisis of 2015. However, the temporary nature of these victories always seemed to haunt you, and when your losses began to mount, I knew you needed something more. So once Thanos finally let his guard down, I was able to escape the prison. There, I travelled back in time and imbued you with a purpose greater than any mortals could even handle."

Paul broke down crying. It seems the Shadow Man's purpose appeared ever so clear, and ever so cloudy. It took him a while to muster the courage to say anything, for his former opponent knew everything that came out of his mouth. The professor nodded, and continued, "I know this is a lot to take in. That's why me and Strange set up these Sauna Runes. To calm you down. Just know that I operate in the realm between known and unknown. I've lived your life hundreds of times over, and even if you fail to fulfill your destiny, I'll live on in another host in another past."

Blart finally screamed, "and what's my destiny, huh?"

The Professor sighed. He looked at Peter, then at the looming sun. Even from this distance, he could imagine where the remains of Steven's space prison-well, what remains of his first prototype- would be. For eons, the man looked out at the stars every night and saw the debris creeping closer and closer to Earth's stratosphere. As each night passed, he stared, hoping that maybe one body would slip out of the floating carcass and reveal itself to the nearly extinct species. But nothing came. In this moment, boiling in the sauna, Professor looks back at Blart and confesses, "every night I'm reminded that this species is doomed to suffer a silent demise. And it's hard to know whether or not I should just give in and be one with nature. But of course, that's the side effect immortality grants you. After seeing an infinite number of catastrophic calamities, you lose your sense of value in humanity. I was told the Diamonds were good, I was sent out by God to protect his, and by extension their, orders. But I clearly wasn't needed. Only… nature… A part of me knows this sounds insane, but I struggle to understand why the Diamonds are bad, as the only constant in my chaotic lifetime is nature. And it seems to me that it's nature's course for the Diamonds to scavenge this planet for priceless resources, realize there's nothing much they need here that can't be obtained elsewhere, then abandon it. No matter what I've done, nothing seems to change. And now I just wonder whether or not I should care about this. That's why I chose you, Blart. I need your virtues to help make some tough choices, ones based on stakes I've become numb to. You're human, Blart… in a metaphorical sense, of course, but it's better not to get to that part."

Blart's eyes open, ever slightly longer than a normal human could. He has no response to such a proposition. How could such a miserable oaf as him ever deserve such an immense responsibility over the fate of humanity? Paradox resumes, "I heard about your wife, and your mom, and your daughter, all of whom you've given your life to, and all of whom who passed prematurely. I'm dearly sorry, Blart. But think of them, think of how many people out there on the streets present similar traits to the ones you love. You've loved before, and I know you'll love again. There's just a complication, and that complication manifests in your hesitance to accept your purpose. So, do me a favor, please, I beggeth you."

The fat security guard finally understands Paradox's plea. Well, he heard every word he uttered, but none of it clicked in until this very moment. Destiny struck him like a milk truck, and emboldened by memories of relationships passed, he teared up, wiped his eyes, and bravely announced: "Paradox, I'm ready to save humanity."

Paradox nods and grins. He remarks, "I knew you were the right guy for the job. Now, come with me, we must discuss the bobcat…"

Paradox snaps his fingers and teleports him and Blart to god knows when.